Posted on January 9, 2006

Anglo Makes Most-Wanted List

Jay Hamburger, Park Record (Park City, Ut.), Jan. 9, 2006

Park Record The Park City Police Department has added a white person to its most-wanted list, making an alleged drug dealer from Park City the first non-Latino placed on the department’s controversial compilation of sought-after criminal suspects.

The police recently placed Sean Thomas Blair on the most-wanted list, which identifies the 10 known criminal suspects who the police most want to catch. Blair, 21, is wanted on a $10,000 arrest warrant, issued on Aug. 1, 2005.

He is charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance with the intent to distribute, which are second — and third-degree felonies. His last known address is 2449 Doc Holliday Drive, in Prospector.

Blair’s placement on the most-wanted list is particularly significant in the aftermath of the original list, released in the fall. At that time, each of the suspects placed on the most-wanted list was a Latino. Leaders in the Latino community questioned the racial makeup of the list and wondered why, in a community that is mostly white, the list was exclusively Latino.

Mike Fierro, a Police Department detective involved in compiling the most-wanted list, said adding Blair was not a reaction to the criticism the police received last fall. Fierro said Blair’s inclusion is based on the reasoning that the police use when considering suspects for the list.

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Blair took Mario Garcia Hernandez’s spot on the top-10 list. The police captured Hernandez at a Main Street restaurant where he was working on Nov. 2, 2005. Fierro said the police received a tip that Hernandez was using an alias after his picture was published with a Park Record article about the original list.

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He said the police are considering 21 people for placement on the list. Of those, 14 are Latino men, five are white men, one is a white female and one is an Asian man, Fierro said. The most serious charges they face are drug-distribution counts, he said.