Chabo's Journal: It could be told two different ways...

Note: This is a continuation of a series of stories written by a central Texas police officer named "Darth Tang", which are being archived by Chabo, with no editing. Read more about this project.

This story was originally posted on June 30, 2003.

I've heard it said that there are two sides to every story, and it is often true. This happened some time ago, but it came up again, and I though I would tell it from both sides.

1) One night on mids a patrolman checking the back doors of a medical supply building found the back door unlocked. It had been broken into in the past (which was why he was actually rattleing the doors), so it was impossible to say if the damage to the frame was new or old.

I arrived as backup, and we proceded to clear the building. Clearing a dark building is an intense experience; there is no way to know if the burglers are still inside, or are armed. It is done with weapons drawn, with careful placement and movement. Even a routine clearing is a rush, a slow, steady waltz of tension and reaction, as opposed to the mad fast race and roar of a tactical team entry and clearance.

We were working through the storage rooms, and in one, there were partitioned areas off the main room with doors, sort of like dressing room stalls. My partner, call him B, had opened his Asp baton and was unlatching the doors one by one while I covered.

Near the corner he unlatched the door and a large man in coveralls with an uplifted axe lunged out. We both opened fire, and the intruder abruptly crashed back into the stall. Then a sudden flare of flaming gas from within the shadowy confines of the stall was matched with an explosion of sheetrock to my right.

"Shotgun!" I yelled and we both returned fire at the muzzle flash. Several more flashes came in response, multiple shooters; a bank of ceiling light tubes exploxed over us, and another gout of sheetrock erupted, to my left this time.

Firing in turn, we covered each other through the door, and withdrew. I watched the front, B took the back, and the next officer to arrive got on the roof. When we had enough bodies (us and a local agency), and had obtained additional equipment and authorization, we made the usual bullhorn statements, then threw/fired in CS gas (tear gas), and moved in with more firepower (and masks), advancing behind a lead man with a ballistic shield, flash-banging every room as we cleared.

2) Ralph, the sales rep for the company that supplied oxygen tanks and various bottled gasses for the medical supply company, thought it would be a great practical joke to rig up an ax-weilding manikin with ropes inside the stall where small bottles of nitrus oxide (laughing gas), oxygen, and the like were stored, in order to scare the supply company managager, a fellow Jason fan....

The bill from the City for supplies expended came to $1600.