A 58-year-old grandmother who ran a crack coke drug ring in Buffalo, N.Y. faces sentencing this week after SWAT teams raided her operation in 2012. However, her former neighbors say that her reign as a drug queen actually kept the neighborhood safer and add that things have gone downhill since.
The Associated Press reported on the case of Theresa Anderson, who for 12 years ran the crack operation out of five neighborhood homes in Buffalo. Anderson employed members of her own family who lived in the homes, and kept up with appearances despite peddling drugs.
From the AP:
That the family business was selling crack c-caine at all hours of the day and night didn’t seem to matter to some of the neighbors, who say their little street on Buffalo’s impoverished east side has actually gotten less secure since SWAT teams stormed in and shut down Anderson’s drug operation last year.
“I miss Theresa, I really do,” said Debra Walker, who has lived on Deshler for more than nine years. When Anderson was in control, “I actually felt safer. Now my place has been broken into.”
Anderson faces 17 years for conspiracy, and has pleaded guilty in the case. Also arrested and entering the same plea was Anderson’s common-law husband, three adult daughters, two boyfriends of her daughters, Anderson’s son and a granddaughter.
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Photo: Buffalo News
