Jack of Harts

The Metroplex police suffered under a severe leadership crisis during the Second Great Depression. The mayors ordered them to stand down when the riots burned down entire neighborhoods. The rioters and looters threatened their families, and often tracked down their homes and burned them down. Police morale was at an all-time low. It suffered another hit after the Tarrant County Sheriff drafted the Marines of Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base into his posse. The Metroplex mayors proclaimed them terrorists for their indiscriminate slaughter of “peaceful protesters who had traveled of their own free will to protest the callous murder of other peaceful protesters,” and they demanded the police march onto the base and arrest every last one of them. The police were not stupid. The vast majority resigned within a day of the order, and quickly moved their families into the neighborhoods surrounding the military base. Then they volunteered to join the posse, and the Tarrant County Sheriff accepted them with a smile. That is how Tarrant County built the posse they still claim is the most powerful posse in American history.

The Metroplex police were sidelined by mayoral orders during the Second Great Depression. The sheriff departments had too few men to stop all the violence burning through the cities, so the Tarrant County Sheriff was in great need of a reinforced posse. Now it was against the law for the Feds to use Army or Air Force servicemen to enforce laws. The Feds had done so numerous times over the centuries, most famously during Reconstruction and Desegregation, but by and large they had abided by that limitation. But the law had never been updated to account for the Marine Corps, and the Space Force was specifically ordered to enforce laws in space. With this in mind, Americans are ever looking for ways to twist the law to their advantage when there is any wiggle room. So when word made it to Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base of Tarrant County’s urgent need, the base’s Military Police contingent suddenly discovered a deep and abiding love for all things Marine Corps. They resigned from the Army Reserve and volunteered to join VMFA-112, The Cowboys. The Marine commander accepted their service with a smile, granted them their previous ranks on an honorary basis, and the Tarrant County Sheriff formally drafted the entire unit into his posse. The law has changed, and that particular loophole is no longer available, but Tarrant County has never stricken The Cowboys from their posse. They are effectively grand fathered into the posse in just one of the many little peculiarities that has crept into the law over the centuries.

The Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Metroplex spent months sliding into the worst excesses of the Second Great Depression. It started with protests against the old President’s handling of the latest Chinese Flu and the economic impacts of his China policies before the Impeachment. They turned to celebrations after he was kicked out, and then back to protests when the federal forces failed to arrest him. The Metroplex mayors always supported the “peaceful protests,” even as the nights grew more violent, deadly, and destructive. They refused to share information with Texas law enforcement agencies, and publicly ordered the Texas Rangers out of their cities. They refused to cooperate with any warrants or perform any paperwork pertaining to State cases, and released anyone the State detained whenever they gained custody. The new President supported their policies at every turn, publicly spotlighting their mission to drive the evils of systemic racism and so many other sins against humanity from Texas once and for all. The largest target in their crosshairs was the military-industrial complex epitomized by the Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base in the heart of their cities. They wanted it out of their cities, and they did everything they could to drive the base to leave. When that didn’t work, they tried to burn it out by aiming the protestors, gangs, drug cartels, and anarchists at the base.