NEARLY EVERYONE WHO HAS EXPERIENCED A TRAUMATIC EVENT CLAIMS TO BE SUFFERING FROM PTSD

Former deputy sues over firing, claims trauma from Santa Fe shooting 

 

By John Wayne Ferguson

 

Galveston County Daily News

March 23, 2022

 

Brent Cooley was named a “Real American Hero” by the Lamar Institute of Technology as well as “Officer of the Year” by the 100 Club of Houston in 2019

 

TEXAS CITY -- A former Galveston County deputy filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the sheriff’s office and the Texas City Independent School District, asserting the agencies failed to help him deal with the trauma of responding to the mass shooting at Santa Fe High School, and then fired him when that trauma caused him to lash out at a fellow deputy.

Brent Cooley is seeking damages between $200,000 and $5 million, according to the lawsuit filed in the Galveston County’s 56th District Court.

Cooley was a deputy with the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office from 2000 to 2020, rising to the rank of lieutenant, according to the lawsuit. He was named the department’s deputy of the year in 2006, according to the lawsuit.

He was among the first deputies to enter Santa Fe High School in May 2018 when a teenager shot 23 people, killing 10 of them. Cooley’s lawsuit asserts he led the response team into the school and made the initial arrest of accused shooter Dimitrious Pagourtzis.

Cooley’s experience inside the high school left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and a sleeping disorder, he said in the lawsuit. He accused the county of failing to provide adequate mental health care in the years after the shooting.

The county’s employee assistance program paid for only six therapy sessions a year, the lawsuit asserts.

Those mental health claims are central to the incident that led to his firing, Cooley’s lawsuit argues. On May 18, 2020, the two-year anniversary of the shooting, Cooley was attending a memorial gathering at a Santa Fe bar.

During the event, Cooley used a racial slur to refer to another deputy and “either poked or pushed the deputy with his hand.”

Cooley said he “blacked out” during the event and doesn’t remember what happened that night. He blamed the incident on his poor mental health.

Two weeks after the incident, the sheriff’s office launched an internal investigation into the incident at the bar, according to the lawsuit. On July 8, the department’s Office of Professional Standards recommended he be fired. Cooley appealed the recommendation, but it was upheld.

As the appeal was going on, Cooley sought to take medical leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which left him employed by the county until November, he said.

While he was on leave, the Texas City school district removed Cooley from its school security contract with the sheriff’s office. In a letter to Cooley, the district said his removal was in the “best interest of the district.”

Cooley said the removal from the contract cut his pay check by $18 an hour, and caused him to be reassigned to the corrections division.

Cooley accused the school district of doing “dirty work” for the county to demote him during his appeal. He accused the sheriff’s office of discriminating against him by failing to accommodate his disability, and the school district of deviating from normal procedures to end his contract.

A school district spokesperson said the district hadn’t been served with the lawsuit as of Wednesday and declined to comment on specifics of the lawsuit. Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset declined comment.

Cooley last year filed a similar lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas against the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office and Galveston County.

In January, the county filed a motion denying the claims made by Cooley and said the decision to terminate Cooley “was made of lawful, legitimate reasons.”

On March 10, Cooley filed a motion to drop his claim against the county. County officials said the motion applied to both the county and the sheriff’s office.