Read Online Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir by Gary Taylor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gary Taylor
Tags: Suspense, Crime, Mystery, Suicide, Lawyers, True Crime, legal thriller, Texas, Law, Murder, Memoir, Women, Noir, Mental Illness, Dallas, Journalism, stalkers, Houston, femme fatale
Ads: Link
that
the well-publicized scandals of plagiarism and fictionalized copy
at major news institutions in recent years were sparked primarily
by opportunistic whistle-blowing peers rather than any quality
control system designed by management. I watched journalism's
version of this natural selection process unfold in its basic state
during the 1970s at The
Post .
In the tradition of all the night
police beat reporters before me, I spent much of my time that first
year plotting a plan to escape it. Although the beat offered many
moments of excitement, night police overall resembled fireman's
duty that involved hours of waiting for something to happen. But
night police ranked as the standard first stop for new reporters,
forcing them to learn about the city by rapidly driving its streets
and testing their ability to get facts straight. I learned quickly
that success in this business springs not from talent as a writer
but from credibility as a reporter. The writing part of journalism
is less than 20 percent of the job. If a story is compared with a
journey, reporting is the selection of the destination and the
mapping for the trip. Writing is just the vehicle used to go there.
You may be driving a Porsche, but, if your destination is just a
McDonald's, you're still only eating fast food.
Over the next few
years I worked a variety of beats at The
Post that kept me outside the newsroom
itself. I covered county government and civil courts, working from
the press room at the civil courts building downtown. I also
created a state prison beat on a part-time basis, convincing
editors to let me spend one day each week looking for stories in
Huntsville, seventy miles north of Houston, where the Texas
Department of Corrections had its headquarters and primary unit
known affectionately as "The Walls." I also worked general
assignment for a while, just hanging out at the city desk and
taking any stories that might come along. Eventually I nabbed one
of the glamour beats, assuming the criminal courts mantle in
1977.
During those years between police
and courts, I developed a reputation as a trustworthy reporter who
could handle a wide range of stories, from the serious to the
silly. One of my major assignments began the night of July 24,
1974, when a south Texas drug lord named Fred Carrasco seized
control of the Walls prison unit in Huntsville. Aided by henchmen
Rudy Dominguez and Ignacio Cuevas, he grabbed eighty hostages using
pistols smuggled inside a ham. Taking refuge in the prison library,
they whittled their hostage roster down to a more manageable eleven
that included the system's chaplain, educators and some other
inmates. Aware that Carrasco was reputed to have murdered more than
a hundred persons running a drug empire along the border, prison
officials prepared for the worst and began negotiating a solution
to what would become, at eleven days, the longest prison hostage
siege in US history.
The national press quickly joined
us locals at the TDC headquarters in Huntsville, covering the
grounds around the stately, dark bricks of The Walls like some
invading army. Various news organizations pitched tents on the
grassy prison grounds for use as shelter while waiting for the
standoff to play out. The duty involved hours of monotony broken by
two or three daily briefings that allowed the prison staff to share
their latest exchanges with the inmates.
Our mood turned somber and serious on the
Saturday evening of August 3 as we sensed something set to happen.
Word spread through the press corps that a vehicle of some sort had
been moved into the unit, and we waited silently for a showdown. We
would learn later that prison officials had teamed with the
legendary Texas Rangers and hatched a plan to offer the inmates
transportation out aboard an armored car. As the inmates and their
hostages moved from the library to the car, lawmen hoped to knock
them down with high pressure water hoses and avoid a
bloodbath.
But Carrasco feared a
the well-publicized scandals of plagiarism and fictionalized copy
at major news institutions in recent years were sparked primarily
by opportunistic whistle-blowing peers rather than any quality
control system designed by management. I watched journalism's
version of this natural selection process unfold in its basic state
during the 1970s at The
Post .
In the tradition of all the night
police beat reporters before me, I spent much of my time that first
year plotting a plan to escape it. Although the beat offered many
moments of excitement, night police overall resembled fireman's
duty that involved hours of waiting for something to happen. But
night police ranked as the standard first stop for new reporters,
forcing them to learn about the city by rapidly driving its streets
and testing their ability to get facts straight. I learned quickly
that success in this business springs not from talent as a writer
but from credibility as a reporter. The writing part of journalism
is less than 20 percent of the job. If a story is compared with a
journey, reporting is the selection of the destination and the
mapping for the trip. Writing is just the vehicle used to go there.
You may be driving a Porsche, but, if your destination is just a
McDonald's, you're still only eating fast food.
Over the next few
years I worked a variety of beats at The
Post that kept me outside the newsroom
itself. I covered county government and civil courts, working from
the press room at the civil courts building downtown. I also
created a state prison beat on a part-time basis, convincing
editors to let me spend one day each week looking for stories in
Huntsville, seventy miles north of Houston, where the Texas
Department of Corrections had its headquarters and primary unit
known affectionately as "The Walls." I also worked general
assignment for a while, just hanging out at the city desk and
taking any stories that might come along. Eventually I nabbed one
of the glamour beats, assuming the criminal courts mantle in
1977.
During those years between police
and courts, I developed a reputation as a trustworthy reporter who
could handle a wide range of stories, from the serious to the
silly. One of my major assignments began the night of July 24,
1974, when a south Texas drug lord named Fred Carrasco seized
control of the Walls prison unit in Huntsville. Aided by henchmen
Rudy Dominguez and Ignacio Cuevas, he grabbed eighty hostages using
pistols smuggled inside a ham. Taking refuge in the prison library,
they whittled their hostage roster down to a more manageable eleven
that included the system's chaplain, educators and some other
inmates. Aware that Carrasco was reputed to have murdered more than
a hundred persons running a drug empire along the border, prison
officials prepared for the worst and began negotiating a solution
to what would become, at eleven days, the longest prison hostage
siege in US history.
The national press quickly joined
us locals at the TDC headquarters in Huntsville, covering the
grounds around the stately, dark bricks of The Walls like some
invading army. Various news organizations pitched tents on the
grassy prison grounds for use as shelter while waiting for the
standoff to play out. The duty involved hours of monotony broken by
two or three daily briefings that allowed the prison staff to share
their latest exchanges with the inmates.
Our mood turned somber and serious on the
Saturday evening of August 3 as we sensed something set to happen.
Word spread through the press corps that a vehicle of some sort had
been moved into the unit, and we waited silently for a showdown. We
would learn later that prison officials had teamed with the
legendary Texas Rangers and hatched a plan to offer the inmates
transportation out aboard an armored car. As the inmates and their
hostages moved from the library to the car, lawmen hoped to knock
them down with high pressure water hoses and avoid a
bloodbath.
But Carrasco feared a
Similar Books
