Twice a day, on average, police officers looking for drugs break down someone's door in Baltimore.
Sometimes, it is a simple operation. But more often than not, the people inside are armed. And more than ever, the doors are heavily fortified.
This year, investigators have begun targeting violent drug networks, taking them out in mass strikes where up to a dozen houses are hit simultaneously in a neighborhood.
Police commanders and union officials who represent the officers agree that the show of force is necessary to rescue blighted neighborhoods, but questions remain:
* Residents are cautiously optimistic that the new plan is working, but have complained that police have only forced drug dealers into other neighborhoods. Most people arrested during two high-profile raids are still behind bars.
* The police union complains that proper training for officers engaged in raids only began in July -- four months after the raids began.
* Eleven days ago, a police officer who had completed a course on high-risk entries a week and a half earlier shot three fellow officers after mistaking a colleague for a suspect during a raid at an East Baltimore rowhouse. It was the first time in at least two years that anyone -- officer or suspect -- has been shot during a tactical entry. Last year, police raided 784 houses on drug warrants. As of Wednesday, police had conducted 609 raids.
"We need to do more of them," said Col. Ronald L. Daniel, chief of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. "That is where the drugs are. That's where the things are that we need to seize. . . . The more we do, the risk goes up."
Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier said the raids have a lasting effect on the community.
"When the police cars start rolling in, people know something is about to happen," Mr. Frazier said. "When you need to make a serious impact on a neighborhood, you have to do it all at once."
The police commissioner, who has promised to "take back the drug corners and hold them," started his initiative with Operation Midway in March.
More than 100 police officers swept through two communities off Greenmount Avenue and raided 14 houses. Occupants threw guns out of back windows as police stormed in. One front door was fortified by a metal pole cemented to the basement floor.
Four months later, 200 officers targeted the Middle East community, near Johns Hopkins Hospital, and hit 20 houses.
Then came a raid at the Perkins Homes housing project in August. And a sweep through Druid Heights last month. Police raided a total of 39 houses. In each raid, 150 police officers were used.
For community residents, the raids have meant newfound security. Hundreds of drug dealers and distributors were arrested, many held on preset bails in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Most of the 42 people indicted before the March raid in Midway are still incarcerated, either convicted or awaiting trial, said Assistant State's Attorney Howard B. Gersh, the chief narcotics prosecutor.
"So far, the operation looks very successful," he said.
But in July, after police hit the Middle East neighborhood, some living in Midway complained the drugs were discreetly filtering back.
"It was real clean for maybe the first two or three weeks," resident William D. Wall told a reporter in July. "A lot of it moved off the corners and back indoors. It's not gone, but it's not like it was."
One beat officer predicted that another major raid may be necessary to maintain the relative order achieved the last time.
And neighboring communities have complained that police simply moved the drug activity to another area of the city.
Complaints such as those led to a five-day sweep two weeks ago in Patterson Place and Baltimore-Linwood, where police made arrests in shootings, assaults, prostitution and drugs.
Maj. John E. Gavrilis -- the commander of the Southeastern District, which led the raid two weeks ago and another this summer on Perkins Homes -- said he tries to get as many officers involved in the investigation and arrests as possible.
"They love it," the major said. "They are seeing some of their actions work. . . . We're in a dangerous business. Everyone we go after has guns."
New training
Officer Gary McLhinney, the president of the city's Fraternal Order of Police, said that until the recent course conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration training for such high-risk operations was nonexistent.
"I am utterly amazed that we have never had a problem before," said the union head, who has led hundreds of raids in his seven years as a narcotics investigator.
Training in the past, he said bluntly, "stinks. . . . I've never received any formal training in raid entry, and I've been doing narcotics work for seven years," he said, adding that the new program "is a step in the right direction. We need to have yearly training for all officers involved in raid situations."
Capt. Eugene T. Yeager, commander of the drug enforcement section, said past schooling did not include lessons on how to properly enter a house by force.
The DEA course, which 120 officers have taken so far, "is geared toward drug enforcement raid training," Captain Yeager said. Another training session -- which several hundred more officers are expected to attend -- is scheduled for today. It is mandatory for every officer involved in investigating illegal drug activity.
Mr. Frazier said he heard complaints about the training void as soon as he started in January.
"It was one of the first concerns that was brought to my attention," he said, adding that it was raised primarily by officers in district-based drug units.
Increased danger
Officer McLhinney said raiding dozens of houses at once in the same neighborhood only increases the danger because officers haven't worked with each other before and are unfamiliar with the investigation.
"The problem with raids is that you never know who's inside," the union president added. "A lot of times you have a combination of innocent people and bad guys within the same residence. You have to be able to sort things out as quickly as possible. . . . You have to balance the necessity of getting in quick to avoid destruction of evidence with the major issue of officer safety."
But Mr. Frazier said the biggest danger is going after drug stash houses and distribution centers, where drugs are packaged and sold to dealers.
That means officers are finding more and more barricaded doors, fortified not only to delay police from gaining entry, but to keep robbers out. Violence during drug rip-offs, Mr. Frazier said, accounts for half of the homicides in Baltimore.
The danger with meeting a barricaded door is that it delays officers from getting inside while giving the occupants plenty of warning to dispose of the drugs or get their guns.
E9 "You lose the element of surprise," Mr. Frazier said.
Officer shoots colleagues
That is what happened during the ill-fated raid on Sept. 22 at 1604 N. Port St. Two officers took turns hitting the front door -- fortified with a two-by-four and a metal bar -- with a ram, striking it nine times before it gave way, according to a police report obtained by The Sun.
The report says that, as two suspects ran out the back, Officer Graham Sylvester, 39, a seven-year veteran, "ran into the house through the rear kitchen door," apparently to detain a female jTC suspect seated at the kitchen table.
Meanwhile, Officer Earl Williams Jr., 24, who has been on the force three years, came through the front door with his gun drawn and yelled, "Police, drop the gun," and then fired twice, hitting Officer Sylvester in the left arm and wounding two other officers in the hands.
Police have said that all Officer Williams apparently saw was an outstretched arm holding a gun.
One issue under review, according to police commanders, is whether Officer Sylvester violated a pre-raid directive by entering the house from the rear, a move that could have confused the officers out front.
"Don't make a double entry into the house, or you have police officers shooting police officers," one police commander said.
Lawyers for Officers Sylvester and Williams would not elaborate on the incident, but each defended his client's actions as being proper.
The union president said all those involved may just have to accept that sometimes bad things happen.
"It's the price of doing business," Officer McLhinney said. "I don't think it's anybody's fault. It's tough to admit that fate plays a large role in whether we go home at night."