Posted on 01/25/2003 8:07:03 AM PST by Houmatt
Two police officers involved in the Kmart raid in which nearly 300 people were arrested are likely to be fired Tuesday, their lawyer and a union representative say.
The lawyer for Capt. Mark A. Aguirre, who ordered the raid, and for Sgt. Ken Wenzel said the Houston Police Department should wait to decide whether to fire them until after the two go to trial this summer on charges of official oppression.
Instead both are scheduled for hearings, at which it will be determined whether they should be fired Tuesday.
"Most people who have loudermill hearings get fired," lawyer Terry W. Yates said.
"They should allow us to have our day in court," he said. "They're rushing to judgment."
HPD spokesman Robert Hurst said the department is following proper procedures.
"Mr. Yates is fully aware of what the Houston Police Department disciplinary process is," he said.
Aguirre and Wenzel were indicted last month on five counts each of official oppression for the Aug. 18 sweep of a Kmart parking lot. The raid was intended to crack down on drag racing, but when no one was found drag racing, officers arrested hundreds on charges of trespassing and curfew violations.
Thirteen police officers were suspended with pay and all the trespassing and curfew violations dropped. No charges were filed against the other 11 officers implicated in the incident.
More officers are scheduled for hearings, Hurst said, but he said he did not know how many, who or when the hearings would be held. Hurst declined to comment further because the issue is a disciplinary matter.
Hans Marticiuc, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, said he expects Aguirre and Wenzel and possibly two more officers to be fired.
Acting Police Chief Timothy Oettmeier will report to City Council on Wednesday the results of an internal investigation of the Kmart incident.
I have. It looks like mistakes were made. It also looks like the FR cop haters have elevated the punks to little angles and have compared the cops to nazis.
Sorry, I realize that teenagers mob gather in parking lots when most people are sleeping just to have a burger with dad or buy a hair scrunchie.
I made the mistake of parking my truck near one of these innocent crowds - after I came back outside, I found my truck was vandalized. If I knew who did it, I would have done a lot worse that these cops did. True, I should have known better.
The crowd was up to no good and I could not care less if they were inconvienenced for a few hours. If they had real parents these punks would not have been there in the first place.
Now that I hear the ACLU is thinking about cashing in, I know the cops are innocent.
no. so, since the cops weren't able to find any evidence that those arrested were breaking the law, (aside from the criminal trespass which was false and subsequently dropped ), ie. no minors with alcohol, drunken behaviour vandalism, etc., it follows that on previous nights the situation was the same and the allegations and complaints regarding the behaviour of the parking lot crowd that the apartment complex residents made were, ahem, exaggerated.
Is that a nice way of saying the residents are liars? Have you read Christine McDonald's op-ed piece as it was published in the Houston Chronicle a few days after the raid? Are you calling her a liar?
Do you even live in Texas, let alone Houston? If not, how can you have even the slightest idea what you are talking about?
It just so happens there is a Wal-Mart right around the corner from where I live, which is right across the street from the KMart where this raid took place. I shop at the Wal-Mart regularly. And while employees may have reason to complain, I never have.
How does it feel? It feels like I have no (as in Zero, Nada) sympathy for the young angels in the Kmart lot. You people have been posting these threads as if we are supposed to rip our shirts off and scream at the sky for justice. But the fact is that most people could not give a flying f*ck.
Kmart kids - "I can do anything I want to and you can't stop me" (stomping foot)
And before you say he was not supposed to be talking to the press, so his identity was kept secret. But hold on. Aguirre apparently breaks from policy so this guy does, too? And nobody is questioning that?
I thought for a minute there that you were quoting the police officers in this mess. If someone does something that is against the law arrest them for it. That goes for the K-Mart kids as well as the police officers involved. The problem here is that the officers couldn't find law violations so they just arrested everyone in sight.
I suspect that the city is trying to figure out how to settle all of this without going to court. The potential for really big losses in civil cases looms over the city unless they can head this off early.
By whom?
I thought that was clear from my post.
But I do not feel any sympathy for the kids. You people (not you personally maybe) are naive.
Posting stuff like hoping the city is bankrupted by lawyers and calling cops pigs is not exactly in good FR tradition.
Oh, my God. Did you just tell Hacksaw it was his fault his truck was damaged?
Un. Be. Liev. Able.
Well, sort of. Using the passive voice ("mistakes were made") is the sort of political-speak that people tend to hate - saying it like that is a way of avoiding assigning any responsibility for those mistakes. Not to suggest that you did it on purpose, but that's the practical effect of it - combine that with the fact that the rest of your post was about today's youth in general, and it's pretty clear which side has your sympathies. ;)
But, in fact, the police made mistakes - the mistakes didn't make themselves. And it's not at all difficult to hold the opinion that the officers in question should be held responsible for those mistakes, as it appear they will be, without also casting the local teens as "angels". Hell, they probably aren't angels, but that doesn't absolve the police of the responsibility to obey the law and proper procedure themselves.
And that's more or less the bottom line for me - and, truth be told, I suspect that you probably feel much the same way. They aren't mutually exclusive positions, after all - there's nothing wrong with saying "the kids were acting like a**holes" and saying "the police should be held responsible for their bad acts"...
Yes, the supervisors spoke to the Chronicle under condition of remaining anonymous. That is a violation of department policy, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are reprimands. They probably are among those officers who are currently suspended from the force.
Of course, there's quite a difference between breaking a department rule, and committing a crime, which is what Captain Aguirre is charged with.
But if you're suggesting that the officers quoted in the Chronicle story were not even there, you have totally lost it. By that line of illogic, how do we even know there was raid? The video could have been faked. Maybe the whole thing never happened.
Get real.
The passive voice is one of the best tools for obfuscation of responsibility. Some of Clowntoon's underlings seemed to believe that it was the only verb form to be found in the English language.
Un. Be. Liev. Able.
No, you should agree, Houmatt. After all, his truck was near an unruly crowd. So, it's obvious that he was part of that unruly crowd, and he should have been arrested. Arrest them all.
Right?
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