Torance Wafer

Nearly 20 years ago, I was the city prosecutor in Texas City, Texas.  You can't make up a name like that.  Texas City (near Galveston) was a city of about 40,000 people and had a large industrial base.  A blue collar place, it was also quite integrated and "West Texas City" made the town about 35% black and 65% white at the time.  There were not many Hispanics then.

Most of the matters we had were of the traffic variety.  There was no code enforcement, and some truancy.

One of my most interesting cases involved the charge of Falsely Indentifying Yourself.  Normally there is no criminal requirement to produce ID when you are not driving.  But it was a crime to falsely identify yourself.  While this was probably to keep someone from using a Fake ID, it caught our friend.

According to the report I read, the police officer was investigating some matter and our hero happened to walk up.  The officer asked "Who are you?" and our hero slurred his words which came out "Tony Williams".  When the officer was talking to other people they told him, that's not Tony Williams, his name is Torance Wafer.  So Tony/Torrance got a citation and demand to go to court.  Possible $500 fine.

Why would someone say a fake name?  Probably to avoid a warrant check and an arrest.  Maybe just being scared.  But talking to Tony/Torance I figured it out.

Now this was back in 2000 before I had heard of Snoop Dogg.  And Tony/Torance not only looked like Snoop e.g.  tall, thin, black, long hair, but he also sounded like him, a very soft voice, probably had been smoking some marijuana which made him look and sound very sleepy.  Taw [murmer] Wa [murmer] was how he said his name.

But the capper was when he said "How could I possibly hide who I am?"  He then held out his forearms, palms of hands up, for me to see.

On the left side was tatooed T O R A N C E and on the right side W A F E R.    His name was right there in one inch block letters, no other tatoos there to hide.  Clear as Day.  Beyond any reasonable doubt.

I then used my prosecutor authority to Seek Justice and we dismissed the criminal charge against Torance Wafer.  Fortunately for him, he had not other charges or warrants and was able to walk out right away. 

I hope Torance is doing well now and that he pats himself on the back for keeping his wits about him in a stressful situation in court.  I won't forget him!