“Hey, Carnac, can we serve a warrant tonight or what?” Jennifer asked again. Officer Williams had many good qualities; patience not one of them.
“I don’t think there are any in front of you. Let me see it,” Thorpe said, carrying the warrant back to his office to review.
Every sergeant at SID had his own office. Most garnished theirs with lamps, pictures, and the requisite framings of all the accolades they’d received since kindergarten. Thorpe’s was sparse. Besides his desk and computer station, he had a small television and a confiscated leather couch for late nights at work. Otherwise, everything that hung on his wall was functional. He had two cork boards filled with various documents and a large paper calendar serving as his décor.
Besides, Thorpe spent as little time as possible inside his office. He answered emails, returned phone calls, and distributed case assignments within an hour of arriving. He devoted the rest of his shift to what officers should be doing—throwing bad guys in jail. The new major, Richard Duncan, had arrived only a few months ago and was already making that job more difficult. He seemed determined to turn the division into a bunch of gun-toting secretaries. Officers now spent half their shifts with busywork instead of crime fighting. They wasted countless hours feeding a cumbersome case-management system. A simple drug arrest now resulted in five hours of post-booking paperwork. Progress.
Major Duncan looked like a walrus—an ugly one. He was a good four hundred pounds, and no one could remember having seen the upper third of his pants because of copious amounts of fat spilling over his belt and submitting to the effects of gravity. Since transferring to the division, he’d taken advantage of the relaxed grooming standards and grown a long mustache extending down his jowls. That, and his bald head, only accentuated his walrus-ness.
The chiefs had probably transferred Duncan to SID to get the man out of uniform and away from public view. Back when Duncan was but a lowly street officer, he rarely saw the inside of a jail—probably couldn’t fit. Now here he was, commander of the Special Investigations Division, bogging down a bunch of go-getters with red tape. It was one of the many reasons Thorpe chose to work nights instead of days—he didn’t have to see much of the fat-ass brass.
Thorpe sat at his desk and reviewed the “controlled buy” search warrant Jennifer had prepared. “THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA, Plaintiff vs. CORRINDER RAY HIGHTOWER AKA: C-NOTE, Defendant.” Tonight OGU would be searching for “COCAINE, COCAINE BASE, FRUITS, INSTRUMENTALITIES, MONIES, RECORDS, PROOF OF RESIDENCY, FIREARMS, AMMUNITION AND PROOF OF OWNERSHIP OF SUCH ITEMS.” Simply stated, the warrant was for “crack” cocaine on a known 107 Hoover Crip’s house and written like ninety-five percent of the other warrants he reviewed; the only differences were dates, location, and suspect information. All the rest was standard search warrant fluff. He approved the warrant, called Jennifer’s desk phone, told her it was a go, and set a time. He then went to work on The Walrus’s plethora of demands—for there were other matters needing his attention this night.
Monday
February 5
Late evening
THREE HOURS LATER, THORPE AND four of his investigators rode in a 1997 puke-green Ford Aerostar van rumbling toward The Kitchen, a nickname given to one of the most violent and gang-infested sections of the city. The old family wagon was a certified piece of shit and the perfect undercover “jump-out” van. They occupied the lead vehicle of a five-car caravan. Two marked police units brought up the rear of the modern-day posse.
Because she’d prepared the warrant and helped plan the approach route, Jennifer sat behind the wheel. Jennifer was one of the more fit officers on the department when it came to strength conditioning. She spent several hours in the gym hitting the weights every day. Despite her efforts, she hadn’t developed a mannish-looking physique like female bodybuilders often obtain, but she could damn well kick some ass.
Thorpe looked over his shoulder at the three men squeezed into the rear bench seat as he made adjustments to his DEA-issued entry vest. The vest had built-in Kevlar throat and groin protectors and “POLICE” emblazoned in white across the front and back. He also donned a Kevlar helmet, Oakley sunglasses with clear lenses, and his nylon gear with dropdown rig made to house his Glock 22C with light attachment. Topped off with black Harley Davidson boots, dark jeans, and a long sleeved black t-shirt, his appearance was intimidating. Wearing similar equipment, the entry team looked like a small band of black-clad warriors—or maybe a group of jackbooted thugs depending on one’s conservative or liberal leanings.
Thorpe was provided with a good view of the three officers; the center seat had long since been removed to facilitate the rapid deployment of large men with bulky equipment and hostile intentions. At the ends of the rear bench sat Jack Yelton and the college football star, Donnie Edwards, both of whom only made the man in the middle, Jake Holloway, seem even smaller. Bookend number one, Jack, sported a red mane and proud beer belly. He stood a few inches shorter than Donnie, but weighed nearly the same. Jake, at a hair over six feet one and a sandwich shy from a buck-sixty, looked the part of a high school senior—one of the reasons he was such a great UC (undercover). No one would ever believe he was a cop.
All appeared alert but relaxed. They’d been on too many search warrants to develop the nervous tics and wide eyes some of the less experienced officers exhibit while en route to a warrant service. That’s why Thorpe always placed new guys and uniformed officers at the back of the line—one could never predict what they might do. Even veteran officers sometimes lost their composure; sprinting solo into the house was a common occurrence, an action that put the whole team at risk.
As Jennifer turned north on Hartford Avenue, Thorpe conducted a radio check to make sure all the vehicles were still in line. When she turned west on 51st Place North, Thorpe advised the dispatcher monitoring the tactical channel they were “less than a minute out” and requested a time. Jennifer brought the van north on Frankfort Avenue, approaching the target from the south. The house would be on the team’s right as they piled out of their vehicles.
Because of limited manpower, Thorpe instructed officers not to pursue anyone who ran from the front yard; they were already stretched thin enough without chasing rabbits in four different directions. As Jennifer neared the target, she switched on the van’s bright lights; the cars following extinguished theirs. The intended effect was to blind anyone in the yard so they couldn’t see the trailing marked police units.
Usually the team parked around a corner and approached the target on foot, but the logistics of this particular warrant required a faster response. The neighborhood contained too many spotters for a foot approach to be feasible; any drugs would be well on their way to the Arkansas River via Tulsa’s sewage system before officers made entry. The same concerns prevented Thorpe from having a surveillance team monitor the residence prior to their arrival. An unfamiliar vehicle or pedestrian would be noticed by lookouts. Spotters were most often young men who patrolled the area on foot or bicycles. They were either paid cash or given small amounts of crack they could then sell on their own. Sometimes the spotters were addicts who received free product for their security services.