By admin 
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WJZY) — Local and federal law enforcement officials say the six-month-long investigation into a northeast Charlotte hotel is just the beginning of an effort to make the Sugar Creek corridor safer.
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U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson referred to the entire corridor as an “open-air drug market”. He gave a warning to other hotel operators nearby, saying if they’re cooperating with criminals instead of cops, law enforcement will seize their properties, just like they did with the Garden Inn on Wednesday.
“We cannot let pockets of Charlotte become safe for criminals and not safe for anyone else,” said Ferguson. “We cannot do it.”
It’s an area that’s long been on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers’ and city leaders’ radars. In fact, at the Garden Inn alone, officers received 590 calls for service and made 47 arrests from the beginning of January 2024 to May 18 of this year.
“This is a long day in the making for residents of the Sugar Creek Corridor and Reagan Drive,” said Charlotte City Councilmember Dante Anderson, who represents the area.
Anderson said that within weeks of Police Chief Estella Patterson taking her role, she called her to find out what could be done about the persistent crime.
“This area has been plagued for years,” said Anderson. “It’s not just a couple of years. It’s been a very long time, and so it’s going to take time to dismantle that behavior that has been accepted.”
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Wednesday’s sting at the hotel, which investigators are calling a hub for drug and gun trafficking, is step one of the clean-up process. It involved hundreds of FBI agents and CMPD officers, who arrested nearly a dozen people and took 11 guns and 1,700 grams of narcotics.
“It is because of this strong team, you see, we are moving closer to making sure Charlotte is a safe city,” said Chief Patterson.
Patterson said she’ll keep working with federal partners to bring a sense of security to the area because they see the corridor’s potential.
“It is a part of Charlotte that should be thriving,” said Ferguson. “It is a part of Charlotte that is affordable, but it is a part of Charlotte that is not safe. And we are going to use every federal tool we have to make sure it is safe for those who are using it innocently to get to work and to get to education.”
Investigators said for this particular case involving the Garden Inn, there could be more arrests and charges on the way for other people potentially involved.
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