Man, woman arrested after drug deal, police say

Man, woman arrested after drug deal, police say

(Salt Lake County Jail)


1 photo
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — An officer witnessed a drug deal Tuesday afternoon and arrested the man and woman involved, police said.

The incident occurred around 1:30 p.m. near 231 S. 500 West, according to Salt Lake City Police detective Veronica Montoya. An officer was patrolling the area on foot when he witnessed a cocaine drug deal between a man and woman, Montoya said.

The officer approached them and the man fled the area on foot. An officer was called for backup and detained the man, who was also in possession of a firearm, Montoya said. Officers discovered the woman was in possession of heroin and she was also taken into custody.

Bernice Vasquez, 44, was arrested and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of possession of heroin and several outstanding warrants. Rafael Cotto, 36, was also arrested and booked on suspicion of fleeing from an officer, weapon violation for a restricted person, drug distribution and several outstanding warrants.

Montoya said the area of the arrest is a common area for drug deals and police created a unit to patrol it.

“This is an area where we’ve had a lot of reports coming in — it’s an area where we definitely have been concentrating more on to keep any kind of drug activity out of there,” Montoya said.

Photos

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Faith Heaton Jolley

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast