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What Police Work is Really Like: Hannibalette Edition

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By Chris Hernandez

So there I was, minding my own business, ordering breakfast with a few other officers. It was 6:30 a.m. on a school day. Our shift had just started, all was quiet. Then the radio came to life. Fatal accident. On a quiet residential street. Less than two miles from where we stood. We ditched our orders and headed to our cars. As we left the parking lot, I wondered, How do you have a fatal accident on a street with a 30 mph speed limit? Did someone run over a kid or something? About twenty seconds later, the dispatcher piped up again. It wasn’t an accident. It was a shooting . . .

We punched it. A minute later we turned the corner onto the street. An old car with doors thrown open was awkwardly parked in the street near a fire truck. Half a block away, a young man stood next to a firefighter. We drove to them.

The young man was shaking in terror and covered in blood. He spoke only Spanish and the firefighter couldn’t understand him. I asked him what happened and he yelled, “She’s in her house! Over there!”

At that point, I had to make a decision. Should I believe anything he said? After all, he could be the murderer himself. But he looked literally almost scared to death. I went with my gut and listened to him.

He pointed down the street. I told him to show me, and we jogged toward a house. As we passed the old car, I glimpsed a shattered body lying in the back seat. Blood covered all the windows. The shaking young man gave me a description of the suspect. Hispanic female, 40ish, short and dumpy, armed with a pistol. She had shot the young man’s friend in the head as they sat together in his back seat.

He pointed out the house and backed off. Officers surrounded the house. My partner, who had almost 20 years on the street, pointed at me and said, “Good luck, brother. God bless.” For some reason, I’ve never forgotten that moment.

My partner and I pounded on the door and stood to the side with weapons drawn. I was nervous. This wasn’t the first murderer I had pursued, but it was the first one I had pursued rights after they killed someone. I didn’t know if she would answer with a gun, shoot at us through the door, or what.

A teenage boy opened the door. I asked him if any women were in the house.

“Just my mom,” he said.

“Where is she?”

“She’s in her bedroom.” He pointed down the hall, just as a short, dumpy Hispanic woman in her 40’s walked into view. We ordered her out of the house. She came outside with a confident look on her face. We handcuffed her. Her dress was clean, but her bare feet were covered with blood.

I walked her to my patrol car. She didn’t say a word. I opened the back door and turned her toward me to sit her down. And then I saw something I had never seen before, and haven’t seen since. The sight froze me for a moment.

A small piece of brain, about the size of my pinky nail, was in her hair, just above the center of her forehead. Everything else was clean, but this piece of brain was clearly visible. I had seen brain matter before several times in shootings, accidents and on a bridge-jumper scene. There was no question about what it was.

I stopped putting her in the back seat and called other officers over. Several crowded around. We stared in amazement at the piece of brain, and one officer took photos for evidence. The woman looked at us in confusion. She didn’t speak English or understand what we said, but apparently she figured out something significant was on her head.

I put her in the back seat and went to the old car in the street. The man in the back seat wasn’t just dead, he was more like. . . destroyed. He had been shot three times in the head with a .357 at close range. For those who think bullets always make a clean little hole going in and a clean little hole going out, I hope you never see what they actually do. The car’s entire interior was covered with blood and tissue.

The terrified friend of the victim told us the story. People who watch CSI and other stupid “cop” shows might think murders are committed by criminal masterminds with a plan that is just barely foiled by astute investigators. If this doesn’t show you how convoluted and stupid murders and murderers can really be, nothing can convince you.

The survivor and his friend had met the woman at a bar the night before. They went back to her house and stayed up all night drinking and snorting cocaine. It was a good time all around.

But sometime in the morning, one of the men (aka “the victim”) finally made a sexual advance on the woman. She got angry and said no. The victim called her a bitch. She said, “Oh yeah? Well I got something for you, wait here.” She went to her bedroom and came back loading a .357 revolver.

At this point the survivor, who on the relative scale stands out as a genius, jumped up, said “I don’t want any part of this” and walked outside to his car. The victim followed a minute later. As soon as the victim got into the front passenger seat, the woman ran outside and jumped into the back seat of the car. Her hand and a large object shaped suspiciously like a .357 revolver were under her t-shirt.

She told the victim, “You’re a coward. If you were a real man, you’d sit back here next to me.”

Of course, the victim had to prove he was a real man. So he said, “Bitch, I’m not afraid of you!” and got in the back seat. The woman told the survivor, “Take me to my friend’s house down the street.”

So our survivor knows he’s got a pissed off, drunk, cocaine-ravaged woman with a pistol under her shirt sitting directly behind him. What does he do? He follows her orders and drives down the street. And remember, of the three people in the car, he’s the genius.

The survivor drove away from the house. Parents were standing at the curb with their children, waiting for the school bus. The woman continued insulting the victim. “You’re a queer, you’re a coward. I should have killed you.”

The victim’s famous last words, no doubt spoken in a confident, masculine manner, were, “Bitch, if you’re going to kill me, just f**king kill me!”

The woman pulled the pistol from under her shirt, put it to the victim’s head, and fired until it was empty. Her first three rounds shattered the victim’s skull. The recoil made her hand rise, and she put the last three through the car’s roof. The woman did this just as they were passing the school bus.

Blood splattered on the car’s windows. The survivor screamed, slammed on the brakes and turned around. The woman pointed the empty pistol at him. He scrambled from the car and ran. The woman got out, covered in gore, stuck the pistol under her shirt and walked home.

Neighbors who were outside with their children saw her drenched in blood, but didn’t know exactly what had happened. They asked her if they should call an ambulance. She answered, “I don’t give a damn, call whoever you want,” and walked into her house.

Someone did call 911 to report. . . an accident. The neighbors heard gunshots. They saw a terrified, blood-covered young man flee from the car. They saw their neighbor walk back to her house covered in blood and who knew what else, with something under her shirt, acting strangely. But they reported an accident, not a shooting. It wasn’t until a fire truck arrived that anyone knew it was a murder.

In my experience, when good people who aren’t used to violence see horrible violence, they don’t believe what they’re seeing. They think it has to be something else. I once arrived on a scene where a bank robber and police officer had just fired over thirty rounds at each other in the street in front of expensive townhomes. Two witnesses told us, “I didn’t think it was real. I thought someone was filming a movie or something.”

So, back to the arrest. After the piece of brain was photographed and I put the woman in the back seat, one of our sergeants talked to her and got her ID info. She was an illegal alien from Central America. The sergeant asked her, “Why’d you kill that guy?”

Her answer was, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t kill that guy. I’ve killed people before, but I didn’t kill that guy.”

At that point I finally got it. Short, dumpy, way older, drunk, high on coke, and a murderer? I mean, what guy could pass that up in a bar?

A little while later the homicide investigators showed up. I told them about the piece of brain in the woman’s hair. An investigator said, “Oh man, I gotta see this.”

I took him to the car and let the woman out. She was smiling. I looked above her forehead. The piece of brain was gone. I looked on her hair and face, turned her around, checked her all over. No piece of brain. I leaned into the back seat and searched for it. No brain. My partner tore out the entire back seat. No brain.

I’m pretty sure she ate it. We never found it. Whatever she did with it, she was real proud of herself.

She went to jail. Later that week, we found out the woman actually posted bail. The judge knew she was illegal, knew she would jet right back across the border, and still set her bail at only $30,000. I didn’t expect to ever see her again.

Months later her trial came up. I figured I was wasting my time going since she wouldn’t show up, but I went anyway. To my amazement, she was there.

The first day of the trial went baaaaaddd for her. The jury saw brutal crime scene photos. They heard the survivor’s testimony. They saw a picture of the woman with the piece of brain in her hair, and heard me testify that it was there when we put her in the back seat but then disappeared. They must have had the same suspicion I did about what happened to that piece of brain. I don’t even know what the woman’s defense was, other than “I didn’t do it.” When we were released for the day, I thought, This woman is screwed for sure.

As I left the courthouse I saw the woman. She was at a bus stop with her daughter, staring at me. I shook my head and walked to my car. There was no way she would show up the next day. It would be insane for her to come back.

The next day she came back. And was convicted of murder. And sentenced to life in prison.

I don’t know what shocked me more: the murder, the cannibalism or her appearance in court. Either way, I’m glad I helped put her away. And I’ll never forget her.

That was one hardcore, dangerous woman.

This post originally appeared at chrishernandezauthor.com and is reprinted here with permission. Chris is an active law enforcement officer in Texas who splits his time between military and police work. He’s also the author of Proof of Our Resolve.

0 thoughts on “What Police Work is Really Like: Hannibalette Edition”

  1. ‘How do you have a fatal accident on a street with a 30 mph speed limit? Did someone run over a kid or something?’ Was it a cop rushing out to a call about a fatal accident that caused the fatal accident?

    Reply
    • In my 20+ years of working at public schools we had students killed and maimed, ranging from kindergartners to high schoolers by vehicles mostly in school zones where 25 was the top speed. I saw a utility truck kill an elderly woman at a crosswalk and I’ll bet the driver of the truck wasn’t doing 20 mph. And because the speed limit is posted at 25 doesn’t mean they aren’t going faster.

      At my sons school in West Virginia a girl slipped on ice and fell under the rear wheels of a bus as it was pulling away from a compleat stop. She was killed instantly.

      Vehicles and people don’t mix.

      Reply
  2. Good reason to round up all illegals and send them back to their home countries. But no, lets give them a pathway to citizenship instead. Who ever said crime doesn’t pay wasn’t thinking of illegal immigrants that’s for sure..

    Reply
    • They’d be back within a month or two. If you’re, say, in MEXICO illegally, they’ll throw you in the slammer for a couple YEARS. If you don’t have a money line like druglords, you’re pooch is screwed for sure.

      But I wanted to ask everyone a question. Please do respond:

      Some of the people in this cop’s story did not speak any English. If you, theoretically, were relocation to, say, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Mauritania or whatever, would you go there expecting to never learn the native language?

      Because it’s this imposed sense of entitlement – coming to America and never intending to learn English – that I find deeply disturbing.

      Reply
  3. While I’ve never had a negative experience with a police officer (I don’t count 2 traffic tickets in 35 years), I’ve read of those who have…usually on left-leaning message boards, but sometime on right-leaning ones as well. Are there “bad cops” who routinely abuse people’s rights? Sure…how could there not be, human nature being what it is? Still, I think the overwhelming majority of police officers are just the opposite…”good cops” who routinely see humanity at its worst, and then have to deal with the public at large.

    Chris, thank you for your service, both here and abroad.

    Reply
  4. I would find information like this useful for congresspeople who are going to be up for election soon. Maybe do some more like this for them? I would also be interested in lists detailing decidely pro gun actions by them.

    Reply
  5. I weigh 230 pounds and I cannot take the recoil of my Nova, period. Neither does my wife. That alone absolutely kills the idea of shotgun for home defence. I met a few people who are recoil-resistant and they Just Don’t Get It. At best they think it’s a matter of technique.

    Also, we live in a 1-story where we must clear door in all reasonable scenarios. My home defence gun is much shorter and this helps. I suppose if I were impervious to recoil, like the author evidently is, then I could have a good look at Kel-Tec KSG. But alas.

    Reply
  6. The underlying LIES of these “negotiations” & the aspect that makes my blood boil even more is in that little phrase ” Senate aides say”. In our “modern” political system, MUCH if not MOST of negotiating is done by AIDES; non-elected gophers w/an agenda all their own. It’s why we get 2000+ page bills that no one has read or has to read “after they sign it”. There is an illusion here that these treasonous Congressmen are all encamped in a room hammering out their collusion, when in fact, they are sitting in their easy chairs sipping their adult beverage of choice while plotting the next Trillion $$$ they want to borrow from China to pay for it. And, ANY & ALL that collude w/Schumer & Feinstein are guilty of treason against the Constitution. Yeah, that would be YOU, John McCain & the rest of these “elected Representatives”.

    Reply
    • ACtually, most of these elected representatives are out running around raising money for their next election cycle. That’s why so many miss so many votes. It’s ridiculous when these guys spend much if not most of their time running for reelection and not doing the job they were elected to do.

      Reply
  7. 11am Sunday – Democrats say “close to a deal on Universal Checks”
    1pm Sunday – Coburn says “no deal”

    i would think that Coburn’s team isn’t even discussing Univ BG checks, and the democrats who leaked the info were just playing the game.

    “I don’t think we are that close to a deal,” Coburn said on “Fox News Sunday.” “There absolutely will not be recordkeeping on legitimate, law abiding gun owners in this country.” he said. “And if they want to eliminate the benefits of actually trying to prevent the sales to people who are mentally ill and to criminals, all they have to do is create a record keeping. And that will kill this bill.”

    Unless they don’t get it either.

    Reply
  8. This woman always seems to cut through the blizzard of BS to lay out the facts and flay out the BS artists. Excellent video as usual. Someone I could vote for.

    Reply
  9. Reading that entire story almost made me forget how it started. Most of us have to eat breakfast before we go to work. We don’t get paid to eat breakfast at the start of our shift.

    Okay, yes, I’m being a wise@$$. I know being a cop is a shit job. Some get paid damn well for it and retire early enough to have an even more lucrative second career, but it’s still a shit job. Everybody you meet all day, every day is someone who is having a bad day. Sometimes, it’s the worst day of their life.

    Reply
  10. That is very funny if it was intentional. And even more funny if it was a happy accident. Reminds me of an episode of The Rifleman titled “The Anvil Chorus”.

    Reply
  11. “What are you watching?”
    “None of your business. Now, am I being detained? No? Move along then and stop impeding my travel. Before you go, please give me your badge number and precinct number. Thanks. Bye.”

    Reply
  12. Ya know, I just had a really comical (to me) vision of a state capitol chamber where people could bring in all the DiFI no-nos. Can you imagine an elected official looking into the “peanut gallery” and seeing just the tips of a few RPGs, some Ma deuces set up by the people who were there early, grenade launchers, a few Barretts, not to mention a hundred or so scarey black guns of various caliber with their shoulder things flapping all over? Think they would be as inclined to to try their monkey shines then? But then again that’s what gun control is all about.

    Reply
  13. She hit the nail on the head. McCarthy isn’t getting the job done – not that it’s an easy job. In his dishonesty, he is deflecting attention from his failure using an emotional issue like gun control. He’s confusing legal gun ownership with the criminals and the gun violence they perpetuate, and the people of Chicago are lapping it up.

    Reply
  14. Its a big bad globalized world we live in. Why is it that Fords made in Mexico upsets no one, but if the US Military buys from a European firm something dastardly and un-patriotic has happened?

    Maybe Im just an ignorant whelp born in the late 80s, but I don’t get the vitriol.As long as FN makes a quality product for our boys and girls in uniform, who cares?

    Reply
  15. FN made the lower receiver’s to the M16a4’s I was using in the Marines. And of course they were the manufacturer’s of the M249, and the Gau-21 is also made by FN.

    Reply
  16. If Beretta makes a move to freindly grounds, I will go to the range and try out their 92. If I likes, I buy.

    Has Magpul officially announced they ARE moving or is it still unsure? If they are, where?

    Reply
  17. rating: ***

    why: Because with a grip strength of 200lbs in both hands it only took me a day to get used to the feel, and can effectively use it with one hand. But I see it not as a carry weapon but as a recreational or hunting handgun its far too bulky and powerful to use it for personal Defense mainly because you need to think of what’s behind what you’re shooting at. And at 40$ for a box of 20, use it sparingly, one shot should be enough. You also need to be built for a handgun of this caliber.

    Reply

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