Cops pay a price for showing drunken and possibly doped-up fellow cop ‘professional courtesy’
This sad tale is reminiscent of the Keystone Cop sagas and not that of a professional police force.
SAN ANTONIO COPS SUSPENDED FOR ATTEMPTED COVER-UP OF DRUNKEN COP, HIS WRECKED TRUCK, AND THE PORN AND ‘SEXUAL DEVICE’ INSIDE
By John Nova Lomax
Houston Press Hair Balls
November 2, 2012
A trio of San Antonio cops have been suspended and several more are under investigation for their roles in the cover-up of a police sergeant's allegedly drunken wreck of a city-owned truck.
According to internal police disciplinary documents released to WOAI, the cops also removed alcohol, pornography, and a "sexual device" from the crashed vehicle.
The documents state that around 5:30 a.m. on February 2, SAPD dispatchers started receiving garbled transmissions from one of their own -- Sergeant Joseph Myers of the narcotics squad. The cop claimed that he was being followed by parties unknown, and SAPD's graveyard shift flew into action.
While a citywide search was underway, at 6 a.m. police received a call about a man clad only in underwear wandering a way from a wrecked gold-colored truck on busy Highway 281 near St. Mary's Street. The man was reportedly stumbling and creating a danger to himself and members of the public.
Forty-five minutes later some security guards called in to report a "disoriented and intoxicated man" in a parking garage, where he was "creating a disturbance, and attempting to gain entry in to various parked vehicles, claiming they were his."
That was where SAPD sergeants Andrea Klauer and Ramiro Garcia found the man -- Myers -- and they took him into custody. Myers could neither explain why he was in the parking garage nor ascertain the whereabouts of the truck.
By that time, the truck had been found, wrecked into a guardrail but still running with the keys in the ignition and requiring a tow.
"A number of suspicious items were found in the truck, including alcohol and empty alcohol containers, pornography, and a sexual device," the document states. "Rather than secure the contents of the truck as evidence, the suspicious items were removed from the truck."
On-duty cops called Lieutenant Steven Velasquez, Myers's immediate supervisor on the narcotics squad. Velasquez reportedly ordered that Myers be taken home instead of to jail, even though, as the report states, "by [Velasquez's] account, Sergeant Myers was incoherent and even though no plausible explanation was given as to why he was there in his underwear or how he even got there."
By that time, cops still higher up the chain of command had gotten wind of Myers's shenanigans. Captain Jimmy Reyes, commander of the narcotics unit, found out that a Sergeant Berrigan had Myers in his cruiser and was taking him home. Reyes radioed Berrigan and told him to turn around and meet him in the Alamodome parking lot.
There, Myers's "odd behavior and manner of dress" was observed not just by Reyes but also Deputy Chief Janae Florance and Assistant Chief Jose Banales (who was acting chief that day, as Police Chief Bill McManus was away.) Banales ordered that Myers undergo drug testing.
For their actions in this debacle, Velasquez was suspended for 45 days, Klauer for five, and Garcia for 15 days.
Placed on administrative leave immediately following the incident, Myers retired from the force later that month. He is eligible for a partial pension, as he served slightly more than 20 years.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A retired police lieutenant offered this comment:
I have given and received professional courtesy during my career usually for allowing a rowdy drunk cop to be taken home by his buddies. The case of the San Antonio officer is a different matter.
He was DWI.
Wrecked a vehicle.
Clearly a danger to himself and others.
Attempting to break in vehicles.
Running around the city in his underwear.
I think professional courtesy turned into a cover up in this situation. But why?
I want to know who picked up the dildo? Now that's the ultimate in professional courtesy!
He should have been booked into jail and the sex toy placed in his property.
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