I initially thought that Dad had killed himself with a particular automatic handgun, but from the death certificate I learned that he had used a shotgun. That pistol is missing. Whenever I visited him at his mobile home, I would see that pistol in a holster on the countertop near the front door. I saw it on that counter about a week before he died.
For $5.00 an hour I parked in a nearby garage about a block and a half away. It was shortly after Noon when I arrived. Google maps on my phone efficiently guided me to HPD headquarters and back to the garage. The temperature was high, in the low 90s.
The lobby of 1200 Travis is surrounded by glass, letting in lots of natural light. From the outside looking in, I could see the typical security screening equipment that we’ve come to see in government buildings. Friendly officers watch as you empty your pockets into dirty plastic bowls so that your possessions can be scanned with X-Rays. Then you walk through the metal detector and hope that it doesn’t “beep,” drawing unwanted attention.
As I refilled my pockets, the officer pointed out the glass doors 20 feet away and told me to have my identification out. To get through those glass doors, I had to wait for someone to remotely unlock them. Through those doors was a large open space office area about 50 feet by 30 feet in size. The office area had a makeshift but permanent feel to it.
One of the long sides of the office space faced the doors that I had just come through. Behind the desks, there were a couple of officers sitting with PC monitors, keyboards and mice and some other office equipment that I did not recognize. I handed my drivers license to the officer who greeted me.
“How may I help you?” he asked.
“I’m headed to records on the 21st floor,” I replied.
“Well, that’s changed. They’re gonna take care of you right over there.” He pointed to the office area directly behind him. “Hang on a minute while I get you signed in.”
He then started to make small talk. “You have the right kind of hat for today.”
I was wearing a very large brimmed hiking hat that gives my fair skin lots of coverage from the sun. “Yeah,” I replied as I took off the hat showing my white and ever enlarging forehead. “My fair Irish skin needs all the protection it can get.”
“Have you tried that Banana Boat . . .” he started.
“Somedays I don’t have it handy. And when I sweat, the chemicals make my eyes burn. The hat does what I need for short walks.”
He changed the topic. “You look like a doctor. Are you a doctor?” Now it felt like I was being probed for information. I’m about 80% sure that he was making small talk. I do it myself all the time. I’m an introvert by and large, but in one-on-one situations I like to chat with people. But police offices are probably trained to ask questions when dealing with the public, to gather information to confirm whatever story they are being told. The officer might be making conversation deliberately to get information, or out of habit, or just because he was bored sitting at that desk all day.
“I work in I.T.” I told him.
“Now there’s a good job to have,” he said. “Some of those I.T. guys make a sweet six-figure salary.”
“My job is not much different than your’s,” I told him. “I sit at a desk all day staring at a computer screen.” I almost mentioned that he and I had matching waste lines to go with our desk jobs, but kept that comment to myself. “Except that you get to talk to people and I rarely talk to people during my work day.”
“So you’ve got them afraid to bother you,” he smiled.
“No, I have one of those administrative jobs that don’t require a lot of contact with people.”
While we were chatting he was going about his job. He put my drivers license into a card scanner that quickly grabbed the image. He handed the license back and manipulated the PC until a label printer on the desk printed a temporary ID badge. He peeled the label from the backing and handed it to me. With his other hand he indicated to put the label on my shirt high on my chest.
Again, he pointed to the other side of the office space. “Go over there and fill out the blue form and they will take care of you.”
The blue form was for requesting a public police incident report. It was mostly geared towards getting reports from traffic accidents. Where it asked about what kind of crime, I wrote “suicide.” There was a blank on the form to enter the incident number. I had already gotten the incident number by phone the previous week.
When I handed the form to the clerk, she asked me if I wanted the public report or if I wanted the full report. I told her I wanted the full report but would start with the public report. She keyboarded and moused very briefly until the large laser printer/copier behind her spit out two pages. She directed me to the other clerk sitting with here who would take my payment of 20 cents. That was a pleasant surprise. I expected to pay ten or fifteen dollars, but instead I paid only by the page.
The public report was useless to me. It didn’t have any information that I didn’t already know. However, the last section of the report was called the Property Section. All the text in this section was redacted. The Property Section had seven subsections that apparently described seven different pieces of personal property that I assume where confiscated or taken as evidence.
To get the full report, the records clerk told me to go around to the other side of the office space, right where I started and to tell them that I needed Open Records. Now it felt like I was dealing with a city service. I had gotten to Point B and they couldn’t help me and so I had to go back to Point A. Whereas if the officer at Point A had asked me if I wanted the public report or the full report, I would have told him “full report” and then I would have gotten to go to Open Records to begin with.
I have pretty good patience most of the time, but mercifully there were only a couple of other people there asking for reports.
Back at the front desk, I told the officer that I needed Open Records. Instead of directing me to the 21st floor as I expected, he pointed me to a row of chairs against a wall and said that he would call them and someone would come down.
I sat and waited for just a few minutes before a nice middle-aged man came from the elevator bank and sat down next to me. I showed him the redacted public report and told him that I wanted the full report.
He paused and stared at the report for a moment and from his body language I half expected him to say that he couldn’t help me. But he let is breath out and handed me a clipboard with another form. He told me what blanks to fill out. This form wanted a little more detailed information about Dad. There was even a check box to indicate that I already had the public form. There are apparently some rules about victim privacy, but I guess as his son I was able to submit the request for the full report.
The records clerk told me that I would get the full report in seven to ten days. He said that there would be an invoice along with the report as well as a payment envelope and that I could use to mail the payment back to them or that I could come downtown and pay it to them directly.
My business was done, but there was something else to do on my way out. The corner of the lobby has a small Houston Police Department Museum. The number of exhibits is small and somewhat haphazard. The highlight of the museum is the Wall of Honor memorial for fallen Houston police officers.
I finished my tour of the museum and exited back out through the security screening area. The officer there made a point of retrieving from me the stick-on visitor badge.
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