In the years before my friend Brad was transferred to Farson, Wyoming to be the resident Sheriff's Deputy I was the lone lawman. I broke up many fights by myself in the Oregon Trail Saloon until I finally confronted the bartender, a seventy five year old frail man named Albert and told him that I was tired of breaking up fights in his bar, after he allowed his patrons to over drink and then couldn't control them.
Albert was not fit to be bartender and I knew the problem was that the heavy drinkers would push him around after they got drunk and then Albert couldn't handle them. Well for a time after I had confronted him about the problem he seemed to handle the bar better, because for the first time in years I was able to stay home and sleep at night and was not called out.
Then one night I received a call from Albert who told me, "Ya better get down here, 'cause I just shot a guy." Albert had my full attention with that pronouncement and so I dressed and drove the five miles from my house to the Saloon. When I arrived at the Saloon and entered, I found that local EMT personnel were giving aid to young man who was suffering from a gun shot wound to the stomach made by a thirty eight caliber revolver in Albert's hand.
I interviewed Albert who stated, "Well, don't blame me, you told me to handle my own fights in the bar, and when this young fella came over the bar at me I shot 'im." The ambulance arrived at the Saloon and they loaded and transported the man to the hospital in Rock Springs about fifty miles south of Farson and even though he was badly wounded, he lived.
The Sheriff, Jim Stark one of the last true old lawmen of the west arrived at the Oregon Trail a while after the ambulance transported the victim from the scene, along with the county coroner. Jim questioned Albert about what had transpired in the shooting, and Albert repeated to him the same story thast he had told me. Jim then spoke with a number of people in the bar who corroborated Alberts story, he looked around the scene a bit, walked up to Albert and then shook his hand, and told him, "Good job Albert, sounds like a justified shooting to me!" The case was over. Jim was my kind of lawman and I consider myself fortunate to have known him. Albert continued tending bar, and he continued handling his customers who gave him much respect knowing he was fully capable of defending himself.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Ego bruising at the A-D Saloon
The Rock Springs of the 1970's was a wide open town, drugs flowed like water, prostitutes worked openly on the streets and bars were the only home many men had. Rock Springs was a boom town that had grown from a sleepy little berg of eight thousand people to twenty thousand people in five short years. The were people living in tents in the twenty below winter weather, and everyone had money. It was known as sin city and the television program 60 Minutes did expose on the corruption to be found there.
It was my kind of town and my shift mates and I on the Wyoming Highway Patrol gravitated to be there there to assist the Rock Springs City police officers who were sometimes overwhelmed, a shooting or stabbing happening at least once a week. In my rookie year on the Highway Patrol I worked hard to develop a reputation for being the first one in the door any time I had occasion to be called to a fight. Needless to say I became a little cocky and sure of myself and perhaps a little careless as well because I luckily always seemed to prevail in a fight. We tried to be near town on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night because these were the nights when the action took place and I was always ready to back up the city officers when there was a fight in a bar. K-Street in Rock Springs was where all of the prostitution, drugs and bars existed and as I explained before it was truly a dangerous place to work as a cop. One Saturday night I received a call to assist city officers who were embroiled in a fight at the A-D Saloon that was located in the rough area. Being close to town I arrived at the A-D Saloon first, quickly bailing out of my car in front of the bar and running to the front door.
The A-D Saloon was a narrow but very long saloon that had a bar over twenty feet long along the east wall of the building. I saw through the large old fashioned glass windows of the building that the bar was full and I estimate that there were at least two hundred very drunk and rowdy people inside and it appeared that they had several officers pinned up against the wall. I threw the front door to the bar open, and just as I cleared the doorway someone on my left side hit me over the head with a table. I was smashed face first into the floor and the lights went out.
I do not know how long I was unconscious, but when I came to I was in the fight of my life. While I tried to gather my thoughts, my fingers were being stomped on by booted feet and my ribs were being kicked in by unseen persons. I heard people screaming, "Kill the pig, kick him to death." My hat was gone, someone tore my badge off of my chest, my clothing was ripped, but I still had my gun belt and along with it my pistol still in it's holster under my belly. I attempted to gain my feet, but the number of people having a go at me were too numerous and so I decided the best thing I could do was to retain my pistol at all costs and attempt to crawl through the crowd and hit anything with my left fist that came into range.
The first one I struck was a drunken woman who began pulling my hair. I hit her in the face and she collapsed on the floor, everything that happened was a blur, but I fought with all of my strength because it was life or death and I intended to go home to my family. I threw a lot of punches, some landing and others going wild, but my fury seemed to back them off to the point that I was able to crawl completely through the length of the building without anyone being able to knock me out completely. There was several times when I thought I was going to black out from blows to the head, but I was able to keep on crawling. The crowd that surrounded me seemed to diminish, especially after I began to fight back, I showed them that I still had teeth even though I was down, but there were several men continuing to strike me in the head with their fists and still were delivering staggering blows to my ribs, backside and arms with their booted feet. I began to weaken from the affects of the blows and I feared that I might not have the strength to crawl out of the back door.
Then a black angel came to my rescue in the form of Delbert G an investigator for the county attorney, who had been in the area when the fight started. He happened to see me go down and he went out the front door of the bar and ran around to the alley behind the bar, entering the back door with a 12 gauge shotgun in hand. He began butt stroking my assailants away from me with the butt of the shotgun and pulled me out of the back door and to safety in the alley. Delbert stayed by my side and my assailants melted into the crowd of the bar and I was out of the action, but I was glad to be alive and very angry that this had happened to me.
I was taken to the hospital where they checked me out, discovering that my injuries were bruising to most of my body. I was there issued pain killers for the massive pain and released to go home. My poor long suffering wife cried when she saw me. I was covered in blood, tobacco spit, my face, arms and hands were swollen to a much larger size and both eyes were almost swollen shut. The pain pills helped me to sleep, but the next day I truly knew the extent of the bruising, there was not a place on my body spared the beating including the rectal, scrotal area. I truly gave serious thought to discontinuing to my present line of work, but eventually the pain went away and I went back to work. The funny thing is I do not have any rememberance of much of anything that happened after the fight, or of anyone being prosecuted for committing a battery on a police officer. It is as though my mind has blanked it out of my memory, this is probably just as well. Neither my hat and hat badge, nor my chest badge were ever found, or returned. I am sure that they reside in someones trophy case where someone is bragging to his grandchild about the time he kicked the cops butt.....single handedly
It was my kind of town and my shift mates and I on the Wyoming Highway Patrol gravitated to be there there to assist the Rock Springs City police officers who were sometimes overwhelmed, a shooting or stabbing happening at least once a week. In my rookie year on the Highway Patrol I worked hard to develop a reputation for being the first one in the door any time I had occasion to be called to a fight. Needless to say I became a little cocky and sure of myself and perhaps a little careless as well because I luckily always seemed to prevail in a fight. We tried to be near town on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night because these were the nights when the action took place and I was always ready to back up the city officers when there was a fight in a bar. K-Street in Rock Springs was where all of the prostitution, drugs and bars existed and as I explained before it was truly a dangerous place to work as a cop. One Saturday night I received a call to assist city officers who were embroiled in a fight at the A-D Saloon that was located in the rough area. Being close to town I arrived at the A-D Saloon first, quickly bailing out of my car in front of the bar and running to the front door.
The A-D Saloon was a narrow but very long saloon that had a bar over twenty feet long along the east wall of the building. I saw through the large old fashioned glass windows of the building that the bar was full and I estimate that there were at least two hundred very drunk and rowdy people inside and it appeared that they had several officers pinned up against the wall. I threw the front door to the bar open, and just as I cleared the doorway someone on my left side hit me over the head with a table. I was smashed face first into the floor and the lights went out.
I do not know how long I was unconscious, but when I came to I was in the fight of my life. While I tried to gather my thoughts, my fingers were being stomped on by booted feet and my ribs were being kicked in by unseen persons. I heard people screaming, "Kill the pig, kick him to death." My hat was gone, someone tore my badge off of my chest, my clothing was ripped, but I still had my gun belt and along with it my pistol still in it's holster under my belly. I attempted to gain my feet, but the number of people having a go at me were too numerous and so I decided the best thing I could do was to retain my pistol at all costs and attempt to crawl through the crowd and hit anything with my left fist that came into range.
The first one I struck was a drunken woman who began pulling my hair. I hit her in the face and she collapsed on the floor, everything that happened was a blur, but I fought with all of my strength because it was life or death and I intended to go home to my family. I threw a lot of punches, some landing and others going wild, but my fury seemed to back them off to the point that I was able to crawl completely through the length of the building without anyone being able to knock me out completely. There was several times when I thought I was going to black out from blows to the head, but I was able to keep on crawling. The crowd that surrounded me seemed to diminish, especially after I began to fight back, I showed them that I still had teeth even though I was down, but there were several men continuing to strike me in the head with their fists and still were delivering staggering blows to my ribs, backside and arms with their booted feet. I began to weaken from the affects of the blows and I feared that I might not have the strength to crawl out of the back door.
Then a black angel came to my rescue in the form of Delbert G an investigator for the county attorney, who had been in the area when the fight started. He happened to see me go down and he went out the front door of the bar and ran around to the alley behind the bar, entering the back door with a 12 gauge shotgun in hand. He began butt stroking my assailants away from me with the butt of the shotgun and pulled me out of the back door and to safety in the alley. Delbert stayed by my side and my assailants melted into the crowd of the bar and I was out of the action, but I was glad to be alive and very angry that this had happened to me.
I was taken to the hospital where they checked me out, discovering that my injuries were bruising to most of my body. I was there issued pain killers for the massive pain and released to go home. My poor long suffering wife cried when she saw me. I was covered in blood, tobacco spit, my face, arms and hands were swollen to a much larger size and both eyes were almost swollen shut. The pain pills helped me to sleep, but the next day I truly knew the extent of the bruising, there was not a place on my body spared the beating including the rectal, scrotal area. I truly gave serious thought to discontinuing to my present line of work, but eventually the pain went away and I went back to work. The funny thing is I do not have any rememberance of much of anything that happened after the fight, or of anyone being prosecuted for committing a battery on a police officer. It is as though my mind has blanked it out of my memory, this is probably just as well. Neither my hat and hat badge, nor my chest badge were ever found, or returned. I am sure that they reside in someones trophy case where someone is bragging to his grandchild about the time he kicked the cops butt.....single handedly
The Big Fight at Loya's Lounge.
I have been a part of the Mexican/Mexican American culture my entire life. I have loved the Mexican people of good heart all of my life. I am many ways more Mexican than I am white and my Mexican friends call me "Gringo con cola prieta", translation, "white boy with a black butt." I have never been prejudiced in a racial sense and I am glad God wired me that way, my only prejudice as it applies to most folks is stupidity, i.e. acting stupidly when other responses are more applicable.
I started grade school in 1954 in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico at a parochial school where I was one of five white faces in the school. I fought onto the school bus, off of the school bus, into the class room, before and after each recess, lunch and time to go home, the entire time I was there and oh yeah, the nuns slapped me on the knuckles because I wrote with my left hand. I learned at a young age what it meant to be hated because of my race, and it has made me very sensitive to racial issues since then. In 1986 after I lost the election for Sheriff of La Paz County, Arizona, I returned to my home town of Hatch, New Mexico to become re-certified in law enforcement and I worked in that small town for about one and one half years and became re-certified as a police officer. It was not an enjoyable time in my life because we experienced debilitating financial problems, disease that almost took the life of one of my sons, and my precious wife miscarried a child.
The police department was run by a retired Navy Chief who knew little about enforcing the law and was intimidated by the fact that I was more experienced in law enforcement than he. We butted heads continuously until I left because I refused to leave his drunk friends alone when I caught them drunk driving. There was constant contention between he and I.
The particular story I would like to tell involves a Bar called Loya's Lounge. On Saturday and Sunday nights the migrant workers who frequented the bar did so because there would always be a large dance. Invariably there was always a fight, sometimes a big fight that took place in which some of the participants needed medical help. One Saturday night I was working by my self when I received a call to check out a problem at the bar, during a big dance, referencing the fact that a married couple were fighting over a pool game they were playing. I traveled to the bar and luckily the pool table was located near the door and I was able to stop the fight between the married couple and warn them that if I had to return because of them, they would both be jailed. Just as I finished with this couple a fight broke out on the dance floor.
For some unknown reason I forced my way through the crowd to stop the fight between two men. I seperated the two fighters, but suddenly I realized where I was, I was the only white face on the dance floor and all around me stood an untold number of drunk, irritated and malevolent Mexican faces. The fighting commenced with me the guest of honor. Remeniscent of the fight I wrote about in the A-D Saloon, punches began to rain down on my head and body from 360 degrees surrounding me. I began to get pummeled in a serious way, but this time I was not forced off of my feet and I was able to remove my T-stick from my gun belt and began to flail it wildly in an ark, at any person that became to close for my comfort. My stick made contact with many heads in my bid to not be taken down by this dangerous mob. Using the stick I fought my way to the bare front wall of the bar nearest the exit with men punching wildly at me and then I became aware that the knives were coming out.
This particular group of workers were lettuce harvesters and they all carried lettuce cutting knives with long sharp blades, used to cut the head of lettuce from its root when harvesting. When I realized that this fight was indeed becoming serious, I grew more viscious with my stick strikes and trying to disable my multiple assailants with head shots of great strength and intensity. My greatest fear was being taken to the floor and not being able to regain my feet. I continued to try especially hard to punish the knife wielders and so bestowed my most intense effort on them. No matter how I tried I was not able to move all of the way to the door, I was stuck and it appeared that I was not going to prevail in this fight. My stick arm was becoming tired and I was seriously thinking about drawing my side arm and bring this assault to a conclusion.
There is always the danger when in situations such as this that if you draw your sidearm someone might take it away from you and use it on you. Suddenly I felt someone grab the collar of my heavy patrol jacket and literally jerk me off of my feet and then I felt myself being pulled the last few feet through the crowd and out of the front door of Loya's Lounge. I thought it was an attack from behind until I heard a voice say. "You crazy gringo, what the hell were you trying to do in there?" I realized then that my assailant was my savior in the form of my crazy friend New Mexico State Police Officer D. Martinez. Martinez pulled me out into the middle of the street in front of Loya's Lounge and there we both drew our sidearms and pointed them towards the crowd that was boiling out of the bar like a hive of angry knife wielding bees towards us.
Martinez's spanish being better than mine proceeded to tell the combatants that the fight was now over and the first person who took a step towards he and I was dead. The crowd came to a screeching halt and he convinced them to disperse. Most went back into the safety of the bar and others vanished away from us. He and I retreated further towards our parked cars, I caught my breath and Martinez began to laugh at me for getting myself into such a fix. In the mean time we watched as many people were carried out of the bar by others, the victims of the wrath of my stick. I considered the fight to be a draw and I never attempted prosecution of anyone involved. There were just too many of them, and besides I was still in one piece and there were many men leaving for a hospital with broken heads.
This was in a day and in a place where altercations were handled this way, it would not happen this way today. After this fight I never had any trouble again in this bar, sometimes a reputation is a good thing. D. Martinez will have my thanks and loyalty the rest of my life.
I started grade school in 1954 in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico at a parochial school where I was one of five white faces in the school. I fought onto the school bus, off of the school bus, into the class room, before and after each recess, lunch and time to go home, the entire time I was there and oh yeah, the nuns slapped me on the knuckles because I wrote with my left hand. I learned at a young age what it meant to be hated because of my race, and it has made me very sensitive to racial issues since then. In 1986 after I lost the election for Sheriff of La Paz County, Arizona, I returned to my home town of Hatch, New Mexico to become re-certified in law enforcement and I worked in that small town for about one and one half years and became re-certified as a police officer. It was not an enjoyable time in my life because we experienced debilitating financial problems, disease that almost took the life of one of my sons, and my precious wife miscarried a child.
The police department was run by a retired Navy Chief who knew little about enforcing the law and was intimidated by the fact that I was more experienced in law enforcement than he. We butted heads continuously until I left because I refused to leave his drunk friends alone when I caught them drunk driving. There was constant contention between he and I.
The particular story I would like to tell involves a Bar called Loya's Lounge. On Saturday and Sunday nights the migrant workers who frequented the bar did so because there would always be a large dance. Invariably there was always a fight, sometimes a big fight that took place in which some of the participants needed medical help. One Saturday night I was working by my self when I received a call to check out a problem at the bar, during a big dance, referencing the fact that a married couple were fighting over a pool game they were playing. I traveled to the bar and luckily the pool table was located near the door and I was able to stop the fight between the married couple and warn them that if I had to return because of them, they would both be jailed. Just as I finished with this couple a fight broke out on the dance floor.
For some unknown reason I forced my way through the crowd to stop the fight between two men. I seperated the two fighters, but suddenly I realized where I was, I was the only white face on the dance floor and all around me stood an untold number of drunk, irritated and malevolent Mexican faces. The fighting commenced with me the guest of honor. Remeniscent of the fight I wrote about in the A-D Saloon, punches began to rain down on my head and body from 360 degrees surrounding me. I began to get pummeled in a serious way, but this time I was not forced off of my feet and I was able to remove my T-stick from my gun belt and began to flail it wildly in an ark, at any person that became to close for my comfort. My stick made contact with many heads in my bid to not be taken down by this dangerous mob. Using the stick I fought my way to the bare front wall of the bar nearest the exit with men punching wildly at me and then I became aware that the knives were coming out.
This particular group of workers were lettuce harvesters and they all carried lettuce cutting knives with long sharp blades, used to cut the head of lettuce from its root when harvesting. When I realized that this fight was indeed becoming serious, I grew more viscious with my stick strikes and trying to disable my multiple assailants with head shots of great strength and intensity. My greatest fear was being taken to the floor and not being able to regain my feet. I continued to try especially hard to punish the knife wielders and so bestowed my most intense effort on them. No matter how I tried I was not able to move all of the way to the door, I was stuck and it appeared that I was not going to prevail in this fight. My stick arm was becoming tired and I was seriously thinking about drawing my side arm and bring this assault to a conclusion.
There is always the danger when in situations such as this that if you draw your sidearm someone might take it away from you and use it on you. Suddenly I felt someone grab the collar of my heavy patrol jacket and literally jerk me off of my feet and then I felt myself being pulled the last few feet through the crowd and out of the front door of Loya's Lounge. I thought it was an attack from behind until I heard a voice say. "You crazy gringo, what the hell were you trying to do in there?" I realized then that my assailant was my savior in the form of my crazy friend New Mexico State Police Officer D. Martinez. Martinez pulled me out into the middle of the street in front of Loya's Lounge and there we both drew our sidearms and pointed them towards the crowd that was boiling out of the bar like a hive of angry knife wielding bees towards us.
Martinez's spanish being better than mine proceeded to tell the combatants that the fight was now over and the first person who took a step towards he and I was dead. The crowd came to a screeching halt and he convinced them to disperse. Most went back into the safety of the bar and others vanished away from us. He and I retreated further towards our parked cars, I caught my breath and Martinez began to laugh at me for getting myself into such a fix. In the mean time we watched as many people were carried out of the bar by others, the victims of the wrath of my stick. I considered the fight to be a draw and I never attempted prosecution of anyone involved. There were just too many of them, and besides I was still in one piece and there were many men leaving for a hospital with broken heads.
This was in a day and in a place where altercations were handled this way, it would not happen this way today. After this fight I never had any trouble again in this bar, sometimes a reputation is a good thing. D. Martinez will have my thanks and loyalty the rest of my life.
Big Fight at the Oregon Trail Saloon Part II
I transported Butch to the County Jail in Greenriver, Wyoming and booked him into the jail and during the process I was worried about Butch because he didn't look well. Myself and the jailor asked him several times if he wanted to be transported back to the hospital, to which he answered no. After finishing at the jail I sped back to Farson to find out about our lost prisoner.
When I arrived I called Brad and he told me a strange tale. He said that he found the escaped prisoner in a trailer house, but when he attempted to gain access to the house he was accosted by three armed men who denied him entrance to the house. Brad decided to wait until I arrived to negotiate with the men, and so he and I approached the trailer again. The spokesman of the group told us that the man I had the first encounter with was injured badly, but that he was on parole from the Colorado State Pen in Canyon City, Colorado and that if he was arrested he would go back to prison for a long time. These three men gave us the choice of becoming involved in a shoot out with them, or let the man leave.
I did not think that they had the gumption to start a gun fight with Brad and I, but I told them that releasing the man after my encounter with him was a poor idea. They stated that they would guarantee that the man would leave the area and not come back. I consulted with Brad and between us we decided that we would take a chance and cut this fellow a deal. I asked them to return the cuffs to me and I took the three's drivers license information and told them that if he ever returned I would hold them both responsible. This was probably not the best decision I ever made, but I decided to take a chance on him doing what he promised he would do. This event took place in a time and a place in which law enforcement decisions of this magnitude happened quite regularly, I could not, nor would I be allowed to do such a thing in this day.
I returned home after this last encounter and even though I was apprehensive about the outcome of the situation involving the two prisoners I transported to the hospital and jail, I managed to get to sleep about seven o'clock that morning, after cleaning up and inspecting the damage to my body after the fight in which Brad and I were involved. I had numerous cuts, contusion and abrasions from the fight and I suffered some deep bruising to my kidney area that would take a long time to heal, and I probably needed stitches, but I shunned going to the doctor to have it done. I believe I suffered long term damage to my kidneys from the fight and suffer to this day from kidney problems that I believe were caused by the brusing I sustained to my kidneys in the fight.
At about eight o'clock I received a phone call that awakened me from a deep sleep. It was from the County Attorney whom I had supported during his recent election to his office. He initiated the conversation by saying, "Heard you had a fight last night." I acknowled that I did. He then said, "I just wanted you to know that if Butch dies, I intend to prosecute you for his death. I was shocked at first and asked him to explain. He stated that Butch had collapsed in the jail and he had been air lifted to a brain trauma unit in Salt Lake City, Utah with a cracked skull. I asked the County Attorney, "Do you know what happened here last night? Were you told that we were attacked by eighteen people and barely escaped with our lives." He stated that he was only aware that the man had been beaten by me and might die, and he reiterated that he intended to prosecute me if the man died. I lost my temper and made one of my most stupid comments ever. I asked him what the charge was for killing two people, he didn't answer and so I told him that if he was going to prosecute me for doing my job, I thought it might be a good idea for me to drive to Green River, shoot him (the county attorney) and that way I could get rid of two pests for the price of one. He hung up on me and I never had any contact with him again, charges were never filed when the full story of the fight came out with our reports and the statements of witnesses to the fight.
The conclusion of this story is that Butch lived, the man who was hospitalized in Rock Springs that I struck with the stick lived, and the ex-con never came back as he promised. When their trial took place, both Butch and the the man apologized profusely for their actions on the night of the fight to both Brad and I. They pled guilty to the charges, all misdemeanor and paid hefty fines that the judge levied against them. Butch returned to Farson with his crew, and one day my friend Mitch who owned the local restaurant in which Butch's crew ate every day; saw Butch sitting at the breakfast bar in the restaurant looking morose and constantly shaking his head like he was troubled. Mitch approached Butch and asked him what was wrong, Butch said, "Mitch you know that damned cop don't you?" Mitch responded, "Yes, very well!" Did you know he pointed a gun at me the night of the fight?" Again, Mitch answered, "Yes!" Butch then stated, "Do you think he would have shot me?" Mitch responded, "Butch if you knew how close to death you were, you would have run the other direction." Mitch told me later that Butch hung his head and said rather emotionally, "I knew it, I knew it, all I can think of is the barrel of that gun pointed at me and it looked like the end of a 55 gallon barrel.
When I arrived I called Brad and he told me a strange tale. He said that he found the escaped prisoner in a trailer house, but when he attempted to gain access to the house he was accosted by three armed men who denied him entrance to the house. Brad decided to wait until I arrived to negotiate with the men, and so he and I approached the trailer again. The spokesman of the group told us that the man I had the first encounter with was injured badly, but that he was on parole from the Colorado State Pen in Canyon City, Colorado and that if he was arrested he would go back to prison for a long time. These three men gave us the choice of becoming involved in a shoot out with them, or let the man leave.
I did not think that they had the gumption to start a gun fight with Brad and I, but I told them that releasing the man after my encounter with him was a poor idea. They stated that they would guarantee that the man would leave the area and not come back. I consulted with Brad and between us we decided that we would take a chance and cut this fellow a deal. I asked them to return the cuffs to me and I took the three's drivers license information and told them that if he ever returned I would hold them both responsible. This was probably not the best decision I ever made, but I decided to take a chance on him doing what he promised he would do. This event took place in a time and a place in which law enforcement decisions of this magnitude happened quite regularly, I could not, nor would I be allowed to do such a thing in this day.
I returned home after this last encounter and even though I was apprehensive about the outcome of the situation involving the two prisoners I transported to the hospital and jail, I managed to get to sleep about seven o'clock that morning, after cleaning up and inspecting the damage to my body after the fight in which Brad and I were involved. I had numerous cuts, contusion and abrasions from the fight and I suffered some deep bruising to my kidney area that would take a long time to heal, and I probably needed stitches, but I shunned going to the doctor to have it done. I believe I suffered long term damage to my kidneys from the fight and suffer to this day from kidney problems that I believe were caused by the brusing I sustained to my kidneys in the fight.
At about eight o'clock I received a phone call that awakened me from a deep sleep. It was from the County Attorney whom I had supported during his recent election to his office. He initiated the conversation by saying, "Heard you had a fight last night." I acknowled that I did. He then said, "I just wanted you to know that if Butch dies, I intend to prosecute you for his death. I was shocked at first and asked him to explain. He stated that Butch had collapsed in the jail and he had been air lifted to a brain trauma unit in Salt Lake City, Utah with a cracked skull. I asked the County Attorney, "Do you know what happened here last night? Were you told that we were attacked by eighteen people and barely escaped with our lives." He stated that he was only aware that the man had been beaten by me and might die, and he reiterated that he intended to prosecute me if the man died. I lost my temper and made one of my most stupid comments ever. I asked him what the charge was for killing two people, he didn't answer and so I told him that if he was going to prosecute me for doing my job, I thought it might be a good idea for me to drive to Green River, shoot him (the county attorney) and that way I could get rid of two pests for the price of one. He hung up on me and I never had any contact with him again, charges were never filed when the full story of the fight came out with our reports and the statements of witnesses to the fight.
The conclusion of this story is that Butch lived, the man who was hospitalized in Rock Springs that I struck with the stick lived, and the ex-con never came back as he promised. When their trial took place, both Butch and the the man apologized profusely for their actions on the night of the fight to both Brad and I. They pled guilty to the charges, all misdemeanor and paid hefty fines that the judge levied against them. Butch returned to Farson with his crew, and one day my friend Mitch who owned the local restaurant in which Butch's crew ate every day; saw Butch sitting at the breakfast bar in the restaurant looking morose and constantly shaking his head like he was troubled. Mitch approached Butch and asked him what was wrong, Butch said, "Mitch you know that damned cop don't you?" Mitch responded, "Yes, very well!" Did you know he pointed a gun at me the night of the fight?" Again, Mitch answered, "Yes!" Butch then stated, "Do you think he would have shot me?" Mitch responded, "Butch if you knew how close to death you were, you would have run the other direction." Mitch told me later that Butch hung his head and said rather emotionally, "I knew it, I knew it, all I can think of is the barrel of that gun pointed at me and it looked like the end of a 55 gallon barrel.
Big Fight at the Oregon Trail Saloon
During the winter of 1981 the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office transfered a Deputy to the my town, the little town of Farson, Wyoming. Farson is located at the approximate split of the Oregon Trail, and the continuation of the Mormon Trail leading from South Pass to Ft. Bridger and then on into Salt Lake Valley. Farson was as I have written before a tough little town. There was an odd mix of oil field rough necks, coal and trona miners and farmers. I was the first Wyoming State Trooper stationed in Farson and I was warned by the Patrol staff that if I did not get my bluff in on the inhabitants of the Valley quickly they would run me off.
I quickly found that the farmers and ranchers in the community suited me well and I made many friends amongst them in the years we lived there. The rough necks were a different story, they were hard working, hard partying men who were basicly scoff laws who had no use for the new cop in town. The first arrest I made of this group of people took place on the steps of the only grocery store in town in front of many of the residents of the town present to watch. It happened while everyone came to the post office to pick up their mail. I had to fight the drunk young oil field worker in front of all of these people, and then cuff him and take him to jail. This event did a great deal to solidify my authority in town.
During the four years my family and I lived there, I was the only law within 60 miles in any direction. I broke up family fights, drunken brawls in the Oregon Trail Saloon, you name it I did it because I was the only law in town. So when Brad T. the Deputy transfered to Farson with his family, I was ecstatically happy because he would get the 2:00 a.m. bar fights calls from Albert the bar tender, who had allowed them to get drunk in the first place; and then wanted me to break up fights before they destroyed his bar.
Brad T. was a big man with loads of law enforcement experience. Previous to transfering to the Sheriff's Office he had been a Rock Springs City Police Officer for many years. He knew how to handle himself, but he got religion somewhere along the line and had decided to become a peace maker and not a fighter. He now believed that talking was the answer to all the problems of the world and he was dedicated in his new found philosophy.
For some time before Brad's arrival I had been monitoring the actions of a team of seismographers who were tempory resident of Farson while they were running a seismograph survey through the area looking for oil deposits in the Farson Valley. This was a group of hard partiers whom had created a couple of altercations in the Oregon Trail Saloon, and I knew that before they left there would be a big fight to deal with. I was glad Brad was there to deal with it instead of me.
One night I had just fallen asleep at the end of my shift at midnight, when I received a call from the Cheyenne disptatcher stating that Brad was involved in an altercation at the Oregon Trail Saloon and he needed my assistance. I got out of bed grumpily, put on my blue jeans (out of unifrom) a T-shirt, gun belt and boots and headed to my car. I then traveled the three miles from my home to the Oregon Trail Saloon in thick fog that almost obscured the roadway. It was cold and there was about two feet of snow on the ground.
When I arrived I could just make out a large (for Farson) group of people standing in the parking lot in front of the Saloon, and it appeared that they were all very drunk and upset. Brad was also in the crowd talking to a man whom I found out later was named "Butch". Butch was the leader of the seismograph team and he was a big man. Fully 6'9" and weighing over 300 lbs. I got out of my car as quietly and as unobtrusively as I could after parking it out of sight on the edge of the highway and walked over to the front of the Saloon, but away from what was happening to get the lay of the land, so to speak; without interfering with what Brad was doing. As I watched and listened to Brad trying to talk Butch out of his mad, I found that Butch was upset that someone in his crew had left the bar unbeknownst to him and had removed the coil wire from the engine of his Blazer to keep him from driving drunk and he was mad enough to kill whoever did it.
My location was leaning against the front wall of the Saloon about fifty feet away from the altercation trying to mind my own business, but I noticed a man standing a short distance away near the altercation and he was staring at me, while he held a case of beer under his right arm. This man was really glaring at me and I tried to ignore him, but he seemed to become more and more agitated as he stared at me, until he threw the case of beer on the concrete at his feet and began to run rapidly towards me uttering a rebel yell, YEEEEEEEEEEE,HAAAAAA.
Just before he reached my position he jumped up into the air at full speed with his feet pointed towards me at chest level and parallel to the ground with the obvious intent to strike me a devestating blow to the chest with both feet. I simply used my forearm to deflect the blow away from me and then I struck him in the head with a night stick that I had concealed behind my back. The man was knocked unconscious by the blow, my night stick broke in two and he fell to the ground several feet past my position like a rag doll. I immediately pounced upon him and attempted to cuff him behind his back before he woke up.
The proverbial excrement hit the fan when Butch shoved Brad away from him and began bellowing like a bull and running towards me. Still in the process of trying to cuff my suspect, beer bottles began to rain upon my head from the twenty of so seismograph crew members maddened that I had hit their friend. Butch continued his attack towards me and so I pulled my sidearm and began scraming at him that I would shoot him if he didn't back off. To his credit Butch screeched to a halt and began back peddling away from me and into the crowd of his followers who were intent on breaking my skull with anything they could find to throw at me.
I screamed at Brad to, "Get that SOB, meaning Butch and so Brad who was well over 6" grabbed him and jumping upwards placed Butch in a choke hold and pulled him to the ground on his stomach. In the mean time I successfully cuffed my suspect. I dragged my suspect to Brad's pickup and threw him unceremoniously into the front seat of the vehicle and left him there still unconscious. I then went to my vehicle and grabbed a spare night stick and headed back into the fray with the intent of backing off the people who were kicking Brad in the back and sides as he tried to get Butch to give him his hand that he was holding under his body to prevent Brad from cuffing him.
When I reached Brad's location I began to stike out blindly at the crowd of people surrounding Brad who were trying to extricate Butch from Brad's choke hold. They backed off from us but they still continued to bombard us with beer bottles, striking us on the head and back with force and shattering many of them on us. I then straddled Butch's back next to Brad and began screaming at Butch to give me his hand; he responded with an unprintable expletive and so I took a hand full of his greasy blond hair and began to slam his head into the asphalt of the parking lot. He was knocked unconscious and so I extricated his hand from underneath him and we successfully cuffed him.
Still dodging bottles and hard projectiles from the crowd, Brad and I dragged Butch to my patrol car and placed him on his face on the rear seat handcuffed to the rear and locked him in my car. Brad and I both were tired of the bottles being thrown at us and so we went after the crowd attempting to beat them away. One woman jumped on my back and began clawing me in the face with her finger nails and so I reached over my left shoulder and grabbing a piece of her coat pulled her over my shoulder and slammed her into the ground. While I was trying to cuff her an unknown man who screamed at me that the woman was his sister, struck me in the back of the head with a beer bottle almost causing me to lose consciousness, I turned my body towards him and struck him full force with my night stick in the face. The blow knocked him out and he collapsed to the ground, meanwhile the woman got away from me and disappeared into the crowd. I cuffed the unconscious man I struck with the stick and dragged him to the front seat of my car and placed him in the passenger's side of the seat still unconscious.
Meanwhile Brad kept the crowd at bay by grabbing his shotgun from his car, and when I returned to his position he asked me, "Where is the dude you first hit, when Butch attacked you?" I stated, "Isn't he in your truck?" He continued with, "No, he's gone." We both walked to Brad's truck and sure enough the man was gone. By this time the crowd knew they were in trouble and began to disburse away from the area and back into what ever black hole they came from and Brad and I went looking for the suspect. We were walking in the alley behind the general store and the Oregon Trail Saloon when we encountered two men carrying rifles. Brad and I both drew down on them screaming, " Drop your guns!!!" They both did so immediately and then explained that they were merely tying to help us in the fight. I recognized one man as the upstanding citizen type, so we thanked them and asked them to return home. I determined that I was going to transport Butch and the other man to Green River to the County Jail, and Brad would continued to look for the escaped suspect.
We parted and I began the 47 mile trip to the hospital in Rock Springs to deposit my still unconscious sister protector and then from there to the jail in Green River. I did not drive slow. Even though both men looked to be in rough shape I looked in the mirror of my car and saw that blood was caked on my face from scratching finger nails and I had numerous cuts in my hair and the back of my neck from the broken bottles exploding on my head. My Patrol jacket was shredded in places and it looked as though someone may have taken a slice at me with a knife because there was a portion of the back sliced open about six inches. When I arrived at the hospital emergency room I was almost attacked by the on duty emergency room nurses. When they saw the man I had struck in the face with the night stick, his head was swollen to twice it's normal size and both eyes were swollen shut and his nose was broken from the impact of the stick.
They began screaming and berating at me for beating him, but no one said a kind word for doing my job even though it would turn out I was in as bad of shape as he was and didn't know it. I left him in the hospital's care and with my tail between my legs re-entered my Patrol car and continued transporting Butch to jail. (To be continued)
I quickly found that the farmers and ranchers in the community suited me well and I made many friends amongst them in the years we lived there. The rough necks were a different story, they were hard working, hard partying men who were basicly scoff laws who had no use for the new cop in town. The first arrest I made of this group of people took place on the steps of the only grocery store in town in front of many of the residents of the town present to watch. It happened while everyone came to the post office to pick up their mail. I had to fight the drunk young oil field worker in front of all of these people, and then cuff him and take him to jail. This event did a great deal to solidify my authority in town.
During the four years my family and I lived there, I was the only law within 60 miles in any direction. I broke up family fights, drunken brawls in the Oregon Trail Saloon, you name it I did it because I was the only law in town. So when Brad T. the Deputy transfered to Farson with his family, I was ecstatically happy because he would get the 2:00 a.m. bar fights calls from Albert the bar tender, who had allowed them to get drunk in the first place; and then wanted me to break up fights before they destroyed his bar.
Brad T. was a big man with loads of law enforcement experience. Previous to transfering to the Sheriff's Office he had been a Rock Springs City Police Officer for many years. He knew how to handle himself, but he got religion somewhere along the line and had decided to become a peace maker and not a fighter. He now believed that talking was the answer to all the problems of the world and he was dedicated in his new found philosophy.
For some time before Brad's arrival I had been monitoring the actions of a team of seismographers who were tempory resident of Farson while they were running a seismograph survey through the area looking for oil deposits in the Farson Valley. This was a group of hard partiers whom had created a couple of altercations in the Oregon Trail Saloon, and I knew that before they left there would be a big fight to deal with. I was glad Brad was there to deal with it instead of me.
One night I had just fallen asleep at the end of my shift at midnight, when I received a call from the Cheyenne disptatcher stating that Brad was involved in an altercation at the Oregon Trail Saloon and he needed my assistance. I got out of bed grumpily, put on my blue jeans (out of unifrom) a T-shirt, gun belt and boots and headed to my car. I then traveled the three miles from my home to the Oregon Trail Saloon in thick fog that almost obscured the roadway. It was cold and there was about two feet of snow on the ground.
When I arrived I could just make out a large (for Farson) group of people standing in the parking lot in front of the Saloon, and it appeared that they were all very drunk and upset. Brad was also in the crowd talking to a man whom I found out later was named "Butch". Butch was the leader of the seismograph team and he was a big man. Fully 6'9" and weighing over 300 lbs. I got out of my car as quietly and as unobtrusively as I could after parking it out of sight on the edge of the highway and walked over to the front of the Saloon, but away from what was happening to get the lay of the land, so to speak; without interfering with what Brad was doing. As I watched and listened to Brad trying to talk Butch out of his mad, I found that Butch was upset that someone in his crew had left the bar unbeknownst to him and had removed the coil wire from the engine of his Blazer to keep him from driving drunk and he was mad enough to kill whoever did it.
My location was leaning against the front wall of the Saloon about fifty feet away from the altercation trying to mind my own business, but I noticed a man standing a short distance away near the altercation and he was staring at me, while he held a case of beer under his right arm. This man was really glaring at me and I tried to ignore him, but he seemed to become more and more agitated as he stared at me, until he threw the case of beer on the concrete at his feet and began to run rapidly towards me uttering a rebel yell, YEEEEEEEEEEE,HAAAAAA.
Just before he reached my position he jumped up into the air at full speed with his feet pointed towards me at chest level and parallel to the ground with the obvious intent to strike me a devestating blow to the chest with both feet. I simply used my forearm to deflect the blow away from me and then I struck him in the head with a night stick that I had concealed behind my back. The man was knocked unconscious by the blow, my night stick broke in two and he fell to the ground several feet past my position like a rag doll. I immediately pounced upon him and attempted to cuff him behind his back before he woke up.
The proverbial excrement hit the fan when Butch shoved Brad away from him and began bellowing like a bull and running towards me. Still in the process of trying to cuff my suspect, beer bottles began to rain upon my head from the twenty of so seismograph crew members maddened that I had hit their friend. Butch continued his attack towards me and so I pulled my sidearm and began scraming at him that I would shoot him if he didn't back off. To his credit Butch screeched to a halt and began back peddling away from me and into the crowd of his followers who were intent on breaking my skull with anything they could find to throw at me.
I screamed at Brad to, "Get that SOB, meaning Butch and so Brad who was well over 6" grabbed him and jumping upwards placed Butch in a choke hold and pulled him to the ground on his stomach. In the mean time I successfully cuffed my suspect. I dragged my suspect to Brad's pickup and threw him unceremoniously into the front seat of the vehicle and left him there still unconscious. I then went to my vehicle and grabbed a spare night stick and headed back into the fray with the intent of backing off the people who were kicking Brad in the back and sides as he tried to get Butch to give him his hand that he was holding under his body to prevent Brad from cuffing him.
When I reached Brad's location I began to stike out blindly at the crowd of people surrounding Brad who were trying to extricate Butch from Brad's choke hold. They backed off from us but they still continued to bombard us with beer bottles, striking us on the head and back with force and shattering many of them on us. I then straddled Butch's back next to Brad and began screaming at Butch to give me his hand; he responded with an unprintable expletive and so I took a hand full of his greasy blond hair and began to slam his head into the asphalt of the parking lot. He was knocked unconscious and so I extricated his hand from underneath him and we successfully cuffed him.
Still dodging bottles and hard projectiles from the crowd, Brad and I dragged Butch to my patrol car and placed him on his face on the rear seat handcuffed to the rear and locked him in my car. Brad and I both were tired of the bottles being thrown at us and so we went after the crowd attempting to beat them away. One woman jumped on my back and began clawing me in the face with her finger nails and so I reached over my left shoulder and grabbing a piece of her coat pulled her over my shoulder and slammed her into the ground. While I was trying to cuff her an unknown man who screamed at me that the woman was his sister, struck me in the back of the head with a beer bottle almost causing me to lose consciousness, I turned my body towards him and struck him full force with my night stick in the face. The blow knocked him out and he collapsed to the ground, meanwhile the woman got away from me and disappeared into the crowd. I cuffed the unconscious man I struck with the stick and dragged him to the front seat of my car and placed him in the passenger's side of the seat still unconscious.
Meanwhile Brad kept the crowd at bay by grabbing his shotgun from his car, and when I returned to his position he asked me, "Where is the dude you first hit, when Butch attacked you?" I stated, "Isn't he in your truck?" He continued with, "No, he's gone." We both walked to Brad's truck and sure enough the man was gone. By this time the crowd knew they were in trouble and began to disburse away from the area and back into what ever black hole they came from and Brad and I went looking for the suspect. We were walking in the alley behind the general store and the Oregon Trail Saloon when we encountered two men carrying rifles. Brad and I both drew down on them screaming, " Drop your guns!!!" They both did so immediately and then explained that they were merely tying to help us in the fight. I recognized one man as the upstanding citizen type, so we thanked them and asked them to return home. I determined that I was going to transport Butch and the other man to Green River to the County Jail, and Brad would continued to look for the escaped suspect.
We parted and I began the 47 mile trip to the hospital in Rock Springs to deposit my still unconscious sister protector and then from there to the jail in Green River. I did not drive slow. Even though both men looked to be in rough shape I looked in the mirror of my car and saw that blood was caked on my face from scratching finger nails and I had numerous cuts in my hair and the back of my neck from the broken bottles exploding on my head. My Patrol jacket was shredded in places and it looked as though someone may have taken a slice at me with a knife because there was a portion of the back sliced open about six inches. When I arrived at the hospital emergency room I was almost attacked by the on duty emergency room nurses. When they saw the man I had struck in the face with the night stick, his head was swollen to twice it's normal size and both eyes were swollen shut and his nose was broken from the impact of the stick.
They began screaming and berating at me for beating him, but no one said a kind word for doing my job even though it would turn out I was in as bad of shape as he was and didn't know it. I left him in the hospital's care and with my tail between my legs re-entered my Patrol car and continued transporting Butch to jail. (To be continued)
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
My Sister Visited by Death.
The little cowtown in which I was raised had a City Marshal, he was pretty layed back and generally a good man. He had one son who was a star football player, who later received a full ride track scholarship as a distance runner. The other son whose name was Santos was another story.
This kid was a bully of the first magnitude, and I had fought him once in high school and lost. He was a gifted boxer who won many amateur bouts, but sadly he used his skills to further his bullying.
My sister who is just three years younger than me is a beautiful and accomplished woman today, attending nursing school and becoming a registered nurse in her late fifties. While she was a senior in high school she dated a tall cowboy from Dalhart, Texas who drove the one hundred or so miles from his home to see my sister and take her out.
One weekend they had a date to attend the dance held at the school gymnasium, which is quite a festive occasion. Everyone comes to the dance, drinking is discouraged, but everyone has a nip or two and generally it is quite peaceful except for the occasional disagreement and short bout of fisticuffs that inevitably follows, but ends quickly.
My sister and her boyfriend were having a great time dancing, when he accidentally stepped on the toe of the bully Santos. The cowboy wanted no problems, and apologized to Santos profusely, but Santos was drunk and looking for a fight and so he took a swing at the cowboy and hit him in the face.
This was a mistake because the cowboy was a big, tough man. In the fight that ensued Santos the bully was whipped badly, the first time that anyone had whipped him ever before in a fight. He should have taken the licking and went home, but instead he pulled himself up off of the floor and told the cowboy that he was going to kill him.
My sister and her boyfriend just laughed it off thinking that it was just the druken boast of s drunk, but sadly this was not the case. After the dance was over and they were walking arm in arm to the cowboy's pickup truck parked in the parking lot, Santos showed up with a high powered rifle.
My sister said Santos said, "I told you I was going to kill you!", then Santos shot the cowboy through the neck, he fell screaming to the asphalt and he bled to death in the arms of my horrified, sobbing sister before help could arrive. If help had arrived nothing could have been done to save his life. Needless to say the trauma of that night haunts my sister to this day.
Santos ran away from town and hid for almost six months in the wilds of the Canadian River gorge with family members, successfully eluding the massive man hunt organized to find him. He later surrendered to authorities and was tried for the crime of second degree murder, a crime committed in the throes of passion, and was acquitted by a jury that was made up mostly of distant relatives.
Some times the legal system doesn't work as it is intended, but I believe there is a higher judge.
This kid was a bully of the first magnitude, and I had fought him once in high school and lost. He was a gifted boxer who won many amateur bouts, but sadly he used his skills to further his bullying.
My sister who is just three years younger than me is a beautiful and accomplished woman today, attending nursing school and becoming a registered nurse in her late fifties. While she was a senior in high school she dated a tall cowboy from Dalhart, Texas who drove the one hundred or so miles from his home to see my sister and take her out.
One weekend they had a date to attend the dance held at the school gymnasium, which is quite a festive occasion. Everyone comes to the dance, drinking is discouraged, but everyone has a nip or two and generally it is quite peaceful except for the occasional disagreement and short bout of fisticuffs that inevitably follows, but ends quickly.
My sister and her boyfriend were having a great time dancing, when he accidentally stepped on the toe of the bully Santos. The cowboy wanted no problems, and apologized to Santos profusely, but Santos was drunk and looking for a fight and so he took a swing at the cowboy and hit him in the face.
This was a mistake because the cowboy was a big, tough man. In the fight that ensued Santos the bully was whipped badly, the first time that anyone had whipped him ever before in a fight. He should have taken the licking and went home, but instead he pulled himself up off of the floor and told the cowboy that he was going to kill him.
My sister and her boyfriend just laughed it off thinking that it was just the druken boast of s drunk, but sadly this was not the case. After the dance was over and they were walking arm in arm to the cowboy's pickup truck parked in the parking lot, Santos showed up with a high powered rifle.
My sister said Santos said, "I told you I was going to kill you!", then Santos shot the cowboy through the neck, he fell screaming to the asphalt and he bled to death in the arms of my horrified, sobbing sister before help could arrive. If help had arrived nothing could have been done to save his life. Needless to say the trauma of that night haunts my sister to this day.
Santos ran away from town and hid for almost six months in the wilds of the Canadian River gorge with family members, successfully eluding the massive man hunt organized to find him. He later surrendered to authorities and was tried for the crime of second degree murder, a crime committed in the throes of passion, and was acquitted by a jury that was made up mostly of distant relatives.
Some times the legal system doesn't work as it is intended, but I believe there is a higher judge.
A Little Compassion.
In my police career I placed my heart and soul into the work of being a law man, because I always felt that I was obeying a higher calling. I have always felt that many times it is only the efforts of one good man, or one good woman that is willing to stand up for what is right, to make the difference between peace and harmony and utter chaos brought on by the forces of evil that abound in the world.
Even though I always gravitated to the small town, rural law enforcement work, I tryed to bring professionalism to my job and always treated each case, no matter how small and insignificant with the same amount of enthusiasm as I would a major murder investigation.
In Hidalgo County a major focus of law enforcement was the interdiction of illegal narcotics being illegally transported across the border from Mexico into the U.S.
Most of the population of the county nearest the border consisted of ranchers and farmers, the very hard working salt of the earth kind who had nothing to do with the illegal importation of drugs, but were constantly having to deal with the effects of a drug war going on around them.
In our attempts to stop the flow of narcotics through our borders we were constantly trying new and unique ways to identify possible drug loads in vehicles being driven north bound on our county roads. One of these strategies was stopping vehicle for any kind of vehicle equipment infractions that we could find to use as a reason to stop a vehicle and search it for drugs. That included stopping them for not having a light that enabled one to see the license plate of a vehicle at night.
I had always objected to using the license plate light as a pretext to stop a suspicious vehilce, because I felt that it was a flimsy excuse for a stop and if I ended up finding a load of drugs in the car it would be hard to explain such a stop for such a minor violation in court. So I discouraged my deputies from using it.
One night I received a call from a local rancher who was a friend of mine, who was so upset he was crying on the phone. It seems that while and his wife were transporting a piece of machinery from one farm to another farm at around midnight, they had been stopped by one of my deputies, for not having a working license plate light on his truck.
My rancher friend went on to tell me how he had fought through Europe during WWII and served his country and had always obeyed the laws and had always paid his taxes and he gets pulled over for not having a light on his license plate and then the deputy wrote him a ticket for it. "What kind of a crazy country is this!"
It took me about an hour on the phone to calm my rancher friend down, and I told him that I would take care of the ticket. The next day I called the deputy in to talk to him. He was a promising young deputy who had just turned 21, just graduated from the state police academy and was quite sure of himself.
I explained the conversation I had with my friend the rancher to him, and told him that I would consider it a personal favor if he would dismiss the citation for the burned out license plate light. He thought about it a few seconds and told me that he would not dismiss the citation, and then quoted the law that stated that it was against the law for me to force him to drop a citation. He stood there defiantly with his jaw clamped shut, prepared to counter anything I had to say.
I did not respond to him for a few seconds, but then I explained to him that while I would not attempt to force him to drop the citation, he needed to understand that sometimes it is necessary to take other factors into consideration when enforcing the law. Such as honoring an old war hero who felt insulted by the frivolous citation he had written him when there was no lesson to be taught or serious infraction of the law with which to be dealt.
His young jaw was set like iron, and he says to me, "No sir....that man broke the law and I will not compromise, I will not drop the citation." I thanked the young deputy for coming in and complimented him on his integrity and he left my office.
I had received a few complaints from citizens that this same deputy was speeding home after his graveyard shift was done in the early morning, so at the end of his shift the next day while I was coming to work, I decided to check this complaint out myself. Sure enough I just happened to clock the young deputy on radar traveling 100 mph in a 55 mph zone traveling home when his shift was done in his county owned patrol car.
I turned on my overhead emergecy flashers, turned my vehicle around and stopped the young deputy. He was very red faced as he stood by the side of his patrol car as I wrote him a citation for speeding 100 miles an hour in a 55mile per hour zone and informed him that he was scheduled for a performance review in my office with reference to breaking department policy for speeding without using his emergency flashing lights and siren.
During his performance review a few days later, happily this deputy changed his stiff persona and had been greatly humbled. He agreed to drop the license plate light citation, and I agreed to drop the speeding citation that would have cost him several hundred dollars in fines and a possible suspension of his drivers license. I counceled him about speeding in his patrol car, and gave him a one day suspension of pay for a first offense infraction of department policy and we had a long heart to heart talk about the law and how sometimes it needs to be applied with compassion.
Even though I always gravitated to the small town, rural law enforcement work, I tryed to bring professionalism to my job and always treated each case, no matter how small and insignificant with the same amount of enthusiasm as I would a major murder investigation.
In Hidalgo County a major focus of law enforcement was the interdiction of illegal narcotics being illegally transported across the border from Mexico into the U.S.
Most of the population of the county nearest the border consisted of ranchers and farmers, the very hard working salt of the earth kind who had nothing to do with the illegal importation of drugs, but were constantly having to deal with the effects of a drug war going on around them.
In our attempts to stop the flow of narcotics through our borders we were constantly trying new and unique ways to identify possible drug loads in vehicles being driven north bound on our county roads. One of these strategies was stopping vehicle for any kind of vehicle equipment infractions that we could find to use as a reason to stop a vehicle and search it for drugs. That included stopping them for not having a light that enabled one to see the license plate of a vehicle at night.
I had always objected to using the license plate light as a pretext to stop a suspicious vehilce, because I felt that it was a flimsy excuse for a stop and if I ended up finding a load of drugs in the car it would be hard to explain such a stop for such a minor violation in court. So I discouraged my deputies from using it.
One night I received a call from a local rancher who was a friend of mine, who was so upset he was crying on the phone. It seems that while and his wife were transporting a piece of machinery from one farm to another farm at around midnight, they had been stopped by one of my deputies, for not having a working license plate light on his truck.
My rancher friend went on to tell me how he had fought through Europe during WWII and served his country and had always obeyed the laws and had always paid his taxes and he gets pulled over for not having a light on his license plate and then the deputy wrote him a ticket for it. "What kind of a crazy country is this!"
It took me about an hour on the phone to calm my rancher friend down, and I told him that I would take care of the ticket. The next day I called the deputy in to talk to him. He was a promising young deputy who had just turned 21, just graduated from the state police academy and was quite sure of himself.
I explained the conversation I had with my friend the rancher to him, and told him that I would consider it a personal favor if he would dismiss the citation for the burned out license plate light. He thought about it a few seconds and told me that he would not dismiss the citation, and then quoted the law that stated that it was against the law for me to force him to drop a citation. He stood there defiantly with his jaw clamped shut, prepared to counter anything I had to say.
I did not respond to him for a few seconds, but then I explained to him that while I would not attempt to force him to drop the citation, he needed to understand that sometimes it is necessary to take other factors into consideration when enforcing the law. Such as honoring an old war hero who felt insulted by the frivolous citation he had written him when there was no lesson to be taught or serious infraction of the law with which to be dealt.
His young jaw was set like iron, and he says to me, "No sir....that man broke the law and I will not compromise, I will not drop the citation." I thanked the young deputy for coming in and complimented him on his integrity and he left my office.
I had received a few complaints from citizens that this same deputy was speeding home after his graveyard shift was done in the early morning, so at the end of his shift the next day while I was coming to work, I decided to check this complaint out myself. Sure enough I just happened to clock the young deputy on radar traveling 100 mph in a 55 mph zone traveling home when his shift was done in his county owned patrol car.
I turned on my overhead emergecy flashers, turned my vehicle around and stopped the young deputy. He was very red faced as he stood by the side of his patrol car as I wrote him a citation for speeding 100 miles an hour in a 55mile per hour zone and informed him that he was scheduled for a performance review in my office with reference to breaking department policy for speeding without using his emergency flashing lights and siren.
During his performance review a few days later, happily this deputy changed his stiff persona and had been greatly humbled. He agreed to drop the license plate light citation, and I agreed to drop the speeding citation that would have cost him several hundred dollars in fines and a possible suspension of his drivers license. I counceled him about speeding in his patrol car, and gave him a one day suspension of pay for a first offense infraction of department policy and we had a long heart to heart talk about the law and how sometimes it needs to be applied with compassion.
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