Tracking Evidence
By James Merriman
Senior Law Enforcement and Military Instructor
Tactical Tracking Operations School

 

It was going to be a routine buy/bust. I was selected to be one of the “take down” vehicles. We were part of a small unit from the District Attorney’s office that specialized in narcotic enforcement and special crimes. This often required that we conduct operations and get support from other outside agencies. On this particular case, we had to illicit the help of a couple of marked units from the local police. The undercover officer and informant were supposed to meet the dealer in a Kmart parking lot. The suspected dealer had just served time in the state penitentiary for attempted murder of a police officer. The informant told us that he would be armed and that he had made statements that he would never go back to the pen. It would be a high risk buy for the undercover officer. We tried to cover every angle so that nothing would go wrong. After making the purchase the undercover officer would allow the suspect to leave and the marked units would stop the suspect on a routine traffic stop. The uniformed officers would then execute the arrest when the suspect was only expecting a traffic ticket.

The undercover officer was wearing a body wire.  I was on the receiving end and was listening to the conversation. I was watching the “buy” go down while trying to blend in with the other cars in the parking lot. In order to lessen the potential for confusion, we had established a visual and verbal signal to be used when the officer confirmed the presence of narcotics. As soon as I heard the signal, I would call the hiding marked units into action. At the time, it sounded like a good plan. Except that we forgot to factor in Murphy’s Law.  If you have ever been on any kind of well planned mission, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Nothing ever goes as planned.

The suspect arrived as scheduled along with a female passenger. I heard the undercover officer negotiate the purchase of 2 ounces of crack/cocaine. I then received the signals from the officer. I got on my radio and attempted to contact the marked units. No response. I again called the units and didn’t receive an answer. As I was frantically calling for the marked units, I saw that the suspect was getting away. I was in an unmarked unit so I decided that I would “cold trail” the suspect until I could give a location to a marked unit. I also had another female officer that was assisting, following me in another unmarked unit. Naturally, the suspect was constantly checking his six and doing heat runs. It didn’t take long for him to figure out that he was being followed.

I finally made contact with the marked units and began giving them directions to my location. At this point the gig was up so I was trying to get any and all units to my location. The suspect started fleeing so I began trying to stay with him. The suspect turned into a gated community on the outskirts of town. The suspect unknowingly turned down a road that was actually a large driveway that dead ended into a brick fence. Now I was close enough that I could see the expressions of his face in his rear view mirror. I was reading his mind. I could see the smirk on his face that said “come and get me if you think you can.” I was on the radio telling the backup units that the suspect was fleeing on foot and that I was in pursuit. He really wasn’t but like I said, I could read his mind. As his car was rolling up to the brick fence, the door opened and out he came. The momentum of the moving car slung him forward and gave him an even better head start. The female officer was still behind me and I shouted out to her to secure the passenger as I was going over the wall.
The wall was six foot tall but the adrenaline pumping into my body made it seem like three foot. I was surprised to see that the other side of the wall was not a residential area. It separated the residential area from the wilderness. The other side lead down into a creek bottom that was akin to the jungles of Vietnam. I saw the suspect running along the top of the embankment. I had drawn my service weapon and was yelling at the suspect “Sir, I am a police officer! Please refrain from running so I can arrest you!” or maybe it was more like “mother@#$%er! you better stop before I put a @#$%ing bullet in your @#$%ing ass!” I don’t think he was listening to me because he kept on running.

Now, I’m not a very big guy and I’m not in the best physical shape. This guy has had nothing better to do for the past 12 years except lift weights and get in shape. It was obvious that I couldn’t match him on strength or stamina. All I could do was watch as he got further and further away. At one time I could have sworn that he turned around and gave me that smirk again. Now I’m pissed, it’s hot and I’m sweating like a pig. I wasn’t going to let him get away.

I began walking to the area where I last saw him while radioing my location to other units. As I was walking, I looked down and saw a fresh foot print on the ground. Then I saw another. And then another. I began tracking the suspect. I followed the tracks for approximately three quarters of a mile and came to an area where the creek made a sharp bend that I couldn’t see around. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something was telling me not to proceed around the bend. I trusted my instincts and climbed up the bank and slowly peered over the finger of the bend. I couldn’t see anything so I pointed my weapon toward the creek and started making verbal challenges. I began bluffing by shouting at the suspect by name and told him that I see him. I shouted that he “better stand up and show me his hands before I started shooting.”  The suspect then jumped from behind some shrubbery with his hands up and shouting “please don’t shoot, please don’t shoot.”  

I was still alone with no backup. I went through the routine of a felony search and arrest. When I got ready to hand cuff the suspect, I realized that my cuffs were still in the car. I didn’t tell the suspect that I didn’t have cuffs. Nor did I tell him that back up wasn’t coming or that I was lost and didn’t know how to tell anyone where we were at. I just pretended that I was talking on the radio with someone and that I was telling them that everything was under control. I then told the suspect that I was going to take advantage of his good nature and not handcuff him but if he did anything stupid, I would shoot him. The suspect walked in front of me and we began working our way out of the jungle. When we arrived back into the residential area, a unit spotted us and came to the rescue. The suspect was secured and transported.

After things settled down, the undercover officer approached me and asked if I found the rest of the crack/cocaine. He stated that when he made the purchase, he was able to see that the suspect had an additional two or three ounces left over. I suspected that the remaining dope was with the fleeing suspect and was either thrown while running or hidden when he was out of my sight.

We searched the suspect’s car and then the female passenger was searched. When no dope was recovered, the supervisor decided to call in the K9 units. The K9’s arrived and began searching the area along the creek bottom. After about an hour of searching, the heat and distractions started taking their toll on the dogs. The dogs became less and less interested in searching and more interested in playing in the water. The handlers finally gave up and concluded that the dope must be somewhere else. I knew better but the day was ending and the sun was setting. I decided that I would come back tomorrow and do my own search.

The next morning, I arrived back at the scene of the chase. I started at the wall and began tracking the path that the suspect took. Sometimes I could actually see his prints and sometimes I could only see disturbed vegetation. As I neared the area where I lost sight of him, the tracks were much easier to see. I began following his footprints to a point that it looked like he stopped and turned around. I could see where he paced back and forth for a couple of times and then walked over to a grapefruit sized rock. The rock looked like it had been disturbed. I lifted the rock and, you guessed it, found the missing dope.

I started taking photos of the tracks, linking them to the dope. I then wrote a report articulating a chain of events that could leave no other conclusion other than a positive connection to the suspect.

The suspect eventually pled guilty and is back in the penitentiary doing time. The attorney later told me that he asked for a plea bargain because he didn’t feel that he could convince a jury otherwise. He said that he felt like he would have a chance on creating a reasonable doubt with the jury on everything surrounding the case except for the footprint evidence. The footprint evidence linking the suspect to the dope was indisputable and he wasn’t going to risk going to trial over it.

There are some lessons to learn here. I did a lot of things wrong and took a lot of unnecessary and dangerous risks that could have cost me severely. But I will save these for a later article. I want to focus more on the results that I was able to achieve by utilizing a skill that was handed down to me through my ancestors. I am referring to the skill of tracking and the instincts that come with it. Tracking skills give the police officer an additional level of an enhanced sense of awareness. It’s not about being able to follow a set of footprints. It’s much more that that. It’s about seeing and perceiving things that most people would overlook.

During prehistoric times, tracking was a skill of survival, not only for hunting, but for protection as well. It is an instinct that gave man the ability to see things on the ground and interpret those things into a meaning. Once interpreted it gave us an ability to know our enemy better. It was used as an alarm to warn us of upcoming danger. It gave us food. It protected us. It made us smarter. It gave us additional strengths and assets. And the list goes on and on. It still applies as much today as it did thousands of years ago.

Once properly trained in tracking, a police officer can have that same ability and bring out the untapped trait given to man to help him/her survive in the hostile environment of today, the same as yesteryear.