'We Need Your Help': Bucks County DA's Office Rewards Residents Whose Anonymous Tips Led To Shutdown Of Illegal Drug House
WARMINSTER, Pa. (CBS) -- Bucks County officials are rewarding those who help law enforcement and are encouraging others to do the same. An event in Bucks County on Monday night was all about letting residents know that the police need their help to clean up the streets.
The Bucks County District Attorney's Office rewarded two tipsters with cold hard cash for tipping off police to criminal activity anonymously.
Anonymous tips can connect someone to a crime, solve a murder and in the case of a Bucks County investigation, shut down an illegal drug house.
"Around June of 2018, an officer received information from a local citizen in reference to odd behavior at the house," Warminster Township Police Chief Jim Donnelly said.
That resident tipped police off to a drug house on the 600 block of Cheryl Drive in Warminster.
"They would go in the house, that wouldn't come out until two of the subjects would leave," Donnelly said.
Police also say the residents waited minutes before the trash collectors came before putting their trash cans out and they attempted to fit a box truck into the garage.
This all sparked a police investigation.
"Hit the house with a federal search warrant and found 11 people inside the house, in what we consider to be a heroin mill," said Donnelly.
Police confiscated large amounts of heroin and fentanyl inside the house and those 11 people were arrested.
That tipster, who remains anonymous, received a $5,000 reward Monday night by the Bucks County District Attorney's Office.
"People are sick and tired of the drug dealing going on and they're not going to take it anymore. They're taking back their neighborhoods," Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said.
The DA's office is hoping more people begin to call in tips and get the criminals off their streets.
"We ask that people be involved, that they'd be our eyes and ears. We don't want anyone to be a vigilante but we need your help," Weintraub said.
If you would like to have a "Push Out The Pusher" sign in your yard, you can contact the Bucks County District Attorney's Office.