Rudy went to patrol and we were still in touch and hanging out. He was informing me about all of the great things I had to look forward to and he was assigned to Bolivar and I was pretty sure this is where I was heading as well…It was the most logical assignment since I was living on the beach. Rudy was working with a guy named Mitchell and I had known him for some time through my time riding on patrol as well as my time in the fire department.
I could go on at great length about my experiences on patrol but it would really take from the message I am trying to elaborate on here and could be three books in itself. Maybe I will write those stories for another book and really shock my audience. The things I experienced were beyond belief and people would have a hard time believing all of the wild, crazy and insane things I experienced in my time in that portion of my career.
I think it is relevant to cover some of the highlights and tragedies because each assignment in this division offered many amazing experiences.
My first call on patrol was a shooting where a guy heard someone in his garage, trying to steal his car and when he found the guy, he shot him in the ass as he tried to get away.
I had fights, dealt constantly with drunks, deaths of all kinds, accidents of all kinds….It was a whole new world and I was so clueless as to the depth of the ugliness of people. I was on that beach for almost 2 years and in that time, I saw well over 250 dead people…Natural, tragic, murdered, drowned…you name it, I saw it! Experiencing the extent that people will go to harm others is a real eye opener…
The media just doesn’t do justice to what humanity is capable of and in all reality; society doesn’t want to see it… It’s why we don’t see battlefields of dead people, it’s too tragic for us to comprehend so we dismiss it and turn away.
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
~T.S. Eliot~
One of the things that signified my career was in my rookie year on the beach, an African Lioness got out of where it was housed and after many attempts to get her back to her cage, I was forced to shoot her to keep her from injuring or killing a resident of that community.
After that incident, I continued with my transition to “hardness.” The Lion was a pet, the guy was out of town, I did everything I could to try and protect this pet and eventually was forced to act to “serve and protect” the community I was patrolling.
After that incident, I saw first hand how a community and the general public can turn on the police. I was chastised, attacked, judged, and belittled…There were 9 people present when I was forced to shoot that lion, and the next day, over 100 complaints rolled into the sheriffs department about this incident…
“The cat was just a big house kitty” “He shot the lion when it was lying on the ground” “That deputy is a loose cannon” and so on…it was brutal! Can you imagine if I would have let that lioness hurt someone or let it get away and it hurt someone?
It seems, many times, putting that badge on is a “no win” situation!
A 450lb African lion, with huge teeth and the ability to end a life of a grown man, had been reported to be chasing one person down the road, attacked a man right in front of me and was shot after all other actions to save it were attempted; and I was judged, complained on, ridiculed… WOW!!
I walked away from that incident feeling like I had done what I was to do based on my oath to protect people and was turned on by an angry mob. It was really terrible for me because I knew it was a pet, knew the owner was going to be heartbroken, but felt I did everything I could.
The story made CNN and was nationwide news. The local press and letters to the editor were so hurtful… I was shocked and was starting to turn against the people….I didn’t really consciously understand that was what was taking place, but as I look back, each interaction I was having with the population of the public I was experiencing was teaching me how to “BE” and in turn I was “DOING” things representative of that and “HAVING” results that didn’t make sense to me.
But in reality, the things you see as a police officer, they rarely “make sense” so this was a common thing…
TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION!
I served for almost 2 years on the beach and after many requests for transfer; I was moved to the mainland. Rudy was patrolling the mainland and Kenneth had a few years under his belt on patrol so I had some folks I trusted to guide me as I started in this, once again, new area of my career.
When I got to the mainland, I was educated very quickly about the areas I was patrolling, the deputies I was working with, and the administration of patrol which was never really present when working the beach… Once again, starting over and having to prove myself worthy of my new position…I gave it my all!!
I was assigned as a “rover” on the mainland and covered all the unincorporated areas of Galveston County
I was later assigned to The Bayshore, which is the Bacliff, San Leon, and Kemah area of the County. The Bayshore is diverse… Wealthy white people on the shoreline of the bay, lower socio economic status of people in the majority of the area, there was a “Little Mexico” which was full of illegal aliens and fisherman but they generally kept to themselves. There was an Asian population as well but I had experiences the complexities of this ethnicity from my time in Bolivar.
Each group has rules they live by and each group required you to understand those rules to effectively work with them. You had to be as personally diverse as the area you worked in to be effective… Again, I learned quickly…
In the Bayshore, one of the things that signified my time there was I made a “hit list” from a local gang there called the “Brown Assassins” and was in the top five on that list. As scary as that might sound to the average reader, there was a since of pride in me for making that list. It added to my “power trip” I was on and only caused me to be more aggressive in my pursuit to put these people in jail.
After we found out about this list, we were told that we were to lock up every gang member we could for any infraction we could find, and I went to work.
I stopped a gang member from another gang one night that was driving a dually pickup with no mud flaps…a violation in the State of Texas
Once I stopped him, I immediately knew I was going to take him to jail for the infraction and once I got him out of the car, I arrested hi, placed him in my unit and said …
“Is there anything in that truck I should know about?”
Expecting the typical response from these guys, I was shocked to hear…
“Yeah…”
“Oh yeah, what’s in there?”
“A loaded shotgun, a pipe, some weed, and some money”
Stunned I asked…
“OK, where are they?”
He told me and I went to look…
I found a loaded, sawed off shot gun behind the front seat, a small bag of weed in the console, a pipe and a deposit bag from a bank STUFFED with money…So much money that you could not zip closed the deposit bag.
I took the bag back to the kid and said…
“How much money is in here?
“About 12-13 thousand, I don’t know?”
“You are 19 years old and you don’t know how much cash is in here??
“No, not really… It’s my savings for a box blade”
“RIIIIIIGGGGHHHTT!!!! You got any receipts or documentation to show this is yours?”
“No, I kept it buried in my back yard.”
“RIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHTTT!!! Well, looks like it’s the counties money now!”
After arresting the kid and booking him in, doing all the paperwork for that, I asked another deputy to come with me and we went to count the money at the North County Building
I worked DWI taskforce and made many crazy arrests while on this duty…My first fight with a woman while trying to get her in custody took place in this time and I walked away looking like I had gotten in a fight with a rabid raccoon. I arrested a guy who had 12 DWI’s on his record, with 2 convictions and he was smart…Drunk, but smart. He refused to take any of the tests or cooperate in any way. I had to video him and try to get him to talk to me so you could at least hear his slurred speech and he went on to tell me in this interview how he had a…
“Problem with my pecker”
I asked him what that problem was, and he responded….
“It don’t get hard anymore! When I get to the County, you think we can get that fixed?”
I had to take this tape to a Grand Jury and present it as evidence and it was very hard to stay professional in this testimony… People, they never cease to amaze me!
I worked Dickinson which is primarily an African American community and is basically “the projects” Drug dealers, prostitutes, welfare recipients, government housing and just crime ridden…There was always something to do in Dickinson if you wanted to bust people and chase bad guys…ALWAYS!!
I am not sure there is any one thing that signified my time in Dickinson
I had a guy run from me in a stolen car one time who tried to lose me in the cris-cross streets of the Dickinson Avenues. It was typical Sunday morning in the Avenues… No people on the streets, everyone sleeping the party and activities of Saturday night off and I had a particular way of working day shift on the weekends.
What I would do was patrol the area and make sure I made passes by all the known drug dealing houses. Sometimes you would find dope fiends passed out in the yards or in their cars or maybe even leaving after a long night of partying in some crack house.
I was patrolling North on Avenue D and went by a row of single wide trailers that was a common spot for drug dealers. There were 5-6 trailers and they lined up right next to each other. It was a very easy place to “sling dope” as it offered many escape routes and when a person took off running, you generally couldn’t see which trailer they would run into.
They were all run down, no “skirts” on the trailers, dirty, windows broken, wires and insulation hanging down from underneath them, cats, rats, roaches, mice everywhere….Just a nasty little section of rent trailers that produced a constant income for some slum lord and was always a problem in this area.
On this Sunday morning, I drove by the rows of trailers and noticed a van that I was not familiar with. I never wanted to stop in front of the trailers because there was always someone looking out for you, and if anyone saw you giving the place a second look, they would stay inside and never come out during the day time…And if they did, they were always clean and not holding any drugs or weapons.
As I passed by the trailer and saw the van, I quickly jotted down the license plate number of the vehicle, drove about a block away, and called in the license plate number to dispatch. The license plate came back to the van and was reported “stolen” out of Houston
Generally, what happens in regards to stolen cars (especially in this area) is that people don’t have any money, or very little of it, “rent” their cars for drugs and the dealers never return them or return them all trashed and damaged. 99% of the time, in Dickinson
As dispatch returned me the information, Jack and Kenneth immediately called and said they were “rolling my way” and I started to “set up” on the vehicle. I found a concealed place about 5 blocks away, parked and watched the vehicle in case it moved.
By the time I was parked and set up, the vehicle started to back out of the driveway of the trailer. I notified dispatch and my partners and then started to pursue the vehicle to stop it.
As soon as I rolled out of the concealed place I was in, the driver spotted me, took a quick right and accelerated through the neighborhood. I was four blocks away now and turned right to parallel the vehicle… He was probably going close to 50mph now through these neighborhoods and I was trying to watch him as I drove with him, four blocks away.
We crossed State Hwy 3 and I almost jumped across the four lane highway trying to maintain the speed to keep up with him. I was able to get a little lead on the car and decided to take a risk and turn left on a street to try and manipulate my way to get behind him. As I turned on the street, he just happened to turn right and now we were driving towards each other on the same street. He hesitated and tried to find an alternate route, but the size of the van limited his ability to evade me… He was driving right at me now.
I made sure my seatbelt was secured and decided that if “chicken” was what he was going to play, I am in for that game and headed straight for him! I called on the radio to advise everyone his direction of travel and that he was going to try and “take me out.”
As we approached each other, I decided to use my unit, turn it so the entire road was blocked and try to stop him that way. Once I was committed to blocking the street, I heard the engine get louder on the van….The guy was going to ram my unit!
The driver accelerated and was making a direct line to hit my unit and I prepared for the impact…There was nothing else I could do…We were only a half a block away from each other and both sides of the road had huge drainage ditches….”Holding on” was my only option!
The van came at me at a high rate of speed; I gripped the wheel, braced my self for the hit and held on tight. At the last second, the guy swerved the van around the front of my unit and barely missed me as he slid sideways by me, partially in one of the ditches and almost lost control. As he got around me, he was able to compensate for the swerving van and got the van back on the roadway.
I was amazed he didn’t hit me and then started to try and move my unit so I could pursue him. Due to the way I was positioned, I had to put the unit in reverse, then forward, then reverse again…Just to get turned around and while doing this, keep an eye on the direction of the van and talk on the radio….Multi-tasking is a good tool to be proficient with in Law Enforcement!
Due to my experience, I knew if the guy turned on a side road and I lost sight of him, he would bail out of the vehicle and take off running, so I didn’t want to lose sight of him! I was able to finally get the car turned around, hit the accelerator and went after him, almost sliding into one of the ditches. As I got turned around, he made a left turn onto another street and I lost sight of him for about 2 seconds.
When I was able to catch up with where he had turned, my suspicions were right….The van was slowly rolling off the road, drivers door open, and a young black male was running from the vehicle and behind the rows of houses. As I made the turn, the van rolled into a ditch and stopped, and I pursued the driver… He was running behind the rows of houses on foot, I turned right on the street to go after him and then he darted out in front of my car and crossed the street, heading for another fence and going towards a wooded area. I knew if he made it to the wooded area, he would be gone and I did not want to lose this fleeing felon and see him get away!
He jumped a small chain that was crossing a long dirt driveway and was running down the driveway into the back yard of this house. I was accelerating to catch him, turned into the driveway, not knowing this was a huge chain that was secured to two large metal poles that were anchors to a large fence and when I drove through the chain, it jerked the poles out of the ground and drug them down the driveway.
The guy saw this as he ran, looking over his shoulder, and I could see his eyes get as large as china plates; shocked that I had just driven through this chain and was still pursuing him. After this, the shock sent him into warp speed and he was running as fast as he could, into the back yard of this house and towards a large wood fence that backed up to the wooded area I knew he was trying to escape too.
I was just a few feet behind him in my unit when I hit the back yard of this house. It was wet, muddy and as soon as my back tires hit the mud, I started to slide and swerve, still making progress towards the driver of the van, but not nearly as quick.
He lunged at the fence and went to try and jump it, he lost his footing once and I thought this would be my opportunity to capture him. He tried again, got his footing, and was about to leap over the fence… I realized the only way for me to get this guy was I was going to have to run into the fence and hopefully knock him off the fence and onto the hood of my unit… I applied the brakes so I could “bump” the fence but due to my momentum and the muddy grass, I slid right into the fence at about 10 miles an hour, unable to stop!
The guy did not fall off the fence as I had expected but rather was launched into the opening of the wooded area he was running for…the guy was in the air as I exited my unit and went after him on foot! I jumped on my hood of my unit, leapt over the fence and about that time, he hit the ground from his flight through the air.
He tried to get up and run, but I was able to tackle him and get him on the ground and after a brief struggle, I got him handcuffed…
“Man, you is crazy Golden….CRAZY!!”
I was familiar with the guy now that I could see him up close and I said…
“That’s right, don’t ever forget it!”
“Man, you coulda killed me man!”
“Well, sadly, I didn’t and now I have you for auto theft you idiot… What’s the matter with you man? Do you have any idea how many people you put in danger with stupid crap like that?”
“Man Golden, I am sorry dog…I promise I will never run from you again!”
I walked the guy back to my unit and about that time, Jack and Kenneth showed up as well as my shift supervisor. They all walked into the back yard, saw my unity sticking through this large wood fence and asking me what happened.
I secured the driver in my unit and then spoke to my supervisor who advised me that I needed to call the Major and explain to him what had happened. Although I did capture the fleeing felon, the damage to the property that happened as a result was going to have to be seen by the head ranking deputy.
My major arrived on the scene and assessed the situation. Jack had taken the driver to the League City Jail for me to get him booked in as I dealt with the choices I had made to capture this guy… I was a bit nervous after seeing the extent of the damage!
I had ruined the front metal gate of the residence, had huge ruts in the back yard from my wheels spinning and two sections of 8 foot fencing that was going to have to be replaced….but hey, I GOT THE GUY!!
After assessing the scene and looking at the damage, the Major walked up to me, looked me in the eye and said…
“Next time, get you fat ass out of your unit and chase him on foot.”
He walked past me, got into is unit and left the scene telling my Sergeant to get all the resident information for reimbursement for the damage to his property.
I am quite confident that if I would not have caught the person fleeing, the extent of the major’s interaction with me would have been much greater. Dickinson Texas
In Dickinson
I saw dog fighting rings, cock fighting rings, murders, car jacking assaults that would make even a battle soldier cringe… It was a very brutal area and brutality is what it took to survive here…well, survive and be productive…
I see myself capable of arrogance and brutality... That's a fierce thing, to discover within yourself that which you despise the most in others.
~George Stevens~
~George Stevens~
There were plenty of deputies that didn’t make strong cases in this area, but generally it was because they didn’t either get the game, or they were not confident enough to play the game…And again, it’s all a game.
My preference as a patrolman was to work the high crime, high risk, dangerous places. I would get bored with the Santa Fe
I worked undercover narcotics for a short time but grew tired of that quickly. It was slow paced, lots of paperwork and lots of downtime while doing surveillance…I thought I would love this assignment, but it was just too slow paced for me…I liked the action, the danger, the TROUBLE in the Bayshore and Dickinson.
I saw many suicides, saw more dead people than any 20 people will see in a lifetime, abused children, abused spouses, hopelessly addicted people who had sores on their bodies due to their addictions, car accidents that I couldn’t even start to guess how many mangled and twisted bodies were in, murders, drive bys, drug dealing, prostitution, and so many things that are outside the realm of reality, I couldn’t begin to explain in this book.
As a result, death was no longer tragic, loss was no big deal, murders were generally deserved, kids being abused were just part of the job, lies, manipulation, twists of the truth, it all became just second nature…Things that people get totally up in arms about and look for ways to get even; well, it was just part of the job for us. There is no truth, only people’s perception of it and you have to learn how to perceive the most valid statements.
Almost everything you do in police work is done at your discretion….You had freedom to lock people up or give people breaks…Oddly, and almost any cop will tell you this, every time you gave someone a break, they would complain on you…Stop someone for speeding, decide to just give them a warning, and you can bet that later that day, they will complain on you for you making them late to work…. Sad!
You had the option to write tickets or not write tickets, but it was easy, because people will generally show you what choices they want you to make. I wrote more tickets and arrested more people based on their attitude than I did anything else. People just don’t understand the old saying…
“You can beat the rap, but you won’t beat the ride”
And the ride generally becomes almost as expensive and tiresome as the rap! And although you might win in court, you attitude can really affect your life negatively when dealing with the police.
In life in general, your attitude can truly direct the life you live. And always remember, the police always win… Don’t think you, with your knowledge of laws or rights or whatever, don’t think for a minute that makes a difference on scene with an officer…They are running the show and if you forget that, you can easily be reminded!
Along with the people I dealt with on the streets, I was also educated on what “professional advancement” looks like in the world of professionals.
I was always told to “work hard” and “show your pride” and “go above and beyond” and you will advance in your profession… In those years, in regards to advancing as a deputy, that was not a truth.
There were many guys who understood the “brotherhood” of Law Enforcement, who found the value in camaraderie and all the “bonus’s” living the life of a Peace Officer, but these “old school” attributes were fading in my years in the field.
Many deputies (not all mind you), in my experience, were just as bad, if not worse, than those people we dealt with on a day to day basis. In many cases, you had to watch your back with fellow deputies as much as you did on the streets with the turds.
If you were a go getter, driven, hard working and loving what you do, there is always one or two people watching you and wanting to see you fail so they can advance above you. So, there were always a handful of deputies that would step on you any chance they got, make up crap about you to make themselves look good, cut your throat if they thought it would advance them of even if they could get a cushy “extra job” before you…
This wasn’t limited to just patrol deputies. Ranking deputies could be just as snaky as these guys, and its funny how like attracts like and “packs” would be formed.
There were people like me, who were loyal, supportive, driven, understood and lived by the old school motto and appreciated each other and we generally spent our time together. Then the snakes, well, they had their own dens and they would generally run together as well…Until one of them cut another ones throat, then those of us in the other pack, we would just say
“Well, karma is a bitch, he got what he deserved”
Ranking deputies that didn’t align with your way of pursuing the job; they could be harsh and would enforce their ranking power on you whenever they could. Lie to you, promise you things, get your hopes up, build your confidence, and in a SECOND, pull the rug out from under you and leave you hanging out to dry.
Not only was it a brutal profession outside the ranks, inside the ranks required constant awareness as well…
But I want to add, there were also a few who really were amazingly stand up individuals…Stood by their word, never took a side either way, played neutral and by the rules and were always straight shooters that knew when to turn it off and realized that Police Work was just something they DID, not something they BE… I always appreciated those guys and as I look back, appreciate them even more.
These were the guys who were GREAT cops while on duty, but when they were off, they didn’t really hang out with other cops, they didn’t go to “Choir Practice” (nickname for Police Officer gatherings to drink and socialize) and you would only see them and Department functions if it was politically correct to be there.
At that time, Law Enforcement was who I was “BE-ing” and would eventually be what caused my unhappiness and eventual distaste of the profession itself… I didn’t know how to turn it off, and in all reality, didn’t think I was supposed to turn it off.
If you get connected to “BE-ing” something that can be directly affected by forces outside of your control, you are setting yourself up for disaster. If who you “BE” is a cop, a father, a mail man, a mother, a bus driver, etc…. and then something happens in your life that stops you from “BE-ing” that, then you become lost and broken…
“BE-ing” is what you are inside, what you are that no one but you can control…If you are a Father, Mother, mail man, bus driver, Cop, etc… BE loving, BE caring, BE compassionate….etc… IF something outside of your control shifts, or changes, who you BE is still controlled by you.
BE-ing loving and caring and compassionate…etc… will have you DO-ing things representative of those things, so you will BE all of those things as a Mother, Father, Mail man, Bus Driver, Cop, etc… and thus have amazing results in your life.
When we cross those distinctions in our life, we get so very lost when we are a cop, a father, a mother, a bus driver, a mail man, etc anymore….And those things can change in an INSTANT and are completely outside of your control! You could get fired tomorrow, your child (God forbid) passes away, get laid off at the post office, have a small accident as a bus driver, etc…
It’s hard to grasp sometimes because after “DO-ing” something for so long, we assign it to ourselves as this is who we “BE” and my “BE-ing” will never be left in the hands of others…NEVER! Well, never again anyway!
2 years in the jail, 2 years on the beach and almost 6 years on the mainland, I was starting to see the damage of mixed up distinctions, but I didn’t want to face the reality of it being my choice and I definitely didn’t understand that it could be different.
As a result of my time in Law Enforcement, I had become hardened, jaded, hateful, cynical, bitter… I talked differently, had an ego bigger than the State of Texas
99% of all my friends before law enforcement were gone, my relationship with Donna was crumbling, my step kids didn’t even want to be around me, my parents were constantly telling me that I was “different”, I had lost touch with my sisters and the only people I was surrounding myself with was other cops.
My life was crashing around me and I was too proud and too ego filled to even recognize it…It wasn’t my fault, it was THEIR problem… I was just me and if they didn’t like it screw ‘em! I was so selfish, so closed, and starting to be so alone! Something had to change or I was going to allow my circumstances to change it for me.
I was in a field where I couldn’t trust anyone I was dealing with in the field, and I couldn’t trust many of the people in the profession. I was truly changed from the person I initially got into this field as and although it was completely necessary for me to survive in that field, I was so miserable with who I had become, I was taking it out on people close to me, people I was interacting with on the streets, I was taking out on everyone who wasn’t to blame for this shift and avoiding who was to blame….ME!
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
~Albert Einstein~
I have found in my life that at just the right time, doors start opening for me to have things differently. Sometimes I don’t recognize it as a door and avoid it or don’t even consider the possibility but doors are always there…We just have to have the strength and confidence to open them and go through them. Don’t pass up doors of opportunity in your life…EVER!
A phone call from an old friend was the next door in my life…
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