MARCH 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 3

toward the bedroom. Malone was in a
shooter’s stance with a five-shot, snubnosed
.38.
POW! POW . . .
Malone’s first shot struck Green’s left
hand on the stock side of the shotgun.
The bullet hit the third knuckle of his
left index finger and traveled up into
his wrist where it tried to exit the palm
side. Deflected by the face of Green’s
watch, it then continued up his arm and
came to rest near his elbow.
Malone aimed his .38 carefully. The
memories of what happened in the
next few seconds consist of the fiery
yellow orange muzzle of the .38,
ungodly intense pain, death and yet
the strong desire to catch the bad guy
whodunit.
POW! POW!! POW!!!.
Woods and Thomas returned the fire
in uncertain directions, unable to zero
in on Malone as he aimed the gun barrel
precisely in their direction. All of this
happened in split seconds.
Malone’s second bullet struck
Woods’ gun, deflecting the slug down
through the officer’s groin. Woods’ gun
jammed helplessly after he got off two
rounds and took cover behind Brumley
after a third slug traveled dead center
through Brumley’s chest cavity. Brumley
was shocked back to life three times
that night, living in physical and mental
pain for the rest of his life.
“I saw the muzzle and his face,”
Thomas recalled the instant a slug –
believed to be from Malone’s fourth
shot – tore through his stomach and
stuck between two vertebrae, barely
missing his spinal column. The officer
returned a total of fourteen rounds.
Green was down near the dinette
table. He had his regular duty weapon
in his “jack ass” shoulder holster, but
he was left-handed with the wound
putting his left hand out of commission.
So, he just lay there – shot, bloody and
scared – wondering if he should try
to get his gun out of his holster and
shoot right-handed. He later said he
was afraid he would be too slow or
miss, and Malone would take it away
from him and shoot him with it. Playing
possum was his best decision.
Woods retreated out the front door,
where Thomas had difficulty standing
and walking. Woods and Thomas
thought Green and Brumley were dead.
‘I’ve been shot! Get me some help!’
Malone went into the bedroom to
put on a t-shirt, came back out and
picked up Green’s shotgun, wanting
to shoot the possum. Malone started
pulling what he thought was the
trigger while pointing the shotgun at
Green’s head. In his confusion Malone
actually caused the slide to release and
eject one live round and pump another
one into the chamber. He kept pumping
until the gun was empty and Green was
still alive.
Thomas and Cain were shoulder-to-shoulder,
side-by-side in the
doorway when the shots rang out. The
shot that hit Thomas in the gut caused
blood to spill out over his left hand,
which was holding his stomach. “I’ve
been shot!” Thomas said to Cain. “Get
me some help!” He continued shooting,
thinking he had hit Malone. The bullet
in Thomas’ vertebrae pressed against
the nerve that put his right leg asleep.
Woods picked up Brumley from a pool
of fresh red blood and pulled him out,
while Green hugged the floor, ever the
possum.
Malone was shot one time, through
the sagging skin that hung below his
bicep area. It was never determined
whose bullet hit him.
Thomas’ leg was numb, and he
couldn’t stand up. He heard the racking
of Green’s shotgun and thought
Malone was trying to kill him. The gun
wasn’t working. It never fired. Malone
never released the safety. He pointed
the shotgun at Thomas twice, tried to
pull the trigger and ejected at least two
rounds. Thomas had seven rounds left
and wanted to sit there and keep him
in this apartment. But he couldn’t see
what he was doing behind the counter
of the living room, only hearing the
racking of the shotgun.
In less than another split second
twenty-year-old June Cain had to
make a decision of what to do. Cain
saw the muzzle blasting of a gun like
it was in slow motion. She cocked her
gun and pointed it at Bonnie Sue Hollis,
whose hands were spread out on the
carpet. Cain had to get help for her
partners. This meant sprinting down the
stairway to a police radio. Officers had
Walkie Talkies in 1975 that were useless
in “dead zones” like this rundown
apartment. Not taking a chance on a
dead zone, Cain got to the stair steps
and yelled to Sergeant Cox to throw her
the keys to the police car so she could
get to a reliable radio.
Then Malone got help from an
unexpected source, the apartment
manager who mistook Thomas for the
drug dealer. The manager was about
three-hundred pounds and clad in a
sleeveless t-shirt and boxer shorts. He
barked at the wounded Thomas: “Drop
your gun! I’ve called the police!” Then he
fired a shot that barely missed the officer’s
head. Thomas painfully tossed his
badge in the man’s direction. “Anybody
can get a badge,” he responded, and
fired more shots.
Thomas limped down the steps,
dodging more bullets. The pistol-packing
manager soon surrendered to
somebody who set him straight.
Cain radioed, “Officers down,” asking
for help and ambulances. Before she
could put down the radio mike, she
heard sirens and saw Thomas out in the
street waving for help. Cain told him to
sit down, hearing him state, “June, I’ve
got to get these patrol cars and ambulances
in here. I think Doyle’s dead.”
Meanwhile, Malone tiptoed over the
wounded Green, left his apartment and
crept down the narrow second-story
walkway to the apartment unit of an
older woman two doors down.
Almost as chaotic as the actual
shooting scene was the narrow Golfcrest
Street with cars parked on both
sides, virtually blocking the ambulances
and responding officers. Cane and
four others actually picked up the back
end of a car parked on the side of the
road and moved it toward the drainage
ditch so ambulances could get through.
BRUMLEY ‘DIED’ THREE TIMES
Despite his four hits with five pistol
shots and seeming to have luck on his
side, Malone couldn’t find an adequate
escape route. Sergeant Cox arrested
him at the apartment unit down the
walkway as Houston Fire Department
paramedics carefully placed four
wounded officers into three ambulances.
A few miracles kept all four alive
or else the Houston Police Department
would have experienced its second
bloodiest night in history next to the
Camp Logan Riot.
The four officers survived serious
line-of-duty wounds and returned to
duty six months later. Instead of heroes,
they become “morale problems.” Their
overall treatment led Bob Thomas and
others to seriously question departmental
philosophies and benefits
enough to initiate a new, more aggressive
police union within three and a
half years.
Thomas felt he was alive because
Malone mishandled the shotgun and
that the trigger-happy apartment manager
missed shooting a man, he didn’t
know was a police officer. Malone was
able to launch his escape attempt when
Thomas left Green and sought shelter
from the manager’s shooting attack
behind a parked vehicle downstairs.
About twenty-five to thirty apartment
dwellers gathered downstairs
after hearing the shots. They spotted
Malone and pointed toward his temporary
haven as Sergeant Cox rushed in to
arrest the man whose shootings came
within inches of killing four officers.
Fire Department paramedics placed
Green and Woods in one ambulance
and Thomas and Brumley in another.
Nathan Brumley “died” at the scene.
Paramedics quickly resuscitated him
and laid him and Thomas side-by-side
in their ambulance. Halfway to Ben
Taub General Hospital, they lost Brumley
again. They pulled over to the side
of the road, again shocked him back to
life, and rushed him to Ben Taub while
leaving the still-breathing Thomas with
a paramedic. Within seconds another
ambulance arrived to pick them up.
Brumley “died” yet a third time and
underwent an out-of-body experience
as one of the best emergency doctors
in the business, Dr. Ken Maddox,
brought him back to life in the Ben
Taub Emergency Room. Later, Brumley
told his fellow officers that he remembered
looking down from above his
body and seeing Maddox. “He was ripping
me apart like a watermelon and I
could feel his fingers in my chest. I kept
trying to talk. There was no pain, but I
could feel the sensation. I was up above
and could see a light. I was looking
down at my body.”
Green underwent surgery and his arm
was placed in a cast. He needed two
more surgeries. Woods felt lucky the
bullet deflected off his watch or else
he would have suffered a more serious
chest wound. Both rested at home in
bed for several months.
Doctors cut a hole for a tube in
Thomas’ abdomen to drain an abscess.
They also installed a colostomy bag he
used four months before undergoing
surgery to repair the damage. For the
next four months he endured a lowgrade
fever caused by two different
infections. His weight dropped sixty
pounds to 135.
Pappy Bond was police chief by this
time and visited each of his wounded
narcs on Sunday afternoons at their
residences or personally called each
one at his home. The four men longed
to get back to normal working routines
and closely bonded during their recovery
process. Two months passed before
the quartet was instructed to return
on a limited-duty basis, Thomas still
running a fever with his colostomy bag
and drainage tube in tow.
Narcotics underwent another series
of supervisory changes, largely the
result of the Golfcrest shooting, another
shootout that wounded several
narcs and the April 8, 1976, line-of-duty
death of Jim Kilty. Most of the supervisors
didn’t know Woods, Brumley,
Green and Thomas, and didn’t like the
fact they were physically incapable of
working the streets. Brumley was in the
poorest shape. While off-duty in recovery,
he couldn’t hold a gun and once
78 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 79