Three arrested in Tallahassee grocery store drug raid

Three people face drug charges after Tallahassee Police raided Speed’s Grocery.

Willie Hinson, 44, Neha Patel, 49 and Andre Webb, 52, were arrested Friday. All except Webb have bonded out of jail.

Police focused on the Floral Street grocer after learning that employees were storing and selling drugs inside the store.

After the tip in October that drugs were being sold at the store’s deli counter, TPD sent in an undercover officer to make a purchase.

The officer asked Hinson, according to court records, to purchase $30 worth of marijuana. Hinson gave him 1.5 grams of pot from a plastic bag behind the counter placed near Webb.

In early December, officers again went to the store to purchase pot from the deli counter. The officer bought 6 grams, according to court records.

The sales initiated the approval of the search warrants.

When police served the search warrant, Patel and Hinson were there. Patel was managing the cash register and Hinson was working the store’s deli.

Officers found more than 20 grams of marijuana, less than 28 grams of cocaine and four grams of hydrocodone as well as a large amount of cash.

Some of the drugs were ready for sale and others were in the process of being packaged based on the number of items of paraphernalia in plain sight.

Three other search warrants have been served at the business since October 2016.

Hinson faces two charges of possession of marijuana, possession of cocaine, possession of a controlled substance and possession of paraphernalia. Patel faces charges of delivery of drug paraphernalia and maintaining a drug house. Webb, who was arrested on a warrant, faces charges of sale of marijuana within 1,000 feet of a church and possession of marijuana.

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.co or @KarlEtters on Twitter.