News reports are popping up across the state today about an officer with years of service at the Wylie Police Department who just got put on paid administrative leave after allegations were made against him involving lewd behavior and child pornography.   The patrolman has voluntarily turned over his home computer to the Texas Rangers, who are investigating, and undoubtedly this story is going to get bigger as the contents of that computer are revealed.  (We’re not sharing his name now because he hasn’t been arrested yet.)

Already, it is known that there are photographs on that home PC that are pornographic: images of the Wylie police officer having sex with an unidentified woman; a nude woman posing with his Wylie Police Department badge, the list goes on.

How did this discovered?

Seems that someone took images from the Wylie cop’s home computer and sent them to everyone on his email address list, including someone at the Wylie Police Department’s Powers That Be.  That happened Monday night.  Not clear how fast the Texas Rangers were called but it’s Wednesday morning and they’re definitely on the job.  (As are the Garland Police Department since the officer resides in Garland, and therefore that may be where crimes actually occurred.)

Why are the Rangers jumping in so fast?  Seems some of these images aren’t just pornographic — they are CHILD pornography.

Within 48 hours of the mass email mailing, the Wylie officer was suspended by the Wylie Police Department and while they were at it, the Wylie Police Department also placed two employees on leave that are shown in these photos:  a female dispatcher and another department employee.

Lewd Behavior is a Misdemeanor and Child Pornography is a Felony

It’s serious enough for a Texas police officer to be engaged in pornography on his home computer: that can constitute the crime of lewd behavior under the Texas Penal Code, but to have child pornography on his PC is shocking.  After all, not only are police officers under oath to protect and serve, they are also well aware of the crimes defined by statutes in this state, no excuses here:

Texas Penal Code Section 21.07: PUBLIC LEWDNESS

a) A person commits an offense if he knowingly engages in any of the following acts in a public place or, if not in a public place, he is reckless about whether another is present who will be offended or alarmed by his:

(1)  act of sexual intercourse;

(2)  act of deviate sexual intercourse;

(3)  act of sexual contact; or

(4)  act involving contact between the person’s mouth or genitals and the anus or genitals of an animal or fowl.

(b)  An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

It is much more serious for this member of Texas law enforcement to be involved in child pornography; this is a felony in the Texas Penal Code (and may constitute a federal crime as well):

Texas Penal Code Sec. 43.26:  POSSESSION OR PROMOTION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY.

(a) A person commits an offense if:

(1) the person knowingly or intentionally possesses visual material that visually depicts a child younger than 18 years of age at the time the image of the child was made who is engaging in sexual conduct; and

(2) the person knows that the material depicts the child as described by Subdivision (1).

(b) In this section:

(1) “Promote” has the meaning assigned by Section 43.25.

(2) “Sexual conduct” has the meaning assigned by Section 43.25.

(3) “Visual material” means:

(A) any film, photograph, videotape, negative, or slide or any photographic reproduction that contains or incorporates in any manner any film, photograph, videotape, negative, or slide; or

(B) any disk, diskette, or other physical medium that allows an image to be displayed on a computer or other video screen and any image transmitted to a computer or other video screen by telephone line, cable, satellite transmission, or other method.

(c) The affirmative defenses provided by Section 43.25(f) also apply to a prosecution under this section.

(d) An offense under Subsection (a) is a felony of the third degree.

(e) A person commits an offense if:

(1) the person knowingly or intentionally promotes or possesses with intent to promote material described by Subsection (a)(1); and

(2) the person knows that the material depicts the child as described by Subsection (a)(1).

(f) A person who possesses visual material that contains six or more identical visual depictions of a child as described by Subsection (a)(1) is presumed to possess the material with the intent to promote the material.

(g) An offense under Subsection (e) is a felony of the second degree.

Last week, retired Houston police officer Matthew Calley stood in front of a Harris County judge and said he was sorry for what he had done, but no one can know for sure if that apology swayed the judge at Mr. Calley’s sentencing hearing. Maybe it did, because the 25 year veteran could have been sentenced to life imprisonment and this didn’t happen.

What Happened to Houston Police Officer Matthew Calley?

Former cop Matthew Calley pled guilty to theft and misappropriations of funds, two felony counts, back in March 2011.  Once caught, Calley didn’t fight much: maybe he figured his time was up, since the record reveals that the Houston police officer had been skimming case from his local police officers’ union for the past 7 years.

He had easy access.  Calley served on the board of directors for the Houston Police Officers’ Union, where he had authority to withdraw  funds that were being set aside to help his fellow officers and union members.

Over $400,000 was taken from a single HPOU account, established for scholarships and to help out law enforcement officers in financial emergencies.  All that money came from donations – from Average Joes, from local businesses.  The rest of the theft was from the union’s PAC account (political action committee).

It’s a lot of money:  $656,000 was taken by Houston police officer Matthew Calley from the till of the Houston Police Officers’ Union.

At the end of the day, Calley was sentenced to serve 20 years in prison on his two felony counts, to be served concurrently.  And the money?  It’s gone — no one is expecting Calley to provide restitution, no one is expecting that money to be recovered.  Seems he gambled it away.

Calley’s Not the Only Cop Facing Theft Charges In Houston – Two Other Police Officers Charged With Stealing From the Houston Police Officers’ Union

The story’s not over with Calley’s sentencing.  Nope.  Seems the Harris County District Attorney’s Office only got wind of Calley’s bad acts after TWO of his compadres at the Houston Police Officers Union were arrested — that’s right, arrested for theft from the very same organization.

One of these evildoers, Houston police officer and HPOU official Ronald Martin, has already been sentenced to 10 years probation and he’s ordered to provide restitution to the Union of $40,000.00.  Martin pled guilty last February.

The other alleged evildoer is Martin’s daughter’s ex-husband, Jeffrey Larson.  Fellow Houston cop and union honcho Larson got busted with his ex-father-in-law back in 2008 for misapplication of fiduciary property, and he’s set for trial.

What is going on with the Aransas Pass Police Department — is there widespread corruption there, as more and more news stories suggest?

Consider this:  just last week, we posted about the situation involving the Aransas Pass Police Department being investigated by the Texas Rangers after Martin Ortiz ended up comatose in a Corpus Christi hospital after being beaten by an Aransas Pass law enforcement officer as Mr. Ortiz was riding his bicycle home, in his own neighborhood.  (For details on that incident, read “Texas Rangers Investigating Another Case of Police Brutality and Excessive Force.“)

This week, we’re learning about folk coming forward to accuse this same police department of planting drugs on a suspect – as well as using a Taser and beating a man before learning that the victim of their physical attack was not even the man that they were looking for.

Imagine: you’re at work, and suddenly the cops burst in and use a stungun on you and then beat you there on the floor.  That’s what is being alleged happened to Kasey Staley.

According to Velma Freeman, who owns and operates Freeman’s A/C Supply there in Aransas Pass (Google Street View here), back in June 2011 several Aransas Pass police officers came to her shop asking to see a man named “Keith,” who was a suspect in some crime.

There was no “Keith” there, but this didn’t stop the cops.  According to Ms. Freeman’s eyewitness account, these law enforcment officers (who we all know have sworn to protect and serve) picked out Kasey Staley, 21, as he was there working on the job and went after him.

According to reports, Kasey Staley was (1) stun-gunned; (2) beaten; and (3) arrested, all the while being totally innocent since the cops had the wrong guy here.  Kasey was not the illusive “Keith” the police were looking for in their fevered hunt.

Things were very bad for Kasey Staley at this point.  You’re working, the cops bust in, and suddenly you’ve been shocked with a Taser and beaten and then arrested.   Worst work day ever, right?

Nope.  It got worse for Kasey Staley.  Six different affidavits have been signed (by Kasey’s employer, Ms. Freeman, his ex-wife Kayla, and four other eyewitnesses) that after all this, the Aransas Pass cops then planted drugs on Staley, as he sat there in handcuffs.

No One’s Listening to these Witnesses in Aransas Pass

This shocking story just gets more bizarre.  It seems that these six people not only took the time and trouble to make these sworn, written statements of what happened, they took them to the Aransas Pass Powers That Be to get justice.  And got zip.

So, now the local media is involved and two local television stations are covering the story, KZTV10 and KRISTV.  One can hope that both the Texas Rangers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are busy investigating things down at the Aransas Pass Police Department.

Meanwhile, the Aransas Pass Police Department finally got around to talking with the press; in response to media requests to explain what happened, what did the APPD representative say?  “Prove it,” is what Captain Roberto Gonzales told the Corpus Christi reporters; the Aransas Pass Police Department isn’t even opening up an internal investigation.

That’s right.  Prove it. Texas Rangers, your move.

A Laredo grand jury indicted local Webb County Deputy Constable Eduardo Garcia this week for taking bribes. This was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston, and it was the result of a continued investigation into cops gone bad by a joint task force of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Lots of Strange Things Gone On This Summer in Laredo. And By Strange, We Mean Illegal

Laredo must be an interesting place this summer, right? Feds roaming around looking for evildoing. Military helicopters from Mexico landing on U.S. airstrips by mistake. Mexican troops crossing the Tex-Mex border bridge into Laredo by mistake.

Bribing the Deputy Was Smooth Sailing Until the Guy Turned FBI Informant

Deputy Constable Garcia had been on the take for awhile, it seems. He would pocket cash in exchange for providing police protection to vehicles carrying cocaine across the border, from Mexico into the United States, through the Laredo crossing point. It was sort of routine, apparently, for Garcia and things were smooth enough for him until the guy who paid him for the help turned federal informant.

Feds Set Up Sting to Catch the Deputy

After the informant gave up Garcia to the feds, the games began. According to the grand jury indictment, Garcia was caught after he took $500 to protect a vehicle that he thought was moving cocaine through Laredo, though it reality the car was carrying fake drugs.

He did this twice.

During the sting, Garcia was allegedly asked to check out the license plate of a car that was worrisome to the informant, and sure enough, Garcia jumped onto his official police database where he confirmed it might be a federal agency vehicle.

After playing with the deputy like a cat plays with a mouse, the feds busted him and took their case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Laredo Grand Jury. End of story for Eduardo Garcia.

Webb County Deputy Faces 3 Counts of Extortion, 1 Count of Unauthorized Access

Eduardo Garcia had been a member of law enforcement since 1993. He spent many years driving a prison transport van.

Now, he faces 3 counts of extortion under color of official right and 1 count of unauthorized access to protected computer information — and the high probability that he’ll soon be riding in the back of that prison van he drove for so many years.

Last fall, Jeremiah Shults was the Chief of Police for Rosebud, Texas, a small Texas town a stone’s throw from Temple down in Central Texas and about two hours drive, going south on I-35, from Dallas. Everything changed for Chief Shults early in October 2010, when he was indicted for evidence tampering – a serious crime for anyone, but especially when it’s a charge against the community’s top law enforcement official.

Evidence tampering is a felony.  It carries not only the possibility of a monetary fine, but incarceration between 2 and 10 years in a Texas prison.

Police Chief Resigns, Turns Himself In to Authorities

Chief Jeremiah Shults promptly resigned, and turned himself into authorities on November 1st, where his stay was brief as the ex-Chief was summarily released on $10,000 bond. Afterwards, Shults focused his efforts on defending himself in a criminal trial that concluded this past April.

The jury didn’t fully see things Shults’ way, and returned a verdict of guilty to Shults having moved beer cans at the scene of an accident, which constituted tampering with evidence. However, after hours of deliberation, the jury did not find the ex-Chief moved the seat of the vehicle in question and acquitted him on the second count of evidence tampering.

After Jury Verdict of Guilty, ex-Chief Chooses Judge for Sentencing – Gets Jail Time, Probation, and Fine

The ex-Chief chose to have the judge impose sentence instead of the jury, and last week Jeremiah Shults stood in a Marlin, Texas, courtroom to face a Falls County District Judge who sentenced the former top cop to 10 years probation and 180 hours of community service, as well as a fine of $2500.00.

So, the Falls County Judge tossed the book at the ex-Police Chief, and then gave him probation — with some taste of jail time now: Shults has also been ordered to serve 120 days in jail on weekends.

Which means that if the ex-Police Chief keeps his nose clean for the next decade by not violating probation, he’ll only have to be behind bars every weekend for the next 15 months. Why did the judge do this? The weekend jail time lets Shults keep his current job, providing for his family as a computer tech.

Another veteran Texas cop is discovered to be bad news — seems like this is getting to be a regular news story, right?

This week, it was the Dallas Police Department who had the shameful task of informing the media and the public at large that a police force veteran (13 years) would face termination after the revelation of his bad acts.

Dallas Police Department Assistant Chief Vince Golbeck issued the formal recommendation to fire Senior Cpl. Avery Redd at a disciplinary hearing held last Thursday.

What Did the Bad Cop Do? He Lied.

At the disciplinary hearing, according to the Dallas Morning News, the assistant chief reported that Officer Redd had falsified two police reports.

The department’s internal affairs investigation apparently plowed through the work done by Officer Redd over the past few months, and discovered that things didn’t jive. Seems Redd:

1.  Claimed a Fantasy Arrest.  Redd filed a police report back in February 2011 that he had arrested a woman for criminal trespass — but it never happened.

2.  Took Toy Gun From Trucker and Filed It in Property Room as a Real Weapon.  In the same month, Officer Redd filed another report claiming to have checked a weapon into the DPD property room after he confiscated it from a big rig.  

It appears that something did make it into the property room — but not at the time that the police report filed by Redd claimed it was there.   Moreover, it wasn’t a real gun – even though Redd listed it as if it were a pistol in the report. 

Turns out that the dangerous weapon that he took from the big rig was a toy gun.  Toy. Gun.  Which he listed with a serial number on the report just like it was a Magnum 357 of Dirty Harry fame.  (Why?  Dunno.)

How did the dominoes start falling for Officer Redd?

Apparently, another cop turned him into the Powers That Be.  Seems one of his brother cops got ticked when Officer Redd asked him to cover for him by signing Redd out 20 minutes early for a moonlighting gig at a truck stop. 

This cop went to his supervisor and spilled the beans on Officer Redd.  The result today is that a cop who has been patroling the Dallas streets since 1998 is losing his job. 

Questions Pop Up for All of Us

Gotta wonder what would have happened if the other cop hadn’t gotten mad, right? 

And, of course, who is checking the veracity of police reports?  The system depends upon the honor and integrity of these reports.  Apparently, that is naive of us. 

Lesson learned:  a police report is only as reliable as the cop who wrote it up.

There’s more and more media coverage about the Texas-Mexico border, and lots of debate over how dangerous it is - or isn’t - to travel through South Texas and down into Mexico.

Just this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on a warning issued by the U.S. Consultate’s Office in Monterrey that U.S. law enforcement officers or employees might be the targets of “Mexican criminal gangs” anywhere in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí.

Convicted Laredo Cop knows all about border drug traffic

However, there’s one thing for sure: Orlando Jesus Hale, 28, knows all about the drug smuggling business down near the border. Not that he’ll be profiting from it anytime soon: the former South Texas police officer was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in a federal prison. Seems Hale was caught and convicted of smuggling cocaine through Laredo.

This was no surprise to Officer Hale. He’d declined plea offers and faced a jury last September – and they had returned a guilty verdict on charges of (1) conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and (2) using a firearm to further drug trafficking.

Back in 2008, Orlando Hale was playing both sides of the law: working as a law enforcement officer, and moonlighting as a navigator of sorts, helping cocaine shipments travel through local Texas traffic on their way from Mexico to their American destinations.

At his trial last fall, Hale’s partner-in-crime and former fellow cop Pedro Martinez III testified against him. (Martinez took a plea bargain, pleading guilty and avoiding a trial.)

These Laredo Cops Apparently Felt Safe Enough As They Negotiated Shipment Protection Fees

On the stand before the federal jury, Martinez told all about how the two police officers sat down with a man who they later learned was an undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There, in a Laredo hotel room, they described how they could protect cocaine shipments as they moved through Laredo, Texas. As part of the FBI sting, a deal was made for their Police Protection Service – and for $1000 apiece, the two cops protected a phony drug shipment. When the two cops showed up in San Antonio for their pay day, they were busted.