Curbchek, page 15
I yelled at the booking officers and told them to open the holding cell. I went inside and yelled at Joe.
As I entered the cell yelling at him, he pulled his head out of the disgusting muck in the toilet. Shit and chunks of vomit running down his face and in his teeth mouth and nose.
I said what the hell are you doing?
He turned and looked at me and said, “I was thirsty!”
This was by far one of the most amazingly disgusting things I had ever witnessed.
The correctional officers came in and hosed him off and I finished booking him into jail. Amazed at his behavior, it is shocking at what tweekers are capable of doing after a couple of weeks without sleep.
Chapter 36
Beginning of the End
It was at 2251 Cottonwood. I will always remember that address. I was talking to a gang leader named Oso. I’d gotten close enough to the group that I could stand out on the front lawn with the homies on late summer nights, picking up intel and talking shit.
A truck came rolling by slowly. Two guys were inside, rivals of Oso’s. There were kids standing around, so who thought they’d try anything with little kids running all over?
Juan Laredo and Roberto Quintana were in the truck. Everybody knew them and what gangs they claimed. They both knew me and saw that I was there. They drove past, looked at me - then Roberto hung out the window and shot; he was aiming at Oso’s three-year-old daughter, and she dropped right in front of me. For a moment, everything stopped. I had a wicked adrenaline dump and dark shadows on the edges of my vision. I saw Oso’s little girl drop and start screaming; she’d been shot. Then the truck sped away, and I started to chase it.
As I jumped into my car to chase the truck, I called for paramedics. It was a worthless little unmarked car, and they were losing me, then they’d slow down to see if I were still coming.
A few blocks further, and they slowed down even more. I yelled at them to get out and fight; I was going to kill them both.
They must have realized I was no longer in my right mind because they sped up at this point, hitting speeds over 100 mph. I did finally catch up with them, along with the others involved in the chase - but my car was the first to connect up. It was a new guy and me, and I wanted to kill them, seriously shoot them both with no questions asked. Street justice.
I’d never lost it like that - before or since. They’d purposefully shot a baby girl right in front of me, and I wanted blood - but I got none. I was in a rage I could barely control, and Sgt. Duke stayed with me until I could stop raging and screaming...it took a while.
The child survived, and I helped convict them, even though another officer handled the case since I was technically one of the listed victims; they could have easily hit me as well.
I was never the same after that, and I realized that I had to get off the streets then. Something snapped deep inside of me, and it wasn’t long afterward that I was out of law enforcement.
Just after the incident, a fellow officer stopped me in the hallway. Because of our mutual dislike for one another, we’d rarely spoken before, but now my new friend said, “You are so damn lucky. You got to be involved in a drive-by and caught the guys. What was that like?” The stupidity never ceased to amaze me. I said, “Fuck off” and walked away; it wasn’t a gift to see a small child shot in front of you.
These days, I’m sometimes thankful that I didn’t kill the two gangsters. It took years to realize that I made the right decision in not killing them and to forgive myself for not executing them on the spot. As they sat in their car, drunk, and stared at me and smiled – I was almost dared to do it.
If you liked Curbchek, check back for StreetCreds. Zach returns with more accounts of cases tackled in the Gang Task Force. StreetCreds will be publishing soon with even more intense behind-the-scenes accounts of gang violence, stabbings, ambush shootings, and drive-bys. Zach is pushed to the edge, fighting the inner city’s gang problem.
Zach Fortier, Curbchek
