Houston Blue: The Story of the Houston Police Department

28. The Man in the Uniform

359 28 The Man in the Uniform C larence O. “Brad” Bradford grew up on a farm outside Newellton in Tensas Parish, Louisiana, near the Mississippi River, four hundred miles from Houston. He was one of twelve children born to the farm’s owners—a well disciplined African-American and his wife, a college woman dedicated to teaching her kids all good manners, hard work and the benefit of an education. Bradford also had five step-brothers and sisters. When the first son graduated from Newellton High School in 1973, he had his choice of five academic scholarships. Instead, he became an auto mechanic, attended Grambling State University and scored high on the state trooper examination. Assigned to a cadet class that started in six months, Bradford decided to see if the Houston Police Department was interested. He arrived in the Bayou City in May 1979 and started HPD Police Cadet Class No. 88 in July, a Criminal Justice degree already under his belt. Bradford graduated on January 11, 1980, with Police Chief Harry Caldwell pinning the badge to his brand new uniform. Bradford alternated between Patrol and the jail before reaching the rank of sergeant in 1983. Bradford spent time as a field training officer in the Traffic and Accident divisions before his transfer to the Emergency Communications Division, where he was placed in a watch command position, “monitoring the computer screen to see what’s going on and report[ing] to the captain.” By 1986, he became an academy instructor. During this period, the department fully implemented computer terminals in all patrol cars in what became known as Computer-Aided Dispatch. In 1990, Police Chief Elizabeth Watson assigned Bradford to the Organizational Development Unit to evaluate programs and strategies related to Community-Oriented Policing.1 Brown accelerated the promotion of blacks to sergeants but couldn’t enhance their promotion to the lieutenant and captain levels, much less assistant chief. Later, Chief Watson had one black captain, Jerry Jones, and three black lieutenants, Claude Whitaker, David Walker and Marcus Davis. Jones 360 Houston Blue filed suit against Lee Brown for his failure to promote him, and Davis was a relatively new lieutenant. There were not too many choices for promotion. Sergeant Bradford earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration at Texas Southern University, graduating magna cum laude through night duty and day classes. Later, he earned a master’s at TSU and alternated his night work with his class days, determined to become a lawyer. Watson promoted the sergeant to assistant chief in June 1991, one year before he earned his University of Houston law degree. His policing duties encompassed technical support—communications, fleet operations, records, property and supply . When Bob Lanier replaced Watson with Sam Nuchia, Nuchia moved Bradford to the Professional Development Command—recruiting, personnel , the academy, disciplinary system and psych services. Bradford served there until the end of 1995, when Nuchia made him head of West Control Command, by far the largest patrol command in the department , encompassing the Westside, Northwest, Southwest and North Shepherd stations. Nuchia became a judge on the First Court of Appeals on January 1, 1997. Bob Lanier had one more year in office and needed a new chief. l It didn’t take the mayor long to call Harry Caldwell and get him to lead yet another police chief selection process. Caldwell met with each of sixteen iniP  C C B, D , –S ,  (HPD A) The Man in the Uniform 361 tial candidates, including twelve from within the department, for one-onone interviews. The former chief reduced the number to nine before turning over the next phase of the process to a small group of trusted Lanier insiders. African-American businessman Jodie Jiles was one of them. Bradford was the consensus of the group. Nuchia also approved of the choice.2 Besides Bradford, the other finalists were Assistant Dennis Storemski and Mike Thaler. Bradford had a habit that suited him well. He wore his uniform almost every day, and in doing so projected the same effect as Sam Nuchia; he preferred the field uniform to the dress uniform and thought nothing of wearing it to the interviews. About six months into Bradford’s first year as chief, he sat in Lanier’s office where the mayor routinely propped his feet upon his desk. Mayor Bob said, “I was pretty sure you’d do a good job. I knew...