They have seen the worst of society: suicides, homicides,
traffic accidents. A couple of violent deaths a month for over 20 years. They also have seen the best of nature: the asure-rumped
tanager and the resplendent quetzal in Chiapas, and the rufous cheeked
hummingbird in the jungles of the Dari�n. Over the past 20 years, they
have seen over 1,500 different types of birds, nearly a quarter of all the bird
species known on the planet.
Lieutenant Greg Lasley’s pale blue eyes have seen
much more than most people’s. A 20-year veteran of the Austin Police
Department, Lasley has been on the scene of several hundred violent deaths. His
expertise as a police officer has won him numerous commendations. He was APD’s
employee of the year in 1992. His personnel file has a half-inch thick stack of
letters extolling his abilities.
As one of America’s foremost birdwatchers, Lasley
has become an expert on the birds of Texas, Mexico, and Central America. Of the
590 bird species spotted in Texas, Lasley’s seen 537 of them. He’s a personal
friend of Roger Tory Peterson, the famed naturalist, author, and painter
considered to be the father of modern birdwatching. He and biologist Chuck
Sexton write a column for American Birds magazine on Texas birds.
Most people work their whole lives to excel at one
thing. Very few achieve it. Lasley excels at his vocation and his avocation.
His peers at APD call him a “cop’s cop.” One of the officers Lasley supervises
says, “He doesn’t have any weak points.” Birdwatchers marvel at his dedication
and his encyclopedic knowledge of birds, dates, and vocalizations.
Lasley says birdwatching may have saved his career
as a policeman. “Cops go through their day dealing with people who are at their
worst,” he says. “I’ve been in situations where I’ve been on the ground,
fighting with a guy who wants to kill me, and there were people standing around
doing nothing, just jeering at me. After a few years as a police officer, you
begin to only trust other police officers. You begin to think that you can only
rely on other cops because no one else will help you. What happens to some
young cops is that they don’t trust anyone else. I was following that path. I
didn’t want to be around anyone but other cops.
“Nature and birds pulled me out of that. I spent time with
other birdwatchers and realized that there are lots of good people in the world
who aren’t cops.”
But Lasley never completely relaxes. “As a cop, you are
always in condition yellow. Even when I’m off duty, I’m always looking, always
watching other cars, other people, wondering who might have a gun, who might be
a drunk driver.” When looking for birds inside the city, Lasley is armed – it’s
one of the requirements of being with the APD. On a recent trip to McKinney
Falls State Park, he carried a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol in his waistband.
It’s all part of being a cop.
To an outsider, birdwatching and police work appear to be
worlds apart. But the two activities involve many of the same skills:
precision, patience, and awareness. Police work requires lots of paperwork. So
does birdwatching. Next to actually watching birds, bird aficionados like
nothing better than lists. They keep life lists, day lists, year lists, state
lists; birdwatchers have dozens of ways to keep score.
Lasley has been involved in several events that place him in
an elite group of birdwatchers. In April of 1991, Lasley, Sexton, and two
others set a new record for the “Big Day” in Texas. The Big Day is a contest to
see how many birds a group or individual can locate and identify in a specific
area in one 24-hour period. Lasley’s group recorded 208 species. Starting in
Houston, the group drove to Austin, Palmetto State Park, Corpus Christi, and
Kingsville. Lasley, an expert driver from his years with APD, was the wheelman.
(Participants admit that Lasley may have violated the speed limit once or twice
during the 667-mile excursion.)
In the late 1980s, Lasley, Peterson, Victor Emanuel, (who
owns and operates Austin-based Victor Emanuel Nature Tours), and another man
set a national Big Day record, using a plane to find 243 bird species in one
24-hour period. Although he keeps dozens of lists, Lasley particularly dislikes
the life list – which enumerates all the birds someone sees in his or her
lifetime – because a person “may have seen 700 birds in North America and know
nothing about any of them.”
Acclaimed for his skills as a birdwatcher, he has also won
note as a bird photographer. His photo of the golden-cheeked warbler has
appeared in numerous publications, including the cover of Ed Kutac’s book,
Birder’s Guide to Texas.
Many of his fellow officers know Lasley is interested in
birds. (He says he’s “more or less out of the closet” regarding birdwatching.)
But few know the extent of his expertise, and he takes a lot of good-natured
ribbing from his co-workers about his hobby. When told the subject of this
story, an officer at the East Austin substation where Lasley offices, asked in
a loud, sarcastic voice, “Oh, you’re going to write about that famous bird
watcher?”
But everyone at APD has good things to say about Lasley. The
dean of the APD, Lt. Ernie Hinkle, who has been on the force for 34 years,
calls Lasley “one of the best cops I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve seen a lot
of them. If I was in trouble, I would want someone like him to back me up.”
Hinkle says that Lasley’s calm demeanor has saved several lives, including that
of a man threatening to jump from the top of a downtown hotel. On another
occasion, Hinkle says, Lasley disarmed a woman who was attacking him with a
butcher knife.
Peterson says he loves watching birds because they are a
“very vivid expression of life.” But Lasley cannot escape the memory of the
deaths he’s seen working in law enforcement. One in particular haunts him.
Sixteen years ago, in addition to his duties as a patrol officer, Lasley worked
as a traffic accident investigator. The victim’s name was Sharla Shirley, a
16-year-old honor student who’d had her drivers license for just a few days. “I
can remember everything about it,” says Lasley. He can describe the make and
model of the cars involved, the direction and speed they were traveling. Sharla
was in a 1974 Audi. She was killed when a drunk driver hit her broadside. The
Audi was crushed by the impact. “The entire car was about one foot wide,”
Lasley says.
There was, he says, “something about it, because of the
innocence of the victim. You’ve got to put up a guard as a police officer.
You’re not supposed to let those things get to you. But that one got to me.”
Lasley pauses. His eyes begin to well with tears. “Tough deal.” He bites his
lower lip. He pauses again.
“You see a lot of pain in this business. I’ve seen people
that have been beheaded, almost anything that can happen to a human body, I’ve
seen it. It doesn’t bother me now. But that one got to me.”
Despite the rigors of police work, Lasley wouldn’t have it
any other way. He loves being a policeman. He came to Austin in 1973 after
spending four years in the Air Force, where he was a load master on cargo
planes and spent time in Vietnam. He began life after the military by
delivering milk for Superior Dairies. It lasted six months. “In the Air Force I
had a great deal of responsibility. And then I was driving a milk truck. I was
bored to death.” He talked to a policeman who encouraged him to check into APD.
A few months later, Lasley was in the police academy. Commissioned July 19,
1974, he rose rapidly, becoming a senior sergeant in 1984. In 1993, he was
promoted to lieutenant, and he now oversees more than 70 officers in the Baker
sector, which is bounded by I-35 on the east, Koenig Lane on the north, Town
Lake on the south and the city limits on the west.
The promotion has been a mixed blessing. He misses the
street. “I get to go out on the street and play cop every now and then,” he
says, but most of his time is spent at the desk, dealing with managerial
details. He also spends a lot of time meeting with community groups.
Last week, the problem du jour was the homeless population
along the Drag. Merchants have been after him for weeks to take action. “We try
to tell people that we can’t move them [the homeless] just to move them. They
aren’t breaking the law.” Lasley calls the homeless problem “one of the most
frustrating things I’ve ever dealt with. Homelessness is a societal problem and
I don’t have the resources to fix the problem.”
As for his avocation, Lasley spent last weekend on a boat on
the Gulf Coast looking for seabirds. His next big trip will be in September
when he goes back to South Texas on a photo expedition. In January, he will go
on a birdwatching trip with Emanuel to Antarctica.
“As a cop, you see a lot of people taking things from
others.
I guess that’s one of the things I like about birdwatching – there’s no taking
involved.”
This article appears in June 2 • 1995 and June 2 • 1995 (Cover).