I have been a Porsche owner, 944 turbo, since 1991 when I bought this car with a few thousand miles on it. Although it spends most of the time sitting in the garage, occasionally I get it out and dust it off as I’ll explain below. This event took place while I was a member of the Richmond Police Department, homicide detective, assigned to the US Attorneys office with the FBI and VA State police to investigate organized drug gangs that were responsible for numerous drug murders along the East coast. I took an early retirement a few years ago and nothing I relay now is sensitive information.
I had planned on taking a half day off to go watch the NASCAR practice at RIR. Everything was approved. I would go in that morning and meet with the task force concerning a surveillance we had planned on two subjects from New
Jersey who were staying at a house in south side Richmond. We wanted to see what vehicles they were using to re-up for drugs. We would then pass that info on to the FBI surveillance team who would watch them outside of Richmond. Since I knew the area best I would set up the closest to their house and report what car they were using with descriptive information such as make, color, tags, etc. We had the FBI spotter plane above and several more RPD, State, and FBI teams around. I would be relieved if nothing happened at 12 noon so I could go to the track.
I set up around 8:00, in my personal car – the 944 Turbo – so I wouldn’t waste time switching cars. Drug dealers don’t usually get up before noon so I expected a boring morning. Boy was I wrong.
Before I could find something to listen to on the radio I saw the front door open and two basketball-player-size guys come out carrying duffle bags. They opened the rear hatch to a 300 Z and dropped them in while looking around suspiciously. They didn’t see me parked a half block away between two cars. I could barely tell that there was a large caliber handgun in the belt of one of them. I got on the dead quiet radio and excitedly reported, “I got two tango’s leaving the house getting into a white Z. At least one is armed and they’ve put two bags in the trunk.” One of the teams asked if we should take them now, but a supervisor cautioned that the purpose is to see where they go and who their contact is. “Quick, can you stay with them?” “No problem,” I replied. Because of my past experience working in narcotics, doing a rolling surveillance is something I always enjoyed; you get away with doing crazy things. But bad memories of a couple wrecks and a shoot out in which a bullet missed me by two inches quickly came to mind. The worst part? All the paper work and the accident review board where I was well known.
They started out slowly, being careful to come to a complete stop at the lights, and I stayed back so that when they did a 360 (which they did at the third light) they’d think they were not being followed. By this time the other teams were in line and the spotter plane had them.
Soon we were on 95 northbound running with the traffic. Two of the other teams lost contact but I had still had one team with me and the spotter plane as we traveled in light traffic. When we got north of Ashland, the speed picked up to 80. My other team for some reason had taken an exit and was trying to get back on 95 and now the plane reported they had to refuel.
“Quick, can you stay with them? We’ll have a team ready at Quantico to pick them up.” “No problem,” I said with a grin as I noticed our speed was approaching 100. I had plenty of fuel, oil pressure and temp looked good. With no traffic in sight we were now doing 125. I’d never taken the car over 130, but everything felt smooth. I love my job, I thought.
“Quick, you just blew by the FBI team, how fast are you guys going?” “Boss, I’m just staying with them like you said”, now at 135, but I could tell they were getting ready to slow down for heavy traffic ahead.
A few minutes later the team from Quantico contacted me by radio saying they had the suspects in sight and they were taking over.
An hour later I was sitting in the stands at the track watching practice. A friend came up and asked, “Hey Quick, any excitement playing cops and robbers?” “No, just another boring day in the office with the feds.”
The drug gang known as the “Poison Clan” with 20 or so members was later convicted in federal court for numerous murders and drug dealing. They all received life sentences.
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