The Crimes and Misdemeanors of Sheriff Jim Boutwell
“What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?”
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
“On Good and Evil” in The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
The Orlando Sentinel describes Jim Boutwell in his 1993 obituary as the “…legendary Texas lawman who tried to shoot down sniper Charles Whitman from the University of Texas bell tower in 1966…” According to the obit, Boutwell was then “…a reserve deputy and owner of a local airport…when Whitman started shooting people from the top of the bell tower…Boutwell took to his small plane and buzzed the bell tower, exchanging gunfire with Whitman and allowing people to escape…”
He sounds bigger than life, doesn’t he? And after the UT tower shooting, he was. There’s no question that taking a small plane within the firing range of a mentally unbalanced gunman takes guts. People respected that, and the event established Boutwell as a risk-taker who’d do whatever he needed to do to get his man.
And in the process, he would destroy more lives than he saved.
