Lessons often come in a form of irony. Because of all the things in the world that stop and make you think, irony would be the spotlight stealer. But when irony is a 45-year-old drug dealer, living with his invalid mother in the middle of Broadmoor, the end of the story becomes bittersweet. Especially when his roots hit too close to home.
The beginning of that story starts like most: a search warrant, one fugitive sought, and a couple of agencies with different radio frequencies and opposite agendas together in a mutual jurisdiction. The first eight minutes sound like handcuffs and Miranda rights, then the tedious pilfering of searching officers begins. This particular house was chalk full of stuff, anything and everything, loping in corners, drooling over armchairs, gathering dust in every crevice. 6000 square feet of searching jammed into a 1500 square foot house. Things went slowly until “Mark” decided to cooperate in the search. He stood, slump shouldered and handcuffed, in the doorway of his bedroom as he detailed to Caddo Parish Sheriff Office deputies, a DA Investigator, and myself where the small amount of contraband he had was hiding. His criminal history started in 1976, 3 years after he graduated from Byrd High School. He was arrested for selling dope, he laughed, which he was good at. He was a kid, and living in the very same house we stood in now. The yellowed pictures in the hallway boasted a clean handsome young man. His future had been promising, his grades were good, and like some kids, he made bad juvenile decisions. But 25 years later, he was still living in that same house. His criminal history was polluted with drug convictions. He was a meth-wrecked shadow of a man, unable to stand still, a symptom of his vicious addiction to the drug. But the show stopped when CPSO Officer Jay Long pulled a handsome holster from among the bits of CDS locked in a small safe. Suddenly the air changed when out of that holster came a fully loaded Smith and Wesson .44 Special. The date engraved on the barrel was May 7, 1904. It was a beautiful and charming weapon.
Mark said it was a family heirloom, passed from his great-grandfather. He took a deep breath in before he told the story. His great grandfather was a Jackson Parish deputy. He remembers him vaguely. His unsolicited anecdote fell on unfeeling ears as I labeled evidence and bagged bullets. It’s not uncommon for criminals to bring up some law enforcement string they are tied to, just as they are being tied to something unlawful. He talked in broken sentences about a newspaper article he had about this grandfather. The gun, he said, had been his duty revolver, and had been in his hand the night he was killed in the line of duty. I stopped for a second and stared at the chrome piece lying open on the bed. The handcuffed great grandson of a fallen officer was relinquishing the story of a hero. He was the only heir to this gun, so he had kept it, loaded, next to his dope. He had belittled the ultimate price that his grandfather had paid by shoving its notoriety into the dark, cold safe along with his pot, Xanax, and brass knuckles. He shrugged his shoulders when I told him I was seizing it, along with two other firearms, to cover his charge for Felon in Possession of a firearm. He changed the subject, or lost his train of thought, it was hard to tell which among his ticking and shaking.
We left Mark’s house that night with four suspects and a trunk load of evidence. But among the Triple Beam Scales, Apple Baggies, and forceps, was the last thing held in the hand of a dying officer. I sat silent with it among it’s companions in the report writing room that night. I tagged the trigger with a label coordinating it with every other piece of evidence seized. I knew that six months from now, when the court finalized the charges, the gun would be destroyed. I picked it up, (awkwardly heavy I thought, for law enforcement), and I spun the cylinder around, looking into the barrel, feeling the grip in the web of my right hand. “Maybe it’s better this way,” I thought. Maybe he would prefer his gun be burned in some post conviction incinerator then for it to be tarnished with the world his grandson stood for now. I wondered what he thought those last few moments he was alive, decades ago, when he held that same gun in his hand. I wondered if he thought about his family. I wondered if he prayed that they would be okay without him. I wondered if he held onto the grip tightly, like I did, right before I laid it in the evidence locker.
I would hope that somehow I avenged his memory. That I dug the only noble piece of him left from the rubble of his predecessors and took back his gun. And I don’t know his story, or his history, or his life, but I would hope that if decades from now, some heathen great grandchild of mine held my ancient Glock in his dirty, criminal hands, that somebody would take it back for me. To make it right again, even if it’s path up to that point had been all wrong.
And, oh, the irony.
OfficerName: Deputy Eli Rentz
OfficerCity: Jackson Parish Sheriff's Office, Jonesboro, LA
End of Watch: October 27, 1924
To submit your Personal Tribute Story, click here.
|
