On the Grind (2009) (13 page)

"What happens tonight can begin a new era," Manny said.

"One without Crip violence. Eighteenth Street eses will be able to stop fighting over territory and focus on living more productive lives. But before that can happen, these mallates from Compton need to be taught a lesson."

He looked at Harry Eastwood and said, "The quality of life in Haven Park is in your hands." He turned and stepped away from the podium. Not exactly the Gettysburg Address, but all the cops in the gym were nodding enthusiastically.

"Good stuff," Eastwood said, as he again addressed the room. "We all certainly owe Manny and Hector Avila for everything they've done in gang intervention down here.

"After roll call we're gonna deploy into smaller groups in classrooms for specific shift briefings, then we'll van over to the Haven Park High football field. After the players go onto the field we'll muster in the locker room under the stands and be ready when these South Side Crips show. We have spotters up in the press box and plain-clothes officers in the crowd. Keep your radios on tactical frequency two."

Eastwood turned and motioned to Alonzo, who rolled another blackboard out in front of us. It had a big schematic map of the Haven Park High football field and parking lot. Several photo reconnaissance blowups were also taped there.

"Day watch will be covering the parking lot and the refreshment stands out front," Eastwood continued.

He pointed to several recon pictures of the front of the high school stadium. There were metal bleachers on one side of the field that looked as if they could hold six or seven hundred people.

"Alonzo Bell is in charge of the day shift. Your radio call signs will be Thrasher One through Twelve.

"Mid-watch will cover the football field and bleachers. Sergeant Dobson is in charge. Mid-watch, you're Constrictor One through
Twelve.
I
want the mid-watch guys stationed under the bleachers behind these concrete equipment rooms," he said, indicating the location. "Your job is to protect the people in the stands."

"The graveyard shift is Stone Breaker. Sergeant Lunderman has that group and you'll be held in reserve back at the command post."

I couldn't believe that Eastwood was going to keep the entire graveyard shift at the CP as his personal security.

But then he cleared that up by saying, "Graveyard is going to do the critical response work. I'll spot-deploy that bunch as the situation demands. Okay, let's make this a neat, clean operation. Remember that Haven Park parents and students will be in the stands. I don't want any innocents to get shot.

"Unfortunately, we need to let this situation happen so we can make felony arrests and finally put an end to all this Crip violence on our street corners. Stopping that game in advance and clearing the stands will only alert the Crips and we'll lose a golden opportunity. I think, with this many guys, we can swarm them and get a good, quick result without risking collateral damage.

"Lastly, let me say that these Crips are hardened killers. If any of them go to God tonight, I'm not gonna be writing down badge numbers."

A murmur of approval came from the cops seated around me.

"Let's do it and let's do it right. Meet in your individual groups for briefings with your sergeants and then see the armorer and pick up the new Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns and Second Chance Kevlar vests that just came in. We'll reconvene out front in twenty minutes."

I couldn't believe that they weren't going to stop the game and clear the stadium. But as Talbot had told me when I first got here, the Haven Park PD wasn't out there to protect and serve. This was all about our envelopes.

The day shift, most of whom I still barely knew, met with Alonzo in one of the old elementary school classrooms that no longer had any desks or furniture. He had some chalk in his hand and had already drawn our sector of the parking lot onto the blackboard.

"Okay, everybody gets a number," he said. "Belkin, you're Thrasher One; Ashcroft, you're Two; Scully, you're Three . . ." He continued until all of us had a radio designation.

"I've got your call signs written down on a card, but to tell the truth, I'll never remember them. The call signs are just more of Dirty Harry's movie bullshit. How we're gonna use 'em is to marshal troop strength. Like I'll say, 'One through Three respond to the east side of the parking lot' --that kind of thing. But if you call me, use your fucking name so I'll know who I'm talking to."

He turned to face us. "Okay, we all know what this is about. We're gonna throw down on these Crips and bag this K-Knife character, I got a raise in grade for the guy who dumps him. Is everybody straight on what we're trying to do here?"

"You got it! Done deal!" the officers of the day watch shouted back.

The adrenaline was really pumping in our little classroom.

"Okay, study the parking lot layout on the board and saddle up. Everybody gets totally flacked for this one. These new Second Chance vests will stop armor-piercing rounds, so even though they're bulky, wear them. I don't want to lose a guy to a stray bullet. Roulon Green is gonna be passing out vests and MP5s."

He motioned to a tall black officer who was a Policeman II, standing in the doorway in front of a large rolling cart stacked with H&K shipping crates and boxes of Kevlar vests. There were plenty of extra magazines.

"See you all out front."

Everyone got an MPS, a vest and two spare mags, then started to disperse. Once they were gone, Alonzo took my submachine gun out of my hand and leaned it against the wall next to me. As I started to shoulder into my vest, he took it as well. "Gimme your cell phone."

"Left it in my hotel room. Why you always on me?"

"Why you always such a hard-on?" he replied.

I shrugged, but didn't answer.

"You're with me tonight," he finally said. "You stay close by. I don't ever want you outta my sight."

Then suddenly, without warning, he ran his big hand over me, under my arms and down my chest, looking for either my cell phone or a wire. This time he made no attempt to disguise the frisk. All cops know that people wearing a wire will often hide the recorder in the crotch because most men have a homophobic dislike of frisking another guy's package. But that wasn't going to stop Alonzo. I grabbed his wrist as he went for my groin.

"When are you gonna give this a rest?"

He smiled and said, "You gotta get with the program, man."

"I'm trying." I grabbed the MP5, my extra mags and Second Chance vest.

Then he said, "I got your back out there tonight."

It was the scariest thing he could have told me.

Chapter
22

Lieutenant Eastwood and the graveyard shift officers were under the bleachers, locked inside the black-and-white bus that served as his sixty-foot mobile command center. The rest of the Haven Park police force gathered with Deputy Chief Jones in the Haven Park football teams locker room under the stands where pictures of the ten Crip shooters were taped up on the coach's chalkboard. We had nothing to do but study their scowling faces and wait.

I thought it strange that our chief, Ricky Ross, had not even made an appearance. Not at the elementary school briefing, not here. Did he even know this was happening?

We could hear the five hundred or so people in the stands above us cheering as the ball was kicked off and the game began. The department spotters high up in the bleachers were keeping us apprised of outside activity.

"Still all clear out here," someone said over the radio.
I
didn't have a clue who the spotters were.

"We got a good complement of Locos roaming the stands. They're mostly in their regular black gang coats with blue neck scarves, so watch out for them," the spotter said.

The tension inside the locker room was growing. It was hard to sit in twenty pounds of Kevlar and wait to go into action. I tried to stay calm, but was overdosing on a mixture of stomach bile, anxiety and adrenaline. Even though I was flacked, I knew that if I was a target, my own teammates could cancel my pension with one head shot.

As I looked at the tense faces around me, I wondered which, if any, of the cops gathered with me had my kill number. I wondered which one was Officer Oscar Juarez.

"We got bogeys entering the parking lot," a spotter said ten minutes later. "Three black Lincoln Town Cars. Mother ships. Four guys to a car."

"Roger that," Talbot Jones said, then turned to face us. "Okay, Alonzo, you and your bunch are up. Remember, let this get started. Make sure these Crips get some chrome out before you go into action. We need felonies to get clean DOAs here. Once it gets going, lead enemas all around. Move out."

We left the locker room and ran beneath the stadium seats toward the parking lot. Our operation plan had been discussed beforehand and the deadly mission was reflected on our drawn, expressionless faces. Our boots were setting up a rumble, echoing underneath the bleachers as we ran.

Alonzo was in the lead. I was second, with the rest of the day watch strung out behind me. As we sprinted away from the football field toward the parking lot, Alonzo directed our squad with arm gestures. Some flanked right, some left, peeling off in both directions.

We had been told to deploy into the lot, and set up a pincer movement. Then the center column, made up of myself and three other guys, led by Alonzo, would make a frontal assault and initiate a firefight away from the stands. The pincer groups would close in after the shooting started and surround the Crips, catching them in a crossfire. Once we had them contained, the swing shift would leave their position where they were protecting the stadium and bleachers and offer tactical support. Graveyard would cover critical response and swarm a position if any of us got pinned down.

I was hanging with Alonzo, running right behind him, and soon only four of us were left in the center column, still heading straight toward where the twelve Crip shooters were supposed to be waiting in their smoked-windowed Lincolns. We were all clutching new MP5 burners in death grips as we ran. Equipment rattled, adrenaline surged.

The lot was badly underlit and it was hard to see. When we reached the center of the parking area, we finally saw the Lincolns. We moved up fast to clear all three Town Cars. They were already empty. The four of us began scanning the area. If the Crip shooters were here, they were crouching low out of sight. Since we had split into smaller groups it was impossible to tell where the rest of the squad was. I felt exposed and vulnerable.

When we finally
. G
ot to the far end of the parking area, we still had seen no Crip G-sters. Alonzo radioed the two flanking groups and soon all of us were standing in a huddle next to a chain-link fence.

Alonzo triggered his mike. "This is Thrasher One. We're ten
-
ninety-seven. Nobody in sight in the parking lot."

"Stand by, Thrasher One," the spotter came back.

Then we heard a long static burst of gunfire coming from the direction of the stands as somebody over there dumped at least fifty rounds. It was followed by the short, tight, burping sound of an automatic weapon on a four-shot burst.

"They musta got around us," one of the cops said.

"We' re hearing gunfire," Alonzo announced into his shoulder mike. "Give us a location."

"We're ten-ninety-nine under the bleachers," Talbot Jones said, using our ten-code for an emergency. "Redeploy! We've got men down!" Jones screamed.

Alonzo spun and all of us ran as a group back toward the bleachers. I knew from my Marine Corps training this was a tactical blunder. We were clumped together and out in the open, all of our operation plans forgotten as we ran headlong to help fallen officers.

Just then, a machine gun on full auto opened up. Bullets sparked, pinging off parked cars all around us. We were under direct fire. Two of our guys went down.

I kept running and shouted into my shoulder rover, "This is Thrasher Three, we have men down!"

I had to decide if I was going to follow Alonzo on this suicide charge or take my own evasive action. More guns opened up and that sealed my decision. I veered off, sprinting between cars looking for muzzle flashes.

I saw one. The gun was firing from behind the refreshment stand to my right. I headed in that direction, running low between rows of parked vehicles. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I was pretty much just trying to stay alive.

Chapter
23

Suddenly I was hit from behind.

A round caught my Kevlar vest high in the shoulder and knocked me flat. The MP5 flew from my hands, landing somewhere out of sight under a tricked-out low rider. I couldn't tell where the gunfire was coming from. Bullets were flying everywhere. My Kevlar vest had saved me.

With my MP5 lying out of sight in the dark and my shoulder aching from the impact of the bullet hit, I pulled my police-issue Smith & Wesson .38 and crouched low, regained my footing, then slowly rose up to look over the hood of the car. Police in riot gear were swarming all over the place. A machine gun cut loose across from the refreshment stand, firing in long bursts. It sounded like an AK-47, which puts out six hundred rounds per minute at twenty-three hundred feet per second. Nothing sounds quite like it. I heard Lieutenant Eastwood screaming instructions over the police rover on my shoulder.