Myrtle Beach police knew about drugs, home a year before raid. Why did it take so long?

Over the past couple years, residents in the Ramsey Acres neighborhood of Myrtle Beach have found needles on the ground, dealt with squatters and been asked to buy drugs while at their homes.

The incidents appeared to be linked to a home at 1028 Poplar Drive that neighbors have complained about to city officials, including council members and police, since around the beginning of 2023.

But it wasn’t until 2024 that Myrtle Beach began to seriously speak about what to do, Assistant City Manager Josh Bruegger said.

On April 17, Myrtle Beach Police brought in a SWAT team, an armored vehicle and multiple police cars to raid the home, moving the Ramsey Acres community into the public spotlight.

Myrtle Beach Police posted on its Facebook that it was executing a search warrant for a “quality of life issue” and that there was no safety concerns for the community.

When asked why police described the raid as a quality of life issue, Bruegger said, “Because it is. Narcotics in a neighborhood is a quality of life issue.”

Neighbor Maggie Martorano agrees that quality of life issue is an “all encompassing title.” She disagrees that there are no safety concerns. She said safety has gotten slightly better but activity at 1028 Poplar has largely stayed the same.

“(Myrtle Beach Police are) as transparent as they can be,” Martorano said. “They said they can’t disclose everything because they don’t want to give the people associated with that address a heads up.”

However, police reports show that some of the people at the home fled on foot before police were able to arrest them.

An ongoing problem

Martorano said she has lived in her Ramsey Acres home, located half a block from 1028 Poplar Drive, for 18 years and said neighborhood safety has declined recently. She said she never used to lock her doors but started to around a year ago.

Another neighbor who grew up across the street from the troubled home agreed with Martorano.

“The neighborhood was nothing like it is today,” former neighbor Rhonda Strickland said.

After her father died, Strickland fixed up and sold her childhood home in Ramsey Acres. However, she dealt with numerous problems while trying to sell it.

Strickland had two potential buyers refuse to buy the house after seeing the home at 1028 Poplar Drive, which is located across the street. One buyer even refused to get out of their car.

Squatters took up residence in the backyard tool shed, so she had to call police to kick them out. While her sons were working on the house, Strickland said they were solicited for drugs.

Strickland said the Poplar Drive house used to be a nice, well-kept home but started having problems after Dustin Thompkins bought it in 2017. Multiple neighbors complained about the condition of the yard and trash kept there.

The Sun News reached out to the Thompkins family business but did not receive a response to requests to comment.

Bruegger said Myrtle Beach has fined the 1028 Poplar Drive home multiple times for trash and has helped Thompkins clean the yard, but it continues to be trashed again. Thompkins’ home received 24 code violations that he has to fix before it can be considered habitable again, Bruegger said.

“The next move is on the owner to see what they’re going to do,” Bruegger said.

The Sun News visited the house on April 21 and found a trailer full of scrap metal, a dump truck with various objects and a broken home appliance sitting in the front yard. Martorano said she has seen Thompkins cleaning up the home since receiving the code violations.

Along with the condition of the house, multiple neighbors said that over the past year or two, there has been a large number of people coming to and from the house. People will walk, drive and ride bikes to the home, Martorano said. These visitors will often drop trash as they head to the house.

Martorano said she has found empty hypodermic needles, small baggies and other forms of trash on the ground in the neighborhood.

Traffic died down after the police raid, but on April 25, Martorano said the foot traffic has picked up again and is similar to before police came. She said the raid made the neighborhood a little bit safer.

City council member declines to talk about issue

Neighbors said they began contacting the Myrtle Beach Police Department and city council about problems within Ramsey Acres “at least” a year ago. Martorano said she has spoken with Council Member Mike Lowder, who lives a block away from Poplar Drive, as well as police.

The Sun News asked Lowder to speak about the issue but he declined, saying he does not speak to media. Lowder was sent a followup email in which The Sun News asked him to speak about safety and neighbors’ concerns regarding 1028 Poplar Drive, but he did not respond.

Bruegger, who began working for Myrtle Beach in October, said conversations around 1028 Poplar Drive “began in earnest” at the beginning of 2024. He said the house may have been discussed prior to his start but that’s when he saw conversations begin.

Myrtle Beach Police have responded to the house 77 times since the start of 2022, with over half the calls happening in 2024, according to police records. People called the police for various reasons, including car theft, public assistance and larceny.

Martorano said she understood why it took this long for police to do something because they need time to build a case, which included having a confidential informant buy drugs from two people who were arrested.

“They’ve been frustrated, but they have been fairly patient with us and worked with us,” said Bruegger, speaking about Ramsey Acres residents.

Home is deemed uninhabitable

City officials did not say exactly why a search warrant had been placed on the Poplar Drive house but posted on Facebook the following day that three people at the house had been arrested for fentanyl possession and distribution.

Bruegger said there were 16 people in the house when the raid was conducted on April 17, although he is unsure how many people were living there. There was one family who leased a room in the house who was confirmed to reside here.

There is a trailer in the backyard where people have been found living in previously, but there was no one there at the time of the raid, Bruegger said.

The Myrtle Beach construction team found 24 code violations in the home, ranging from dangerous structures, sanitation/rubbish and weeds. It was deemed uninhabitable and signs were posted on the house letting others know it is unsafe and illegal to live in.

Homeowner Dustin Thompkins found a new place for the family to live within a few days of receiving that notice, Bruegger said

There were also five people arrested. James Albert Cook, 41, and Jose Leonardo Rodriguez, 29, were charged with possession with the intent to distribute fentanyl. Christian Grant Fox, 23, was charged with possession of fentanyl. Desmond Garnell Burks, 37, and Bernard Burgess, 27, were charged with resisting law enforcement serving process.

“I’m glad they were arrested,” Martorano said. “But where are they going to go now?”