Original subtitles

[Jim B] In the 1970s, Houston's crime rate

was astronomical and getting higher.

[Male Reporter] More and more,

the murders committed here involve Hispanics.

They were being robbed. They were being shot and killed.

I don't think the department cared about what was happening.

A lot of the cases would sit there unsolved.

[José] Jim was the leader.

He had the idea to get Spanish-speaking officers.

[Raymond] "We'll start kind of a special squad."

Oh, that's a good idea.

[UP] They said it was gonna be for 90 days.

And they made it clear, if it doesn't work out,

everybody's going back to patrol.

[Jesús] This is really the first fully bilingual

Spanish-speaking detective squad in the country.

[Cecil] When we went out there, we talked to people.

We did whatever it took.

We were clearing cases, but we used to get no respect.

[UP] The other detectives said,

"What are these guys doing here?"

I got resistance.

But in only three months, they'd cleared 40 homicides.

That is phenomenal.

After the 90 days, we were there to stay.

[Cecil] I did it for the victims' families

because they were hurting.

I did it for them.

[Jim M] Once we got into the '80s,

a big change was coming in.

[police radio chatter]

[José] The Colombians started moving their drugs

here in Houston.

It all started kicking in.

When we walked into that crime scene...

it was a murder.

But this one here, it was different.

Not all homicides are the same. Trust me when I tell you that.

We had never faced things like this.

This was a new territory for us.

We knew what was going on in other parts of the country.

Everybody kind of got the sense that,

well, it's coming to Houston.

[Cecil] Things were gonna get bad.

Look, I'm gonna be honest with you...

I wasn't ready.

[upbeat, funky music]

[siren wailing]

[Cecil] In the early '80s,

the people started speaking to us a lot more.

They knew that we were out there to help them.

[José] People started coming around.

They started calling us.

They weren't looking at us as being the bad guys.

And that's what built the squad,

is when we got the-- the confidence of the people.

These people were really happy that we--

somebody was caring about them and caring about their cases.

And the media was pushing it at them.

I mean, back then, we'd get on the elevator.

Patrol officer says,

"Oh, there's the Chicano Squad series, man.

Y'all are on TV every day."

'Cause every day at six o'clock we were clearing the case

they were talking about.

'Cause we were knocking cases out left and right.

I didn't look at the clock. I had no clock.

I didn't start looking at the clock until my boy was born.

I said, "Look, he's my responsibility.

I'm always gonna be here for him."

In the '80's, these are all family men,

so now they have more to live for

and more to lose at this time.

So I met a policewoman, and I married her.

And she had four kids-- little ones--and I raised 'em.

[chuckles]

Being married to a policewoman made my life a little bit easier

'cause she understood, and we spoke the same language.

I was a single guy for quite a while.

I got married to my second wife, a wonderful lady.

I had two children.

And then she had two children from before.

So when we got married, we had an agreement--

you got yours, I got mine. We don't need any more.

Because I was working long hours,

14 hours a day sometimes.

I worked long hours, and it kept me away from my family.

I had four kids at the time with my wife.

But it was just a job I had to do.

These long hours did affect my personal life a lot.

By 1983, I was divorced from my first wife.

That was a bad time for me, so I married a second time.

I realized that I needed stability in my life

to do what I was doing.

[ominous music]

[Male Reporter] The statistics show a 14.8% increase

in the number of major crimes committed

during the first six months of this year.

[Phil] In the '80s,

the recession that the rest of the country

went through in the '70s came here.

Our economy went off a cliff.

When that kind of thing happens,

you're gonna have an uptick in crimes.

[Male Reporter] Twenty-three point three percent

more cases of rape reported

and a 34.8% increase in the number of homicides.

[siren chirping]

When you have 12 to 15 murders in one night,

you don't have enough people to go out there.

And at that time, we only had six guys in the squad.

We needed more officers.

I think we were overloaded.

[Cecil] We needed help, and we had to help each other.

And we worked and supported one another.

[José] It all comes down to all of us.

We were just hardworking. "Let's go get 'em."

And we then-- we felt a union.

If somebody was working something,

"Hey, what do you got?" "I got this one."

"Hey, let me help with that."

[police radio chatter]

I'd tell UP, "UP, can you help me out on this case?"

And nobody said no.

Cecil, Joe, Jimbo, nobody said no if I needed help.

It was just that trust among us.

We were like brothers.

We did everything together, which is probably uncommon.

We were a good group.

But right about that time, the city was changing.

It was the new era,

and I could see the changes, uh, that was coming.

[Jim M] We got a call at nighttime.

"Hey, we got a murder out here."

And that's how it all started.

[tense music]

A man is found dead,

lying in between the living room and the hallway.

[tense music]

[Jim M] Somebody had been killed,

and you need to find out who it is that got killed

and who did the killing and why.

[police radio chatter]

[Cat] When the Chicano Squad showed up to investigate,

potentially it was a routine homicide,

but as they came to find out, it was not routine at all.

And that introduces them to

a whole network of crime that they're unfamiliar with.

[UP] At the scene, we found cocaine.

We found some weapons there and some money.

This was drug-related.

It was nothing of fighting over a girlfriend

or nothing over drinking or a pool table.

It was just money involved.

We're trying to get this guy identified, who he is.

[determined music]

Bustamante was a drug dealer from Colombia.

Throughout the '80s, we saw an increase in

Colombian drug dealers coming on in

as front people, if you will, for the cartels

to push cocaine in the Houston area.

[Female Reporter] Miami Vice is now Houston Vice

as drug dealers leaving that city under police pressure

come to Houston bringing big business with them.

Access, uh, to the airports, the ship channel,

to the Mexican border.

Everything that Miami has, we have.

The Colombian drug dealers started moving their drugs

here in Houston.

Because they were Black, they moved into the Fifth Ward area,

Black community. And they could blend in.

They were ruthless 'cause they would shoot and kill people.

So they started muscling in.

They came in to New York,

then they migrated to Florida,

then they came to Houston.

There was no FBI rap sheets, no arrests raps,

and that's why they could blend in,

and we had nothing on 'em.

Anytime a Spanish-speaking case came in,

the Houston Police Department were gonna call us.

And they needed our help with cases out there

involving Colombians that were drug dealers.

And it was up to us to take action

to stop the Colombian cartels.

"We're gonna need you all to help.

We ain't got nobody speaking Spanish here."

[Cecil] They were coming here

and they were bringing their drugs in here.

There are dope deals going all crazy.

And I'm not talking about a little one or two.

I'm talking about heavy kilos of cocaine.

I was scared of them.

I heard that other cities were having

a lot of these cartel cases.

These guys were heavily armed with automatic weapons.

I even heard stories that they had grenades.

[José] The cartel, these guys were more dangerous.

They were a lot more ruthless,

and they were moving around quick. Move!

You know, they were moving.

[Cecil] We needed to keep protecting

the citizens of Houston.

War was coming.

[tense music]

[Cat] The murder of Albert Bustamante

brings the Chicano Squad into the world of

the Colombian drug traffickers in Houston.

[Cecil] That case was a whodunit.

It was unsolved, but I was determined.

It needed to be solved.

But nobody from the Colombian community

were talking to the police.

[José] We didn't have anything.

It was new to us because we had not handled them

and we had nothing on them.

That's what made it hard for us.

[Cat] Prior to this point,

the Chicano Squad was relying a lot on community policing,

people they know,

neighborhoods that they'd grown up in.

And when you take a larger syndicate of people

that don't have roots in these communities,

it gets a lot harder for them to investigate those crimes.

We needed more help. We needed informants.

[Raymond] Informants are... I don't trust 'em.

In my opinion, they're crooks too

'cause they're out there in the criminal field activity,

and they know what's going on. But you need them.

These informants will come forward

to buck off the other drug dealers.

We knew there's a kid out there, a detective,

who has got connections with the Colombians, Jaime Escalante.

We contacted Jaime, see if he'd be interested

to come into the Homicide division

to help work on these cases.

I had a long conversation with, uh, Escalante.

He had some good informants.

[Cecil] He knew how to work with these people.

And they trust him.

And these crooks--any crook-- they believe and trust.

They trusted Jaime .

[Cat] After they talked to some of their informants,

the Chicano Squad comes to find out about

an alleged young member of the Colombian cartel.

[John] Jones Valencia.

He came to the United States from Colombia up into Houston,

and he gained a reputation as a strong enforcer

in the Colombian gangs.

Cartel enforcers help the cartel impose the hold that they have

over the community

and the people that they're working with.

They intimidate witnesses. They carry out killings.

He had a nickname that was very interesting.

He was called "The Ghost."

[Jim M] Valencia, he was known as a hitman.

We kept hearing about this Ghost.

[UP] This was what I heard.

He had threatened some people and had kidnapped people,

and they knew that this guy had no remorse.

I remember they said, supposedly,

that he was an assassin?

[UP] An assassin, yeah.

That came here, an enforcer.

[Cat] So, Jones Valencia is believed to be

a particularly brutal member of the Colombian drug cartel.

It's through Jaime Escalante's informants

the Chicano Squad came to find out

what likely happened that night regarding the murder of

Albert Bustamante.

[John] Bustamante was a drug dealer,

and apparently he had a confederate, if you will,

a running buddy named Sanchez.

Willy Sanchez and Albert Bustamante

are at the home of a client.

At the same time, Valencia and his associates arrive.

[John] Their informant claimed

Valencia hit Mr. Sanchez with an Uzi.

[Cat] And he also alleged that Valencia stabs Sanchez,

and they force him into a car,

where they're going to take him back to his house and,

essentially, take his stash.

[John] The informant said that

Valencia was gonna kidnap Sanchez

in order to capture drugs and/or money.

When Bustamante realized that Sanchez was being kidnapped,

he ran back into the home,

and apparently, Jones Valencia ran into the house,

along with his associate Guzman,

and they shot and killed Bustamante.

[gunshots]

[John] Then they got back into the automobile with Sanchez,

drove to Sanchez's home,

and forced Sanchez to divulge

where the drugs were and where his house was.

[UP] We thought, oh man,

Jones Valencia decided to make a business,

say, hey, we know who the drug dealers are.

We rob 'em. We kill them,

'cause we don't want any witnesses,

or we don't want, us to be looking over our shoulders,

following us.

The drug dealers were killing drug dealers,

-that's what it was. -[UP] Yeah, that's what it is.

They were gonna rip each other off.

And the drug-dealing back then,

they didn't put their money in the bank.

They'd have apartments.

They stuffed their money in the apartment.

And if the other Colombians found out that there was money,

they would go rip 'em off.

[Cecil] The word was out that Valencia was out there

killing and ripping and killing and ripping and kidnapping and--

and the word was out.

But we didn't know where he was.

[tires screeching]

He could be in Dallas, he could be in Austin,

he could be anywhere.

[John] He was very elusive, and supposedly,

as many of the people that he ran with are,

Jones Valencia was engaged in the practice of Santería.

Which is a religion that has its roots in Africa and then,

through the slave trade, has a foothold in Latin America,

particularly Colombia.

Some of the Colombians and Dominicans believed in voodoo.

[Male Reporter] Roosters and chickens

are sacrificed to the spirit.

[Cat] There's a lot of reports

of officers going to crime scenes,

they're finding these ritualistic objects--

bones, feathers.

They see in some cases that

people's tongues have been bitten off.

That was something I had never seen.

They would have, right in the closet, a worship place.

A lotta candles. And they would--

sometimes they would use the name of some officer

they wanted dead.

They would put it on that.

[Cat] And as the Chicano Squad comes to find out,

the Colombian drug cartels that are in Houston at this time

are practicing Santería to kind of protect themselves

and evade capture from police.

Whenever these guys felt that there was danger,

they would go to the witch doctor.

They believed in it. They really believed that.

It was a very different type of organized crime

that they hadn't encountered.

The Chicano Squad had to hurry up

and figure out how the game worked.

But in the meantime,

the murders were just getting out of hand.

[Female Reporter] The murders are brutal, sensational,

and the ugliest side of drugs. Last night,

another couple is found dead,

execution victims stuffed in the trunk of a Mercedes-Benz.

The cartels, the Colombians,

and the increase of drug crimes and drug homicides,

it just exploded on the city.

[Female Reporter] Two men are found dead, shot at close range.

[José] These guys were using Uzis.

You'd get to a scene

and this guy's sprayed the wall with an Uzi

and you got, like, 50, 60 cartridges.

You'd say, whoa.

And they didn't discriminate.

I mean, they shot.

If you're standing there, they'd just sweep the place.

Innocent people got shot.

The city is in a downward spiral.

And here it is on these men

to try to put a plug in that downward spiral.

[John] Jones Valencia, The Ghost,

features prominently in this particular matter.

[UP] The big problem here is that

if you have a person that has nothing to lose--

he doesn't care--

and would just shoot you and kill you

and not think anything about it, that's serious,

scary, and dangerous.

[Cecil] We had to go out there and catch him.

Even once the members of the Chicano Squad have pinpointed

Valencia as their prime suspect

in the murder of Albert Bustamante,

it still proves very difficult for them

to actually apprehend him.

[Cecil] We were looking for a particular Colombian,

but nobody knew who he was.

He had aliases. He had all kinda names.

They might have used one name up there, a different name up here,

and once you got a hit on 'em,

we had, like, 10 different names.

And then on top of that,

because of the wealth that is coming in to the cartels,

they actually had a lot more resources

than the Chicano Squad.

Pagers, fax machines.

But we never gave up on them.

The Squad, we went after Valencia like nobody's business.

You throw me a body out there, I was gonna solve it.

But the Chicano Squad did not grow proportionate

to the volume of work that was taking place.

[Cecil] You didn't have a private life.

And there was times, even my daughter would say,

"Hey, we're gonna go to a movie."

And you didn't have a personal, private life.

I missed a lot.

I missed a lotta times with my wife, with my family.

You're not there for the holidays.

We were always on call.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's,

Father's Day, Mother's Day, somebody was always on call.

We kept asking why can't we get somebody else,

relieve the everyday call that we're getting.

We needed equipment.

We needed this. We needed that.

And they denied it.

[José] They said, "We don't have the money."

I thought it was an injustice.

[Cecil] O ne day, this lieutenant,

he calls me into the office.

A nd I'll never forget-- to this day, I remember that--

and he says, "Cecil?" I say, "Yes, sir."

"I saw you made a lotta money."

And a lot of it was overtime. I was working a lotta overtime.

He says, "You made X amount of money."

And I say, "Yes." I said, "I earned it."

He says, "You're not smart enough.

You're not educated enough to make this much money."

I said, "How can you say that, Lieutenant?

"You wanna look good, right, Lieutenant?

"We're making you look good. We're clearing cases.

Lieutenant, how can you say that?"

I said, "I'm here sacrificing my family, working overtime,

"staying late at night, calling out in the middle of the night,

"and they're sacrificing,

and you're telling me I'm not worth it?"

I said, "That's an insult, Lieutenant.

How can you say that?"

[Jim M] We wanted to stop the killings,

but the cases kept coming in.

[phone ringing]

We got a call about a baby crying,

that they had not seen the parents.

[sirens wailing] [baby crying]

[Cat] Chicano Squad report to the scene

of another brutal murder,

where it has a lot of the same hallmarks

of the Bustamante case.

[Jim M] Both the father and mother had been killed,

and the baby had been crying, you know, for the mama.

[Female Reporter] Tonight, friends are caring for

this baby girl.

Last night, her mother and her mother's common-law husband

were found murdered in the apartment they shared.

Thirty-year-old Fanny Olmedo Quinones

and Otoniel Caicedo were both shot in the head.

It's a bad scene. It's a real bad scene.

So all this time, this baby had been there in that apartment

while these-these-the mom and dad had been murdered.

Jim came over, he grabbed a towel, picked up the baby,

wrapped the baby up, took her downstairs.

Then, uh, they called child welfare,

and they came over and they took care of the baby,

took custody of the baby.

We talked to a lotta people that were there.

"Did y'all hear any gunfire at this apartment?

Did you have any idea who was here with them?"

[Female Reporter] The two, who are Colombian nationals,

were found lying on the bathroom floor.

Their apartment had been ransacked.

Detectives are now trying to figure out

why the couple was murdered.

[Cat] As the Chicano Squad comes to find out,

the husband, Otoniel,

has ties to the Colombian drug-trafficking trade,

and his wife was executed alongside him.

In this particular case, this, uh, group of people

were hijacking or robbing other Colombians

for their cocaine, jewelry, and money.

[Cat] And Escalante had spoken to his informants,

who firmly believed that this was

another Valencia-related murder.

[gunshots]

[baby crying]

[Cat] Now having two situations

that are both likely tied to Valencia

really escalates the situation.

And it ramps up the pressure incredibly on the Chicano Squad

to figure out what's going on.

[Female Reporter] Now it doesn't look like

there's any end in sight to Houston's

growing drug-trafficking problem.

As one officer put it, "We can no longer hold back the tide."

[Cat] Within the community of Houston,

this mounting violence that's going on,

it's creating the sense that no one really knows

who could be next.

[Female Reporter] Just last month in southeast Houston,

a three-year-old boy is killed

by a bullet intended for a suspected drug dealer.

I remember my father saying, you know,

"We have to get different type of weapons

because they have these types of weapons."

Or "New procedures are in place because now, you know,

"this is more organized crime

and each of the members is getting death threats."

They were not scared to shoot a police officer.

And matter of fact, one day the lieutenant calls us in,

and he says, "I just got information

"from Criminal Intelligence. They heard information.

They had a hit on you..."

Me and my partner.

And the lieutenant told us, "Be careful."

Money will buy whatever needs to be done.

They can afford a hit, I guess, if they wanted it.

They actually called me into IAD and said,

"Hey, you need to get up to date.

"This is what's going on.

"You're a target 'cause we've been listening to a wire,

and your name came up."

That was a threat that I had.

[Sergio] I remember one time my dad, he goes,

"I gotta tell you something important."

And I go, "Okay."

He goes, "Look, if anybody comes to the school

"asking for you or anywhere,

"if they do not say this word to you,

"you need to go find your teacher, principal, adult.

"Run, whatever.

"If they don't tell you this word,

you don't need to talk to 'em."

Hmm.

And he's like, "Do you understand me?"

I'm like, "Yeah, I understand you."

He's like, "No. No. Do you understand me?"

And that was the earliest memory of, like,

what my dad does is very serious and, you know,

you need to be aware of this.

[tense music]

[Cecil] After a while, we got information

that Valencia was at this location.

And I went out there in the Fifth area,

right there off of Jensen...

It was in broad daylight.

Lotta sun. Hot.

And I knocked on the door.

This lady shows up.

She's standing by the door.

And I remember looking into the doorway,

and it was dark in there. Dark!

I said, "Look, I'm looking for this information.

I'm trying to find out who this guy is."

I said, "You mind if I go in

and see if there's somebody in there?"

She said, "No, no, no."

[tense music]

[Cecil] I said, "You mind if I go in

and see if somebody in there?"

And she said, "No, I'm not gonna let you in.

I'm not gonna let you in."

I said, "Okay. So you don't know who he is?"

"I don't know anything."

Left it at that.

Go back in the office, doing my deal.

Two hours after I left her, she calls me.

[phone ringing]

[Cecil] She is crying. Literally crying.

I find out she was one of Escalante's informants.

Big informants.

And she said, "Mosqueda, I said I couldn't let you in.

"Valencia, he was in there.

"He was waiting for you to walk in.

"They were gonna kill you.

He wanted you to walk in."

The guy was in there.

[suspenseful music]

[Cecil] After the lady told me that,

I said, "We gotta get ahold of the guy.

"This guy's gonna wind up killing a police officer.

We gotta get him off the street."

Then we found out what happened in Sugar Land.

[John] The city of Sugar Land is about 20 miles

to the southwest of Houston's downtown area.

We'd like to think of ourselves as a sleepy community,

uh, both now and certainly then.

[Linda] I knew for a while that the cartels

were moving into our area,

but it didn't affect me, so I didn't pay much attention to it.

Ron was my brother.

He worked for the Sugar Land Police Department

in the patrol division,

and he had just made sergeant.

I was so proud of him.

It just never dawned on me

that anything could happen to him.

[tense music]

[John] In the early morning hours of July 4th of 1987,

Officer Ron Slockett was patrolling by himself.

It was customary for officers in Sugar Land

to patrol by themselves.

A nd he was going down 90A, which is a major thoroughfare

going into the city of Houston.

Two o'clock in the morning,

you know, all the bars have closed,

and Ron happened to see what he thought was a drunk driver.

That vehicle stopped.

And he called in the license plate number.

The vehicle that Officer Slockett pulled over

was a white Celica.

When Slockett pulled them over,

he exited his vehicle.

He had his sidearm on the ready.

Unfortunately, he was not wearing a bulletproof vest.

[Male Reporter] It was cold-blooded murder,

according to Sugar Land police.

Officer Ronald Slockett was shot five times by a motorist

he had stopped on a routine traffic check.

It hit home. It's one of our brothers.

A police officer.

As one officer puts it,

"When a policeman gets killed, we don't forget."

[Female Reporter] Sugar Land police are working overtime

to solve this case,

and officers say they won't rest

until they find the killer or killers

of Sergeant Ronald Slockett.

[Cecil] I remember the Sugar Land investigator

who was working on it was Investigator Lopez.

I knew him.

And all of a sudden, he was given an assignment,

because he spoke Spanish,

to work this case.

And Lopez came up here, and I saw him in the office,

and he was asking our captains that he needed help.

[suspenseful music]

When we got the heat was when Slockett--

Slockett got killed.

When they shot the officer.

Then it really got serious.

The pressure was on 'cause a police officer had been shot.

[José] Everything stops.

You're assigned to do background,

you're assigned to go there.

You shoot a police officer, we're coming after you.

Members of the Chicano Squad worked extra hard

and extraordinarily hard on this case.

And the efforts of the Chicano Squad

were fueled by their informant network in Houston.

It's an old-fashioned saying,

"When you're going to try the Devil,

you've gotta go to Hell to get your witnesses."

They got an account from a jailhouse snitch

by the name of Chamo.

[Cecil] We interviewed Chamo,

and he was feeding a lot of information to us.

He's a witness.

He admitted to the Chicano Squad

that he had seen the killing and he gave details.

According to Chamo,

Hugo Caicedo, Luis Rivera, and Jones Valencia

were the three in the white Celica.

Chamo had been promised ,

through the district attorney's office of Harris County,

where he had murder charges,

that if he testified and cooperated

with this investigation and case,

that he would receive a sweetheart deal.

According to Chamo, upon the stopping of the white Celica...

[uneasy music]

[John] ...Hugo Caicedo got out of the Celica

Caicedo had been driving,

and Luis Rivera, on the other side, exited.

The passenger got out, went around the back,

stood up behind him, and shot him.

[gunshots]

We know from the medical examiner's report

that Ron Slockett was hit seven times .

Some of these may have been ricochets,

but we know that two shots to the chest were fatal.

He was shot two other times in the chest,

as well as three times in the legs.

After the Slockett killing, according to Chamo,

Caicedo and Luis Rivera re-entered the vehicle

and Jones Valencia took over the driving of the vehicle.

[Female Reporter] Since the July 4th murder,

police have been looking for this white Toyota Celica.

A resident at the Fallbrook Apartments

called police early today to alert them

the car was sitting in the parking lot.

Meanwhile, police continue to look for these two men,

suspects in Slockett's murder.

They were last seen driving the rented car

stopped by Officer Slockett just before he was killed.

[John] Whatever reason as to why the shooting took place,

we have an account from friends of Rivera

that there was $750,000 worth of cocaine

in that white Celica. And yet another account

coming from a jailhouse snitch that

there was a body in the trunk of the Celica

that was being taken into the country for killing and burial,

and that Officer Slockett had heard that.

[unnerving music]

[gunshot]

In addition to the fact that these individuals

had arrest warrants out for them,

that they were for major offenses,

and that they did not wanna be taken.

And so supposedly, Rivera made the decision,

we're not gonna go back. We're not gonna get deported.

We're not gonna be convicted.

We're gonna remain out and about.

And the only way to ensure that was to kill Ron Slockett.

[Jim M] We got information from informants,

"Hey, Valencia's at this place.

You wanna find him, that's where he's at."

[Cat] Jim Montero heads north of Houston with a group of officers

to try and apprehend him.

At this point, Valencia's on the balcony of the apartment...

and sees that HPD has arrived.

Valencia ducks back into his apartment,

emerges again with two other people.

They flee the scene

and head into the woods behind the apartment complex.

[Jim M] Valencia jumped out into the woods.

I went on down and went out there.

We lost him. We couldn't find him.

[Male Reporter] The Houston SWAT team

swarmed over the wooded area

where at least one armed suspect was believed to be hiding.

The suspect and two others escaped

from homicide detectives.

[Jim M] Came back to the apartment where he was in,

and that's where we found the guns and money.

So we knew we were right on the right track.

[Cat] At that point, Montero and the other officers

try and use a K-9 unit to track down Valencia.

[Male Reporter] It wasn't until 1:00 AM this morning

that the first man was found in the wooded area.

About 15 minutes later,

the dogs flushed out a second man.

The third man, Jones Valencia, apparently made his getaway

by stealing a car from a nearby neighborhood.

Police are still looking for the third man.

[Cecil] Now we really wanna find this guy.

We gotta get him off the street.

Valencia had nothing to lose.

And whoever got in the way, he was gonna take 'em down.

[Male Reporter] Sergeant Slockett

was an eight-year veteran of

the Sugar Land Police Department.

This is the kind of incident night patrols fear the most.

When Ron got killed, I went into a very deep depression.

Even my children, they just didn't know what to do with me,

let alone my husband.

I walked around like a zombie.

And one of the things that scared me personally

is another police officer getting hurt or murdered

by these guys before they could get caught.

[Female Reporter] Jones Valencia is wanted in

a separate drug-related murder.

He is known as "The Ghost."

Some of his associates claimed he had the ability to disappear,

and as a result, he was feared by many in the drug business.

You know, all cases that we worked, you get 'em

and-and cases go cold.

But I think the people talking up voodoo,

and that's what made the whole thing,

"Oh, that guy disappeared!"

He didn't disappear. He outsmarted you.

Went out the back door.

And he was moving all the time

in different cars and everything else.

And that's what made him slippery.

Because we couldn't find him.

All of us were on pins and needles

waiting to see

if there was gonna be a solution to all of this.

[Cat] On September 2, 1987,

Escalante is led to Valencia's girlfriend.

And after interviewing her, she admitted to where--

she knew where he was at and gave that information.

Eventually she does give up the fact that

she had dropped off Valencia earlier

at the Chateaux Concord apartments,

and that's where he was staying.

Once Escalante finally receives this information

from Valencia's girlfriend,

this is a full-steam-ahead best chance

that they've had thus far

to finally apprehend Valencia.

[UP] Five AM in the morning,

SWAT got the information and gave the address

and told 'em to set up surveillance.

Our lieutenant said, "I need you and UP

to hurry up and get out to this location."

And away we went.

[tense music]

[Cat] Jim Montero and UP Hernandez

head to the Chateaux Concord apartments,

where Valencia's holed up.

[Jim M] We get there, and this time we got

SWAT people out there.

He has the reputation that he carries a gun

and he's willing to shoot, willing to kill.

And you know that he might be willing to kill you,

so you prepare for it.

You don't get afraid about that, yet it's always in your head.

"I might get shot someday."

It's an upstairs apartment, and you have so many windows,

and then you try to figure out

what the escape routes are for this guy.

You know he's gonna try to escape,

and you set up the routine--the perimeter--

to make sure that he won't get away.

SWAT had a phone thrown in there where they could talk to him.

They, uh, put a throw-phone through the window

and rang the phone for two and a half hours,

and he never picked it up.

They try to get him to come out.

Try to talk to him to get him out,

and he wouldn't respond.

So then the decision was made, just smoke him on out.

[suspenseful music]

Tear-gassed him out.

[suspenseful music]

He come out in his shorts, and the spirit was gone.

[speaking Spanish], it was gone.

We had him.

And I said, "That's it. We got him.

And let's take him in."

[Male Reporter] Dressed only in shorts,

26-year-old Jones Valencia was arrested this morning

after an intense two-month police manhunt.

Sergeant Jim Montero of the HPD Chicano Squad

took Valencia, a Colombian national, into custody.

He just wanted some clothing, he wanted to get washed up.

Uh, he wanted to take a spit out the door and that type of thing

'cause he was nervous and scared.

[Reporter] Was he talking in Spanish?

In Spanish.

[UP] They passed him over to us.

Me and Jim walked him to the patrol car,

sat him in the backseat, shut the door,

and stood there next to the car just to secure him.

It's a big surprise for everyone that he was in there.

It's very rewarding.

You don't have to chase this guy, you know, anymore.

[Mike] I remember us having the news on

and watching him be drug out of the apartment,

and the house was extremely--

it was like a big sigh of relief that, okay,

this guy is off the streets.

[Linda] It was pure elation.

At the time, you know,

I just cared that he was caught.

I was so happy.

[Man] Yes, from what I'm told, he does believe in

and practice voodoo rituals and, uh,

I was told that, uh, he even had voodoo dust on him today,

sprinkles on his neck and his back.

And it's to--

[Woman] For what?

I assume it was to ward off the Chicano Squad,

but, uh, it didn't work.

I didn't know a whole lot about the Chicano Squad,

but I had heard their name before,

and I didn't realize how essential they were

to finding Valencia at the time.

Guy was a threat, living over here all this time,

and the guy was right under our noses.

We didn't know anything about him.

He coulda harmed us, you know.

Not just me, everybody I the apartments.

[John] The Chicano Squad, I can't overemphasize their work

in this particular case

in not only capturing, uh, Jones Valencia,

but other individuals involved in this particular case.

They brought us Hugo Caicedo. They brought us Luis Rivera.

[Linda] I went to the hearing.

I'd seen Valencia's picture in the paper,

but it was really the first time I saw him in person.

And you know, you just don't believe

that you have that much anger inside of you, but you do.

It was determined by the district attorney at the time

that Caicedo and Valencia would not be prosecuted

because there wasn't credible evidence indicating

that they had participated in the killing of Ron Slockett.

It was almost like the night he was killed.

For the court system to let us down

and let Ron down that way,

it just, we were horrified by that fact.

And it was like I went back into that depression again.

[gentle music]

[Linda] So it took me a while to get over that.

It was very, very hard.

[tense music]

[John] We have no credible evidence

that Valencia was involved directly with the shooting

of Officer Slockett.

However, there still was the offenses in Harris County.

[gunshots]

[tense music]

[Female Reporter] Thirty-year-old

Fanny Olmedo Quinones

and Otoniel Caicedo were both shot in the head.

[tense music]

[baby crying]

[José] Somebody steals your car.

Insurance, you got a car within a couple months.

TV gets stolen, you can buy another TV.

But when they murder your family member,

that can never be replaced.

And that's what-- that's what's bad

about Homicide, you never win.

Homicide, you never win.

You always lose. You never win.

Even though you get the guy, you lost.

You lost a human life.

[Raymond] I was having a hard time handling the violence,

how people could hurt each other.

People getting beat up. Uh, stabbings, shootings.

One time I think I lost it,

it was a call that went out, a disturbance.

[sirens wailing]

[Raymond] We arrive at the scene.

I see this Black lady, she's got blood on her face,

and she's saying, "My child."

And there's this Black guy standing in the window with a--

I think a rifle.

He run to the back of the house, so I just followed in.

[sirens wailing] [police radio chatter]

[Raymond] Well, the officer was struggling

with the father in the back.

I could see blood behind the...

[taps knee]

I could see blood behind the sofa.

So I went and looked,

and I saw a baby maybe two years old,

maybe a year and a half.

Her head was crushed.

It was crushed, and it had wooden splinters.

I remember picking up the baby.

I walked outside and, uh...

And I just said...

I said, "Man, this is not for me.

And I'm gonna find me another job."

But for some reason...

I hate to say this, but I got used to it.

I said, "You know what? Maybe that's the way it is."

I was thinking about that case

when we got a call about another child.

On October 3, 1987, Joe and I had weekend duty.

So Joe and I thought, hey,

we're gonna have a quiet weekend.

But it didn't turn out that way.

[phone ringing]

[José] Juvenile call comes in. "Chicano Squad."

Pick up the phone.

I remember when Juvenile called and said,

"Hey, uh, we got a missing baby,"

uh, first thing I said, "Well, it's a juvenile baby.

Y'all work it."

And they said, "No, she's Spanish-speaking.

We have nobody to talk to her." I says, "Well, okay."

[Raymond] Once the Chicano Squad was known,

other agencies wanted our assistance.

So the patrol officer walks up and first thing he says,

"Hey, which one of you guys speak Mexican?"

[Raymond] So we talk to the mother,

and she was very upset.

Well, she should be 'cause her daughter's missing.

Don't know where she's at.

I just know I wanted to bring this baby home.

I didn't want this baby to be found dead.

[traffic]

[tense music]

It's gonna be up here somewheres, Raymond.

Okay.

Liliana, Liliana...there it is.

Okay. Okay. That's it.

Joe and I, we worked together as partners,

and we were considered good cop and bad cop.

Joe was more determined, more forceful,

get-in-your-face type of guy.

Raymond's a laid-back, cool guy, you know,

but he's a hard worker.

[Raymond] Joe was actually my best buddy in high school.

If you saw me, you saw Joe.

[José] Raymond joined the police department,

and when I came home from the Marines,

Raymond suggested I join.

And I remember telling him, I said,

"Raymond, I don't know if I can handle that."

And he says, "Yeah, sure you can, Joe."

He said, "You're not crazy."

I remember he said that to me.

[Raymond] With Joe, he's the one who trained me

when I joined the Chicano Squad.

I saw how he worked.

Joe was the best investigator, I would think,

on the Chicano Squad. In my opinion.

October 3, 1987...

There were no murders that weekend,

so Raymond and I said, "Hey, no murders."

And about that time, Juvenile call comes in.

"Chicano Squad." Pick up the phone.

And Juvenile said, "Hey, we got a Hispanic lady,

speaks nothing but Spanish. She's--baby's been kidnapped."

I said, "A kidnapping?" He said, "Yeah.

"But she speaks nothing but Spanish,

so we sent her up to you."

[Mariana] [speaking Spanish]

[Raymond] We asked 'em how old was their daughter.

"Fourteen months."

And that's when I looked at Raymond and said,

"Hey, we're gonna handle it; they're not gonna handle it."

So it became our case.

[Mariana] [speaking Spanish]

[Sergio R] [speaking Spanish]

[tense music]

[Mariana] [speaking Spanish]

[Sergio R] [speaking Spanish]

She was homeless and came in looking for help,

and they took her in out of kindness of their heart.

People say, "Why would you take a stranger?"

And we're talking about

Liliana's family were from Mexico,

and you and I know that they went through some hardship

when they got here.

So when they see some other Hispanic,

especially a woman, come knock on the door,

they took her in out of kindness.

[Sergio R] [speaking Spanish]

[Sergio R] [speaking Spanish]

[tires screeching]

[suspenseful music]

[Sergio R] [speaking Spanish]

[suspenseful music]

[tense music]

[José] So, when we talked to Ms. Reyes,

all she could tell us was that the young lady's was Aajdee,

and that she was from Mexico.

Then in those kind of cases, there's a time factor.

The longer it goes, the harder it is.

Every day, every minute that goes by,

there's a chance that we're not gonna find that baby alive.

[Male Reporter] It was the nightmare of every parent.

Sergio and Marina Reyes spent the day searching for

their 14-month-old daughter.

[José] You talk about desperation,

my thought back then was how are we gonna solve this case.

What do we do now?

Okay, well, let's contact Immigration.

Let's contact agencies, you know,

and let's put the word out.

[Raymond] We went back to the scene,

trying to canvass for witnesses

that might have seen Aajdee and the young baby,

but there was no luck.

Nobody saw anything.

[speaking Spanish]

[Male Reporter] She says,

"I'm going to be looking for my daughter tonight.

I'll never stop looking for her."

[speaking Spanish]

And the mother was calling almost every day, you know,

"Have you found my baby?"

She said, "What are you out doing?"

I tell you what, I remember Mom crying.

She wanted her baby, and I couldn't help thinking about

well, you know, you got kids, Raymond--

-Yeah. Exactly. -We gotta help this lady here.

Being a father...uh, that did come into play

'cause I could feel what this mama was thinking.

[Sergio] I think with the Liliana Reyes case,

I know it struck a chord with my dad.

I know he took it personally.

You know, not knowing what happened to your loved one,

like, the dignity involved in that.

[Marina] [speaking Spanish]

We tell Mrs. Reyes we're gonna find her baby.

We're gonna bring her back home.

[suspenseful music]

[Marina] [speaking Spanish]

[Raymond] We contacted a sketch artist,

and she drew a sketch of Aajdee,

the young lady that took the baby.

She was kinda short, maybe 5'2, maybe 112 pounds.

[Male Reporter] The woman suspected of snatching the child

is a transient.

The Reyes family took her in because she was hungry,

and they felt sorry for her.

And with those fliers, Joe and I went to truck stops.

We wanted to make sure to cover all avenues

of where she might have gone.

We knew the suspect was from Mexico,

but we didn't' wanna just put fliers south,

so we put fliers going east, west, north, and south.

[José] Remember we went out there canvassing

-all those places out there? -[Raymond] Yep.

And there was one lady that said

that Aajdee was carrying the baby like it was her own,

you know, and she thought it was kinda strange.

And that pretty much gave us an idea

that this lady might have been

maybe not-not mentally completely there

somewheres along the line.

[Raymond] There was a citizen who called this morning.

Uh, he read the paper this morning,

saw a Hispanic female--

a young, Hispanic female--

carrying an infant wrapped in a yellow blanket.

Mama told us the little baby had a birthmark on her leg.

And we had not put it out to the media.

[Raymond] Joe and I, we worked long hours.

You cannot take a break from it.

You gotta continue, continue, continue, continue.

I used to get migraine headaches.

I could not sleep at night. I was getting real bad.

All of that all kinda added, compressed into my head.

My head was always throbbing.

I'm always thinking, "What did I do wrong?

Is there something I missed?"

Too much things going through your head.

There was no psychiatrist, you know.

[Alfred] The work affected his family life,

and I believe that probably created

a little less time with his family,

less time with his wife.

My mother had four kids and one on the way,

so that's ironic that my dad's trying to go save this baby.

[Raymond] She was not happy,

but, you know, she's a good woman.

She-I can understand she was not happy.

[suspenseful music]

Maybe a week after we started putting the fliers out,

the call came in.

[José] There were some truck drivers

that had seen a lady hitchhiking with a baby.

We tracked down the truck drivers.

[Raymond] One truck driver said,

"Yeah, I picked up a lady with an infant

as I was going south, down the valley towards McAllen."

So we knew then, okay, that could be Aajdee.

[José] And that's when we realized

that she's going to Mexico.

We knew--I said, "Well, if she did go to Mexico,

we got no jurisdiction."

Joe made a call to the FBI,

indicating that an international abduction had happened.

The FBI said, "Sorry, can't help you.

"We don't have no Spanish-speaking agents here.

Y'all handle it."

And uh, we decided that we would put it out in the media.

Most of the time, we keep stuff away from the media

'cause sometimes the media will mess up a case.

This particular case, because the lead we had

that she was going to Mexico,

that's where we came up with the idea, put it out there.

We would put it into the Mexican station.

[news intro music]

[José] Telemundo sent it out.

[Raymond] The word got out to Mexico.

And somebody would call, saying, "I got information."

And the guy that we talked to said,

"This young lady showed up in Puebla, Mexico,"

which is about a thousand miles from Houston.

And she was a family member.

He was very concerned because she was not pregnant.

Now she comes with this baby, thinking it's hers.

The person who called had the phone number

to the mother of Aajdee.

So Joe talked to the mother.

[José] I said, "Okay, um...

[speaking Spanish]

So she started describing the baby.

She starts describing her.

So we asked,

And she said...

I said, boom. That is it. That is it.

-[Cecil] That's interesting. -Yeah.

'Cause nobody else knew about it.

You know, you hold stuff up from the media.

We're not gonna give it to you 'cause it may help us.

And that's what nailed it there.

She was a very nice lady,

but she was hurting as much as little Liliana's mother

'cause her story was...

The mother was very concerned about her daughter, Aajdee.

And I'm like, okay...

And right there it was like...

I don't wanna scare this lady 'cause we're just on the phone.

And we know that Mexico's not gonna extradite.

And see, that put pressure 'cause if this lady,

if she gets any intention we're gonna arrest the daughter,

-it's gone. -Yeah.

[José] She could be gone forever.

[Female Reporter] The suspect reportedly took the child

to her parents' home just outside of Mexico City

and told them the child was hers.

I talked to the suspect's mom.

[speaking Spanish]

I don't wanna scare this lady 'cause we're just on the phone.

I don't want this lady--click.

And I said...

And she started coming around.

What I remember most is I could relate to this lady

didn't want nothing to happen to her daughter,

and this lady wanted her daughter back.

And I was able to use that and say,

"Look, for the sakes of this lady who's got a baby,

and for the sakes of this lady,"

I said, "Can we work together?"

Mama did the right thing.

[Raymond] When we found the baby,

the mother, Marina Reyes, not only was she happy, I was happy.

I didn't wanna know about another dead baby.

So I was happy that, you know, that we found the baby alive.

We felt great. We felt great.

"Let's bring her home."

But the department did not send me to Mexico.

HPD, they said, "No, we're not gonna fund you for that money."

The department had said, "We don't have the resources.

You're not going down."

[Cecil] Basically, we were dealing with

a lotta Hispanic cases,

and I believe that wasn't important enough for them.

Chain of command says, "We don't have the money to do this."

We got this baby.

They're not gonna let us go get her.

And FBI had already told us they weren't gonna do it.

Juvenile didn't want it.

They had a pretty good idea where this baby was.

And you're ready to go get her,

and all of a sudden, hey, there's not a budget to do this.

So, like, all this is going on,

but Baby Jessica's all over the TV.

[tense music]

[Male Reporter] Jessica McClure has been trapped

20 feet below the ground for over 30 hours.

Rescue crews have been working frantically around the clock

to get to her.

I hope he breaks through on this one.

They had everything that they needed to dig a hole,

to find this child, to get her out of there.

[Male Reporter] Rescue workers drove through hard pan rock,

careful not to collapse the well she is in.

Help arrives from all around

to take part in this round-the-clock effort.

We have a child here too.

She's missing.

During that time, they had the Jessica

and had all the resources on this Jessica baby.

[José] That's what used to piss us off.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

But nobody wants to help out either because

she's from Mexico or she's a Mexican.

And Raymond and I said, "What about our baby?"

Yeah. Yeah.

[José] "What about our baby, man?"

[applause]

[cheers and applause]

[Sergio] Other babies were getting notoriety.

And this baby was just kinda like,

"Oh, that's just another one. Who cares?

She's probably in Mexico."

That wasn't good enough for my dad.

There was concern in my mind.

You have to act fast because

it could mean the difference between life and death.

'Cause we don't know the mentality of this young person.

So what are we gonna do?

Joe said, "We're gonna go to Mexico.

"I'm gonna find a way.

"The HPD cannot fund the transportation?

We're gonna find a way."

And he said, "Well, what are you gonna do now?"

"Call the media."

Joe contacted the news media for assistance.

But...only the mother goes and one of the investigators.

[Marina] [speaking Spanish]

[Male Reporter] For Marina Reyes,

the day started at five o'clock this morning.

Channel 2's Jan Carson came by to pick up Marina.

It was a kiss for her husband,

who stayed behind to take care of her other children,

and it was off to the airport.

Next was a ride to Intercontinental Airport

to catch a 7:30 flight to Mexico City.

Detective Joe Selvera with Houston Police Chicano Squad

was accompanying Jan and Mrs. Reyes.

So we're put in the plane, and we fly to Mexico City.

When we land in Mexico City, there was a agent.

The first thing that he said, "You carrying a gun?"

I said, "No."

He said, "You're not a police officer here."

I said, "Good."

He said, "You're not gonna arrest anybody here either."

I said, "That's fine with me.

We're just here to get the baby."

[Jan] In Mexico City, we went to the US Embassy

to learn how and when the reunion would take place.

We went to Puebla with the federal police.

There were two cars. We were in the backseat.

The car in front of us, and we followed 'em.

When we got there, they told us,

"Stay here. We're gonna go get the baby."

And I'm like, "Okay. We'll stay here.

You ladies stay."

I said to them, "They're gonna go get the baby."

The Puebla authorities have got the baby,

and the good feeling is that the baby is in custody

in some type of authority.

The baby had a little bit of cold.

Uh, she saw a doctor,

but the baby's doing well outside of that.

They went and got the baby and brought the baby back

'cause they didn't want us to meet the girl.

They brought the baby back.

The minute Mama saw the baby, "That's my baby."

I said, "We got it."

[Man] Just a little bit.

[heartwarming music]

[Marina] [speaking Spanish]

[Jan] How's she doing, Marina? She looks a little confused.

We believe in God, so I know that God is with me

because we tried to help the lady.

We are, um--and the Houston police helped me too much too,

so we are great to the-- all people in Houston.

[heartwarming music]

Picture about 10-12 tough-looking guys,

thick mustache, muscular,

some tough cops.

When the brought the baby in, handed it to the mama,

the baby started crying, mama started crying,

and I saw a lotta guys wipe their tears from their face.

It was emotional.

[Jan] Today the flight back to Houston was a happy contrast

to the trip down.

This time Marina's arms weren't empty,

and Liliana was a contented baby

held tightly in her mother's arms.

[heartwarming music]

[indistinct chatter]

[shutters clicking]

[heartwarming music]

[José] Thinking about Liliana's family,

it made me think about my family.

Before I had a family, I never looked at the clock.

When I got something, "Let's go."

When my son was born, I kinda like, "Oh, okay."

Like, started scaling back a little bit more.

And more about because what if something happens to me

and he won't see Daddy?

Here I am holding a life that I'm responsible for.

Mm-hm. Think you became a better cop?

[sighs]

I'm more careful about doing things.

I wouldn't say I was reckless,

but I used to go out and never look at the time,

never look at when I had to come home.

But now knowing that you were there,

it was great coming home to be able to hold you, you know.

Uh, I'd be dead tired, but by the time I'd be getting home,

you'd be waking up, and your mom would say,

-"Here, it's your turn." -[laughs]

[gentle music]

[José] The baby made it home.

And later on, because of the publicity,

it went all the way to the mayor's office.

They gave a proclamation to Raymond and I

for having the investigation--

bringing this baby back home.

And Raymond and I were honored with that deal.

[uneasy music]

I wonder now what happened to Liliana

'cause she's got to be a grown woman now.

Yeah.

[José] She-she's gotta be my boy's age now.

[Raymond] We need to see her, man.

I think we ought to surprise her.

[José] I'd love to go see her.

[knocking on door]

[gentle music]

[knocking on door]

-Hello! -Hi, how are you doing?

I'm doing good.

I'm Officer Selvera. How are you doing?

-How you doing? -Raymond Gonzales.

-Hey, guys! [laughs] -How you doing?

-You know who we are? -Yes!

[laughter]

[Liliana] I have four kids,

so this is Sergio, but we call him David.

Sergio?

He's named after my two brothers.

-It's a great thing. -[Liliana] It is great.

And, you know, my mom and my dad told me a lot about it,

and I know they told me a lot about, um,

how much y'all helped them and y'all did for them.

[Raymond] Now you're gonna get me teary-eyed too, girl.

[laughs]

You've grown into a fine young lady.

[Liliana] Thank y'all so much.

I appreciate everything y'all did.

And you've got a fine family here and...

I promise you, my mom and my dad

appreciate everything y'all have done,

and you are--

the biggest topic from the story is

how much y'all helped them as being immigrants

and y'all made sure that they would not get deported and not,

you know, get in any kind of trouble,

and all the help y'all gave them while--

you know, y'all made this case bigger than what it was

to make sure they found me.

[José] A lotta people stepped in to help you out.

-A lotta people stepped-- -Yeah, she--a community.

My mom said it was a big--

but they did it because of y'all.

They said y'all were big--the big key in it.

So I appreciate everything y'all.

-God was watching out for you. -Oh, I know.

[laughter]

[speaking Spanish]

[Liliana] I will. Nice seeing y'all guys.

[Raymond] Working on the Liliana Reyes case,

I was more concerned-- and I hate to say this--

more concerned about other people's family,

that I neglected my family.

To a fault, he was dedicated to his job,

and he gave it all...

to the police department.

[Raymond] Love my family. I love my family.

I support my family.

Anything they needed, it was there.

The only thing that wasn't there was me.

Probably the most important thing was me.

I'm sure that caused a lotta conflict towards my mother

of him not being around.

Was that the starting point of their divorce? Maybe.

You know, that you're saving this other family

and worried about a baby when here I am.

I didn't know that my brother was having marital problems

until he was gonna get a divorce.

He bottled up a lotta stuff.

Maybe during that time,

maybe he just didn't wanna bother people.

[maudlin music]

[Eric] When my parents finally divorced and my dad moved out,

it was tough.

I remember being devastated,

and I still, you know, think about it 'cause,

for me, my family was perfect.

I had a police officer dad, my mom was great,

my siblings, we were very structured.

And then to know that my dad was leaving was just hard.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family.

It's that this job here takes you from--

away from your family.

[birds chirping]

[train braking]

[Jim M] I felt that the Chicano Squad was like a family.

It had grown.

It had grown to 13 people.

We had one female.

There was a new lieutenant that came in.

He wanted me to more or less be his assistant in the office,

and I wasn't used to that.

And I made the decision to leave,

and I told my guys that I was leaving.

[heartwarming music]

[Jim M] It was a real sad day for me

'cause I'd gotten real close to the squad,

but it was increasing continuously.

It never stopped growing.

I was in Homicide up to 1995, 16 years.

I went to a division they called Major Offenders.

All right, the rest of my career was there.

[Raymond] My parents were taking care of my five kids,

and I was working Homicide.

My mom would get after me and say,

" Mijo , you come in late,

"your kids are asleep,

"you take a shower, go to bed.

"In three hours, they give you a call, the phone rings.

Your kids never see you."

So I started thinking, you know what?

I need to get another job.

I didn't wanna leave, but I said, "You know what?

Family comes first."

I really...

And I did.

So I said, "Money's not important.

Family's important."

I admire him for-for taking on all of us,

but that's his character. Everybody knows that.

That's my dad.

He's calm, he's nice, he's kind.

They remember that I was there for them all the time

even though I was not present.

And now...

my kids say I was the foundation that keeps family together.

I don't know what they mean by that.

I say it's something-- they just found out

it was a job I had to do.

It's not an easy life being a police officer.

[ominous music]

I was a supervisor. I'd been there for a long time.

We were very overworked.

The workload between the Anglo detectives and--

and the squad,

the disparity was totally different.

Mid 2000s, it was brought to the Chicano Squad's attention

that, hey man, you're not getting your full time off.

So there was money associated with this.

If I didn't get time off, then I should have got overtime.

Okay, two and a half decades

times all the people that were in the Chicano Squad,

like, that number started getting into

the hundreds of thousands, if not, millions.

In addition to that, not having the time off

doesn't afford you the same opportunities

as some of the other officers get, right?

So you don't get the time to study for the exams to promote

higher education opportunities HPD gives you.

And these are things you're entitled to,

every officer gets them.

They weren't allowed to get them.

[Cecil] We were on call all the time because we were bilingual.

We could work English cases and we could work Spanish cases.

We could work either cases.

I said, "I want changes."

In December of 2007,

several members of the Chicano Squad

filed a lawsuit against HPD

alleging that they had been discriminated against

on the basis of race.

Part of what they brought up was that

they were not given equal opportunities in terms of pay,

in terms of advancement,

and also in terms of training.

The Chicano Squad members alleged

that there were massive discrepancies between them

and their white counterparts on the force.

[Cecil] I wanted better for the Latino officers

in the department, the more opportunity for them.

So we filed, and I was able to get the rest of the members

involved in it, and we did it.

[tense music]

[Cat] Cecil Mosqueda joined the Chicano Squad

because he believed in the mission,

which was to better the community

and better serve the Latino community in Houston

through his policework.

So him going against, you know,

essentially what is the force that made him,

it just kind of highlights how they thought

they had kind of been taken advantage of over the years.

The lieutenants, they weren't listening to us.

And when they didn't listen, I went that route.

Were they mad at me? Of course they were mad at me.

I created problems.

And once you create problems, a target's put on you.

I mean, I felt that they were gonna do away with me.

[Cecil] Towards the end, I stepped on toes.

A lot of captains, they didn't like it.

But I wanted changes.

We felt that we weren't being treated just.

[Sergio] We're getting paid less.

We're not afforded the same opportunities,

and it's happening to everybody within a certain group,

specifically a Latino group.

It's foundations of a discrimination lawsuit.

We got tired of needing help and not getting it.

These guys weren't litigious in nature.

It wasn't like these guys are all ready to file a lawsuit.

Most of 'em probably don't even like lawyers.

My dad only likes me 'cause I'm his son, right?

And I'm a lawyer. But lawsuit gets filed.

As you can imagine,

litigation of that nature is very, very expensive.

We got together and, uh, we all agreed,

hey, uh, maybe we'll all pitch in.

I've still got that check, a thousand dollars

put into the fund.

I wrote my--here's my check.

You know, you get to a point to where the guys can only pony up

so much money to fund this thing.

The lawsuit ran out of money. It did.

It was like all lawsuits. And they told us,

"They're gonna overwhelm you with

they need this or that. It's gonna take a lotta money."

We could not battle the city.

[uneasy music]

Unfortunately, they didn't have the funds to see it through.

But once the thing goes public, hits the media,

message was heard loud and clear.

[Cecil] Guess what?

All of a sudden,

I saw some Black officers, females,

minority officers,

supervisors,

they were moving up the ranks.

It opened a door for all of them.

[Sergio] Within three years of the lawsuit,

my father retired from HPD after 38 years.

I don't need a farewell, I don't need a...

my job is done and walk away,

it's just like when Liliana, here's your baby...I'm gone.

There were certain changes within the department

that were positive because of the lawsuit,

which I know made him happy.

I put the lawsuit in 2007.

That was a blemish we put in the police department.

They put me at a desk at the end.

And this is my belief-- I'm not too sure--

but I think that was the ultimate final way to say,

"That's how we're gonna get him out of Chicano Squad."

'Cause I wasn't gonna leave the Chicano Squad.

But by 2010, I had already accomplished our mission.

I didn't have anything to prove.

I'd been there since '79. I did my job.

It was time for the young people to move on.

And-and they never told me,

but in the long run,

I think they were trying to abolish the Chicano Squad.

And they did.

It-it just kinda went away.

And that was the last of 'em.

That was the last of the squad.

[gentle music]

[Cecil] The department had changed already.

You remember when the original guys got in,

there were very few Hispanic officers

in the investigative division.

But now there was more Hispanic officers

in the police department,

and they were out there helping the community.

I believe the Chicano Squad did help bridge

the issues that were happening

in trying to solve the community crimes.

Now we can look back and understand

why they were so unique, why they were transformative,

why they were innovative.

The Chicano Squad's legacy was it increases policing

as a viable professional opportunity

for Mexican Americans or people of Hispanic surnames

in the city of Houston.

It encouraged many more Latinos to apply

to the Houston Police Department, themselves, right?

Becoming a part of the solution, entering into the lion's den,

getting into the belly of the beast,

and trying to initiate reform.

The Houston Police Department has the Houston Police Museum,

and in that museum,

they now have a case dedicated to the Chicano Squad,

where they are showcasing these accomplishments.

We all had black hair at that time, man.

[indistinct chatter]

Cecil's the only one in the genes...

It was a good deal. [laughs]

What I can take with me was the closeness of Chicano Squad.

We joked around.

We drank together.

We kid each other.

They're people that you learned from.

I miss the squad.

I had a front-row seat to the greatest show on earth.

That's the best picture.

Of all of us.

[Cecil] I did what I could for my community.

At the end, it gave me great satisfaction

to help the Hispanic community,

but overall, the citizens of Houston.

It didn't matter where they came from, what color you were.

I was there to serve them.

I was there for anybody who was there.

Nobody thought it was gonna work.

But it did, and my patrolmen here

became investigators and, really, detectives.

So it--I guess we did something really good.

Yeah.

[reading in Spanish]

"The bottom man who speaks two languages

is worth two men."

And that says it all.

That's why the Chicano Squad came to be.

This--when I saw this--there it is.

Oh (bleep). Give me a minute.

I was considered a rookie.

Chuck Lofland, my lieutenant for Patrol,

asked me to go to Homicide.

I never thought I was gonna get a chance like that.

And I proved a point.

I can do this job. These guys can do this job.

We all did the job.

I'm proud of that.

So is my family.

[gentle music]

[upbeat, funky music]