The police radio frequency came alive, quickly filled with excited and angry voices, that Summer night in 1968. A chase was in progress, and the reason soon became apparent. One of our North Austin patrolmen had stopped a ’56 Chevy, and the five occupants had spilled out, with one of them pulling a .45 caliber …
Category Archives: Cop
Adios, Johnny, Adios
I remember Johnny lifting his shirt to show me the wound marks left by the three nails. The fight had been a brutal one, and to beat Johnny, his opponent had taken a two by four to him. The nails in the board had pierced Johnny’s side, puncturing a lung. John spent six months in …
Violent Men Don’t Scare Easily
Austin Police Chief Robert A. Miles had a tough decision to make, strangely enough about a type of crime which would not normally put him in the spotlight. It was about so simple a matter as putting a stop to a rash of car burglaries. Only this wasn’t so simple as supposed, for it involved …
The Death of Officer Guadalupe Martinez, SAPD
I was twenty five years old, and in my fourth year with the Austin Police Department that morning in 1971. I was working the day shift, and had stopped my unit on Waller Street just north of E.1st Street, when a truck pulled up behind my unit. I watched in my rear view mirror as …
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A brush with history
I had high entry scores going into the military on the 18th of October 1963, and, after the proper training at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, was sent back to Fort Polk, where I was eventually assigned to the Finance Section at post headquarters. My parents, who had prayed much for my safety, were ecstatic. As …
Questions, I had questions
November 22, 2013 I was in my third week of basic training at Ft Polk, Louisiana and at post clothing supply with the rest of my company, being fitted for winter clothing, when the announcement came over the radio that President Kennedy had been shot. There was the break in the announcer’s voice. Everything got …
Joe Brown, Black American
My dear friend Louis Arnold was number one, the most aggressive heavyweight karateka and kickboxer in the State of Texas during the 1970’s. I was at the time a member of the Austin Police Department, as well as that department’s self defense instructor. Recently, Louis told me about the time in the early 1970s when …
I was young then
I was young then, just out of the United States Army, my discharge coming on 17 October 1966. By the next month I was preparing to enter the Police Academy in Austin, Texas. I was very sure of myself. None of that minority hiring quota stuff for me. It wasn’t around then, and I didn’t …
Death of Little Ones
For a week I’d harbored a terrible premonition of death. I couldn’t shake it. I was going to take a bullet, I was almost sure. That was the Summer of 1971, and I was a cop working the hot spot of Austin, Texas, the East Side. It was quiet that night, until a call came …