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Cop
Crimes
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Up Close: Badge of dishonor - November 10, 2003 - By Jeremy Rogalski / 11 News |
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• 3/1/04 - Officer accused of sexually assaulting woman to appear in court. A former Harris County deputy charged with aggravated sexual assault faces his day in court on Monday. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/030104_local_deputysex.html?DCMP=EMC-ktrk
• 1/25/04 - Detention officer accused of molestation surrenders
HOUSTON -- Where can you lie, cheat or steal and still keep your job? Or how about repeatedly getting drunk and getting behind the wheel? Or assaulting your wife or girlfriend? The answer in dozens of cases is the Houston Police Department.
11 News shows an inside view of how HPD disciplines its own.
What happened at an east Houston strip center in the 1000 block of Federal Road the Houston Police top brass calls despicable.
In the parking lot an HPD officer approached a young female store employee claiming someone complained about her putting flyers on cars. The cop cuffed the girl, wrote her a ticket and according to an internal report 11 News obtained, Officer Jose Gomez "grabbed and kissed (her) on the lips" and asked, "what she had to offer in order to get out of the ticket."
"There's no excuse for that," says Diane Bossom. "There is no excuse for that." Bossom is with the group Houston Cop Watch, and says there's no excuse why that officer got a 40-day suspension instead of getting fired. "They are showing that they cannot police themselves," she says. "It's the fox in charge of the hen house."
To find out how HPD disciplines its 5,400 officers 11 News examined the history of every cop on the force. More than 13,000 sustained internal affairs complaints. The worst violators were 254 officers who HPD determined and defined as having committed criminal activity.
"I did not know that we had 250 some odd officers that have been cited for criminal activity," says HPD Executive Assistant Chief Tim Oettmeier. "Yes, that's disturbing."
Consider some of the cases.
While on duty one day early in his career Internal Affairs discovered Eldon Harris met some friends at Memorial Park in the wee hours of the morning. They drank bourbon and rode golf carts around the course, ramming each other and damaging the carts along the way.
In a report Harris received a 20-day suspension because of "his honesty in admitting his involvement" and a promise to "never again violate the city's trust" in him.
But records show he went on to violate department rules and regulations several more times. He's since been promoted to lieutenant.
Officer Lilia Gonzales is a multiple violator. She was arrested for an off-duty accident having a .20 blood alcohol level, twice the legal limit. But before she could even serve the department's 15-day suspension Internal affairs sustained another case for public intoxication and HPD gave Gonzales 20 days for that.
11 News asked Gonzales how many chances should one get to be drunk and disorderly and still hold a job? Gonzales had nothing to say.
And by the way, 11 News caught up with Gonzales on duty having lunch at a relative's house in Fort Bend County, way out of HPD's jurisdiction.
At what point is enough enough? "Good question," says Oettmeier.
As executive assistant chief Oettmeier oversees professional standards at the department. He concedes there's a tendency to only look at wrongdoing on a case by case basis. "We need to make more of an effort to look at the totality of a person's disciplinary history," he says.
If HPD did that more often it would find in the records that at least a dozen officers were cited for criminal activity twice, and a handful three times. Many had numerous other departmental violations as well.
Take the case of Officer Timothy Frantz. Arrested for assaulting his live-in girlfriend he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct and got a four-day suspension.
Three months later at their west Houston apartment it happened again. Frantz repeatedly picked the woman up and dropped her, dragging her inside. For the second go-around HPD gave Frantz 30 days without pay.
"It just doesn't seem like the penalty fits the crime," says Ellen Cohen with the Houston Area Women's Center. "Peace officers carry a weapon, so domestic violence with a peace officer accelerates or exacerbates the problem probably by 100 percent."
How about cases of theft of service or abuse of official capacity?
Internal affairs found Brian Jordan was skipping out of work early to the extent that Sergeant Jordan admitted it was standard practice for him to work less than eight hours per day. "I don't agree with them saying it's a standard practice," he says. "Cause it's not a standard practice." Jordan told us it happened once or twice and described his 15-day suspension as, "I think it was a little harsh."
But other cases like Mario Gomez appear to be outright double dipping. Internal affairs examined payroll records at his extra job in the Medical Center. Its report states "on more than 30 occasions" Officer Gomez "received pay from the City of Houston while simultaneously working at St. Luke's Hospital."
HPD gave Gomez a 35-day suspension and kept him on the job. But 11 News learned in some cases even if the Chief of Police wanted and ordered an officer gone he couldn't get that cop fired.
That's because union attorneys representing the accused stepped in.
"If we have to go to arbitration then we do try to bring the whoopin' stick," says Brett Ligon with the Houston Police Officers' Union. "You're darn right."
Through the arbitration process the union often salvages an officer's career by getting discipline reduced.
"But they are also rehabilitated and counseled," says Bob Armbruster with the Houston Police Officers' Union. "And then they're evaluated for their fitness for duty before the department puts them back on the street."
Back on the street to serve and protect you.
"Is there something that could change for the future?" says Oettmeier. "I believe so."
Otherwise, as the records and history has shown more cops will commit wrongdoing, including criminal activity, again.
The Houston Police Officers' Union disagrees some behavior is in fact criminal activity because, it says, not all of those cases are prosecuted in a criminal court of law. But HPD says at the administrative level there's a lower burden of proof than the courts to sustain an Internal Affairs complaint.
• 7/12/03 - 5 HPD officers charged in bribery racket /Allegedly got protection money from bars
• 12/7/02 - By BETSY BLANEY Associated Press SMYER
• Baby's death finally comes to trial Ex-policeman charged with son's murder in 17-year-old case
• 6/26/02 - INTERNAL AFFAIRS / Something worse than a rogue cop , and Houston has it
If there is anything more troubling than a rogue cop , it is a rogue cop who is a supervisor in the internal affairs division, which is responsible for ferreting out crimes committed by police officers. That is the situation the Houston Police Department faces, and every tool - including the FBI - should be brought to bear to discover and excise any corruption in the department and restore public confidence.
Sgt.Andres Reza
Because of their peculiar duties, the 61 offcers and supporting staff of HPD's internal affairs division must be the purest of the pure, the most incorruptible of law enforcement officers. But on Friday, internal affairs Sgt. Andres Reza was arrested and charged, along with his girlfriend, with aggravated kidnapping of a Pasadena businesswoman.
The victim, who is the wife of another HPD officer, said the kidnapper told her he could get away with the kidnapping because her husband, Jaime Escalante, was crooked. Escalante's records show 32 sustained complaints of misconduct and violations of police procedure, and he admitted to being the subject of several internal affairs investigations.
The kidnapper, who used both a patrol car and police van, showed a brazenness that demonstrates a disturbing if misplaced confidence that he was invulnerable to prosecution. The reluctance of Houston-area juries to indict and punish police officers, even those who kill, shares partial blame for Reza's appalling assumption and behavior.
At a time when violent crime is rising sharply in Houston, police are preoccupied with the investigation of a crime within their ranks. What's more, HPD's large internal affairs division is disqualified from acting in this case or any others involving its members that might be discovered.
For that reason, HPD must make every effort to rid itself of corruption, and an FBI investigation would make it less likely any corruption would be tolerated or overlooked.
• 4/2/02 - HPD drug sting lands cop behind bars - By Jessica Willey ABC13 Eyewitness News
Houston police say Davis and two others stole $100,000 cash and more than four pounds of cocaine from undercover officers.
— A DPS officer is in jail, busted in a drug sting. Now the DPS is investigating whether there might be more. A DPS official explains how the sting occurred and what charges Davis faces. DPS investigators are now telling us Johnnie L. Davis stole a lot of cash and cocaine from whom he thought were drug couriers. They say he used his title as state drug officer to do it. Well, turns out it was all a set-up and now his own commander is speaking out about the arrest. When we first told you about the arrest, the Department of Public Safety had no comment. Joe Mora/DPS Asst Narcotics Commander: "It's a very sad situation." But now it's a different story.