(Criminal) Alien Nation

A COUPLE of hours after sundown on October 30, 2000, undercover cop Edward M. Toatley sat in his black Toyota 4Runner, waiting to close a drug deal in a run-down neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He had just driven across town with a suspected drug dealer, Kofi Apea Orleans-Lindsay, handed him $3,500, and watched him disappear into a nearby building. “Here he comes,” muttered Toatley a few minutes later, when Orleans-Lindsay returned. In a van about a block away, a surveillance team listened in.

The officers then heard Toatley speak his final words: “Is everything all right?” Next they heard the blast of a gunshot, followed by heavy breathing. They raced to the scene, but Orleans-Lindsay eluded them in a wooded area. Toatley, a Maryland state trooper, died two hours later; Orleans-Lindsay dodged the law for two weeks. But the police caught up with him on November 13 in Brooklyn, N.Y., after he’d been featured twice on the television program America’s Most Wanted. Now he’s facing federal murder charges.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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A COUPLE of hours after sundown on October 30, 2000, undercover cop Edward M. Toatley sat in his black Toyota 4Runner, waiting to close a drug deal in a run-down neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He had just driven across town with a suspected drug dealer, Kofi Apea Orleans-Lindsay, handed him $3,500, and watched him disappear into a nearby building. “Here he comes,” muttered Toatley a few minutes later, when Orleans-Lindsay returned. In a van about a block away, a surveillance team listened in.

The officers then heard Toatley speak his final words: “Is everything all right?” Next they heard the blast of a gunshot, followed by heavy breathing. They raced to the scene, but Orleans-Lindsay eluded them in a wooded area. Toatley, a Maryland state trooper, died two hours later; Orleans-Lindsay dodged the law for two weeks. But the police caught up with him on November 13 in Brooklyn, N.Y., after he’d been featured twice on the television program America’s Most Wanted. Now he’s facing federal murder charges.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.