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 Techno_Raver
Super Mario Bro
 
Registered: 05/05/06
Posts: 320
Loc: The Mushroom Kingdom
Last seen: 1 year, 9 months
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 Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes
#11993581 - 02/09/10 05:29 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes
As gang members get wise to street-corner raids, police turn up the heat
Comments
February 8, 2010
BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter fmain@suntimes.com
Six cops and their sergeant stood warming their hands in the parking lot of the Ogden District on the Southwest Side on a chilly morning last week.
They were preparing to raid the Little Village home of a convicted killer. They were after dope, guns and money.
» Click to enlarge image
Police execute a search warrant last week at a home in the 2800 block of South California in Little Village.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
But before they jumped into their squad cars, Officer Bill Murphy reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of Extra Fruit Suggestions Sweet Watermelon chewing gum. He passed sticks to everyone.
It was a good-luck ritual, started after Officers Scott McKenna and Danny O'Toole got shot through a bedroom door on a July 16 raid.
"We didn't have any gum before that one," McKenna said, grabbing a stick.
With everyone smacking away on their gum, Sgt. Larry Stec was ready.
"I think we got the good karma," he said. "Let's go."
The plainclothes team -- which recovered 15 pounds of marijuana, $36,000 in cash, a handgun and an air rifle during the raid -- is central to the Chicago Police Department's strategy of hitting drug dealers in their wallets.
The department's narcotics section, which the team works for, carried out 1,311 search warrants last year -- a 270 percent increase over 2008.
Those raids netted:
• $207 million in drugs, up from $138 million in 2008.
• 726 guns, up from 415.
• And $18.6 million in cash, up from $14.2 million.
The department also aggressively pursued drug dealers in court through the asset-forfeiture process, seizing $6.8 million in houses, cars and cash -- compared with about $584,000 of such property in 2008.
"It's a change in how we do business," said Deputy Chief Nick Roti of the Organized Crime Division.
One of the big shifts in strategy: The department is relying less on so-called street-corner conspiracy cases.
Starting in 2003, officers secretly watched drug sales on street corners. The monthslong investigations -- with clever code names like "Who's Laflin Now?" -- led to conspiracy charges against gang members, and their convictions brought heftier prison terms than regular drug cases. Thousands of drug dealers have been charged, and hundreds of open-air markets have been dismantled.
But gang members figured out the strategy. They put non-gang-affiliated drug addicts on the corners to sell their heroin and pot. And they quickly spotted the surveillance vehicles used to record the transactions.
"You could not throw that big net at them anymore," Narcotics Cmdr. James O'Grady said.
At peak, the department did about 50 street-corner cases a year, but last year there were only 14.
The department's evolving strategy involves recruiting "exponentially more" confidential informants to tell police which drug dealers are stashing dope, money and guns in their homes -- and tip off the police to murder plots, Roti said.
And more than ever, police are listening to dealers' conversations with wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance.
The intelligence that police are gathering is allowing them to stop some gang killings before they're carried out, part of the reason for the city's 10.5 percent drop in murder last year, Roti said.
It's also the driving force behind the rise in search warrants, which are one of the department's "heavy hammers," according to Roti.
"We're getting the higher-level targets," he said. "We were not getting the bang for the buck."
Last Wednesday morning, Stec's Area 2 Anti-Violence Task Force was focused on a target nicknamed "Menace," a reputed drug dealer and Latin King member. In the Ogden Police District parking lot, Officer George Martinez started laying out the plan for searching Menace's house in the 2800 block of South Christiana. Everyone stopped joking and concentrated on the briefing, which outlined the risks of the raid.
The danger of getting shot is ever-present: In addition to O'Toole and McKenna, a third officer on the team was wounded last year when a bullet ricocheted during a separate search. That officer is still recovering, but O'Toole and McKenna have returned to the team, which was formed in 2008 to exclusively conduct search warrants. Last year, the team did 200 searches.
The target of Wednesday's raid, Menace, was once convicted of a domestic-related killing, Martinez said.
"We have to be careful because he's done time for murder," Martinez said. "But my guy says he's not a fighter."
Martinez's informant said three pit bulls were in the house, usually locked in cages on a porch. "So watch out for the dogs," Martinez said.
Martinez told the officers that Menace was known by the informant to sell guns, marijuana and cocaine from the house.
"He's supposed to be sleeping," Martinez added before he described the interior layout of the house.
The officers drove in a procession to the house, jumped out and sprinted to the wrought-iron gate in front. Using a "Chicago bar" -- cop slang for a crowbar -- one of them popped open the gangway gate, and they ran along the side of the house to the back.
Armed with sledgehammers, handguns and a military assault rifle, the officers burst in through the back door just after 8 a.m
"Police! Search warrant!" they screamed.
A dog barked, and an officer inside the house ordered someone to secure the animal. There was only one dog in the house.
It turned out that Menace was gone, but his adolescent daughter was home alone, getting ready for school. A female officer stayed with the girl downstairs as the officers began their search upstairs.
Stec said the officers went through shoes, coffee cans, clothing, bedding and trash cans. Then, excited shouts rose from the officers inside the house when McKenna found a huge block of compressed marijuana inside a red backpack.
Minutes later, officers found about $36,000 in rolls of $100, $50 and $20 bills. The money was stashed in a trash can in a bathroom where the dog was being held, Stec said.
The officers also found a snapshot of a little boy holding an assault rifle, High Times magazines stacked in a box, a .380-caliber handgun in a white sock, and a machete next to the fridge.
Stec, still chewing his gum after the raid, said he had anticipated that his officers would get lucky.
That's because there was a poster from the 1983 film "Scarface" on the kitchen wall. Actor Al Pacino's drug-kingpin character, Tony Montana, was staring out from the poster, which was inscribed with his infamous line: "Make way for the bad guy!"
"If you find that in a house," Stec said, laughing, "you know your search is gonna be golden."
Edited by Techno_Raver (02/09/10 05:41 AM)
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 Humility
Working on it
Registered: 10/07/08
Posts: 4,844
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: Techno_Raver]
#11993625 - 02/09/10 05:52 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Cops make me sick. When the time comes, I'd rather watch the king's men shift about in the streets, listless and hungry rather than provide one with a job or a helping hand. I love people and I have a seriously hard time saying no, but as an older man (until I get old and wise enough I imagine) I will NOT be assisting in any way or doing business with ANY former government officials, including law enforcement (aka king's men/thugs/blue light gang).
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MHbound
Ballin Out At All Cost
Registered: 09/24/07
Posts: 5,910
Loc: Under The Rainbow
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: Humility]
#11993637 - 02/09/10 06:00 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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And an air rifle
:lmfao:
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Techno_Raver
Super Mario Bro
Registered: 05/05/06
Posts: 320
Loc: The Mushroom Kingdom
Last seen: 1 year, 9 months
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: Humility]
#11993804 - 02/09/10 06:56 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Humility said:
Cops make me sick. When the time comes, I'd rather watch the king's men shift about in the streets, listless and hungry rather than provide one with a job or a helping hand. I love people and I have a seriously hard time saying no, but as an older man (until I get old and wise enough I imagine) I will NOT be assisting in any way or doing business with ANY former government officials, including law enforcement (aka king's men/thugs/blue light gang).
Yeah, my friends' house got raided last weekend. Nobody is safe anymore in this police state...
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Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible for anything I say or do. If any of it is illegal, it is to be considered "Total Bullshit!"
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Adamist
fucking aliens, bro
Registered: 11/23/01
Posts: 9,748
Loc: ∞
Last seen: 2 days, 23 hours
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: Techno_Raver]
#11994330 - 02/09/10 09:03 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
But before they jumped into their squad cars, Officer Bill Murphy reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of Extra Fruit Suggestions Sweet Watermelon chewing gum. He passed sticks to everyone.
It was a good-luck ritual, started after Officers Scott McKenna and Danny O'Toole got shot through a bedroom door on a July 16 raid.
"We didn't have any gum before that one," McKenna said, grabbing a stick.
"I think we got the good karma," he said. "Let's go."
Only a cop could believe he gets good karma from bubble gum. 
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 { { { ṧ◎ηḯ¢ αʟ¢ℌ℮мƴ } } }
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clorox
Crossing theDoors ofPerception
Registered: 05/06/07
Posts: 757
Loc: The Other Side
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: Techno_Raver]
#11994334 - 02/09/10 09:03 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
With everyone smacking away on their gum, Sgt. Larry Stec was ready.
"I think we got the good karma," he said. "Let's go."
yea, im not so sure about that one officer.
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longhair_Bri
everything is aLIE
Registered: 12/09/06
Posts: 77
Loc: Michigan
Last seen: 15 days, 7 hours
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: clorox]
#11994586 - 02/09/10 09:59 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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GREAT, I'm gonna have to get rid of my Scarface poster now!
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It's not enough....I need more....Nothing seems to satisfy....I don't want it....I just need it....to breathe....to feel....to know I'm alive
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 caphillkid
Coquus Boleti
Registered: 10/09/08
Posts: 4,666
Loc: Jet City
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: longhair_Bri]
#11995271 - 02/09/10 11:53 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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The cops aren't the problem and the gun hoarding thug selling brick weed isn't the hero. The system is broken and encourages awful behavior on both sides of the drug war.
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SEE
dislexsic
Registered: 02/05/10
Posts: 132
Last seen: 8 months, 23 days
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: Techno_Raver]
#11995286 - 02/09/10 11:55 AM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
With everyone smacking away on their gum, Sgt. Larry Stec was ready.
"I think we got the good karma," he said. "Let's go."
-whatever you have to tell yourself right before you ruin someone elses life over a self inflicted basically victimless crime-- ...what about the kid who will never see her daddy? Maybe if you didnt make up rules (drug laws) to create a scapegoat (drugs) for society to blame and focus their energy on, we could focus on reducing real crime instead of creating crime by outlawing substances as old as man
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I Before E Except after ME, SEE, what happened was....but don't worry i have it covered...I'll just tell God they died.
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Dango_Bill
Seven
Registered: 12/01/07
Posts: 307
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: SEE]
#11995830 - 02/09/10 01:12 PM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Techno_Raver, please remember to post a link to the original article whenever you post a news article.
For everyone who wants to read this in its original context, with the pictures, here it is - http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2034892,CST-NWS-search08.article
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Techno_Raver
Super Mario Bro
Registered: 05/05/06
Posts: 320
Loc: The Mushroom Kingdom
Last seen: 1 year, 9 months
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Re: Cops hitting suspected drug dealers’ homes [Re: Dango_Bill]
#11999610 - 02/09/10 11:19 PM (2 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Dango_Bill said:
Techno_Raver, please remember to post a link to the original article whenever you post a news article.
For everyone who wants to read this in its original context, with the pictures, here it is - http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2034892,CST-NWS-search08.article
Thank You Dango_Bill.
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Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible for anything I say or do. If any of it is illegal, it is to be considered "Total Bullshit!"
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