The war on drugs is being fought by soldiers who are in Dallas this month to tear down buildings and take back neighborhoods.
Operation Crackdown, an annual partnership between the Texas National Guard and the City of Dallas, is expanding its reach this year.
In each of the past four years, Guardsmen and women spend two weeks in Dallas tearing down nearly 100 abandoned properties that are known to the city to be associated with drug and other criminal activity.
In 2016, the mission in Dallas will last six weeks and result in the demolition of 60 to 80 properties.
“We use drug dealers’ money to take down drug houses,” National Guard Sergeant First Class Jeff McCracken said. “We get to come out, demolish some structures and have a really good time. And we get to make the community more beautiful in the process.”
A giant excavator and other heavy equipment arrived at a vacant home in the 2800 block of Al Lipscomb Way Thursday morning that had been converted to a church before being abandoned. Several neighbors took notice, and approved of the decision to tear the building down.
“I walk by here a lot. Every day I’m seeing people hang out here and doing whatnot,” resident Jeff Smith said. "I’m really glad to see it gone. It’s going to be an improvement.”
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As the excavator went to work, McCracken surveyed the scene and could barely contain his excitement.
“It never gets old," he said. "This is probably one of the coolest jobs that we get to do as part of counter drug.”
Perhaps the only person who enjoys the work more than McCracken is the Guardsmen working the controls of the excavator, who took the majority of the building to the ground in less than 20 minutes.
“He absolutely loves it,” McCracken said of the Guardsmen, whose name was not released. “This is the only reason why he’s still in the Guard and the Army. This mission, this is what he lives for.”
Dallas has recently been transferring city-owned vacant lots to homebuilders for new construction. It is a priority for city leaders and many new homes have been built. But so far, the four previous Operation Crackdown demonstration sites are not success stories.
Four nuisance homes were demonstration sites the past four years.
- 4006 Vanderbort Drive in 2012
- 1234 Flanders Street in 2013
- 9408 Fireside Drive in 2014
- 2420 Bombay Avenue in 2015
All four locations were still vacant lots Friday. Three of the four had trash and high weeds, apparent violations of city codes.
NBC 5's Ken Kalthoff contributed to this report.
