The newspaper
advertisement read, “Weldco Welding and Fabrication needs welders.” They were located
in El Cajon, California adjacent to an airport known as Gillespie Field.
I arrived early for the interview then passed the welding test. The employees there were friendly to me. It was a good job.
Sometimes we did welding inside the shop sometimes outside on the production yard. Outside we could see
the airplanes coming in for touch and go landings. I loved to weld and I loved airplanes.
I had the best of two worlds.
When I first started a guy named Texas showed me around.
Texas was the forklift driver. When he worked he always wore tight jeans and a Cowboy hat. As I was driving into the parking
lot for work one morning I saw Texas. The trunk of his car was open and he was selling “T” shirts.
He saw me and suddenly closed the trunk. I figured okay, it’s private.
Bill and I became very good friends. He was a tall slender white guy, I liked him, he always had good jokes. We enjoyed working
outdoors together.
“Bill?” I asked. “Texas was in the parking lot.
It looked like he was selling ‘T’ shirts out of his trunk. He saw me and closed it.”
“Oh, you saw that huh? They were those KKK ‘T’ shirts that he sells for the, Ku Klux Klan,” He chuckled.
“There you go with the jokes again.”
“I’m not joking this time.”
“Naw! Texas is so friendly. He
gave me my orientation when I first got here. I asked him a bunch of questions and he seemed so eager to answer. He was truly
friendly.”
“Not truly, he puts on a good front. He really hates you.”
“Well, Texas is a redneck, dam. Thanks for that.” I was curious.
“What do they look like? The shirts.”
“Just
a big KKK across the front. Then he chuckled, “with bullet holes is the back.” He looked at me. “I’m
just kidding about the bullet holes, but wearing a shirt like that in public ain’t healthy.”
I wondered how many others put on a front.
Bill started humming, he liked to sing
while he worked. He began singing a song he’d just made up. It was to the tune of the old, 1957 Marty Robbins hit,
A White Sports Coat (with a red carnation).
A white T shirt,
With bullet
holes,
In the back,
Dup, do wah,
I’ll all dressed up
For the klan.
Bill had great satire
too.
The wind was very strong that day. Bill and I were still out on the production
yard. I watched an airplane coming in for a landing. Unlike a car driving into a driveway, the nose of the airplane was not
pointed at the runway.
He’s gonna crash,” I yelled.
“It’s a crab angle,” he said.
“A what?”
“Crab angle. Pilots have to do that in the presence of crosswinds.”
“I’ve
never seen that.”
“I’ll show you after work.”
“We’ll I can see it right here,”
“No, from the front seat of
the airplane, I’m a private pilot.”
“Really? You fly Bill? Yes, yes
I wanna go!” I told him.
After three flights with Bill I was hooked. I enrolled into
a flight school called, Golden State Flying Club.
Each day after work, I’d take flying lessons
or ground school. On November 19, 1977 I realized a dream that I had all my life. On that date I acquired
my private pilot’s license.
While out on a motorcycle ride
I made a left turn on 4th and Broadway. Suddenly I heard a police siren.
“Oh no not again,” I stopped my motorcycle at the east curb of 4th Avenue. A San Diego Police Officer stopped behind me. He drove a four year old white 1975 Ford Torino. The police car was
all white with a bubblegum machine on top flashing red and blue. I faced straight ahead and peered into my rear view mirror.
A black police officer of average height and weight got out. He was dressed in a tan uniform with a shiny breast badge and
no patch insignias. He walked towards me.
“Driver’s license and registration
please?”
I thought to myself, I’m sure I wasn’t speeding but, he’s gonna
say I was, so I’ll just shut up. But I just couldn’t. I handed him the paperwork.
“Sure officer, I do something wrong?”
The officer opened his ticket book.
“You made a left turn in violation of the, ‘no left turn sign,’ see it there?” he asked.
I turned to look and saw the sign plain as day. “I’m sorry officer, just last week I got
a speeding ticket. That officer seemed like he was in such a rush to write. When I tried to explain he just cut me off not
allowing me to say anything.”
“Tickets hurt you. You need to slow down and pay attention
to the road signs,” said the officer.
Those words sounded a lot like my mom, Doris
would say.
“Sign here,” he said.
Hell, he’s
written me a ticket. He did the same thing the other cops did. I put on a frown and quickly scratched my name down on the
citation.
“Drive safely,” he said as he tore me off a copy, then he was gone.
I just sat there on my bike brooding, in malaise of myself. Had I been paying attention this never would
have happened. I looked at the cite. The bold letters at the top read, “TRAFFIC WARNING.” I
breathed a sigh of relief. I looked at where the officer signed his name. It read, “A. Buggs.” I whispered to
myself thank-you for the warning Officer Buggs, wherever you are.
This was the very first
time I had ever been stopped by a police officer that cut me some slack. After my last ticket I thought to myself, is there
not even a handful of police officers that can be allowed to have just a residue of compassion? An officer that can do the
job professionally and still treat people the way he would want to be treated, someone that would listen to people first?
Then in walks Officer A. Buggs.
Although I was talking about Officer Buggs, subconsciously I was
also talking to the man in the mirror. I never sped again.
At that time in history San
Diego Police Officers weren’t being paid what I was accustomed to getting as a welder. I wasn’t sure whether a
cut in pay was in my best interests.
Because of Officer Archie Buggs, I had the interest. I applied and
started at the San Diego Police Reserve Academy. The reserves are a volunteer auxiliary arm of the police department. Out
of a class of over eighty recruits, I found that Ted and I were the only black students there.
One of the predominantly white recruits in our academy class was George. He was in his late 30’s to early 40’s
and had retired from the military. He asked the academy instructor a question one day that I thought had racial overtones.
“Why is it always blacks committing crimes?”
I wondered how a person as worldly as
George could ask such a nonsensical question as that. He knows or should know that criminals come from every walk of life
and in all races.
Weeks later I drove to class and parked in the lot. I was there when
George drove in. I noticed that George had a screw on, screw off CB radio antenna on his truck. Because my CB antennas had
been unscrewed and stolen from me I asked.
“George, do you leave your antenna
unprotected like that?”
“Yeah, why?”
“They’re
easy to steal, I had a few stolen.” He looked at his antenna and asked,
“And you need one?”
I felt affronted. His remark seemed to imply that I would steal his
antenna.
“Mine’s in the trunk,” I told him, and walked to class wondering
if this guy was a redneck.
On September 14, 1978 I finished the academy and became a San Diego
Police Reserve Police Officer.
Still green I arrived for patrol one evening. Forces beyond my control
had me working with George that night. It was about midshift, and we had just finished transporting two prisoners to jail.
We got the call of an officer involved shooting and were reassigned. Our duties were to patrol the area of 5800 to 8500 Skyline
drive. Communications put out the description and advised that the suspects had just shot a police officer; they may still
be in the area.
We drove directly to the 7100 block of Skyline Drive.
“I gotta stop at the scene of this shooting, I wanna know what happened,” said George.
“We
both wanna know,” I told him. It was November 4, 1978. I stepped out of
the passenger’s side of the police car. George got out on the driver’s side. There was a chill in the night air.
A fur like material lined the lapels of my tuffy jacket. I lifted them high to cover my ears. My hands were cold, I placed
them deep inside my jacket pockets to keep them warm. The first officers at the scene had roped off the area with plastic
tape bearing the words, “Police Lines Do Not Cross.” George and I lifted it above our heads and walked directly
into the crime scene.
We stood there and saw Archie Buggs, my inspiration. He was there
dead in the street at the curb, shot six times. My hands fell to my sides, I wasn’t cold anymore. George’s eyes
got misty.
“They told me he was shot to death making a traffic stop,” he said.
Buggs was wearing the same uniform we had on. I was slapped in the face with the realization that we
were all brothers and sisters. As it has with so many of us, human frailty had its way. I looked at George, he and I wiped
ours eyes, it’s not easy watching a grown man cry, I looked away.
I was pissed,
I was so damn mad I wanted to scream. Buggs was my motivation and I never got a chance to thank him in person, he inspired
me. I wanted to get to know him, perhaps work with him, be his friend. I wanted to, “be like Buggs.” George and
I patrolled the area looking for his killers.
Another officer located the car that
was used in the crime. The mother of the suspects owned the vehicle. Buggs’s two assailants were members of a street
gang. Both of them were later taken into custody, their ages were 17 and 18. They were found guilty and incarcerated. Archie
had a huge funeral and was laid to rest.
What I did next I was compelled to do. I
went back to the police academy and on July 30th 1980 I finished the 98th regular police academy.
Now after over thirty years of public service, I can tell you that this exciting roller coaster ride
of adventure, intrigue and investigation after investigation was more than rewarding. As I pass the finish line my only hope
is that during my tour of duty, I had occasion to inspire someone as Buggs did me.
