Montgomery County, Texas
A Montgomery County sheriff's detective is accused of using his badge and gun to force a repo man to give him his wife’s truck back.
Brenton Huff told KPRC-TV, “I’m trying to make an honest living. I shouldn’t have to worry about being shot, especially by police.”
Huff was hired to repossess a 2007 Chevrolet Silverado from Tammy Berkley, the wife of a deputy. The lender told him she was four months behind on her payments. Huff got right on it and spotted the truck in Conroe on March 15. He followed it, ironically, to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department Auto Theft Task Force office. When the driver went in, Huff’s duty began.
"I just backed up to it, hooked up and pulled it down the street,” Huff explained.
The wrecker driver says he pulled into a parking lot at the jail to call the sheriff’s office and report the repossession, a routine procedure. Seconds after he drove away, Huff said three cars pulled up alongside him, boxing in his wrecker. The cars were unmarked, the men in civilian clothes, but Huff says they all had guns pointing right at him.
“I really thought I was gonna get shot right then,” Huff told KPRC. “I had my hands up here on the window so they could see them. The officer was yelling at me. He said, ‘That’s my wife’s truck.’”
The woman’s husband is Keith Winford, a Montgomery County Sheriff’s detective. Winford was accompanied by three to four other deputies.
“He just grabbed me out, slammed me up against the truck right here,” said Huff.
Huff was placed in handcuffs by the officers and Winford drove his tow truck back to the sheriff’s office. After holding him for about 15 minutes, he demanded the repo man release his wife’s truck.
“Once I unhooked it, he told me ‘Get out of here.’ And then he told me if he catches me in his driveway, he’s gonna shoot me,” Huff recounted.
Montgomery County first Assistant District Attorney Phil Grant told KPRC Local 2 the Texas Rangers are investigating the incident.
Grant said law enforcement officers do not have any special privileges when it comes to getting their vehicles repossessed.
“Law enforcement officers have to follow the same rules everybody else does,” he said.
The lieutenant at the county’s Auto Theft Task Force told KPRC his detectives didn’t make a report on the incident. The lieutenant only reported it to the sheriff after Local 2 called him on March 23rd, eight days after the incident.
A week after the interview, Winford and the other deputies are claiming that Huff put an illegal tracking device on the truck. Huff denies that allegation. The detectives say they gave it back to Huff, so they have no proof of the tracking device. Evidence will be presented to a grand jury later this month.
Watch KPRC Video Here
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