Police across Texas say they are being sucked into a bitter, longstanding feud between two of the state's most powerful Gypsy families.
Officers in Houston, Dallas, Irving, Beaumont and San Jacinto County are finding Gypsy families parked in their offices, telling stories of robberies, assaults and revenge attacks by other Gypsies.Most - if not all - of the stories are false, the officers say, concocted to get police to arrest and intimidate the other family.
On one side is the powerful Evans family of Houston, headed by Walter Evans, a Gypsy who says he was born in a tent about 47 years ago. His sons say it was probably closer to 55 years ago.
On the other side is the equally powerful Mitchell family, most of whom live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The family is headed by Bucky Mitchell, a patient at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Walter Evans' brother-in-law and cousin.
The Mitchells and Evanses were close for years, the children becoming best friends, and the adults frequently business partners. But in the summer of 1991, one of Bucky Mitchell's sons, Joey, 26, violated Gypsy law by becoming involved with a not-yet-divorced Gypsy woman.
That sparked a chain of events that tore the families apart and has Texas law enforcement officers increasingly frustrated and angry.
Last week, however, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department became the first law-enforcement agency in Texas to hit back, filing perjury charges against a Gypsy couple allied with the Mitchells.
The arrests were cheered by officers around the state.
"They're going to have to stop using police departments in their personal feuds," said Lt. Donald J. McWilliams, of the Houston Police Department's robbery division.
The Texas Gypsies are descendants of the nomadic tribes that left northern India more than a thousand years ago to become the first dark-skinned peoples in Europe.
Extremely close-knit, Gypsies usually rely on their internal social structure to resolve disputes. And that's what happened - at least initially - between the Mitchells and Evanses.
A meeting of the Romani Kris, or Gypsy court, was called at the Wilson World Hotel in Dallas on Sept. 16-17, 1991. Several Gypsy leaders from Texas and neighboring states presided over the approximately 1,000 Gypsies in attendance, trying to determine a fair penance for Joey Mitchell.
Walter Evans acted as prosecutor and demanded that Joey Mitchell pay the offended family a "globa," or fine, of $2,500. A vote was taken and the sentence imposed.
There is little agreement about what happened after that.
The Evanses say Joey Mitchell ignored the globa and was "black-balled," the most severe punishment Gypsies can impose on each other. Blackballed Gypsies cannot eat, drink or socialize with other Gypsies and cannot attend Gypsy weddings or funerals.
As a result of the blackball, Walter Evans and his sons - Jerry, Freddie and Tony - say they have been the victims of robberies, threats and physical attacks by the vengeful Mitchells. The family is afraid to go out at night, they say.
"We're kind of being careful of what we're doing and where we're going," says Freddie Evans. "They are trying to harm my family."
Joey Mitchell says that's nonsense. He says he paid the globa. The problem, he says, is he paid it directly to the offended family, rather than through Walter Evans - who Mitchell says wanted a cut.