Reprint from the Progress Times - August 31, 2007
©Progress Times 2007 - All Rights Reserved

Police ride along provides insight into police work

By Kathy Olivarez

"We are going to the hospital to see a stabbing victim from an altercation that happened last night. The victim left the scene before the police arrived but he took himself to the hospital this morning. Sometimes the victims will not talk because they want to take care of the matter themselves. It’s our job to convince them to let us investigate and take care of it."

My ride along with Sergeant Catarino "Cat" Sanchez was off to a great start. Sanchez is a shift supervisor who oversees the workday of several officers under him. It is his job to check on the investigations of those officers and to help out where there are problems. Under his command is a corporal who is second in command, five officers and two I.D. technicians. Sanchez has been with the Mission police department for 13 years and has held several different positions. He was promoted to supervisor just two weeks ago.

We arrived at the hospital and went in. Sgt. Sanchez warned me the victim could be confrontational. We went straight to the emergency room where another police officer informed Sgt. Sanchez that the victim had been taken to x-ray.

One officer donned gloves and examined his clothing noting there were bloodstains and flesh on the shirt. However there were no cuts in the shirt indicating he had either changed his shirt or had not been wearing one during the altercation. His shoes also had bloodstains while his pants showed he had rolled around on the ground.

Before long the victim was returned to the emergency room. His back and arms were tattooed. Another tattoo covered his back in large ornate letters. He had two major gashes on his left shoulder. They were about three inches long. Several other smaller slash marks were also found on his shoulder.

We learned the stab wounds had been received in a family disturbance.

"I am not going to lie to you," he told police. "My brother came after me. I told my mother to call the police but she wouldn’t. She always takes his side." The sergeant would later say that when a discussion starts with a statement like I’m not going to lie to you, the person is usually lying.

He further confessed that he had broken the terms of his probation by going to Louisiana to search for a job. But he had not found work and had returned.

Further examination revealed that he and his brother had been drinking and angry words were exchanged. His brother had wound up behind him. He felt something hard like metal but did not actually see the knife.

When asked if he had injured his brother, he said he might have punched him a couple of times but did not stab him.

Asked if he would like to file charges against his brother, the victim paused for a moment of thought and then declined. Later, Sanchez would say his answer was typical but that full investigations had to be made in case the other person wanted to file charges. If neither did, a lot of police time had been wasted. But if the situation was serious enough the police could file charges on behalf of someone.
"Sometimes the people are too afraid of retaliation to file charges," the sergeant said.

We left the investigation to the officers in charge because Sanchez wanted to go to the scene of the crime to see what he could determine there. As we drove he told me that the wounds on the victim’s back were not consistent with stab wounds. He did not know what made them but doubted it was a knife.

A call to the station revealed that the brother was there to file charges against the victim in the hospital. Sanchez suggested it would be hard to file charges against the brother who was in the hospital with puncture wounds.

Soon we arrived at a home in the southwest side of town. The front porch had drops of blood on it but the mother who came to the door said she had already cleaned most of it up.

She told Sanchez that the incident had been a fight, not an assault. The brother had been trying to get the victim to leave. He did not like the way his brother treated his mother who sometimes had to leave home and sleep at her sister’s home to be safe. "I feel bad. They are both my sons. I don’t want them to kill themselves,” the mother told the sergeant. She said she loved both her sons but could not control them.

Sanchez said she had been a single mother trying to raise two sons. There were bad influences around and things had gotten out of hand.

The mother denied that the other son had stabbed the victim with a knife. Rather, she pointed to a broken pottery flowerpot in the yard and said the cuts the victim received had come from it. The two boys had gotten in a fight and started hitting each other. During the fight the victim got cut when the flowerpot broke. She also said she had called the police when things got violent.

She denied that the brother had used any other kind of weapon although a kitchen knife was found in the grass nearby.

Leaving the investigation in the hands of the officers who had arrived to take evidence, we left. Sanchez said the parole violation would probably be enough to send the victim back to jail.

We started a tour through the neighborhoods. During our ride, Sanchez explained that the different shifts have different personalities. The 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift is the calmest and most complaints are traffic concerns and residential robberies. Since most people work today, residential, robberies take place during the day when no one is home.

The 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift is where a lot of action takes place. Friday and Saturday nights are the worst with lots of family disturbances. A wife tries to keep her husband from going drinking or he comes home drunk and in a rage.

The 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift is usually quieter because, "even the bad guys have to sleep sometime. They go to bed about 3 a.m." Sanchez said.

"The most important thing a new officer can do is learn the streets," said Sanchez. "Sometimes it is hard to do...especially in newer subdivisions where street names are similar and the streets are not on grids that intersect with other streets like they do in the old part of Mission. Hunt Valley Development with so many streets that start with San or Santa pose a special problem.

The biggest complaint in the Sharyland area is car thefts. Most stolen cars are driven straight across the bridge. We have the technology to see exactly when they crossed the bridge," said Sanchez. Other hotspots for car theft include Wal-Mart, Shary Crossing and Mission Hospital. Chryslers and Ford F250s seem to be the most popular choices, he said.

A radio call over a dead dog sent us back into another neighborhood. A resident who owned a Chihuahua had let the dog outside "to take care of business" had watched helplessly as a pit bull and a German Shepherd that lived across the street came over and killed her dog right before her eyes. The dogs are normally penned but for some reason they were out that day. The animal control units had already taken the offending dogs but the Chihuahua’s owner was giving a statement to a police officer. The dog’s blood was all over her front porch where the dog had been attacked.

We resumed our tour. We rode out by Bentsen State Park and back toward Mission where fields of crops still make it easy to smuggle illegal items into the country. Sanchez recounted an incident where a passerby had seen a man on a motorcycle with a cell phone on the dirt road, which is a portion of the Military Highway. Being suspicious, he had called it in to police. They sent a squad car and the man threw the cell phone away and started off. Police stopped the man and recovered the cell phone. The man had been posted as a lookout for smugglers planning to move illegal goods or people into the country.

Driving through another neighborhood Sanchez said there is very little theft in that neighborhood. The reason is that many of those involved in local robberies live there and have a rule that no one in their neighborhood would be robbed. Occasionally, the police would hear that someone had been beaten. They would learn the person had robbed a house in the neighborhood and "it had been taken care of internally."

During the day we rode from the southern area through the roads that ran by the levees to the Mile 2 Road, which is the northernmost east-west traffic artery in the city. We visited poor, middle class and affluent residential areas. Occasionally, Sanchez would point out a home and say that a real troublemaker lived there. Sanchez said that daily drives by residences of known troublemakers let police know if there are any new vehicles in the yards. Those in question often change vehicles and it helps to know what they might be driving in case of trouble.

He pointed out Madero, which had been a no man’s land when annexed into the city. The older residents hesitated to call the police for help. But gradually the police presence in the area had helped stop the crime and now there was very little crime in Madero.

While driving, Sanchez said that officers change shifts every three months. Soon he would be starting the graveyard shift. The officers work each shift in three-month segments because it was easier to adjust to the hours and the changes in eating and sleeping patterns. He indicated that he was glad to see the number of all night restaurants that were open. For a long time the only thing open at night was Whataburger.

"It doesn’t matter how much you like a burger, eating one every night for three months is too much."

A call on the radio indicated that a "Section" was being taken to Harlingen for observation. The man had tried to hang himself during the night but was discovered immediately by relatives who cut him down and took him to the hospital. Now the hospital was releasing him to be taken to a mental facility for further observation.

Sanchez commented that it was lucky there was space in Harlingen. Sometimes officers have to deliver Sections to San Antonio or Austin. Once two officers even had to take a section all the way to El Paso because that was the only facility with bed space.

"Man, that was a trip!" he exclaimed. Those two officers came to work and had to go to the hospital with a Section. Then they had to drive him all the way to El Paso without a break. They could not even go home and get a change of clothes. The only food they got had to come through a drive-thru window. When they made restroom stops, they had to clear public bathrooms before they could take the Section inside."

A traffic call from the intersection of Inspiration Road and Expressway 83 eliminated the lunch hour. Sanchez said that often happens.

"I knew I should have picked up an apple this morning," he lamented.

Two vehicles, a blue van and a red truck, had collided. The owner of the blue van said she had a yellow light when she went through the intersection. The owner of the red truck said her light was green when she started through the intersection. An ambulance was on hand and treated superficial wounds but no one was transported to the hospital.

Officers on the scene took reports while Sanchez observed the scene and checked their work. He spoke with family members, giving them reassurance. He pointed out oil running from the van onto the street and said the fire department would come out and put something on the oil to absorb it because it could cause another accident. As time passed, two wreckers arrived to take the vehicles away. With reports finished, personal items were unloaded from vehicles and everyone disbursed.

As we headed back to the station a report of another Section, the third of the day, left Sanchez shaking his head.

"We have to send an officer to the hospital on each one," he stated. "The hospitals do not give any special preference to police cases so sometimes our officers are tied up for hours before transporting them to other hospitals. Sometimes we have to call other officers in to help cover other matters."

By then, we had arrived back at the police station.

"I’m sorry we did not have any shootouts for you," he apologized as he let me out near my car. "If you really want to see some activity, why don’t you request a ride along on a Friday night shift?"

I thanked him for taking me but had no regrets there had not been a shootout for me to report. Still, it was amazing to see how a few officers handle a variety of crises and manage to keep a city the size of Mission running efficiently. They deserve a lot of respect.