Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 12, 1992 TAG: 9201120197
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG RAVER-LAMPMAN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long
PATIENTLY, METHODICALLY `THE OTHERS' CRACK CASES
They jokingly call themselves "the others."For years, they worked out of "the dungeon," a hideout in the Center Theater building.
When major drug cases were splashed across front pages, "the others" were never mentioned - even when they were the ones who had cracked the case.
FBI agents and drug kingpins knew about them. But their reputation never extended to the public, or even to most other Norfolk cops. In an age of "Miami Vice," with TV romanticizing hard-boiled narcs, "the others" are . . . well, boring.
Still, they form one of Virginia's most potent crime-fighting forces - the Major Case Unit of the Norfolk Police Department, a team headed by a former police helicopter pilot, Sgt. E.T. Lewis.
Lewis' team is a strange hybrid. His unit, a branch of the city's narcotics squad, works closely with the U.S. Attorney's office and the FBI - especially with Bob Arnold, an FBI agent Lewis met in 1982.
Lewis and Arnold are regulars at the federal courthouse. Arnold is tall and skinny. Lewis is slightly shorter and about twice as big around. To people who don't know them, they don't look threatening. They'll stand around with briefcases, greeting passers-by, looking like a courthouse version of Mutt and Jeff.
Lewis' and Arnold's methods, honed over almost a decade, are unusual. While some investigators target kingpins or try to seize large drug shipments, Lewis and Arnold specialize in dismantling entire criminal organizations, from kingpin to lowly mule.
While some police units concentrate on easy busts, "the others" concentrate on the toughest criminal organizations.
The cases Lewis enjoys are the ones that inspire this prediction: " `You'll never get the guy,' " he said. "But you can. Every time."
Lewis and Arnold worked some of the biggest investigations on the East Coast, said Maj. Fred Williamson of the Norfolk Police Department. Lewis "continually goes after evidence to confirm what he's already found out. He doesn't stop."
Although the two spend enormous effort on each case, they don't get bogged down. For several years running, Arnold recorded half of all convictions logged by about 40 FBI agents based in Norfolk.
Although "the others" have cracked dozens of major cases, one of their most stunning accomplishments was the recent conviction of a New York assassin.
The case against the assassin, Michael Snipe, was built over five years. Snipe "was like a phantom who came into the area and murdered two people," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Seidel. Without "the others," Seidel said, the case never would have been cracked.
Assassin on the loose
For Lewis, the case of the phantom assassin started in January 1986, when he was called to a shooting scene. Lewis found that someone had gunned down a key witness in a Norfolk drug case, a youth named Roland Scott Harvey.
A few months later, another youth was gunned down in front of his stepfather's home.
Norfolk police had a pretty good idea what had happened. The narcotics squad had been investigating a cocaine gang. Word had it that a New York assassin had been hired to murder potential witnesses. A case against the gang's leader, George Harris, collapsed. Potential witnesses got spooked and refused to talk to police.
Eventually, Norfolk police took the case to "the dungeon," the hidden office in a theater building. "The others," they figured, had the best chance of tracking down the assassin.
Shut it down
When Lewis opened the case, he emphasized two rules that govern all of his investigations. Rule one: You don't chase drugs. Rule two: You don't chase people.
Those rules drive most cops crazy. They fly in the face of most police training. When new investigators came to "the others" from a narcotics squad, Lewis had to practically bar the door to keep them from running out to make arrests.
"If you let one of them out and chase dope," Lewis explained, "everybody's going to want to go out and chase dope."
Lewis made it clear that making easy busts wouldn't do much more than scuttle a much more important long-term investigation.
In the case of these assassinations, however, rules seemed especially cumbersome. Lewis wanted to nail the gunman, but following his own edict, he laid down the law: "You cannot chase the murderer."
For Lewis, the key to dismantling criminal organizations is history. "They can't change history," Lewis explained. "What they've done, we can prove."
Lewis and Arnold analyzed drug organizations as if they were corporations. The philosophy is basic: If you remove a corporation's president, the vice president takes over. If you remove even half of the major officers, lieutenants assume leadership. Lewis and Arnold saw only one way to eliminate a criminal corporation like the Harris gang: Shut it down. Top to bottom.
Norfolk police already had fleshed out the outline of the drug gang, thanks largely to the testimony of Harvey, the murdered witness. The top men were Harris and his lieutenant, Johney Freeman, who came to Norfolk from New York in the early 1980s to sell cocaine. The gang took over a house and established a drop-in cocaine outlet.
Harvey, a local youth who started working with the gang, began feuding with other members and agreed to help police. Narcotics officers raided the drug house. Harris and a bunch of underlings were indicted. Harris spent a good portion of the next few years in a New York jail. But the gang continued to operate, with Harris calling the shots from his cell. Among other things, Harris called for the murder of Harvey.
With Harvey's assassination, the case against Harris and the others collapsed. The assassin returned to kill another youth Harris thought might talk.
That's what had happened before Lewis got the case. Soon after came word of more trouble. Norfolk narcotics officers heard that Freeman had lured another potential witness to New York and murdered her.
Lewis decided he had to learn everything that every member of the conspiracy did.
`Hunches are overrated'
Step one was creating a chart laying out the organization's hierarchy. Looking through the Norfolk Police Department case, Lewis had amassed names of 75 people who had some contact with George Harris, the kingpin. Each name was written on an index card. All the cards were posted on a bulletin board, forming a pyramid with Harris at the top.
Questions had to be answered.
Who, exactly, visited the drug house? Who worked there? Who made purchases? Who stood guard? Who made sales? Lewis, Arnold and the group started researching bank records, utility payments, property records, car records and phone records. Months dragged by.
Lewis compiled a "face sheet" on each person connected to the gang. They gathered basic information: name, address, age, make of car, value of house, number of arrests.
In all cases, Lewis, Arnold and "the others" asked a standard question about people on the chart: Were they living below or above their means? If someone has a good income but seems broke, that suggests the guy may be a drug user, spending money on cocaine. If the person has a small income but lives like a king, that suggests the guy's a dealer, raking in cash.
One investigator working with Lewis, Raymond Chapman, reviewed phone records of everybody involved in the case, looking for common numbers people called.
Chapman "has the patience of Job when he comes to tracing those numbers," Lewis said. Chapman reviewed every phone call made by members of the drug conspiracy and used them to show links outlining how the organization operated.
The work was tedious, difficult, time-consuming, unromantic. For Lewis and Arnold, the mission was to record "the events that occurred in the life and times that are important in the George Harris group."
Over the months, every scintilla of information, no matter how insignificant, was recorded in a massive, chronological account Lewis called an "event book." If you asked Lewis what happened July 27, 1985, he could pull out the event book and let you know who deposited money in the bank, who made a utility payment, who got a parking ticket in the neighborhood, who took a car to be serviced at Jiffy Lube.
"Hunches" didn't play much part. "Hunches," Lewis scoffed, "are overrated."
The event book "is what keeps me sane," Lewis said. A total of 23 books were compiled, with the information placed on a master computer file.
Eventually, it was time to fan out to talk to gang members silenced by fear of a phantom killer.
Trust was paramount
Erase the thought of intense interrogations. Lewis and Arnold don't sweat information out of reluctant witnesses. They don't need to.
"We never talk to a person unless we know what the guy is going to tell us," Lewis said. "When I knock on the door, I can pretty much put the guy in jail."
In all interviews, Lewis and Arnold remained cordial. They always suggested that people consult their lawyers. When they brought people in for questioning, they offered coffee.
"If you treat someone badly," Lewis explained, "You can't expect them to deal with you."
Throughout, Lewis and Arnold avoided attempts to elicit information by twisting facts around. "You never lie to these people, ever," Lewis said. "If you lie to a man once, he's never going to trust you again."
With an assassin on the loose, trust was paramount. "When they talk to you," Lewis said, "they are literally putting their lives in your hands."
During the investigation, Lewis and Arnold talked to hundreds of people. Of those, 113 had evidence to offer.
In May 1988, 11 members of the Harris gang were arrested. Several pleaded guilty before trial.
For some, the trial itself might seem a moment of high drama. But Lewis always started with the assumption that he would win the case. "The trial," he said, "is just a process."
By any mark, the trial was a success. The Harris gang was dismantled. Thirteen people were convicted, including a former police officer and a former prosecutor in Hampton. Harris and Freeman were sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Still, the assassin was not among those indicted. Even some prosecutors figured the phantom killer had escaped.
Someone named Mike
Not Lewis. It seems there was another loose end. Some former members of the Harris gang had launched their own organization, headed by Harris' stepfather, Arnold Eddleton, a funeral director in Long Island, N.Y.
For Lewis, this new gang presented an opportunity. The assassin and Eddleton both came from New York. Perhaps, Lewis figured, someone involved with Eddleton might know the killer.
Still, Lewis operated by his old rules: Don't chase dope; don't chase people. Lewis, Arnold and the U.S. Attorney's office decided to open another investigation. They decided to take down this other New York-based drug organization. They'd yank it out by the roots - and hope that somebody knew the murderer.
Working with the FBI and police in New York, Lewis and his team began to reconstruct the history of Eddleton's fledgling organization. In May 1990, a U.S. grand jury handed up an indictment of five people involved in that organization. All members of the gang were convicted and sent to prison.
In the process of that investigation, more information emerged about the assassin, a character some people knew only as "Mike." Lewis, by then, had enough information to charge Mike with murder - if he could be found.
Lewis, Arnold and the prosecutors decided to offer Freeman a deal. Freeman, after all, was already serving life in prison, with no chance of parole. They agreed not to charge Freeman with murder if he turned over "Mike."
Freeman took them up on the deal. During hours of questioning, Freeman laid out all the details of the assassinations. By investigating the case so thoroughly, Lewis and Arnold already knew most of what happened. Freeman did provide one piece of crucial information: He told them how to find the assassin.
In April 1991, Michael Snipe was arrested in New York. In November, Lewis and Arnold came to federal court to watch as Snipe was sentenced to four life terms in federal prison.
Five years after it had started, the case was over.