The Chase

Everybody here knows Graves. People approach him, one at a time or in small groups, patting him on the shoulder and talking about how the neighborhood is starting to feel safer again.

Despite the festive spirit, Christy Harris says the drug houses and addicts that stole the charm from Maple Park have left a deep scar —the neighborhood is far from what it was in the 1990s.

"I'm a little bit concerned that people may not be aware of how much is going on in terms of the drug houses and the activity," Harris says. "I never used to worry about safety, doors locked, that sort of thing. And it is becoming a reality that you need to be aware of the risks. I really feel bad about that. I miss that part about it, the fact that we felt safe in our homes, our yards and walking our streets."

Those streets are now saturated with meth, Graves has discovered.

In mid-November, news broke that police had shot and killed 26-year-old Chet Vermillion after Vermillion pointed a pellet gun at them. It was Graves' officers who had killed him. In the darkness that night, they couldn't see that Vermillion's gun was basically harmless; Vermillion's autopsy revealed that he had meth in his bloodstream. (Administrators put the officers on leave while the department investigated the shooting; a grand jury later cleared the cops.)

In December, officers stopped a skinny 19-year-old girl who stood shivering in the cold, making excuses, saying she had started snorting meth to lose weight after having her first child when she was 17. In the car with her was a woman in her forties who said her husband had recently left after a meth binge.

On any given night, Graves and the four other Northland natives on his squad pull over people they knew growing up. One night last fall, an officer saw his old football team photograph on the wall of a house he was searching for meth; one of the residents had been his childhood teammate. Once, Graves ran into one of his high school class's cheerleaders in an elevator at the Jackson County Courthouse, where she was battling charges of supplying a meth cook with boxes of cold medicine in exchange for money and drugs. "It literally looked like somebody stood up a corpse out of the morgue," Graves recalls.

Graves says his team's only real success has been disrupting the dopers' sense of security. Many of the men and women he sought this past year have scattered north, into Gladstone, and south, mostly to Kansas City's Northeast neighborhood. Meanwhile, his list of users who remain in Maple Park and its surrounding neighborhoods keeps growing.

And he's encountering the next generation of addicts. In early January, the sergeant's team pulled over a car full of high-schoolers — some as young as 14 — with guns and meth. The kids told him that people at school were dealing meth more than any other drug.

"It sucks," Graves says of how the Northland's neighborhoods have been overrun by meth in the past decade. "It makes you feel like there isn't a safe place to live."

Just ask 8-year-old Junior.

One night in January, Graves spots a red Chevy Tahoe with a passenger sitting alone inside as it idles in the driveway of a drug house that the squad has searched numerous times. (Months earlier, it had been the temporary home of Graves' old acquaintance Tami Montague.)

After the Tahoe leaves, Graves' officers stop it a few blocks away and find one of the occupants with $2,500 cash — reason to suspect they've just sold drugs in the home.

Graves knocks on the door. A young woman answers. "I'm watching the house for the person who lives here, and I'm not supposed to let you in," she tells him.

Graves tells her about the man with the cash in the Tahoe. Hesitantly, she lets Graves inside.

He engages her in friendly conversation. She slowly warms up to him, mentioning the name of a man who recently had a run-in with Graves. "You guys used to go to school together," the woman says.

Graves rolls his eyes. "A lot of people say that, but I don't think we went to school together."

While Graves chats with her, a pudgy kid walks into the room and sits on the bed. The woman introduces Graves to her son, Junior.

One of Graves' men walks in, carrying a propane torch (commonly used to cook meth) he has found in Junior's room.

Graves asks the woman to sign a consent form so they can search the house.

"I don't want to leave dope under a bed with an 8-year-old in here," he tells her.

"I've never found nothing in this house," the kid says in his mother's defense.

Junior's mother grabs her son's chin and turns his face to hers. "I love you too much," she says.

Graves tells her he's been watching the home for months and knows it's not safe for Junior or any child. The woman looks ready to sign the consent form, but then Junior sits up straight on the bed.