Austin to Council: No pay hike w/o police oversight!
Council to Austin: I’m sorry, did you say something?
By Scott Henson, March 11, 2001
After an emotional public hearing lasting nearly six hours, the Austin City Council voted early Friday morning to accept a weakened police oversight structure as part of the ‘meet and confer’ labor contract between the City and the Austin Police Association, the main officers’ union.
More than 100 persons signed up to speak against approving the contract without better oversight mechanisms. One hundred more signed a letter to the City Council distributed before the hearing, and dozens more emailed or telephoned. About a half dozen police officers signed up ‘in favor’ without speaking, but not one person publicly spoke in favor of the police union contract.
Much of the debate at the hearing between ACLU, the Mayor and city staff centered on whether the city council had the authority to override certain state laws and the Austin city charter in the meet and confer contract. Police oversight advocates argued that the agreement could override those laws, basing our position on the statute – which is designed to let local agreements override state and local law – and language in the contract stating explicitly that the agreement “supersedes” the Texas Civil Service Code and “the Austin City Charter.” Mayor Watson and the City Attorney, though, convinced four councilmembers the agreement could not exercise the authority city attorneys clearly presumed when authoring that clause.
But the most important testimony didn’t concern legalese. Several UT students who’d been assaulted at Mardi Gras by cops in black riot gear testified movingly about their rough treatment. Their story began when one of the young men approached officers to ask if they could be let through the police line to catch a cab. This man was maced in the face and thrown to the ground. A 105 lbs woman in his party saw her friend attacked and approached to help him. She testified that an officer hit her in the chest with the butt of his baton, knocking her to the ground, then hit her legs leaving bruises including one 22-centimeters across on her thigh. Another gentleman in her party approached police to beg them to stop, and he was beaten around the face and chest. Many others came forward to share their own stories of profiling, indifference or mistreatment at the hands of the police.
Nonetheless, the Austin City Council approved it 5-1-1, with Mayor Watson, Daryl Slusher, Will Wynn, Jackie Goodman and Danny Thomas voting for approval. Raul Alvarez fulfilled a campaign promise to the Sunshine Project by voting against the contract, and Beverly Griffith abstained after sponsoring a failed amendment to strengthen the proposal.
Last year the city council unanimously approved a negotiated compromise oversight proposal prepared in a lengthy task force called the Police Oversight Focus Group. The proposal, though criticized in many quarters including the pages of this publication for being too weak, represented substantial improvements on the current oversight system, which is completely closed.
The POFG proposal would have given complainants and Civilian Review Board members complete access to investigative files after the disciplinary process was complete and the chief made a final decision. Moreover, Civilian Review Board meetings would have been in public, and a “Police Monitor” would have full discretion to report to the City Council and the public about police misconduct at the Austin Police Department.
By contrast, the newly installed system includes no public hearings, no access to records for complainants and limited access for CRB members. Both the Police Monitor and the Civilian Review Board will be appointed by City Manager Jesus Garza. The system will be completely closed. Even if it wildly succeeds, there will be no way to tell because of limits on what the Monitor can report. The Police Monitor can face criminal charges for releasing information to city council members!
Attorney Tom Kolker told the City Council that complainants who are also defendants in criminal trials may give up fifth amendment rights under the contract because the “Monitor’s Conference,” where under the old system the Monitor went over the investigative file with a complainant, now is tape recorded with a copy sent to the police department. The ACLU and other community groups are now evaluating the new policy to determine whether complainants should even use the system.
Earlier this year the Austin American Statesman broke a story about the federal Mala Sangre drug task force which investigated Austin police officers’ connections to local drug rings but was quashed by APD senior officials. The Austin Chronicle followed up with its own story, and a dramatic silhouette of the whistleblower officer on its cover. But neither of these “mainstream” news organizations had the guts that officer did – to actually name the officers in public.
Speaking on a morning radio talk show March 7, ACLU boardmember and police accountability activist Ann del Llano revealed that several APD officers implicated in the so-called Mala Sangre investigation of APD corruption included high ranking officials. Investigators removed from the task force and federal prosecutors formerly assigned to the case say APD pulled its manpower from the federal task force, effectively quashing the investigation.
According to documents filed in civil court, federal investigators believed that then-APD Lieutenant Jimmy Chapman interfered with two separate drug-related investigations, and police informants claimed Captain Juan Gonzales bought cocaine and provided protection for drug dealers before he was named head of APD’s Internal Affairs Division in 1997. By the time this article is published the full document will be available on the web at http://home.austin.rr.com/apdhallofshame.
When a confidential informant, on whose testimony two prior convictions had been based, told federal investigators at least nine APD officers were frequenting a business run by a drug dealer named Roger Lopez, surveillance was immediately set up. But the night APD officers were to begin assisting, then-Lieutenant Jimmy Chapman arrived to say he’d forbidden APD officers to work on the case. Likely tipped off, the crooks cancelled their operation that night anyway.
The same Jimmy Chapman was accused by APD officers of thwarting investigations into gang-related drug running in an organized crime group called the Texas Syndicate. At the height of the Mala Sangre investigation, other APD officials made personal inquiries as to whether Chapman and Gonzales were investigation targets, and FBI agents were calling the U.S. Attorney about rumors Chapman would be indicted. Another confidential informant claimed Chapman ate breakfast each morning with a drug dealer at Owens Restaurant, and that he and FBI Special Agent John Maspairo would pick up the drug dealer in a car they had previously seized from the same man in a raid.
Despite these allegations, which were never made public, APD promoted Chapman twice more since that time – today he is Assistant Chief.
According to the “chronology” and the “summary of allegations” filed in civil court, Captain Juan Gonzales was linked to drug dealers by multiple confidential informants before being named head of APD’s Internal Affairs Division in 1997. Two years prior he’d been named by another informant one of six officers who regularly bought cocaine from drug dealer Michael Borrero. Just months after taking the reins at Internal Affairs, an APD Narcotics Officer not assigned to the task force “received information from multiple confidential sources that Gonzales and the APD officers who work security at Cocktails Nightclub openly used cocaine at the club and provided protection for after hours parties.” Gonzales also has a sustained charge of excessive force on his record stemming from hitting a bar patron in the head with a flashlight while working off-duty security.
When the main drug dealer involved, Roger Lopez, was arrested in Alice, Texas, he actually was carrying a cellular telephone leased to Officer Luis Villalobos by the Austin Police Association, the police officers’ union.
Other APD officers accused of being involved with or covering up for drug dealers in the Mala Sangre documents filed in civil court include:
The Texas State Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police officers union, has come under fire for sleazy and misleading fundraising tactics targeting elderly people in nursing homes.
The Houston Press reported on March 8 that the union hired a telemarketing firm to solicit donations to finance the union’s lobbying efforts. Criticism flared after it was revealed that an 85 year old woman in a nursing home with no access to a telephone was receiving dunning letters from the FOP claiming she’d pledged $35. Nursing home officials and her family say she hadn’t had access to a phone in two years and couldn’t have pledged the money.
The Houston Better Business Bureau's Dan Parsons said of the police union’s fundraising drive, "Your timing is really good, they're in the middle of a big pitch right now. I get calls every day on these people." Parsons told the Houston Press FOP is a labor union -- not a charity – and that any money raised goes to lobby and operate their group.
"No, it's not illegal. Is it deceptive? You bet," Parsons told the Press. "They're badge deals, law enforcement thugs." The BBB official said Harris County has only a "handful" of legitimate nonprofit police groups, "and they do not reach you by telemarketing campaigns."
The Press reported that, “As of January 10, the legal deadline for Community Affairs to register with the state had expired. Which means, wrote AG spokesman Thomas Kelley, ‘They should not be operating’ in Texas. Kelley added that state agencies have received ‘hundreds of inquiries about this whole setup over the past three months.’”
The Beaumont Enterprise reported that an unnamed federal prison guard was arrested March 8 after attempting to purchase drugs from an undercover officer. Police say the guard was buying drugs to smuggle into the prison, said Ron Hobbs, Jefferson County Narcotics Task Force commander.
An undercover narcotics officer met the guard in the Kmart parking in Groves, Texas to transmit half a kilogram of cocaine and $3,000 to an inmate. The guard, whose two-year-old son was with him, took the money and walked back to his vehicle, Commander Hobbs told the Enterprise.
The narcotics task force arrested three other prison guards trying to smuggle drugs into area correctional facilities in the last two years.
Balcones Heights Police Officer John Beauford, a former drug task force supervisor, was indicted March 7 with possession of cocaine, crack and stolen firearms. Balcones Heights is a suburb of San Antonio.
Beauford is charged with possession with the intent to distribute more than 5 grams of crack, carries a minimum penalty of five years and a maximum of 40 years in prison, as well as up to $2 million in fines. Beauford's fellow cops on the Alamo Area Narcotics Task Force searched his hotel room last month, allegedly finding 185 grams of cocaine, a .38 caliber revolver and a .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol.
An investigation before Beauford's arrest indicated that 1.1 pounds, or roughly a half-kilo, of cocaine was missing from the task force evidence locker.
The San Antonio Express News reported February 17 that federal prosecutors dismissed two cocaine cases and scaled back a third because an undercover San Antonio police officer lied about his information source in a sworn statement requesting search warrants.
Two dismissals came in the days before and after the San Antonio Police Department declared a policy of terminating officers caught lying in the line of duty, reported previously in the Javelina. The lying officer, Carlos Ancira, avoided termination because the case was reported too late to result in disciplinary action under civil service rules.
“Known in police slang as ‘testilying,’ officers lying under oath have scandalized more than one city's police department in recent years and, some fear, have bruised the credibility of badge-wearers everywhere,” wrote the Express News.
"These shortcuts, or thinking that you can take these shortcuts — this is exactly the kind of conduct we would like to prevent in the future," said a departmental spokesman. "That was the main thrust of the chief's raising the bar (on the penalty for lying)."
Last month the Javelina reported that the San Antonio Police Department implemented a first-of-its-kind policy of mandatory termination for any officer found to be untruthful on the job. Now the San Antonio Express News has performed an analysis, finding that if the policy had been enforced over the last five years, at least 24 SAPD officers would have lost their jobs. That number only includes officers suspended for lying. Officers who received only administrative discipline are not included in public records.
Reasons for lying included minor infractions like attending church or sleeping on the job, to major problems like the false testimony of Officer Carlos Ancira reported above. Javelina readers will be shocked to learn that the SA Police Association, which is the police officers’ union, opposes the mandatory termination policy.
Henson is a boardmember of the Sunshine Project for
Police Accountability and an ACLU volunteer.