Retired From Crime — and it Follows Me Into Retirement

Being a rumination on geezer self-defense.

I should be ready after two careers in crime.

My first career, as a judge, was about crime in a direct sense. My second career, as a criminal justice professor, was about crime in a less direct way. I was determined that my retirement would not be about crime.

Retirement?

Don’t roll your eyes — your time will come.

An early clue will be when some kid gives you the senior discount before you ask.

An even earlier clue is when you start calling thirty-somethings “kids.”

When my wife and I put the clues together, we started considering where to retire rather than if.

With public policy becoming more an exercise in meanness every year, we looked first at becoming ex-pats.

Canada would not take us because of age. We had not paid into the social safety net we were on the verge of needing.

Mexico looked good and I even located a beautiful place we could afford in San Miguel de Allende, but the disputes the drug cartels were having over prime smuggling routes made getting to the Mexican interior running a gauntlet through what used to be the friendly highways of Tamaulipas. Too much excitement at our age.

We considered Central America, where some countries have incentives to attract gringo retirees. We did not look seriously at Australia because I had actually gotten the paperwork to arrange my move back in 1968 only to discover that I had to lie about my American Indian blood to qualify. That was for a subsidized move, not one where I would foot the bill, but I still considered the racism a bit thick for my tastes.

We looked at a number of places in Western Europe.

In the end, our joint decision about ex-pat life was:

We did not wish to be poor people surrounded by rich people or rich people surrounded by poor people. The sweet spot was elusive, so we turned our search back to the U.S.

After considering staying in Bloomington and eyeballing my other favorite college towns — gottta be a college town — we decided we could not beat Austin, where the only seasons are summer and almost summer. Older son had just moved back to Austin from Seattle and younger son was stationed at Ft. Hood with good prospects for remaining there between deployments. Older daughter was in Round Rock and younger daughter was in Dallas.

It did not take much looking to determine we could not afford a house in Austin and have any money left for playing with grandkids, so we started looking north of Austin on the I-35 corridor. Pflugerville and Round Rock were no longer rural and had become indistinguishable from Austin.

The artsy little village of Salado was very attractive, but it appeared to be well-to-do people plopped down among people not so lucky, and the burglary rate in the subdivisions around Salado was daunting.

I was OK with Georgetown, but my wife discovered Sun City, about which I knew two things, and learned a third by investigation because I was interested in retiring where there is little crime.

I read about Sun City when it got started in Arizona and it sounded off-putting. Geezers in golf carts. Age discrimination in who could live there. I did not and do not golf and I consider golf courses to be environmentally unsound.

Then, when Del Webb was clearing land for the Georgetown Sun City, he discovered some ancient burials in a cave. Probably because Webb had done a lot of business in Arizona, he notified the tribes indigenous to the land as well as the State Archeologist (who did not appreciate the tribes being tipped off). I was appointed to represent the Comanches and the Tonkawas at negotiations over disposition of the remains.

As had been the practice in Texas, the State Archeologist wanted to put the human remains in a box and label them “scientific data.” My clients wanted a dignified reburial — you know, like they do with white people?

The negotiation took place in the law offices of the folks representing Del Webb and it did not start well. The State Archeologist was not giving an inch and because it was a private development on private land, our best weapon — The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — did not apply.

Looking at an apparent deadlock, Del Webb’s lawyer asked what would be the best outcome from our point of view? I said that would be to put the remains back where they came from. I added what I meant as a sweetener and said we had no objection to any sort of documentation the State Archeologist wanted to do first.

Del Webb’s lawyer asked my adversary whether he would agree to that? He would not.

At that point, it got really weird. The lawyer excused himself to confer with corporate headquarters.

The archeologist looked poleaxed. What was there to confer about? The barbaric grave robber and the primitive book burner waited in uncomfortable silence, since we didn’t really have anything to say to each other.

Looking back on it, he was not gone all that long. It just seemed like forever. He announced the corporate decision.

The archeologist could have the remains for a short period if he wished. Afterward, we could conduct any burial ceremonies we wished on the Del Webb property and return the remains to the cave. The developer would, at his own expense, close the cave with wrought iron bars and erect no trespassing signs.

We were tickled plumb to death. The State Archeologist was not. The transaction left me with good feelings toward Del Webb.

So I knew a bad thing and a good thing about Sun City and I owed my wife Tracy for all the support she offered my two successful runs at tenure. We arranged to spend a weekend in Sun City.

While we got plenty of looking done, the most persuasive thing to me was soaking in a hot tub with half a dozen residents and cross-examining them about life in Sun City. They were forthcoming with a lot of tips, all useful and some not in the interests of management.

The real dealmaker was that I did not have to pay for the three golf courses unless I used them. Golf was totally optional, but the courses guaranteed a lot of open space, as did the subdivision plat, which had some open space for drainage reasons but some for no apparent reason other than keeping the rural feel.

Leaving aside the three golf courses, there are a lot of common amenities for which I would pay. There are tennis courts, a billiard parlor, wood shop, kiln, five swimming pools (indoor and outdoor), meeting rooms and an auditorium.

There are two complete gyms with state of the art exercise equipment that remains state of the art because it’s leased rather than bought and when a new machine is happening, we get it.

There is a library where the check-out period is forever. Bring it back when you are done.

How much do I pay? Right now, after going up a couple of times, it’s still under a hundred bucks a month. Try joining a gym with swimming for that price.

But the houses must cost an arm and a leg, right? Not compared to Austin. And they have everything from small duplexes to huge custom builds. We have a two-bedroom/two bath that suits us now that the kids are gone.

Sun City government is soviet, although I’m sure they’d be horrified to learn that. There are block captains, 62 neighborhood reps, and a board of directors — all elected except block captains, who are volunteers. I got this priceless comment out of a friend from the old days, who is in a position to know:

It’s just like Cuba, only with money.

The builders define “neighborhood.” Each new build gets a number, and the whole thing is still being built out. Del Webb sold out to Pulte. At some point (knowable on a map), Sun City is finished and the developer is out of here, leaving this governmental structure we can change if we don’t like it.

There are a lot of bullshit rules, but enforcement pretty well depends on who your neighbors are, and we’ve been fortunate. The older neighborhoods are more laid back and also have more varied landscapes, since the trees have had a chance to grow.

One such bullshit rule is you can’t fly any flags but U.S. or state flags. On every holiday that calls for flags, I raise my Cherokee Nation flag. My closest neighbor — recently moved, alas — had a career in the Marine Corps, and he would fly his Marine Corps flag and dare anybody to object.

I should mention the people who live here generally. Retirees, of course. Middle class, of course. The most common careers were professionals — teachers, doctors, lawyers. Second is military retirees. Businesspeople come in a distant third. The main thing I’ve found about the people is that they all have remarkable life stories, which most of them will spill if you prime the pump a little bit just by being friendly.

Yes, I’ve met a few bigots, but I get along here better than they do. In election season, our yard is often a lonely oasis in a desert of GOP signs. That’s Williamson County, but it’s slowly changing. I did note that Obama carried two commissioner precincts in Williamson County in 2008. This doesn’t bother me because I lived in Austin as progressives went from being lonely outliers to running the place.

Before we bought in Sun City, I checked the crime reports and found no index crimes reported in for five years prior. For good measure, I read over a couple of years of the COPS logbooks. COPS are “Citizens On Patrol,” unarmed volunteer neighborhood watchers who drive around in new Chevrolets supplied by the local dealer in return for putting his name on the side.

The most common report item was garage doors left open, a violation of the aforementioned bullshit rules. Second was animals out of place, usually pets but sometimes wildlife.

One of the lengthier reports I read involved returning a turtle to the fishing pond.

Only two COPS reports had anything to do with real crimes. There was a case of building materials walking off from a construction site that sounded like an inside job. The other required some reading between the lines. COPS came to the aid of a resident who was “unable to control his golf cart” as he left one of the bars. Sounds like a DWI, but they drove him home.

After my careful research on crime, we moved into Sun City in 2010. In 2016, we had (comparatively speaking) a crime wave.

Somebody drove on the green at one of the golf courses and proceeded to do donuts. It was an expensive prank that reeks of teenagers, which don’t exist in Sun City except for a maximum of 90 days as visitors. However, this is not a gated community, so the hot-rodder could have come from anywhere.

On a more serious note, there was a home invasion. A woman found an intruder entering her bedroom in the middle of the night. She screamed and he ran. No harm done and nothing missing except her house key that she apparently kept in some obvious place. So she had to change her locks. About two weeks later, and just a couple of blocks away, there was a virtually identical incident. Nighttime intruder; occupant screamed; intruder retreated; nothing missing.

These happened in a neighborhood out on the edge of Sun City and they were disturbing, but they were such a big deal primarily because we had come to expect zero crime. The reasons for zero crime are two. The age discrimination in who can be here keeps out persons of criminal age — yes, there are age brackets for crime, excepting white-collar crime, says the retired criminal justice professor. And, unlike Salado, we don’t have neighborhoods of greatly disparate income levels next to each other.

This crime wave — one case of vandalism and two home invasions — might have meant police patrols, which would have been something new.

The normal deal with the Georgetown PD is that once or twice a year enough Sun City residents complain about speeding that the police come out and run radar on the two main drags, where the limit is 35 mph. After a couple of days of police handing out tickets — virtually all to Sun City residents — the complainers see the error of their ways.

None of the three incidents in our crime wave were solved, but things got quiet again until November 20, 2019. Here’s what the police told the public:

The complainant reported that at about 11:30 AM she had returned home from the grocery store. As she was putting away groceries a black male, dark skinned, long face, eyes set far apart, slim build, approximately 6’1”, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black pants entered the home through the garage, displayed a handgun and demanded jewelry. The complainant advised the suspect bound her and her husband together, took several items of value, and fled the scene in a white Cadillac.

This matter is currently under investigation and is being taken very seriously.

Well, duh — an armed robbery in a subdivision used to zero crime… “is being taken very seriously.” You suppose?

The husband of the immediate victim suffers from dementia. The couple is elderly.

I’m elderly, too, as is my wife. As are most of the residents of this subdivision.

My home defense is a .12 gauge shotgun, but my son would lend me a pistol if I asked. I have no plans to ask. I can see little to be gained and a lot to be lost by engaging in a gun fight.

Perhaps this proves I learned something in almost 50 years around criminal law, but I would be lying if I said it’s not painful to know I’m no longer physically able to defend my family. Rather than accept the pain of feeling useless, I would shoot it out with a guy half my age…if there were any way to be certain the only people likely to get hurt were myself and the robber.

I’ve seen enough armed robbery cases to know they seldom go as planned. But isn’t it my job to see that the robbery does not go as planned? Wouldn’t I be the “good guy with a gun” in the famous slogan,

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

After all the time I’ve spent in the criminal law, I’ve come to understand that defensive gun uses — like armed robberies — seldom go as planned.

Take a minimum of two people, both either scared and nervous or stupid and nervous. Add a minimum of two firearms.

It’s probable that the outcome is death or serious bodily injury but there’s no way to tell in advance who is dead or injured. When the EMTs and the cops come to clean up the scene, they’ll know who is dead, who is injured, and — perhaps most important — who is stupid.

If I can’t avoid all those outcomes, I’d still like to try for two out of three.

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Previously published on medium

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