It was one more heart–
pounding dash into the unknown for Police Sgt. Jerry Simpson and Officer Stephen Mosley as they raced in separate squad cars to an address on Avenue F and Surghnor Street.
Sgt. Simpson, an ex–Marine who works the midnight shift in Belton and has been a member of the department for seven years, braced for the worst - a potential shoot–out with a bunch of criminals.
As the patrol car raced along, the adrenaline–fed response seemed to fulfill a prophecy Simpson uttered four hours earlier when he talked candidly about drug problems in Belton.
Simpson had rattled off a detailed description of challenges the midnight shift faces, as if it were a long list of traffic voilations. He said dangers after dark such as drugs found on routine traffic stops, burglaries and DUIs continue to be a problem while the city is trying to fully staff it shifts.
“Everything comes down to drugs,” Simpson said. “There is (an increase) of narcotics and meth–related cases in Central Texas.”
A routine traffic stop at night usually turns up traces of a substance or drug paraphenelia.
“About 90 percent of our crime is narcotics,” Simpson said. “I’ve stopped people who are shooting up.”
Simpson said that as the drug problem has grown, the need for more officers on the streets in Belton has added to tension on the streets.
“There is a danger on the midnight shift; the more people we have the safer we are,” Simpson said.
At the beginning of his shift, Simpson put his lunch and dinner - two granola bars - into the center console of his squad car and cruised out of the department parking lot into the night.
Simpson’s eyes darted in all directions as he patroled the streets. He inspected vehicles in front of him for brake lights and complete stops. He weaved through neighborhoods, slowing down to check those walking the streets at night. Curiosity is his friend.
Casual conversation turned quickly to family. He mentioned his two daughters and his son. His 22–year–old daughter has been in the Air Force for two years .
“My daughter wants to be just like her daddy,” Simpson said proudly, reflecting his own military service.
He spoke fondly, though briefly, about his wife whom he has been married to for 13 years.
Simpson, who spent 20 years in the Marines before he retired, had always planned to patrol the nights in Belton after his military career. He put himself through the police academy and cross–trained into the Belton department.
He was a reserve officer before he joined the force full time. Reserve officers volunteer 16 hours a month and the department in turn carries their commission so they don’t lose police certification.
The banter about family, careers and occupational duties was suddently interrupted.
11:30 p.m. Traffic Stop
Simpson U–turned when a car raced by at a high rate of speed on a winding road that turns into Main Street. Reflexively, Simpson unbuckled his safety belt as he stopped behind the now–stopped older sedan. Oddly, the smell of death permeates the air.
Officer William Hamilton, Simpson’s backup for this traffic stop, spots the source of the smell - a road–kill deer. Hamilton pulls the deer off the road and into the weeds.
The speeding car with the young driver warranted Simpson’s attention.
Simpson and Hamilton waited behind the car as the licence of the 16–year–old white female driver was checked through the patrol car’s computer. The girl looks a lot older than 16, a telltale sign that can suggest a methamphetamine addiction. The girl lives on Boxer Road, known by Belton police as an area where drugs and meth labs flourish at the edge of the city’s limits.
The passenger, a thin white male with tattooed arms, quickly lights a smoke and lounges in the passenger seat with the cigarette pierced between his lips.
“They think they are going to jail,” Simpson said, noting that it’s common for smokers who think they are going to jail to have that last cigarette.
“You look familiar,” Simpson told the passenger, who turns out to have a police record. “Do I know your parents?”
The male gave a slight shrug.
“Can I search your car?” Simpson asked the girl, who is wearing an orange University of Texas T–shirt and pajama bottoms.
She nodded in agreement.
Simpson and Hamilton removed a portable ash tray, which showed remnants of marijuana and a matchbook that advises: “Don’t do Pot.”
“Do you know this is considered drug paraphernalia?” Simpson asked the teens. They shrugged and said they didn’t know.
Simpson confiscated the matchbook and gave them an oral warning.
“They could have gone to jail,” Simpson said as the couple drove away into the night. “I arrested that boy’s dad (for drugs).”
Simpson settled back into his cruiser and talked about the increased use of drugs among young teens. It’s the teens who have been around drugs since they were children, he said, who often become addicts like their parents.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, most domestic producers of methamphetamine make small batches of the substance for personal use and local distribution.
A recent DEA report said “Mom and Pop” methamphetamine labs are popping up because it is cheaper as an addict to make the drug instead of relying on a distributor.
Simpson slowed the cruiser to patrol a regular drug trading spot in Belton.
“We are the predators and the bad guys are our prey,” Simpson said.
12:55 Traffic Stop
Officer Wesley Kingsley pulled over a car that did not come to a complete stop at a stop sign. The adult occupants - a female driver, male passenger and an infant in the backseat - appeared annoyed at the timing of the stop. The baby howled in protest.
Simpson arrived on the scene for backup.
“I saw the male digging around in the center console,” Kingsley said.
A records check disclosed that a warrant had been issued for the man’s arrest. Simpson and Kingsley took the male, with overgrown stubble on his jaw, into custody and while patting him down found a so–called “snort straw.” It’s used to snort coke and residue clings to the straw.
A search of the woman yielded no drugs, but she, too, was warned about the dangers of drug use. “Do you know what would happen if your baby (ingests) meth?” Simpson asked. He could die, he warned. The woman clamped her teeth together. Her son continued to reach for her boyfriend, who was now cuffed and in the back seat of the squad car.
“He’s his daddy, not his biological one, just the one he knows,” the woman explained.
She was allowed to drive away, but her boyfriend was taken to the Bell County Jail.
1:47 a.m. Traffic Stop
Simpson used his lights to flag down a car that was moving erratically on the road. The driver jumped out of the car, at which point Simpson told him to get back in the vehicle.
“It’s not good if they jump out,” Simpson muttered as he called for backup.
Kingsley arrived minutes later. Kingsley recognized the driver from an earlier incident in which he was the victim of a string of car burglaries in the area.
“Can I search your car?” Simpson asked.
“I mind having my car looked through,” the driver responded, crossing his arms across his chest.
“I just can’t walk away,” Simpson muttered as he paced the sidewalk.
Simpson ran the driver’s license. Three minutes later, he learned an arrest warrant on traffic violations has been issued for the man in Killeen. After a negotiation between the two police departments, a prisoner exchange was arranged at the Nolanville Shell station.
A search of the car yielded a meth pipe and a miner’s flashlight.
“Meth heads love flashlights,” Simpson said as he continued to search the car. Then he saw the meth melted to the front seat of the car.
“He was smoking while he was driving,” Simpson said in disbelief.
Simpson approached the handcuffed male in the back of the squad car.
“Your high right now, I can tell, it’s obvious,” Simpson said. “You can’t stop moving.”
On the drive to the Nolanville Shell station, Simpson advised the man to look for a rehabilitation center in the phone book. “He’s been really cooperative,” Simpson said. At 2:53 a.m., the man was now Killeen’s problem.
3:09 a.m. Traffic Stop
The Brillo pad in the pickup bed of a truck tipped Simpson that something was wrong. He had stopped the truck because its license plate light was out. Crack pipes are made with Brillo pads, which are used as a filter to keep the crack rock away from the mouth as the pipes are smoked.
A driver’s license check revealed outstanding warrants for the driver. Simpson cuffed the driver and placed him in the back seat for a ride to jail - but then the tenor changed.
The scanner crackled. The University of Mary Hardin–Baylor officer who backed up Simpson on this stop sped away. Simpson heard the alarmed voices of other officers over the radio.
They were in pursuit of a vehicle from which gunshots were fired. Simpson released Brillo pad man and sped off in his cruiser.
3:36 a.m. Shots Fired
The scanner cracked. “Shots fired.” It cracked again. “A lot of shots fired.”
Simpson’s face paled; he cussed and started to swallow hard over and over again as he raced to help his fellow officers find a dark blue pickup truck involved in a drive–by shooting. The chase ended at a house at the cross streets of Avenue F and Surghnor Street. Guns were drawn and flashing lights wakened the residential neighborhood. Those with the misfortune of being outside their homes were quickly detained.
“Get down,” three officers yelled to those at the residence behind drawn guns.
At 3:38 a.m., police kicked in the door to the house.
“Stay in,” the officers commanded a man in boxer shorts who answered the door.
A search of the truck yielded no weapon.
“We have a whole messload of people handcuffed,” an officer reported to headquarters. Five Belton officers were at the scene along with the UMHB officer and four county deputies.
“We are on our way, units are coming,” a police dispatcher responded.
Five Hispanic males and one Hispanic female were handcuffed. The Hispanic male in boxer shorts was taken out of the house, while his wife looked on as she held her baby.
At 3:57 a.m. officers decided to charge the suspected shooter, who was seen exiting the truck from which the shots were fired and who is now in handcuffs, with assault with a deadly weapon. The others are released.
The search for the gun continued. At 5:15 a.m., about the time neighborhood roosters started to crow, the handgun is recovered. The accused shooter was taken to the Bell County Jail at 6:46 a.m.
County lockup
Posted above the entrance to the Bell County Jail one can see: “In God we trust, all others we search.”
The smell of Clorox and unwashed bodies stifle the air. The detox room, used for those who’ve been drinking or on drugs at night, is opened; the stench is repugnant and overwhelming. The fresh smell of vomit blends with the jailhouse potpourri..
“Kick your shoes off, take off your belt, hat, necklace and bracelet,” a Bell County officer told the suspected shooter at intake. The prisoner complied and the guard patted him down.
Simpson left his opinion of the accused shooter behind with the jailers: “He is not a nice guy.”
The officer with the plastic gloves continued to pat down the suspect and found a blackened shell casing in the folds of the accused shooter’s jeans.
The “adrenaline dump,” which is a term used by the police officers after an intense call, showed on Simpson’s face as he headed back to work with a Gatorade in his hand. The two granola bars he started out with in the evening still sat in his center console, untouched.
He headed back to the crime scene to fill out paperwork, glad that no one was hurt that night.
“We have a drug problem, and the city needs to get on top of it,” Simpson said.
Next Sunday: The streets of Temple
ccarlisle@temple-telegram.com
