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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Feds: Many In FBI Cheated On Test On Your Rights

WASHINGTON — A Justice Department investigation has found that FBI agents, including several supervisors, cheated on an important test covering the bureau’s policies for conducting surveillance on Americans.

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said Monday that his limited review of allegations that agents improperly took the open-book test together or had access to an answer sheet has turned up “significant abuses and cheating.”

All of those who cheated “falsely certified” that they did the work themselves, without the help of others.

“This report reinforces that the FBI cannot police itself,” said Michael German, policy counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. “There needs to be stronger oversight and stronger controls over the bureau’s use of its investigative powers.”

German also expressed concern about the surveillance guidelines themselves, saying they enable the targeting of people for investigation when there is “no factual basis to support that speculative belief.”

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Houston Cop Who Conspired With Other Cop To Defraud Hurricane Evacuee Kids Charity Out of $176k Sentenced To 16yrs

Houston, Texas

A Houston police officer who tried to bilk $435,000 via a bogus basketball league for hurricane evacuees has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Tracie Denise Bell, 41, had been with HPD for a dozen years when, prosecutors say, she conspired with a rookie cop to defraud the Houston Area Urban League. She eventually got almost $167,000 out of HAUL by billing it for expenses for several evacuee basketball leagues and camps that were non-existent.

The other former cop accused in the scheme, Kirshondra K. Richardson, 28, has yet to go to trial.

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