35 Years of Gangs, Guns and Car Crashes

“My wife worries about me when I go to work,” says Brian Bylsma, a 35+ year cop with at least another nine to go before he’s personally ready to take off his boots and remove his badge.

“A lot of the anti-police rhetoric that’s going on bothers me,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a big problem here, no. I think it’s nationally.”

Amidst the national turmoil of anti-police sentiment and rising crime rates nationwide, Bylsma’s wife has a right to worry, but the senior traffic investigator says locally, the citizens support the police; that support is just often overshadowed by national news.

“The citizens of San Angelo have, since I’ve been here, [supported police]. I believe at this moment right now [they] are more supportive than they’ve ever been,” he said.

After 16 years on the police force and another 20 in the military, Bylsma is one of the few senior officers who hasn’t already filled out his retirement paperwork. He’s only got four years to go, he explained, but has set his goal at nine, because 25 years is “a good time to retire”.

Bylsma’s career has taken several turns since he was in high school in Odenton, Maryland and joined the town’s volunteer fire department. Bound for a career in emergency medical assistance, Bylsma joined the VFD to further his first aid training, but once he got his first taste of firefighting, “the first aid went away”.

“It’s hard to explain,” he said of what lured him into to firefighting. “People think you’re crazy. Everybody’s running away from the fire but we’re running to it. The only thing I can figure is that it’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie.”

After three years at the Odenton VFD, Bylsma decided it was time to get out on his own and quickly enlisted in the military following graduation. He’d hoped to continue firefighting, he said, but when he was told there was a year-long wait list to receive a permanent fireman position, he instead became a security specialist in the Air Force. A military cop. 

For the next four years, from 1978 to 1982, Bylsma held his position as a security specialist, until he was granted the opportunity to cross-train in law enforcement. The training and assignments he would take on next would ultimately pave the way for a decades-long career that would extend beyond the military and to a state far down south.

“While I was a law enforcement officer in the military, out of that 16 years I spent probably about half of it as an investigator,” he explained. “[I investigated] basically, any criminal activity. I helped assist with a suicide of one of my former co-workers. I assisted with the kidnapping and homicide of Tracie McBride here at Goodfellow. I did a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff with the OSI [the Office of Special Investigations].”

Bylsma officially retired from the Air Force in Aug. of 1998, but had gotten out in May on terminal leave. He was hired on as a dispatcher in July and by April 1, 1999, had been hired on as a police officer.

As all officers do, Bylsma first went to patrol for a few years, but transferred in 2002 when he was given a special assignment as a detective with the gang unit. For four years he worked with three different partners, tackling what he described as a fairly pronounced gang problem.

“One of the big reasons [it interested me was because] I felt at that time that there was an issue with the gangs,” he said. “…at that point, a lot of the gangs that people saw were the youth gangs. But as an underlying factor, where there’s the youth gangs there’s always the adults. Jaime [Padron] and I started tackling the adult members and identifying the adult members at that time.”

For Bylsma, the culture of gang life and the organized, businesslike structure became interesting facets he would have to learn to understand in order to be effective at fighting the problem. As he and Padron worked to identify adult gang members, they had a number of felony cases that ultimately led to convictions.

“During that time, Jaime and I probably ended up dong eight cases with Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on gang members or gang members with guns,” he said. “Every one of those was convicted in Federal Court without us ever having to go into a courtroom.

The last case I had was an aggravated kidnapping that involved [a gang]. I believe six members were sent to prison.”

During his time with the gang unit, Bylsma was exposed to crimes he hadn’t dealt with in his military career.

“It’s all about the money,” he said. “People were involved in drugs and guns, they were involved in intimidations…they were also involved in at least one homicide. They are involved in criminal activity from one end of the spectrum to another.”

After four years working within one of the police department’s most dangerous and secretive units, Bylsma decided it was time for a change and returned to patrol, where he ended up becoming a field training officer.

The position continued up until about a year and a half ago, when he officially joined the traffic division as a traffic investigator.  

“I bought a motorcycle in 2008 and started riding again…the traffic investigators, they ride bikes, so I started getting interested in the actual job that they do here,” he explained. “That’s where I’m at.”

Having come from a background as a detective with several years within the gang unit, one would expect investigating car crashes would be a bit monotonous. On the contrary, Bylsma said it reminds him of working a case like a detective because he’s tasked with determining what happened, how and why.

“It’s kind of like a puzzle,” he said. “You can sit there and go to an accident scene and based on what you see out there pretty much tell what happened. It’s kind of like a regular investigation when you’re working CID.”

In addition to his day job, Bylsma is the president of the local chapter of the law enforcement motorcycle club, the Blue Knights, and is also a member of the San Angelo Coalition of Police.

Every November and December the hardened senior cop puts on a smile and a bright blue hat and joins an ever-increasing number of children in holiday shopping for Operation Blue Santa.

The operation is one that Bylsma has headed for eight years, after introducing the idea to SACOP and volunteering to run the show. Now, the annual event has grown to over three times its initial size with roughly $11,000 spread among 45 children in 2014.

“On top of that what we do during the Thanksgiving period is we got to the middle schools and the high schools…and we get names of families who would benefit from a Thanksgiving package…and we go and distribute about a week’s worth of food,” Bylsma said. “I would like to send a special thank you to the all the businesses and citizens who donated to the program. Without their generosity, Operation Blue Santa would not be available.”  

The feeling he gets from helping the families and shopping with the children is hard to describe, he said, and he’s never had any issue finding officers who wanted to participate in the program.

“Being able to have an impact on at least one child in this town, to be able to help that child or help that family and to be able to see that help in the cheers and the smile that they have is indescribable,” Bylsma said. “I think the officers actually get more out of it than the children do.”

This year, Bylsma had more officers volunteer than were needed, a fact he attributes to the positive experience of the operation.

“We do see a lot,” he said. “Sometimes we may see a child and the only time we see that child is when we deal with mom and dad fighting or arguing; or where someone has got warrants and we have to arrest someone for those warrants or whatever crime it is. During this period we’re seeing those kids in a completely different atmosphere and being able to help them in a different way [without turmoil].”

For his leadership of the Blue Santa project, Bylsma has been named the PD’s Officer of the Month for January. He said he’s proud to see that the operation has grown so much over the past eight years, and hopes someone will carry it on when he eventually retires. But he’s not ready to go yet.

“It’s an honor to be able to wear the badge,” he said. “The people that wear the badge have a special bond and when something happens to one, everyone else feels it whether you knew that person or not. 

“A lot of the stuff that I’ve seen over the years, the places I’ve been, if I hadn’t gone into the path that I did I don’t think I would have ever opened my eyes to a lot of what’s out there.”