It didn’t take long for fired San Antonio police detective Daniel Pue — accused of punching his ex-girlfriend 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 — though the case was later dropped at the request of the woman — Pue was hired as a reserve officer at the Leon Valley Police Department.
As such, Pue, an 11-year veteran at SAPD, can keep his peace officer license. Without an affiliation with a police department, Pue, or any officer, could have his license revoked after two years under a state law.
Pue, 36, also can get off-duty jobs in traffic control for private companies while he is appealing his firing from the San Antonio Police Department.
Pue is one of three officers hired as reserves by the Leon Valley Police Department — even after being accused of serious wrongdoing, according to records obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.
While reserve officers don’t work full-time or get 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 researchers, 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 tasked with licensing and training police officers, cannot revoke an officer’s license short of two dishonorable discharges, a criminal conviction or a probated sentence.
Database: SAPD terminations and appeals
That’s true even in the most egregious of cases. For example, the state licensing board had no authority to revoke Matthew Luckhurst’s peace officer license, even after the San Antonio police chief fired him twice for two feces-related incidents.
Nor could TCOLE, which faced scrutiny for its failure to properly collect racial profiling data on traffic stops, investigate the 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 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 suspect who was black. 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.”
On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio police detective fired after punching ex-girlfriend, records state
Researchers who study police licensing rules say the gaps in many state laws — including those in Texas — allow officers to bounce around from job to job, even after they’ve been accused of serious wrongdoing.
The issue has drawn renewed interest from lawmakers following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month 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 say that isn’t enough. They have called for even more changes, including the ability for state licensing boards to investigate police misconduct under a broader set of circumstances.
But some police unions and researchers are concerned that changes in state licensing laws could interfere with an officer’s due-process rights.
For example, if TCOLE could investigate alleged misconduct more generally, a police officer could end up facing three separate investigations: An internal investigation by a select group of officers within the department; a criminal investigation; and an administrative investigation by the state licensing board.
More Information
License Suspension and Revocation in Texas
TCOLE can revoke or suspend the licenses of police officers who have been convicted of or placed on probation for a crime. The range of punishment is dictated by state law and administrative rules.
Felony conviction: License revoked permanently
Felony probation: 30-year license suspension
Family violence conviction or probation: License revoked permanently
Class A misdemeanor: Possible license suspension, at a minimum of 120 days and a maximum of 10 years
Class B misdemeanor: Possible license suspension, at a minimum of 60 days and a maximum of 10 years
Source: TCOLE Rules Handbook; Chapter 1701 of the Texas Occupations Code
“An officer could be found innocent by a jury, and then TCOLE would be able to take another bite of the apple,” said Charley Wilkinson, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, the largest police officers’ union in Texas.
“No person would want that,” he added. “It’s essentially double jeopardy.”
Leon Valley Police Chief Joe Salvaggio, in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News, defended his decision to hire Pue, Garcia and Montoya. All three officers appealed their firings through a lengthy arbitration process allowed under the city’s contract 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 all three officers, as is required by state law. He also reviewed evidence, including body-camera footage and police reports, provided by attorneys defending the officers.
In all three cases, based on the evidence he was provided, he thinks the officers were wrongfully terminated.
“We looked at all the evidence,” Salvaggio said. “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.”
Efforts ebb, flow
In the 1960s, New Mexico became the first state that authorized 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 a state licensing board for police that was modeled, in part, after New Mexico. But still, some criminal justice researchers said, problems 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, following the brutal beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, lawmakers in Congress introduced two bills that would have addressed the issue, creating a national clearinghouse for law enforcement employment data.
Under the proposed act, every applicant for a law enforcement job would have to authorize the release of their personnel file during the hiring process.
Neither bill made it out of committee, due in part to concerns about the due process rights of police officers.
On ExpressNews.com: Proposed police registry would fail without changes in states
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.”
Making the issue more problematic: There was little consistency in what would lead to a license being revoked.
In some states, an officer’s license can be revoked only in the event of a felony or misdemeanor conviction. That’s similar to the standard in Texas, where the licensing board 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 investigate and revoke an officer’s license even if there isn’t a criminal case 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.
Immediately following the killing, 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 department fired him, however, Loehmann resigned, citing personal reasons. A grand jury declined to charge him.
Barriers to change
Efforts to make licensing laws more stringent are difficult, researchers say, due in part to police departments being 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 police chief, or the head of the law enforcement agency, should determine whether an employee is a good fit for their agency — not a state or national agency.
G.M. Cox, a former Texas police chief and a police management consultant, said he hired police officers accused of misconduct on two or three occasions in his 33-year career as a chief.
One time, he hired a female police officer who was accused of mishandling a domestic violence call. He felt comfortable hiring her because she was upfront about the allegation during the hiring process.
On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio activists want to gut police union’s power amid George Floyd protests
“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 also said there are already enough safeguards in place 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 state licensing board. The report characterizes an officer’s discharge from his or her law enforcement agency as either “honorable,” “general,” or “dishonorable.”
If the officer applies for another job in Texas, the new agency 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 in the law still exist.
For example, the law in 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 only provide the records in person.
That can be problematic. An agency in the Panhandle, for example, may not have the money or 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 eliminate that gap, TCOLE is in the process of establishing a secure online platform to transfer personnel records between agencies.
Any further changes — for example, changes allowing TCOLE to investigate allegations of misconduct in more circumstances — would be up to the state 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 himself, said it’s a conversation he’s open to having. Since the death of Floyd in May, 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
For Salvaggio, the chief in Leon Valley, any reform efforts are of little concern.
Salvaggio, a former San Antonio police officer himself, faced scrutiny years ago after Police Chief William McManus accused him of cheating on a promotional exam and fired him.
Salvaggio denied the allegations, appealed and won his job back through arbitration — a process allowed by state law and the city’s contract with the police union. In the past decade, 10 officers, including Salvaggio, have won their jobs back through arbitration, city records show.
Salvaggio was hired as Leon Valley police chief in 2016 and oversees 61 full-time and reserve officers.
Salvaggio said he was able to get all the information he needed on the officers he hired from SAPD by conducting a criminal background check and requesting their personnel files, as is required by law.
In each case, he said, he had several officers within his department review the records with him.
“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-worn camera footage showed a drawn out exchange between the officer and the suspect, who was black. In it, the civilian 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.”
On ExpressNews.com: Arbitrators excuse allegations of racism in police
Pue, the officer accused of domestic violence, came 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 until 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, the video footage from a body-worn camera 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 allegedly assaulted Montoya that the officer used similar techniques, Salvaggio said.
That type of use-of-force is allowed under most departments’ guidelines.
While Montoya and Pue are reserve officers, meaning they don’t have interactions with the public, Salvaggio said the officers’ experience benefits the Leon Valley 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. “I will tell you a very minute number of police officers who come from another agency are actually hired by us.”
“It really does depends on the circumstances and the evidence that we look at it,” he said. “We take it very seriously.”
Emilie Eaton is a criminal justice reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Emilie, become a subscriber. eeaton@express-news.net | Twitter: @emilieeaton
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