In a police role that calls for both bravado and an ability to blend in, Edward “Pacman” Jackson seems to have been perfectly cast.
A short, stocky 26-year-old who favors hooded sweat shirts and high tops, Jackson often was indistinguishable from the drug peddlers and gang members on the West Side he was assigned to thwart. He grew up among them, learned to talk like them and knows how to gain their confidence.
He and others in the Austin Police District tactical squad are on a first-name basis with the neighborhood street life. They cruise in unmarked maroon sedans, speeding from one drug spot to the next to harass and sometimes rough up potential dealers and troublemakers.
On a recent night, Jackson and partner Otha “T.C.” McCoy–an imposing 46-year-old in jeans and a bulletproof vest–spotted a group of eight teens milling in front of an apartment building. That was enough for the “tac” partners to radio for backup and then charge in, guns drawn and obscenities blazing.
Many of the teens were so familiar with the drill that they raised their hands and headed for the nearest wall before being told to do so. Then they were hauled to the station and charged simply with loitering.
Such is the stuff of a hundred grimy cop shows, and it is played out daily by members of the tac unit in almost Hollywood fashion, right down to the colorful cop nicknames.
Before his indictment on corruption charges, Jackson claimed that he earned his moniker by confiscating drugs.
“There was an abandoned school across from a drug spot,” he explained, showing a reporter around the Austin neighborhood not long ago. “Whenever they would deliver a pack, I would grab it. So they were saying, `Don’t be delivering no packs when Pacman’s around.’ “
But there’s another version to that story.
Jackson, police sources said, gained his nickname by allegedly planting packs of cocaine on Austin residents to frame them and extort money. “If you didn’t have a pack on you when he came, you’d have a pack on you when he left,” explained one source.
Seven Austin tac officers, Jackson among them, were arrested Friday on federal robbery and extortion charges for allegedly shaking down undercover agents they thought were drug dealers. After the arrests, substances believed to be narcotics were found in the lockers of at least five of the officers at the Austin station, according to law enforcement sources.
The unfolding Austin scandal shines an unflattering light on a police assignment considered elite yet fraught with temptation as well as danger.
According to tactical officers from outside Austin–who asked to remain anonymous–the job gives them far greater leeway than uniformed officers get to investigate crimes and gather intelligence on gangs, drugs and other illegal activities. Tac officers also are expected to be more aggressive, since they are evaluated on the number of arrests they make, several officers said.
There are 25 tactical units–one in each police district and each with about 45 officers. Each unit is split into teams, ranging in size from 10 to more than 30 officers.
Key to the job is a keen understanding of the nuance and rhythms and players of the street. On paper, at least, Jackson had the right credentials to excel on the tac team.
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He was raised in Lawndale, an area of the city where drugs and gangs proliferate and which traditionally records the one of the highest murder rates. His father, called Big Ed, was allegedly an early member of the Vice Lords street gang, according to community activists and neighbors.
Whatever Jackson’s relations with gangs, the constant interaction with their members and drug dealers presents opportunities for corruption, former tactical officers said.
“Some of these cops, they may think, `I’m out here working eight hours a day,’ and they see these guys who are making more than them in one hour,” one of the officers said. “And they may take it personally.
“It would definitely be easy to do because these guys are thinking: `Hey, they’re drug dealers. They’re not going to go to the police.’ “
Another tac officer said the movie “Deep Cover”–in which Laurence Fishburne stars as a cop who goes undercover to bring down a drug ring–provides some insight into the dynamics of a cop working street-level investigations. In the movie, Fishburne eventually is tempted by drugs and power and begins to question if he is still a police officer playing the role of a drug dealer, or if he is now a drug dealer playing the role of a police officer.
“For some people the lines get gray,” the officer said. “Sometimes you have to back off and re-evaluate what you’re doing. But I think it is something most police officers know how to do.”
One high-ranking police official said drug dealers would be easy targets for corrupt police officers.
“(The dealers) understand that because of the position they are in, a negative encounter with police is part of the cost of doing business,” he said. “If they go to authorities and say that part of their drug stash was ripped off, they draw attention to themselves.
“If they don’t (complain), they can be out working the next day.”
T.C. McCoy said he never witnessed corrupt acts among the four indicted tac team members he has worked with over the years.
“When they worked in my eyesight, those four guys were honest,” said McCoy, who joined the police force in 1985.
He said in an interview that he has remained on the right side of the law. He was not among those charged Friday, nor has he been accused by police or federal authorities of wrongdoing.
His occasional partner, Jackson, still lives in Lawndale, on the first floor of a graystone, and runs a Lawndale barbershop called My Place. Sources said the shop is used for periodic meetings of the Conservative Vice Lords.
But a leader of the Conservative Vice Lords, who asked to be identified only as “P,” insisted that Jackson wasn’t part of the gang, though he said he knew him from the neighborhood.
“He’s never done me no damn favor,” he said. “Honestly speaking, I don’t think he’s a corrupt cop.”
Although the federal charges in the Austin District investigation focus on drug money, several tac team officers there also have been the target of complaints and lawsuits alleging brutality.
McCoy and Jackson were sued in U.S. District Court in May by Chicagoan Andrea Gibson, who said she was attacked by the pair without any reason. The suit, which seeks $1 million in damages, contends that Gibson became seriously and permanently injured.
In a response, city attorneys said police attempted to arrest Gibson because “she appeared to be involved in a drug transaction,” records show.
Also this year, a federal civil jury awarded $100,000 to the mother of a wheelchair-bound teen who died in 1994 shortly after an encounter with M.L. Moore, another Austin tac officer indicted.
The youth, Richard Pack, and three friends were waiting to be let into Pack’s West Side home when Moore and his partner pulled up in an unmarked car and came out with weapons drawn, according to the suit.
Pack, who had an enlarged heart and liver and was partially paralyzed, became agitated when Moore threatened to shoot his dog, according to closing arguments by his mother’s lawyer.
Pack got into a shouting match with Moore, who allegedly grabbed the youth, lifted him from the chair and slammed him into a brick pillar. Minutes later, he collapsed in his house, short of breath and blood coming out of his mouth. He quickly died.
City lawyers argued that it was a coincidence that Pack died after his encounter with Moore.
In the community that surrounds the Austin District headquarters, residents and community leaders long have suspected wrongdoing in the tac unit.
“We don’t really trust them out here anyhow,” said Linda Davis, 35. “A lot of them are just out taking your money.”
The tac team’s bad reputation was known even among other law enforcement agencies.
While it is common practice for police from other jurisdictions to notify a district when business takes them there, many police officers and federal agents would not make those calls to the Austin District, sources said.
Cops and federal agents crossing into the district to make drug-related arrests, or serve warrants, would do so in secret, sources said, because of fear of widespread corruption in the tac unit.
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They worried that the Austin cops would tip the bad guys.