I spent the better part of the next fourteen years working narcotics, during which I watched the unit go from “Special Services” to a fully operational Narcotics Division. I began to rise in the ranks, being named 1986 Trooper of the Year. I also married the most amazing woman I had ever met, inheriting her four boys. Soon, our daughter was born.
As sergeant, I supervised several multiagency drug task forces. In that role, I worked with agencies from both city and county, overseeing the deputies and city narcs. I answered to a task force board consisting of chiefs of all these departments. Each of the agencies in the task force had its own policies, and the budgets ranged from adequate to none at all. My job was to blend whatever group of narcs I had into a comprehensive team. Once the cops assigned to me started to refer to themselves as a “task force” instead of referring to themselves as members of their home department, I knew we had built a successful narcotics team.
That was critical. Because of the nature of the work, we had to trust one another—it’s that kind of connection that kept us alive. Whenever I was undercover buying drugs, I knew that my teammates were out there with me, conducting surveillance, and that they would dive in without a thought to get me out of any situation that went awry. And they knew I would do the same thing for them if the roles were reversed.
The teams I supervised included the Frederick County narcotics task force and the Metro area task force, which covered Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Howard Counties. Our group led the state most years in total number of arrests, as well as drugs and assets seized. The Metro task force was the first in state history to work a case and seize a residence that had been used as a crack house. That day, we served the fourth or fifth search-and-seizure warrant on the house. That being done, we stepped aside, and the United States marshals went in. They cleaned out the house, throwing all the furniture on the curb, boarding the house up, and slapping a sticker on the front door: “Seized by the United States of America, U.S. Marshals Service.” The neighbors came out to watch. They clapped and cheered each time another piece of furniture flew out of the house and added to the pile at the curb.
It wasn’t long after the task force was up and running that I was appointed a sergeant in the major violators section of the Narcotics Division. Once again I was working and learning directly under the supervision of Detective Sergeant Warren Rineker. Our mission was to identify the sources of the drugs coming into Maryland, collect evidence on them, and make the arrests. These cases were very intense and usually involved a court-ordered wiretap. We would work the case forward and backward, looking for clues and evidence to cement the prosecution’s case. Some of these cases would take twelve to eighteen months to complete. Despite the complexities, we never lost a wiretap investigation in court. Under Rinky’s guidance, we did things in a big way. Instead of seizing thousands of dollars and ounces of cocaine, we seized hundreds of thousands of dollars and multiple kilos of cocaine and heroin.
So it was a shock when, after nearly a decade and a half in narcotics, I was informed that my tenure in the division had run its course. New command staff coming in had concluded that there were several of us who had been in the division too long. We were reassigned. Soon I found myself back in uniform working as a sergeant at the Waterloo Barrack, located west of Baltimore in Howard County. My first day back I was to report to Waterloo at 7 a.m. I had spent several hours the night before making sure that my uniform was squared away, meaning that all collar ornaments, name tag, badge, and ribbons for my awards were properly placed. Of course the uniform was newly pressed, with military creases down the sleeves. Once again, I was determined to look like I had stepped out of a recruiting poster. This attitude was a source of pride for state police forces, but I have to admit that I wasn’t really feeling it that day.
And then my knack for falling into cases practically greeted me at the door.
I had stopped by the barrack the day before to pick up the marked cruiser that had been assigned to me. Now, as I was leaving Frederick County about 5:30 a.m. in car A-24, headed for my first day of work at Waterloo Barrack, I was wondering how I was going to do as a shift supervisor, primarily confined to the barrack as the duty officer. I was used to the front lines, and I wasn’t looking forward to being stuck in the barrack behind a desk.
As I steered my cruiser onto I-70 going east that morning, I came up behind a small car. The car stood out—it was being driven in the fast lane, traveling about thirty-five miles per hour in the posted fifty-five- miles-per-hour zone. As I came up behind it, I noticed the driver was alone. Also, it was clear that, even at that slow speed, he was having a difficult time keeping the car on the road. Great. I hadn’t made a DUI traffic stop and arrest in more than fourteen years. “Just like riding a bike,” I muttered.
I called the traffic stop in over the radio, which was silent. There was nothing happening in Howard County on a Wednesday morning as far as the state police were concerned. The night shift crew was likely at the barrack finishing their paperwork from the night and week before, getting ready for their long weekend. I looked at my watch—it was still too early for the day shift to be on the road.
I activated the emergency equipment on A-24 and gave the guy a short little blast of the siren. The driver slowly steered left off the paved portion of the interstate and stopped at a sort of a cocked angle in the grassy center median.
It’s funny how at that moment all those lessons Corporal Cameron had taught me years before immediately came back to me. I parked A-24 at an offset angle, then got out of the cruiser and cautiously walked up to the stopped vehicle. I spoke to the driver, who was either drunk, high, or both. The guy was well past fifty years old and was barely able to keep his eyes open.
I glanced in beside him at a small gym bag sitting on the empty passenger seat. My senses were on alert—what was in that bag? It could have been anything from gym clothes to a semiautomatic weapon. I asked for his driver’s license and registration card. While he looked for it, I talked to him, trying to get him to engage in conversation. Partly I wanted to hear the proof of his intoxicated state. But I also wanted him focused on something besides trying to hurt me.
When he couldn’t produce a license, I got him out of the vehicle and went through the standard sobriety test. He failed miserably, so I placed him under arrest. When I searched him, I found a small baggie in one of his pockets—a small rock of crack cocaine. I asked him if he had any more drugs or anything that would hurt me. He stared at me, glassy eyed. Slurring his words, he said, “It’s only for my own personal use, but there is a little more crack in the gym bag, plus a gun, and some cash that I won at the casino.”
A little more crack—I removed almost a quarter pound of cocaine, a handgun with the serial numbers filed off, and more than $10,000 in cash from the gym bag. Here was my first uniformed felony arrest in more than fourteen years. I had seized a large amount of money and a car and a gun, and I hadn’t yet made it to the barrack for my first shift.