they might possess. After we’re safely in and secure, I want Team Two to quickly clear the main floor. While this is happening, I want you three guys from Team Three in the office to secure the entry to the basement. No one goes in-no one goes out. Including you. Don’t go downstairs. Just secure the door. After we’re clear on the main floor, then I want six guys to clear upstairs. When that’s done, we’ll clear the basement.”
He went quickly through the rest of the briefing. When he finished, he asked for questions-again there were none.
“Okay then, let’s get everyone in position. On my command, we’ll close the streets and move everyone into final assault position. Then, again on my command, we’ll execute. Everyone be safe. Let’s go.”
Radovich planned to park the SWAT command vehicle on the corner of Sixty-Second and Brooklyn. He’d have an oblique view of the front of the house from there but, unless an occupant came out the front door and walked to the sidewalk and looked north, he’d be reasonably hidden from their view. “You guys can just follow us in,” Nancy said. “We’ll be at the CP. As long as you stay with us up on Sixty-Second, you’ll be good.” She looked us over. “Nice stuff,” she added. “I like your vests.”
“Thanks. I hope we won’t need them today.”
“Absolutely,” she said.
Because of the one-way streets, we had to drive west on Sixty-Sixth for a block to Roosevelt and then south until we hit Sixty-Fifth. Then we turned north for a block back to Brooklyn before turning south again. The area around Ravenna Park is a nice suburban neighborhood. The streets are a little skinny and lined with large shady trees. The homes themselves are quite grand, built in the first half of the last century. Most feature large porches with several steps leading up to wide entryways. Hell, the homes are so nice that the porches might even be called verandas. I’m sure no one around suspected that their neighbors in the tan two-story were running a large prostitution ring right in the middle of the neighborhood. Oh well. They were about to find out.
We parked right behind Nancy and Tyrone on Sixty-Second and joined them at the CP in front of the SWAT truck.
When everyone was assembled, Radovich reached for the microphone on his radio and said, “Okay, folks, the CP is up. Let’s have the entry teams into pre-position,” he ordered. I watched as a large unmarked van rolled past us from the north and stopped in the road two houses above the target. Ten heavily armed SWAT team members in full black tactical gear, including Kevlar helmets, hopped out. At the same time, another van did the same thing but coming from the opposite direction. Three men emerged from that one. From our briefing, I knew that a third van was also being positioned in the alley with four more men.
“One’s ready,” Gary’s radio crackled to life.
“Three’s ready.” That was the team in back.
“Two’s ready.” That was the north team.
“Surveillance one?” Radovich said. He had a plainclothes officer in the park with binoculars on the front of the house.
“The front of the house is clear,” the voice on the radio said. “There’s no one outside and no one appearing even to be looking outside.”
“Surveillance two?” He had another man in the alley behind the house.
“There’s no one in the backyard. The drapes are drawn-should be able to walk right up.”
“Excellent,” Radovich said to himself. He keyed his microphone. “Close the roads,” he ordered.
Seconds later, I saw a patrol car block Brooklyn about a quarter mile south. Although I couldn’t see, I knew that Brooklyn was also being closed on the north, along with Sixty-First Street to the west. All vehicle access points were now sealed off.
“Okay. Entry teams, into assault position.” The ten-man team on the north moved single file down the street while, at the same time, the three-man team from the south came forward in similar fashion. When they reached their respective edges of the property, all three members of the south team went to the side yard south of the home. The north team split-three men going into the side yard on the north side.
The remaining seven men on the north team ducked down past the living room windows and silently approached the front door on the porch. Once there, they moved quickly into their pre-assigned assault positions- two men holding shotguns aimed directly at the door locks, one man between them holding a heavy steel battering ram. The four men who would enter first crouched single file behind the man with the battering ram.
When Radovich saw that the entry team was in position, he said, “Time is now 12:17. Entry team commander-you have the command.”
The man in the front of the entry line immediately started a count we heard over the radio-“one, two, three,” and then he pointed at the door at the same time he said, “Go!” into his radio microphone.
The two shotguns exploded simultaneously, sending breaching slugs into the locks and leaving gaping holes where a split second before a deadbolt and a door handle had been. Almost immediately afterward, the man wielding the battering ram swung it with such force that the front door was blown back on its hinges. The next man in line tossed a flashbang grenade into the home that exploded with a brilliant flash of light and a loud
The noise hadn’t even quieted when the first SWAT members charged through the door yelling, “Police!” and “Hands up!”
“Move in!” Radovich said to the officers in the squad cars. “Go! Go! Go!” He waved them forward as the cars shot past him one by one before screeching to a halt a couple of seconds later in front of the house. The patrol officers immediately jumped out of their vehicles, weapons drawn, and took up defensive positions behind their cars.
The CP was nearly forty yards from the front door, and we obviously couldn’t see what was happening, but we were still able to hear the men yelling inside the house, “Hands up! Don’t move!” A neighbor in an adjoining house opened his front door and stepped out onto the porch to see what the commotion was about.
“Go back in your house, sir!” one of the patrol officers barked. The man looked around, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Then he scurried back inside and shut the door.
Shortly afterward, a voice I recognized as belonging to the entry commander said over the radio, “Main floor’s clear! Starting upstairs.” Then he said, “We’ve got eight in custody. We’re going to start bringing them out now. You guys ready?”
“Ready,” Radovich said. He ordered the patrol officers to move forward out of their defensive positions and prepare to start handling suspects.
We watched as the SWAT team began marching out the gang members who’d been captured in the raid. The young men walked outside, hands held high, squinting against the bright daylight. I couldn’t see from this distance, but if they’d been acting true to form, most were undoubtedly stoned. Once outside, they were immediately lined up against a planter wall by the patrol officers, frisked, handcuffed, and made to sit down.
Three minutes later, the entry commander again spoke over the radio. “Upstairs is clear!”
“Good,” Radovich said. “Two down, one to go.”
Less than three minutes afterward, the radio sprang to life. “House is clear! We’re Code 4. Bring up the medics and the ambulance. We’ve got a girl in bad shape down in the basement.”
I looked at the gang members seated against the planter wall, and then I turned to Toni. She was staring at the front door, obviously worried about the girl inside. My skin went cold when I realized that I hadn’t stopped to consider that it might possibly be Kelli who was injured. Obviously, Toni had already thought of that.
But as I looked around, I became certain that this was not the case. “It’s not her,” I said to Toni.
“You don’t know that,” she said, continuing to stare at the front door.
“Yeah, I do. Look at these mutts here.”
She glanced at the men seated against the wall.
“So?”
“He’s not here,” I said.
