A judge in Washington, D.C. ordered a business owned by a former city police officer to close for one year after he repeatedly ignored warnings to stop selling synthetic drugs.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine obtained a court-ordered injunction to shut down Aida’s Electronics because the store was raided multiple times, with one employee of the store getting shot, and police believe it is related to the synthetic drugs.
William Early, a retired Metropolitan Police officer and owner of the store, was bringing in around $5,000 a day from sales of the synthetic drugs, FOX5 reports.
Originally, Early was ordered to close his store for six months and stop selling the synthetic marijuana, but less than a month after agreeing to this preliminary injunction, Early re-opened his store under a new name and started selling the drugs again.
Early told FOX5 he didn’t know he wasn’t allowed to sell the synthetic drugs, even though he had been ordered to stop by the city.
“When I initially started off, I was told that it was legal. They were doing it in Chinatown openly and I said, ‘Hey this is something to make a couple of extra bucks, so what?’” he told the news station.
Just last week, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an emergency law to ban the sales of synthetic drugs in the city after a month-long violent streak believed to be attributed to increased use of the drugs.
The drugs are often referred to as synthetic marijuana and are frequently packaged under brand names such as K2, Scooby Snax, Bizzaro or Spice. Bowser said the synthetic drugs are potent hallucinogens.
A young man on his way to celebrate the Fourth of July was brutally stabbed to death in broad daylight by a man suspected to be high on synthetic drugs. The horrific event finally spurred Bowser to take action.
The two were on a train headed for downtown D.C. when Jasper Spires tried to steal Kevin Sutherland’s cellphone. The two struggled before Spires punched Sutherland several times in the face and stabbed him nearly 40 times before ultimately darting off the train and into the holiday crowds.
Spires was found by police the following day after a city-wide manhunt.
The District’s Attorney General is investigating dozens of other shops in the city for selling the dangerous drugs and is planning on aggressively targeting the stores.
“Synthetic drugs poison our youth and endanger our public safety,” Racine said in a statement. “The message is clear: Businesses that sell synthetic drugs in the District of Columbia will face regulatory enforcement and litigation in court that could shut down their businesses for up to a year.”
The order signed by Racine will forbid Early from transferring the property to anyone else and no business will be allowed to operate in the store’s location for a year. Early will lose his business license and be forced to pay a $1,200 to the city’s Drug, Firearm, or Prostitution-Related Nuisance Abatement Fund.
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