Slain lawman remembered for diligence
Greenwood brought truth, accountability and a sharp sense of humor to life’s work
Clint Greenwood spent most of his career defending or prosecuting cops.
With the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, he spearheaded the internal affairs division. At the District Attorney’s Office, he led the police integrity division. And at his new job, he was revamping policies and use-of-force procedures for the Precinct 3 Constable’s Office.
Most of his work was behind a desk, away from the streets where other officers have been killed.
But along the way, he made enemies, one of whom may have been the man who gunned him down Monday as he arrived for work at the courthouse annex in Baytown. Authorities have not found Greenwood’s killer and are offering a $65,000 reward for information to track him down.
“We’d never expect some commander who works at the office to get ambushed and killed, so it’s a real shock,” said Steve Marino, Greenwood’s longtime friend who now works at the Precinct 5 Constable’s Office.
The target of at least one prosecution filed complaints about him and harassed him, county officials said. In the days before his death, a source told the Chronicle that Greenwood had emailed the county attorney’s office expressing concern about the man.
But his friends said he almost never raised concerns about dangers that might come with his job. They remember him as a relentless fighter, ruthless joker and hard worker.
Greenwood grew up in Spring Branch and spent practically his whole life in the area. “When I leave Harris County, I get a nosebleed,” he would joke.
Tim Cannon, now a lieutenant at the Montgomery County Sher-
iff ’s Office, met Greenwood in middle school. They liked to go hunting and ride motorcycles, and he coveted his friend’s Honda Elsinore 125.
In 1974, Greenwood sold it to him for $100. When Cannon raced it at a nearby track, he crushed his competition, only to have a referee tell him he’d be barred from future races because he’d cheated.
When he got home, he called his friend.
“Did you win?” were the first words Greenwood asked him.
“Oh, I won all right,” he said, then explained the ban. “They said I had souped up this motorcycle.”
“Oh, hell yeah, I did,” his friend answered. “I put everything there was to put on it before I sold it to you. I just wanted you to win.”
After graduating from Spring Woods High School in 1977, Greenwood headed to Texas Lutheran University on a football scholarship. There, his pranking got him in trouble, recalled Jim Leitner, a prosecutor who worked with Greenwood for years at the DA’s office and later at the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office.
Greenwood left the school and enrolled at Rice University to study ancient Chinese history, to the befuddlement of his father and friends.
“I loved learning. I was going to spend those four years learning what I loved to do and worry about my career later,” he told him.
He married in 1987 and had two children, Charles and Catherine. That marriage ended 12 years later, court records show, and Greenwood spent many years as a single father.
“That was a very trialand-error process,” Catherine Greenwood recalled Thursday at her father’s funeral.
Like all parents, he made some mistakes. He struggled with her pigtails and tried to take her to see “Terminator 3” when she was 7.
In 2003, he married again, to Leatha Benyo, and became the stepfather to her two children, Timothy and Lauren. His family was his priority, friends and colleagues said.
“He put himself through things, continuously, all the time, just to make sure we were comfortable, and he was the glue that kept my family — and most of Harris County — together,” Catherine Greenwood said.
Chuck Greenwood praised his father as a hero. He remembers a tough critic and fierce ally.
“He was the one who taught me fair fights are for suckers,” he said, recalling one living room wrestling match between the two. The son almost beat his father — until Greenwood landed a cheap shot that left him gasping on the floor.
“He leaned in and said, ‘Remember, you may end up stronger, faster, have better endurance, but you will never be meaner than me,’” Chuck Greenwood recalled. “There wasn’t an ounce of quit in my dad, no matter what was thrown his way.” Fighting to win
One of Greenwood’s first jobs was in the grand jury division at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, as he pursued a law degree from the South Texas College of Law.
After graduating, he began working in the trial bureau and later the civil rights division, handling cases involving police officers accused of misconduct.
In 1988, Greenwood earned his police officer’s license. He would keep it for the rest of his career, working as a reserve deputy at Precinct 4 and then as a full-time peace officer with the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office and the Precinct 3 Constable’s Office.
He then spent two decades working as a private attorney, defending police officers accused of wrongdoing. Greenwood easily moved between private practice to prosecuting and into law enforcement, friends said.
“Clint was a chameleon. … Frankly, a lot of it had to do with what was best for his family at the time,” Cannon said.
Whichever side of the law he was on, Greenwood battled hard, friends said. “He fought tooth and nail to make sure what he thought was right came out at the end,” said Leitner. “He made some enemies because of how hard he fought.”
In 2004, Greenwood ran unsuccessfully for state district judge against Marc Carter, who had been recently appointed to fill the spot Ted Poe left to run for Congress.
“He was serious about winning, and he put up a tough fight,” Carter said. “He went to every event, and because he was there, I had to be there.” A dream fulfilled
Greenwood returned to the DA’s office in 2009, working for then-District Attorney Pat Lykos as head of the Police Integrity Division.
“He always had a quip,” Lykos recalled. “It’s just nice, early in the morning, to see someone smiling, and see someone who loved what he did … when you consider what we dealt with day in and day out.”
During his tenure, Greenwood prosecuted numerous officers accused of wrongdoing, including some accused of tampering with government records and other misconduct, and the high-profile case involving four Houston officers accused of beating Chad Holley in 2011.
“It’s not easy for someone in enforcement to investigate someone else in law enforcement, but he had a job to do, and he did his job well,” Lykos said.
She was one of the legion of victims of Greenwood’s sharp humor.
Once, as she was working on getting her concealed carry permit, she went to a gun range with Greenwood, a skilled marksman and gunsmith. She shot both her revolver and a semi-automatic pistol, finishing with tight, close groupings.
“Good shooting,” he said, with a dramatic pause.
“For a girl,” he added with a wry grin, watching the flare of indignation race across the face of the former judge and Houston police officer.
“I didn’t know whether to smack him or hug him,” Lykos said.
In 2013, then-Sheriff Adrian Garcia hired him to work at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. He’d known Greenwood’s work as an attorney but had been surprised to learn he had a peace officer’s license, he said.
That blend of skills made him invaluable. Garcia put him in charge of Internal Affairs, Legal Services, Office of the Inspector General and General Investigations.
“What motivated him was the interest of the truth,” Garcia said. “What motivated him was being a true public servant. Serving the people well, earnestly, and to the full extent of the law — being able to apply his knowledge and experience in the roles he had.”
For Greenwood, the chance to work as a cop was a dream come true, friends said.
“He was ready for a different environment, the brotherhood of law enforcement,” Cannon said. “That’s what he truly loved — he just loved being around other officers.”
After Garcia resigned to run for mayor, incoming Sheriff Ron Hickman kept Greenwood on his command staff.
Greenwood’s experience made him the perfect person to oversee internal affairs, Hickman said, with high standards to ensure that investigations got the scrutiny they deserved.
“He knew he had enemies, but he also knew he was doing the right things for the right reasons,” Cannon said.
Greenwood oversaw investigations into run-ofthe-mill misconduct and more highly charged incidents, from an invasive roadside body search by two deputies and the termination of a prominent detective who slept with a woman who was a witness to the murder of Deputy Darren Goforth.
“Clint would follow that trail to the very end,” Cannon said. “He was going to make sure no stone was left unturned. … It was his job to make sure that person had the punitive action laid against him that the law said he should.” The crack of gunfire
In January, after an election-year shake-up at the sheriff ’s office, Greenwood headed to the Precinct 3 Constable’s Office, part of a new administration there.
“We were looking for people who could be in command staff — that could bring the department to the next level,” said Milton Rivera, the constable’s chief deputy. “He was a big part of this team.”
Greenwood was helping the constable’s office work on gaining national accreditation and revising its policy manual, which had not been updated in more than a decade.
It was another desk job, not the kind of assignment that anyone thought would put him in danger.
Marino last saw his friend on the Friday before his death when he walked into his Katy-area office and found Greenwood sitting in his chair with his feet on his desk.
“I just came by to check on you,” Greenwood told him.
And then came Monday, and the crack of gunfire that sent a county into mourning and dozens of officers searching for his killer.
Police have released pictures of a suspect caught on surveillance video and the car they think the shooter was driving. But they have not yet made any arrests.
“You’ve got to wonder if his encounters dealing with disgruntled employees may have caused this,” Hickman said. “You’ve got to wonder what precipitated someone to want to do this.”
The incident has reminded Cannon and his colleagues to stay vigilant.
“I don’t think this is a situation where there’s anything Clint could have done different,” he said. “I just don’t know how much more cautious you could be — when you’re wearing your protective vest and you’re scouring the area like you always do. It seems like the longer we’re in these positions, the more vigilant we have to be.”