The Chase

But with heavy enforcement by Graves and his squad, the supply seemed to dry up overnight. "Here, for the last couple months, you couldn't even find it. You couldn't get it," Montague says. "I'm not a cop lover. But Graves is a good man, and I will always, forever love him. He's my angel."

After Graves arrived back in the Northland to begin his patrols in late 2004, the first man he arrested blabbed about three addresses in Maple Park; the people who frequented those houses all had loose connections to one another. Graves would spend all of 2005 concentrating on those addresses.

Around 52nd Street and North Bristol, dispatchers logged constant complaints of disturbances and late-night parties. Homes, street signs and cars were pockmarked with bullet holes. Thieves were stealing metal from homes and yards. Christy Harris, a leader in the Northland Neighborhoods community group, remembers that one of her neighbors removed the gutters from her home to make repairs, and the next morning they were gone.

The cops heard that stolen metal was being melted and sold as scrap at 5228 North Bristol, a home that neighbors had nicknamed "the Cathedral." They started pulling over people they watched leave the house. In the first three months of last year, they arrested nearly two dozen suspects with drugs, paraphernalia or metal.

Graves turned over his files to the Clay County Drug Task Force and the Kansas City Police Drug Enforcement Unit, which raided the home in April 2005, confiscating meth, guns and scrap. A car motor and other stolen auto parts were found buried in the back yard near a pond of raw sewage.

The homeowner, Donald Jenkins, was charged in federal court with unlawful transport of firearms. He posted bond a few days later. In September, officers again took Jenkins into custody, arresting him on suspicion of an armed robbery in Northeast Kansas City. Graves says neighborhood complaints nearly ceased after the arrest.

On November 22, Jenkins pleaded guilty to a firearms charge; he's awaiting sentencing.

Graves also concentrated on two other problem houses. Tips about 5504 Northeast 44th Terrace led police to Richie "Red" McMaken, a suspected dealer.

Staking out the home and stopping people as they left, an officer found one woman holding 38 grams of meth, a quantity more common for a dealer than a user. Graves began connecting relationships among the people he and the other officers had stopped. In August, he once again handed his investigative files to tactical teams. The Metropolitan Meth Unit and the Clay County Drug Task Force raided McMaken's home, seizing guns and several stolen car parts.

On February 7, a federal grand jury indicted McMaken as "an unlawful user of methamphetamine." He also was charged with unlawful transport and registration of firearms.

During the raid last August, investigators confiscated six shotguns, two pistols, a revolver and a rifle from McMaken's house. That same night, Graves and about 10 officers knocked on every door in Maple Park, handing out 350 fliers announcing a new zero-tolerance policy in the neighborhood. Police would pull over people on minor traffic violations or for any reasonable suspicion.

Three months later, Skip received the code inspector's orders to move out of his North Compton home. He has since been granted four permits to clean the place up, and the electricity and heat have been restored. Richard McKinley, a code enforcement officer, says two people have been arrested for trespassing since the home was inspected in November.

Throughout the year, Graves says, he watched a constant flow of addicts in and out of Skip's house.

Nearly every suspicious driver he stopped pointed out Skip's place as a safe spot to party and find drugs.

Graves worked to keep an open relationship with Skip. After Skip's brother committed suicide last summer, Graves dropped by North Compton to pay his respects. This, he says, may have been why Skip let him stay inside during the squad's last visit to the condemned house.

But that night in November, Graves wasn't there to check on Skip's occupancy permit. He'd heard from people in the neighborhood that Skip had a relationship with a 15-year-old girl and was feeding her dope.

Skip maintains his innocence. He says he only wanted to help her. "She was a pretty girl, and she probably weighed 100 pounds," Skip tells the Pitch.

Sgt. Michael Hicks, a supervisor of the Juvenile Crimes section, says Skip was released from custody the night after the arrest because the girl lied to detectives downtown. She changed her story four times, he says, though he could not comment on her statements about her relationship with Skip. "She's got a serious drug problem, no doubt about that," he says. "She admitted that to us. There may have been sexual contact in a consensual way, but as far as being raped, we could never prove that." The girl was released to her father.

Graves says Skip's release isn't so much a failure as a clear sign of the constant struggle his squad faces.

"I think it sucks," Graves says of Skip's case. "In my opinion, it's probably dead in the water."

The tables at Maple Park Middle School are covered in holiday decorations. A few dozen mostly older men and women are chatting over heaping plates of turkey, ham, potatoes, green beans and desserts. Four women calling themselves the Spare Parts are singing Christmas tunes. After the music, there's a grab-bag game with gifts for everyone.