Highway woman
I was a Ft. Worth police officer working midnight shift in the downtown area, 1983. I was in a patrol car. It was a typical night with all the crazy calls, but nothing we hadn’t handled before. It’s about 12:00 AM and I need gas. I called the dispatcher and she gives me the go ahead as I head west (where the gas pumps were) on the freeway from downtown. As I pull on the entrance ramp and begin to accelerate, I notice a woman standing on the shoulder of the expressway. She was a slightly overweight white woman. She was probably in her mid-twenties, but you could tell she had a rough life. There were two kids with her, a small boy, maybe four years old standing by her side as she held a baby.
In my jaded malaise I blew it off and drove right past her. Just another scum bag dumbass who’s crazy. Immediately after I passed her, I was thinking about what I had said to myself. Whoa, wait a minute. What am I doing. There’s a toddler and a baby on the shoulder of the expressway at 12:00 in the morning. What the hell is wrong with me. I got off the expressway and circled back around and pulled up on the shoulder with the red and blue lights going. I contacted the dispatcher with the details, and she put me out on a call at the location. I got out and approached the woman. She was zoned out. It wasn’t as if she was on drugs she was just traumatized. She said her husband in Florida had divorced her and put her on a bus to California, apparently her family was there.
The money only lasted long enough to get her to Ft. Worth and now she was going to have to hitchhike the rest of the way. I stood there a second and told her to get in my car. She and the kids got in the back seat, and I drove them to the bus station. By now my Sargent was waiting for me at the bus station and I gave him the details. I talked with the ticket guy at the station, he was a friend of mine, and said he could get them on the next bus out to Los Angeles at 6:30 AM for eighty dollars.
There’s an unwritten rule that you don’t get involved with people on the job. We didn’t make much money as it was, so you’re just supposed to do what you can for them and move on. I lived by the rule somewhat, but I was always trying to help people. Not that I'm a great guy but I was single and could afford it better than some of the married guys with kids. I told the Sargent we should take up a collection for the ticket. He gave me the okay.
First, I wanted to get them somewhere to rest. I took them to a motel I knew just west of downtown. I walked in and woke up Sahmear. He was not happy. I told him I needed a room for a few hours so these people could sleep. He said, “no”. Now this was a motel that rented rooms by the hour and was not listed as a four-star destination. I told him if I didn’t get a room for these people right now, I would park my car at his establishment and issue tickets and arrest people all night long, every night. He decided it was in his best interests to give me a key to a room. I put them in the room and made sure the door was locked. I returned to the bus station to get the ticket situation cleared up.
When I started asking the other officers for a contribution they clammed up, as I suspected they would. I don’t blame them. They all had families, the pay was bad, and this type of thing happened every day. Some of the guys gave a few bucks but it wasn’t close to enough. I ended up with about twenty dollars counting my Sargent’s contribution. I decided to pay the rest. I purchased the ticket, and they were ready to go.
The whole time I’m orchestrating this thing I continue to answer calls. Fortunately, there wasn’t anything big where I would be tied up for hours. In this case it was important for me to make sure those kids were taken care of. At 5:45 AM I arrived with McDonalds breakfast for all of them. We took off for the bus station which was a few minutes away. We arrived and the bus was boarding. As they loaded on, the woman went up the stairs onto the bus with the kids in tow and hesitated. She looked back at me, and I looked into her eyes. She looked for a couple of seconds, then turned and got on the bus without saying anything. They left the bus terminal and I never saw them again. I’ve always wondered what ever happened to the woman and those kids. If you’re feeling empty at the end of this story, welcome aboard. That’s life on the street. Police live it right along with everyone else who has to survive. The difference is the police get to go home and have a sense of normalcy for a short time every night. People show up in your life and you become invested in them, then poof, they’re gone. You have mixed feelings. You feel good they were helped but then frustrated you don’t know what happened. I wish I would’ve gotten some kind of contact information. I know they don’t remember me, but it’s alright.
