San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Fired by SAPD, 3 cops go to Leon Valley
It didn’t take long for fired San Antonio police Detective Daniel Pue — accused of punching his exgirlfriend in the face after an argument outside his home — to get a new job in law enforcement.
Eight months after he was arrested by Bexar County sheriff’s deputies — the criminal case later was dropped at the woman’s request — Pue was hired as a reserve officer by the Leon Valley Police Department.
As such, Pue can keep his peace officer license. Without an affiliation with a police department, Pue could have his license revoked after two years under state law.
Pue, 36, also can work off-duty jobs in traffic control for private companies while he appeals his firing by the San Antonio Police Department, where he worked for 11 years.
Pue is one of three SAPD officers hired as reserves by the Leon Valley police chief after being accused of serious wrongdoing, records obtained by the San Antonio Express-News show.
While reserve officers don’t work full-time or receive a regular paycheck, they can be called in to perform the same duties as police officers, such as patrolling or working during large events or emergencies.
The officers’ affiliation with Leon Valley highlights an issue lawmakers and criminal justice reformers have underscored for years: That police officers can be fired for or accused of serious wrongdoing by
one agency and still maintain a career in law enforcement.
That’s because the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the state agency charged with licensing and training police, can’t revoke an officer’s license short of two dishonorable discharges, a criminal conviction or a probationary sentence.
That’s true even in the most egregious cases.
For example, the commission (known as TCOLE) had no authority to revoke Matthew Luckhurst’s peace officer license, even after the San Antonio police chief fired him twice, for providing a “feces sandwich” to a homeless man and taking part in feces-related prank in the women’s restroom at SAPD’s downtown bike patrol station.
Nor could the commission, which recently came under scrutiny for its failure to properly collect racial profiling data on traffic stops, investigate misconduct allegations against the two other officers hired in Leon Valley, as neither was charged with a crime.
They are officer Elizabeth Montoya, who was fired from SAPD for striking a suspect who was six months pregnant, and officer Tim Garcia, a Hispanic officer fired for using a derogatory racial term to address a Black suspect. Garcia later got his job back at SAPD. Montoya is appealing her firing.
“Texas does not align with most other states that have decertification processes for police officers,” said Roger Goldman, a professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law who has studied police licensing for more than 30 years.
“Around two-thirds of states permit decertification, even if the officer hasn’t been convicted of anything,” Goldman said. “The action itself — the commission of the conduct, rather than the conviction for the conduct — would have led to an administrative hearing.”
Researchers say gaps in many state laws — including those in Texas — allow officers to bounce from job to job, even after they’ve been accused of serious wrongdoing.
The issue has drawn renewed interest from lawmakers since George Floyd, an unarmed African American, died in Minneapolis police custody in May.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. attorney general to create a database to track officers who have been terminated or had their licenses revoked for excessive use of force.
Some researchers and criminal justice reformers have called for further change, including giving state licensing boards authority to investigate police misconduct even when there isn’t a criminal case or conviction.
But some police unions are concerned changes in licensing laws could interfere with an officer’s due-process rights.
For example, if TCOLE had wider authority to investigate alleged misconduct, a police officer could end up facing three separate investigations: an internal departmental one, a criminal one and an administrative one by TCOLE.
“An officer could be found innocent by a jury, and then TCOLE would be able to take another bite of the apple,” said Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, the largest police officers’ union in Texas.
“No person would want that,” he said. “It’s essentially double jeopardy.”
Leon Valley Police Chief Joe Salvaggio, in an interview with the Express-News, defended his decision to hire Pue, Garcia and Montoya. All three appealed their firings through a lengthy arbitration process allowed under the city’s collective bargaining agreement with the police union.
Garcia won his appeal in November and is back on patrol at SAPD. Pue’s and Montoya’s appeals are pending.
Salvaggio said he conducted a background check on the three officers, as required by state law. He also reviewed evidence, including body-camera footage and police reports, provided by attorneys defending the officers.
He said he believes the officers were wrongfully terminated, based on the evidence he reviewed.
“They are certified Texas peace officers that have nothing in their file or history that would preclude them from being hired by me or anyone else in the state of Texas,” Salvaggio said.
Efforts ebb, flow
In the 1960s, New Mexico became the first state to authorize an agency to investigate officer conduct and determine whether officers should lose their license.
The idea grew out of the licensing boards for lawyers, doctors and barbers, all of which have the authority to revoke the license of professionals within their jurisdiction.
Over the years, most states have established licensing boards for police. But gaps remained.
“Officers could still move around from one state to another,” said Ricardo Gomez, a criminal justice lecturer at Texas A&M San Antonio. “None of these agencies reported to a national agency.”
In 1996, four years after the brutal beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers, members of Congress introduced legislation to create a national clearinghouse for law enforcement employment data.
All applicants for law enforcement jobs would have to authorize the release of their personnel files during the hiring process.
The bills never made it out of committee, due in part to concerns about due process rights of police officers.
Still, the push continued. In 1999, the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, or IADLEST, created a national database to track officers whose licenses had been revoked.
“That helped tremendously,” said Paul Reynolds, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of North Texas at Dallas. “But there was still a problem. It was up to each agency to report their certifications, and there was no federal law requiring it.”
Also, there was little consistency in the criteria for revoking officers’ licenses.
In some states, an officer’s license can be revoked only because of a felony or misdemeanor conviction. That’s similar to the standard in Texas, where TCOLE is required by law to revoke an officer’s license if the officer is convicted of a felony.
In other states, though, the licensing board can revoke an officer’s license even if the conduct at issue doesn’t result in criminal charges or a conviction.
Another issue researchers identified: If an officer resigned under the threat of termination, it wouldn’t necessarily be entered into the national database.
That was in the case in Cleveland, where 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was black, was shot and killed by a white police officer on Nov. 22, 2014.
Afterward, officials learned that the officer, Timothy Loehmann, had a history of “emotional instability, immaturity, and an inability to follow basic instructions, ” according to a 2018 Case Western Reserve University Law Review article.
Before the police chief fired him, Loehmann resigned. A grand jury declined to charge him.
Barriers to change
Efforts to toughen licensing laws face challenges, in part because police departments are largely decentralized in the U.S.
“Policing is fragmented because we did not trust the government,” said Richard Helfers, a former police officer and an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Texas at Tyler. “We wanted to believe that we could control ourselves, a lot better than a larger organization.”
Some law enforcement officials say that logic should be applied in terms of police conduct, too.
They say the local police chief, not a state or national agency, should determine whether an officer is a good fit for the force.
G.M. Cox, a former Texas police chief and a police management consultant, said he hired police officers who had been accused of misconduct on two or three occasions in his 33-year career as a chief.
One was a female police officer was accused of mishandling a domestic violence call. He felt comfortable hiring her because she was upfront about the allegation.
“I didn’t know why the chief decided to fire her,” Cox said. “If it happened at my department, I wouldn’t have terminated her for that. I would have given her a letter of reprimand at worst.
“Police officers are human beings that are asked to do superhuman stuff,” he added. “Does that mean she should never be a cop again?”
Some police officers say there are already sufficient safeguards to make sure bad cops aren’t rehired.
In Texas, when a police officer resigns, retires or is fired, the agency head must send an “F-5 Report” to TCOLE. The report characterizes an officer’s discharge as either “honorable,” “general,” or “dishonorable.”
If the officer applies for another police job in Texas, that department is required to request the F-5 report.
“The hiring process is really rigorous in most organizations,” Helfers said. “It’s very hard to get hired as a police officer.”
New push in Texas
Kim Vickers, executive director of TCOLE, said gaps persist.
For example, Texas requires a hiring agency to request an officer’s personnel file. Similarly, it requires the former agency to
make available the records. It does not state how.
“Because of privacy issues, many agencies do not feel comfortable sending those very personal records over fax or email,” Vickers said. “It could get hacked and the information could come out.”
As a result, he said, many agencies will provide the records only in person. A police department agency in the Panhandle, for example, may not have resources to send someone across the state to review a personnel file.
“They end up not hiring that officer. Or, I’ve seen hiring departments ask if the officer was a good officer and leave it at that,” he said.
In an effort to address the issue, TCOLE is establishing a secure online platform to transfer personnel records between agencies.
Further changes — for example, expanding TCOLE’s authority to investigate allegations of misconduct — would be up to the Legislature.
“State law limits what type of allegations we can look into. We have made a number of changes, but we have moved about as far as we can,” Vickers said. “Any bigger change would require legislative movement.”
Vickers, a licensed peace officer, said he’s open to that conversation. Since Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, he’s had several discussions with legislators interested in reforming the licensing process.
“I think we will also see a number of bills in the next legislative session,” Vickers said.
Leon Valley hires
Salvaggio, the Leon Valley police chief, was once a San Antonio police officer. Then, Police Chief William McManus accused him of cheating on a promotional exam and fired him.
Salvaggio denied the allegation, appealed and won his job back through arbitration. In the past decade, 10 officers, including Salvaggio, have done the same, city records show.
Salvaggio was hired as Leon Valley chief in 2016 and oversees 61 full-time and reserve officers.
Salvaggio said he obtained all the information he needed on the officers he hired from SAPD by conducting a criminal background check and requesting their personnel files, as required by law.
“We looked at all the evidence,” Salvaggio said. “I brought in three or four other people to review it with me. I had them leave and I brought in three or four other people. If any of them had said no, I wouldn’t have hired these officers.”
Moreover, the officers had few, if any, disciplinary issues in the past, Salvaggio said.
In Garcia’s case, Salvaggio said, body-camera footage showed a drawn-out exchange between the officer and the Black suspect. In the footage, the suspect often referred to himself by the racial slur, Salvaggio said.
Finally, in a moment of frustration, Garcia used the word, too.
“It was straight up stupid,” Salvaggio said. “But it wasn’t racist. It shouldn’t cost him his job. And I guarantee he’ll never make that mistake again.”
Pue, the officer accused of domestic violence, went to Salvaggio seeking a job immediately after he was fired from SAPD, the police chief said.
Salvaggio told Pue’s attorney he would not consider hiring him unless the pending criminal case was dropped. It was only at that point that Pue was hired in Leon Valley, records show.
“I reviewed a waiver signed by the girl and video of her on the day of the alleged assault, saying it didn’t happen,” Salvaggio said. “She told police that she went to his house drunk and ran into the door. … She told my investigator the same thing.”
“They have no witnesses, and they have her on video from day one saying nothing happened,” Salvaggio added. “When he goes to arbitration with no witnesses, and a girl that says she was the aggressor, what do you think is going to happen?”
In Montoya’s case, Salvaggio said, body-camera footage showed that Montoya used a variety of techniques to get the suspect to comply — first verbal commands and warnings, then what is called open-hand control.
It was only after the suspect assaulted Montoya that the officer punched the suspect, Salvaggio said.
That type of use-of-force is allowed under most departments’ guidelines.
Although as reserve officers in Leon Valley Montoya and Pue are less likely to interact with the public, Salvaggio said their experience benefits the department.
“They come in with a certain expertise that we can call upon if we need it,” Salvaggio said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to put them in a patrol car and have them working with the public, for their safety more than the citizens’ safety.”
So far, he has not had to make that call. Still, he’s glad he made the hires.
“We’re going to do our due diligence before we decide to take someone on,” Salvaggio said. “It really does depend on the circumstances and the evidence that we look at it. We take it very seriously.”