The Law Is Coming

Del Quentin Wilber: It is 6:24 a.m., the sun has not yet risen and the parking lot remains a lattice of shadow and orange-yellow streetlight as Deputy U.S. Marshal Willard King and four other deputies march toward the target of their raid, an apartment in Upper Marlboro where they think a fugitive is hiding.

King, wearing a bright red winter cap, gray sweatshirt and jeans, stations one deputy outside the rear of the complex in case the fugitive — a 23-year-old robber wanted for skipping a court appearance — leaps from the apartment's third-floor window. Then he and the three other deputies slip through the unlocked entrance and up the stairs to apartment 303. Cupping his ear to the black…