Pubdate: Tue, 27 Dec 2005
Source: Morning Journal (OH)
Copyright: 2005 Morning Journal
Contact:  http://www.morningjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3569
Author: Scott Patsko , Morning Journal Writer

ON THE FRONT LINES

The glass doors of Hometown Market seem to be in constant motion. People 
flow in and out as cars try to maneuver in the crowded lot of this corner 
store in Lorain. They wait in line to pay for their $4.25 packs of 
Marlboros, 2-percent milk and lottery tickets.

The red Cherokee is parked in one of the spaces facing West 22nd Street, 
under the sign that says "American and Spanish Food, Cold Wine and Beer to 
GO!" A man sits in the driver's seat with the engine running.

To anybody else, the utility vehicle would blend in with the other cars on 
this Friday night, but to Officer Miguel Baez, it may as well have a 
bright, neon arrow pointed right at it.

After eight years on the Lorain police force, and most of this year spent 
patrolling the underbelly of the city for the Street Crimes Unit, Baez, a 
Lorain native, knows how to spot potential drug busts.

"Turn around," Baez says.

Officer Corey Middlebrooks, like Baez, an eight-year veteran of the force 
from Lorain, slows the unmarked police vehicle with tinted windows and 
pulls into a driveway about 500 feet past the store. Baez looks over his 
shoulder, keeping an eye on the Cherokee. Middlebrooks backs out and pulls 
to the curb.

"Just chill," says Baez.

Up ahead, the parking lot remains busy, but Baez isn't looking for a customer.

"Should we go?" asks Middlebrooks.

"No. Somebody is walking from back there."

Baez doesn't have to explain. Middlebooks knows that "back there" means a 
suspected drug house in the area behind Hometown Market.

A few seconds later, a man appears from the side of the store and heads for 
the Cherokee. He hops in the passenger side and the driver pulls out.

"These people make it so obvious," says Baez. "Follow them."

With that, another night of trying to keep drugs off the streets officially 
begins for Lorain's Street Crimes Unit.

Middlebrooks quickly catches up to the Cherokee. Baez punches the license 
plate number into a laptop computer attached to the car's console.

They need a reason to stop the Cherokee. Figuring that the passenger came 
from a suspected drug house isn't enough. Lucky for Baez and Middlebrooks, 
drug users usually aren't sticklers for traffic laws. They get their reason 
at the first stop sign.

No turn signal.

Middlebrooks flips a switch and a blue light begins flashing on the dash. 
The Cherokee pulls over on West 21st Street. Baez is out of the car before 
it stops. Middlebrooks whips it into park and heads for the Cherokee's 
driver's side. As Middlebrooks gets information from the driver, Baez asks 
the passenger to step out of the vehicle.

The passenger is a large man. Baez, who is about 6-foot, cuffs him and 
begins patting him down. The man is wearing gray sweatpants. When Baez gets 
to his waist he feels something strange, almost like a small stick poking 
through. He continues on to the legs and ankles before feeling the man's 
waist again.

"Hey," Baez yells to Middlebrooks, "come on over here."

The two officers lead the man off the grass near the curb and onto the 
sidewalk.

"Do you have anything on you?" Baez asks.

"No."

Baez asks a couple more times. He gets the same response. But Baez can feel 
something in the man's waistband. The man is hiding something, and he knows 
that Baez has caught on.

So he begins to shake his right leg, trying to knock loose whatever is in 
his pants, hoping it will fall to the ground unseen by the officers. 
Middlebrooks, a solid 6-foot-5, tries to hold him still as Baez feels 
around the man's ankles.

"Stop moving," says Middlebrooks in a tone coated with warning.

But he won't stop. The three men on the sidewalk have an audience now. 
Residents are watching from porches, front doors and windows. The driver 
sits quietly in the Cherokee. Suddenly, the man abandons his jig and, 
despite being handcuffed, lurches forward in an attempt to break free from 
the officers.

"Oh," says Middlebrooks, "this is how it's going to be?"

The man is on the grass almost instantly. He hits face-first with a thud. 
Middlebrooks plants a knee in his back.

All three catch their breath for a moment.

"OK," the man says. "It's in my leg."

"Now you tell us?" asks Middlebrooks, exasperated. "After we take you to 
the ground?"

Baez pulls a bag of marijuana from the man's pants. It's barely enough to 
fill a coffee mug.

"This is it?" asks Baez. "All that for this? I got six pounds off someone 
last week and he didn't fight me."

"I was scared," the man says.

"You were scared," says Middlebrooks. "So we have to do the River Dance out 
here."

v v v v

Getting drugs off the streets of Lorain has been the sole mission of 
Middlebrooks and Baez since May, when they were put on street crimes.

The duo spends their time patrolling the streets of Lorain in an unmarked 
car. Too many people recognize the headlights and shape of a Crown Victoria 
cruiser in the dark. In the unmarked car, dubbed the "grant car" by 
officers due to the way it was purchased, they can sneak up on drug users 
and dealers.

Or, as the screen saver on the car's computer points out: "Beware, here 
come the Jump Out Boys!"

But even in the grant car, under the cover of night, Middlebrooks and Baez 
sometimes lose their element of surprise. Two girls, lookouts for whoever 
is dealing drugs out of a house near General Johnnie Wilson Middle School, 
have spotted the car.

A large Buick pulls up to the two girls. They lean in and talk for a 
moment, then the car takes off. A man in an oversized sweatshirt comes by 
next. The girls tip him off as well.

"I owe you," he yells back to them as he walks past the grant car.

It's a game. While the police study what drug users and dealers are driving 
and where they live, they do the same with the officers.

"I had a guy who literally called the station and asked if I was working 
that day," says Baez. "OOh, Middlebrooks and Baez are working 2-10 and I 
have a felony warrant. These other (officers) don't know who I am so I'll 
just hide out from 2-10.' That's how they do it."

Lookouts are common, especially during the summer. The grant car can pull 
onto East 30th Street off Fulton Road in South Lorain, and by the time it 
reaches Globe or Pearl avenues, the secret is out.

"In South Lorain the blocks are longer, so they have time to call or 
whistle or whatever," says Baez.

Still, the Street Crimes Unit made more than 600 arrests this year. Many 
came in South Lorain, which, according to Middlebrooks and Baez, is a 
difficult area to deal with.

Unlike other areas of Lorain, where there is more space to cruise and more 
spots to check, the south side is more compact. It's harder to stake out 
one spot repeatedly. Harder, but not impossible.

When a shortage of officers forced Middlebrooks into regular afternoon 
patrol earlier this year, he would park in a steel mill lot and watch the 
bars along East 28th Street.

"Common sense tells you that if you see somebody walk into a bar at 3 in 
the afternoon and stay for two minutes, they're up to no good," says 
Middlebooks. "I probably made 10 cocaine arrests out of City Bar in one 
week that way. It was almost too easy."

Often, people looking to buy drugs will park in a nearby store parking lot 
instead of pulling up to a drug house. One person will make the deal. The 
other will stay in the car, engine running. It's an easy tip-off.

Traffic violations are the officers' best friends. Failure to signal. 
Failure to stop at a stop sign. Those two alone give Middlebrooks and Baez 
a reason to stop suspects 90 percent of the time.

One Friday night, the grant car is headed down Pearl Avenue from East 28th 
Street. The bars in the area are crowded. A car up ahead stops so a 
passenger can get out and run into City Bar. The car continues down Pearl. 
Middlebrooks follows.

The car turns right on East 29th Street, then right again on Globe Avenue.

"He's going right back," says Middlebrooks.

He's right. The car turns right again onto East 28th and eventually parks 
on the street across from City Bar.

"What ordinary person would do that?" says Middlebrooks as Baez runs the 
car's plates. "I mean, what's gas nowadays?"

About 10 minutes later they stop the car. It leads to a citation for 
driving under suspension.

Not the arrest they were hoping for.

"We don't necessarily like doing this kind of stuff," says Middlebrooks. 
"But it might lead to bigger stuff. We like doing felony arrests. Take them 
off the street. That's when you get satisfaction."

v v v v

It was the middle of the day and Middlebrooks was on patrol when he came 
across a man he knew had a warrant. When Middlebrooks approached him, 
someone came out of a nearby house yelling, "Check his mouth! He's got a 
bag of crack in his mouth!"

Middlebrooks asked the man to open his mouth. As he reached for the man's 
throat, he swallowed the drugs.

Then the man started yelling.

"You see him? You see him," screamed the man to anybody who would listen. 
"He's choking me! I don't have no dope! I don't sell drugs!"

Instead of just serving the man with his warrant and watching the drug 
arrest slip away, Middlebrooks got creative.

He got a search warrant. Not to search the man's home.

To pump his stomach.

"We got the baggie of crack," says Middlebrooks. "That kind of killed his 
lawsuit."

One thing about crack, once users have it, they don't care about anything 
else. Earlier this year, Middlebrooks and Baez pulled their car next to a 
woman who was walking in the middle of a South Lorain street.

She couldn't wait to get home to smoke the crack she had bought. She was 
smoking it right there in the street.

"You need to get help," Middlebrooks told her.

"Mind your business," she snapped back. "Mind your business."

Another time, Baez came across a young man with a warrant who was dealing 
drugs near Hometown Market. Baez, in a car in the store's parking lot, 
watched as the guy, wearing a latex glove, reached down the back of his 
pants, pulled out a bag of crack and sold it to someone.

"I jump out and he's like, OWhat?"' says Baez. "He's got a latex glove on 
with doo-doo all over it and he's acting surprised. And people go home and 
smoke that stuff."

One man hid his crack pipe behind the license plate on the back of his car 
and claimed a drug user must have stuck it there.

"Yeah," Middlebrooks told him, "You."

But the drug stop that had both officers shaking their heads for a long 
time came at East 31st Street and Globe.

As they pulled over the vehicle, something was thrown from the back 
passenger seat. It turned out to be a bag of crack.

In the back seat, a mother was flanked by her two sons. Middlebrooks and 
Baez weren't sure who had thrown the bag from the car, but they suspected 
it was the teenage boy closest to the window it flew out of.

Both his brother and mother admitted it belonged to the boy, but he had his 
own story.

"That's my mom's," he said.

"What?!" said his mother.

"That ain't mine," the boy said. "I'm not going to jail for you, Mom."

They pulled the boy aside.

"You know we're going to take your mom to jail if this is hers," they told him.

"Well," he said. "She shouldn't be doing drugs."

Looking back now, Middlebrooks and Baez still can't believe it.

"It took a while, but he finally admitted it was his," says Middlebrooks. 
"But that's just a lack of respect."

v v v v

Roman's Groceries sits at the corner of Pearl and East 29th in South 
Lorain. The grant car is using the cramped parking lot to make a U-turn, 
but when Baez sees a carload of young girls yelling and swearing in front 
of the store, the officers pull back into the lot.

There are four girls in the car and another outside of it. They stop 
yelling when Middlebrooks and Baez approach.

"Are you driving?" Middlebrooks asks the girl in the driver's seat.

"I ain't driving," she snaps. "I'm 15!"

"Well you're in the driver's seat and the car's running," says Middlebrooks.

The girl gets out and stomps to the other side of the car. She stands next 
to the passenger door with her arms crossed.

"Why are you standing so close to me," she says to Baez. She begins tapping 
her hand on the hood of the car to display how annoyed she is. The girls 
are told to leave.

"When I was 15 years old I was way bigger than my mom," Middlebrooks says 
later in the grant car. "There is no way I would ever disrespect her. I had 
to address my elders as OSir,' and OMa'am.' Period. No exceptions."

The young people they deal with daily, though, laugh at that. For them, 
respect isn't gained through age or authority.

Aside from the city not having a jail, the biggest problem officers in 
Lorain deal with, says Middlebrooks, is a lack of respect.

"(Young people) will tell you in a minute, OI'm a soldier! You can't do 
nothing to me!,"' says Middlebrooks. "They don't care. They got some kind 
of code I don't understand. OWe're street warriors!"'

The ultimate lack of respect came a little over a year ago for 
Middlebrooks. He was in his home, watching television with his wife, when 
he saw an orange glow through a front window.

A car was burning in his driveway.

It wasn't his car. It belonged to a crack dealer who decided to use it to 
send a message.

Up to that point, Middlebrooks only had the occasional swear word directed 
at him from delinquents near his home.

"But this was bad," he says. "That was arson. They could have caught my 
house on fire."

Middlebrooks, who is black, has been called a snitch and a sellout by young 
black people in the city. He counters by telling them that the poison 
they're pushing is killing their community. But they scoff at that.

"It's like we're the enemy," says Middlebrooks. "It's as if they like 
what's going on in the streets. But they don't have to deal with the kid 
who hasn't seen his parents for weeks because they're on drugs, and the kid 
is starving and you have to take him to McDonald's just to give him 
something to eat.

"They don't deal with that stuff. They just spend the money. They separate 
themselves from that."

v v v v

Middlebrooks and Baez are products of Lorain's low-income housing. 
Middlebrooks graduated from Southview, Baez from Lorain High.

For them, the job is more than just getting drugs off the streets. It's 
about helping their home.

"Just because you smoke crack doesn't mean you're a terrible person," says 
Baez. "Some of these people are just sick. Drugs just take everything out 
of them. So sometimes you have to sit back and understand that.

"You have to let them know that you understand how they feel and why they 
keep doing this, but they need to find a better way."

A chubby, middle-aged man leaves a suspected drug house near Washington 
Avenue and makes it half a block before the Jump Out Boys introduce themselves.

If he had anything on him, he swallowed it. Middlebrooks notices the man 
can barely lift his tongue during a mouth check. It's a sign he's had crack 
in there.

The man is wearing a stained T-shirt that used to be white. On his head is 
a cap that reads, "No. 1 Dad." He has a warrant for driving without a 
license. As the officers wait for a cruiser to transport him to the county 
jail, the man admits he has a crack problem.

"You need to get help," Middlebrooks says.

"I know," says the man, looking at the sidewalk.

The man doesn't have a penny on him. Middlebrooks suspects he spends every 
cent he gets on crack.

"Somebody like him, we'll remember," Middlebrooks says later. "He said he's 
from Avon, but he will be back. He has a drug problem."

"And we can't do everything," says Baez. "It comes down to education and 
people just helping people instead of sitting back and saying, OOK, who 
cares? I'm not doing it. I'm not going to worry about it.'

"Well, you have to worry about it because it's going to come into your back 
yard."

Both officers talk about the need for the community to help. The police 
can't do it alone, they say.

"(The Street Crimes Unit would) have to hit the streets 24/7," says 
Middlebrooks. "They always adapt. But then, there are guys we've been 
dealing with for eight years. We'll catch them, lock them up and they'll 
come back out here and do the same thing."

The grant car turns down another street. Two men and a woman are walking 
down the sidewalk. Middlebrooks and Baez know the woman. They call her 
Fantasia.

The woman is short and very thin. She's wearing dirty slippers. Not only is 
Fantasia a drug addict, she's been known to prostitute herself.

The grant car slows next to the trio. Baez asks Fantasia where she's going.

"I'm going to get sex," she says, seemingly proud of her answer.

Later, they pull over a car carrying Fantasia and her two friends. The 
driver doesn't have a license. Wherever they are headed, they'll have to walk.

"We remember Fantasia when she was a lot healthier," says Middlebrooks. 
"She had a lot of weight on her, and that wasn't too long ago. She'd come 
up and say Ohi' to us.

"Now, two years later, she's as thin as a rail and strung out on crack 
cocaine. It's sad."

v v v v

Rain taps the windshield as the grant car sits in the darkness of East 
29th, about 300 feet from Globe. Many residents of this section of South 
Lorain complain about the lack of bright, or even working, street lamps. It 
contributes to the waning sense of safety in the area.

But Middlebrooks and Baez use the darkness to their advantage as they watch 
the activity around a Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority complex on the 
other side of Globe.

They peer through binoculars and watch as people make their way through the 
parking lot on foot. After a few minutes, a man in a hooded sweatshirt and 
baggy jeans exits an apartment and gets into a green Explorer. He pulls out 
of the parking lot and heads toward the intersection of East 29th and 
Globe. The Explorer rolls right through the stop sign and turns left on 
East 29th.

"He didn't stop," says Middlebrooks as he hits the headlights and takes off.

The Explorer pulls into another LMHA complex. The grant car comes roaring 
in right behind it.

"Stay in the car!," yell Middlebrooks and Baez, their hands on their 
holstered guns as they move closer to the Explorer. After making sure 
there's just one person in the vehicle, they tell the driver to step out.

The smell of marijuana hits Middlebrooks as soon as the door opens. The 
man's eyes are bloodshot. Middlebrooks recognizes him.

"Norman," says Middlebrooks. "How have you been?"

Middlebrooks and Baez come across the same faces over and over, week after 
week. Some of that has to do with Lorain's lack of a jail. Instead of 
facing a night or two behind bars, drug dealers or users know they will 
only be given a citation.

The process offers little interruption, if any, in their lives. Some don't 
even pay the fines or show up in court.

"Some people just don't care," says Baez. "They go right back to what they 
were doing. We have a lot of repeat offenders."

A man caught buying marijuana near Hometown Market was dealt with by Baez 
in the past during a domestic disturbance.

A driver stopped for driving under suspension was caught by Baez a year 
earlier with drugs and a crack pipe.

Middlebrooks served a man urinating behind a bar on East 28th with a 
warrant for domestic abuse.

And then there's Norman. The officers are familiar with his whole family. 
His mother often shows up at the scene when she hears his name on her scanner.

They know Norman's girlfriend lets people deal out of her apartment. They 
could try to get her evicted, but the dealers would find a new place to deal.

Usually, Norman is loud and brash when he's stopped, cussing out the 
officers. But this time, he stands in the rain quietly as his vehicle is 
searched by Baez, and then a K-9 unit.

"Where are you working?" Middlebrooks ask him.

"What do you mean where am I working. I don't work," says Norman, who has a 
pager on his hip, along with a cell phone, and about $200 in his pocket.

The Explorer turns out to be clean, but Norman won't be driving it anywhere 
else tonight. His license is suspended.

"I was just moving it for my pregnant girlfriend," says Norman.

"So who was smoking the marijuana?" Middlebrooks asks.

Norman is silent.

"Don't have nothing to say now, huh?" says Middlebrooks.

A few minutes later, Norman has his citation and begins the short walk back 
to his girlfriend's apartment.

He pulls his hood tight over his head to block the rain. Then, he fades 
into the shadows along East 29th and is out of the grasp of the Street 
Crimes Unit.

Until the next time they stop him. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D