( linked via title bar ). Basically, several pistols that had been tagged into the property room as evidence vanished and some of them have turned up in the hands of criminals on the street.
I was going to title my article, The More Things Change …; but decided that it would be totally neglected by those scanning for impact statements. There are plenty of folks who will stop by to read about possible police corruption, abuse or stupidity; wonder why that is? I should complete the thought, …The More They Remain the Same.
Going back to the early 70’s when I was a low seniority police officer working Central Patrol Evenings, I had the opportunity to become involved in a very exciting incident. I should explain the police work is pretty much a ho-hum job most of the time; it’s those “very exciting” moments that only last a few minutes that police train for, that movies and television action series are based upon. If it weren’t for those randomly dispersed moments of sheer adrenaline, police work could be done by book keepers or grocery store sackers; I’m exaggerating considerably.
I'd gotten back to work after having enjoyed a vacation up in the mountains of Colorado with my young wife; having low seniority meant that I had to pick my vacation schedule after the Summer peak and before the opening of Hunting Season. The last week of September and the first week of October were fine with me; all those fall colors up in the mountains were awesome and we had the national parks almost to our selves. Anyway, getting back to the police department, upon returning to work I got a call to “Report to Homicide”.
You have to understand the mindset of a low seniority police officer; I’m sure that it translates easily to other jobs, “What did I do wrong this time?”, as I made my way up the stairs to Homicide. A detective had me step into his office where he asked me several questions about a pistol which had turned up at a double homicide investigation; a very particular pistol that had my “mark” scratched into it under where the wooden hand grips would cover them, where police officers had been instructed to place that mark in order to be used in the judicial process later on.
The detective started to describe the pistol, a Colt 357, blue steel with ramped sites. I knew right away which pistol it had to be, having only tagged one like it into the property room in my short tenure with the department. I began nodding to let him know that I was familiar with it. “We’d like to know how that pistol had your mark on it.”
Flash back a few months to a soggy Sunday afternoon when I was riding patrol. My partner and I had finished lunch, so it had to be evening but not yet dark as we drove through our beat in the 3rd Ward, a predominantly Black neighborhood. We heard a couple of gun shots ring out close by and observed several folks bailing out of a small club called the Green Hornet Lounge. They were escaping out the back window and the front door as if it were the OK Corral scene in the movie. A light rain was falling as we positioned our patrol car safely in relation to the front door of the lounge. One rather agitated Black man stepped out the door and stood, looking in our direction, holding a huge honking pistol in his hand. We assumed the necessary defensive positions using the opened doors of our patrol car as cover and returned his “invitation” by aiming our equally huge honking pistols in his direction. I couldn’t say for sure what we told him at that time; what ever it was, he believed us as he put his hands up to surrender. We approached him cautiously, cuffed him and I took possession of the huge honking pistol.
On any other given day that would have been enough; cart the bad guy off to jail and smile; not so on this day. As the rain continued to fall, our suspect standing with us as we were about to march him back the short distance to our patrol car; a sudden burst of excitement erupted from within the darkened confines of the lounge as folks continued to hurriedly exit shouting, “He’s got a gun!”.
That didn’t sound right; we already had the gun and the guy, didn’t we? My partner and I peeked around the door frame and as we did the lone individual remaining in the joint saw the blue uniforms, our guns drawn and ready so he placed his little Saturday Night Special on the floor and gave up without a fight. We made our preliminary investigation; noting that nobody had been shot and that most of the damage had been done to a set of drums, not exactly what the drummer had in mind when making a rim shot.
Did I mention that being young and ignorant of our location in relation to the Black Panther Headquarters we had not considered the impact we had on the rest of the patrol officers when we radioed to the dispatcher that we had “shots fired” at our location. It looked like Christmas with all the police cars arriving with their emergency lights flashing away, all those knowledgeable officers getting to our location as fast as they could to save us from God only knows what. We had plenty of help securing the scene.
The forms and reports we filled out took the better part of the evening, about 4 hours of writing to explain what happened in just a few minutes. Both pistols had been reported stolen so we had to make supplement reports to their originals and we were glad that shift change matched up with the conclusion of our reports.
Okay, back to the October meeting in the Homicide Division office where the detective was inquiring about the huge honking Colt pistol with the fancy ramped sights. I explained that all he needed to do was look up the original report. I was told that no report existed in the Records Division, no call slip record to indicate that we had been where the incident occurred, no Property Room record of the pistol ever having been submitted; in other words, it never happened according to the HPD.
When I was a rookie cop one of my senior officers made it clear to me that any time I checked in evidence, turned in property or made a report that had the slightest chance of hitting the courtroom with me having to justify my actions; make a copy of anything related to those incidents and file them away in my own folder for future use, just in case.
That “just in case” had come to pass. I asked the detective to let me call home so that Lucy could go into my file folder. It only took her a few minutes to locate the report which had a copy of each and every “lost” record attached to it. There was a copy of the incident report, the booking slips, the call slip and the evidence submission forms for both pistols. I had not screwed up after all, a feeling of confidence filled my chest as I was once more able to breathe in and out normally. The detective asked me to drive home to retrieve those forms so he could have a copy to place in the department file.
I have no idea what kind of secondary “investigation” was started to figure out how the criminal, the one I’d put in jail the first time, how he got his hands on that pistol which I’d checked into the property room pending the outcome of any court ruling. I’d have remembered going to court on that one; it never happened. The bad guy used that pistol, the same one he’d thought about pointing at me, he’d used it to murder two women and then he burned their bodies in an attempt to cover up the evidence. The solid link to him ended up being that huge honking Colt 357 Magnum pistol with my mark inside the grip. Some things you never forget; don’t think you’re supposed to forget them either.
Chief Hurtt wasn’t the man in charge back then so it would hardly be fair to throw all of this on his back to go along with the 21 pistols that are currently missing from the Police Property Room. I think there are some policy changes that need to be made, things that would require recording each and every submission of evidence digitally, with video back up and secondary systems which would include commissioned police officers to oversee the activities of civilian personnel who happen to work in classified areas. I would expect those new policies to include a section or paragraph requiring an authorization form to include a place notifying the original submitting officer (s), that activity was taking place on evidence which he/she had an interest in. I would also require a supplement incident report to accompany any removal or transfer of evidence or property from the Police Property Room. I’ve been in car dealerships that had more security than the Houston Police Department Property Room; yes, there is room for improvement.
Editing note: After reviewing the information I noticed that I had originally placed the location of the Green Hornet Lounge in the 5th Ward; I went back to correctly place it within the 3rd Ward for those who require accuracy, call it a "senior moment".
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