by Chris Bird | Author of Thank God I Had a Gun
Recently, I sold a couple of books to a fellow who lives a few blocks from me in San Antonio. When he came by to pick them up, he lent me a book that he said I would enjoy reading. The book was called The Gun That Wasn’t There by Russell S. Smith, retired police chief of San Angelo PD.
The book was the story of the hunt for a Mexican burglar who lived in caves and broke into homes and businesses in West Texas in the mid-1960s. This was at a time and a place when people seldom locked their doors and ranchers would often leave out food for Mexicans who came north looking for work and a better life.
That all changed after Alfredo Hernandez, the Cave Bandit, shot the postmaster, Pelham Bradford, 67, in the leg during a night-time robbery at Pumpville in 1965. The postmaster and his wife were asleep on the enclosed porch of their home close to the store they owned and ran. When Bradford got out of bed he walked towards Hernandez who was wearing a mask and holding a revolver. Hernandez fired twice, hitting Bradford once in the right leg. After Estella bandaged her husband’s leg, Hernandez forced her at gun point to open the store and give him the money that was on hand. He then drove off in their car.
Nothing was seen of Hernandez for several months but his handiwork was evident in a rash of burglaries around Dryden in Terrell County. West Texas counties tend to be large but sparsely populated and Terrell County is no exception. In area, it is larger than the state of Delaware but it contains less than 1,000 residents.
Early in November, a rancher sent Alfredo Gallegos and his brother to check on a flock of sheep. Alfredo knew the sheep used to frequent a cave on the ranch. When he reached the cave he found no sheep but there was some evidence – clothes and other possessions – that might have come from some of the burglaries. Gallegos knew about the burglaries and decided he needed to report what he had found.
Terrell County Sheriff Bill Cooksey wearing his gun in its usual place. Photo copyright San Angelo Standard-Times, San Angelo, TX. Reprinted with permission.
In 1965 the sheriff of Terrell County was Bill Cooksey who had been an officer in the state Highway Patrol before accepting the job in 1961. While working for the Texas Department of Public Safety at Waco in 1958, he put on firearms safety demonstrations that included some trick shooting. Author Smith who interviewed Cooksey for the book said he used a mirror to shoot at targets behind him.
“He was a guy who really knew how to use a pistol,” Smith said.
Cooksey was well liked and well respected in Terrell County. Normally he wore his uniform with his sheriff’s star and a heavy gunbelt which carried his large-frame Smith & Wesson revolver in .357 Magnum caliber on his right hip.
However, on Nov 4 he did not wear his uniform. His wife had recently given birth to a daughter so he was doing her mail route. On that day he wore jeans and instead of his usual .357 Magnum revolver, he tucked a small Browning semi-automatic pistol in .380 caliber in his belt back of where he normally carried his service Smith & Wesson.
After Cooksey had completed the mail route he stopped at a local restaurant where Gallegos was waiting for him. The sheriff asked the owner of the restaurant, Lewis Cash who spoke Spanish, to accompany them. Benny Ray Ross, a teenager who relayed Gallegos’ message to the sheriff and wanted to be a law enforcement officer, also went with them. Ross was armed with a .30-30 rifle.
Leaving their pickups some distance away, they approached the cave on foot. Gallegos saw some brush that had not been there in front of the entrance. He called in Spanish for the occupant to come out. After a few moments, Hernandez wriggled out of the cave and faced the trio with a wide grin on his face. Gallegos explained to him that Cooksey was the sheriff and that he would have to go with him. Hernandez started to walk away from the group. Thinking Hernandez was trying to escape, the sheriff followed him.
They had not gone more than 20 yards when Hernandez spun around to face the sheriff with a gun in his hand. The burglar fired twice hitting Cooksey in the leg and, as he fell, in the back.
“Lewis Cash was standing not too far away when the man whirled and the shots rang out. His mind had moved into what would later be described as slow motion and with each of the Bandit’s shots, he’d seen Bill Cooksey reach for the gun that wasn’t there. He’d distinctly seen the Sheriff slap (leather) on the outside of his right hip, the place where he regularly kept his revolver, while the small semi-auto pistol was in his waistband just inches away,” the book states.
This is a classic example of: under stress, you will do what you have practiced. For years, Cooksey had practiced on the range drawing his service revolver and shooting, always with the gun in the same place on his right hip. Under the stress of someone shooting at him, he tried to do what he had practiced but his usual gun was not in its usual place.
Anyone who carries a gun needs to remember this lesson. After Cooksey recovered from his ordeal he repeatedly told people in, or interested in, law enforcement: “Police officers should be both morally and ethically a cut above the norm; they should treat people as they would want to be treated; and, officers should wear their off-duty-gun where they carry their duty weapon, or, otherwise, they might reach for it someday and it might not be there.”
We, as civilian gun carriers, should adapt Cooksey’s words of wisdom to our own situations: always carry a gun where you legally can and always carry it in the same place.
Bill Cooksey is dead now but I hope his wisdom is not forgotten. And if you want to find out how Alfredo Hernandez was captured, the book is a good read. It is available through Amazon.com both in hard-copy and as an ebook.
