The Real Victims of Sheriff Garza's Civil War and More Fireworks to Come
A few articles ago, I wrote about a source inside Cameron County's law enforcement system letting me know Sheriff Garza planned to take over the Cameron County Courthouse, which was the Cameron County Precinct 2 Constable's turf. While some people decided to call me out as an idiot because the constable's physical office; the place where his desk sat was no longer at the courthouse on Harrison Street, my critics failed to read further along in my article. The point wasn't where his desk was. The point of my article was Eric Garza wanted to take control of his old stomping grounds at the courthouse and wrest control of it and courthouse security away from Precinct 2 Constable Abel Gomez.
After I published the article, the blogosphere exploded with more detailed and in-depth articles from Juan Montoya, Jerry McHale, and even other bloggers who ridiculed me for being wrong about the location of a physical office. They published multiple stories about the rift between Garza and Gomez. Funny how things shake out.
In all fairness, if you want the full breakdown of what I've called the Cameron County Civil War, no reporter or blogger has covered the story better than Juan Montoya. Go on over to El Rrun Rrun to read about the storm Eric Garza has brewed up inside the sheriff's department and the jail. Don't forget to visit the comments section where it is apparent employees of the department, along with some "anonymous" deputies have added more detailed problems from inside the department.
Now it appears more fireworks are in the planning.
Precinct 2 Constable Abel Gomez is apparently going to drop another bombshell at the next county commissioner's meeting. According to another source in the sheriff's department, Gomez has appointed former Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio and one of Lucio's top administrators, Gus Reyna as reserve Precinct 2 Constable Deputies. We'll see what the appointment of the old regime to the constable's office will bring.
During our conversation, my source was confused as to why Sheriff Garza would risk the fight with the county commission, and members of the sheriff's department, to throw his weight around the courthouse. I mean, the hamburgers at the snack bar couldn't be that good, could they?
I told him, the reason he wants to be in charge of security at the courthouse breaks down to one simple reason — ego.
He was the County Clerk before. He was known all around the courthouse. Now that he has a more prestigious title, now that he runs the uniforned law enforcement arm of the county, he wants to be able to seem as if he appears taller as he walks down the halls of the courthouse. He wants his former colleagues to see he's a bigger deal than he was in the past.
Again, it's all about ego.
And the really sad thing is the sheriff's ego trip is coming at a tremendous cost to Cameron County.
Sheriff Garza has left several divisions in the department in disarray. Several positions within the department have gone unfilled.
As if it wasn't hard enough to compete with federal law enforcement jobs like Border Patrol and ICE taking the best local law enforcement officers for the greener pastures of higher paying federal jobs, now several sheriff's deputies are jumping ship because of a hostile working environment.
The results are scary. Large swaths of the Cameron County map are going unprotected. At many times, during many shifts, certain patrol zones only have one deputy to respond to calls. There are times when a sheriff's deputy responding to a call in the Harlingen area has had to ask for backup from the Texas DPS, Cameron County Constables, or the United States Border Patrol because the closest available sheriff's deputy was in Los Fresnos.
What is going to happen when drug traffickers realize these large areas of the county are free of any significant law enforcement presence? What is going to happen when citizens who live outside the jurisdiction of city police, leaving the sheriff's department with the responsibly to respond...and they don't?
Worse, and perhaps the scariest scenario of them all — what is going to happen when a deputy pulls a dark SUV over on one of these lonely farm-to-market roads in the middle of the night and radios for backup because the SUV is occupied times five, there's 20 bundles of marijuana in the back, and the occupants realize they have more firepower and more men than the deputy's Ford Interceptor Utility...
And backup doesn't arrive?
Is this pissing contest between the sheriff, the county administrators, and the constable worth the life of a sheriff's deputy?
Patrol isn't the only division suffering. The Special Investigations Division (detectives) has been gutted and reworked with their caseload backing up and getting bigger. God only knows if any Investigations are going on in the auto theft task force.
Worse yet, the jail downtown is terribly understaffed with as few as 4 or 5 jailors and no real supervisors per shift.
During this whole ridiculousness, people are yelling "defund the police." This is not the time to defund anything. From the very beginnings of this blog, I made the argument that Brownsville needs more funding. They need more police officers. They need better qualified, higher paying positions to keep the best officers from going federal.
The same argument applies to the sheriff's department. The sheriff needs to end these petty arguments and hire more deputies. Better qualified deputies. More jailors. Better qualified jailors.
He needs to hire experienced deputies, not political cronies.
We need more law enforcement presence in the city and the county.
The Brownsville Police Department needs reform as well. The blogosphere has reported on the problems of Chief Felix Sauceda and the BPD.
I've said some of these things before:
Brownsville needs a dedicated traffic division with a deputy chief and a specific motorcycle division dedicated to patrolling the highway. We need a Park Police Department with a separate chief. We need more investigators. Higher salaries.
People in the city and the county alike shouldn't have to wait as long as they do for the police to respond.
Keep in mind all of this comes on the heels of the announcement this week by Brownsville PD will be switching it's main non-emergency number to an automated system rather than a live police officer.
Talk about two steps back.
Again, the ones that will inevitably suffer will be the citizens of Cameron County and the citizens of Brownsville. And for what? All so Sheriff Garza can impress the pretty young secretary as he tips his cowboy hat as he walks by her in the halls of the courthouse?
If ever there was a more fitting use of the saying "he's all hat and no cattle" I've never heard one.
What will happen when you call the sheriff's department for help and nobody arrives?
Let's hope Cameron County residents will never find out.
Just like a true civil war, all the casualties are on the same side.
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