The Thin Blue Line Page #9

the other lane and I was in that lane...

and tried to stop me.

He went off the side of the road.

I remember this car

went off the side of the road.

I'm just looking back.

I remember that.

I got a call at my house

about 3:
30 one morning.

One of the patrolmen

in my department called...

and said, "We just arrested

this boy named David Harris...

"and he won't even tell us his name.

He said he wants to talk to you. "

They told me something that really

made me interested. He'd been shot.

David had initially told me

that he had gone to a bar in Houston...

and was flirting with a young lady

and her boyfriend became upset...

and chased him out with a pistol,

shooting at him.

We knew that wasn't true.

I said, "David, I know you're lying to me.

"We go through this all the time,

all my dealings with you in the past.

"I don't know what you've done just yet.

"I know you were shot.

"I know you were shot doing something

that you shouldn't have been...

"we know you burglarized a gun shop.

We know you were driving drunk.

"Got witnesses who can identify you,

who can identify your truck. "

I said, "You're caught. So tell the truth. "

And David said, "Okay, I killed him. "

Their home was entered while he

and his girlfriend were there alone.

The man was sent into the bathroom

at gunpoint and told to stay there.

David took the girl

and was starting to leave.

The man exited the apartment with a gun.

The man fell to the ground,

or near the ground...

holding onto a pole there in the

parking lot of the apartment complex...

and these last, whether it be two,

three, or how many shots...

I don't know, were fired at point-blank

or near point-blank range.

David thought that the one

that was really at fault that night...

was the guy that got killed.

He said, "That guy's crazy.

"He came after me with a gun. "

I told him,

"David, you'd broken into his house...

"you abducted his girlfriend,

what was he supposed to do?"

He said,

"Man shouldn't come out with a gun.

"That dude's crazy.

He should have been killed. "

When we went to retrieve the pistol...

I had to go into the water to get it.

It was a bayou and it was grassy,

snaky-looking area.

I was not real pleased

about being there myself...

but David enjoyed watching me have to

go down there and look for the gun.

I'd been searching several minutes,

he was up on the bridge...

and probably 25 feet from me...

directing me to where he thought

that the gun had landed in the water.

He was handcuffed.

Traffic would come by,

and he would turn around...

and show them his handcuffs

and holler at them, "Help me!

"The officials will throw me

in this water and drown me. "

Just anything he could do

to make a joke and cut up out there.

He was just really having a good time.

The kid scares me.

To think that he could actually be

out there, walking the streets...

and Dallas County let him go.

The kid had seven crimes

coming down on him.

He had armed robberies.

He had firing on a peace officer.

He had breaking and enterings,

aggravated assaults.

God knows what all this kid had.

And Dallas County gives him

complete immunity for his testimony.

Just lets him walk.

My mom had a good phrase.

She said the first night

she pulled into Dallas, it was raining...

and that it was lightning.

And they're coming into Dallas...

and she said if there was ever

a hell on earth, it's Dallas County.

She's right.

You deal with people who you sense

bad vibrations, more or less.

You feel, this guy doesn't like me

anyway because I'm a policeman.

You can just kind of sense something.

Maybe I shouldn't even be saying it...

because police shouldn't

take these things to the bank.

When you deal with people over

and over, you sense a lot of things.

Talking to David, you don't ever

feel hostile feelings coming from him.

I have never seen David any way...

other than cordial,

friendly to me as he could be:

"Yes, sir. " "No, sir. " Never disrespectful.

I've never seen the bad side.

I've seen the results...

and I've talked to him about it,

and he's aware of it.

He remembers the bad side.

But I've never seen him

committing a crime...

or in a violent or volatile state.

When his crimes were confessed to...

he seemed to feel better and do better

during those times.

His parents would tell me

he would to do better at home...

he seemed to get along better

with the people in town...

his neighbors and friends.

But something happens to David...

I don't know what it is. I don't know

if anybody can put their finger on it.

But there's no other indication

of anything in the family...

that would lead you to believe

he had exposure to these activities.

David's got at least one other brother

and sister that I know of.

And he had one brother that drowned

numerous years ago.

I was 3 years old...

I had a 4-year-old brother...

and he drowned in 1963...

right after President Kennedy

was assassinated, I believe.

Sometime right after that,

during the summer.

We was living in Beaumont

on Harrison Street...

and my dad was working on his truck

out in the yard...

and mom was in the house

doing her housework or fixing dinner.

Me and my brother, we had

one of these little blow-up pools...

and we were playing in that.

My dad was supposed to be watching

or keeping an eye on us or something.

My brother wandered off down the street...

and these people had a

swimming pool in their backyard...

and they were elderly people.

They never used the pool.

I guess it had a bunch of leaves

and stuff in it.

And he, evidently, fell in there and drowned.

I used to sit up in my room at night

and talk to him and he wasn't there.

So that might have been some kind of

a traumatic experience for me.

I guess my dad...

I don't know, maybe he couldn't

get rid of the responsibility...

or the guilt or something.

I don't know what it was.

I was there and I guess maybe

I reminded him of that...

all the time, growing up.

It was hard for me

to get any acceptance from him.

When my younger brother was born...

it was kind of like he was Daddy's

favorite or something, I don't know.

Everybody's life is going to take

some kind of path...

regardless of what happens.

I think maybe that a lot of the things

I did when I was younger...

was an attempt to get back at him

or something...

for the way he treated me.

But I wasn't doing nothing

but hurting myself.

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