Remembering Cpl. Arlie Jones

Darn, if you can’t see the son in Arlie Jones Sr.’s face — the round nose, the square chin, the ears.

And the eyes. They just looked forward as the father talked about the son.

Sometimes they filled with tears Monday.

The father sat on the couch, his right leg crossed over his left. An armrest propped up his right arm, and his hand supported his bald head.

Around him, family members and friends grieved. About 16 in all, they sat in chairs and cross-legged on the floor, reminiscing when asked about Arlie Jones Jr.

The son’s portrait in Odessa policeman blue rested in a frame on a table directly in the father’s gaze.

The son died Saturday evening. Responding to an incomplete 9-1-1 call, Arlie Jones Jr. was shot and killed in a western Odessa backyard.

Arlie Jones Jr. was 48, a police officer for 23 years and a military policeman for eight years.

Look at the police officer’s uniform, and see the guy who pulls over the speeding motorist, the guy who issues the ticket, the guy lamented for the job he does.

He’s the faceless man in the crowd, controlling it. He’s the man rarely heard about.

But he’s someone’s son, brother and husband.

The son shouldn’t go before the parents. It’s so cliché, Arlie Jones Sr. said — but it’s true.

On Sunday, that’s what he told Jack Gardner, whose son Cpl. John “Scott” Gardner was shot and killed alongside Cpl. Jones. The Gardner family, still dazed by its loss, declined to be interviewed Monday.

Even three decades after the Jones’ only son moved out of this standard ranch-style home in this typical single-family Odessa neighborhood, the 71-year-old father and 66-year-old mother, Lolly, tried to figure out how to deal with a lost son.

Time didn’t numb the love. Life spent together didn’t ease the shock.

“He wouldn’t leave this house without telling me he loved me,” Lolly Jones said. “He’s done that his whole life. … A son anyone would be proud of.”

Fellow Northside Baptist church members sent food that sat out on the kitchen counter.

Comfort food. So the Jones family ate.

A visitor asked about Arlie Jr.’s life.

And so they talked.

He loved his wife, Rhonda, whom he called “his pretty lady,” Jones Jr.’s family said.

He was “Lee” to them — the cutup, always doing the quirky practical joke to make others laugh.

He would be the guy who put a restaurant’s napkin rings on his ears and eat the entire meal without cracking a smile. Others would laugh though.

In high school, the 1977 Permian High graduate and a friend put on ape masks, cut into a July Fourth parade and marched with a band.

“He was a big goof,” his sister Colleen Smith said.

“That’s what made him relate so well to other people,” his sister Kathleen Woodard said.

Still, the comic took his job seriously, an extra-sharp dresser who wore his spit-shined boots, pressed uniform and “always looked like he was ready for a parade,” Arlie Jones Sr. said.

He worked overtime often and requested the most crime-ridden neighborhoods to patrol. Arlie Jones Sr. said the workhorse mentality ran in the family.

And he took his Baptist faith seriously, telling his fellow officers and even the people Jones Jr. arrested about his Christian conviction.

“He was someone who would pray with you in your car,” OPD Deputy Chief Don Orren said. “He'd pray with you on the street.”

A God-fearing man, Lolly Jones said.

“He was a Christian who wasn’t ashamed of his faith,” Kathleen Woodard said.

He was the man in the blue uniform. He was a man who loved his job and who was loved dearly.

“Arlie is probably the epitome of what a police officer should be,” Orren said. “He was a cop's cop.”

“Protect and serve — as corny as it may sound,” Arlie Jones Sr. said, “he believed that.”

>>Arlie Jones Jr.’s services will be 2 p.m. Wednesday at Temple Baptist Church. Burial will follow at Sunset Memorial Gardens.