Court documents on Indy drug ring read like a movie script

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Indy Star on 09/08/2015 by Mark Alesia and Tim Evans

The planned shooting had gone awry. The “mission” was foiled when the intended target, who was in the shower, had been alerted by his dog.

Police allege that these two houses on the 2500 block of Jackson Street on the Westside were part of a major drug trafficking organization.(Photo: Tim Evans / The Star)

Police allege that these two houses on the 2500 block of Jackson Street on the Westside were part of a major drug trafficking organization.(Photo: Tim Evans / The Star)

David McMichel, the alleged leader of a violent Indianapolis drug ring, lamented the missed opportunity in a phone call with an associate — captured, according to court documents, on a law enforcement wiretap.

“Dogs and cats really be saving people these days,” McMichel says. “Should’ve bum rushed him and finished him.”

“Botched a mission,” replies the associate, James Caldwell. “That makes it 10 times harder the next time.”

McMichel and Caldwell were among 13 people charged last week for their role in a drug trafficking organization that distributed large quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin in Indianapolis and elsewhere in Indiana, according to federal authorities. During the course of the nine-month investigation, several pounds of heroin and methamphetamine, as well $16,000 in cash, 19 firearms and two bullet-proof vests, were confiscated.

The 103-page probable cause affidavit — based on months of police wiretaps, GPS monitoring of vehicles and images captured by cameras on utility poles — offers a unique insight into how the drug dealers operated, including their foibles.

At times, the document reads like a script for a Quentin Tarantino movie or an episode of “The Wire.”

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