I Am A Cop
He measures out his life in fear and boredom. He's got a worried wife, he rides alone, and he always wears his gun.
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT DIVIDES SAN Antonio into nine sections which are themselves divided into 98 districts. Each district is permanently assigned to one patrolman, the district officer.
The same officers man these districts every day, except on relief days when the districts mayor may not be filled by each section's two or three relief officers. At any given time at least 85 districts will be filled. The others are left open; the neighboring district men take up the slack.
Fewer men are assigned to the daylight shift, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., when there are fewer drunks and fewer family disturbances. The workhorse shift is the afternoon tour, the 3 to 11. They do it all, and more of it: from accidents to robberies and murder to lost children and stolen bicycles. The peak load spills over into the dog watch (11 at night to 7 in the morning), stretching until sometime between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., depending on what part of town and the day of the week. The shifts rotate every two months.
Whatever the shift, the scene at roll call is much the same. The police station is in downtown San Antonio. In the basement is the large assembly room with the neat rows of classroom desks bolted to the floor. Gallon tin cans with the lids missing sit by each desk in unpainted imitation of the Army's omnipresent butt cans. They are frequently kicked and overturned by careless or restless feet. The room is full of bitching and laughter. There is a sense of kinship that binds even the cynics. Brotherhood is an unspoken rule and only violated with extreme caution.
After roll call, the men leave the gas pump area, where they relieve the shift just coming off duty, and head out to their respective districts. Due to an overworked garage, there is frequently a car shortage and occasionally the men are forced to double up, two district men to one car. The brass dislike this; they say it is an inefficient use of manpower.
At night an off-duty officer rides with the district man in about 20 districts pin-pointed as "high-incident patrol areas" by the city's computers. Police wives forced the City Council into ordering two men to a car after the third officer in less than two years had been killed on duty. The overtime program is merely a stopgap measure. As of this writing, the department's leadership has been slow to carry out the politically popular directive, although rumors persist that they will soon do so.
For the most part, then, the men are alone in the car. They listen to the radio, and answer it when called. Cadets currently ride for a month with another officer after graduating from the police academy. Then they are put alone in the car, like everyone else.
Incident on Commerce Street
HIS VOICE IS LIKE HEAVY gravel banging down a tin chute, and is predictably deep. He is 61 years old, and a hulk of a man over six feet tall. It is his belly you notice first—a swollen river of fat, it pushes and pulls at his belt as he walks, overflowing here and there in rolling, five-pound wrinkles. He is a policeman's policeman, he is fond of saying. He belongs to the past.
He cleared his throat, breaking into a spasm of coughing, and pounded the speaker's stand in front of him once with a white fist. Common knowledge has it only the job is keeping him alive. He boasts that the day he retires will be the day they bury him, but many of his men doubt this, saying the sonofabitch is too mean to die.
"Men, I got a call today. I won't say from who. But I been given to understand that Keith Anthony Brown will be driving round downtown and the East Side today in a 65 Olds four door. It's supposed to be a real dirty white."
The murky assembly room was full of a blue-gray haze, and the isolated non-smokers waved irritably at the drifting clouds of smoke. It was roll call for the 3-11 shift, the old man's shift. He was the senior uniform captain.
The interested men were intently writing down the description of the car. A low murmur of conversation mingled discreetly with the smoke, as some ignored the old man, but they were careful to speak without moving their lips. The old man loved grudges almost as much as he hated blacks. And Keith Anthony Brown was black and the captain's latest project. The robbery detectives thought Brown might be the young suspect who had recently held up a number of supermarkets.
"Now, men, if you happen to see that car today, I want you to stop it and hold all occupants for me personal. Use a little caution with this punk and his friends, cause he's supposed to think he's pretty bad. He shot a couple of times at the manager of the last store he hit."
After roll call, the patrol car left the station and drove through the downtown area, heading for the near East Side where the two men were assigned. One man was a veteran and the other was a rookie. It was the third day they had been together and they were still feeling each other out. It was a delicate period for the new man. He was very eager.
They would ride together for 30 days, then he would be on his own. He welcomed the opportunity of working the East Side with its high crime rate and violence, but the black culture was alien and threatening. He had always hated the thought of being weak and was unwilling to ever admit being afraid. He was only a week out of the academy. His name was Tom Ewell, and he was driving.
The other policeman was sitting relaxed on the other side of the front seat, watching the pedestrians and shoppers on the sidewalks. It was a windy day and he was waiting for a particularly good mini-skirt. His name was Randy Tyler and, like Ewell, he was also an Anglo officer.
The white patrol car had just turned onto Commerce Street, going east, when Tyler grunted and pointed at the same time. His voice sounded pleasantly surprised, almost syrupy.
"Make a u-turn here, Tom, and head on back west on Commerce. Oh, my goodness, what do we have here? You see it? Up there, three, no, four, cars ahead of us in the center lane? I do believe it's a 65 Olds with three soul brothers inside. And it sure nuff is dirty, almost not even white."
Ewell had never even seen the car go past them. His hands turned white on the steering wheel and he opened his mouth to agree with Tyler, but changed his mind and only nodded instead. His palms were moist as he moved the car in and out of the traffic, gaining on the Olds ahead.
"Pull 'em over now, Tom. Punch your siren just once to let 'em know we're here, in all our glory. Unit 5-3, we'll be stopping a 65 Olds 73 Tx HHH454 with three black males in the 900 block of East Commerce."
The dispatcher quickly acknowledged Tyler. "Ten-four, 5-3, do you have anybody with you?"
Ewell could feel the glance in his direction as Tyler paused, and then answered, "Well, I've got a cadet."
Ewell's face flushed an irritated red. He wanted to remind the other man that he wasn't a cadet any longer, that he had graduated and was a patrolman now, even if a probationary one. But he kept his mouth shut and watched the car ahead. He knew he was still an unknown in Tyler's mind.
The radio was full of voices informing the dispatcher—and 5-3—that they were on the way over to his location. The Oldsmobile had pulled over to the curb on the north side of the street and the two policemen warily but undramatically approached the car.
The sidewalk had been full of afternoon shoppers, but at the first wail of the siren most had disappeared into the neighboring stores, leaving only two or three curious, gawking by-standers. Tyler had turned on the outside speaker of the radio before he left the car and its metallic voice accompanied them as they walked towards the car.
Ewell took a deep breath and asked the driver for his license, standing so the man had to turn slightly and look back at him. Ewell was watching the driver's hands and the position of his body. He knew Tyler was watching the other two, and he felt like grinning. The details of the scene were a vivid sharpness, a crisp clarity in his mind. He could sense the adrenalin flowing through the floodgate of his confidence. He was totally alive and he loved it.
The driver said that he had left his license at home and started complaining. "Hey, man, what'd you stop us foh? Man, we's just drivin down the street lookin at de foxes. Caint a man look at women no moh? What we done wrong anyway?"
Tyler told him to shut up and to get out of the car, slowly. After the driver stepped from the car, the other two were told to get out the same way, slow and easy. Tyler smiled at them and told them to walk back to the side of the patrol car, taking special care to keep their hands in clear view. He patted down all three for weapons and asked for identification.
While Tyler was giving their names to the dispatcher, Ewell stood a cautious eight feet away from the trio. He had his hand on his gun with the strap un-snapped. He felt both ready and a little silly. He wondered what they were thinking, and if they could tell he was new. He decided to lean on them a little bit.
"Now don't nobody make any kind of sudden, funny moves. Please. I've got a weak heart. Just maintain, and as soon as we're through checking on you, you can go on about your business. If you're clean."
The three black men looked at each other with blank faces and were careful to move in a slow, measured style. They knew what was coming and were trying to decide what to do. They studied Ewell.
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