BLUEFIELD– Mercer County Magistrates were busy Thursday morning arraigning almost 40 defendants who were arrested early that morning in a drug roundup.
According to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Magistrate Mike Flanigan said that he and other magistrates at the Mercer County Courthouse Annex had conducted arraignments for 37 people. They had been arrested that morning by members of the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force conducting a drug around up.
Flanigan said the 37 people had been arraigned on charges including delivery of a controlled substance and conspiracy. a total of 69 warrants had been written.
The magistrate court has procedures in place to help ensure secrecy for a short period of time when a drug roundup is underway. People on the warrants list often network together and alert each other when word of arrests begins to spread. During Thursday’s roundup, task force members started making arrests as early as 5 a.m.
