In a darkened alley, standing next to a dark blue mini-van, I check my weapon, a 9mm Glock. I slam a full magazine of ammunition into the blue steel automatic pistol and holster it. Hugo is handing out the disposible cuffs to the other members of our team.

The early morning silence is shattered by the zipping-up of several raid jackets. Steve and Jose check their weapons, two (2) military issue M-16-A-1 rifles... they slap in their magazines of military issue ammo, and with a quick pull and release on the bolts of their weapons (as they say in the Army): "they are locked and loaded." Dressed in our black assault uniforms, we pull black ski caps down over our faces and we get in the caravan of two dark blue mini-vans and three non-descript dark blue sedans.

Our 'target' is a 'crack house', a place where we know from over two (2) weeks surveillance the occupants to have been involved in the sale of illegal-substances, narcotics, drugs or what you might call 'dope'. We conduct these military type opperations at least once every month, and we've been doing this kind of 'work' for a little over a year.

The drive doesn't take very long, in about five minutes we are about a block away from the 'target'. The adrenalin is racing through my veins, my heart feels like it's in my throat, what a rush! The cars and vans speed-up, our lights are cut off, the engines are shut off and we glide silently to our positions on the street, in the alley behind, and in the driveway next to the crack house itself! Everyone in all the vehicles except for the drivers exit the cars and vans and move-in stealthily to pre-assigned positions at the doors and windows.

With crashes and thuds, the crack house is attacked and entered..."Get down" the leaders of the entry teams demand: "Get down, or we'll blow your freaking brains out!" The groggy occupants obey, some move too slow and we throw them to the floor!

With our backs covered and our knees on their backs we check the subjects and restrain their wrists with the disposible plastic cuffs. Our search teams start finding weapons and drugs from the start. Then, Jose calls out from a bedroom down the hall: "Bingo!" "I found the stash" he tells us.

I slap Hugo on the back and hurry to Jose's side. My jaw drops open when I see what my good friend has found... kilos and kilos of cocaine, bags and bags of cash. At this point, we have four tasks to accomplish: 1. Keep the scene secure. 2. Process the cocaine. 3. Process the cash. 4. Depart the area.

I began to process the cocaine by taking the neatly wrapped kilos to the closest bathroom, ripping open the plastic and tape and dropping the pure white powder into the toilet, then I give it a good flush! I hear somebody in the next room ask: "What the hee... {WHACK}!" His question is interupted by the unkind slap of a rifle butt.

Jose carries out the bags of money to a waiting van, and, well within our ten minutes alloted, we both accomplish our seperate missions. Jose checks on me and I flush the last of the powder. "Good job" he says with a smile. We check our path and run into our vehicles. We speed away in seperate directions, to seperate destinations where we wash water based paint off all the cars and vans to expose their true pastel colors.

Steve, Jose, and I are the first to arrive. Jose has the money, and the three of us start counting it in the back room of Steve's corner grocery store. By the time everyone has arrived, we have the money counted and neatly stacked. My share of the 'pot' comes to an even twenty-six thousand dollars, not bad for a days work, I think. We all have our own businesses, we all launder our own shares, and once again, we split-up until one of us finds another crack-house to 'raid'.

The next call comes at about two-thirty in the afternoon, on Friday. It's Jose and he thinks he has found another location for us to 'hit'. He asks me to come and pull some surveillance with him tonight and I agree. We meet after I close my shop, we pick-up a couple of hamburgers and some soda, we drive to the location. Climbing into the back of the van, we munch our burgers, we talk about women, and we watch the house.

It's a modest two-story bungalow, 'family' kind of a house. We watch as darkness blankets the south-central neighborhood. Business starts out slow, but within the first couple of hours, by 8:30 p.m., we're sure of what we're looking at.

A week has passed and two other 'teams' have been keeping the house under surveillence. I'm slapping another magazine into my Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol. We're ready to 'strike' and only about a block away from our 'target'. As far as I know, all the weapons are already 'locked and loaded'.

The car that I'm riding in speeds up a little, then a little more, and then we're screeching to a stop and charging in the 'crack-house'. "Get down, get freakin-a down" I scream at the occupants. Everybody is screaming, and since one of the subjects seems to be incoherrant, Jose slaps him down with the butt of his shotgun!

Before we get the scene under control, somebody else is yelling... Somebody with a strange voice is demanding that everyone drop their weapons and get down! I turn, I look, I hear an explosion and feel the hot slice of molten lead as it rips through my body! I grab my chest and look down at the blood! I'm shot, I'm dying, my God, I just know that I'm dying and then there are several more explosions!

I shout, I shout: "NO!" I scream at the top of my lungs but before I can get another word out, there are flashes of light and puffs of smoke! Before I can get another word out, there are bodies on the floor, dead and wounded bodies on the floor. I look at the man who shot me, he's already dead on the ground. I look at the man who shot me and I don't understand... he's in a uniform, he's a cop. I look at my hands, covered in my own thick, rich, red blood. I fall to my knees, I fall on my face. Somebody turns me around, he's another cop. He asks me what in the hell we were doing. I try to answer, but I gargle on my own blood. I try to answer, but it all goes black. I try to answer, but I die!

Created: October 29, 1999r.
Last Updated: May 23, 2005r.