KHOU 11 Investigates discovered more than half of the cops in the Coffee City Police Department had been suspended, demoted or fired from their previous jobs.
Quick excerpt,
Coffee City’s budget shows the town collected more than $1 million in court fines last year. That came from more than 5,100 citations officers wrote, the most in the state for a town its size according to the Texas Office of Court Administration.
But there is more to this story than a small town writing a bunch of speeding tickets. KHOU 11 Investigates discovered Coffee City is a magnet for troubled cops. More than half of the department’s 50 officers had been suspended, demoted, terminated or dishonorably discharged from their previous law enforcement jobs, according to personnel files obtained through open records requests to other law enforcement agencies.
Those prior disciplinary actions range from excessive force, public drunkenness, untruthfulness and association with known criminals. They include:
- An officer terminated for posting a Facebook message to a citizen: “You should kill yourself, do the world a favor.”
- An officer suspended for smashing a window and entering his girlfriend’s home without consent.
- A deputy constable suspended after a burglary victim’s laptop computer was found in his home.
- A deputy constable terminated for tackling a non-resisting citizen to the ground during a traffic stop.
- A deputy sheriff terminated for slapping a handcuffed inmate without provocation.
- Two officers terminated for lying on their job applications.
Fascinating scheme for Wayward Police Officers they’re running.
Of the 50 Sworn Officers 38 of them are CROs (Certified Reserve Officers), meaning they aren’t Regular Day to Day Police but rather people who can be called on when asked / needed. Since these people are CRO they’re able to be used in other towns / cities / counties when necessary. Big Event in Houston and you suddenly need an extra 30 or so cops? These people are available. Want private security for your mall / apartment building / construction site but need them to be “Certified” for insurance purposes? These folks are available.
the individual officers make money doing that stuff and if they do it long enough without getting into trouble again then they can point to their clean record as a CRO in Coffee City as a reason they should be hired back onto a regular force.
The question I have is what is Chief JohnJay Portillo getting from this? Nobody is going to run a setup like for this nothing, so what’s his angle? Oh, the guy has an active warrant for DWI out of Florida too.
Sounds like they used public money to pay the startup costs of a private security firm, and in exchange for that they write a bunch of bogus tickets so the town makes money
The city brought in over a million dollars in fines in one year. He’s getting job security.
Maybe, but it looks like their Peace Officers make $45,000 ish a year so that’s half of the million spent before you include benefit costs which could easily run another 30% putting it at $700,000. Then you have equipment (Cars, Radios, Uniforms, Firearms, etc) and training costs (Have to stay Certified) for 12 Officers which would probably run another $100,000 per year. Now there’s maybe 20% of that Million left.
It’s still money but it’s not THAT much money.