My 911 Call Leads To A Body Cavity Search (The Crack Was In The Crack)

Flickr.com photo, generic crack heads (not local)

So I was just driving around on evening patrol--like I do late at night--and I drove past The Apartment Complex of Anarchy. A guy was standing behind the glass door, like a hooker in Amsterdam, and he made a gesture at waist level like "cupping a pipe."

So I went to one of my "vantage points" where I...

...can watch activity at points of interest. My vantage points have evolved from "oh, this looks like a good spot" to actually thinking in terms of "vantage point one, two, three, four." Since the Apartment Complex of Anarchy is the primary trouble spot on the block right now, and I've been forced to use one of my vantage points over and over to watch it, I call that particular spot "Vantage Point One."

I called in about the dealer. The cops showed up in, oh, ten to fifteen minutes. Not bad. First there was one squad, but then three. I couldn't see much in the dark, but I thought they had a guy on the ground at one point. Cops were there about half an hour, maybe more. One squad remained behind for a while, with his lights out.

When that squad finally left, I raised my cheap Chinese made binoculars to my eyes ($7.99 plus tax at Fleet Farm in Alexandria, Minnesota) and I saw the police had let one of the little fish go. In the dark, from a block away, through binoculars, I could see a worried expression on the face of the "little fish."

The next day, at the Hawthorne Clean Sweep litter picking event, I told a few people about what happened. I mentioned how happy I was to see the drug dealer behind the glass of the front door, instead of out front. I knew the police would get inside the building that way, and would have access to the "common areas." One lady active in the neighborhood association gave me a small, restrained fist-to-fist gesture of congrats.

Contessa, My Friendly Neighborhood Hooker

But I found out more last night. I had been trying to observe the Apartment Complex of Anarchy for a while, but the place was just DEAD. There weren't even people walking inside and out. I called the cops on Contessa the Hooker as she worked 31st and Lyndale Ave. N., then saw me and moved down toward Farview Park.

"I said 'Hello,' " Contessa said, in a hurt tone, as I drove by with my window down.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you," I answered. "Hello."

Contessa has a true hooker heart of gold. She tries to be congenial even as I'm obviously calling her in to the police while she works the streets. Really, get this girl some job training and make her a receptionist or something. She's not "crack ravaged." She can still be salvaged.

No luck fishing

I sat in front of the "still open for business" crack house at Lowry and 4th Street North, hoping to spot somebody going inside, but no luck. I saw an older model car slowly cruise by, and noted out-of-state license plates through my binoculars. Well, no crime in that. All the same, something didn't "feel right" about that car. For what purpose were two black men with out-of-state plates driving oh-so-slowly down 4th Street North this late at night, past all these abandoned houses broken into by crack heads?

I gave up on the crack house and went back to driving around the block. I saw a squad car wheeling around the corner and saw lights in front of 415 31st Ave. N., the "lawsuit" house owned by Citimortgage which is in the way of the Eco-Village, broken into over and over by Kathy and her pimp, et al.

I cut through an alley and sat to watch. Two squads were on top of a car, and when one of them moved I realized it was the car with out-of-state plates I had seen a while earlier, the one which made my Spidey sense go off. (See urban dictionary definition of the term, variation No. 4, submitted by yours truly, click here)

I didn't see any suspects. The officers performed a thorough search of the interior of the car, with latex gloves and the whole deal, but I didn't see them open the trunk. After a while, one of the officers got in his squad car and waited. And waited. He waited for a long time and finally I thought, "I bet he is waiting for a warrant to open the trunk."

Well, I thought, something like THAT is going to take a while. Best to leave and drive around more. I was curious, but figured I wouldn't learn anything of value, even if I saw the cops open the trunk and, besides, nothing was going to happen at the Apartment Complex of Anarchy while the cops were down the street, anyway. While they searched the car, another known hooker walked past and went toward Lyndale.

We need some sting operations. We need stiff sentences. Lyndale Avenue North is turning into "hooker heaven."

You understand that's going right on my blog, officer?

I was actually heading home when two famine-thin "crackstitutes" tried to hail me down on West Broadway. I came around, spoke to them, enough to confirm what they were looking for. I called 911 with their physical descriptions. In the course of "rousting" one of the hookers from the bus stop (the other one had disappeared in the meantime) I spoke to a police officer, who walked up to my vehicle.

"You're Mister Hoff, aren't you?" he asked. I confirmed I was. Figuring he might take me for a john (my first name hardly helps in that regard!) I explained I was the one who called 911 on the two nearby hookers but, maddeningly, the other one had disappeared.

"In fact," I said, "I was the one who called on 3101 6th Street North a few nights ago."

The officer told me there had been arrests as a result of my call to that address. I think he said three arrests, but I was confused if he meant three total or three and a juvenile. No matter. He told a couple individuals had managed to flee the scene, but others were apprehended. When pressed, one of the dealers had revealed the location of the stash. It was "in the butt crack of the 16-year-old juvenile."

The officer said they weren't going to perform a body cavity search of a juvenile at the scene, so they took him to a juvenile facility where he was painfully probed in the anus like the victim of alien abduction. (My phrase, not the officer's)

Sure enough, he had crack...in his crack. Part of me wishes I could have observed that, but another part of me is glad I didn't have to watch, let alone be the one wearing the latex glove. Couldn't possibly be as bad as the receiving end, however.

"Outstanding!" I said. "You understand that's going right on my blog, officer?" I glanced at his badge. "I'll keep your name out of it, of course."

"Go home, Mister Hoff," the officer said. "You don't need to be driving around talking to hookers at 2:30 in the morning."

"I'm trying to clean up my neighborhood," I said.

He was trying to act annoyed, but I got the feeling he wasn't. Not after telling me about the successful body cavity search my call had initiated.

A story like this will keep me going for a long time.