MIDLAND, Texas (AP) — Two
police officers in an oil-rich West Texas city spent weeks competing to see who
could take the most cardboard signs away from homeless people, even though
panhandling doesn't violate any city law.
Nearly two months after the
Midland Police Department learned of the game, the two officers were suspended
for three days without pay, according to findings of the internal affairs
investigation obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request.
Advocate groups immediately
blasted the department's handling, suggesting that the punishment wasn't harsh
enough and that the probe should have been made public much earlier, before
news organizations, including the AP, started asking about it.
"The fact that they are
making sport out of collecting the personal property of homeless individuals
could be seen as them targeting these individuals for discriminatory
harassment," said Cassandra Champion, an attorney in the Odessa office of
the Texas Civil Rights Project. "Simply holding a sign is absolutely a
protected part of our free speech."
Police Chief Price Robinson
said the actions were an isolated incident in a department of 186 officers and
didn't deserve a harsher punishment. After the investigation all officers were
reminded to respect individual rights and human dignity, he said.
"We want to respect
people, no matter who they are — homeless, whatever," Robinson said.
"That situation's been dealt with. Those officers understand."
The investigation found the two
officers, Derek Hester and Daniel Zoelzer, violated the department's
professional standards of conduct. There is no ordinance against panhandling in
Midland, an oil-boom city of more than 110,000 where a recent count put the
homeless number at about 300. About a quarter of those are transient.
Evan Rogers, founder of Church
Under the Bridge Midland's ministry, said the failure by police to disclose the
officers' behavior once discovered made it appear the department was
"pushing it under the carpet.
"I think that does give
the public the wrong message," he said.
Asked Wednesday about why the
investigation wasn't made public earlier, city spokeswoman Sara Higgins said it
is not the department's standard protocol to announce when an internal affairs
investigation is completed. She said the officers weren't suspended until
January because of staffing issues and the winter holidays.
On a recent afternoon, one
group of homeless people could be seen near a trash bin behind a fast-food
restaurant and another around an intersection. Among their signs was one that
read: "Anything helps. God bless."
"If it was them, I
guarantee you they'd be doing the same thing," said Desarie Caine, who
sought donations on a street corner while eating from a package of beef jerky.
"I think they're bored."
The two officers, who did not
appeal their suspensions, have been with the department about two years. They
both returned emails from the AP declining to be interviewed.
According to the investigation
report, eight signs were found in the trunk of Hester's patrol car on Nov. 20
and Zoelzer had thrown the about 10 signs he had confiscated into a city trash
container after Hester called him to warn him he had been reprimanded by his
superior for having the signs.
The two told the internal
affairs investigator, that they were issuing criminal trespass warnings when
they took the signs. But according to the report, no homeless people were
issued criminal trespass warnings by either officer in 2013. Most of those
warnings in Midland are written, but some are verbal.
The investigation also looked
into complaints from within the department that Hester and Zoelzer failed to
log into evidence brass knuckles, a small set of scales and two knives they had
obtained during other patrol stops. The investigation into the signs began
after an officer on patrol with Hester when Hester obtained the brass knuckles
sent an email to his sergeant Nov. 18 about Hester saying he wasn't going to
log them in as evidence.
The signs and the brass knuckles
were found in Hester's car during a vehicle inspection two days later.
The contest between Hester, 25,
and Zoelzer, 26, was alluded to in text messages on Nov. 21 obtained by the AP.
It was unclear which of the officers sent each message.
"My bad man when he first
ask me about it he didn't seem mad or anything so I just told him me and u
wereaking (sic) a game outta it when we'd trespass them and stuff," one
text read. Another read, "Man this is some bs."
Although Rogers said he doesn't
believe the officers' actions reflect on the whole department, he considered
the penalty insufficient.
"I don't believe three
days gives it justice," Rogers said.
