In what is becoming the norm, four different law enforcement agencies were involved in the arrest of two in Manchester for cocaine and crack. The pair, Juan Parrilla and Gregory Grant were taken in separate instances that stemmed from a traffic stop.
Parrilla was pulled over and taken into custody for outstanding charges of selling a controlled drug. His house was subsequently searched and both cocaine and crack cocaine were found. Police report a street value in excess of $13,000. They also searched the home of his girlfriend and found marijuana. She was also arrested on a marijuana charge. Grant, the other person mentioned, was arrested separately outside his residence on a selling controlled substances charge.
It is common in a case involving sales (rather than simply possession) for dealers to have both powdered cocaine and crack in their stash. The reason stems from how the two different forms of cocaine are prosecuted. Crack cocaine is thought to be more harmful, and so the penalties are higher. Dealers know to keep their main supply in the powdered cocaine form and only convert it into crack to replace what they sell.
The multiple police agencies involved in this relatively minor case represents the newer type of law enforcement. In this instance, according to reports, four different agencies got some credit: the local police Special Investigations Unit, New Hampshire State Police, N.H. Attorney General’s Drug Task Force, and the Drug Enforcement Agency’s HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas) program.
No details about what role each played was reported. Critics sometimes claim that the “alphabet” soup of overlapping law enforcement is a political ploy with each different agency getting to put something into their stats. These numbers are then used later to help get funding and to demonstrate effectiveness. Whether the DEA needed to be involved or not (or what the other roles were) won’t come out until trial, if ever.
