Word on the street was that “Baby Huey” was looking for me and he was going to kick my butt. I had arrested Huey the night before for public intoxication. When he bonded out that morning, he let it be known that he was going to retaliate for me throwing him in jail.
Huey was a Vietnam veteran and like many, he had come back from ‘Nam with serious PTSD issues. He was a big guy, well over 6’ tall and 220#. I was shorter and lighter. If it came to a fight, I was going to lose.
After I had checked on duty that afternoon, I spotted Huey coming out of a convenience store. He saw me, too, and motioned me to pull into the parking lot. I figured I might as well get it over with. I pulled into the parking lot.
“Hi, Huey, what’s up?” I asked as I got out of the squad car.
“You the cop who threw me in jail last night?” he asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “That was me.”
“Why? What did I do?” he asked.
He had a puzzled look on his face. I asked him what he remembered of the previous night and he said he remembered absolutely nothing, only that he had woken up in jail this morning.
So I told Huey how I had responded to a disturbance call at Frank’s Lounge late the previous evening. Once the situation there was resolved, I was on my way back to my squad car when Huey approached me from the dark side of the parking lot. He demanded to know what was going on. I told him nothing, everything was fine. Angry, Huey demanded again to know what was going on. When I told him to just go home, he started to rear back as if to strike me with his right fist.
Huey was drunk and it was a simple task to quickly shove his right shoulder as he was pulling his arm back to strike. That simple action set him spinning and down he went. I landed on top of him and put on the handcuffs, then took him to jail for public intoxication. I knew Huey had Vietnam induced PTSD and I didn’t want to arrest him, but at that point I deemed him to be of danger to himself or others.
So that afternoon after I had explained what had happened, Huey’s response was, “Boy, was I a dumb shit!” We shook hands and departed as friends. That was the only time I had to arrest Huey. He was a decent guy who was fighting his own demons and deserved better than he had got.