e Possum Cop Chronicles
Forrest’s Mom Was Right Again
I was sitting in my patrol vehicle on an unusually warm December night just inside a gate on a remote piece of federal refuge property on the west side of Willacy County. It was one of those out in the middle of nowhere places that, if you saw a vehicle after dark, chances were that the occupants in it were up to no good.
I settled in my spot and rolled down the windows. As I leaned back in my seat, I heard a faint sound coming from somewhere north of me. Clink, clink, clank. Then, a long pause… clink, clunk. I listened for 10 or 15 minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to find out what was making that noise.
I started my vehicle and idled my way out onto the county road. I turned north and headed to where I thought the sound was coming from. Clink… CLANK. It was getting louder.
As I continued down the road, I heard Game Warden David Martinez on the radio saying that he was in the area. I contacted him and told him what I had, and we agreed that he would check the road directly east of me and we’d work our way toward each other on the intersecting road ahead of us.
The road I was travelling on cut between two refuge tracts. The tracts were fenced, the gates were locked, and public access was not allowed. Clink, clunk. When I came to the intersecting road, I turned right. David had turned left, and we were headed straight towards each other. When we met, we shut off our vehicles and looked and listened. CLINK, CLANK. We could hear men – several men – talking in Spanish, but we couldn’t make out what they were saying. The noise was now SOUTH of us; in the same refuge pasture I had just left.
We came up with a new game plan. Continuing to run dark and reentering the refuge from the same gate I had exited 10 minutes earlier, we parked David’s vehicle, and he got in with me. We drove slowly towards the sound. Clink… clank. We’d stop periodically to scan the area with binoculars. Then, we saw two lights – one was stationary and the other moved around it.
I said, “I can’t tell what they’re doing. You want to just get as close as we can and then hit them with the lights?” “Sounds like a plan,” said David. I’ve always been amazed at how easy it is to sneak up on people in the dark when they are not paying attention to their surroundings. We got to within about twenty yards.
Then, I flipped on every light I had, illuminating what was apparently an impromptu chop shop in the brush. People scattered in every direction, leaving David and me standing there amongst a pile of car parts and two stolen vehicles that were in various states of disassembly.
We called for backup, and everybody came running. We then set out about the business of securing the area and tracking the thieves. That’s when the norther came howling in, and the temperature dropped 25 degrees.
Game Warden Henry Balderamas had arrived to help and was watching a nearby road from his parked patrol vehicle. A knock on his truck door startled him; it was a nineyear-old boy who had been left to fend for himself. He was cold and couldn’t take it anymore.
A short while later, two adult men were apprehended, and apparently, two others got away. All those taken into custody were illegal aliens. The investigation was turned over to the Department of Public Safety. David and I went back to hunting poachers.
Indeed, Forrest’s mom was right again. Life - and especially, law enforcement patrol - is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.
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