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Daily Planet Staff 

Berkeley police arrested 10 people and have warrants for the arrests of 13 more people following a six-week undercover drug sweep conducted jointly with the University of California Police Department. 

Lt. Bob Maloney of the Berkeley Police Department said Friday afternoon that police were on the street looking for the remaining 13 suspects. 

He said the investigation centered on street-level illicit drug sales around the campus area of Telegraph Avenue and on downtown Shattuck Avenue. 

Undercover officers purchased illicit drugs, ranging from marijuana to cocaine, from 23 individuals, but Maloney would not disclose the amounts of the purchases or the quantities of the various drugs. 

The “undercover buy operation” was initiated by complaints of drug dealing to the police from business owners and residents, he said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district encompasses the campus area of Telegraph Avenue, commented on the as-yet-unrevealed quantities of the different drugs purchased, saying he has requested a report. 

“If they’re (police) entrapping 25-year-old young people to buy one marijuana cigarette and call that a drug dealer that’s not an appropriate use of city resources,” he said. 

Entrapment for the sale of heroin and crack is another matter, he said, and it is beneficial to the community. 

Worthington said the downtown Shattuck area has been plagued more in the past year by crack and heroin dealing than Telegraph. 

Councilmember Dona Spring, whose district includes downtown, noted that “when police presence was really heavy up on Telegraph it drove a lot of the drug dealers down to Shattuck.” 

“We can’t afford drugs being sold on Shattuck, because there are a lot of high school students. We can’t afford to have drug dealers in Berkeley period,” she said.