The "Kid" Turning Heat On Corruptors of Youth

The "Kid" has scored again.

The Kid is innocent-looking, glib-talking Gary Glanz -- a youthful vice squad officer who is giving Tulsa underworld characters fits trying to decide where he will turn up next.

Because of Glanz, half the thugs running pills and illegal liquor to teen-agers are losing business. They’re not sure where the Kid will show -- dressed in faded blue jeans, disreputable shirt and sneakers or the current fashions of the high school set.

Glanz spent almost two weeks "grooming" the wife of a well-known Tulsa convict for a "chicken powder" buy. He scored Monday night.

Held on suspicion of selling pills, a felony, are Florence Marie Rodgers, 30, wife of Urbie Pennington Rodgers, and her brother, 18-year-old Thomas Joseph Bergh.

Glanz said he called Mrs. Rodgers several times in the last few weeks "getting to know her." Monday morning he asked to buy 50 capsules of chicken powder -- bulk amphetamine sulphate.

Glanz met Mrs. Rodgers, her brother and two children near a west Tulsa motel where the vice officer said he paid $90 to Mrs. Rodgers. Bergh drove Glanz southwest of Tulsa where Bergh picked up 50 pills hidden beneath a wooden bridge.

Returning to the motel, Glanz said he asked Bergh for more pills and waved a large roll of bills. Bergh said he would have to discuss the transaction with his sister.

Glanz said Mrs. Rodgers agreed to the buy and was driving Glanz to another cache when a second vice officer, Phil Roberts, drove up and the two policemen arrested the suspects.

Mrs. Rodgers later led officers to 50 pills hidden near the first cache, Glanz said.

Police said the 100 pills are the largest number to be confiscated in recent months.

Mrs. Rodgers’ two children, aged 12 and 6, were placed in an emergency welfare shelter.

Glanz, working with Sgt. Cal Newton, last month arrested three police characters after the officers pretended to be drunken pill addicts.

Earlier Glanz had spent several weeks infiltrating a suspected pornographic ring, which led to the arrest of one man and the confiscation of a large stock of lewd motion pictures and photographs.

The young officer, previously had worked the private club circuit with the vice squad, and had most club owners, bartenders, and bootleggers jumpy about selling to anyone who looked under 25.