1982

March 29, 1982
Motorcycle accident  @ 8400 South Loop East

DOB – 8/1/1958, Age 23
Badge – 1787
Class #89
Final Resting Place –    Paradise North, Houston TX 

Motorcycle Officer Winston James Rawlins, was killed while issuing a citation on the South 610 Loop, East, and State Highway 225, at approximately 7:15 a.m. on Monday, March 29, 1982. Accident Investigator T.D. Owens gave this account of the incident: "Officer Rawlins had stopped a compact car for a traffic violation and had parked his motorcycle in front of the compact. They were westbound on the South Loop and stopped in the right emergency lane along a curved section of roadway. Traffic in the lanes had been slowed by another accident a half-mile away. While Rawlings stood beside the compact car, a gravel truck came around the curve. The driver of the truck saw the stacked-up traffic and tried to keep from hitting a Gulf Oil tank truck traveling slowly in the right lane. The truck driver veered into the right emergency lane, saw Officer Rawlings and the compact car, and then veered left, colliding with the rear of the gasoline truck. Everybody except Officer Rawlings was able to run before the area was engulfed in flames. A second gravel truck was also caught in the flames and all four of the vehicles involved were destroyed in the fire.

The gasoline truck was carrying about 8,600 gallons of gasoline and when the gravel truck rear-ended it, it exploded into flames. One of the witnesses said that, "It sounded like somebody dropped an atom bomb." Officer Rawlins tried to escape the burning truck but was pinned under the wreckage. A newspaper account stated that, "The heat from the accident was so intense that the 90-minute fire caused the beams of the elevated ramp to bend as much as six feet, and ruined some support columns of the freeway." Later on that same day, March 29, 1982, another Houston Police Officer, William E. Den, Leon also lost his life while in the process of writing a ticket on the Southwest Freeway.

Houston Police Officer Lynn Williams, who was a cousin of W.J. Rawlins, stated that becoming a policeman was "a boyhood dream" of her cousin. "All our lives, that's all we talked about -- becoming officers," she said. She described Officer Rawlins as a dedicated worker and one who "everybody liked." A fellow officer on the Motorcycle Detail to which Officer Rawlins was assigned, agreed.

Officer Winston James Rawlins' funeral services were held at the Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Houston on April 1, 1982. He was 23 years old and was a two-year veteran of the Houston Police Department.

Source – Houston Police Department Museum Files