Burnout
I remember distinctly the moment myself and my partner became burned out police officers. The one person you don’t want to patrol your city is a burned out officer. A human being can only take so much physical and mental stress. After a period of time, it eats away at you. It’s like Chinese water torture. The drip, drip, drip of a drop of water onto your forehead right between your eyes for years. It eventually drives you crazy. You finally get to go home to a loving family, but they have issues too. The pressure of fighting crime and taking care of your family is tremendous.
Before I tell you about this incident, I had many other experiences that are too long to list here. I will tell you a few however. I’ve been involved in two shootings. I say two. I’ve been shot at many more times, but back then the department didn’t seem to care as long as no person or police property was hit. We went back to work. We arrested drug dealers and the cowardly district attorney at the time refused to prosecute. A lot of criminals weren’t prosecuted for fear of compromising the D.A.’s record and not getting him reelected. The administration was always bearing down. They would suspend an officer at a moment’s notice for anything the media might pick up on. Officers were beaten down in every way.
My name is David Hunt and the incident I’m about to tell you about happened in June of 1988. My partner, Joe Mathews, and I worked in foot patrol but were attached to the S.W.A.T. team. We assisted them on special details throughout the city. We were working on a drug interdiction detail with S.W.A.T. We drove a marked police car and patrolled areas known for their drug trading. They also had plainclothes cars patrolling. They would watch what happened after we drove through an area. The plainclothes car could see who came out of the woodwork when the marked unit left. Those were your drug bad guys.
One evening we were cruising the area at IH-30 and Oakland Blvd. It was a nice part of town. We were by ourselves and didn’t have an unmarked car with us. We were on our own. It was late and we were thinking about heading towards the police station to go home. As we came down towards Oakland and IH-30 there was a Motel 6 at the intersection. We decided to make a quick check. We drove through the parking lot and about halfway in a pickup truck came towards us. As he passed, I saw a white male wearing a white cowboy hat in an old light blue Ford F-150. He was singing loudly trying to keep up with the radio. I looked at my partner and confirmed we both saw the same thing. It was unusual for this neighborhood. We turned around and pursued him out of the parking lot. He went towards the entrance ramp to IH-30. We caught up to him and he pulled over. I walked up to the driver’s side and asked, “Can I see your driver’s license and proof of insurance.”
The guy had a big smile, “Yes sir, I’ll get it right now.”
The guy moved some clothes on the passenger seat, and I saw a butterfly knife, the knife is illegal in Texas. It’s like a switchblade but it’s done manually. I immediately grabbed the door handle and opened it. As I opened it, I grabbed the bad guy and threw him on the ground. We handcuffed him and searched his truck.
I went through the truck and besides the illegal butterfly knife, he had five thousand dollars cash, and half a block of what turned out to be cocaine. We towed his truck to the auto pound and took him to jail. We spent hours logging in evidence and writing arrest reports. I finally got to go home but when I arrived, everyone was asleep. I had to sit by myself to wind down. Those moments you just want to talk to someone but they’re not available. It’s not their fault, they’re leading a normal life. They sleep at night.
The next day my partner and I came in early. Apparently, S.W.A.T. wanted to run an operation early in the evening. We decided to eat so we made sure we didn’t get stuck with S.W.A.T. starving to death on some goofy operation.
We headed towards Dairy Queen at IH-30 and Oakland Blvd. Since it was right there, we decided to pull in Motel 6 to see if we could catch another drug dealer. We pulled into the parking lot and immediately a light blue Ford F-150 drove at us. I stopped the car as he passed by. It was the bad guy we arrested early this morning. He still had a big smile, “Hey guys. You doin alright?”
He stopped and I asked, “How did you get out of jail?”
“They let me out this morning. They said they might drop the case, but I’ll know later. They wouldn’t give my knife and cocaine back but that’s okay. Y’all have a great day, and I’ll see ya later boys.” He drove off and I sat there stunned along with my partner.
I asked him, “What do you want to do?”
He looked at me and said, “I say we go eat and to hell with everything else. We risk our lives, and this is a joke to them. It’s the old saying, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. They didn’t give him his knife or coke back, but I bet they gave him his money. There’s nothing more we can do. Let’s go.”
The sad part about it is that the bad guy probably had more cocaine and a weapon on him. We’ll never know though. We went to our restaurant and ate. We enjoyed our food and didn’t think about the crime going on because it apparently didn’t matter. We sat for another several hours drinking coffee and talking. We were done. If you have any questions, I’ll answer the best I can. You won’t like the answers. That’s burnout.
