What a Cluster F*ck! Part 1

In order to understand the full magnitude of this story, I must set the stage and introduce you to the players. Anyone who watches TV knows that police officers work undercover and try to purchase drugs from dealers. It is called a buy-bust. Police officers also pretend to be dealers so that they can sell quantity of drugs to potential buyers and then arrest them for the purchase. That process is called a reverse buy. A reverse buy is done in a very controlled environment so that the buyer never gets away with the drugs. The best laid plans....

This story takes place in the late 80’s after I had been an officer almost ten years. We were still carrying revolvers as our duty weapons although most officers unofficially carried semiautomatics as back-up weapons. A revolver holds 5 or 6 bullets depending on the model. You carried extra ammo in little round plastic boxes called speed loaders, in leather dump pouches, and loose in your pocket. The department had very little in the way of guidelines other than it had to be a revolver. Each officer bought their own revolver so there was a plethora of brands and sizes. They ranged from 2” snub nose 38 caliber, 5 shots to 6” 44 magnums that carried 6 bullets. I even remember one guy carrying an 8” something. That damn thing was longer than his night stick! He had to wear a swivel holster so he could actually sit in a car.

The county drug unit had two members, BP and JH. BP is a tall teddy bear of a guy, strong enough to hang on without effort if he got his hands on you but not in the best of condition. He was definitely old school. He always wore jeans and some type of sloppy button-up shirt. He carried a snub nose 38 S&W revolver in a hip holster. BP had been a deputy for a good 25 years, 20 of which he had been a narcotics officer. His partner, JH, was fairly short with a barrel chest. He was much more clean-cut than BP and had only been in the unit a couple of years. He was a property crimes investigator before being moved to narcotics and he probably could not have won any road races either. Being new, he was still learning the ropes and it wasn’t a natural fit. He carried a 4” S&W 357 in a shoulder holster.

The northern part of the state had a drug task force made up of officers on loan from various departments throughout the state. It was a varied mix of personalities, mostly of the ‘hotdog’ variety. One, I will refer to as Joe Cool. Joe Cool worked for several departments in the state, kept getting in borderline trouble, and would move on before the shit got too deep. He was the only officer attached to the task force that was getting a check from the state; everyone else got paid by their respective departments. Joe Cool put the HOT in hotdog and he carried a 6” 44 magnum 6-shot revolver in a shoulder holster. It was a great deal of gun to conceal. He always wore cowboy boots no matter what kind of detail he was on. There were three other task force guys on this particular detail.

Until the day before this incident, our unit was made up of a Sergeant and one investigator, both males. I was in school and needed the flexibility of the narcotics unit so that I could accommodate my school schedule. The department wanted to expand the unit to three officers so I put in for the position. We had never had a female investigator or narcotics officer and the sergeant of the unit made no bones about not wanting the first one. The chief decided that I should be added to the unit so to pacify the sergeant, he added two, my friend BH and me. BH had been in the unit several years earlier so he had a very short learning curve. I on the other hand had only patrol experience so my learning curve was fairly steep not to mention the hostility that I was facing.

After hearing that I was going in the unit also, BH suggested that the bad guys had better firepower so I needed to get a backup. I went to the local gun shop not knowing anything about semiautomatics. I decided on a S&W 9mm, 4” barrel, blue steel model. My S&W model 15 bull barrel revolver had served me admirably over the years so I assumed that the semiautomatic was a quality piece. I paid the $300 or so dollars, bought a shoulder holster with velcr* fasteners. I bought some good ammo and an extra magazine. I was ready!

I reported to the sergeant on my first day. He said to get saddled up, we had a detail that we were running with the county and the task force. We would be doing a reverse buy. I had no idea what that was and had to get BH off by himself so I could get the short version. We headed over to the county to get the game plan for the festivities.

The game plan was that undercover officers unknown to us would be in a hotel room. My sergeant would be in the next room recording what was said and watching through a keyhole lens that had been drilled through the wall. BP would be driving the van that the rest of us would be riding in. Now let me describe this van. It was a late 70's customized van with captain’s chairs, a pedestal type table, and shag carpet. It was acquired from a seizure on a transporting case a few years back. It stunk to high heaven and it was a POS (piece of shit)! It did not take us long to realize that three of us, JH, and Joe Cool with all our loaded shotguns, radios, and such would not fit in the back of the van around all of the furniture. So, we removed the furniture leaving the round posts that held them bolted to the floor.

We were to drive down to this motel and wait for my sergeant to give us the sign. The bad guys were supposed to come to the motel to buy a quantity of smoke. The rooms were on the back of the hotel. A narrow driveway circled the t-shaped building. Two uniformed marked units were to block both sides of the driveway and we were to pull up behind the bad guy's car so that he could not get out of his parking place. He would come out, get in his car, we would jump out and arrest him or them.

It did not go down quite like that, part 2 to follow tomorrow.