CHICKASHA, Okla. (KFOR) — Grady County Sheriff’s deputies helped reduce a Chickasha home to rubble Monday after they say it became a magnet for fentanyl activity, overdoses, and squatting—and a symbol of a crisis they say has pushed their small community to the brink.
Deputies say the goal isn’t just to knock down a house—but to send a message to drug dealers that they have no place in Grady County.
“It’s about time,” said Gunner McNeil, who lives across the street from the now-demolished house. “I love it.”
McNeil said the home at S 10th St. and W Georgia Ave. had been a growing nuisance in the neighborhood for years.
“Once every other month, there’d be, I don’t know, ten plus cop cars here,” he said. “And they would come in and take it down, kick down the door and do it again next month. We’ve had a couple of people who have moved out because of all the commotion.”
Grady County Undersheriff Kory Brewer said this was about more than noise.
“The plumbing was literally falling off of the house,” Brewer said. “The toilets were not attached. There was feces everywhere.”
Despite the home’s near-biohazardous state, Brewer said people were squatting inside and dealing fentanyl, attracting a slew of unwanted visitors while fueling an addiction crisis already crippling the community.
“It’s just—it’s straining the community,” he said. “It’s such a horrific drug. I can think of twice where a police [unit] and two ambulances were out on overdoses, one out on another call. And they’re having to call ambulances from Rush Springs to come up for an overdose or to work a fall or a crash or something like that.”
He said arresting dealers wasn’t enough. They wanted to go after what they saw as the source: the house itself.
“That led us to getting with the city, working with them to basically declare it [a] nuisance,” Brewer said.
The home’s owner did not contest the declaration, allowing deputies and city crews to arrive Monday morning with a city wrecking crew, who tore it down.
“I saw a bunch of cop cars and I was like, well, usually it’s a two in the morning thing and not a 7 a.m. thing,” McNeil said. “I think everybody’s just really glad that it’s gone now.”
Before they left, deputies planted a large sign in the yard.
It read:
“DRUG DEALERS BEWARE: Selling drugs in Grady County may lead to the abatement of your house!”
“This is an extreme measure that we had to take, and we’ll take it again if we have to,” Brewer said. “We want the drug dealing and distribution in Grady County to stop.”
Brewer said the home was only demolished after deputies went through the legal process to have it declared a nuisance, and they will never tear down someone’s home without due process.
