Crockett is a former University of Florida Gators football star who had sustained an injury which put an end to his sports career. He served two tours in Vietnam – or as he calls it, the "Southeast Asia Conference". He joined Metro-Dade sometime after returning from Vietnam, and in the academy, he made friends with Evan Fried and Mike Orgel. He started his police career first as an uniformed patrol officer, before getting promoted to Detective and assigned to Robbery Division under Lieutenant Frank Malone, where he was partnered with Detective Frankel. In 1979, Crockett and Frankel were working undercover on the case of armored car robbery by Frank Hackman and his crew, however, their covers were blown and in early 1980, after Crockett dropped him off at home, Frankel was killed by Hackman. Hours later, Crockett arrested Hackman, who was later sentenced to death. Crockett was then transferred to Vice Division, where he, Fried and Orgel were assigned to investigate illegal drug sales in nightclubs. When some of the nightclubs turned out to be gay bars, Orgel didn't want to participate. Teasing him about it, Fried outed Orgel as gay and started mistreating him with homophobic slurs. Crockett, who didn't know how to handle the situation, kept silent. Orgel was assigned to desk duty and ended up committing "cop suicide" by attempting to arrest a suspect high on "angel dust" carrying a shotgun. Crockett and Fried would end up carrying the guilt of his death.