I drift back into a hot summer afternoon. Evening shift. HCSO District III. One of the best times of my career. Go. Go. Go. Eight hours seemed like two it went by so fast…
Shots fired. MHMRA Official running from patient with pistol…suspect has fired the weapon. The lights and siren are on and the engine is racing before the Dispatcher even gets through with her radio traffic.
Running down Sheldon….headed for Ridlon….traffic backed up, gridlock. Head opposite direction, myself and another unit….still pushing forward. Turn onto Ridlon, brake, brake, brake….accelerate, pulling my old Tahoe out of the turn….sirens off….rolling fast to the location we were dispatched to.
I see the white MHMRA van parked in the driveway of the old single wide trailer home. The Confederate flag flying outside on a lone metal flag pole. Of this location, I am very familiar. Old man. A Veteran. Combat Vet…tough as nails. I’ve been here many times for he, he suffers immensely. He just does.
We stop in the middle of the road. I see him. Bent, old, tough, wild, angry. I see the gun belt wrapped around his waist and the pistol in his hand. He is pointing his gun at the white MHMRA van. Screaming. What he is saying I can not understand.
My boots hit the ground. The heat is so high, the rubber from my soles stick and squeak with every move I make. Funny the details you can see, smell and hear in a combat event. I can smell, literally smell the heat, the tar, the road, the air…the gun smoke from his most recent shot. They all swirl about in the humid afternoon air.
Myself and the other Deputy, my Friend, my Brother are calling to the man to surrender…to calm down, to put the gun down. My sights, three green illuminated dot, cover his center mass…every move, every motion. I can take him at any time, but I don’t. I see a male hiding in some bushes to the right of the MHMRA van….a young black male….I yell for him to stay still. I refocus on our suspect….finally…ten, twelve minutes….he submits. He holsters the pistol and drops the gun belt from his side.
As we quickly, decisively walk up to him, I place him in cuffs. I ask him “What the hell are you doing?!” He said “They sent that son of a bitch there to get me!” He shrugs his body towards the young black male who now emerges from hiding. The young man, eyes wide open screams…”He tried to kill me!!!!” My suspects smiles and quietly says with a smirk “If I was trying to kill your a$$ you’d be dead…I just shot out your tires…I ain’t goin no where with you…”
Well, that old man was right. He didn’t leave with MHMRA…he went with me to 1201 Commerce St….HCSO Central Booking…..like I said, not my first encounter with this man. Not by far…However, little did I know, this was to be the last.
In my time, I can count on one hand how many times I did this..and have a coupe of fingers left over….As I was walking out of the doors of Booking, the old man called for me….I walked over and sat down on the concrete bench by him. Tears stream down his cheeks and onto the cold, concrete floor beneath us. Much calmer, almost insecure in appearance now.
He looked at me….deep, with is green eyes and softly said “I really messed up didn’t I?” I remember telling him, somehow, it will all work out. I asked him why he did what he did and he said “I wasn’t going with that #$%$#^&%$. You understand don’t you?”
I put my hand on his shoulder…I softly, quietly said to him, “No sir. I don’t. Times have changed. The world has changed.” He replied, “Well, I cant change. Maybe you should have just killed me. I’d be better off than here now.”
Well, I’ll leave the rest of it right here…..
I am telling you all this story because I can not help but remember that hot afternoon in Channelview, Texas. I can not help but remember that old man and how this old world changed around him and he, in his darkest hour, still, could not change who he was. He just couldn’t.
In my mind, this did not make the man, the Veteran, now the person in custody, a bad man. It did not make him evil or wrong about everything in life, in this world. In my mind, it was what I had told him. Life and this world had changed and he had not. To this day….I can not help but reflect from the lesson I learned from that old man and that hot, humid, hard summer afternoon in Channelview, Texas.
Not everyone and everything can change or conform. It just isn’t possible. The best I figure we can hope for is simply this. Some understanding….some love, some compassion…some mercy. God knows, there is already enough hate to go around.
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