By Gus G. Sentementes , gus.sentementes@baltsun.com|September 12, 2008
After the SWAT team came and went yesterday morning, residents along a narrow side street in Southeast Baltimore gathered to swap tales about what they had long suspected was a drug house in their midst.
They watched wide-eyed as local and federal law enforcement officers walked out of the house in the first block of S. Regester St. with a couple of plastic bags of cash. The renters' pets were seized, too - a pit bull, two other dogs and a snake in a glass case.
And the beige BMW parked in front of the house? Residents chatted as police searched it, and then a tow truck came and removed it.
"Was that a stash house?" one man was overheard asking a plainclothes law enforcement official whose response could not be heard.
"This is a way for the whole community to know each other now," one resident said half-jokingly to others who huddled together to share information.
None of the residents on the block wanted to be quoted by name out of concern for their safety. They struggled to grasp the fact that their block was one of the scenes yesterday morning in a sweeping federal drug investigation. But they were also relieved that the residents of this one townhouse - whom they described as disruptive - were no longer there.
The townhouse was one of 18 locations that were searched yesterday as part of a wide-ranging drug investigation by a task force of federal, state and local authorities. Nine people were arrested, authorities said.
Authorities said that the raid at the South Regester house netted guns, drugs and a large amount of cash, and two men were arrested and faced federal charges. Their names and the charges they faced were not immediately available.
The townhouse is part of a new development called Lombard Court, which was completed last year in the Washington Hill neighborhood north of Upper Fells Point. A review of state property records yesterday showed that many of the homes have sold for more than $500,000.
Neighbors described the residents of the home as tenants who rented from a female owner. According to state property records, the owner is Katherine A. Krasznekewicz. She could not be located for comment.
The raid began well before dawn, residents reported. Members of the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a task force of federal, state and local law enforcement officers, broke through the front door.
