A Knock at Midnight(35)
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FIVE O’CLOCK IN the morning, Terrell, Texas, November 17, 1997. It could have been a television show: dawn breaking, a dog barking, dozens of police cars surrounding a clapboard house, a baby wailing somewhere. And Chuck Norris—karate champion, action hero, star of Walker, Texas Ranger, and occasional reserve officer at the Terrell Police Department—standing next to a black-and-white police car, hand on the holster of a gun.
The scene seemed pure Hollywood. But it was real life.
In a timed paramilitary-style raid typical of those used to serve drug warrants in America, the DEA, local Terrell police, and Chuck Norris busted down twenty different doors. Guns drawn, shouting commands, threatening further use of violence, they forced sleepy, shirtless men, women, and children onto the floor, hands on their heads. One hundred and five people had been indicted, accused of selling crack in Terrell. Sixty-seven of those indicted were arrested, handcuffed, and thrown into paddy wagons that morning, all of them Black.
It was the largest drug bust in Kaufman County history, set in motion by the considerable financial incentives available to local police departments around the country to join the feds in the ongoing round-up and lock-down phase of America’s War on Drugs. Similar raids were taking place all over the American South, including an infamous case in Tulia, Texas, a rural town of about five thousand people in the Texas panhandle. During the Tulia raid, ten percent of the town’s Black population was arrested in a drug bust based solely on the false testimony of a single undercover cop who had a history of racial prejudice.
In Terrell, everybody knew somebody who’d been tossed into a paddy wagon. The police released all the names of those indicted to the public. Sharanda knew a few of the people from as far back as elementary school. And there were two names she knew very well: Keith Jackson and his wife, Julie Franklin.
The Terrell raid devastated the small, insular Black community. Many couldn’t afford legal assistance or bail and sat in jail for months. Federal agents, local police, and prosecutors began approaching those indicted with plea deals to avoid lengthy prison sentences. There was one catch: The plea deals were available only if the person snitched—substantially cooperated with law enforcement and implicated others.
Sharanda worried about Cooter. In and out of jail over the years, he had become a street-level dealer in Terrell, selling small amounts of crack. Sharanda fussed at Cooter constantly, anytime she would hear that he was selling from Genice’s house or storing his dope in Genice’s backyard. Word was going around Terrell that people who had been arrested in the raid were now acting as informants for the police.
“I warned him,” she said to me. “Told him he was gonna catch a case, keeping his stash at Genice’s house like that. Hell, everyone in that house could get in trouble behind Cooter’s mess. And by that time he had his own place across town. He might as well have been running a car wash, the way he had folks lined up to buy rocks like that. A mess for real.”
“Were you worried they’d come after you?” I asked.
“Me? Not for a minute. I just wasn’t dealing drugs like that. And I’d been out of it. I kept telling Cooter, though. Every time I seen him.”
Sure enough, Cooter was picked up just a few months later on state drug charges after selling to a confidential informant. “I mean, of course we were upset,” Sharanda said. “That’s our brother. Genice’s only son. But the way he was going, it was inevitable. We weren’t surprised, I guess. We all had to just keep on going. It was the only thing to do. Look after our mama and keep on going.”
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NOT LONG AFTER Cooter’s arrest, Sharanda was putting the finishing touches on a client’s braids when her phone rang. Julie again. It was the third time she’d called this week. Sharanda sighed and picked up.
“Sharanda, look, we’re really desperate over here. The kids need new shoes. Just a connect, that’s all we need. Things are bad, girl. We need some help.”
Sharanda sighed again. This woman really didn’t get it.
“I told you”—Sharanda sealed the end of a braid as she spoke, trying not to sound impatient—“I’m way out of it. I don’t know anybody who does that. I’m way out.”
She felt bad. After being arrested in the raid and bonding out, Julie and Baby Jack had been struggling to get on their feet. They were having a hard time making rent, and Julie had been calling Sharanda off the hook, trying to get a lead on a new supplier.
Sharanda wanted no part of it. With the help of Clenesha’s dad, she had purchased her first home a few years earlier. It was an older home, but she was no stranger to fixing up places and had made it her own. Now she was in the process of selling it and moving into an apartment closer to Clenesha’s school, and she was set to make a nice profit. She planned to use the money to pursue her dream and passion—opening her own soul food diner. In fact, the dream was already taking shape. She and her business partner, a childhood friend from Terrell who was now a police officer, had found an old boarded-up diner near downtown Dallas on Lamar Street that had stood empty for years. They tracked down the owner, an elderly woman whose eyes lit up when Sharanda described her vision for home-cooked soul food, open every weekday to feed the lunch crowd from the office buildings downtown. The owner agreed to an exchange of services: If Sharanda and her business partner cleaned the place up at no cost to her, she’d give them the first three months rent-free.