May 2007
SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE
HOCK'S Web Log
"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"
29 May 2007 Cindy Sheehan? I mentioned her yesterday. Coincidentally CNN today....
http://news.aol.com/partners/cnn/_a/anti-war-mom-gives-up-on-peace-movement/20070529004709990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
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28 May 2007 Volunteers of America
I spent this last Memorial Day weekend in Canada. They were reporting the 56th death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan (only contractors are in Iraq). The media up there was able to spend much time covering the life of this soldier, unlike in the States where the death toll numbers are so high, fast and furious, there is no time to cover such in-depth biographies. I read over several days of several Canadian newspapers and noted the news reports and op-ed pages. As everywhere, there exists the public fringe that declares their Prime Minister of being a liar and they demand the troops be brought back immediately from a life-wasting time in Afghanistan.
I am not going to write the usual Memorial Day stuff that one finds in typical blogs. Flags are waving everywhere. You can find that everywhere else. But I am interested and fixated on one point or two this Memorial Day weekend - those points being a) the age of our soldiers and b) the fact that we have an all-volunteer army. How these points play out in the minds of the protestors, thwarting their usual anti-war campaigns.
I am, what the DOD officially calls a Vietnam "era" army veteran, but I was too young for the war itself, but enlisted before "the Fall" and assisted in the evacuation. I know a little bit about the ins and outs of Vietnam. When we brought the first batch back we were met with a riot of young, rock-throwing protesters. Had a few bounce off my helmet. Rocks that is. But I also know a little bit about the anti-war movement and the protestors. I personally have no interesting experiences to relate about the evacuation but I learned later there was utter chaos, devastation and murder all around. Read Goodnight Saigon -
http://www.amazon.com/Goodnight-Saigon-Story-Marines-Vietnam/dp/0425188469/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4041523-2582345?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180371591&sr=1-1
Nor did we military or otherwise, know of the Cambodian "Killing Fields" that followed in the vacuum of our departure. We did not know many things.
These days of the volunteer army in Afghanistan and Iraq, we are flooded with stories about how our dead soldiers, knew well what they were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Surviving parents and spouses report their dearly departed were doing what they wished to do, and fervently. Moms and dads, husbands and wives almost unilaterally advise us of their lost one's dedication to a higher cause, patriotism and bravery. Exceptional tales of exceptional people, huh? Most of us dredging about our overweight, nine-to-five existences are not even pimples to the likes of these people.
Hippy protestors have a problem with this whole volunteer thing. They even try to ban voluntary recruitment in some cities (San Francisco there you go!) For you see, with the draft gone, these men and women volunteered to serve. They were not ripped from the cradles of the poorest sects of our inner cities by the draft (remember those claims?). This takes away so many clever protest, placard and banner and phrase possibilities. This, of course didn't stop Cindy Sheehan though, to distort her son's complete, two-tour-dedication, war death into a Peace Mommy campaign. (Where is she now, these days, by the way? Did she finally take a high school history class and understand why we fought in World War II?)
Next, the fact that so many Army Reserve and National Guard troops are involved in these modern conflicts, the average age of the troops is older. This means that by and large, our volunteer army is older, wiser and smarter than the usual 17 or 18 year-old cradle-slum-kid of yesteryear, drafted or otherwise. Gone is the hippy protest argument that the volunteers are too young and stupid to understand what they are doing. To the dedicated protestor, especially to the ignorant, partisan, dunderhead, their campaign must often be reduced down to...ah..wellll....Bush lied to them! That's the ticket! Yeah!
Of course these protesting, ant-establishment (remember that word?) people still have plenty of placards and banners and phrases to use. But the volunteer army concept sure shot them in their lead foot - the foot they once loved to put forward in a protest march.
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27 May 2007 Still...?
I still hear the occasional dis-respect of people who practice with sims guns by those who just shoot live fire on the range. I think that one advantage of sims fire is that the trainee gets to to shoot at moving, thinking people who are shooting back. Even deeper and subliminal, trainees simply get use to pulling the trigger and shooting the human being.
There is an honest comparison to those who train to fight and only punch/kick a heavy bag to those who only shoot at paper targets. As hand fighters need to mix it up with real people, gun fighters need to mix it up with real shooters.
This sims training has taken over the military and police/SWAT training worldwide, yet there are still some blockheads left that think range/paper target shooting is the ultimate training source for gun fighting.
One hour of gun training? 15 minutes of live fire, then 45 minutes of sims-shooting at people who are shooting back.
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24 May 2007: Zig Zag. Pell Mell. Clinches.The Benefits of Sprinting and more Myths of the Duel.
Running short or long. One of the most simple exercise workouts I like to do is sprinting. American Baseball style. You start at a point and sprint a minimum length. Then stop, spin, turn and slow jog back. Hit your starting point turn and sprint further than last. Repeat and repeat. This builds your inner spark plug with sudden, explosive power and it races the heart up and down and up and down, long considered by experts as a maximum workout.
I like to do this on marked parking lots / car parks because the lines are painted on the ground for easy start and gradual stop points. Still, you can easily loose track of your line eventually and I have used a small something-or-other to mark each distance. I kick the object over to the next finish line and slow-jog back.
It is a good idea to hold some light hand weights, the ones with the handle that slip over the back of your hand. While you jog back to your starting point, exercise striking motions. The handle allows you to work all your open-hand strikes. I have been known to shuck those weights mid-work-out because they start to weight a ton.
When you hit your finish line? Don't always remain in a straight line. Break to the left or right at angles. On the jog back you can also work various aspects of your fighting footwork. Like kicking! Kicking is practiced to often in the stand-off duel. While street fights are way more mobile. Kick on the slow run. See what you like and what you can do.
For one point, this power run builds the fighters crash and/or clinch and body ram power and speed. Of course as a street fighter you shouldn't just crash to achieve a clinch. That would be working a myth of the duel premise- that all crashes lead to clinches – therefore we must all practice clinches with this idea. Your goal, subliminal or otherwise is NOT to clinch. Your goal is to finish fast and without a clinch you can. Clinches just happen and have to be problem solved as such.
Training to always crash and clinch? Myth of the Duel.
Training to crash and problem solve probable events (this includes clinches) Not myth of the duel.
People who train to fight from strict fighting stances and then advance or retreat within those strict stances, like say - maintaining a right lead for example, (ever see the one lead stutter step people?) This obsession is also a myth of the duel problem. Sometimes God says “Just RUN boy!”
Sprint and work on:
1) Strikes
2) Kicks
3) Pistol quick draws
4) Knife quick draws
5) Baton quick draws
6) Holding a pistol
7) Holding a knife
8) Holding a long gun
9) Sport footwork
10) Speed run (body upright)
11) Combat run (body low)
12) Then add obstacle course challenges (add a jump, a climb, or even a crawl. Run around cars. Get easy/handy things to build obstacles.)
13) Starts:
- start at an angle. This way you will burst off in a direction you are not facing
- start form a non-athletic, "bus stop" standing postion and burst off
14) Zig Zag footwork
Zig Zag footwork?
Running short into a fight with a few steps should include the skill and knowledge of the…Zig Zag footwork. Some call it Pell Mell. This is footwork similar to football drills, maybe basketball. You will see it in fractions in Judo. It is without a doubt the most unknown and underrated, under-appreciated piece of footwork on the fighting planet. Know why? Myth of the Duel. Because systems want to produce stand-off fighters, with rigorously enforced right or left leads, facing each other in a perceived match. The freedom to unleash your footwork, to become ambidextrous and charge in with your attack is just not in the doctrine of fighting systems.
Zig Zag footwork is like a fake-out, stutter step, as opposed to a straight line, typical running footwork. This too can be practiced during the slow or fast sprint. It sets up many strikes, kicks and takedowns. Think of how many times you reposition your foot to start a certain kick? That static repositioning could actually be the last step in a Zig Zag approach.
Everyone seems content to work the standard, boxing ring footwork, but real world combat includes mixed weapons and covers a lot more ground than an octagon or a square.
P.S. can ask one more thing of you? Will you do all this in the work clothes and gear you will actually use? Thanks! Tank tops and baggy shorts are not reality training.
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22 May 2007: Telegraphing a Punch.
"Are you sacrificing power not to telegraph. Does it matter?
After a fight years ago, champion boxer George Foreman was interviewed by sports writer Larry Merchant. Larry pointed out to George that he was telegraphing his punches in the fight. George responded, "Yea, I may telegraph some of my punches...but the message still gets through."
By the way, George knocked out his opponent in this fight."
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20 May 2007: Sawed–Off Shotguns, A Snub-Nose and Mirror Full of Eight-Balls -
Part 5: Life Behind the Ball
Today, I worry about the police today and the timid restrictions so often put on them. I do somewhat understand the paranoia of police administrations, but now almost all require a full written report each and every time a pistol is pulled. I was joking the other day with an officer that in some cities you have to write a report now when you just look at your pistol.
“Dear Chief,
Today at 2:30 pm I did something dirty. I…I looked down at my pistol. I did this impulsively and I apologize.
Officer Ronny Guilded
Progressive City, The People's Republic of Massachusetts”
I worry that gun rules imposed on officers will cause an officer to hesitate, to get the behind the proverbial eight ball and fail to get the drop on a suspect.
When we first heard about Eight Balls decades ago it was basically an upper drug mixed with a downer drug. Heroin with speed. Or, cocaine with speed. I even recall a mix of heroin and cocaine. But one thing we know about the eternal Eight Ball for sure, is that we cannot let ourselves get behind it. Once we get behind this Eight Ball we are risking our lives. When we feel the real need to pull our gun, it is a good thing to pull it.
Pull it early.
Pull it often.
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17 May, 2007: Sawed–Off Shotguns, A Snub-Nose and Mirror Full of Eight-Balls -
Part 4: Getting The Drop…or How I Learned to Achieve Blissful Acquiescence in Armed Confrontations
I have more than once engaged in debates and conversations with police supervisors and range instructors over …the “drop.” Some sheltered authorities say, “there is no sense in pulling your gun and aiming at an unarmed man and then ordering them to do something.” They like to warn you, “it is a bluff that you cannot follow through with.”
"The Drop" is an old school term. Goes way back. In case you are wondering what the drop means, it is getting your gun on the likes of the people I have just written about. The Larks and Vamos types and others to numerous to mention here. The drop is when you draw your gun, before, during, or sometimes after an initial confrontation and then aim at someone before they do something back to you. The subject may be empty handed, but he may still draw or lunge for a weapon. The situation was not under control. With your gun out, control is likely coming.
Upon which, you utilize smack. Look smack, Talk smack. Threaten smack. Yes…yes, some bad guys just know you can't legally shoot them and they run away anyway, or they talk smack back at you. Charge you even! But most people? Your typical person almost pee-pees in their pants under the gun barrel of a crazed, angry man or women. They surrender. They give in. They…acquiesce.
I am alive today because I have bluffed and scared the hell out of many a person. Give me ten minutes I will list the times beyond the Larks and Vamos that I have drawn down on someone and got them to surrender. And some of them have been armed! The drawn gun prevented them from shooting or stabbing me. Some of these jerks would have taken a crack at me if I hadn't “out tactical-ed” them with the infamous drop. I have arrested about 1,500 people. Let me really think about it and I will list even more times the bluff has worked.
Personally, I don't care if I bluff someone and it fails. If the bluff doesn't work? I will promptly re-holster my gun and do the reasonable next thing, whatever that is… What? Are my feelings hurt or something? My pride? My gun threat simply didn't work. But at least I tried NOT to hurt the suspect. I will report that I tried the bluff and even the bluff didn't work. Re-holster and go to Plan B.
Am I saying that you should drawn down on everyone? Of course not, just when you perceive danger. That perception can be logical, such as preparing for a raid against an armed opponent. Or, intuitive as in instinct mixing with experience that tells you..."something ain't right here! (People have called that "Spidey Sense" for years.) It still irritates me to to see officers pull their pistols for no good reason. I see this as a lack of proper training and confidence. I have been attacked by men with kitchen knives, straight razors and a big axe once to mention just a few. These are times I could have pulled my gun and shot to kill in one smooth second. But I didn't. My gut instinct and confidence told me to hold off. Other times I have shot to kill and thus far, I have missed in the chaotic, non-pistol-range-mess of the situation. I am not you and you are not me. Situations vary.
But, sometimes edgy confrontations jump up real fast. When they do? You may feel the need for a gun in your hand. I have and it feels damn good. And, I mean this for the police, the military and certainly as well as for citizens. When this quick draw happens, all of us need a command presence to support the pointed gun. A look. Proper words. The support smack to convey the promise of lead message. Cultivate that crazed Jack Nicholson in you. Pass on the robotive, Jack Webb routine. Pass on the good ol' boy, Andy Griffith routine. Bring on Nicholson. If the scene looks or smells hairy? "Here's Johnny!" Point. Bluff. Bluff with all the smack necessary.
This works every night all over the world. Think about how it works for the criminal, armed robber? The bluff might save just your life too! Get the drop on a bad guy? Most times he ain't so bad with a big ol' pistola aimed right up his nose. Just how crazy are your eyes anyway?
I am utterly impatient with these desk-jockeys who say, “never bluff with your gun.” Bubba...if it don't work with your gun? No bluff is gonna' work at all. And now you know. If the bluff fails, don't take it too personal. Some folks are just sons a bitches.
Next Part 5: The Important Summary
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14 May 2007: Sawed–Off Shotguns, A Snub-Nose and Mirror Full of Eight-Balls - Part 3
This incident fits perfectly in this discussion because the physical details are so similar..
Near abouts to this same time period, still before we had a SWAT team, one investigator in our detective squad developed solid information from a proven informant that a dope dealer named "Fliptop" Vamos has set up shop in one of our highway hotels. I guess I should not name the hotel here, but it is a big chain. And we knew we had a door to get through. They call it Breaching now and it has become an art and science. It was neither to us back then, and the solution was usually a big foot.
Dealer and doors. The room doors in this particular hotel all open out to the parking lot. If you get to know dope dealers you will find that many have hotel preferences about renting rooms with inside or outside rooms. If a door opens to the parking lot, their operations, their comings and goings of customers can be easily surveilled by we the survelliors. But, overall, the human traffic is less conspicuous at first. If the dealers are accepting stolen property, as in TV sets, tape players etc., it is easier and less suspicious to have that outside door. Some even trade on the back lots of these places. Property can be inspected in car trucks or covered in truck beds. You will often find thugs carting property around in bulging, really heavy suitcases. A veteran can often spot this and use this as a piece of probable cause for a search warrant. If your room door opens to an inside hallway, lots of dope customers have to enter through the hotel lobby and at times lugging stolen property and so forth and it becomes more noticeable. Anyway, dope dealers have their own preferences about doors and other things when operating out of a hotel, even for just a simple day or weekend.
George "Fliptop" Vamos liked to work his trade in rooms with outside doors. And when our evening CID Detective Sgt. Howard Kelly got us together for the raid, we met behind a gas station next to the Inn. We slipped on our bullet proof vests and raid jackets. Howard called for two uniformed units to meet us.
Howard taught me years earlier that it was almost always good to have a uniformed presence running point on such raids. The officer's uniform and badge were spotlights to authority. We detectives were in plainclothes, often at night in jeans and common clothes. Even in a dark raid jacket we could be mistaken for rival drug dealers, etc in he first second of a raid. A complete uniform sends a better, faster primal message.
First, I wandered into the lobby of the hotel (sans the action-guy jacket if you are wondering ) and spoke with the night manager, whom I knew. (Good cops know their night and day managers - you make it your business) I told him of the pending raid and he gave me a spare key to the Vamos room. BUT, but, but but...back then there was a second throw lock on these hotel doors that only an insider could operate. If the dealer had both the knob lock and this bolt lock in place? The problem was beyond a simple key solution. Enter the Big Foot plan.
I returned to the lot with the room key. Both patrolmen were already there. Mike Stockard was one of the two officers and Mike volunteered to co-kick the door with me. He, in his uniform would enter first, then me and the rest of us. (Why me second? Good kicker. Big foot, and hence, near the door when said door flies open) Dan McCormick drove up next, with a smile and a steaming fresh search warrant in hand, and we were off to snake our way up the small hill of shrubbery and through the lots and some hallways and stairways.
Haste makes waste, but in dope raids, no haste is a problem. For just one thing, it lets lookouts warn dope dealers. Dope gets flushed. When possible we turned off the water of the target residence beforehand. That way, the bad guy gets only one flush! In certain cases we would position a man at the bathroom window, ready to break the glass and prevent these flushers. But, there were no such water controls or bathroom windows available in this hotel situation.
The room was on the second floor. Once at the door. McCormick knelt down and slowly inserted the door key. He turned the lock. Stockard and I, pistols out and fingers off the trigger, started kicking the holy hell out of the door around the locks. Apparently, this secondary bolt lock was in place and we splintered, split, and destroyed parts of the door and frame.
Stockard charged in ahead of me as planned. I saw Vamos was in the far left corner of the room. He had a mirror on top of the night stand. There was white powder on the mirror. On the bed next to him was a magnum revolver, a snub-nose.
Yes, the shock caused Vamos to make a move for that pistol. Both Stockard and mine guns aimed at his head and chest, along with angry vows of destruction his way. Without question, if he had touched that pistol, I would have fired and killed him dead. Vamos was bent over in our direction reaching for the pistol, and the top of head "blended" into his chest in an overall target outline. A flurry of bullets would have hit him all over his brains and chest. But, Vamos then stopped and threw his hands up. We all rushed in. We cuffed the dealer. We collected the evidence. We booked Mr. Vamos.
At some point the hotel would send a bill to us for the busted door. Either we would pay it or the D.A.s office would pay it. If you must know, if the raid gleaned nothing, probably we-the-city, would have to pay for the door. Lt. Gene Green actually held a desk drawer, "door fund" with a few hundred dollars in it for these missed times. If the raid was fruitful, as in getting fruits of the crime, then the D.A. would eventually pay. But in the old days, American businesses owned by Americans, almost always cooperated, even happily with us.
Now, back on theme...
Fliptop Vamos was standing in the exact corner of a room that Lark was. They had coke on a mirror. They were cutting. Both had guns on the beds next to them. The physical facts are very close and make for a good analysis of the debate. Going in with gun-in or gun-out, both nearly identical logistics are examples of pulling your gun, early or late...and not shooting it.
if we were to listen to our “when-pull-then-must-shoot” supervisor or range instructor? As with Steven David Lark, Fliptop Vamos would be dead now wouldn't he? It is imperative that you know you can draw your weapon and not shoot, even if you pull your gun in an instantaneous threat or pull it moments earlier in preparation of potential danger. But you see, because I didn't follow this inane rule, I did not have to kill another man. Code of the West. Superior planning and tactics.
Next:
Part 4: The Old School "Drop" - The Gun Bluff
Part 5: Pull / No Pull. Shoot / Don't Shoot: The Important Summary .
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12 May 2007: Sawed–Off Shotguns, A Snub-Nose and Mirror Full of Eight-Balls - Part 2
Other cases, mid-way to either the trash can or to the D.A.'s Office, weighed heavily on my shoulders. These pending cases had to be worked. It was a day or two before I called upon Laurie to question her about her burglary. Who was there in her living room? Our Steven David Lark. Lark was in good, physical condition, a state we didn't often find our drug dealers in, frankly. Lark was almost twice Laurie's age. I played dumb and treated him as he cast himself in this melodrama - the boyfriend.
“I think Richy Stogens did this,” Lark told me. “ I owe Richy some money from a car stereo I bought from him and he is taking it out on poor Laurie here.”
Tsk, tsk and a my-oh-my, so says I. Lark promised he would try to run down Richy for me over the next few days. I thanked him so very much. My condolences to the burglary victim. Tip of the cowboy hat to you ma'am. And I'm gone. On the parking lot I could not be sure what car Lark was driving. Too many cars out there. But all good intel needs a suspect vehicle. I would get it eventually at Larks' boarding house.
Another day or two passed and looking back on this now, I feel certain I crossed paths with Lark one more time, but I'll be damned if I can remember today why or how. It was an accidental encounter. We both played our roles. As we say in the business – nothing to report.
Then I had some free time one afternoon I decided to make a run on Lark's boarding house; ask him about Richie Stogens. Poke around. Maybe get a car make and plate. Swarming around one of our major universities are hundreds of large, some would call, antebellum-style, older homes. Many of these places were converted into multiple, small mini-apartments and rooms for college kids. Most owners could care less if the occupant was actually a college student or not, as long as the rent checks cleared.
I walked into the "lobby" of this place and asked a hard-working lady, no doubt the house owner, for Lark's room was.
"Number 11," I said.
She pointed up the spiral staircase and to the left. Up the stairs. To the left. It was way down a long hall. Many room doors were open and appeared empty and un-rented. Room 11 read the brass numbers of the last door. But the door was half open?
I stepped up to see inside, with a the back of my right hand on the door to knock a bit. A knock that was also a slight push. Lark was in there. Standing in the far right corner. Busy. He was under a lamp, working on something atop a tall dresser/nightstand.
The experts tell us we see in patterns. I guess they are right. In a glance:
I saw mirror.
I saw razor blade.
I saw white powder.
I saw gun.
On the bed, inches from him to the left was a sawed-off shotgun. It was an ugly thing. Double-barrel. Dark stained metal. Dark stock. I guess my sudden form in the doorway, caught his attention. His hands came up off his delicate work of the mirror. The razor dropped on the mirror.
Next, my pistol was in my hand. How did that happen? Don't know. Fast things happen that way. Back then most of us detectives didn't wear official holsters and we had a habit of shoving our .45s into our western belt line. Out my came as practiced. Fast.
His arms and hands, palms down, cut for the shotgun…
“Don't even think about it!” I barked. And I swear I'd a smashed that son of a bitch into pieces all up against the wall. My trigger finger was busy pulling. That sawed-off laying there scared the hell out me. Touch that thing and he's dead.
He froze. “Hock!” he yelled. He just recognized me at that point.
“Get your hands up and turn around. Walk away from the bed.”
“Hock…I…what…wha?” He was stumbling for words, looking to talk his way out of this somehow. I cuffed his hands round his back.
“You are under arrest bubba,” I told him. “Possession of cocaine. Illegal shotgun, there.” (the gun a nice felony). I hooked an arm and walked to the stairway. The owner was still downstairs cleaning.
“Say, could you do me a favor,” I shouted down. Her jaw dropped when she looked up and saw me manhandling her tenant. “Can you call the police station and ask for a patrol car to come here. Tell them it is not an emergency, but tell them that Hock needs help with an arrest ” (I know what you are asking. Hock, where's your handheld radio? They were a bit scarce back then. And then you ask, “Hock, where's your cell phone?” Cell phones were just on Star Trek back then.)
A patrolman promptly came and helped me with the arrest and collecting the evidence. My day turned quite productive in mere seconds. This knucklehead was all alone on the secoind floor and for some fool's reason, cut a package to seel with his door ajar. I had a valid, legal reason to see him and I saw this all in straight, plain, line of sight. He went for a shotgun to shoot me, whether I was another bad guy or the police.
-------------------
Now, back on theme..if we were to listen to our “when-pull-then-must-shoot” supervisor or range instructor? Steven David Lark would be dead wouldn't he? It is imperative that you know you can draw your weapon and not shoot. But you see because I didn't follow this inane rule, I did not have to kill a man. Code of the West.
Next, in Part 3, another type of drawn gun saves a life….
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10 May 2007: Sawed–Off Shotguns, A Snub-Nose and Mirror Full of Eight-Balls - Part 1
Probably one of the most asinine remarks a gun range trainer or police administrator could ever say to you is,
“you should not pull your gun out unless you have to pull and actually fire it.
Otherwise, you didn't need to pull your gun.”
In my career I have passed under the control of these…idiots. Yes utter, desk-fool-jockey idiots. To place such a standard on an officer, a soldier or even a citizen is going to produce a hesitation that will get you killed, or push you to draw, shoot and slay someone you could have saved. Just two examples of how this idiocy fleshes out are the similar tales of coke and heroin dealers Steven David Lark and George "Fliptop" Vamos ….
We called it Dope.
Everything was Dope. Heroin. Hash. Cocaine. Marijuana. LSD.
Dope was dope and we all worked Dope.
In my early detective days, the 1980s, our agency did not have a formal drug section. It was an unwritten rule that we detectives were also the narcotics section, despite the fact all 20-plus of us were severely burdened by an ominous caseload of other crimes that grew every day. (Note- this is where my friends in the Chicago police department and the like, always laugh. “20 detectives!” But I would rather have worked there in Texas, there where we worked everything from homicides to auto burglaries, than get stuck in the 500 man, check-forgery division or auto theft for decades! Bubba? You can have your Chicagos!)
Anyway, each of us was expected to be running some drug cases atop our assigned caseload, and always have two or three things narcotics busts cooking. I worked narcotics in the U.S. Army so I had a taste for the task. If you were a serious detective (and I was) you were also working dope.
This was not as hard as it seemed. Having all these other criminal investigations thrust on you every day, created a sea of citizens, witnesses and criminals to swim through. I calculated that each of us had some 30 to 35 cases a month, 12 months a year. Multiply that by 16 years, and now you know a big chunk of my crazy life. And for the most part, I loved it. I wouldn't and couldn't do it now, but back then there was no cooler thing for me than being a police detective in Texas. With this endless supply of good and bad people shoved into your life, you often stumbled upon many dope cases.
It was no surprise that by working some cases and checking with informants I learned that a Steven David Lark had moved into town, with aspirations of bringing a Houston drug sale connection with him. Coke and Heroin. Back then, Crack took a laboratory the size of Dr Frankenstein's to make. It took enough glassware to thrill a NASA biologist.
Now, Lark was not completely new to our area. He grew up out in the Texas countryside of a nearby county. Lark “infiltrated” our city by hanging out in the discos and country bars. We have two major universities and in little time, casual closing hour conversations lead to all kinds of widespread contacts. Before long, Lark had himself a girlfriend named Laurie Drainer and some customers. Laurie attended college and wavered on the fringe of drugs and alcohol. And while she hung with Lark, she smartly did not allow him to move in with her.
The partying continued. We first got some low-running word that a new boy from Houston, who once lived in nearby Bridgeport was in town selling a shopping list of illegal contraband. Next I got a first name. Next, I got the rest. I matched it with Houston and Bridgeport. In a squad meeting I flashed his name and Houston P.D. mug shot. Next, we got the girlfriend's name.
In a daily, morning detective briefing, in one the size of our city's, a supervisor summarized every crime report, trying to at very least announce the names of the key players. Complainants. Witnesses. Suspects. This took a while, but it gave us a feeling for the names, games and crimes in our city. It was also a ripe time for comedy acts, jokes, smart-ass remarks and just about everything short of shooting a cigar out of someone's mouth. But, by osmosis, you had these names run through your ears. Some stuck.
In one such meeting, Lt. Gene Green, amidst hundreds of crime reports, dryly said,
“…a Laurie Drainer's apartment on Bell Ave. was burglarized. A suspect, name and whereabouts currently unknown, is an acquaintance of her boy friend, a witness STEVEN DAVID LARK.”
Lark! The only was to find the suspect was to further question Lark for information. I'd like to meet this Lark. Check him out. The crime had all the tracks, no doubt, of some kind of unhappy dope deal. I'd like to jump two boots in the middle of some unhappy, revenge seeking, dopers and dealers. It was not too often that you stood up and volunteered to get yourself assigned another burglary - what with all your other piles of cases - but I asked Lt. Gene Green for this one and he smiled and tossed it my way. “Why sure, Hock!”
With an ear left open for the rest of the reports, I scanned the Drainer case. Lark's address was listed as a boarding house on Fry house. An address! Hmmm. I shall go there, said I! No idea at the time, that this would be the address where I would later almost kill that son-of-a-bitch.
Read Part 2 next …
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7 May 2007: "One Problem! You Got a Stance!"
Heard a funny story the other day about a friend of mine. I'll call him Jack. Way back in the mid 1990s, Jack made a trip to the then Mecca of Martial Arts Training - Southern california - for a week-long, private lesson with thee, then semi-famous pair of a modern fighting, "Bobsey-Twins." Both spent as much time training as they did dodging criminal charges. About 3/4s through the week Jack wanted to know how he was doing. After all, this was costing him thousands of dollars. Ralph and Tim Bobsey said,
"Jack, you are doing really fine. Fine. But you still have one problem. You still...have a stance."
A stance. This apparently really freaked my friend Jack out. A stance. The rest of the week he was distracted and preoccupied with this suggestion. A stance. How should he stand himself when doing all the moves and drills and not look like he had a stance. I guess you would have to know the fastidious Jack to appreciate his reaction.
In my oldest of training outlines I taught the "stance of no stance" and I do understand the overall concept and message. But the very idea of this heavy Zen message, especially after several snorts of Bobsey Twin cocaine, I just have to laugh and picture the mind-binding problem.
"The stance of no stance (sniffle) has no stance but to stand there in a stance of no stance and not have a stance. Yeah, dude. (sniffle) That's the stance. None. No. Don't just stand there. Just stand there. (sniffle) Come on! That's a stance! No...Yes"
Stance on! Errr, off, dude!
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5 May 2007: The Five Minute Rule
Have you heard about the Five Minute Rule? It goes like this. If someone shows me a fighting tactic or technique, and I can't learn it in five minutes. Its worthless to me. Or, if I show someone something and they cannot learn it in five minutes, its worthless. It is a rule that declares if a move is too complicated and too hard to learn it should be forgotten, after...well...five minutes. We do have a 2 minute egg and 4 minute mile.
This often gets quoted and I mean to say, I agree with the idea in general to some extent. But, sometimes there have been times I have shown, say, a jujitsu-like move to a large group and the group, as though it was struck with a contagious brain disease, failed to get it. I scratched my head watching them struggle, while for years other groups have caught on the idea very quickly. So for starters, the five minute rule depends on the group. Group-dependant Five Minute Rule.
But I sometimes wonder. Who came up the five minute part. Why FIVE minutes? Is it just an expression? An arbitrary figure? Surely there is no cognitive science to that selection. Maybe some of the best stuff may take all of six minutes?
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3 May 2007: Most Dead Ever
The recent April, 2007 Virginia Tech Shootings may raise many emotions in many people for many reasons. To me, I immediately see something like this as a crime scene. A hellacious crime scene. 30-plus bodies strewn everywhere in every kind of position. Blood. Evidence. Photographs. Spent shells. Video. Documentation. In today's "CSI" world, the crime scene job done on a mass murder like this will take forever and a day.
I have seen quite a few multiple death scenes in the last decades. Mostly one body of course, but next two,then three or more people. Usually we don't ever see ten or tens of people. Browsing through my dented, steel trap excuse for a mind, I quickly flashback. I see me, Russell Lewis and some fireman pulling a mother and dead child out of well once. We caught that murdering bastard before the day was out. And I've seen a string of killings of a single shooter on a long rampage. Well, fact is, once my mental slide show is running, I've seen a plenty of the solo dead and more than a few "two or more dead folks." Too many to just list flippantly right here. Every one deserves a story. Some call them DOA but in Texas some of us use to call them DRT. Dead Right There.
Some non-police and non-military people I knew would chuckle when I would combine the terms "dead bodies."
"Well Hock...HA! Aren't all bodies dead?
No. When you are in the body business? You need these distinctions. Probably there is no bigger, common opportunity for a cop to see dead people than traffic crashes. I have seen a batch. Most times single deaths. I recall a dad decapitated once...well, fact is I could sit here and tell dozens and dozens of traffic wreck stories in flippant, passing sentences. So could any veteran cop.
The biggest fatality toll I recall for me was back in Ft Sill, Oklahoma in about 1974. A troop transport truck, bringing soldiers back from a distant, artillery range, navigating the hills and small mountains up north there, took one turn too many, way too fast. The open truck, in an odd shake of bad luck, turned over, flipped and gutted, pinned, crushed, or otherwise dismembered over thirty soldiers. I think it was 34 dead. But I could be a bit wrong on that number. It was thirty-something. 34 sticks in my head-but it was over 30 years ago. These things stick in your head.
I was among the first units to arrive in the scene and it was a mess. A mess. Guys were screaming and groaning and dying. Ambulances came and all us did what we could. Guys were tossed down the side of a small, rocky mountain. But I must say that the day was nearly a total loss. It must wear on a fellow because I still remember the scenes. Who do you go to first? Who? I know there is a textbook answer to that question. Triage and all. Sure. But who? You do the best you can.
Around those times, I had been dispatched to a few big whirlybird crashes. Just a few. I have flown a few times on these birds. They successfully fly all the time, but the rare crashes would often occur well off the main post, yet still on the massive acreage of the Fort. They were almost secret affairs. We would see the red glow from these crashes in the distant, clear, Oklahoma midnight sky. We would hear the scrambling, yet low-key and coded radio traffic. At times we were even dispatched to them when extra help was needed, but often not, as the crashes were investigated by aviation experts and responding air/fire crews. And, they didn't like the civilian press to catch wind of these. The less who knew, the better. But eventually gossip would travel through to us and we would learn what happened.
Sometimes the federal/military investigators would find six packs of beer in the rubble of the cockpit. The suggestion was that the pilots were drunk? Sometimes these dual engine choppers would fall right out of the sky. If the front end raised up too far, it would "lose its balance" and with the rear end too low, it would slip down right out of the sky. The chopper would crash and crumble. 
One gruesome night, a bird was full of men and it went down north of the main fort. They call it a chalk of men. A chalk. Usually about a dozen. But this was double or more than that. There was crushed rubble and a burning fire of metal and people when I arrived. A small war zone. Burned people stink up an unforgettable smell, you know? Unforgettable.
Single bodies. Double bodies. Three of more bodies. Up to near forty bodies. Bodies, bodies, bodies. That's just from my memory. Think of all the bodies in all the accidents, all the crimes and all the wars. Then there is death from disease. Don't think too much about all of them though because it will drive you crazy. How is our world, our human race so structured as to have so many of these dead bodies everywhere? They lay about like leaves fallen from trees!
I have come to believe that life is really about the trees and not the leaves. I know that many religions say that God cares about every person, every word, every whisper. I can't imagine that. I can't imagine a God at the helm of every hideous event that happens every day in our chaotic world. No. What a sick God that would be. The lame excuse some religious people tell us is that God has a master plan and that all the violence, rape, cancer, death and destruction fits some kind of...plan. A plan? Well, what a sick plan is that? I think we live in the "tree" plan, not the "leaf" plan.
I think that the God of things - whatever that is - made the trees and worries little about the leaves of life. I think that is more than obvious. That, is the real scheme of things. The trees, not the leaves. Just look around you. The individual leaves pass through the winds and rain of life and such, as best they can. The tree usually remains. And the leaves grow and die in cycles. That is just what happens! And they scatter and lay on the roadways and mountains and are buried deep in the wells. They burn, or are crushed, tossed about and crashed about here and there.
I have been bombasted, baited and belted with every kind of religion. I read comparative religious books for fun and education. Been there, done that. Don't own a single t-shirt. I know some of you close your eyes and just hope for the best. But, some things stick in your head. Like dead bodies. When I close my eyes? Sometimes I still see these dead bodies. Lots of them. And when bad things happen like Virginia Tech, or a bad day in Iraq. I run the numbers in my mind. Most dead ever?
This is what I have seen. What I have learned....and in all this wind and rain? You and me? Cinch up and saddle up tight, me amigo, because I think we are a bit much...on our own.
2 May 2007: George Tenent's New Book Is Out.
He says that he believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, as did Security expert Richard Clark and almost all of the world's intelligence agencies. This once again confirms that President George Bush did not lie as opposition hacks, Rosie O'Donnell, Michael Moore and other stupid, prejudiced, hippy protestors like to say. Remember the old thing...
"Bush Lied/People Died"
...stupid chant of stupid, uneducated people?
I have seen Tenent's two main book interviews, 60 Minutes and Larry King and he really hates his quoted "slam dunk" term. But he said it! What's a president to do when his CIA chief says this?
This is a noble cause, trurned into a Frankenstein monster. Tenent, a President Clinton, Democrat appointee and retained by Bush, believed like the rest and told what he thought was the truth at the time. Catch the interview and his little "slam dunk" shuffle response at: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml
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1 May, 2007: CQC Group Rank, Instructorship or Just Train, 4 -Day Combat Camps-2007 and 08!
Let's start the month off just right, with listing the last of the 2007, 4-day CQC Combat camp, news. No matter what your current status is - rank Beginner? Basic? Advanced? Expert? We will cover material you need to move up and onward. Or simply train for knowledge and exercise to add-on or build your own self, your way.
Gent, Belgium, Dec. 7, 8, 9, 10 2007
Sacramento, CA. USA, January 24, 25, 26, 27 2008
(all seminars build the ranks for the CQC Group AND
the SFC Hand, Stick, Knife, Un and PAC courses.)
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