Man, what a day THIS was!

Not sure if I am documenting this experience to vent, or just to have it documented for later use in some fashion…Maybe both…Here we go!!!

On 12-14-10, Incidents took place with Shanna (My youngest step daughter) and Joseph (her high school boyfriend of 12+years) that resulted in Shanna calling us to come get her in a hole in the wall, called Kenefick Texas. It’s a city in the East Texas piney woods, outside of another “interesting” place called Dayton which is outside of a “colorful” place called Cleveland Texas. All of this is just NE of Houston.

Donna and I, after much discussion, decided that we felt Shanna was crying out to change her life, we offered her a safe place to take that on, she said she was ready to make a new life happen, agreed to the ground rules, sounded committed and we eagerly went to go get her on12-15-10 (5 hour drive one way). It was a last minute “grab and dash” for Shanna, Shaylin (her 2 year old) and to hopefully create a new life for them. It was also a very volatile and potentially dangerous situation for all of us.

Joseph, until the last few years, has always been a pretty good kid but as of late, has acquired a pill problem and while in those drunken stoopers, has wrecked four cars in the last couple of months and spent some time in jail over it and made some really self defeating choices. I have personally witnesses his “bullet proof” mentality while on these pills and was fully aware of some incidents he has been in involving guns… REALLY, REALLY STUPID stuff man….he is lucky to be alive!

Joseph has had a rough go of it in his life…A childhood with alcoholism, abuse, struggle, entitlement, drugs, generations of poverty and living a life that thankfully, most of you reading this will never experience or understand. He has no education, been in and out of jail, hustles, steals…been a real “downhill slide” for him in the past 5-6 years…Very sad as he has the potential to be a great man. He also clearly has no desire to change that situation. CHOICE!! However, with my time working with these classes of people, I am fully aware of their potential, and the risk involved.

Basically, Joseph and those around him have nothing, will acquire nothing in their lives, have no “drive” for anything different; therefore they have nothing to lose. Not a judgement, its a choice they make and I dont care either way, but people who have nothing to lose are by far the MOST dangerous people in the world. When you have nothing to lose, you are willing to do anything and THAT is a scary deal to face…ESPECIALLY when guns are involved!

It has been a long time since I have had to face people with this mentality in this fashion, but was willing to take the risk so that we could offer Shanna and her child a life DIFFERENT from all of this.

Hard for me to preach to people to be the change you wish to see in the world and NOT model that behavior. It is truly what I believe and in turn, the way I direct my life (or work very hard to).

So, we get in the truck; take the 5 hour drive to go get Shanna and her stuff. While on the trip, I called Liberty County Sheriffs Department to advise them the location, the circumstances involved and asked for them to come and do what is called a “Civil Standby” which is simply having a police presence there to stop and violent behavior or potential up rise. Most times, all that it takes is a uniformed presence to stop any escalating behavior. This is all I wanted…No trouble, easy transition, in and out…nice and calm!

After calling the Liberty County Sheriffs Department and advising them of the risks involved and the concern I had, they refused to offer any assistance and advised

“Just call 911 if anything goes wrong.”

I explained to them that I was armed, I was a former police officer, and if a gun were to show up in this situation, 911 would NOT be my first line of action. I again asked them to please just give us 10 minutes of that presence and we would be out of there.

Shanna has about 8 garbage bags of things to pick up that contained all her belongings, and again, they refused to offer any assistance. I really tried to talk her into leaving it, but she refused and said she would go get it herself if she had to. I was aware that Joseph had made threats to her a number of times in the last few days and I was not going to let her get hurt. I figured it was better to stop any arguing, deal with it quickly and quietly and move on… Maybe not the best choice, but what I decided…

When talking to dispatch, a girl named “Bonnie,” I made sure I was on a recorded line by asking her directly if it was recorded and again pleaded with her to send an officer to the location. Also explaining to her I was trying to make this as civil as possible and asking for help. She again refused and I then started to call some of the people I have from my past who are in Law Enforcement to see if they had any contacts in the area that carried a badge…No luck!

I also wanted to make sure I documented what was going on so in case of the “worst case scenario” I would be covered in my attempts to handle this in the most civil way possible.

I knew my texts and phone messages would be easily attainable in case the "worst" showed up to document I went above and beyond to get help and was continuosly refused that help.

In my opinion, "deadly force" should be a very LAST option and if you feel you might be forced to take that step, do everything you can to document you did everything first to try and handle the situation civily.

GUNG HO with a gun is a "John Wayne" mentality, and in the movies, the blood is fake and the consequences are never fully explained....Real life is different and taking a life, as a last option or not, IS life changing... Take my advice and use every resource you can, document your attempts and cover your butt...ALWAYS!

This wasn’t gong to be my first rodeo, but was definitely a bull I had not been on in some time. I also am no longer a cop so “back up” wasn’t a radio click away… I guess training never goes away because as I made the long trip, I started to visualize my plan and make sure that I was going to make this a quick grab and dash to get this done.

As I got to where Shanna was hiding, I called the Sheriffs Department again, asked them to please send someone, and again, they refused and referred me to the Constables Department. After calling PCT 3 in Liberty County and speaking with a Sgt there, he advised me…

“Civil standbys?? Nope, we don’t do ‘em!”

“I am armed, going to this location and will do what I have to do to keep myself safe and my daughter safe.”

“OK, that’s fine, you do that. Call 911 if you have any problems.”

“Sgt, if a gun shows up in this situation, I am advising you now that my first course of action will NOT be calling 911”

“Well, if it goes south, make sure it’s your second call then…Good luck”

And he hung up the phone… I was on my own! BUT, I had made it perfectly clear to everyone I could my intentions and my position. If they refused to help, and the worst case scenerio were to happen, I showed the effort to ask those who "Protect and Serve" to help me avoid this confrontation. THINK, prepare, document, cover yourself, then act!

I left the baby with Donna in a safe place, and Shanna and I went to go get her stuff…

As we drove to Kenefick, we got further and further out in the “sticks” and I was getting anxious. As we pulled up to where Shanna lived, I noticed it was a small house, off the road, surrounded by trees, secluded, hidden, a LOOONG way from help, only one escape route and not visible to the road. This was not an ideal situation and if it goes bad, its going to go REAL bad! Now this really started to get dangerous.

I pulled into the driveway and Joseph’s car was parked, crashed from a drunken stupor the night before, next to the house. I pulled in, positioned my truck for cover and an easy escape but realized that if someone were to block the driveway, due to the way the property was situated, I was going to be trapped….NOT a good situation!

I had secured my trusty “pursuit” shotgun before going to the place, had it loaded with as many shells as it would hold, and took a handful of shells and placed them in my back pocket for easy access. As I pulled into the driveway, I told Shanna that this had to be FAST, in and out, get the stuff for the baby and then we needed to get out. If Joseph was there and it was to go bad, she needed to have her phone ready to call 911 and explained to her about how to take cover and STAY OUT OF THE WAY!

Once we got into the driveway, I assessed the scene and the situation and eased our way towards the house. Calm, calculated, thinking about the next three steps...PREPARE! We quickly realized that Joseph was not home, so I placed the 3” Mossberg with 00' buck in an easily accessible place and starting grabbing things to throw into he truck, telling Shanna continuously…

”Lets go…lets go…”

And never taking my eye off the driveway… ALWAYS keep your eye on where the potential threat can come from and be ready to ACT FIRST to keep yourself safe. Remember, re-action is ALWAYS slower than action!

As I was walking out of the house loading things, I noticed hanging on the wall, next to the door, a small, compact Glock right next to the front door. I immediately grabbed the gun to unload it and hide it and realized it was a plastic toy pistol…Not even a real gun, but it looked real! It was clearly placed in that spot for easy access to use if there was a threat. What a friggin IDIOT!

After I realized it was a toy, the situation became more real…

If Joseph would have been home, walked out of the door with that toy, pointed it at me, there would have been no way I would have been able to tell the difference and would have quickly shot and killed him had he made any advancing threat towards me or Shanna. Man, a toy gun to use as protection...WOW!!

I am not one that plays with guns and uses them to instill fear...THAT is stupid! If you have to use a weapon, be prepared to USE it, dont think flashing it will get a response of compliance (hope, but dont think it will). If you ever pull a weapon, be fully prepared to USE it...If you arent, its merely a rock to throw at someone!

I took the toy, pissed as hell, and chunked it into the woods cussing the stupidity of this mentality. As I was rushing to get all of this done with urgency, Shanna was seemingly unfazed by the circumstances at hand… It’s funny what people get used to…

The possibility of a gun fight, someone getting killed and the entire possible tragedy with that was something that was seemingly “every day life” for her…How fooled I was to miss this reality of the situation. People, who live a life such as this, deal with the harshness of life in this fashion all the time, so the “threat” isn’t really a “threat” anymore and becomes everyday activities… KIDS PLAY...STUPIDITY gets people killed! 

It was somewhat shocking to me back when I was a cop, but my time away from that life made me realize how completely dysfunctional that lifestyle is… To me, this was VERY real and I was completely on alert…Calm, ready and prepared, but the energy, anticipation and adrenaline of this type of thing was something I had not experienced in some time… How quickly we forget, and how quickly reality can come back into focus.

Luckily, Joseph was not there and we were able to get in and out in under 10 minutes…Once the truck was loaded and we were out of the driveway, I remember taking a breath…As I look back, I wonder if I took any breaths while in that house!

Anyone remember what “WA-HOO-ING” is? Well, I just WA-HOOED my step daughter and almost screamed it out the widow as I pulled onto the highway. (see pic at bottom to capture what this looks like! ;) )

Now the kicker… As I drove just a mile or so down the road, I saw a Deputy Constable pulling into a convenience store… Funny the mentality (which I had myself at that time)… Ten minutes of prevention could have prevented hours, days and literally years of cure and there was no interest in helping… Sad how the police dont grasp the hardships that follow shootings until they are forced into that situation themselves.

“Protect and Serve” my ass… “Clean up messes”…THAT’S what police work is really all about. Sad how that motto is not really the mission anymore… Even sadder is that I was enrolled into that when I was in the field… SOOOOOO Glad I got out…another reminder that my choice was the “right” choice.

Well, it cost us 60.00 in gas to get there, 60.00 in gas to get home, 100.00 for a meal and some snacks, I am pretty sure I blew a yellow light a little late and got caught on a red light camera in Cleveland so that is an expense on the way and 8-10 new gray hairs. But Shanna is here, she is safe and the opportunity awaits her to have a new life…I hope she sees the value in it and pursues it because I know plenty of people who have been offered similar opportunities and chose different and went back to the life they were living before.

We humans are creatures of habit and breaking from what you have known for a large portion of your life is not an easy task…Its scary (the “unknown” always is), its work and although I think change is a wonderful thing for us to experience, I am not in the majority with that mindset.

Sadly, many of the people in Shanna’s family don’t see this as an opportunity…they see it as something “taken” from them and immediately start to sabotage any possibility of life being different.

Brandi (middle step daughter), trying to be a good daughter, told her father that we were on our way to Houston to get Shanna, TOLD HIM not to say anything, in turn, because he cant keep chit to himself, he told his mom, SHE cant keep chit to herself, so she told our oldest daughters husband and I don’t know if he told Joseph, but it was clear that Joseph “thought” Shanna was with us through his texts and even phone calls to Donna… Even when that was happening, I knew somehow someone leaked the information…Just didn’t know how at that time…. Another thing that raised my concern in the middle of it all.

I am amazed….Like I said…people who live “that” life every day, they don’t see this as serious, they see it as a game and are willing to sacrifice others so they can get their game piece two squares ahead of the other player… The risk involved with playing this type of game isn’t a loss of fake money or losing your turn on the next dice roll, it life and death and clearly, LIFE is not that important to them and DEFINITELY not important if it isn’t theirs… Selfish, self serving people man… I am glad I am surrounded with good people in my life, because if the world was occupied with this mentality as the major population, I don’t think I would want to be here! LUCKILY, in SPITE of those people, I still am!

In reflection, I am still very angry and just want to yell at every one of those people who tried to sabotage Shanna’s greatness and put us in more risk (really, this information couldn’t have waited until AFTER we got her free of that scenario?? WOW!!??) But because of my experience with those people (that family), I am confident that it won’t make ANY difference… Nothing at all…They won’t get it, they never have, and they never will!

So I GET TO go out on my deck, in the Hill Country, away from all of “that” and yell at the deer in my front yard and scream at the fox that regulates my deck to get my cats food… Yelling at those critters creates about the same amount of change but at least it’s some form of relief from THAT madness.

Shanna is here now, me, Donna, Brandi, the boys…We are all as committed to Shanna’s greatness as she is. She is safe, has a bed to sleep in, a clean house, loving and committed people around her and an opportunity to have her life and the lives of her children DIFFERENT!! Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers and let’s hope she sees the opportunity and really grasps it and makes her life amazing… As I told Shanna…

“It’s up to you now!”

I am sure we have a full plate of drama, struggle, arguments and stress ahead, but if Shanna is willing to take it on, I am as committed as she is to her greatness….and the other people around her now, I know they feel the same way…

“BE the change you wish to see in the world!”

That doesn’t have to come with “sacrifice” but it can be a struggle! In all reality, sacrifice is merely a perception… It’s not a sacrifice to see those you care for have an amazing life… It truly is a blessing!

I will update you as this continues…Thanks for taking the time to read it!

As I was downloading pics from our trip, I came across this picture... This is a picture of me and Shanna not long after I came into her life... I dont think the precious-ness of those you love ever fades...