You’re holding your gun close.
It’s impossible to know exactly what you’re walking into — these things are unpredictable. They could come out with their hands up or they could come out firing.
Before the raid, your fellow agents in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), along with their state and local law enforcement counterparts, are telling jokes trying to calm everyone’s nerves — including their own. Everyone is silent, hoping things will go as planned and fearing they won’t.
Thick with tension, the air is inhaled more quickly as the anticipation begins to rise. All are anxiously waiting for the signal to start the raid, thus entering the world of the unknown.
Even with the best intelligence, you don’t ever know exactly what’s behind that door,” says Travis Moran, JMU alumnus, and senior special agent with the Harrisonburg ATF. “Fear, adrenaline, camaraderie … all your emotions culminate before a raid.”
For Moran and his colleague, Senior Special Agent Scott Fairburn, going on raids is an almost daily experience. It requires courage, intelligence and an understanding that things do not always turn out the way you expect.
“If you’re going on a raid with someone that’s not scared, you don’t want to go with them,” Fairburn says. “There should always be a sort of nervous apprehension.”
In ATF’s mission to assist state and local law enforcement, agents routinely participate in narcotics raids, knowing that more often than not, they will find more than just drugs in a drug house.
“Just like you’d expect a carpenter to carry a hammer, you expect a drug dealer to carry a gun,” Moran says. Guns and drugs have a long history together — one that ATF does not expect to end soon.
Drugs currently are the biggest problem ATF is fighting in the Shenandoah Valley.
One drug, in particular, has overtaken the scene. “‘Ice’ — that’s the stuff that’s killing ’em,” Moran says. Ice is the purest form of methamphetamine hydrochloride and looks like shards of broken glass. Users smoke the vapors of the crystals, which melt when heated. Users’ dopamine levels begin to rise, producing a “rush” for a short period of time, similar to the effect of crack cocaine. However, the overall methamphetamine high lasts for several hours, which leads to users “tweaking,” or entering a stage of paranoia that makes them dangerous to themselves, others and law enforcement.
Unfortunately for “ice” users, methamphetamine use can lead to many serious health risks, including death. Those who do not die from using it can expect to incur damage to the brain, central nervous system and heart, among a variety of other health issues.
While “ice” is showing up more frequently in the Valley, ATF believes that only a very small amount of the drug is actually produced here.
“There is a fair amount of ‘ice’ in the Shenandoah Valley that’s brought in by illegal aliens,” Moran says. In fact, the Drug Enforcement Agency has estimated that as much as 98 percent of the Valley’s “ice” is coming from outside the Valley, most of it from Mexico.
However, knowing where the drugs are coming from is only half the battle. Bringing Valley drug traffickers to justice is the ultimate goal, and ATF is pulling its weight in that department.
ATF recently helped apprehend and indict nine Front Royal residents on several charges, including conspiracy to distribute cocaine, possession of explosives and possession of a firearm. Last year, ATF also helped bring in Chance Whittington, another Front Royal man, on a charge of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. He received a prison sentence of more than 17 years.
If there is one particularly important part of law enforcement, it is cooperation. ATF works constantly with many other government agencies and local law enforcement. The Virginia State Police, the Warren County Sheriff’s Office and the Front Royal Police Department, plus two task forces, worked alongside ATF to bring in the nine Front Royal men in January.
“Camaraderie is what’s great about law enforcement,” Fairburn says. Judging by the way Moran and Fairburn casually joke with each other, it’s obvious that Fairburn means what he says.
That kind of team attitude is what allows ATF to do its job successfully in any part of the country. Communication between divisions can be crucial.
There are 23 ATF field divisions spread throughout the country (the Shenandoah Valley falls under the jurisdiction of the Washington, D.C., field division). Some divisions, like St. Paul, Minn., and Phoenix, monitor and have jurisdiction in several surrounding states, while others, such as Miami and Los Angeles, monitor a small but densely populated region.
In its earliest days, ATF was a tax-collecting agency; currently, as its mission states, it is “dedicated to preventing terrorism, reducing violent crime, and protecting our Nation.” This included helping with security for Super Bowl XL and the 2006 NBA All-Star Game by supplying both human and canine assistance for detecting any explosives that may have been planted.
Being trusted with such large-scale events means agents must be trained diligently. Moran and Fairburn both received training in the Criminal Investigators Training Program at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga. That was before they went through the ATF Academy’s tactical (SWAT), explosives, arson and undercover schools.
“They train you up, and you’re put in your job,” Moran says. “And then, within a year, you go back for more training.”
The rigorous training schedule is a necessity, and results in a smarter, more prepared agent, which is essential in a job where the stakes are so high. Any day at work could be the last day of your life — something Moran knows all too well.
“Twice that I can remember; I thought to myself at the time that this could really end up bad,” he says. But don’t tell him his job is too dangerous — he already knows, and is quick to point out that it’s state and local law enforcement officers who face the real daily brunt of danger.
“Nothing is more dangerous than an officer making a patrol stop in the middle of the night by themself,” Moran says. “We typically try to plan our confrontations beforehand to maximize our potential for the safe execution of arrest and search warrants. A patrol officer doesn’t have that luxury.”
Moran knows that, in the end, they are all working toward the same goals, and that means taking the same risks.
“It’s a law enforcement job,” Moran says. “They’re all dangerous.”
