So @MichaelWard2022 's bedtime stories and the talk of Moko's arrest got me thinking about some of my police escapades from back in the day. I thought I'd share a story with y'all you might find interesting as it's football related. Only a few people know about this one because I could have been suspended for what I did (police rules violation) and didn't ever want to sully the player's name and take a chance of affecting his football career, as he was/is supposedly a pretty good dude. Since nearly 30 years have past, I think it's safe to tell y'all so here goes.
It's late December 1993 and I'm a five year patrol officer with the San Antonio Police Department on the patrol evening shift on the near north side of SA. If you know SA, my district was around the area of North Star Mall along Loop 410 and to the south. That night, I have a probationary rider fresh out of the training academy with me as his regular field training officer has taken off that night.
While on patrol at about 10:00 p.m., we get a dispatch call for a disturbance at a strip club on Loop 410 across from the mall. We get there pretty quickly and are met in the parking lot by the bouncers and other employees and a few "patrons" of the strip club. In short, we're told a monster of a human being and several of his buddies were thrown out of the club by the bouncers for being drunk and unruly. As the bouncers escorted him into the parking lot this "monster" doesn't get violent with them.....what he does instead is he walks over to a red midsize sedan parked near the club entrance and proceeds to take his frustrations out on the car's hood and front fenders. I mean he goes ape shit on it.....with his fists and elbows. It looks like someone took a sledge hammer to it. It's ****ed up.
Okay, so we quickly got the story on what happened and were immediately told this big car wrecking mother****er had fled the scene.....to the south across 10 lanes of freeway access road and expressway on a fairly busy night traffic-wise. I radio to the dispatcher a description, "white male, 6 foot 6 inches, 300 plus pounds last seen running south across the freeway toward the mall". A couple other officers were dispatched and my district partner, who is 5 foot 5 encounters the big guy walking near one of the parking garages at the mall. He draws down on him, and gets him on the ground and is waiting for backup. We were already on the way and we get there and help cuff him with two sets of handcuffs (he's cooperative....not resisting). We stand him up and came to the conclusion he was as advertised.....huge, intimidating-looking dude and he's not at all fat. He's obviously intoxicated.....apologizing, talking nonsense, upset, etc. I sit him kind of longways in the back of my Chevy Caprice police cruiser (he ain't fitting in it like normal, no way).
About that time, a couple of cars show up to where we were and several guys who look in their younger 20s park nearby looking really stressed and confused. One guy somewhat older gets out of the drivers seat of one of the cars and approaches me and introduces himself. He's the strength and conditioning coach with the California Golden Bears, one of the teams playing in the Alamo Bowl the following night. He proceeds to tell me I have one of his players in the back of my patrol car and he was the the one involved in the "disturbance" at the club across the highway.
At that point, I'm still assessing what I have, but it's obvious....I have a Felony Criminal Mischief as the damage to the car is probably a couple of thousand of dollars at least (threshold for a 3rd degree felony was $1,500-$20,000 then). I have multiple witnesses, a positive ID on the suspect in custody, a car owner who is pissed, and a short time lapse from the crime. Boom....easy felony arrest report. Right?
So here's the good part.....the coach gets in my ear about the guy in the back of my patrol car. He goes on to tell me I have all-American, award winning offensive lineman Todd Steussie under arrest (had never heard of him before that moment, but the 5 foot 5 officer I mentioned earlier had). He says Mr. Steussie is playing in the Alamo Bowl the next night and goes on to say he's projected to go in the first round of the upcoming NFL draft. He says he's a great kid and just f'ed up.....and it's partly his own fault. Says a felony arrest will ruin his college and potentially his pro career and adds he himself was responsible for his players and will likely lose his job if Steussie is arrested and this gets out in the news. In my mind, I'm like "ahh, f***, a moral dilemma....this is f***ing great". So I go to the back of the car and have a little conversation with Steussie. He's sincerely scared, he's apologetic, he's respectful, etc....he genuinely seems like a good kid who just ****ed up, and importantly, no one got hurt.
So I come up with the bright idea that I'm going see what I can do to keep this all American NFL first round prospect from going to jail.....for a ****ing felony. In the meantime, this rookie officer with me doesn't need to see any of this, so I send him back to the substation with another officer as it's the end of the shift and I'm sure he needed to get home to his girlfriend. I tell the coach I'm going to go talk to the car owner to see how he felt about things. I tell the car owner the truth about the player and who he was. It wasn't a nice car, but he's pissed. I see an opening to ask him what he thought about being compensated for the damage to his car in lieu of an arrest. He seems open to it, and I ask him what it would take if the player could come up with the money that night...IIRC, he came up with amount of ~$3,000 to make things right, which was likely well more than in his favor even if he repaired the car. I go back to the coach and tell him the news....he needs to come up with a pretty good chunk of cash and quick like. I broker the deal and put the coach with car owner. Coach and the group of players in the cars scramble to come up with the cash visiting several nearby ATMs and digging in their pockets. It takes another hour, but the car owner gets his cash and is now happy. I take the handcuffs off of Mr. Steussie, shake his big ass hand and tell him to stay out of trouble, and release him to coach. I write the report as a "disturbance/damage to property" with pretty vague details. Steussie played well in the Alamo Bowl the next night and goes on to be drafted #19 in the 1994 NFL draft. No one ever said a thing and I never heard anything else about it. It was risky for me personally, but I felt like I had a chance to have a positive effect on a dude's life. Worked out pretty well.
It's late December 1993 and I'm a five year patrol officer with the San Antonio Police Department on the patrol evening shift on the near north side of SA. If you know SA, my district was around the area of North Star Mall along Loop 410 and to the south. That night, I have a probationary rider fresh out of the training academy with me as his regular field training officer has taken off that night.
While on patrol at about 10:00 p.m., we get a dispatch call for a disturbance at a strip club on Loop 410 across from the mall. We get there pretty quickly and are met in the parking lot by the bouncers and other employees and a few "patrons" of the strip club. In short, we're told a monster of a human being and several of his buddies were thrown out of the club by the bouncers for being drunk and unruly. As the bouncers escorted him into the parking lot this "monster" doesn't get violent with them.....what he does instead is he walks over to a red midsize sedan parked near the club entrance and proceeds to take his frustrations out on the car's hood and front fenders. I mean he goes ape shit on it.....with his fists and elbows. It looks like someone took a sledge hammer to it. It's ****ed up.
Okay, so we quickly got the story on what happened and were immediately told this big car wrecking mother****er had fled the scene.....to the south across 10 lanes of freeway access road and expressway on a fairly busy night traffic-wise. I radio to the dispatcher a description, "white male, 6 foot 6 inches, 300 plus pounds last seen running south across the freeway toward the mall". A couple other officers were dispatched and my district partner, who is 5 foot 5 encounters the big guy walking near one of the parking garages at the mall. He draws down on him, and gets him on the ground and is waiting for backup. We were already on the way and we get there and help cuff him with two sets of handcuffs (he's cooperative....not resisting). We stand him up and came to the conclusion he was as advertised.....huge, intimidating-looking dude and he's not at all fat. He's obviously intoxicated.....apologizing, talking nonsense, upset, etc. I sit him kind of longways in the back of my Chevy Caprice police cruiser (he ain't fitting in it like normal, no way).
About that time, a couple of cars show up to where we were and several guys who look in their younger 20s park nearby looking really stressed and confused. One guy somewhat older gets out of the drivers seat of one of the cars and approaches me and introduces himself. He's the strength and conditioning coach with the California Golden Bears, one of the teams playing in the Alamo Bowl the following night. He proceeds to tell me I have one of his players in the back of my patrol car and he was the the one involved in the "disturbance" at the club across the highway.
At that point, I'm still assessing what I have, but it's obvious....I have a Felony Criminal Mischief as the damage to the car is probably a couple of thousand of dollars at least (threshold for a 3rd degree felony was $1,500-$20,000 then). I have multiple witnesses, a positive ID on the suspect in custody, a car owner who is pissed, and a short time lapse from the crime. Boom....easy felony arrest report. Right?
So here's the good part.....the coach gets in my ear about the guy in the back of my patrol car. He goes on to tell me I have all-American, award winning offensive lineman Todd Steussie under arrest (had never heard of him before that moment, but the 5 foot 5 officer I mentioned earlier had). He says Mr. Steussie is playing in the Alamo Bowl the next night and goes on to say he's projected to go in the first round of the upcoming NFL draft. He says he's a great kid and just f'ed up.....and it's partly his own fault. Says a felony arrest will ruin his college and potentially his pro career and adds he himself was responsible for his players and will likely lose his job if Steussie is arrested and this gets out in the news. In my mind, I'm like "ahh, f***, a moral dilemma....this is f***ing great". So I go to the back of the car and have a little conversation with Steussie. He's sincerely scared, he's apologetic, he's respectful, etc....he genuinely seems like a good kid who just ****ed up, and importantly, no one got hurt.
So I come up with the bright idea that I'm going see what I can do to keep this all American NFL first round prospect from going to jail.....for a ****ing felony. In the meantime, this rookie officer with me doesn't need to see any of this, so I send him back to the substation with another officer as it's the end of the shift and I'm sure he needed to get home to his girlfriend. I tell the coach I'm going to go talk to the car owner to see how he felt about things. I tell the car owner the truth about the player and who he was. It wasn't a nice car, but he's pissed. I see an opening to ask him what he thought about being compensated for the damage to his car in lieu of an arrest. He seems open to it, and I ask him what it would take if the player could come up with the money that night...IIRC, he came up with amount of ~$3,000 to make things right, which was likely well more than in his favor even if he repaired the car. I go back to the coach and tell him the news....he needs to come up with a pretty good chunk of cash and quick like. I broker the deal and put the coach with car owner. Coach and the group of players in the cars scramble to come up with the cash visiting several nearby ATMs and digging in their pockets. It takes another hour, but the car owner gets his cash and is now happy. I take the handcuffs off of Mr. Steussie, shake his big ass hand and tell him to stay out of trouble, and release him to coach. I write the report as a "disturbance/damage to property" with pretty vague details. Steussie played well in the Alamo Bowl the next night and goes on to be drafted #19 in the 1994 NFL draft. No one ever said a thing and I never heard anything else about it. It was risky for me personally, but I felt like I had a chance to have a positive effect on a dude's life. Worked out pretty well.
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