It was a sunny May afternoon in Mount Pleasant, Texas. I had been in town less than a month after taking a job as the sports editor of the newspaper there. My family hadn’t yet joined me, as my wife is a schoolteacher and was finishing out her contract.
I first heard it on a radio report: “In Henderson County, three sheriff’s department deputies have been wounded in a shootout. Two are confirmed dead ...”
It was as unreal as anything in my life has ever been.
I wondered if they had said “Henderson,” like the city, rather than my home county. I wondered if I had heard right at all, and maybe the man on the radio said “Harrison County” or “Houston County” — not that I would have wanted to see it happen in those places, either.
Then I started wondering who in the world had been killed. Which of those deputies or investigators who I spoke with so many times in my days as a police beat reporter was it?
It was all too real.
The lives of Paul Habelt and Tony Ogburn were cut down that day, far too soon. The suspect, Randall Wayne Mays, goes on trial for his own life beginning Monday.
And once again, things are starting to seem strange again. Strange in a “did this really happen” way.
Ogburn and Habelt were as good as gold. I had spoken to both from time to time. Habelt always had a tough type of demeanor, but he was always amiable. He was the kind of cop we deal with often in the newspaper business — the kind who says, “I know you have a job to do, and I’ll deal with you as long as you deal with me fairly.”
I know several people in his immediate family. Two of his stepchildren graduated from the same high school I did. One worked with us here at the Review for a time.
My experience with Ogburn was a little more close. I covered Henderson County courts for several years as a reporter here, and from time to time we would carry on conversations about his duties as a transport deputy for the sheriff’s department. I also spoke with him one night by telephone about his experience attending the March on Washington, D.C., in 1963. He was a member of the National Guard dispatched to the event.
Ogburn spoke like a poet at times as he described the scene that humid day in the nation’s capital.
“Sticky, sweating when you go to the shower, sweating when you get out,” he said of the day.
I remember trying to work out a time when I could catch him for an interview, and being frustrated that the only time we could do it was at night. But as I sat in the newsroom on the telephone that night, I remember that the time passed so fast. He spoke with such passion.
Their deaths — and let’s not forget the shooting of a third deputy, Kevin Harris, who survived — were a horrible reminder of what peace officers deal with on a daily basis. When they leave the house, they know they may never go home — even if most of them probably never give it a second thought.
All the while, they are probably second-guessed and criticized more often than any other group with the exception of politicians. It’s not an easy gig by any stretch of the imagination.
A gag order instituted by 392nd District Judge Carter Tarrance has kept many officers from speaking publicly about how they feel about the whole incident. Tarrance is doing everything he can to make sure Mays gets a fair trial in Henderson County.
But a number of officers have called to find out how they can keep up with the trial on a daily basis. Those officers, and so many more, know Mays deserves his day in court even as the hate in some of their hearts tells them they would prefer a more swift brand of justice in the style that was handed to their brothers in service.
They’ll be watching closely. And they’ll be asking themselves and their fellow officers the same question:
What happens to someone who shoots a cop in Henderson County?
Jayson Larson is editor of the Athens Review.
Opinion
JAYSON LARSON: Police will be watching trial closely
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