Columbus P.D.

In May of 1988 I was hired by the Village of Columbus, New Mexico to start the Columbus Police Department. Columbus is the Village that was raided by Pancho Villa in 1916, and in the battle which ensued, over 25 civilians living in the town were killed by Pancho Villa's troops.

The American Army Troops stationed nearby fought back the attack and drove the raiders away, and subsequently General Blackjack Pershing led a punitive expedition into Mexico seeking Villa and his men, but never came close to catching him.

Columbus is located three miles north of the U.S./Mexican border, and the City of Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico is located on the Mexican side. This is a very rugged area of the country and still to this day the law in Mexico is the gun. Two drug families dominate the drug traffic from Mexico into the U.S., the Sandoval and the Sanchez families. Smuggling has been an active livelihood for many Mexicans in northern Chihuahua for over one hundred and twenty five years. Before drugs became popular in the U.S. they smuggled illegal liquor during prohibition, and before that it was carnauba wax and anything else that would gain a profit from sale in the U.S.

The two families I mentioned were working overtime in their smuggling operations long before I arrived in Columbus. I was hired by the Village Council and Mayor over seventeen highly qualified candidates for the job, to basically clean up the unlawful element who had free rein in the Village.

A warrior's dream! I finally had the chance to start a police department and pretty much run it the way I saw fit. I knew I had taken on a big job, but it would be many months later before I found out the true extent of what I had gotten myself in to. I left my family safely forty miles away in Deming, New Mexico while I played bachelor and took the opportunity to size up the situation before I brought my family to live in Columbus permanently.

I started the new department funded by federal and state grant money to begin with, hoping that the Village tax base was sufficient to hire a few more officers to help me do the job at a later date. It soon became obvious though, that the vision of the Village Council was merely a pipe dream and it would be years before they could garner enough tax income to hire additional officers. So I became a Chief in title only, but the job had to be done and so I took on not only the responsibility of starting a new department, but enforcing the law as well.

I worked during the daylight hours doing all of the necessary things required of starting a department and fielding complaints from the Village residents, and my night time hours patrolling the Village limits attempting to stop the many hard cases from breaking our local ondinances. Many time working twenty hour days, seven days a week.

The first of many confrontations that happened to me during this "honeymoon" period happened one night when I found two brothers engaged in a knock down drag out fight under a street light on one of the streets in town. When I attempted to break up their fight they both turned on me and I was forced to defend myself. I had one brother cuffed and was attempting to cuff the other brother and hold the one I had cuffed on the ground. While I was attempting to accomplish this I heard screaming coming from up the street and heard someone say, "That cop has our friends on the ground up the street, let's kill him!" Not the best words to hear while you are attempting to arrest two strong young men even in the best of conditions.

I heard many foot steps running up the street along with screamed threats against my life and I knew a large group of angry people were headed towards me. I finally got the second brother cuffed and under control and then I pulled my handgun and began screaming at whomever was running towards me to stop. Still they came on and when the first one entered the light of the street lamp we were under, I fired a round from my sidearm that I am sure came very close to his ear, but missing him on purpose. He hit the ground on his face in front of my position, crying and begging for his life; where I was able to intimidate him into staying on the ground.

The round I fired had it's desired affect and all the others retreated from my position post haste. I cuffed the third suspect and placed them all in my Patrol car and eventually transported all three to the jail in Deming where they were booked for disorderly conduct and felony stupid in public, (No such statute, but there should be). This first encounter was a preamble to what was to come later, and the evil in this town almost cost me my life.