The glass doors of Hometown Market seem to be in constant motion. People flow in and out as cars try to maneuver in the crowded lot of this corner store in Lorain. They wait in line to pay for their $4.25 packs of Marlboros, 2-percent milk and lottery tickets.

The red Cherokee is parked in one of the spaces facing West 22nd Street, under the sign that says ''American and Spanish Food, Cold Wine and Beer to GO!'' A man sits in the driver's seat with the engine running.

To anybody else, the utility vehicle would blend in with the other cars on this Friday night, but to Officer Miguel Baez, it may as well have a bright, neon arrow pointed right at it.

After eight years on the Lorain police force, and most of this year spent patrolling the underbelly of the city for the Street Crimes Unit, Baez, a Lorain native, knows how to spot potential drug busts.

Officer Corey Middlebrooks, like Baez, an eight-year veteran of the force from Lorain, slows the unmarked police vehicle with tinted windows and pulls into a driveway about 500 feet past the store. Baez looks over his shoulder, keeping an eye on the Cherokee. Middlebrooks backs out and pulls to the curb.

A few seconds later, a man appears from the side of the store and heads for the Cherokee. He hops in the passenger side and the driver pulls out.

They need a reason to stop the Cherokee. Figuring that the passenger came from a suspected drug house isn't enough. Lucky for Baez and Middlebrooks, drug users usually aren't sticklers for traffic laws. They get their reason at the first stop sign.

Middlebrooks flips a switch and a blue light begins flashing on the dash. The Cherokee pulls over on West 21st Street. Baez is out of the car before it stops. Middlebrooks whips it into park and heads for the Cherokee's driver's side. As Middlebrooks gets information from the driver, Baez asks the passenger to step out of the vehicle.

The passenger is a large man. Baez, who is about 6-foot, cuffs him and begins patting him down. The man is wearing gray sweatpants. When Baez gets to his waist he feels something strange, almost like a small stick poking through. He continues on to the legs and ankles before feeling the man's waist again.

Baez asks a couple more times. He gets the same response. But Baez can feel something in the man's waistband. The man is hiding something, and he knows that Baez has caught on.

So he begins to shake his right leg, trying to knock loose whatever is in his pants, hoping it will fall to the ground unseen by the officers. Middlebrooks, a solid 6-foot-5, tries to hold him still as Baez feels around the man's ankles.

But he won't stop. The three men on the sidewalk have an audience now. Residents are watching from porches, front doors and windows. The driver sits quietly in the Cherokee. Suddenly, the man abandons his jig and, despite being handcuffed, lurches forward in an attempt to break free from the officers.

The duo spends their time patrolling the streets of Lorain in an unmarked car. Too many people recognize the headlights and shape of a Crown Victoria cruiser in the dark. In the unmarked car, dubbed the ''grant car'' by officers due to the way it was purchased, they can sneak up on drug users and dealers.

But even in the grant car, under the cover of night, Middlebrooks and Baez sometimes lose their element of surprise. Two girls, lookouts for whoever is dealing drugs out of a house near General Johnnie Wilson Middle School, have spotted the car.

A large Buick pulls up to the two girls. They lean in and talk for a moment, then the car takes off. A man in an oversized sweatshirt comes by next. The girls tip him off as well.

Lookouts are common, especially during the summer. The grant car can pull onto East 30th Street off Fulton Road in South Lorain, and by the time it reaches Globe or Pearl avenues, the secret is out.

Still, the Street Crimes Unit made more than 600 arrests this year. Many came in South Lorain, which, according to Middlebrooks and Baez, is a difficult area to deal with.

Unlike other areas of Lorain, where there is more space to cruise and more spots to check, the south side is more compact. It's harder to stake out one spot repeatedly. Harder, but not impossible.

When a shortage of officers forced Middlebrooks into regular afternoon patrol earlier this year, he would park in a steel mill lot and watch the bars along East 28th Street.

Often, people looking to buy drugs will park in a nearby store parking lot instead of pulling up to a drug house. One person will make the deal. The other will stay in the car, engine running. It's an easy tip-off.

Traffic violations are the officers' best friends. Failure to signal. Failure to stop at a stop sign. Those two alone give Middlebrooks and Baez a reason to stop suspects 90 percent of the time.

One Friday night, the grant car is headed down Pearl Avenue from East 28th Street. The bars in the area are crowded. A car up ahead stops so a passenger can get out and run into City Bar. The car continues down Pearl. Middlebrooks follows.

One thing about crack, once users have it, they don't care about anything else. Earlier this year, Middlebrooks and Baez pulled their car next to a woman who was walking in the middle of a South Lorain street.

Another time, Baez came across a young man with a warrant who was dealing drugs near Hometown Market. Baez, in a car in the store's parking lot, watched as the guy, wearing a latex glove, reached down the back of his pants, pulled out a bag of crack and sold it to someone.

In the back seat, a mother was flanked by her two sons. Middlebrooks and Baez weren't sure who had thrown the bag from the car, but they suspected it was the teenage boy closest to the window it flew out of.

Roman's Groceries sits at the corner of Pearl and East 29th in South Lorain. The grant car is using the cramped parking lot to make a U-turn, but when Baez sees a carload of young girls yelling and swearing in front of the store, the officers pull back into the lot.

''Why are you standing so close to me,'' she says to Baez. She begins tapping her hand on the hood of the car to display how annoyed she is. The girls are told to leave.

The ultimate lack of respect came a little over a year ago for Middlebrooks. He was in his home, watching television with his wife, when he saw an orange glow through a front window.

Middlebrooks, who is black, has been called a snitch and a sellout by young black people in the city. He counters by telling them that the poison they're pushing is killing their community. But they scoff at that.

''It's like we're the enemy,'' says Middlebrooks. ''It's as if they like what's going on in the streets. But they don't have to deal with the kid who hasn't seen his parents for weeks because they're on drugs, and the kid is starving and you have to take him to McDonald's just to give him something to eat.

''Just because you smoke crack doesn't mean you're a terrible person,'' says Baez. ''Some of these people are just sick. Drugs just take everything out of them. So sometimes you have to sit back and understand that.

A chubby, middle-aged man leaves a suspected drug house near Washington Avenue and makes it half a block before the Jump Out Boys introduce themselves.

If he had anything on him, he swallowed it. Middlebrooks notices the man can barely lift his tongue during a mouth check. It's a sign he's had crack in there.

The man is wearing a stained T-shirt that used to be white. On his head is a cap that reads, ''No. 1 Dad.'' He has a warrant for driving without a license. As the officers wait for a cruiser to transport him to the county jail, the man admits he has a crack problem.

The grant car turns down another street. Two men and a woman are walking down the sidewalk. Middlebrooks and Baez know the woman. They call her Fantasia.

Later, they pull over a car carrying Fantasia and her two friends. The driver doesn't have a license. Wherever they are headed, they'll have to walk.

''We remember Fantasia when she was a lot healthier,'' says Middlebrooks. ''She had a lot of weight on her, and that wasn't too long ago. She'd come up and say Ôhi' to us.

Rain taps the windshield as the grant car sits in the darkness of East 29th, about 300 feet from Globe. Many residents of this section of South Lorain complain about the lack of bright, or even working, street lamps. It contributes to the waning sense of safety in the area.

But Middlebrooks and Baez use the darkness to their advantage as they watch the activity around a Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority complex on the other side of Globe.

They peer through binoculars and watch as people make their way through the parking lot on foot. After a few minutes, a man in a hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans exits an apartment and gets into a green Explorer. He pulls out of the parking lot and heads toward the intersection of East 29th and Globe. The Explorer rolls right through the stop sign and turns left on East 29th.

''Stay in the car!,'' yell Middlebrooks and Baez, their hands on their holstered guns as they move closer to the Explorer. After making sure there's just one person in the vehicle, they tell the driver to step out.

Middlebrooks and Baez come across the same faces over and over, week after week. Some of that has to do with Lorain's lack of a jail. Instead of facing a night or two behind bars, drug dealers or users know they will only be given a citation.

And then there's Norman. The officers are familiar with his whole family. His mother often shows up at the scene when she hears his name on her scanner.

They know Norman's girlfriend lets people deal out of her apartment. They could try to get her evicted, but the dealers would find a new place to deal.

Usually, Norman is loud and brash when he's stopped, cussing out the officers. But this time, he stands in the rain quietly as his vehicle is searched by Baez, and then a K-9 unit.

''What do you mean where am I working. I don't work,'' says Norman, who has a pager on his hip, along with a cell phone, and about $200 in his pocket.

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