Early yesterday morning, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office Patrol deputies hit the streets near Almont Avenue in the Security-Widefield area, a neighborhood that's seen its share of crime lately from car thefts and drug deals to gunplay and hiding fugitives. At about 1:15 a.m., their watchful eyes caught a maroon SUV making a shady stop-and-go, the kind that raises the red flags you'd expect in a spot known for trouble.
The deputies didn't waste any time, flipping on their cherries and berries and pulling the SUV over at Maribou Way and Bradley Road. Inside the vehicle were Walter Bivins, a 65-year-old, and Leola Santistevan, a 26-year-old woman who wasn't too keen on giving up her name at first. With a hunch about the vehicle's dicey history tied to narcotics, deputies called for backup, a K9 unit from the Fountain Police Department and their dog, Odin, who made a beeline to the SUV sniffing out something fishy.
According to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, something turned out to be a trove of the kind of stuff that keeps DEA agents up at night: meth, heroin, and fentanyl, neatly packed into baggies plus a digital scale to boot. It wasn't Bivins' lucky day, as the search also uncovered he was carrying multiple varieties of narcotics, while Santistevan admitted to having a trio of those ominously blue fentanyl pills we keep hearing about.
"I commend my Patrol deputies for their diligence and proactive policing in a high-crime area, which directly led to the seizure of dangerous narcotics and the apprehension of multiple offenders," El Paso County Sheriff Josephy Roybal said, as obtained by the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, praising the work of his team. They not only scooped up some serious drugs off the streets but also cuffed Bivins and Santistevan, who had a collection of warrants out for her arrest. At the El Paso County Jail, Bivins got the book thrown at him with charges like Unlawful Distribution and Possession of a Controlled Substance, while Santistevan ended up with a court date set to answer to her warrants and a drug possession charge.
