Memphis 1971 – reflections on working in drug enforcement

In December 1971 an officer with the Elizabethton (TN) Police Department and I drove down to Memphis to attend drug enforcement school - drug enforcement, drug identification, undercover operations, all different phases of drug enforcement. Iit was recommended that we stay at the Elvis Presley Inn on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Well, that sounded like an excellent place to stay – Elvis Presley Inn on Elvis Presley Boulevard. When we got there, it was a real old motel. We checked in at Elvis Presley Inn, and that night prostitutes worked each room. They didn’t get any work from my room, but they came and solicited. 

And the walls, the heat was the old-fashioned type where it was hot water, and hot water radiators and the walls would knock all night long. So, the next day we all got together, there was about 10 or 15 of us that was going to this school, and moved from Elvis Presley Inn across town to a Thunderbird Motel, I believe it was, which even was closer to the school. 

In class,we would be assigned roles and go downtown Memphis and play out those roles. I got with a undercover agent at night, for further educational purposes. He spent the evenings going from bar to bar, and at each bar he’d have a beer. And the go-go girls would come up and sit on his lap and bite him on the ear. His purpose in going to those bars was to see if he could find any illegal drug activity, but by the time his shift was over he was high as a kite. 

I look at my association with drug enforcement with mixed emotions. I brought a lot of grief on my family by me being the only narc in town, at that time I was the only narc in town and believe you me, the druggies knew who the narc was and who his family was. I received all kinds of threats on my life and I had other people come tell me there was a price. I was on a hit list. 

I was careful, and at night I’d put a couple pebbles, a couple gravels on the hood of the Jeep, and check and see if they were still there the next morning before I started the engine.

Nothing to Step On

Nothing to Step on a.k.a. Lady Stepped out of her Car and Fell Six Feet in a Ditch

I had another incident where a lady was driving through town and she passed a car and saw that her husband was in the car with another woman. This was a dark and foggy night. And they got in pursuit – the lady who’d seen her husband in the car turned around and pursued the other car with the intentions of dragging the other driver out of the car and beating her up.

They run all over town. We got a couple of complaints on cars racing. And they got over in to the Oak Hills area, Martin Addition. And at that time there was a dead end street where you couldn’t get from up at Oak Hills to the Martin Addition. So, this girl who had the husband in the car went in that area and she managed to turn around and get out. But the lady that was chasing her pulled up and stopped, then backed up with great momentum and straddled a ditch that was about six feet high. The back end of her car was lodged on the opposite bank, and the front end was on the opposite side. So, she probably thought she was on level ground.

She opened the door and stepped out and went down six feet. I went over there to where the car was, and there was a pair of shoes stuck in the mud and claw marks on the bank. But the lady got out some how or another.

But, I thought that was quite humorous. I imagine she had quite a startled feeling when she stepped out and there wasn’t anything to step on.

Hard Crimes to Solve

Hard Crimes to Solve

Burglaries was one of the hardest crimes to solve. I think the national solve rate was about 15%. They’d either have to leave something at the crime scene that you could identify them by later, or carry something away that you could trace back to them. And that didn’t always happen.

We would look near the scene of a burglary. Sometimes they would stash their stolen goods in a secluded area nearby, and sometimes we’d be lucky enough to come upon their stash and we’d stake it out. And then when they came back for it we’d make the arrest.

We had a burglary at a saddle shop at the fairgrounds where they kept horses and tack. So, I made arrangements to stake the place out. I went in, was dropped off, and just barely got there –… out near the city dump – and they come to pick up the saddles.

And it was in the woods, with quite a bit of brush that concealed the area well. As they stepped in, I stepped out. And as they stepped in one of them said, “g.d. where’d you get ‘em?” And they said, “fairgrounds.”

So, I made the arrest there and anxiously waited for a cruiser to come by to assist me.

Gangs at the Big Top

(Disturbing content)

*Names have been changed, RHB

Gangs at the Big Top

After I’d been at the department about three years we’d got a gang, a bunch of people in around town. They would pull in to a drive-in like the Big Top and jerk you out of your car and beat the crap out of you and then take off. And, that happened to *Clive Brent. And, the people that were doing it were some of my relatives. One of ‘em was a *Styles, and a *Hudson. I wasn’t kin to *Hudson.

Anyway, they went to Newport and started raisin’ cain in one of the bars down there. The bartender got his shotgun out and shot Hudson’s head off, and then beat the others in the back of the head with the stock of the gun.

They come to Greeneville cryin’ and complainin’ and wantin’ justice.

They had seen what justice was in Newport.

High Speed Wrecks

(Some disturbing content)

*Names changed, RHB

High Speed Wrecks

I was parked at the Ashway Drive-in site one night, and a Mustang came from the direction of Asheville at a high rate of speed. Went through in front of me, and I pulled out and turned on my blue lights and siren. The guy ran - it was a ’65 Mustang I believe - and they ran up to the intersection of West Main and the Asheville Highway, went across the railroad tracks, and turned left on Irish Street. 

He went up there a little piece and lost it, turned upside down over a ditch. And, all I could see was elbows and arms and knees. The car was packed full of people, and I said, “Oh, no. Probably we’ve experienced a kill here.” 

But they all crawled out, come crawlin’ out and all of ‘em were well. One of them was a *Henson boy that I knew quite well. I said, “*Henson, why did you let that driver drive that crazy?” He said, well it was his car, he could drive the way he wants to. 

So, about, I don’t remember, two or three months - maybe more, maybe less - later a young couple was found dead off the road in a car wreck on the 11-E, down near Dead Man’s Curve. And one of them was the *Henson boy. And, they’d laid there for hours, they’d wrecked during the night. Apparently, the driver was going at a high rate of speed and killed both of ‘em.

Doughty-Stevens Burglary

(*Names have been changed. RHB)

Some disturbing content

Doughty-Stevens Burglary

Reporting to work one morning Doughty-Stevens called me and said they’d had a burglary in their hardware, and there had been several guns stolen … long guns, short guns, pistols. Everett Graham and I worked the crime scene. We didn’t come up with too much evidence at the scene, but at that time the bus station was across the street from Doughty-Stevens, so we checked the bus station and had them check with the drivers and see if they might have picked anybody up carrying boxes, or loaded boxes there. Sure enough they had. 

One young man had loaded several heavy boxes on to a bus, and he got off the bus and took the boxes off in Knoxville. So, Everett and I went to Knoxville, and we got there late afternoon, and found out the young man had checked into the Andrew Johnson Hotel in downtown Knoxville. 

So, we got with two detectives there in Knoxville and staked the room out. Spent several boring hours there and the man finally come in about 2:30 in the morning. He went into the room, and Everett and I and the two Knoxville detectives went back to the room. One of the detectives went out on the fire escape where he could see inside. So, knocked on the door, the Knoxville detective knocked on the door, and a voice from inside said, “Who is it?” and the Knoxville detective said, “Desk.” So, he opened the door and we rushed in. He said, “It’s a damn good thing you said desk, ‘cause I’d be shootin’ through the door.” 

He had pistols under the pillows, pistols in his pockets. And, we arrested him to bring him back to Greeneville. He was born a, born a *Samuels but he was befriended by an older man named *Holmes. I can’t remember his first name. Anyway, I rode in the backseat with him, we had a long conversation coming back from Knoxville to Greeneville.

He looked at me and grinned and said have you had any interesting fires in downtown Greeneville lately. I said, “yeah, did you set it?” He said, “no.” We’d had a Milbanks burn a great deal of the downtown stores. So, I checked, and he was in a institution, But, I checked with the institution, he’d been here in Greeneville on that weekend the fire had been set, visiting, on a leave. 

*Samuels, I think he was about 16 years old, he was a juvenile, and his foster parent brought him - he was going to court the next day - brought him a necktie. We went back to the cell and he was hanging with his feet on the floor, but he was - he was dead.

So, he told me enough that we more or less closed the books on the arson cases downtown. He told me that he had intended to set Doughty-Stevens on fire. The reason he didn’t was that it would have drawn attention to him too quick, or to the burglary too quick.

Pinto Beans

Pinto Beans

Went on a domestic when I was working patrol, over in the housing projects. Had a southern boy’d married a girl from New York, and they were in an argument, probably a fight. But, anyway, when I got there it was all verbal.

And this New York girl said to this southern boy, “And another thing, all I ever get to eat is pinto beans, pinto beans. I’d like to have a pork chop every now and then.”

(chuckles) Pinto beans, she didn’t realize, being from the north, that pinto beans was a staple, a lifeline in Tennessee.

So, I don’t know if she ever got her pork chop or not.

I hope she got one.