Two arrested in trick letter operation

PRICHARD, Ala. - In an attempt to bring in additional revenue and clean up the streets, the City of Prichard sent out letters to 71 residents facing misdemeanor charges. Some of those date back to the early 2000's.

"These are individuals that are running away from the law, they have outstanding misdemeanor warrants with Prichard ranging from traffic tickets to domestic violence violations," said Latoya Veal, Prichard Police..

The letter told recipients that the City of Prichard was awarded grant money and will be helping them with utility bills. Recipients were asked to go to City Hall with a copy of the letter and a utility bill. What they didn't know is that when they arrived they would be arrested.

"They have just ignored the city and they've ignored our requests to get them into the courts and we want to target those individuals and try to get them in. So we came up with an aggressive scheme to get individuals to respond to some kind of giveaway," said Chief Lawrence Batiste.

Shortly after 3p.m. Friday, 22-year-old Britteisha Colbert was arrested on charges of domestic violence, assault, criminal mischief and traffic violations.

Officers also arrested 28-year-old Orsishia Foster for multiple traffic violations. Colbert and Foster believed the way in which they were arrested was dishonest.

However, Chief Lawrence Batiste disagrees.

"If an individual has broken the law or committed a crime, particularly if he has gotten a traffic violation and he makes the choice not to come to court and accept responsibility for his actions, then I personally don't see this as being unfair," he said.

Friday's sting operation only brought in two suspects, but the chief said this will not be the last time operations of this kind will be done.

"We're always coming up with creative operations in the city so we can lure suspects in and be able to reduce crime in the city, and we'll continue to think of different creative operations we can do."

The Chief said the response to the letters was low because many Prichard residents change addresses regularly. He said others didn't respond because they were skeptical or just not interested.