Each month, the Advocate visits with Sgt. Jim Little, Sr. Cpl. Rick Janich and Officers T.X. “Tri” Ngo and West Stout, who are stationed in one of the Dallas Police Department’s storefronts (670-5514). The storefronts are best-known for bicycle-patrol officers. During the upcoming months, the officers will discuss law enforcement topics related to everyday life in Dallas.

Advocate: I know that last month, we promised to talk about the correct procedure to deal with car wrecks. But think I should ask you about the Dallas Cowboys’ parade riot, shouldn’t I?

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Wes: I think we should talk about it, because people need to be aware of what happened down there.

Advocate: Well, what did happen? I know I saw a couple of you (Rick and Tri) on TV near a couple of altercations.

Rick: Our main assignment was to ride along with the parade. Once we cleared the parade detail, all of the bike elements were sent down to Commerce Street because the crowd had already swelled to block the street. They didn’t even have the barricades up yet – and it was 10:30 in the morning. That was the start of it.

I rode along with Michael Irvin’s car, and we rode until we couldn’t ride anymore, and then we walked alongside the car just to provide another buffer. That was about at Griffin Street near the McDonald’s.

When the crowd got so tight against the car that I couldn’t ride anymore, I gave my bike to a civilian volunteer, and we walked along with the car. But I’m telling you, Michael Irvin and his wife both took off their rings, their jewelry – – when you’ve got professional players showing fear in their eyes, that’s pretty scary.

People were throwing things into the car. There was even a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 – a full bottle, wrapped in a brown bag – tossed into the car.

Advocate: You mean, tossed in the air and landing in the car?

Rick: Yes. It was just lucky that no one was hit or injured.

Advocate: Where were you during all of this, Tri?

Tri: I was with Kenny Gant, a couple of cars behind Rick. Every time he did the “shark” (Gant’s trademark), the crowd surged to the car.

Rick: By the time we got to City Hall, we thought it was over. A few nicks and cuts, a few sore muscles from pushing through the crowd, that’s all. And then…

Wes: At City Hall, the total barrier that had been set up to keep the area secure was lost to the crowd because there weren’t enough officers there to push the crowd back.

Advocate: Is that why the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were dancing right up there behind the microphone on that little stage?

Wes: Yes. They were supposed to be in front of the stage, but there was no room.

Rick: I made one arrest up there at City Hall, a juvenile involved in a shoving match – one stepped back and threw a bottle at another juvenile, and I chased him down.

Advocate: Now, if I believe what I read in the paper and saw on TV, only 20 or 30 people were arrested, and this whole thing seemed pretty isolated and not that big of a deal? Is that correct?

Wes: Now, this needs to be noted: There were literally hundreds of offenses (crimes) committed down there that weren’t reported because while we were chasing down one party, the other party would disappear. So we didn’t have anyone to file a complaint.

Advocate: So, what you are saying is that this whole situation was a lot worse than what was portrayed in the media? (Editor’s note: None of the officers was willing to comment on the question.)

Advocate: Well, what happened next? When did things really start heating up?

Rick: All of the bike officers, probably 40 or 50, were sent to Griffin, and that’s where it all seemed to get started. We controlled the crowd and tried to arrest as many people as we could, dispersed the crowd as best we could.

I think one of the things that perpetuated the whole thing was that lot of people went there (to Griffin near the McDonald’s) to wait for the DART buses to take people home. After all, many of them had received a free ride Downtown from DART. But the buses couldn’t get through the traffic to take people home. And so there were too many people hanging around an area that has always been a problem, and then when a gun was fired (by someone in the crowd), the crowd started running, and then it really got interesting.

Wes: We had one officer who took a bottle to the head, but he was wearing a bicycle helmet. The bottle cracked the helmet, but he only ended up with some neck pain, nothing serious.

Rick: We had to really be alert for these things from the air and where-ever else. Things were coming at us from all directions.

Advocate: You guys must have been scared. I mean 250,000 or 400,000 or however many people were down there, things getting crazy, guns being fired, people running around – you must have been scared.

Rick: You didn’t have time to worry about that. We had to protect the people trying to get out of Downtown. But afterward, man, it was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever experienced.

Tri: That’s the hardest day I’ve ever worked in this City.

Wes: It was a lot of stress, and I wasn’t even down there.

Rick: We were stressed out, that’s for sure. You had to be down there to see the masses, to see what was going on. TV didn’t do justice to this.

Advocate: Now, I think it was the acting police chief who said that it wouldn’t have made any difference if 2,000 officers were Downtown for the parade – there still would have been trouble if some people in the crowd wanted to start trouble. What do you think about that?

Wes: Granted, if 200,000 people got angry, all kinds of officers wouldn’t have made a difference. And then, when it’s all over, to have a “committee” to investigate, I don’t know. People should be calling down to the City and letting them know what they think.

Advocate: What do you guys think the big problem was here?

Collective response: Organization and planning.

Advocate: That’s kind of my feeling from just reading the paper and watching TV. The other thing that concerns me is that as the number of problems being reported increased, so did the supposed number of people attending the rally, from about 200,000 to begin with to at least 400,000 – that’s the last number I heard. You talked about how people should be calling down to the City to complain – this whole thing seems so politicized, I don’t think people really believe anyone at the City cares what they think.

Wes: But it’s still important for people to register their opinion when something like this happens.

Advocate: To be honest, most of the people I know don’t think of this incident as a full-scale riot; it seemed more like a bunch of hooligans who would have been causing trouble somewhere in the City just happening to have an excuse to congregate Downtown. Now, if one of you officers had pulled a gun and shot someone, I bet we would have had a real riot, like the one in L.A. And that didn’t happen. To me, it’s amazing that with all of the pressure and excitement and activity going on, not a single cop shot anyone. It seem like it says a lot for the police force, at least for the officers in the street, that nothing like L.A. happened here during this incident.

Tri: I think we, the officers in the street did an excellent job, considering the position we were put in. We might have low morale, but we did a good job. All officers acted professionally.

Rick: We were just very lucky not to have any officers sustain any serious injury.

Advocate: Well, I hope there is a lesson in all of this, because this whole thing seems like a fender-bender rather than a head-on collision, so far. And with the World Cup coming up and all of the ongoing racial threats we keep hearing from some quarters, I’d have to consider this sort-of trial run for th future. It’s sad to say that, but it’s like you said, Wes, if we as citizens don’t start telling the people we’ve hired to run this City what we really think and what really needs to be done, things are going to get worse before they get better.