Jim Middleton

Alamo City Blue: A Police Officer's Story Jim Middleton

"Shots fired. An officer is down." A "sniper" opened fire with shotguns on the police officers standing in the intersection of Broadway and Grayson. Six went down wounded from the barrage of rounds fired. Forty nine citizens were injured by shotgun blast and semi-automatic rifle fire. Two died as a result of being struck by the "sniper's bullets. The crazed gunman, high on "angel dust," reigned terror at the Battle of Flowers Parade in San Antonio. This is an account of an officer's career from "tattoos" to retirement including stories of a serial rapist, hi-jackers, systematic burglars, a habitual drunk driver, a capital murder arrest and the death of a "sniper." No story could be without a little humor and sadness; there is a little of each told. "What I wanted to do was tell him to go hit in the head with a bottle, fight with three individuals, make entry into a dark house, see a deceased person on the floor, threatened to be killed, ride to the hospital in an ambulance and receive medical treatment and see if he could piece together the time." "The early morning hour, the description, the peering into a window of a duplex and then his checking to see if we were watching him, left us with no doubt we had a viable suspect." "The burglar stopped and produced a pistol, a four inch barrel .38 special, in his right hand and was rotating in a clockwise movement to face off with two armed police officers." "'I'm a really good thief' and in fact said, 'I'm so smart you can't catch me!'" "'We heard you were making under cover narcotic buys and we wanted to get a good close look at you!' He further stated, 'I don't care for people who stick their nose into other people's business and that there should be less of people like you around.'" "I could not bring myself to tell him how to be a better 'hi-jacker.'" "The Lord had to have been with someone that day or perhaps