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Police shut down 2nd drug distribution site

A week after city Patrolmen Clinton Gardner and Joshua Bell broke up a drug-distribution house in the 600 block of Park Avenue, the two officers put an end — at least for now — to another drug operation, one they say was running out of an apartment in the same neighborhood.

The odor of marijuana coming from Apartment 4 at 325 High St. was so strong late Friday afternoon that the officers said they could detect it from the parking lot of the apartment complex.

One of the officers knocked on the front door, and the odor only “grew stronger” after Quinten “Buddha” Drummond opened the door about 5:45 p.m.

Bell and Gardner were at the apartment complex investigating possible drug trafficking after receiving a tip on Thursday.

The officers asked Drummond, 29, if he had any marijuana in the apartment. He then retrieved a bag from under a crib and gave it to one of the officers. In the bag was nearly 8 grams of marijuana, according to court records filed by Bell and Gardner.

Two children were sitting on a couch in the living room, police said. A second man, George Halchin, 23, of 1522 Randall Circle, was found in the apartment.

After police obtained a search warrant, the officers seized a total of 52 grams of marijuana, 5.5 grams of cocaine and nearly 3 grams of heroin, according to court records.

Drummond and Halchin were both charged with possession with intent to deliver marijuana, cocaine and heroin as well as other drug-related charges.

Drummond faces an additional charge of endangering the welfare of children because he was “supervising” two children in the house who had easy access to the drugs that he and Halchin were allegedly “in the process of weighing, cutting and packaging for distribution,” police said.

“The packaged drugs were roughly a foot from where the children were sitting,” one of the officers said in an affidavit.

Both Drummond and Halchin were arraigned before District Judge Jerry C. Lepley and committed to the Lycoming County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bail each.

Already behind bars is Nahiem Davis, 18, who was arrested Sept. 8 on city police charges of allegedly operating “a trap house” — where drugs are stored and packaged for distribution — out of 613 Park Ave., where he was living at the time.

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