Broken Blue: Misconduct in the San Antonio Police Department
KSAT-TV
01/10/2020
1. The Short of It
Months before that tragic May afternoon when George Floyd died on a Minneapolis street, we did the numbers, and it was a shock.
For years the Investigative Team at KSAT-TV had continually uncovered and reported on a steady stream of police officer misconduct in the San Antonio Police Department. It included beatings and shootings, both on-duty and off; sexual assaults; drug use; and more.
In short, the area had a real problem, even when compared to the biggest cities.
But while some officers were indeed removed from the force, reporters Dillon Collier and Tim Gerber began to notice something else: Some cops would commit misconduct, not once, not twice, but as many as six times, and still get their jobs back, again and again, allowing them to continue posing a threat to public safety.
Which brings us back to that shock. After collecting and compiling nearly ten years of misconduct cases, it turned out that nearly two-thirds of the fired San Antonio officers had won back their positions on the force. (See attached .pdf)
This happened either through arbitration or the police chief backing down and giving into the officer’s union, (usually just before an arbitration hearing was about to begin.)
Even worse, that figure turned out to be one of the highest in the nation.
So what was going on?
That’s what the KSAT 12 News Defenders attempted to answer for their audience in the one-hour news special “Broken Blue: Misconduct in the San Antonio Police Department.”
Using various cases of police misconduct, the January 12 broadcast revealed to the public how a combination of state laws, a collective bargaining agreement, and the use of arbitration had formed what some call "a roadblock to police reform."
Our program quickly sparked change in San Antonio including citizen demands to remove excessive job protections for officers, a citizen's campaign to repeal some of those state laws, heated city council meetings, and the mayor promising to roll back officer protections in the next bargaining agreement.
And all of this starting months before what is now a national movement.
2. The Details
KSAT-TV is an unusual station.
In an era when local newsrooms talk about “teaming up” with public agencies, often referred to as “media partners”, this San Antonio newsroom went another way.
In particular the members of the investigative unit decided that they owed it to the public to be just as critical-minded and expectant of accountability with ‘legitimate’ individuals and institutions as most reporters are with suspect ones.
As a result, this included local law enforcement and led to years of reports about police corruption and misconduct that other stations pass up because of a fear of losing “access”.
Not that it’s been easy for reporters Dillon Collier and Tim Gerber. Both have received threats over the years and City of San Antonio officials even once threatened Collier with jail if the station broadcasted a story about a cover-up by police internal affairs. The station called their bluff and the report aired.
But in 2019, both Collier and Gerber realized that the public needed something that wasn’t coming across in their individual reports: Context, a better understanding of why there seemed to be so much officer misconduct.
So the idea that would become “Broken Blue” was born.
Beginning that August, the team started reviewing ten years of past cases, some they’d reported on and others that they didn’t, eventually reducing it to 70 instances.
The unit also read through several state laws and analysis on their application, three collective bargaining agreements between San Antonio and the police “union”, studies on various forms of common police job protections and how they weakened misconduct investigations, broader studies on officer misconduct, and also several histories of police union growth and practices in various cities across the country.
We then talked with policing experts from across the country, politicians, activists, victims of misconduct, police officers, union representatives, legal experts and attorneys, academics In crime studies and policing, and also researchers and statisticians.
Finally we were able to determine a solid overview of a large part of the dilemma of officer misconduct: That a combination of state civil service laws (Texas chapters 143 and 174) had created general protections for officers under investigation for misconduct and that those in turn had been strengthened even further during the union’s collective bargaining agreement SESSIONS DATING BACK THREE DECADES.
For example, state law says that for most acts of misconduct, a police agency has 180 days to act before it becomes inactionable. However, in the CBA for San Antonio, those 180 days are specifically defined as starting from the date of the alleged misconduct. Hence police officials are limited by when they happen to find out about the act and in addition are left vulnerable to when an officer claims the misconduct actually occurred.
Several other state protections were also narrowly defined and improved in favor of the suspect officer by San Antonio’s CBA. As a result, firings appealed through arbitration would frequently be ruled in favor of the officer.
To explain all of this to the audience, the unit decided on 5 cases to show how the system works, each advancing the narrative of the system. These included an officer who crushed the skull of his girlfriend while off-duty but managed not to be prosecuted; A patrol cop with a habit of challenging suspects to a fight and if they win they get to walk away; the infamous tale of the police officer who gave a homeless man a feces sandwich, lost his job, and then won it back through arbitration; an on-duty officer who got into a gun battle with his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, pursued him to the man’s home, and killed him in his doorway while his children were inside. This last instance resulted in the cop avoiding criminal prosecution, being fired, and then winning his job back through an arbitration appeal.
There were two absolutely necessary elements we needed: Interviews with the Chief of the SAPD and with the head of the SAN ANTONIO POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION. Both could be notoriously skittish but we solved the problem by assigning the reporter each man least feared to make the pitch and do the interview.
Finally, on January 12, 2020, “Broken Blue” aired in San Antonio. Besides the above discussed material we also showed how to a lesser degree the problems in San Antonio were nation-wide and were the result of decades of city officials avoiding giving police unions income increases by incrementally turning over more and more power to them.
3. The Impact
The reaction to “Broken Blue” actually started BEFORE we aired in January 2020.
A week before broadcast, the KSAT web site began publishing profiles of the different officer misconduct cases that would be featured. This helped build interest and discussion about the upcoming program.
One of the first of those profiles was of Matthew Luckhurst, the officer who gave a homeless man a feces sandwich, was fired, and then won his job back through arbitration.
It turned out, many apparently did not know that he was technically back on the force.
Suddenly websites and newspapers started discussing a now-growing citizens movement to remove him from the force. (See attached .pdf) (Note: This June Luckhurst finally lost his job after appealing another firing that again involved an incident with fecal matter.)
Then as we aired the special on January 10, 2020, well-known Texas CONGRESSMAN JOAQUIN Castro tweeted that “KSAT airing an important program Broken Blue right now on serious problems with policing in San Antonio.”
Within days, the San Antonio Mayor announced that the police protections in the CBA were going to be “on the table” in the upcoming negotiation.
Soon signs started showing up at police reform rallies, signs with “Broken Blue” written on them and with photos of the officers featured in the program.
For the first time in three decades San Antonians started pressuring their councilpersons and officials at City Hall to remove the officer protections from the next union agreement. They now knew about what protections like the “180 day rule” or the 48-hour notice that an officer gets before being interviewed about misconduct and how he or she is allowed to examine all of the evidence beforehand.
In short, they were empowered by knowledge.
But perhaps the most consequential impact was made on a single member of the viewing public.
As mentioned, two of the subjects we tackled in “Broken Blue” were the laws known as Chapters 143 and 174 and the questionable protections they afforded officers accused of misconduct.
However, we also explained something few members of the public, and even politicians, knew of: That with enough signatures on a petition, Chapters 143 and 174 could be put to a public vote on whether or not to keep them.
As a result, that single viewer (as she later told us), took that information and started a group called FIX SAPD. (See attached .pdf of their website.)
The group quickly grew and began a petition at libraries and polling places. In fact, as of this month, February 2021, San Antonio city has certified that FIX SAPD has enough signatures on one of the petitions (20,000 names) that Chapter 174 will go before the public this May. (See attached .pdf)
(That law gives the police force the right to collective bargain from which many officer rights stem when they are under investigation.)
In addition, the activist group is still working on gathering enough signatures on their other petition to put Chapter 143 to a vote.
At the same time, the local police union known as the San Antonio Police Officer’s Association (SAPOA) has launched a fierce multi-media misinformation offensive targeting FIX SAPD, KSAT-TV, and our original report.
In fact, KSAT is preparing a number of follow-ups including on the use of bullying and intimidation tactics by SAPOA against workers at the activist group.
Finally, as this is written, the City of San Antonio is scheduled to begin new negotiations with the Union next week on their collective bargaining agreement.
LINK to content online
LINK 2 to content online
LINK 3 to content online
LINK 4 to content online
LINK 5 to content online
LINK 6 to content online
LINK 7 to content online
LINK 8 to content online
Submitted by David Raziq.