Four people were arraigned in court Wednesday morning for allegedly selling marijuana. The cases are the result of an investigation into drug possession that started at the local high school.
Two of the defendants are students there — something that deputy police chief Mike Holman says is extremely rare in Unalaska. Holman says officers started looking into the case on Monday.
“We got some information from the school that one of the students — a 14-year-old girl — was found to have some marijuana in her possession,” Holman says. “We went down and spoke with her, spoke with her parents, spoke with another 15-year-old girl.”
The students alleged that they’d obtained marijuana from Soo Enele, a 22-year-old Unalaska resident. Police questioned Enele and took him into custody on Tuesday. He was charged with a felony for allegedly selling marijuana to a minor.
Following up on a tip from Enele, police spoke with a person on Tuesday who said they knew of other drug activity in the community, and agreed to act as a confidential informant.
“The individual who helped us out was able to identify another high schooler — his name is Shadrack Baird — who was selling marijuana,” Holman says. “He made an undercover purchase from Shadrack, who is 18.”
Baird was arrested Tuesday night, along with two people who drove with him to meet the informant — his classmate, 18-year-old Johanna Pham, and 30-year-old Jason Tungul.
They were all charged with misdemeanors related to the sale and possession of marijuana. Pham and Tungul were also charged with a felony for allegedly trying to get rid of drugs and paraphernalia before officers caught up with them.
It’s not common for police to pursue drug cases against high school students in Unalaska, Holman says. The district attorney’s office helped them weigh that against other facts of the case before pressing ahead.
“The age of the young girls at the school that were originally found in possession of the marijuana is one of the large factors in this,” Holman says, “Fourteen- or 15-year-old girls that are receiving or buying marijuana through the adults.”
Magistrate Judge Jane Pearson reviewed all four cases during a court hearing Wednesday morning. Pearson noted that Tungul is the only defendant with prior convictions. He recently served a felony sentence and is still on parole.
Pearson approved conditions of release for each defendant, which include contact restrictions and third-party custodians. But the magistrate made an exception for Baird. He told the court his family moved out of state a few months ago. He stayed behind in Unalaska to finish his last year of high school.
The magistrate waived Baird’s custodian requirement and set bail at a $500 unsecured appearance bond. She reviewed the state’s bail suggestions for the other three defendants but did not set bond amounts. They will stay in jail until the court screens and approves third-party custodians.
