Hazard traffic stop leads to Perry County meth, fentanyl charges

A March 5 traffic stop in Hazard led to methamphetamine and fentanyl trafficking charges against Melinda S. Pollard, 37, of Diablock Road, putting another Perry County drug case on a road where deputies say suspected trafficking keeps surfacing.

Perry County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Jones wrote the arrest citation. Jones said he saw a 2022 Chevrolet Equinox that he believed belonged to Pollard, a detail that tied the case to a specific vehicle and a specific stretch of Hazard rather than to a vague drug complaint somewhere in the county. The case names two people as facing charges, but the available details identify Pollard and the charges tied to her arrest.

The filing adds to a recent run of local enforcement actions in Hazard and nearby neighborhoods. On March 8, Jones served a search warrant at a Millie Ann Drive residence and found 385 grams of suspected methamphetamine, along with cash, drug paraphernalia and pills. In another case reported from the Airport Subdivision, Perry County Sheriff’s deputies recovered about 62 grams of methamphetamine and more than 3 grams of fentanyl after a Jan. 19 search. Taken together, the cases show how routine traffic work, warrants and street-level investigations are intersecting across the county.

The stakes are high in Perry County because fentanyl and methamphetamine continue to drive overdose deaths across Kentucky. The state’s 2023 overdose fatality report said 1,984 Kentuckians died from drug overdoses that year, with fentanyl present in 79.1% of deaths and methamphetamine in 55.2%. The report also said people ages 35 to 44 had the highest number of overdose deaths, at 571, an age group that includes Pollard, who is 37.

National data point in the same direction. Overdose deaths declined to 105,007 in 2023, but deaths involving synthetic opioids, especially illicitly manufactured fentanyl, remained at extremely high levels. In Perry County, the traffic stop on Diablock Road is now part of that larger local record, where deputies keep tracing suspected drug activity back to named streets, named vehicles and named people.