Riot in the Projects

It was a radio call like many others on a grey, cloudy day in what we call winter in Texas. Not really cold, just damp and drab.
A211 copy call. Copy a signal 32, black male, wearing a black Raiders jersey and grey shorts has a gun. A large crowd has gathered at Chambers and E. 14th St. A214 take the assist.

Oh boy, I thought. A person with a gun and in the Butler Housing project too. I wearily put the car in drive and started rolling that way. We got a lot of these calls. Some of the residents had realized that if they include the words gun, knife, or bat in their call to the dispatcher the call gets a higher priority and we might show up faster. Nothing makes you chuckle like a call details reading. Concerned Citizen/loud music/ caller say’s they have guns bats and knives.

I rolled into the projects about the same time as my assist. We parked a little ways away from the call and walked in quiet and slow. As I rounded a building I see several hundred people milling around in an open area near the playground. This had to be it. You could smell the tension in the air. I’m sure someone was just fighting but no one there would say a word about it to us. We are the laws. Everyone here hates the laws.

We move through the crowd which parts like a wave, the faces nearest us suddenly silent and wary. My partner and I keep within sight as we look for the one the caller described. As I near the center of the crowd I see him, standing stock still in a restless sea of people milling slowly around. He has on a black Oakland Raiders jersey and those super baggy grey shorts that have to be pulled up constantly. His hand rests under the jersey, holding the waistband of his oversized shorts.

He’s just a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen. But he has that defiant glare on his face even though he won’t look directly at us. I alert my partner and approach the kid. I tell him why we are here and that I am going to pat him down for weapons. I have him turn around and move to pat him dawn.

I can feel the tension radiating off of him as I move to check the front of the jersey where his hand had been resting. He moves, sharp and sudden. Pivoting and throwing his right elbow high and back hoping to get me in the face. To slow, I felt him start and have pulled him in tight. I sweep his legs and drive him to the ground under me. I may have been alert before, but now I have that adrenaline charged focus that slows time and dampens sound. I yell to my partner as the kid rams his hands down underneath him. “GUN”

We pile on top of him and tear his arms out from under him, thankful that they come out empty. We get the cuffs on and I roll him over and start my search. I find nothing.

As the adrenaline fades I take a deep breath and my vision opens back up. I notice that the crowd has shifted, no longer are they filtering slowly out of the area. An angry roar is building as people pour out of their apartments and surround us. The circle tightens around us as my partner tries to calm them down while calling more units. We get him up off the ground and start back the hundred or so yards to the cars. We don’t make it twenty feet. His family has arrived.

They charge through the crowd screaming in pure animal rage. Tearing off their shirts and screaming they whip the crowd into a seething mass. I watch an enraged man with foaming saliva flying from his lips, wrap his shirt around his arm as he prepares to do battle with us. They circle us like prey, looking for an opening, probing for weakness. I crush the kid to the ground and kneel on top of him. My partner does the same as we draw our weapons. I cover his back, he covers mine. The adrenaline hits again.

We roar back at the circling bodies, knowing that fear or panic in our faces will only embolden them. We promise them death. We may not be able to kill them all but we will get the first ones who dare to close the shrinking gap. My partner is on the radio begging for more units.

I hate to admit it but for the briefest moment I think “This is going to look terrible in the media”. I squash that nasty little thought and concentrate on keeping the crowd in front of me convinced that I will shoot them. It begins to rain cops. What a beautiful sight.

The crowd breaks and scatters as they realize that the anonymity of the mob is gone. They scurry away hoping that no one noticed their part in this mess.

I get the kid into the car and away from the crowd and I ask him “why?”. He didn’t have a gun or drugs or anything. There was no reason to fight. No reason to risk our lives or the lives of the crowd. “I got to represent” was his reply.

As I sit here sweating as the memories of this event flood back full force, I am deeply grateful for who my partner was that day. Had it been a weaker officer we may not have faired so well. We never could figure out who had called or why they described the kid in such detail. Maybe they wanted a riot. Maybe that was the whole point.

If you have to go into one of these places, be prepared. There are forces at work there that are sometimes hard to comprehend.