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This Texas town has about 250 people. It has 50 sworn police officers. (www.khou.com)
submitted 1 year ago by gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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KHOU 11 Investigates discovered more than half of the cops in the Coffee City Police Department had been suspended, demoted or fired from their previous jobs.

Quick excerpt,

Coffee City’s budget shows the town collected more than $1 million in court fines last year. That came from more than 5,100 citations officers wrote, the most in the state for a town its size according to the Texas Office of Court Administration.

But there is more to this story than a small town writing a bunch of speeding tickets. KHOU 11 Investigates discovered Coffee City is a magnet for troubled cops. More than half of the department’s 50 officers had been suspended, demoted, terminated or dishonorably discharged from their previous law enforcement jobs, according to personnel files obtained through open records requests to other law enforcement agencies.

Those prior disciplinary actions range from excessive force, public drunkenness, untruthfulness and association with known criminals. They include:

  • An officer terminated for posting a Facebook message to a citizen: “You should kill yourself, do the world a favor.”
  • An officer suspended for smashing a window and entering his girlfriend’s home without consent.
  • A deputy constable suspended after a burglary victim’s laptop computer was found in his home.
  • A deputy constable terminated for tackling a non-resisting citizen to the ground during a traffic stop.
  • A deputy sheriff terminated for slapping a handcuffed inmate without provocation.
  • Two officers terminated for lying on their job applications.
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[-] reverendsteveii@sopuli.xyz 22 points 1 year ago

Sounds like they used public money to pay the startup costs of a private security firm, and in exchange for that they write a bunch of bogus tickets so the town makes money

this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
431 points (98.4% liked)

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