By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster Police Department said “two armed and dangerous criminals are off the street and out of Alabaster” after the department teamed with the Shelby County Drug Enforcement Task Force to arrest the suspects on Sept. 18.

The Task Force arrested 21-year-old Hueytown resident Marsell Lajuan Horton and charged him with one count of attempt to commit a controlled substance crime and arrested 22-year-old Bessemer resident Nathaniel Wallace III and charged him with attempt to commit a controlled substance crime, first-degree possession of marijuana and illegally having a pistol in a vehicle.

The arrests came after the Alabaster Police Department’s anti-crime unit “learned that a Birmingham drug dealer was trying to peddle his wares in Alabaster,” according to a post on the police department’s Facebook page.

The two agencies teamed up to arrest the pair of suspects in a parking lot at the Propst Promenade shopping center on Sept. 18, and allegedly discovered a pair of 9-millimeter handguns and “about three ounces of marijuana packaged for sale in the suspects’ vehicle,” according to Alabaster police.

Drug Enforcement Task Force Commander Lt. Kevin Turner said the pair of suspects allegedly were “observed in the area (of the Promenade) attempt to sell” marijuana.

“Further investigation indicated the two are also involved in the heroin trade,” read the Alabaster police Facebook post.

Horton was released from the Shelby County Jail on a $10,000 bond on Sept. 19, and Wallace was released from jail on bonds totaling $20,500 on Sept. 19.

Attempt to commit a controlled substance crime and first-degree possession of marijuana are Class C felonies, and are punishable by up to 10 years in prison upon conviction.

Horton and Wallace are scheduled to appear at the Shelby County Court for preliminary hearings on Oct. 3.