LawDawg Files Book Review

I found this on Kindle Prime as a freebie.  It is a series of quick takes about being a Sheriff’s Deputy in a four deputy Sheriff’s Office in West Texas during the late seventies, early eighties (my best guestimate). It’s a good read, some I can relate to and some, well you just had to be there. LawDog-Files-D-ebook/

In San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, the county jail population averages 3500 inmates daily.  Such a large population, calls for the operation to be on a strict schedule. The schedule does not necessarily reflect reality. For instance, the kitchen has already taken a count of how many inmates will be seated for dinner. Unknowable is how many inmates will be released, transferred, moved to another housing unit, or take up residence in any given unit.

Experienced felons know the schedule. They can calculate the odds on whether or not they are going to be fed at any given mealtime or when their meal ticket is liable to catch up with them.

One of our bread and butter operations at the narcotics task force is called a “buy bust.” It is just what it says. The undercover agrees to purchase drugs from a dealer. The dealer shows up with the drugs. The undercover shows up with the cash and when it is all over the undercover leaves with both, taking the dealer as a consolation prize.

Everybody that gets busted has the opportunity to snitch on a small circle of friends, relatives, and acquaintances to mitigate their circumstances. The offer is made within minutes of their arrest.

This is a traumatic period, one moment they are hanging with their new best friend, the undercover who bought them beer, cigarettes, and didn’t complain too much when the dealer overcharged him. The next moment about ten, no twenty, mighta been thirty screaming crazoids are charging the car cursing and threatening murder. They then stole his dope, stole his hard earned money and threatened to kill or at least impregnate his dog.

If the crook is covered in equal parts beer and piss, then chances are he will be no good to anybody. His mother will not catch a case tonight.

If the crook’s first request is can I have my beer back and how about a butt? The alert narc will recognize a man with his priorities in line. If the crook next points out that he has missed dinner service at the jail and likely won’t make head count for breakfast, how about some MickeyD’s?; the guys back in Medellin better start sweating. I can’t count the hours spent parked behind the Magistrate’s Office with a crook hunkered down in the back seat munching on Happy meals and slurping warm beer. It’s a cop thing.

Best I can do. Lawdawg stomped a mudhole in my ass, his happy meal story wins hands down.