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Chapter 3
Car Chase
In the early spring of 1965 I was in love with a girl called Peewee. We heard
about a party at a big community center in Houma, Louisiana, a small parish
about 60 miles from New Orleans, and wanted to go. I drove Peewee, her
little brother Harold, and some friends up there in a car they told me belonged
to their uncle. I’d just turned 18. While we were inside the community center
Peewee’s brother snuck out and took the car for a joyride. He hit another car
while he was out. Nobody was injured but someone got the license plate
number of the car he was speeding away in and reported it to the police. He
came back to the party and didn’t say a word.
Afterward I was driving us back to New Orleans when a state trooper
started blasting a siren and flashing lights behind us. As I was getting ready
to pull over, Peewee’s brother started yelling, “Don’t pull over, don’t pull
over” from the backseat of the car. In the rearview mirror I saw him waving
his arms. “I stole this car,” he yelled. Without a second’s hesitation, I
swerved back onto the highway and pressed my foot down on the gas pedal.
Fueled by the fear of being arrested for driving a stolen car, I inadvertently
led a sheriff’s squad car on a 17-mile high-speed chase down the highway,
plowing through barricades erected by the sheriff’s deputies or state troopers
ahead of us. I was weaving in and out of traffic through Raceland when
Peewee, who had been screaming this whole time, grabbed the steering wheel
suddenly and jerked it to the right. The car made a sharp turn into the
embankment of a canal and flew over the water, landing on the front two
tires, breaking the axle between them in half, and somehow ending upright.
For a moment, nobody moved. We were on the other side of the canal from
the sheriff’s deputies and state troopers. When I looked over they were
already out of their cars yelling at us to get out, waving their guns.
We opened the car doors and ran as fast as we could in different
directions. I came to a garage behind a house and found a large dollhouse
inside where I hid, pulling dolls on top of me. Sheriff’s deputies came in and
looked around and left. Sometime later I climbed out of the dollhouse and
walked out of the garage. As I looked around the corner I saw Peewee,
Harold, and the others standing with state troopers. Peewee was crying. I
didn’t want any of them to go to jail. I walked over to the troopers and
surrendered myself.
After we were arrested they brought us to the Thibodaux jail. The next
day I told them I stole the car and that we were joyriding and nobody knew
anything about it. Peewee, her brother, and their friends were released. They
charged me with auto theft, resisting arrest, hit-and-run, and speeding; the
police said I was going 108 miles per hour. I took a plea bargain and was
sentenced to two years at the Thibodaux jail. They made me a trustee, which
meant I had more freedom of movement than other prisoners. I was put on a
work crew cutting grass and picking up trash along the highway. After a
couple of weeks, I ran away.
As usual, I wasn’t thinking ahead. I didn’t have a plan. I just wanted to go
home. I’d noticed that the back door of the Thibodaux jail was kept open
until midnight. There was an old unlocked bicycle in the backyard. The
guards watched TV with the inmates every night. I left one night while the
prisoners and sheriff’s deputies watched a program on TV. I got on the bike
and headed for the highway. After pedaling a couple of hours, I was tired and
looking for a place to pull over when I saw there were some trucks and
equipment in a gravel pit off the side of the road. I thought I could take a nap
in the cab of the cement mixer so I pedaled over, climbed in, and lay down on
the seat. That’s when I saw the keys in the ignition.
I taught myself how to shift gears in the cement mixer by trial and error
while driving to New Orleans. I could only go about 10 miles per hour but it
was better than riding a bike. When I was almost home I pulled up to a light
on St. Bernard and Claiborne and a police car pulled up next to me. From the
corner of my eye I saw the cops do a double take when they saw me, a skinny
black kid, driving a cement mixer in the middle of the city. They waved me
over. I made a left on St. Bernard and pulled over, then jumped out running.
They got out of their car with guns drawn and started firing at me. I ran up
neutral ground on Claiborne and then got myself to an alley beside a house
where I could jump fences and lose them. When I stopped to catch my breath,
I realized I left my wallet on the dashboard of the cement mixer. I didn’t hide.
That’s how stupid I was. I was sitting on the front steps of a friend’s house in
the Sixth Ward with her kid on my lap the next day when an unmarked police
car filled with detectives from Thibodaux and New Orleans turned the corner.
We saw each other at the same time. I couldn’t run with her little kid on my
lap so stayed where I was. They got out of their car with guns in their hands
and walked over.
“Well, well, well,” one of them said, holding my wallet. “Mr. Woodfox.”
They handcuffed me, put me in their car, and beat the shit out of me on
the way to central lockup because I had led the police on a chase. I was sent
back to Thibodaux and charged with escape, theft, driving without a license,
resisting an officer, and speeding. The judge told me I had a choice: I could
do four years at the Houma city jail or two years at the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola, with an option to transfer out to the minimum-
security DeQuincy jail in 90 days if I was well behaved. I’d seen guys in my
neighborhood come back from Angola throughout my childhood. They were
given the highest respect. I thought it would be an honor to go there. I chose
Angola.
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