HPD officer's '666' badge strikes fear

Houston Police Officer Carl Black still remembers getting ready to fight the hulking 6-foot-6, 280-pound thug who was threatening him about 17 years ago.

The suspect readied to attack as he ripped off his shirt and shouted “You're not going to take me to jail!”

Then he looked at Black's uniform, fell to his knees and gave up.

After putting him in his police car, the young officer asked why he had surrendered.

“I ain't fighting the devil,” the man said.

The suspect had caught a glimpse of Black's badge number. It was 666.

Black, now 41 and a 20-year veteran of the force, is in the unusual fraternity of police officers who have worn the mark of the beast on their uniforms — the number in the biblical book of Revelations that signifies the ultimate evil.

Though Black insists the number has no real meaning, the shield seems to have a mystical power to intimidate even the brawniest of suspects, who don't want to mess with the man some colleagues call the “white devil.”

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