by Brian Egeston
be@brianwrites.com
Editor’s Note: Champion staff writer Brian Egeston and Champion photographer Travis Hudgons rode along with DeKalb County law enforcement officials Oct. 25 for unprecedented street sweep to serve 500 warrants for felonies, misdemeanors, court arrests and traffic citations. The operation was conducted by more than 100 officers from several agencies including the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office and the New York City Police Department. The following stories and photos are accounts of the journalists’ evening.
My photographer and I arrive at the DeKalb County Jail where we were nervous about parking in the wrong space. Neither of us like being near a jail because we’re both aware that we “fit the description.” We approach a lady in a deputy’s uniform and ask for assistance getting to our location. She points us in the right direction, but then decides to probe a bit deeper about our presence behind the jail. During a brief interrogation, Travis clams up and I begin to stutter. We both fidget trying to find our press credentials. Finally the officer cracks a smile and asks another officer, who’s dressed in BDUs (battle dress uniform) and SWAT gear, to escort us to the media area where we meet our liaison.
“Can I get you to sign these forms?” the liaison asks. Without reading a single line, we sign our lives away, certain that somewhere on the form, there’s a statement about us being shot and not holding DeKalb County responsible.
We enter the staff dining room, where there are more cops assembled than I’ve seen at one time in my entire life. I realize that, as the officers strategize, felony and misdemeanor offenders are getting off work, sitting down to a meal or maybe even breaking another law. In a few hours, many would get a rude awakening.
It’s obvious to everyone in the room that Travis and I don’t belong. Travis strolls about the dining room with two cameras around his neck. Each click and flash prompts head turns. He’s not making any friends for us. While the more than 150 officers are briefed, I ease away from him and take advantage of a short serving line where I request neckbones, ham hocks and pork chops. I’m given baked chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes and a scouring look by the food servers.
We enter a smaller room with our team where a deputy who speaks in drill-sergeant baritone briefs us again. He barks orders and numbers such as 10-8, 10-50, J-2. I ask an officer, “What does J-2 mean, juvenile second time offender?” The officer looks at me strangely and says, “No. J-2 simply means paper work.” I stop asking questions.
Travis and I are the last media to be assigned a unit. A team of deputies approaches the front of the room. The baritone-voice deputy assigns Travis to a team. We both raise our hands in objection. “We’re a team,” Travis says. “We have to stay together,” I add.
The room falls quiet. Eyes burn through us. Suddenly it dawns on us that we’re giving orders…to deputies…in jail.
We walk out the door–split into two teams.
Officer Etiquette 101: Law enforcement officials don’t use first names. Look for a cop by his or her first name and two things will happen. 1. It will be close to impossible finding the officer. 2. Officers will know you’re an outsider.
I’m partnered with three officers: Deputy Murphy, Deputy Moss and Deputy Moss, no relation. Murphy is a law-enforcement veteran of 28 years. He served a tour of duty with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office where he worked on the Wayne Williams case. After retiring from Fulton County, he found it difficult to stay away from law enforcement so he joined the DeKalb County Sherrif’s Office and is now in line for a promotion to sergeant.
Murphy is battle-tested. Just below the base of his skull, is a scar where he was stabbed. He said if the knife had gone farther, he would have been paralyzed. Murphy has the look and demeanor of a famous Blaxploitation film character named Dolomite. The resemblance is funny, but Murphy is quick to say that he’s from the old school. “I treat everybody like they’re a threat until they show me otherwise,” Murphy explains. “I’ve been stabbed, shot, and I’ve had to shoot someone. I’ve seen it all.”
I ask Murphy if he has an extra bulletproof vest. With the cool candor of a protective father, Murphy replies, “I ain’t gonna let nothin’ happen to you. They’ll have to get me before they get you. I ain’t lost a partner yet.”
Moss 1 is not far removed from the academy and word in the jail is that he’s got Olympic speed. Moss 2 commands a police dog named Butch who Murphy says will sniff out a perpetrator and eat him if need be. I suddenly feel that I’m on the right team.
After gathering more equipment, inspecting the vehicle and some last-minute administrative paper work, we finally 10-8, which I later learn means get after it, go to work, find the bad guys.
Travis and I were eager to go out on the felony warrants with ATF and get some murder suspects. We wanted to see doors kicked, chase people down the street and see people dragged out of bed.
The deputies pull up near the first residence on Redan Road. Murphy jogs around to the back in case of a back door escape. Moss 1 and 2 knock on the front door. Music blares from inside. Moss 1 hears movement. Around back, a door creaks open to a neighboring apartment. A young male peeps out and quickly goes back in. Murphy stays focused on the windows. In the front, the Mosses get suspicious. Moss 1 twists the door knob. It’s unlocked. He unholsters his gun, disengages the safety. I pull out my camera. My hand is shaking like a leaf. Suddenly, I’m not so gung-ho about serving felony warrants.
Murphy joins the Mosses as they enter the house. A plume of fresh marijuana smoke is lingering. Music is loud as though it’s a soundtrack of imminent doom. “DeKalb County Sheriff,” the officers yell. “Police! Police! Show your hands! Show us your hands!” No answer. The apartment is empty. The officers suspect it was vacated shortly before our arrival.
Before we approach the next location, Murphy and I double back to the empty apartment. The headlights catch two men walking. Murphy approaches one of the men and the other, wearing a hooded sweatshirt to guard his appearance, disappears into the night. We later learn that the hooded assailant is our man. The other officers join us and help comb the wooded area behind apartments. Murphy is distraught over the near miss. “We gon’ come back and get his tail tonight,” he vows.
The team turns up a run of bad luck for the second and third warrants. We encounter a plague of empty and decrepit houses. A doorbell with a faint glow is the only sign of electricity. We drive through neighborhoods where “For Sale” signs in the front yards almost outnumber the streetlights. It’s a reminder of hard times and ballooning mortgages in a county where 900 foreclosures in one month is a common occurrence.
As we drive through the county, Murphy unwinds the days of his career. The veteran officer has logged enough man-hours to work any shift he likes. But Murphy prefers the graveyard shift. He works Tuesday through Saturday from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Not because the bosses are asleep and no one is there to question his work, but this shift helps with his home life.
“I’ve got a brother who has diabetes,” Murphy explains. “He got both of his legs amputated. I also have a granddaughter who’s sick. Working this shift lets me spend time and take care of them.” Murphy said his 5-year-old granddaughter has terminal cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy that has made her frail and thin. She has a massive tumor in her chest that Murphy said doctors soon will try to remove. “I can’t do anything but tell her I love her and let her know that everything will be all right.”
During the ride, Murphy beams about his family. His son attends a small Christian college on scholarship where he’s majoring in criminal justice, no doubt ready to join the ranks of a family with eight members in law enforcement. “At that college, they have to go to church every Sunday. He ain’t got no problem with that…my boy loves going to church.”
We approach another house with human life. Moss 1 and 2, who lead us into battle for every warrant, slow their car to a crawl and park four houses away from the subject’s residence.
The routine is the same, two officers in front and one in back. Murphy asks Moss 1 if he wants the detail in back or front. “You know me, Murph,” Moss 1 says. “It don’t matter, I’ll take either one.” A woman answers the door in pajamas. The suspect, a Black male, is not home. I ask Moss 1 if he gets depressed seeing young Black men repeatedly arrested. “I used to work the jail,” said Moss 1. “I’ve seen way more than this. A lot of the guys I saw inside, I see out here. I see Blacks, Whites and Hispanics.” Moss 1 seems immune to the humanity of the job details, putting safety and the job first. It appears that the man has become numb to the emotion of police work–until we arrive and the next house.
Murphy’s around back. The Mosses are in front knocking on the door. Cars are in the driveway, lights illuminate the outside of the house. Someone answers the door. His face resembles the one on the warrant. “Hey there Mr. Robert,” says Moss 1. “Fine sir, how you doin’?” the man replies. He’s old, moves slowly, cooperates with the officers.
“Did you miss your court date?” Moss 1 asks. “No. I didn’t. It hasn’t happened yet.”
The deputies explain there’s a warrant for his arrest and ask if he’s alone in the house. “No my wife Pat is here. Would you like to meet her?” We’re all invited into the house and unlike the abandoned houses with old furniture and broken blinds, this house is immaculate. The kitchen has been remodeled and the living room furniture looks as though it’s never been sat on. Robert and Pat explain that the court appearance has been rescheduled and they are unsure why there’s a warrant for his arrest. The old man shuffles around the living room wondering how to avoid the arrest. Eventually he’s led outside to the car. He’s so fragile, it seems as though handcuffs might break his wrists. “He’s diabetic and he has to eat,” his wife pleads as he’s escorted away.
Moss 1 and 2 admit they’re not proud of the bust and that perhaps there may have been a mix-up in the paperwork that could be cleared up if the man, now sitting in the back seat of the police car, turned himself in.
A paddy wagon is called and I watch as five officers, two police cars and a paddy wagon take away a 65-year old man. I start adding up the manpower, the gasoline in the vehicles and the vehicle maintenance and wonder about the use of taxpayer dollars. Then I see the warrant where the old man was driving on a suspended license and driving without a license. Murphy surmises the cost of misdemeanor crimes bluntly. “If you take care of your business, we don’t have to spend taxpayer dollars to take you to jail.”
Another empty house with an unlocked back door awaits us at the sixth warrant. At the seventh house, we find a mother and a 15-year-old son. Her husband, who’s wanted for battery, is rarely home. Murphy searches the home for the suspect and finds weapons and ammunition under a bed. He searches the attic, makes the 15-year-old get out of bed. Nothing. It’s the third time tonight that a man who’s in a woman’s life, is not at home late into the evening. Warrant 8 is another empty house.
It’s well past midnight and the adrenaline rush from missing the Redan bust has long worn off. Murphy’s hungry and I’m getting nauseated. We press on. On Patillo Way near Stone Mountain Lithonia Road, we approach a dark house. There’s a faint light coming through the blinds. Moss 1 goes to the back of the house. Moss 2 pounds his flashlight against the door. Nothing. Murphy bangs his flashlight against a window. A crackle comes over the radio. It’s Moss 1 from the back. “I’ve got a male at the back window,” he says.
A light shines from the house. A woman answers the door. Despite the fact that it’s after midnight and the woman is dressed in a robe, Moss 2 greets the lady in his slow molasses twang. “Good evening, m’am. What’s the last name of the residents here?” The woman answers. “Is there anyone here in the house with you?” The woman finally gives the name of the man on the warrant. “May we come in, we have a warrant for his arrest.” The woman pleads that she is indisposed at the moment, but Moss 2, with the etiquette and charm of a man selling encyclopedias, eases his way into the house with Murphy behind. They reach a back bedroom where the suspect is hiding in the bathroom. He tried to exit a back window until Moss 1 shined the flashlight through the window. Warrant 9 is served and another paddy wagon comes to transport a battery suspect to jail.
The evening is winding down and calls go over the radio to bring the teams in with reports that more than 80 warrants have been served. But Murphy and the Mosses are not content. They ask the paddy wagon to follow them to Redan Road because they have a hunch that the hooded escape artist has returned home.
On their return to the apartment on Redan, the cruisers are parked at the front of the complex. The trio walks around the side, Moss 1 in the back, Moss 2 and Murphy in the front. They’ve perfected the formula by now. The familiar knock. The smoke is still lingering in the room as the door opens. Inside the apartment are the two men Murphy caught in his headlights earlier—the older brother and the 17-year old wanted for battery. Murphy, Moss and Moss finally get their man.
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