The Glass Key Raid  

       This story takes place in Fort Worth, Texas sometime in the late spring of 1983. I was working patrol on the evening shift for the Police Department. There were only two beats in the entire city that required a two-person car. I worked one of them with a partner, Mike Swanigan. At the time if a certain beat needed two officers it was a high crime situation. Mike and I worked the Butler Housing Projects just east of the downtown area. The housing projects had a high crime rate. A small burger joint across the highway on the west end of the projects supplied dope to a large part of the DFW metroplex. This burger joint was called the Glass Key. It was a plain square brick building standing on a lot where grass used to grow but was now dirt. There were burglar bars on the windows, not because of the valuable food inside but the dope. They wrote a piece in the local newspaper on the front page about it. There was a carnival atmosphere at the Key. Many nights there was music and food at the so called establishment. Kids ran around having a good time. In the middle of it all, dope was being sold to a wide variety of people in North Texas. Traffic from all over the Metroplex passed through the carnival. There were white people, black people, Hispanic people, you name it. The Key was a fast food drive through except instead of burgers you ordered dope. Any kind of illegal drug you wanted, they had. They all felt safe. 

     Many officers had tried to put a dent in the dope trade, but it was tough. It was a perfect location for selling narcotics. There’s a main highway going through Fort Worth, IH-35. It runs from the Rio Grande Valley up to Minnesota. All expressways in the DFW area are connected. The Glass Key sits on IH-35 with an exit ramp and an entrance ramp. You get off, pick up your dope, get back on the highway and be miles away in another city in a few minutes. Getting the dealers wasn’t easy either. The big dope guys mostly stood around the front of the key and let kids handle the drugs. The big guys never carried any of the drugs themselves. If they were carrying you could tell. When a patrol car came around the corner towards the Key they would quickly walk away or walk inside the Glass Key to dump whatever contraband they had. If they were clean the bad guy would stand and watch as you passed by. If by chance you did catch a bad guy, the district attorney wouldn’t pursue it and charges were usually dropped.

     The main supplier at the Key was Gerald Douglas. He was a tall athletic black man in his mid to late thirties. He was intelligent and knew how to run a drug business. Douglas stayed away from the day to day operations. He would come around once in a while for a few minutes but wasn’t there long enough to do anything on our level. He needed to be taken care of by the Narcotics unit or a Federal agency.

     The main guy who ran the Glass Key operation was Jimmy Lee. He was a short round black man. Okay, he was fat. Lee had an eye gouged out in a fight and wore an eye patch over his left eye. He had more than a few people killed over the years. When you talked to Jimmy, he was very personable, but when he had to, he was brutal. Jimmy had a network of underage kids working the drive through. They held the dope and took care of people as they pulled up. The transaction was quick. A person pulled up and ordered what they wanted. The kid would take their money, give them the dope, and off they went to the entrance ramp and gone. Of course, when a patrol car was around the operation stopped. The code word for the police was roller. They had people watching and when someone yelled “roller!” everyone scattered. By the time the police rounded the corner the drive through was empty and people were just standing around. It was a good system. If the kids got caught with the dope, they were juveniles, and nothing could be done. Jimmy never held the drugs, so he was clean. They probably made millions at the little burger joint every month.

     There was what we called a shotgun shack across the street from the Key. It was a dinky house with two rooms and a bathroom. It was literally a wooden shack. The dope was delivered and stored at the shack. There was always a guy sitting in an old beat up chair on the front porch. He was the guard. When the kids needed a refill, they went to the shack. The guy went inside and got the drugs. When the kids were reloaded, they went back and continued to sell. All the drugs were in that shack.

     Mike and I tried several times to get a warrant for the house, but they would never grant it. Apparently, there wasn’t enough evidence. We were dumbfounded, especially since the article in the newspaper about the Key had tarnished the police and city governments reputation. So, we couldn’t raid the shotgun shack, or make any arrests.

     There are many criminals in the housing projects but there are also many good citizens. The good citizens in the projects were scared most of the time. The existence in the projects was not a good quality of life because of the crime. Mike and I wanted to cut some of the crime so maybe the quality of life might improve. We devised a plan.

     We called together two colleagues and filled them in on the plan. They were one officer units, so we had three police cars. This is the way the plan went down. It was early in the afternoon when we first came on duty. At this time of day, three in the afternoon, the Key wasn't busy. People are at work, it’s hot, and it’s the perfect time to harass the guard at the shack. Mike and I pulled up to the shack and the guard is now on high alert. He sits up in his chair wondering what we’re doing there. We’re both smiling and I say, “We know what you got in there, and we’re coming for it.”

     The guy stuttered for a second, “I I I got nothin in there.”

     “Well then you won’t mind if we go in and look around.”

     “No, you can’t come in without a warrant.” He had been well versed by Jimmy Lee.

     Mike smiled, “We have a warrant on the way, and it’ll be here in about thirty minutes. Then we kick in the door and take what’s in there we'll arrest you. You'll be in prison for life.”

     The guy was stressed and sweating, “Naw, I got nothin in there and you can’t go in.”

     I said, “Okay, if you say so. We’ll be seeing you shortly.”

     We got in the car and drove off. We met the other two units and talked for a while. After about thirty minutes we made our move. You can approach the shack from the north, south, and east. With everyone lined up I gave the go code, which was ‘NOW!’ All three of the cars turned on their overhead red and blue lights and siren. We all slid up to the front porch of the shack at the same time. It was hilarious, as we slid up the guard on the porch jumped several feet in the air and ran inside. We got out of our cars and ran towards the porch. He desperately locked the door behind him. Mike pounded on the door for a few seconds. We all then got back in our units and drove off.

     We went back to taking calls and it was busy. We kept trying to drive by the Key, but we were mostly answering calls away from the area. We ended the shift and went home not knowing what happened.

     The next day Mike and I came to work and as we walked in the precinct the sergeant started yelling for us to come into his office. We walked in the office, and he seemed upset, “What the hell did y’all do last night.”

     Of course, we had blank looks on our face when Mike said, “What do you mean sarge.”

     The sergeant was still staring at us, “Apparently last night some officers approached the shack across from the Key threating to search it. When they did the guy on the porch ran in and flushed all the dope down the toilet.”

     Now Mike and I were staring at the floor with big smiles.

     The sergeant continued, “After he flushed it Jimmy Lee came by to check things out and all the dope was gone. He thought the guy took it and shot him. He’s in critical condition at JPS (John Peter Smith) hospital. They’re saying he’ll make it though.”

     Now Mike and I couldn’t contain ourselves, we broke out into laughter. The sergeant wasn’t pleased but he got a smile on his face and walked off.

     Mike and I had hoped the guy flushed the stuff, but we didn’t figure he would get shot. We reenacted that scenario many times and laughed. Can’t you see the guy trying to explain to Jimmy Lee, “Naw man, the police came in here and I had to flush it.”

     Jimmy Lee would ask, “How come the door wasn’t kicked in? How come you ain’t in jail? I think you lyin.” Bang, bang, bang.

     Now all of this might seem cold blooded but the dopers in the area had caused considerable pain to a lot of people. They imposed physical pain, mental pain, and even death. Mike and I struck a blow to the dopers. It didn’t make much difference but for a short time we slowed them down. Most of the time we felt like we were battling the bad guys and the justice system. It was frustrating so we came up with a street solution. Nothing was ever said about it and I’m sure there are people who condemn the manner in which we got rid of the dope. Especially since someone got shot. Regular citizens need to realize, bad things happen when officers are fighting crime. Bad things happen to police, bad things happen to criminals, and bad things happen to innocent citizens. The important thing is trying to minimize those bad things and still keep everyone safe. The only way to get the bad guy’s attention is by hurting them, physically, and financially. That’s the way the bad guys get what they want, by hurting innocent people physically, and financially. Who ya for ……