A roundup of drug offenders touted by the Kentucky State Police as the largest such operation in its history still has a ways to go.
“Operation Black Friday” began on Nov. 1 to arrest nearly 500 drug offenders across the state, but about a third of those targets remain at-large.
Touted in a press release as having arrested 479 targeted drug traffickers, news outlets across Kentucky ran with the numbers even though “Operation Black Friday” has arrested just 339 suspects.
Trooper Paul Blanton explains the miscommunication.
“It may have been the arrest teams calling in ‘hey, we arrested one person for three different charges,’ and they counted those three charges not as one single arrest but as three arrests, and that’s how they got to that 479. But I just don’t know,” he said.
The vast majority of the charges served are for trafficking a controlled substance.
Blanton says Black Friday will continue until the remaining 143 suspects are apprehended.