Ex-Ranger targeted in negative campaign tactic

Plemons camp alleges racism

“You ain't got but one riot...” – a legendary Texas Ranger

Waco – One day in 1994 – 18 long years ago – two Texas Rangers were shooting the breeze, talking shop.

Both were – ah, let's say – disappointed about the command structure's response to an edict of then-Governor Ann Richards', a new policy on the gender politics of one of the world's famed, most elite law enforcement agencies.

The Texas Rangers would have not one, but two female members. Period.

In private telephone conversation, they both said they did not like it. Apparently, they did not mince words.

A neighbor picked up Ranger Matt Cawthon's end of the conversation on the police scanner as he chatted on his cordless phone about the enormity of the Department of Public Safety elevating a former trooper of the driver's license bureau, a woman who had been promoted to the job of college campus recruiter, to the status of working behind the coveted 100-peso piece badge of a Texas Ranger.

The neighbor made a recording of the conversation and turned it over to an internal affairs division of DPS.

“They took an unqualified driver's license technician – a woman who had never arrested anyone in her life, and passed over DPS Troopers who were qualified to become a Ranger,” he recalls. “There were no racial slurs on the tape recording.”

The result was overkill, to say the least. In an internal hearing, the department sentenced Ranger Cawthorn to six months of probationary status.

“It was not a legal proceeding. It was not a violation of the law. It was a policy at stake, here,” he emphasizes. “I didn't say anything about the woman's race.”

The lady in question, on that day so long ago, is black.

Following six months of treading very lightly on eggshells, he was restored to the full status of his employment as a Ranger, and went on to retire with honors after an eventful career.

Among the honors, in 1999, the U.S. Congress named him National Police Officer of the year; every June 15, by proclamation of the City of Waco, the town observes “Matt Cawthon Day.”

He still sounds outraged when he reminisces. “You and I have the right to a private conversation. My freedom of speech was violated. At the time, I was off duty, in my own home.”

Nevertheless, the Rangers hold their own to a higher standard, and it's for a good reason.

All the old tales are true. When they send for a Ranger, it means the chips are down – always.

The original scheme worked out in the Austin Colony at Nacogdoches and in The Republic of Texas still stands true. A Ranger is ordered by the Colonel, his Captain, or maybe the Governor himself, to go to a certain County. Assess the situation. Find out what is needed. Contact the Sheriff.

The Sheriff is expected to round up his deputies and the posse, get everyone organized, and do what the Ranger says it's necessary to do to preserve the public safety and avenge offenses against the peace and dignity of the People of the State of Texas.

We're talking attacks by marauding Apaches and off the reservation Comanches. We're talking range wars over fence cutting and water rights. We're talking private armies, drugs and public officials running roughshod over the law in corruption cases, cattle rustling, horse thievery, serial murder, riots. Let's not forget forays up the highways of the state by renegade Mexican Army units who have deserted their special ops units to run drugs for the cartels.

It be that way – some days; they don't take it lightly.

Retired, Ranger Matt Cawthon is now tasked to the fugitive division of the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He is seconded to the Fugitive Warrants Task Force of the U.S. Marshal's Service.

He has the same job retired Ranger Frank Hamer had on the depression-darkened day he and a posse of Dallas law men shot down Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker with Browning Automatic Rifles - just like the ones they had stolen from a west Texas National Guard Armory - on a lonely stretch of road near Arcadia, Louisiana.

The Colonel of the TDC had retained Ranger Hamer to avenge the death of a riding boss whom the desperados shot off his horse at Eastham Unit early one morning when they came to break their running buddy Raymond Hamilton out of the pen. Mr. Hamilton was the only one who could put them on the scene of the murder of Hillsboro jeweler and pawn shop operator Lloyd Bucher in an armed robbery.

It was the couple's first killing. It wouldn't be their last. By the time Hamer and his posse put a stop to their ways, 14 people had gone down, 9 of them police officers.

It's that kind of thing.

It always is.

But lately, Ranger Cawthon is kept busy putting out fires incidental to the race for Sheriff of McLennan County. It started with a lawsuit filed against he and his wife by a local builder. The lawsuit backfired when a civil jury found the builder guilty of attempting to defraud the couple of some $70,000 in overcharges on a construction contract to build their home, among 18 other findings.(click here for the back story)

During the discovery phase of that trial, Marvin Steakley of Brazos Star Homes, LLC, turned over confidential financial and personal records to Sheriff Larry Lynch and Chief Deputy Randy Plemons, a candidate for the GOP nomination as Sheriff against Mr. Cawthon's side kick, retired Deputy U.S. Marshal Parnell McNamara.(a report is available here)

Both the Sheriff and Deputy Plemons have denied in writing that they have any such records, which included the couple's Social Security numbers, private cell phone numbers, childrens' names, loan applications, mortgage documents, bank statements, credit card numbers and invoices, and cancelled checks.(please click here)

Ranger Cawthon says they are fibbing.

“Larry Lynch said he had it (the discovery material). He told my lawyer he had it in his top drawer...The main issue here is that I am not runing for Sheriff. I am working on the McNamara for Sheriff campaign as a volunteer,” he concluded.(Deputy Plemons denial is available here)