Reply #61: I have a DGU that didn't show up in a police report.. even after reporting it.. [View All]

[X_Digger]

Quoting from a post I made a couple of years ago.. (I no longer service COs, thank goodness.)

I service network equipment in COs (central offices) for a telecom company all over Texas, Louisiana, and sometimes Oklahoma. I go into every kind of neighborhood, town, and city. After having my truck broken into twice, and being mugged at gun point then getting my head almost cracked by the junkie's buddy, I decided to carry a pistol.

Last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, I was in Galveston trying to get phone service back up for residents. As I was ferrying ~$10k worth of network testing gear from the open bed of my truck to the switch around dusk, I was approached by a 20-25 year old guy asking for money. I offered him a bottle of water and an energy bar. He became agitated and again demanded money. He got close enough that I could see that he had a mouth full of mostly black stumps instead of teeth, and continued to follow me as I went around the front of my truck to the open driver's door to grab a bottle of water. As I reached into the center console of my truck, he pulled a knife from his overcoat (an overcoat in September in Texas- yah, nothing at all odd about that) and took a step toward me. I switched from a bottle of water to the holstered pistol in the console. I unholstered my pistol, put the open truck door between us, and told him to piss off. He took another step toward me, I raised my pistol and pointed it at his chest. He looked down, then turned and ran. I got on the company radio, and an hour later, a DPS officer came by to check on me. He took my statement and left.

You know what really pissed me off at the time? That I'd offered the guy a bottle of water and something to eat. I've been approached many times by some rather stinky characters (Texas heat and homelessness / vagrancy tends to mix into a rather odoriferous combination.) Most were just panhandlers- the kind that you see with cardboard signs (my favorite was one that read 'why lie? want beer') or a bouquet of flowers weaving in and out of traffic at stop lights. I usually have a dollar for them if they make it to my truck before the light changes. So yeah, I was pissed that I offered to help this guy and he turns around and pulls a knife on me.

Shit, if he'd waited, I would have gotten on the radio and asked for a pick-up from the Texas City FD / Galveston PD / TX natl guard who had a crisis response center about ten minutes away. I'd seen more than one .mil truck trundle by with residents in the back going to the center.

Because I had an 'incident' in the company vehicle, I had to fill out an incident report. Later that shift, I called the crisis response center and got in touch with the DPS liaison. He told me that no report had been filed, due to the nature of the event- no injuries, no damage. The officer had passed along my description of the guy and the liaison mentioned that his guys would keep an eye out for the dude, but there wasn't likely to be anything they could do.

Non-crime committed, no film at 11.