A. The Events 

The night before Robert’s life fell apart, on December 3, 2000, Robert went out to eat with his 6-month-old son Angel, his 4-year-old stepson George, the boys’ mom Brenda, and a few friends. Then, they went back to Rob and Brenda’s apartment, they put the boys to sleep and their friends left.

  Well, I should say they tried to put them to bed. As every parent knows, 6 month olds go to sleep when and where they please. So, as George was fast asleep in the other room, Rob and Brenda began playing with their son Angel. Then, they heard a loud knock at the door. It was Rock-E, someone Robert has known since middle school. At this time, Rob and Rock-E were both 22 years old. Rob could tell Rock-E was high and obviously something was wrong. He looked out onto the street and saw the car that Rock-E came in with two others inside. This was in the first hours of the morning, now Sunday, December 4, 2000.

  Rock-E told Robert that he and his parents were fighting and that they kicked him out of their house. He didn’t have a place to stay, so they were going to “ride all night” to make some money. Rock-E said they needed Robert’s help to strip some foreign cars, models that he and the others didn’t know how to work on. Brenda came to the door and told Rob and Rock-E that Robert wasn’t going anywhere. So, he told Rock-E that he indeed wasn’t going anywhere. He shut the door and he and Brenda went back to playing with their son.

  About an hour went by and they heard another knock at the door. Once again, it was Rock-E. He told Rob that they had already stolen some cars and had some others scoped out and that they needed his help. Rob told him he couldn’t go. They argued for a while and Rob was finally convinced to go. Rob is sometimes too easily influenced when a friend asks for his help. And he now realizes that was the case in this situation. It’s just really hard for him to say no when someone asks him for something. Rob’s been like that since he was a child. When he was little and other kids would want to fight over toys, Rob would just say, “Here you go” and give the toys to them.

  Well, off Rob went with the others. They drove around and started drinking, smoking weed and popping pills . Five of them ended up at the back of an apartment complex in the north side of Houston, Texas with two stolen cars. One of the guys with them lived nearby and they knew several other people who lived in the area. Rob was under one of the cars working on it while everyone else was smoking weed, drinking, helping him and going back and forth between the apartments.

  Then a police car suddenly appeared and everyone ran. Rob didn’t see where everyone else went exactly, but he ran towards a wooded area across the street from the apartments. He stopped in the middle to catch his breath and planned on making it to his friend’s house, which was only about 75 feet away. Just then, Rob saw an officer with his flashlight in one hand and gun in the other walk across the path he was going to take.

  Rob quickly realized it was impossible to get away, so he put his hands in the air and gave up. The officer, Barret Hill, ordered Rob to turn around and interlock his hands behind his head. Rob complied. Officer Hill patted him down for weapons, cuffed him behind his back and radioed in, “I have one in custody.”

  Shortly after that Rob, heard gunshots, saw a muzzle flash and saw Rock-E walking from the deputy’s left side, shooting. Rock-E quickly un-cuffed Rob, stood over the deputy, shot him again, handed Rob the gun and pulled out his back-up gun. Rob then saw some people moving in the brush and someone further down with a flashlight. He ran. He was so dazed that he didn’t really know where he was running. He ended up across the bayou in the parking lot of the apartments. He saw a car running and opened the door. He told the lady inside the car he needed it and to get out. She looked at him with surprise and gave a short laugh of disbelief as if to say, “yeah right.” She then saw the gun in his waistband, said, “Shit! You can have it!” and got out.

Rob jumped behind the wheel and drove off. About 3 hours later, he was pulled over by a Washington County sheriff’s deputy in Brenham, a city about an hour and a half outside of Houston. He surrendered peacefully to the officer just as he did with Officer Hill and was taken into custody.