A San Francisco fentanyl dealer allegedly told arresting officers he didn’t care.
SAN FRANCISCO — As city leaders, supporters, and police debate how to curb blatant drug-dealing practices in the city’s downtown, a local man is again accused of drug trafficking. Upon his arrest, he allegedly gave police 2 cents on the matter. Fentanyl.
When 28-year-old Jackson Torres was arrested for selling fentanyl on 7th Avenue on March 26, he was told by a San Francisco police officer, “You can catch me a million times, and I’ll run away right away. It is said that he said, Torres added that he had “no idea” about his arrest.
But at least for now, Torres is in prison, where he faces two separate lawsuits. One is accused of selling fentanyl on March 26 when he was arrested in San Francisco, and the other is accused of violating a supervised release from a 2020 conviction for selling fentanyl. in San Francisco. Prosecutors now use that past case and his apparent indifference to future prosecutions to argue that Torres should be detained until the case is resolved.
The indictment alleges that officers with binoculars spotted Torres conducting drug deals from a distance on three separate occasions. When police moved to arrest him, he reportedly fled and dumped three bags of drugs. He claimed he was in possession of six ounces of powerful drugs when police caught him and arrested him.
Torres was arrested on June 15 after being charged with possessing fentanyl for the purpose of distributing it, according to court records. The offense carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, but the last time Torres faced a much shorter sentence of 12 months and one day for fentanyl trafficking, plus three years of supervised release. was imposed. If he is convicted, federal guidelines would recommend 57 to 71 months in prison, but that decision would be up to the judge.
For years, state and federal officials have expressed concern about the open-air drug market downtown, particularly in the Tenderloin area, but no one seems to agree on a solution. Mayor of London Breed famously said at a recent press conference that “sympathy kills people” while calling for more arrests, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, during a visit to the Bay Area earlier this month, took to the street drug market. The scene was used as a framework for election campaigns. He argued that California’s soft approach to crime caused problems.
On the other hand, many city officials and advocates believe that the arrest and prosecution-centric approach, while expending law enforcement resources, did nothing more than reduce cocaine and heroin. , claims to be similar to the so-called war on drugs. , and the national sale of methamphetamine. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the creation of the Federal Initiative in Tenderloin (FIT) to aggressively prosecute suspected drug traffickers, but at the same time then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin called for opposition, saying: argued that Rebel dealers were quickly dismissed, arguing that police should instead focus on identifying large drug dealers.
For Torres, federal charges are just the latest misfortune in a difficult life. He was born and raised in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, but escaped gang violence when he was 17 and jumped on a northbound freight train alone, according to court records. He was arrested and detained by federal agents in Arizona and stayed with his relatives in Louisiana. He lived briefly in El Salvador while he sought asylum in the United States before returning to the United States in 2014 and settling in Oakland.
Prosecutors said he began selling drugs in the Bay Area that same year and was the first of 10 arrests between 2014 and March 26 last year. In March 2020, he was indicted in federal court for selling fentanyl and released on his bail. And just three months later, he was arrested in an SFPD sting operation. When he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months in prison, he had already served about half of it in pretrial detention.
Torres’ attorney said in 2020 that he expected to be deported in early 2021 upon his release. By January 12, 2023, he was back in San Francisco, although court records do not reveal whether he was there. That day, police arrested him on suspicion of possessing 10 ounces of fentanyl for sale, among other drugs.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/06/26/you-can-grab-me-a-million-times-and-we-will-quickly-get-out-san-francisco-fentanyl-dealer-told-arresting-officer-he-doesnt-give-a-f-feds-say/ A San Francisco fentanyl dealer allegedly told arresting officers he didn’t care.