Braintree drug raid nets crack cocaine

BRAINTREE — John C. James was sitting on the couch in his girlfriend’s Braintree Village apartment shortly before 8 pm Friday. A delivery man was on his way with Chinese food, and a movie featuring Rowan Atkinson was on the TV. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the parking lot outside the building: a police officer had stopped a vehicle and was using the cruiser’s loudspeaker to order the driver to show his hands. But what James didn’t know was that the traffic stop was actually a decoy designed to divert his attention away from the team of drug detectives entering the building from a rear entrance and lining up outside his door. Police had quietly crept up the stairs, the only noise coming from a battering ram clanging against the metal stairwell. The crew paused briefly outside the apartment, standing next to a pink baby stroller, before bursting in with guns drawn. They ordered James face-down on the carpet. One of the two small children in the apartment at the time began to wail, and James’ girlfriend pleaded with police to tell her what was happening. The Chinese food showed up as James was being led out of the building in handcuffs. The bust was another parry in the ongoing battle by local police departments to crack down on drugs in their suburban neighborhoods. With the help of the South Shore Drug Task Force, Braintree drug detectives say they found about 11 grams of crack cocaine in the apartment, along with a couple ounces of marijuana, drug packaging …