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San Antonio Police Officer And Former Union Treasurer Gets Prison Term For Embezzling Money

San Antonio, Texas

Police Officer and former police union treasurer Clifford Morgan, 46, will see the criminal justice system from the wrong side of the bars.

Authorities say the former city police union treasurer, Officer Morgan, ripped off colleagues over a four year period. As part of a plea deal, Morgan has been sentenced to five years. Also, Morgan has agreed to never apply for another law enforcement job after his release. That's important, prosecutors say, noting that too many counties allow disgraced "gypsy cops" to start over elsewhere.  

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Austin Police Officer Involved In Fatal Shooting Scandal and Fired For DUI, Reinstated By Arbitrator, Now Fired Again

Austin, Texas

In an earlier post, was a report of an Austin Police Officer who, after being involved in a fatal shooting scandal and drunk driving, was fired - but re-instated by arbitration. Well, he has been fired again. The official story:

                                            
Officer Leonardo Quintana was fired Wednesday after an internal investigation into an alleged October 2009 domestic disturbance call at his ex-fiancee's suburban Austin home.

A grand jury had declined to indict Quintana in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Nathaniel Sanders II during a struggle. Police Chief Art Acevedo fired him in May after Quintana's arrest in an unrelated drunken driving case.

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Baytown Deputy Constable Accused Of Abusing Handcuffed Prisoner Turns In His Badge

Baytown, Texas

The constable's deputy at the center of an abuse investigation in northeast Harris County has turned in his badge, and his boss says he's glad the officer is no longer on his force.

"I'm glad he did because I was looking at him hard," said Harris County Precinct 3 Constable Ken Jones.

In June, a pizza shop worker had six stitches in his chin and he complained that all his teeth had moved inside his mouth. He also said he lost hearing in one ear after being arrested by a deputy following a police chase.

Julian Juarez, 21, said, "This is a bad cop."

After he was cuffed, a fellow deputy told department supervisors that he heard a loud thud and found Juarez on the ground.

The original charges filed against Juarez, accusing him of felony evading arrest, were dismissed within hours of the abuse investigation being launched.

"I felt like there was more to it," said Constable Jones. However, today he said the deputy has resigned and so the investigation is closed.

The constable did not provide the deputy's name, but said he had been with the department for more than 16-years. He left to take a private sector security job, according to the constable.

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Harris County Deputy Arrested On Bribery Charges

Houston, Texas

A deputy with the Harris County Sheriff's Office has been arrested on federal charges.

A previously sealed indictment charges a Harris County Deputy Sheriff for allegedly accepting bribes to access confidential law enforcement databases and provide protection for a purported ecstasy dealer.

Harris County Deputy Sheriff George Wesley Ellington was arrested Monday by FBI agents. The two-count indictment charging Ellington, 38, of Houston, was unsealed today following his initial court appearance. Ellington is being held pending a bond decision tomorrow.

"Law enforcement officers who betray their public trust are a danger to the public and to every other officer and agent seeking to uphold the law," said United States Attorney José Angel Moreno.

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Not In Texas But Too Good To Pass Up!

Once in awhile, you run across something so good, it simply must be shared. This is one of those instances. While this story comes from beyond the borders of Texas, I'll bet if you searched hard enough, you would find the same thing right in the big 'ol state.

Tampa, Florida

Shocking Pics of Deputy Posted on Facebook by Soon-To-Be-Ex

The estranged husband of a Tampa sheriff’s deputy recently posted some pictures of her on Facebook that raised a few eyebrows. The photos of veteran Deputy Lisa Latimer show her in uniform, seated in her police cruiser, putting a gun in her mouth, drinking alcohol and smoking what looks to be a marijuana cigarette.

Todd Latimer says that his estranged wife has become a different person since he married her because of her job and the pressures that exist for female officers to be “one of the boys.” He claims that while he was with Lisa, male deputies sexted her constantly and that a career in law enforcement exposes women to a sexually-charged culture.

The Tampa Sheriff’s Office says it will investigate the pictures and Lisa Latimer will likely be suspended pending the outcome. She is currently on vacation.

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Two Harris County Officers Suspended, One Demoted Over Missing Teen Case

Houston, Texas

Kenneth Miller, 13, disappeared Monday night. He was reunited with his family on Thursday after a Precinct 6 deputy found him at the Harris County Inmate Processing Center. The teen is listed as having special needs.

A Harris County deputy found the missing teen and had Miller in his custody for several hours Tuesday night, but instead of dropping him off at a shelter or Ben Taub Hospital like CPS suggested, the officer dropped Miller off on a street corner in downtown Houston.

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Hockley County Deputy Resigns After Arrest For Drunk Driving

Levelland, Texas

A Hockley County sheriff’s deputy resigned Wednesday morning following his arrest for driving drunk early Tuesday morning.

C.J. Peterson, a deputy in the warrants division, was charged with driving while intoxicated, a first offense Class B misdemeanor.

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Arbitrator Reinstates Austin Cop Involved In Fatal Shooting Scandal Even After His Firing After Drunk Driving Arrest

Austin, Texas

"Arbitrator rules that officer's punishment for DWI was 'inconsistent' with that given to other officers."

The decision by Louise Wolitz of Austin, which city officials received Thursday, clears Quintana to immediately return to the force.

Quintana fatally shot Nathaniel Sanders II in an apartment complex parking lot in May 2009, and the subsequent investigation — Quintana was suspended for not turning on his patrol car camera — outraged some critics of the department who wanted harsher punishment.

It also led to ongoing scrutiny of Quintana, whose DWI arrest came about eight months after the shooting.

Wolitz ordered that Quintana receive a 15-day suspension for the drunken driving charge — his time off the force will count toward that — and receive back pay for the additional days he was unemployed.

In January, Williamson County authorities charged Quintana with drunken driving — the morning after he was questioned for several hours in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Sanders' family.


Police have said that Quintana drove drunk, despite offers to stay at the home of a friend. They said blood tests showed that he had a 0.19 blood alcohol level at the time of his arrest, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.

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Houston Police Officer Charged With Theft And Relieved Of Duty

Houston, Texas

Darrin D. Thomas, 42, was charged with theft by a public servant. According to court documents, Thomas stole cash in excess of $500 during course of his duties as an HPD officer.

HPD said the arrest was a result of a proactive Internal Affairs investigation. The department relieved Thomas of duty.

He is out on $2,000 bond.

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Dallas Police Officer Accused of Choking 14-Year-Old

Dallas, Texas

Another Dallas police officer is under criminal investigation. The officer is accused of choking a 14-year-old boy until the teen nearly passed out.

This is the third investigation in recent weeks involving an officer from the southeast patrol division.

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Coppell Texas Confirms Deputy Police Chief Placed On Leave, But Denies It’s Related To Reports Of Missing Drug Money

Coppell, Texas

A Coppell city spokesman denied this afternoon an earlier report that a police chief was put on administrative leave because money went missing from the department.

KTVT televison reported last night that a lockbox with at least $1,500 - used by officers during undercover drug operations - went missing recently at the city's police headquarters. The station also said Deputy Chief Steve Thomas was "placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the building."

Dallas News Source

Quote Of The Day From One Of Our Favorite Sites

Cops are very nearly worshipped in our society. On endless TV shows, in movies, police procedural novels, in the newspapers and on the nightly news, police are usually presented as virtue personified -- as if it's heroic to button up a blue shirt and pin on a badge.


It's not.


What some cops do while wearing the uniform makes them heroes ... and what other cops do, on-duty and off, reveals them as thugs.


So if you're looking for more news of police heroism, you've come to the wrong place. If you want to be told again that the policeman is your friend, that cops are the good guys and robbers are the bad guys, you'll find such reassurance on every newscast around the clock, and on every cop show from Dragnet to CSI: Miami.


This page is for readers brave enough to face facts:


All cops are not heroes and that's a fact, but because of the myth that "all cops are heroes," there's minimal call for disciplining bad cops, and maximal call for "forgiving," and "understanding" the tough work of being a cop. And that's despicable, and terrifying.


Police work is tough, of course. It's among the most difficult jobs in the world, work that deserves our respect. And turning a blind eye toward police misconduct -- allowing crooked, corrupt, outright criminal cops to have long careers in law enforcement -- only makes it more difficult and dangerous for the good cops.


Letting cops get away with crime, or "punishing" police misconduct with long, leisurely paid suspensions, or probation, or sweet deals that allow a policeman's own police record to be expunged, or any of the other special treatments cops typically receive when they're accused of wrongdoing, is assinine and counterproductive.


We'd like to see good cops get a raise, and bad cops held accountable for their crimes. Any other policy is an invitation to savages and brutes -- to button up a blue shirt, pin on a badge, and break the law with impunity.


--Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News

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Texas DPS Trooper Charged With Indecency With A Minor

Brownesville, Texas

The Cameron County Sheriff’s Department arrested a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper accused of having sexual relations with an underage relative.

Adan Rostro, 32, was arrested Friday evening at his San Benito residence on a warrant charging him with two counts of indecency with a minor, said Sheriff Omar Lucio. The location of Rostro’s arrest couldn’t be released because the home addresses of peace officers are not public record.

The victim is a female in her early teens, Lucio said. The relationship between the two was not released because it could identify the victim, the sheriff said.

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Texas DPS Trooper Guilty of Illegally Selling Drivers Licenses To Unqualified Applicants

Houston, Texas

A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper from Houston pleaded guilty today to selling driver's licenses to unqualified applicants, federal officials said.

Trooper Mark DeArza, 39, is the second DPS employee to plead guilty in a case that involved the operator of a gas station on Almeda-Genoa who acted as a middle man to sell the licenses, officials said.

DPS clerk Lidia Gutierrez, 37, of Galena Park pleaded guilty on Sept. 30.

Both face up to 15 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Both are out on bond awaiting sentencing.

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