6 Stores Raided in Huge Brooklyn Coke/Pot Bust

Cops raided at least six stores on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn this afternoon, arresting eight and seizing a firearm and two pounds of marijuana. For two months the "open drug bazaar," between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights has been under investigation, during which time undercovers purchased pot and cocaine more than fifty times. (According to NBC, a pound of weed went for $1,100.) Many of the shops targeted for their over-counter drug sales were bodegas, reports ABC, though a jerk chicken place and a little CD store were also raided. A tipster tells us that around 1:30 p.m. there were "About 100 cops everywhere, chopper still circling, SWAT guys... I looked in and they were pushing up the ceiling tiles with a machete."