Around 5:30 this morning, 29-year-old Tomas Cavazos developed a serious beef with a pile of trash. A neighbor called police to report that the man appeared to be shooting the hell out of some debris in his front yard. Police arrived at a house in West Dallas to find the 6-foot-2-inch, 240 pound Cavazos standing behind a fence with a Glock 17 9mm semiautomatic in his hand. He wasn't shooting at anything when they arrived, but merely standing, holding the gun, probably contemplating what an asshole that debris was being.
Apparently intent on his lawn care, Cavazos didn't drop the gun when three squad cars pulled up in front of the house. Nor did he respond the first two times police yelled at him to drop his weapon.
After some more shouting from the police to drop the gun, Cavazos finally did so. Officers took him and the Glock, separately, to Lew Sterrett jail. The police also ran a background check and discovered Cavazos wasn't exactly supposed to have a gun; he has three felony convictions, all for drug possession. Court records show that the last time he was arrested, in January 2012, police stopped by his house to discuss reports that drugs were being sold there. After Cavazos gave them permission to search the house (politely apologizing first for it being "kind of messy") the cops found a little more than 3 1/2 ounces of marijuana inside the kitchen cabinets, some scales with pot residue on them, a few capsules of heroin, a loaded SKS semiautomatic rifle in the laundry room, and another rifle with no serial number sitting nearby. In addition to the loaded, easily accessible firearms, officers were concerned by the house's "rat traps exposed with poison ... no mattress and nails in the floor," mostly because a 2-year-old child also lived there.
Which is all really beside the point. The lesson here: You managed to slip away this time, pile of trash and debris in Tomas Cavazos' front yard. But you better sleep with one eye open.
Update, 4:09 p.m.: We've updated this post with Cavazos' new mugshot, apparently taken bright and early this morning.