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COPYRIGHT 2006 Publishers' Development Corporation
Situation: You shoot a mass murderer and cop-killer. Instead of a medal, the System reaches for knives to skin you alive.
Lesson: Investigators and prosecutors sometimes jump to conclusions. That doesn't mean you should take the plea they offer, if you haven't committed a crime.
Friday, March 3, 2006. There is a Glock 17 with Plus-2 magazine and 20 127-grain +P+ Winchester 9mm JHPs in an LFI Concealment Rig under my suitcoat as I step off the witness stand, get on the elevator, and walk out of the Otero County Courthouse and into the warm, late afternoon sun of Alamogordo, New Mexico. I don't usually have a gun on in court outside my own jurisdiction, but this isn't the usual case.
Traffic has been diverted by barricades and patrol cars for a block in every direction around the courthouse. There are uniformed deputies and city cops everywhere, and the New Mexico State Police are very much in evidence, from uniformed personnel armed with Glock .357s on the sidewalks to SWAT personnel with M4s slung in front of their body armor, and snipers on the roofs. The media will report that up to 60 cops are guarding this place from the national prison gang, many of whose members are out and about, which has taken out a contract on the man upstairs in the courtroom.
His sentencing has just ended. The gang, I realize bitterly, doesn't need to run this gauntlet of righteous cops to get to him anymore. The judge has just sentenced him to go for a year to where the prison gang lives, and I find myself wondering for God knows how many times how such a clean shooting could ever have come to this.
Background
December 18, 2004. Billy Anders, 61, has been a cop for more than 30 years. He spent most of his career on the tough streets of San Antonio, Texas, where he rose to the rank of Captain and at one time commanded the SWAT team. He retired to the Alamogordo, New Mexico area, where he joined the Otero County Sheriff's Office. Quickly rising to the rank of Sergeant, he has learned he likes working in the mountains the best. Remote from backup, the "mountain deputies" have to be resourceful.
Today, he's sick as a dog with the flu, but refuses to stay home from work. If he does, his best friend Bob Hedman will be the only deputy on patrol, without backup. That's why Billy's at work now, on a bitterly cold late afternoon that's already winter-dark and turning into early evening, when he gets the call about gunfire on the mountain, in a tiny community known as Cloudcroft.
That's not unusual in itself, but this call is "argument, screams and gunfire," and that's different. He and Bob roll separately, Billy gunning his patrol pickup to the limit. They vector in on where the sound was reported, checking out a couple of homes before they go to the last one that seems likely. Billy isn't wearing his armored vest or carrying backup, though both are in the car. A Colt Cobra .38 snub is tucked between his front seats. The Big Sky locking racks for the department-issue 12-gauge shotgun and Ruger Mini-14 .223 rifle haven't come in yet, so those guns are loose...
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