By RON J. JACKSON, JR. Oklahoma Watch on Mar 11, 2012, at 2:00 AM Updated on 3/11/12 at 6:05 AM
State narcotics agents join with local law-enforcement officials to arrest 19-year-old James Robert Hardnack on drug possession charges during a Feb. 21 raid at a Stillwater apartment complex. RON J. JACKSON, JR. / Oklahoma Watch.
Editor's note: This story relies in part on witness accounts of three undercover agents with the state Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control. The identities of the three agents have been camouflaged for their safety.
STILLWATER - A group of teenagers engages in a spirited pick-up basketball game at one end of an apartment complex. A mother tries to corral her playful children after an afternoon walk. They don't want to go inside; there is daylight to burn.
Suddenly, a narcotics agent dressed in all black emerges from a black SUV with tinted windows. He carries a semi-automatic rifle and wears a bulletproof vest with one word emblazoned on the back: "POLICE."
"Ma'am," the agent says firmly, "please step inside with the children. Now!"
Terrified, the mother herds her children inside. At that moment, the thunderous sound of a battering ram is heard crashing against the door of a nearby apartment.
Officers from the Payne County Sheriff's Department, the Stillwater Police Department and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control storm into the two-bedroom unit, arrest two suspects and confiscate a one-pot methamphetamine lab.
The Feb. 19 bust dramatizes the day-to-day reality experienced by uniformed and undercover law-enforcement officials operating on the front lines of the battle against illicit drugs.
Some experts question the effectiveness of trying to stanch the supply of illicit drugs, and many Oklahomans appear indifferent to the problem. But to the agents on the street, it still feels like a war out there.
"These deals can go bad in a hurry," the narcotics agent says matter-of-factly at the conclusion of the Stillwater raid, part of a sting operation at three pharmaceutical outlets. Undercover agents staked out various locations in search of individuals trying to purchase pseudoephedrine for the production of methamphetamine - an activity known as "smurfing."
One arrest led to a tip about an operating meth lab, triggering a rapid-fire chain of events. Officers secured a local judge's signature for a search warrant, mobilized in a secluded area near the apartment complex and executed the raid as planned.
Total time: two hours.
The two-day operation netted 20 suspects, four meth labs and a handful of informants to build future cases - small, yet meaningful gains in an otherwise relentless tide of drug activity plaguing Oklahoma's streets.
In recent months, similar sting operations have yielded impressive numbers.
Agents executed 334 arrests in the Tulsa metro in November, made six arrests on a quiet Thursday night in Chickasha and hauled in another 90 Tulsa-area suspects on a Sunday in February.
"Battling the drug problem is a tough business," said Brian Surber, a state narcotics agent who specializes in smurfing surveillance. "Most of the time I feel like I'm bailing an entire lake with a coffee cup."
Public apathy isn't helping.
"I believe Oklahomans have masks on," said Darrell Weaver, director of the state Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control. "They just don't want to take their masks off. The bottom line is it affects all Oklahomans."
No county, community, economic or racial class is immune to Oklahoma's drug problem, Weaver said.
"I think it would scare some people to know that sitting in the parking lot of that convenience store, or sitting in that restaurant parking lot, is a drug deal," Weaver said. "It's out there. It's a very seedy, seedy world."
The number of meth labs shut down statewide dropped from 667 in 2003 to 150 in 2007, according to Weaver's agency. The temporary decline provided an opening to the cartels, which filled the demand by shipping loads of meth into the state from large warehouses - called "fiesta labs" - in Mexico.
The development of a simpler "one-pot" manufacturing technique has led to a resurgence of home-grown meth lab activity. The number of seizures jumped to 904 in 2011, the narcotics bureau reported.
During one typical sting operation, Mike posed as an informant's cousin to secure a meeting with a drug dealer. One man escorted him into an apartment to negotiate a deal. Once inside, the door was locked, and he stood before three armed suspects.
"I told them I needed to go to the car to get the money," Mike recalled. "That's how I got out of there, and that's when we executed the arrests. But my back-up felt like a long way away even though they weren't.
"Oklahomans need to realize these people - and these drugs - are in every community."
Memories of Sarah's first drug raid keep her guarded.
"I remember seeing a veteran colleague of mine throw a suspect to the ground and jump on top of him rather roughly - excessively, I thought," Sarah said. "The suspect was Mexican, and I started to think I was witnessing police brutality. I mean the suspect was already on the ground. Just then the suspect's arm flung free and a gun fell out in front of us. That's when I realized I was being naïve.
"Make no mistake. We are fighting a war out there."
