My personal experience serving 31-years with the Houston Police Department

Subsequent to serving as an infantryman in my beloved United States Marine Corps and subsequent attending undergraduate studies, I applied for and entered the Houston Police Department Training Academy in 1979. At that time, the Houston PD was a hard-charging, respected, law enforcement agency, the hiring process was stringent, physically and morally, and for every seat in my academy class there were 19-denied applicants. Personal ethics and morality were the primary focus of the hiring process verified by incredibly stringent and intimidating preliminary interviews and a thorough polygraph examination; this, culminating with an extensive “background check” involving months of door-to-door interviews of the applicant’s family and friends by investigators.

In 1983, with the advent of the Kathy Whitmire Mayoral ship in Houston and the Affirmative Action hire of Police Chief Lee P. Brown, the Houston PD began a downward spiral in morality, ethics, reverse racial discrimination via Affirmation Action mandates. With the advent of “Neighborhood Policing” protocols and the implementation of an overzealous Internal Affairs Division, the Houston PD incrementally, but methodically, morphed into a pacifist, sissified, police agency where “good” officers were those who avoided negative citizenry contacts and thereby avoided internal affairs complaints; this, becoming protocol as the street officer was denied due process concerning allegations of policy infractions; this absence of protection against unfounded, spurious, complaints, mandated, as a matter of occupational survival, that the officer “prove his innocence” beyond ANY doubt if said officer was to avoid a permanent record of complaint in his/her Department Personnel File. This overzealousness by HPD’s Administration and their “yes” boys in the Internal Affairs Division gave way to law enforcement impotence, laziness, a fear of engaging in any proactive policing; the criminal thugs in Houston became emboldened, the citizenry suffered and the Houston PD was shamed.

Subsequent 8-years of patrol duty involving uniformed street patrol and an assignment in the Solo-motorcycle Patrol Detail, I transferred to the Helicopter Patrol Division in 1989 where I served almost two-decades, 18-years as a commercial patrol pilot. During those two-decades in helicopter patrol, I lost touch with the street officers I had policed with in Houston’s Downtown Districts and I was unaware of the embarrassing changes that were manifesting within the Department that warred against true, effective, police patrol work. I heard the “rumors” from officers who visited the helicopter hangar at Hobby, but I found their accusations and complaints difficult to believe; then, due to a disagreement relevant to proper protocol over the recovery of a downed helicopter, I ran afoul of a new administration assigned to the Helicopter Patrol Division and ultimately requested a transfer back to patrol in 2009. Returning to uniformed patrol duties was indeed an eye opening experience subsequent 19-years in the Air Support Division. What the patrolmen had been complaining about, the immorality, the inability to perform police work, was indeed TRUE. The Houston PD of 2009 was NOT the Houston PD I had worked for two-decades earlier.

The Houston PD had become a bastion of LGBTQAI++ immorality, DEI-Affirmative Action discrimination, a lowering of hiring standards allowing the mentally, morally and spiritually ill to receive employment in the HPD; the Houston PD had become something I no longer recognized. I voiced and demonstrated my disgust for sexual deviancy during mandatory in-service training classes, deviance that was wearing the uniform and the badge; this, resulting in subtle forms of backlash from the morally and ethically compromised HPD Administration. My Assistant Chief in the Helicopter Division was lesbian; my Divisional Captain in patrol, subsequent my transfer from Helicopter Patrol, was lesbian. The subtle friction between the HPD and myself was exacerbated by my concerted efforts to enforce City Ordinance 30-3 (Noisy Vehicles Generally) and Texas, 547-604 (Muffler Required), when I transferred back to patrol duties in 2009.

My patrol beat assignment in West Houston had, within its jurisdictional boundaries, a very popular biker bar “The Dam Ice House” (a LOUD thug biker bar that I’m proud to have assisted in its closure) and just outside my jurisdictional boundaries was another biker bar in Harris County, located on Roadway FM 1093/Westheimer Road in west Harris County. The LOUD, vulgar, dishonest, biker thugs who frequented these thug-laden biker bars were operating illegally LOUD, illegally equipped, motorcycles with illegal aftermarket exhaust mechanism emitting noise energy output that was audible for one-statute mile under hard acceleration, noise energy that is obviously in violation of the protective mandates of CFR 40 Part 205; to my amazement, no one, absolutely NO ONE was doing anything about the unacceptable vehicular NOISE situation.

Illegally LOUD, illegally equipped, motorcycles, trucks, automobiles, inundated my beat assignment, the citizenry, especially the most vulnerable, were audibly assaulted by illegal vehicular NOISE; both; day and night, 24/7/365. My efforts to bring peace and lawful order to my beat was met with incredible rebuttal, hatred, vulgar and life threatening comments, by bikers, while biker rights organizations, such as the Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) interceded on behalf of their donors in Washington DC; later, they published lies about my retirement status in their news letter seeking to disparage my professional reputation; the local news media took the illegal side of the LOUD biker thugs; the one-sided media waited outside my traffic court to interview bikers cited for illegal NOISE; my 99.9% conviction-rate on vehicle noise emissions citations/adjudication required extra security in my court for my personal safety as vulgar, criminal, bikers threatened retaliation; my immediate supervision ran scared and confused; my Department’s Administration cowed to the concerns over liability; the Mayor’s Office and the City Council ran scared of the biker thug’s who rallied at City Hall on two different occasions, threatening the City Council, Mayor, of retaliation if my enforcement efforts were not stopped.

I had never, in my 31-years of service to the citizens of Houston, TX, seen such cowards and pacifists and compromised law enforcement personnel as I did during my years of vehicular NOISE enforcement in Houston. What a can of defiled, compromised, can-of-worms that had been opened for all to see, the odor was nauseating. I was NOT aware that I was employed by such cowards and ethically compromised leadership. Some of my most avid haters and detractors were law enforcement personnel who compromised their oath and integrity via membership in a local Law Enforcement Biker Gang in and/or around Houston, Harris County or drove/rode/operated an illegally LOUD motor vehicle off duty.

My patrol Sergeant, who drove an illegally LOUD racing Corvette to 6AM roll call, ordered me to stop enforcing the vehicular noise laws to which I rebutted and challenged his unlawful order with legal precedent, Arron C. Aguilar v. State of Texas (2008); Aguilar (2008), legal precedent which provides law enforcement with probable cause to stop and investigate loud motor vehicles based solely on an officer’s personal discretion/opinion as to the vehicle’s illegality. The Houston City Legal Division overturned the Sergeant’s unlawful order; this legal victory over my immediate supervision drove an unforgiveable wedge between my NOISE enforcement efforts, my immediate supervision, the police administration; both, the Mayor’s office and the City Council; after all, who was this old patrol officer possessing the audacity to challenged the omnipotence of Houston’s Police Administration and supervision? How dare he!

The culmination of the shame I felt for serving a Department that compromised its integrity with the filth and immorality of LGBTQAI++; the unfairness of DEI; having had my promotion stolen through Affirmative Action mandates and having had the blatant discrimination upheld by the 5th Circuit; having lesbians placed over me in supervision in two separate divisions within the HPD; watching my immediate supervision, my Police Administration, the Mayor’s office, the City Council, run pathetically scared of biker rights organizations and cower to the threats from thug LOUD bikers in Houston; subsequent to having been put on desk duty due LOUD biker’s spurious complaints and the Administration’s cowardliness to stand with me and support my lawful efforts to provide intercession for the vehicular NOISE beleaguered citizen’s in Houston…I honorably retired in 2011 and left Houston, and left my beloved Texas. Cowards all.