Chuey Hernandez returned to duty with the Tijuana Municipal Police and had lots more to worry about than whether his lip would fall asleep.
"I always admired the policemen of San Diego so much," he said. "I always wished I could be one. Of course that was only a dream."
It was touch and go for Manuel Smith, the San Diego police liaison officer to Mexico. Upon being called in to conduct the negotiations between the police departments of San Diego and Tijuana, he was shocked to learn that the wounded Tijuana cop was Chuey Hernandez, whom he had known casually from his many dealings with the Mexican police. And with so many relatives all over the Baja Peninsula he was doubly shocked to discover that Chuey's wife, Miki, was a distant cousin of the Smiths'.
Of course it wouldn't be pleasant for any San Diego cop whose job it was to maintain liaison with the Mexican police. The first thing heard publicly was Manny Lopez being interviewed on television to the effect that the Tijuana cops had tried to rob them. And whether Chuey Hernandez was shot six feet north or six feet south of the imaginary line, or whether he jerked the trigger out of reflex when Manny Lopez brought a gun up in his face, or whether the left side of his brain should have understood the sound Policas! coming from Manny Lopez' lips, or whether the sound did indeed come from Manny Lopez lips, would be relevant to men and women who manipulate the most ponderous legal machinery on the face of the earth. But none of it was very relevant to the Mexican police, who, like Chuey Hernandez, simply could not begin to fathom any of it.
Despite any personal turmoil within, Manuel Smith had to bite the bullet and back his own police department all the way. And he did. He interviewed Chuey Hernandez in the hospital and elicited a statement from the wounded Mexican cop that he had heard the, word Policas! come from Manny Lopez a fraction of a second before the shooting, but that it didn't make any difference because he would never have believed these were any kind of cops.
"Why would I try to shoot seven policemen if I knew they were policemen?" Chuey Hernandez cried out in anguish. "I don't understand!"
And when Manuel Smith attempted to elicit a statement tending to verify the BARF allegation that they were about to be robbed by bandit cops, Chuey Hernandez began to sob.
"No one would have thought they were pollos," he said. "pollos would run away or obey me. No pollo ever acted like these. I thought they were robbers!"
Then Manuel Smith went south to try to explain it to the Tijuana police, and judiciales. To people who were his friends and who were never less than good to him. He found Deputy Chief Verber of the Tijuana Municipal Police. The man was weeping.
He said to Manuel Smith, "Seven of your men? With bulletproof vests and shotguns? And my two officers in full uniform in a police car? Now they're saying my men were bandits? They're saying we're all crooks? I don't understand!"
But from that night on, the only thing that seemed important to the U. S. authorities, at least as far as the Mexiicans were concerned, was whether Chuey Hernandez was standing a body length north of an imaginary line or a body length south of it. And which pad of flesh on the index finger of which armed policeman was flattened against a metal rod with or without a willful signal from the left side of the brain. And whether or not the unsolicited line from Manny Lopez -"We don't have any money"-was designed to lure and entice Chuey Hernandez or to verify an evil intent to rob already preexisting in the mind of Chuey Hernandez. Or whether it just insulted the hell out of an already angry cop who was being defied by some baffling behavior.
But if one did not hold a degree in jurisprudence and was not concerned with logistical matters involving imaginary lines, or with neurological signals, or coded laws of entrapment, or cultural considerations of mordida, then one might, like Joe Castillo, crystallize it all rather succinctly: "It was just like on Gunsmoke!"
So there it was. Manny Lopez had braced the bad cops. He had by now drawn against guns numerous times, something very few lawmen outside of movies have done even once. Something police training has always warned against He had been publicly glorified for epitomizing a chunk of American myth that may never have existed outside of celluloid: the hardball gunslinging lawman who, when facing the guns of the wicked, will draw. And the fastest gun is not only right; the fastest gun wins the hearts of the West.
There was no point counting the stories written on this one. The Barfers might as well have weighed their press notices. Suffice it to say that the mayor of Tijuana finally had to go public and beg the media of both sides to try to forget the border shooting. But the Barfers wouldn't forget it. They were filled with troubled dreams and mixed emotions. They wondered if someone was going to name an airport for Manny Lopez.
There were a few very unforgettable memories for Ken Kelly that night. First, there was the heart attack he and Robbie Hurt were sure they were experiencing when once again they heard gunfire in the night. This time sounding like war. And then to hear the static-broken screaming on the radio, and for a minute or a year not to know what was happening or where, and finally to hurtle toward the echo of explosions. The cover team of Ken Kelly and Robbie Hurt, the outsiders, never, but never had experienced the release which action provided for the others.
One thing that Ken Kelly took from that evening was the astonishing moment when he was driving away from the hordes of Mexican police flowing through the fence eager to kill the bandits who shot their men. Manny Lopez and Tony Puente were in his vehicle. Tony Puente was trying to talk, with about as much success as a stroke victim. He was hyperventilating slightly and was trying to calm himself by taking deeper breaths, which was exactly wrong, and then he finally sensed or understood the problem and settled back and stopped sighing, panting, sighing. Ken Kelly thought that Tony might just break down and cry, and why the hell not? He was entitled.
Finally, Tony Puente was able to utter things in monosyllables. He said, "God." and after a pause of five seconds: ". damn!"
Tony Puente was reacting and behaving pretty much like all the others. In fact, when they got to the substation, more than one had to go to the bathroom and walked into a closed door without opening it.
But in the car alongside Tony Puente was his leader, Manny Lopez. And Manny was saying, "I guess if all those dudes caught us we'd be righteously dead by now. Only thing bothers me, I was sure I got hit. I must be losing my fucking mind. Oh, well."
Oh, well. Then he stopped talking and asked Ken Kelly what, time it was and Ken figured Manny was wondering whether he should maybe handle the first batch of reporters all by himself, and could he get to the saloon before it closed what with all the paperwork and television interviews?
Ken Kelly started getting a headache. Manny Lopez looked only about as annoyed as he got when Ken Kelly ran away from home. Ken was sure that Manny was going to ask if he'd heard the baseball score.
What scared the living crap out of Ken Kelly is that he suddenly got a whole new fix on Manny Lopez: This bastard's crazy! This bastard would draw on The Holy Ghost!
Carlos Chacon was not hit in an artery. He was treated for a bullet in the upper arm, and was released from the hospital that night only to get seriously infected and be off duty for three months.
On the night of the international shootout there happened to be a police graduation class throwing a big bash at the pistol range. When the alarm went off, the Southern substation was full of brass from that party. They would come up to each Barfer saying things like, "How ya doing, son?"
There were several interviews given to the press by ranking officers who, the Barfers said, would visit the canyons about as soon as an iguana grew, eyebrows. The kind, the street cops say, who make command decisions only if the astrological signs, biorhythmic charts and sunspots are correct. Or when the tea leaves tell them.
Very late that night Manny Lopez finally showed some emotion. He pulled off his jacket, went to a mirror to check himself out and cried happily, "See! I knew I was hit!"
The first round fired by Chuey Hernandez had gone through th
e collar of his flak jacket and creased the strap on the way out.
Manny said, "I was starting to think I was nuts!" Which caused Ken Kelly to look around at the other Barfers staring into space.
The BARF experiment had now resulted in the shooting of six lawmen, three from each side of the imaginary line. And all by other lawmen.
Chapter SIXTEEN
PILATE
IF THERE WAS EVER ANY DOUBT, IT HAD VANISHED AFTER the shooting of the Tijuana policemen. Manny said it: "Dick Snider had the idea, but I formed and directed and shaped it. BARF was my thing."
And indeed it was. Barfers like Ernie Salgado and Eddie Cervantes, who were by now overtly critical of their leader's celebrity, might not like it, but everyone else knew: Manny Lopez was the Barf squad.
He was adored by the media. As far as other cops were concerned, some felt like asking for his autograph and some felt he should work for another city, say Havana, Cuba. There were lots of opinions about Manny Lopez but one thing was certain: Chief of Police William Kolender supported the BARF leader. Very much, in fact.
On the night of the big shootout, the little Southern substation was awash with all kinds of people: department brass, detectives, officials of the Mexican police. And more reporters than San Diego had seen since Patricia Hearst was confined in the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
It was tough enough under ordinary circumstances for detectives to separate witnesses and participants in police shootings, let alone under these conditions. During the course of the evening when the Barfers were sitting in a squad room, ordered by homicide detectives not to talk to one another about the case, a couple of them held a short conversation in Spanish.
The homicide detectives got very mad. The Barfers claimed they were only asking each other who was going to buy the beer and where they were going to drink it. The homicide detectives said that was bullshit. After they'd been ordered not to communicate, it was funny that a little small talk about beer had to be done in Spanish.
The Barfers said they liked to talk Spanish. The detectives said it was an awfully long conversation just to say who was going to get the beer. The Barfers said that it takes longer to say things in Spanish than it does in English.
And so forth. As if Barfers and homicide detectives weren't getting on one another's nerves enough these days, there had to arise a squabble about this. No one seemed to have considered that such problems might never arise if it were not that in a police department with fifteen detectives working Homicide, there was only one Mexican-American. The San Diego Police Department just didn't seem to know where it lived.
In any case, language conflicts or not, the Barfers were beginning to feel the noose tightening ever more snugly. They became convinced that homicide detectives were natural enemies of their mission.
Homicide detectives began to ask openly: What is the mission? If it's to create heroes, well, these heroes could be a real pain in the ass. Homicide was openly critical of the shootout, and especially of Manny Lopez.
Two of the homicide detectives had opinions about the entire affair.
"I don't think San Diego policemen have any business out there in the first place," was how one of them said it. His partner put it this way: "I don't think what they're doing out there is police work. And I think Manny Lopez insulted those two cops into coming across." , Manny Lopez was waiting to see what was going to happen to Chuey Hernandez. He told his men that the D. A. had better file charges on the Tijuana cop. On Monday after the big weekend, Chief William Kolender scheduled a press conference regarding the shooting of the Tijuana policemen.
Former chiefs were law and order types who, if they were ever asked to speak at a service club luncheon, would quote from the evangelists or J, Edgar Hoover. William Kolender was something different for a career lawman. Large, imposing, young for a chief, he had a good image with the media, the politicians, the public and the cops. It takes a juggler.
In truth, he had made positive changes for the beleaguered minority cops in a city that was one-fifth black and brown. But the choice jobs remained top-heavy with whites, so he knew how far to go. He pushed, but not too hard.
It was quite a sight when Chief Kolender, dressed like General Motors, stood side by side with his boss Gunslinger, dressed like Saturday night in a singles bar, representing, as it were, the divergence in a police department heading in new directions. Manny Lopez was in a way a tribute to the innovation of the fledgling chief. Everyone knew that there would never have been a Barf squad under previous administrations. For sure, after the first controversial shooting it would have been disbanded. So on the one hand Chief Kolender was considered freethinking for recognizing the need to protect illegal aliens within the city of San Diego, and on the other hand, was hard-nosed enough to back his men when the international confrontations started.
But juggling is never easy business, and any chief of police whose job is subject to political appointment has to take advantage of positive press while the taking is good. BARF was bringing positive press and good public relations to the department the likes of which the television show Dragnet had brought to the L. A. P. D. decades earlier.
Chief Kolender genuinely admired Manny Lopez. He often said, "I've never seen such gutsy work. Would you go out there and do what BARF does? I wouldn't."
So despite what homicide detectives thought and said privately, the shooting of the Mexican policemen was publicly and privately defended by the chief. On the Monday following the international shootout, during the chief's press conference, the Barfers were asked by the press relations officer to wait outside central headquarters so as not to steal the limelight from Chief Kolender, who after all was not one of the Gunslingers, and couldn't compete.
The Barfers waited in a local cop bar called Bernie's. Within minutes Manny Lopez received a call at the bar. Deputy Chief Robert Burgreen was on the phone to tell him that the press was on the way. The Barfers were red-hot copy.
Manny Lopez turned to his men and yelled, "Everybody out a here! Go to Anthony's Harborside and run up a tab. On me!"
Manny Lopez then hustled over to central headquarters, slipped in the side door and went to the office of Deputy Chief Burgreen, who said, "Chief Kolender is not going to recommend that charges be filed on Hernandez."
And Manny Lopez said, "That's it I quit."
"Don't you want to think about this?" the deputy chief asked.
"They didn't file on the immigration officer when he almost shot me! Now they're not gonna file on this cop who shot one a my men? I ain't got more than a hundred I. Q. if I take this shit again."
Thirty minutes later the deputy chief led Manny Lopez into the office of the chief of police, saying, "Manny's upset."
The chief of police was writing on a legal pad. Without looking up, he said, "Oh? And what is he upset about?"
Manny Lopez tried to remind himself that this was the superchief himself. He said, "I'll tell you what I'm upset about, Chief. They're not filing charges on Hernandez!"
"I know," the chief answered. "Homicide says it's a very weak case."
Then Manny Lopez surprised both his superiors and himself by pounding on the desk, saying, "Fuck Homicide! Fuck this shit! You didn't ask my side of it. I quit! I quit!"
And the chief said, "Do you mean the department?"
That stopped him, because he sure as hell didn't mean the police department, only the Barf squad. So he added, "Well, I hadn't thought about that."
Suddenly he started seeing his whole career slipping away and this was the scariest thing that had happened to him lately. He needed time to think, because the chief was calling his bluff.
Something else occurred to him. "Those fuckers're running a tab on me!" Manny cried. "I gotta go see my guys. They're at Anthony's."
And Deputy Chief Burgreen said, "Do you mind if we come with you? I'll pick up the tab."
"No, I'll pick it up," the chief of police said.
By the time they arrived at Anthony's Harbo
rside that afternoon, the San Diego press relations representative had already informed the other Barfers that charges were not going to be filed on Chuey Hernandez. And since Manny Lopez was never a piker, especially when someone else was picking up the tab, he grabbed a waitress and said, "Four bottles a good wine for my guys."
The chief of police surprised them all by saying to the Barfers: "I believe in you people. I've just talked to Manny and I'm going to ask the D. A. to issue charges on the Mexican officer."
Manny Lopez figured he had won a major victory. He got good and drunk that night. Only one thing spoiled the evening for Manny. It was when Deputy Chief Burgreen said aloud, "The thing that worries me about this is the danger. I'm afraid Manny's going to get killed out there."
Instantly, Eddie Cervantes' down-turned eyes started throbbing and bulging, and he cried, "Manny's gonna get killed! Why only Manny?"
"Of course I'm equally concerned with all of you," the deputy chief added. "I only meant that Manny is. he's always out in front. That's what I meant."
Later, Manny Lopez tried to placate a scowling Eddie Cervantes by saying, "Listen, fucker, things come out that way. I always tell the reporters that Cervantes did this or Salgado did that. I don't write the stories, fucker. I don't write em!"
The next morning Manny was shaving, with a monstrous hangover, when his ten-year-old son came in and said, "What'd you do wrong, Dad? On television they just said they dropped charges on the guy you shot."
"THEY DID WHAT?" Manny Lopez screamed, almost cutting his own throat.
As he was pulling on a jacket, ready to go out the door with his head feeling all mushy and inflamed, he said to his wife: "I'm gonna get fired today. Good-bye."
When the BARF sergeant got to the chief's office, it was the first and only time he ever saw William Kolender uneasy.
"Chief, you promised you were gonna see that they issued charges!" Manny Lopez said.
"The case isn't strong," Chief Kolender said. And then he stood up, came around his desk and put his arm on the shoulder of the shorter man. He said, "Manny, I don't know what I'm going to be able to do."
Lines and Shadows (1984) Page 26
