Rising Lonestars interviewed Williamson County Constable Paul Leal to discuss his nomination to the RLS Top 10 in June and his service during the Texas Winter Storm in February 2021.
Transcript-
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Paul Leal
My name is Paul Leal. I am the constable here in Williamson County precinct for.
Simon Nichols
Thank you again for speaking to me today, Constable Leal. So, first of all, what does it mean for you to be an elected official and a leader in your community?
Paul Leal
It means a lot. I’ve been in law enforcement in this area since . And when I. I’ve got news that this office was going to become available. I knew this is what I wanted to do. I knew it would give me a platform to be able to serve more than I already was, and that it would give
Paul Leal
me a lot of access to help people in the communities that we service.
Simon Nichols
So constables are in a unique position from certain other peacekeeping offices in Texas because you are directly elected. How do you think that shapes what it’s like to be in law enforcement?
Paul Leal
You know, I like it because, you know, I’ve worked for a municipality in the beginning. And, you know, I like the fact that that I report to the voters that I have. You know, what my heart tells me to do?
Paul Leal
I can do as long as it’s legal and it’s ethical, I can do it. And and I like that part of it. I like the fact that that just like the the what took place during the winter storm and what took place not too long ago when the tornadoes came through my precinct.
Paul Leal
I like the fact that I don’t have to ask someone, can I go do this? I have the authority and the ability and the resources to just go do it. And and and that part I really like. So I like the fact that I am the boss.
Paul Leal
I know that sounds cocky and arrogant, but I love the fact that, you know, if my heart says. Do this. I can do it. And I don’t have to go ask a supervisor or a chief or someone else for permission.
Paul Leal
And I really, truly like the fact of that. And I love the fact that that I report to the voters. If they don’t like what I’m doing, they won’t reelect me. And and I hope that that, you know, they see that my heart is in the right place and that I am here to truly serve them.
Paul Leal
And that’s what we’ve been doing.
Simon Nichols
You have a little bit more control over knowing what’s best for your community, and that’s exactly necesary to serve them. Gotcha.
Paul Leal
Exactly right. And and I’m because I’ve been here my whole life and I’ve been in law enforcement on the east side of this county since . I know who to call. I know. Hey, I need roof tops. I know who to call.
Paul Leal
I need a portable potty. I know who to call. I need firewood. I know who to call. And that makes it great
Simon Nichols
You’re part of the community.
Paul Leal
I am. I’m a Taylor Duck.
Simon Nichols
So you mentioned the winter storm in Europe. You just received the city of Texas Law Enforcement Achievement Award for public service, I believe, for your actions during that notorious storm last year. Can you tell me a little bit about what you did and what happened, Taylor during that time?
Paul Leal
Yeah, well, you know, it hit us by surprise. I had just been in office a couple of months and. You know, we have a fleet of Tahoe’s here that are all two wheel drive. And they were useless and I could not get my truck out of my coal sack.
Paul Leal
And so thank God I personally own a three quarter ton, four wheel drive, big block hemi dodge truck. That is a beast. And I was able to deflate my tires a little bit, get better traction. And luckily, the office that I took, we had some magnets here that said constables.
Paul Leal
I stuck them on the side of that pickup truck and that became my patrol vehicle. And and it and everything just changed from a from a law enforcement aspect to basically. A delivery person. And and, you know, I got on social media and I put it out there that that I am on the road and I’m mobile
Paul Leal
. And I know a lot of people are stranded and I know that there there’s lots of people without heat and without water. And and I’m here to help and. Calls started coming in. I put my personal cell phone number out there every morning.
Paul Leal
Please call me. Message me, get in touch with me. And the calls started coming in. We need food. So then I would just put it out there. I need food. You know, when. When that first happened, I said within minutes, I received, like, six messages saying we’re we’re running low on food.
Paul Leal
I’m taking care of my mother. I didn’t plan on being here this long. Her home health nurse usually brings food camp with all kinds of situations. So I put the call out, Hey, I need food. I’ve got six families right now that need food.
Paul Leal
And I mean, within minutes, the people of this community of pressing for responded and they said, I have a box for you on my porch. I have this. I have that. A shepherd’s heart food pantry here in Taylor.
Paul Leal
A David Brooks contact contacted me within minutes, said, come to the food pantry. I got you. Before you know it, I probably had £, of food in the. In my pickup truck. Wow. And. You know, more food than what was requested.
Paul Leal
And and so then I put it out there, I’ve got food, who needs food? And I deliver that food to the people who responded. And then I made the decision we’re going to deliver to all of the senior living places between, you know, Granger, Taylor, for all who whoever is a shot in, wherever is are most vulnerable
Paul Leal
to try to get out in this and this kind of weather. You know, you and I fall, I’m even though I’m getting older, you and I fall, we recover an year old that falls. They don’t you know, it’s a broken hip.
Paul Leal
It’s it’s surgery. And so we made the decision, all the food that I had, we’re going to go delivered to the elderly. And so and we did and we I think we. I think all in all, it was probably a close to a hundred apartments of elderly senior, senior living centers, that kind of thing.
Paul Leal
We’re not talking about nursing homes. I’m talking about, you know, they’re they. We have a place here in Java called Grace Places, a place of grandeur, and it’s just elderly, but they’re independent. They drive their own, their own.
Paul Leal
But but they’re they’re up in age. And so we delivered to all those we did contact the nursing home, and they said they were fine. And so we started delivering to those and they were so thankful. Then, you know, we put call out we need water, bottled water again.
Paul Leal
Within minutes people were answering the call. I would go get water, deliver water. You know, I got a message from somebody said, we have just burned our last piece of firewood. The only source of heat we have in this house is a fireplace.
Paul Leal
And we have just burned our last piece of wood. So, again, I put it out there. If you’ve got firewood that you could spare, I need firewood. And again, within minutes, somebody, a local resident here in Taylor said, I’ve got firewood.
Paul Leal
I went to his place and loaded up a cord of firewood, which is almost a pickup truck bed. And then the Taylor Masonic Lodge contacted me and said, We’ve got firewood. And they took it upon themselves that they had a crew there with chainsaws and they were cutting wood and had it stacked out there at the street
Paul Leal
And they were like, You need firewood. Come here. And I went there and and I delivered two truckloads of firewood to different locations throughout the county. People would call and say, I had a family out on the road for .
Paul Leal
A family of eight. And they were living in a travel trailer. With no heat, no water. And the dad contacted me and he said we made it through the night, but it was degrees inside our camper. And he said, My family cannot make it another night like this.
Paul Leal
We were snowed in. We can’t get our vehicle out. We need help. And so I went out there with my truck, made it all the way to their travel trailer, loaded them up and took them to a family they had in hotel
Paul Leal
We had people who didn’t have a place to stay. And my wife and I, we opened up our home and we didn’t have water, but we had electricity. So we had we had heat. We could we melted snow to flush commodes.
Paul Leal
And we ended up with a little over people there. And it was it’s just things like that. It was, hey, I need a ride to my mother’s place to get her medication. We got her to our house, thankfully, before this happened.
Paul Leal
But all of our medicine is at home. Can you take us? And I would go pick up somebody and take them out there and and and get let them get their medication and then bring them back to the trailer.
Paul Leal
We had people EMS services were trying to do their best, but we got a phone call saying, hey, we need we have a patient here that needs dialysis, that. And so here we go. You know, take them for to drop them off to get their dialysis and then bring them back.
Paul Leal
It’s just things like that. It was there was so many things like that that happened. It was just, you know, it was just kind of crazy for for a little while, every day during that, you know, at first that week I started at a.m. with giving an update on the road conditions.
Paul Leal
And I would just go Facebook live and drive and tell people and and start the day. And I would usually get home about p.m. that night, and that’s what we were doing every day. I would need to put a tank of gas in my truck and luckily our county judge understood because pumps weren’t working.
Paul Leal
So thankfully, we had a we have a county fuel pump here in Tyler and it worked. And so I was able to go to the county fuel pump, use the car I would use for my my county issued vehicle and use it to fill up my truck.
Paul Leal
And and they understood, you know, I just thought, well, I’ll figure this out, whether it’s right or wrong, you know, I’ll either get my hand slapped or something will happen or I’ll just pay it back, you know, whatever.
Paul Leal
But I got to have fuel to run this truck and you know, HEB, there’s a video out there on YouTube and Facebook. You know, one morning I started out, I think it was Tuesday morning or Wednesday morning, and I started at about in the morning.
Paul Leal
I went by the Taylor HEB and there looked to be about people waiting for that place to open. And then I went back by, did some, did some check up on some elderly who just refused to come in.
Paul Leal
They had pets. They weren’t going to leave their pets, just all kinds of things. But every morning I would take them breakfast and make sure they were okay and would and and check on them. And I was on my way back into Taylor.
Paul Leal
I went by HEB again and now there look to be people in line, maybe . And it reminded me of when Coleman hit and the line just went way down the sidewalks and and I was like, man, what is going on here?
Paul Leal
Why aren’t they opening? Taylor Walmart wasn’t even trying to open, but at least HEB was. And so I went in there and I made contact with a manager who I knew and he said, I can’t open Paul because we don’t have a toilet.
Paul Leal
So what do you mean? He said we have to have a toilet under some health and safety law. They have to have toiletries for customers. And I’m like, So you’re telling me that if I can go get you a toilet like a porta potty and put it here in front of the store, you can open.
Paul Leal
And he said, That’s right. He said, I don’t know what else to do. And people were getting more and more agitated and you know, they see employees walking around inside, but again, they won’t open the doors. So anyway, luckily there was a bank being constructed on the other side of the parking lot and I drove my truck
Paul Leal
over there, tied a chain around a poor body, and I dragged it across down the street, across the parking lot and pulled up right in front of HEB and everybody began cheering. And I did a Rocky Balboa move and felt like a hero.
Paul Leal
And, and I soon as soon as. That manager saw that porta potty. Maybe in front of you. He immediately opened the doors and began to let customers in and it was things like that. Then he later called me and said, Paul, we’re going to shut our doors again.
Paul Leal
Our refrigeration system is completely out of water and we cannot let these refrigerators die. We’re about to have to close so that we can try to put things in a freezer. And I said, So what do you need?
Paul Leal
He said, I need at least gallons of water and. I said, Well, let me make a phone call. So I called our Avery Pickett Volunteer Fire Department, talked to the chief. We contact Taylor Fire Department, and within minutes, we had a tanker truck there dropping off gallons of water.
Paul Leal
And I. I gave them a resource to go. You know, you unfortunately and you probably know this, unfortunately, people will complain no matter what your intentions were, good or bad. Right. And so I knew that. And they had the same concerns I did.
Paul Leal
Well, people are going to this is city water. You can’t use city water to fund this. A business, a private business. And this and that. But. But you know, in that situation, there’s a bigger picture there. You know, there’s more at stake than just giving gallons of water to the city.
Paul Leal
The HEB from the city. And so I said, look, I have a place you can go recover the water. So if anybody complains. The water has been been resupplied at no cost to any Taylor residents or anything else.
Paul Leal
If somebody should complain. Thank God nobody ever did. Most people don’t know that even happened because it all happened behind HEB in the back and they never saw that taking place. But without those connections and without that, those, you know, people just willing to to just take the risk and make these things happen, you know, it made
Paul Leal
it made it made that whole winter storm storms get a little bit easier to deal with. But it is hundreds of stories like that. And I tell everybody, look, all of that was possible because of the generosity of the people were then bracing for.
Paul Leal
I didn’t have that food at my house. I didn’t have that water in my house. I don’t have a fireplace. I don’t have firewood. It’s because people answered the call and I just became the mailman. I just luckily had the truck that could carry the load and could terrain get through the terrain.
Paul Leal
And there’s a few times I went off the road and I slipped and cut through people’s yards and I just said, you know, it’s just like stealing the porta potty. And I did say, stealing, you know, yeah, I stole the porta potty.
Paul Leal
I didn’t have permission to get it. It wasn’t mine. But I thought the big picture here, hopefully people will have the compassion and the grace and the mercy to understand it was the right thing to do. Now, immediately after I got that there and I did my Rocky Balboa, as soon as I got back in my truck
Paul Leal
and left, I called the Honey Buckets Porta Potty Company and left a message that I did remove one of their, you know, restrooms and I called luckily miss was not is the bank president. I knew she was going to be the president of that bank, the bank manager.
Paul Leal
I mean, so I heard her husband are her husband and our good friends. So I called her husband Matt. I said, Matt, I took a porta potty from Eagle Bank. Can you please tell you what I need permission and that you know, she’s okay with it because they’re the ones who lease them.
Paul Leal
It’s sad. You got to think about those little things, but you just do. But that’s what happened during the the winter storm here. And that’s what I did. And I didn’t do it for any recognition. I really didn’t.
Paul Leal
I did it because it’s what needed to be done. And and as soon as my deputies were able to get mobile, I had deputies drive their personal four wheel drives here. We partnered up to do different things. The moment those travels to get on the road, we had them out working with a Texas beer company here in
Paul Leal
Tyler, blocking traffic for water distribution. You know, I ended up getting a gallon water tank in the back of my truck and we filled it up and I was able to go to the county and deliver water to people to flush their commodes, to bathe with.
Paul Leal
It was just all I’m telling you. I could go on all day about everything that took place. It was just just lots of little bitty things that I believe made a difference in people’s lives during that week. And I’m thankful I have a wife who, you know, loves people and was willing to open up her home an
Paul Leal
allow people to come in. You know, our kids are grown where there were what do they call it, empty nesters. And, you know, I have a I had three bedrooms that nobody was in a home theater room upstairs.
Paul Leal
Nobody was in and the living room downstairs and nobody took them. And we filled them. And I had people sleeping on air mattresses on the floor. And our our kitchen looked like a like some kind of crack cocaine cooking kitchen with lots of we had pot.
Paul Leal
We figured one five gallon bucket of snow equaled one gallon of water. And and they created a system where we had constantly had snow melting and we had buckets. I have three bathrooms in my home, and we had buckets at every bathroom with a pitcher and, you know, and it worked
Paul Leal
It worked. And everybody was so thankful and. And, you know, we made friends that will last a lot of time. And so that’s it. I’ll quit talking, man.
Simon Nichols
No, please. You know, that was. That was the thing that really stuck out to me from the winter storm was that it was devastating for a lot of people. But at the same time, communities all over the state really came together and helped each other.
And it really just showed the extent to which people were generous to their neighbors and cared to help strangers.
Paul Leal
Is really was. And that’s what that’s what I left with. Do I keep. Every day I would just think to myself, man, I mean, the people that make up these communities we serve are just amazing people. And they, you know, no matter what anybody else says about.
Paul Leal
Society now or whatever. People in my mind, people still do care about each other and they do want to help their neighbor. And that was that was just real everyday for me during that week. You know, I’m telling you, I think I and I had I had to finally tell me, I don’t need no more food.
Paul Leal
I can’t take no more stuff like like, you know, and I ended it. We ended up given the excess stuff that we had to shepherd our food pantry, give it back to them. You know, the county, you know, county business and government, you know, they’re always a couple days behind.
Paul Leal
But, man, the county stepped up and, you know, they had pallets. We picked up pallets of water. I mean, I’m talking entire pallets. Luckily, my office, we have a trailer and and we loaded pallets of water in that trailer and we delivered pallets of water to different locations of for them to distribute.
Paul Leal
I mean, you know, when they could get to it, we were in we were in full gear. But that’s what happened. That’s what I did. And that’s what they recognized me for. And, you know, and I was honored to receive the award.
Paul Leal
I never thought I would get anything like that in my lifetime. But, you know, again, it’s not why I did it. And. I’m just glad I was able to help
Simon Nichols
Well, it’s obviously deserved. You transition really well. And to my last question I have for you there, which is a part of why we do Raising Lone Stars, is because we think local politics is a great place to focus when compared to national politics, where there’s a lot of polarization in division between neighbors and just between parties
Simon Nichols
. There is in local politics. It matters less what your party is and more just who you are. Do you have any insights that you would like to give regarding that? Just polarization in the news?
Paul Leal
I agree with you. You know, I have friends, so I’m a Republican. And but I have dear friends who are Democrats and I love them. And on this local level, you know. You know, I was able to all that becomes irrelevant when when when when you know when it’s time to put feet on the ground and resources
Paul Leal
where they need to go. And, you know, when when when people’s safety is at hand and. All that goes out the window and in true and true honesty in my business and my world. I don’t even know why.
Paul Leal
I wish we were like a school board or our city council or it didn’t matter because there is not one thing that I do that has anything to do with politics. Throughout the course of our job. We don’t decide to serve a warrant on somebody, whether they’re a Republican or a Democrat.
Paul Leal
We don’t decide to execute a writ based on somebody’s political affiliation. It has zero to do with this office. Unfortunately, though, because I am elected, you know, I have to pick a side. And and so but but when it’s on the local level, I have city council members, mayors who are Democrat and and I love them.
Paul Leal
And we grew up together. And when this thing happened, we’re on the phone with each other. And one of the city council member here in Taylor, Gerald Anderson, he’s a hard core Democrat, but I love that guy. And and, you know, I’m on the phone with him.
Paul Leal
Gerald, what do you need? What can we do? And he’s trying to get people in the Holiday Inn, and he’s trying to get people here and there and and it goes out the window. All of that goes out the window when when it matters and when we need to do what we need to do
Paul Leal
But but you know that I don’t know what else to say other than that. I wish. I wish, you know, I try to do my best to stay out of the politics of things. It’s unfortunately, it’s very hard to do.
Paul Leal
And I’m realizing that, you know, this is my second year of my first term and. But I agree with you, ma’am. And I have, you know, on a side note, you know, I’ve made lots of people mad because I still vote.
Paul Leal
On the candidate and not the party. And and I vote for Democrats. If they’re the right candidate for the office that they’re seeking, I vote for them. And I make it clear that I voted for them. And that may cost me my next election.
Paul Leal
I don’t know. But. I’m true. You know, it’s it’s it is what it is. And I’m I’m for the person, not the party. And and that’s just me. And like I said, I’m new at this. So this may be my only term, but.
Paul Leal
I’ll figure it out, you know. But. At least I’m going to walk out of here with my head head held high, knowing that I did what was right in my heart and and what I thought was best for the communities and that that that we represent and that I can vote in and regardless of party.
Paul Leal
And I’ll leave it at that, man. You know, like I said, people hate me. They’re mad at me for it. And I probably lost some votes. I probably lost some support. I still go to sleep every night feeling good about myself.
Paul Leal
You know, that’s the truth of it.
Simon Nichols
Well, that’s enough. Thank you so much.
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