MARCH 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 3

ers and municipal employees the same
percentage raise they gave officers.
Active terms like “collective bargaining,”
“grievance procedure” and even
“due process” wasn’t commonly used.
Feelings intensified among officers that
they had fewer rights of due process
than common crooks. When an officer
was transferred to the jail, Dispatch or
the property room as punishment, he
didn’t speak out for fear his work life
would worsen or he would be labeled
a malcontent for the rest of his career.
“Firings” weren’t labeled as such. The
affected officer literally cleaned out his
locker and was “allowed to resign for
personal reasons.” HPD kept no record
of the number of times this happened.
More aggressive members of the
HPOA board started to keep score and
voiced concern that younger officers
got no legal representation. They preferred
that money be designated for
legal assistance rather than nighttime
softball leagues. The scorekeepers
found that the retention rate of officers
had reached a new low point. New recruits
in town expected a totally different
philosophy than the mild-mannered
HPOA. Some association members had
growing families and felt unions like
those in the Northeast endorsed work
stoppages and strikes. HPOA President
Bill Elkin and the association wanted
nothing to do with an organized union.
Under Elkin’s leadership, HPOA acquired
land two blocks west of headquarters
at 61 Riesner. The president also appointed
the organization’s first African
American board member, J. J. Berry.
A growing number of new HPD officers
hailed from Chicago, New York,
Philadelphia and Boston. Many of these
officers had walked picket lines with
their dads, while Texas-born officers
had lived in a right-to-work state.
About the same time Bob Thomas of
Central Patrol became a more active
HPOA member, so did Tommy Britt
of North Shepherd, Rick Ashwood of
Central, Raymon McFarland or North
Shepherd, Doug Carr of Central/North
Shepherd and Chris Gillespie of Northeast.
Gillespie was from the Midwest
and had a college degree. “It was
almost like the perfect storm of people
coming together,” Britt said. Each had
his own strengths. Gillespie, for example,
introduced the idea of collective
bargaining, grievance procedures and
career development.
OLD INFLUENCE VS. NEW FACTION
Vast differences existed with the
older, more influential HPOA members.
The younger faction had some college
hours. These six activists each worked
in uniform on weekends and nights or
evenings, while the majority of HPOA
board members had 8-to-5 desk jobs,
take-home cars and didn’t have to wear
uniforms. Each of the younger challengers
had a grievance of one kind
or another and sought the strength
in numbers to resolve their problems.
They felt the need to take a more strident
involvement in the organization to
deal with their perception that some of
the people running the department had
a moral compass that wasn’t running
true north.
As early as 1978, Britt, Bob Thomas
and four others ran as “a reform slate”
for the HPOA board. Thomas and Ashwood
were already board members but
unsuccessfully sought board leadership
offices, causing them to believe they
needed a new union.
Thomas soon got the reputation as a
troublemaker. Older members weren’t
reluctant to express their desire to give
him a good old-fashioned “whupping.”
The bitterness from his 1975 near-death
line-of-duty experience remained a
chip on his shoulder and he sometimes
came across as a smart aleck. Yet his
leadership was effective enough for
Britt and many others to later conclude
that most of the good things that happened
to officers took place because of
Thomas’ leadership.
These new activists were soon known
by a new universal identifier, “Baby
Boomers,” the first generation to grow
up in the sixties, affected by protests
for civil rights and women’s liberation
or against the Vietnam War. The
officers figured they could conduct their
own form of protest and maybe get
somewhere. Yet the priority for HPOA
President A. J. Burke, a popular solo
motorcycle officer, was a new location
for the association’s headquarters. Real
estate sources offered two intriguing
possibilities. One was the Brazos Hotel
in downtown, the other the Atascocita
Country Club property on the northeast
side.
Both had high asking prices, discouraging
most HPOA members. The association
could have used the golf course
for its golf-playing members and sold
off most of the remaining acreage to a
developer. Instead, the board decided
to lease a building on Jackson Street in
downtown that once housed the Salvation
Army and was later torn down
to make way for the George R. Brown
Convention Center.
HPOA then purchased property at
1600 State Street, two blocks from 61
Riesner, where it constructed a building
opened in 1983 later dedicated to the
late Lieutenant Breck Porter, a hero in
the establishment of state civil service
protection for officers. To help pay for
the facility, HPOA sponsored a country
and western concert with Roy Clark as
one of the headliners in the old Coliseum.
Outside supporters bought steers
at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo
and donated the proceeds to HPOA, the
beef used at benefit barbecues.
Not until grand juries stepped up
investigations of police brutality cases
did HPOA hire a lawyer to represent
members who were targets in these
investigative procedures. The first was
one was a former HPD officer, John
Lohmann, through his firm Lohmann,
Glazer and Irwin. Another legal counselor,
D. Reid Walker, also was hired
through Lohmann’s firm and became an
authority in state civil service law.
Thomas and a growing list of ardent
followers of uniformed patrol officers
on duty after dark readily asserted that
pay raises were one thing but legal
representation and insurance benefits
were quite another. At the birth of the
Houston Police Patrolmen’s Union on
October 29, 1979, founding President
Thomas stressed points like these and
backed up his words at frequent news
conferences. The new union concerned
Mayor McConn, Police Chief Caldwell
and long-time political movers and
shakers more than a Category Five
hurricane. Thomas thought he would
be fired and postponed the first secret
organizational meeting for the union
until his wife Pam gave birth to their
youngest daughter in September. He
didn’t want to lose maternity benefits.
Summoned to Caldwell’s office on
the day he announced formation of the
new union, Thomas became physically
ill, thinking he would be dismissed
along with other union founders. From
outside Caldwell’s office, he heard the
chief rant and rave about the union and
the disloyal officers who formed it. As
the minutes ticked into hours, Thomas
remained apprehensive, but his confidence
slowly grew. He later learned
that influential Houston area AFL-CIO
labor leader Don Horn wised up Mc-
Conn. The mayor was about to win his
second term with Horn’s political influence
and listened on the phone as Horn
posed important questions: What had
Thomas done that any other officer was
entitled to do under the Constitution?
What law had he broken? Was the city
ready to combat the lawsuit that would
result from a firing?
According to McConn, he told Chief
Caldwell to use every resource to
discredit Thomas, thinking it was just
a matter of time before they broke up
HPPU. But HPPU membership grew by
leaps and bounds because Thomas and
union leaders were hitting HPOA in its
weakest spots – its inability to publicly
articulate the issues impacting working
officers.
LE AGENCIES
Having staff attorneys to provide
legal advice to members was in high
demand by officers anxious about
situations like the infamous Joyvies and
Webster incidents. The union felt that
having a lawyer at either of these cases
might well have completely changed
the dynamics of the resulting investigations.
As it was, people were fired and
lives destroyed at the feet of the HPOA,
whose dues were $3.50 a month, which
HPPU contended were not enough to
hire lawyers.
Thomas argued that a lawyer at the
scene in which officers said suspect
Randy Webster was armed with a
pistol would have made a dramatic difference.
Had a union lawyer been there
to sort out the facts, the investigation
would have shown the case to believe
what many HPD officers believed it really
was – an accidental shooting at the
hands of one officer. The findings could
well have been that his gun safety was
horrendous, but it wasn’t an indictable
offense. The union leaders suggested
that when you have a lawyer come up
and say, “What happened?” ninety-nine
CALL FOR
PRICING
Supplying Law Enforcement
Equipment for the State of TEXAS!
FN509
MRD-LE
DR920
COMBAT
PROMOTION ENDS 3/31/22
66-101287
OPTIC READY WITH
SUPPRESSOR
HEIGHT SIGHTS
LAPD
VERSION 9MM
CALIBER: 9MM
CAPACITY: 17+1
SIGHTS: NIGHT SIGHTS
BARREL LENGTH: 4.0”
SS-2006
OPTIC READY
9MM
CALIBER: 9MM
CAPACITY: 17+1
SIGHTS: NIGHT SIGHTS
BARREL LENGTH: 4.5”
590
SECURITY
TACTICAL
12661
OPTIC READY
12GA50778
M2.0
M&P
M2.0
CALIBER: 12GA
CAPACITY: 6+1
SIGHTS: BEAD
BARREL LENGTH: 18.5”
STOCK: SYNTHETIC
CALIBER: 9MM
CAPACITY: 17+1
SIGHTS: NIGHT SIGHTS
BARREL LENGTH: 5.0”
CALL OR EMAIL US FOR PRICING OR ASK US ABOUT DEMOS OR TRADE-INS
Tel: 800-367-5855
www.proforceonline.com
WRMCX-11B-TAP-SBR
AGENCY ONLY
MCX
SBR
SAINT
VICTOR
AR15
percent of the time officers are going to
do the right thing.
HPPU pioneers also believed the most
controversial case in HPD history – the
death of Joe Campos Torres – may not
have happened had there been a strong
police union in place pressing issues
such as the faulty, under-budgeted jail
conditions at the time of the events of
May 5-7, 1977. HPD had a clinic in the
basement of the jail since the building
opened in the 1950s but never manned
it. Officers with an injured suspect
routinely went to Ben Taub General
Hospital.
About the Author: Tom Kennedy is the
President of Kennedy Communicatios.
Kennedy states he “Writes and consult
for the good guys.” Kennedy has
been the editor of the Badge & Gun,
the monthly magazine of the Houston
Police Officers Union, since 2002. The
B&G comes out every month. Kennedy
has written five books, including Houston
Blue (co-author with Mitchel Roth), the
history of the Houston Police Department.
CALIBER: 5.56 NATO
CAPACITY: 30+1
SIGHTS: FLIP UP
BARREL LENGTH: 11.5”
STOCK: TELE-FOLD
5.56 STV916556B
CALIBER: 5.56 NATO
CAPACITY: 30+1
SIGHTS: FLIP UP
BARREL LENGTH: 16.1”
STOCK: ADJUSTABLE
Support Center: 2625 Stearman Road, Prescott AZ, 86301 Tel: (800) 367-5855
e-mail: sales@proforceonline.com | www.proforceonline.com
Gear & accessories for law
enforcement AGENCIES
CHECK OUT THESE GREAT
MANUFACTURERS
AIMPOINT • BERETTA • COLT
BIANCHI • TASER • BENELLI
SMITH & WESSON • CZ USA
H&K • DANIEL DEFENSE • EOTECH
SIG SAUER • SHADOW SYSTEMS
DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY • AGUILA
SPETZ GEAR • BURRIS • UTM
MOSSBERG • PROTECH • RUGER
STREAMLIGHT • MAGPUL
SAFARILAND • SPRINGFIELD
BLACKHAWK • OSS • HOLOSUN
TRIJICON • SUREFIRE • BOLA WRAP
US PEACEKEEPER • OTIS
NIGHTSTICK • FNH USA
NOTE: TERRITORY RESTRICTIONS MAY APPLY
Visit our website today for up to date
information, pricing and products!
82 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 83