Heroin trafficking arrests increase 500 percent in Warren County

It’s one of the statistics narcotics officers here feared the most, heroin sales are increasing in Bowling Green.

With the Tuesday arrest of two brothers, the total number of heroin trafficking arrests in Warren County in 2018 is six. Last year’s tally was one. That’s a 500 percent increase.

“That’s certainly an uptick,” Bowing Green-Warren County Drug Task Force director Tommy Loving said. “We have been fearful for several years that we would see this, and I think we may be beginning to see that trend. But we’re always very aggressive on heroin trafficking because so many times it’s mixed with fentanyl. And heroin and fentanyl both are very deadly combinations. That’s what we see in so many other communities resulting in so many overdose deaths.”

Last year drug overdoses claimed the lives of 1,565 people in Kentucky an increase from 1,404 in 2016, according to the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. Of those 2017 overdose deaths, 22 percent involved heroin usage while fentanyl was involved 52 percent of overdose deaths.

The task force arrested William Davenport, 26, and Cory Davenport, 30, Tuesday afternoon at their home on State Street near the campus of Western Kentucky University, shortly after William Davenport accepted a package of suspected heroin delivered by the United States Postal Service, according to his arrest citation.

The two are charged with trafficking in a controlled substance first offense heroin, first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance cocaine, first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance methamphetamine, trafficking in marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school and possession of drug paraphernalia.

“This was also a joint investigation with the United States Postal Inspection Service,” Loving said. He declined to elaborate further.

The task force had obtained an “anticipatory search warrant” to retrieve the parcel, according to William Davenport’s arrest citation. Police detained all of the occupants of the home and received another search warrant for the home.

The home search yielded three assault rifles, two handguns, 7.2 grams of suspected heroin, 6.6 grams of suspected cocaine, two grams of methamphetamine, 75 marijuana cartridges for vaping, 29 packages of marijuana edibles and $3,742 cash, according to a release from the task force.

“With the close proximity to campus and other information, it appeared they were trafficking to a college-age group of users,” the release read.

A preliminary hearing in their case is scheduled Friday in Warren District Court.

Both brothers are being held in the Warren County Regional Jail in lieu of $25,000 cash bonds.