Expert: Jack Toomey - 9/8/2008

Question
QUESTION: In the story I am writing, I will have the older experienced officer one who used to go on a lot of drug raids, and did good work. Would he be in a special unit to do this, or is this regular police work? (I really wanted a  interesting (or if possible funny stories) about drug raids. The officer is now supervising a younger officer in my story. Any background information would be appreciated.
Thanks.

ANSWER: Patrol officers don't go on drug raids except as a support to give a uniformed presence.  "Drug raids" are conducted by drug enforcement units that could be called any number of things because it seems that every department has a different name for them.  So if this is a "drug raid" it would take place after weeks or even months of investigation before a search warrant would be obtained.  

I don't think that you know alot about police work or what kind of stories you write but the police just don't go bursting into people's houses.  First there is an investigation, then you have to write a search warrant, then you have to find a judge to approve it and convince him that contraband is located inside whatever house it is, then you go in.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks, I appreciate your feedback. You said there is an investigation first. How is this conducted? What evidence would convince a judge? (Do they watch a house for some time? The officer who once worked in drug enforcement is now supervising new officer. (Would you give me any information on this?)
No, I wouldn't write anything where the police are not following police procedure. Please forgive my ignorance of police procedure.
Again, thanks.

Answer
Demitrius the problem is that you don't take into account that there could be hundreds of different scenarios and that no two cases are the same.  So maybe it wouldn't involve a house until the search warrant.  Maybe it involves drugs being brought into the country from another place.  Maybe it involves street corner crack sales and the crack is being kept somewhere and finally the police get an informant who identifies where the crack is being stored.  I could go on and on.

I don't know what you mean by ;

"The officer who once worked in drug enforcement is now supervising new officer. (Would you give me any information on this?)"

What information are you looking for?  It would be a very common situation for a brand new narcotics officer to be working with an experienced officer.

No clue what you mean by this:

"No, I wouldn't write anything where the police are not following police procedure. Please forgive my ignorance of police procedure"