Aug. 25—Following a months-long investigation into illegal gambling and drug distribution, police executed search warrants Thursday on multiple residences in Southeast and Southwest Decatur, according to the Decatur Police Department.

Keithan Tarrell Swoopes, 41, of Decatur, was arrested and charged with certain persons forbidden to possess a firearm, first-degree possession of marijuana, promoting gambling and illegal possession of drug paraphernalia, police said. He was out on bond for previous certain persons forbidden to possess a firearm and promoting gambling charges.

Following the raid, three others were charged with simple gambling and two were charged with promoting gambling. They were each booked into Morgan County Jail and have since been released on $300 bonds.

Police said they searched four buildings in the 1200 block of 21st Avenue Southwest and a residence in the 1300 block of Alpine Street Southeast and found “numerous gambling devices, firearms, distribution quantities of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and U.S. currency.”

Swoopes was the owner/operator of an illegal gambling establishment that included an extensive video surveillance system, according to an investigator’s affidavit.

He remains in Morgan County Jail in lieu of a $60,600 bond, jail records show.

Decatur police arrested seven people in June after executing a search warrant on a suspected illegal gambling house at the 1000 block of Hoover Avenue Southwest.

The bust on Swoopes’ establishment on 21st Avenue Southwest happened just on the other side of Eighth Street Southwest from the last bust, a tenth of a mile away from the Hoover Avenue house, according to the affidavit.

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