Buford

In my last blog, I promised to tell some stories.

Because I am a member of the International Conference of Police Chaplains and am included on their disaster response team, I was invited to go to Gulfport following Hurricane Katrina to work with police officers there. One of the officers I had the opportunity to get acquainted with was Aaron Fore.

In Aaron I saw a very sharp contrast in responses. Although the wind topped 100 miles an hour, it was the 35 foot tall wall of water that did most of the damage in Gulfport. Aaron told me that at his house the water was 29 feet deep. There were 13 feet of water on top of his house. He and his wife lost everything.

Aaron worked long shifts every day for weeks. In the days immediately following the hurricane, he and his fellow officers worked bravely to stop looters.

Dealing with looters, in the aftermath of a hurricane, when there is no electrical power, is not simple. Aaron told me he began carrying the H&K MP5 assault rifle the department issued him every time he got out of his car. He found he got a lot more respect when Buford was with him.

He told me the story about naming his rifle. He said he was spending a lot more time with his rifle than he was with his wife, so he thought it ought to have a name. He chose the name in honor of the Sheriff in the movie Walking Tall. Buford T. Pusser got respect and so did his automatic rifle.

Several Gulfport officers told me they encountered people coming out of a Wal-Mart with food and diapers they had not paid for because although the store was not locked, there was no power and the registers did not work. The officers did not prevent those people from taking what they really needed to survive.

However, from the same store, they encountered people with shopping carts loaded with televisions, DVD players, cameras and other electronics. Those people went to jail.

In my next blog, I’ll tell about the report of a stolen car Aaron and I responded to.