Discrepancy Found In Court Documents Accusing EPPD Of Quota System
Documents obtained by ABC-7 show a document attached to a court filing by attorneys for five former police officers accusing the El Paso police of mandating quotas does not match documents kept by TXDOT and the city of El Paso.
The former officers requested an injunction asking that the city “cease, desist and refrain from enforcing any and all grants and systems that require the issuance of citations and arrests.”
According to the petition filed last month, the former officers said they were forced to meet quotas as part of the STEP grant. STEP stands for Selective Traffic Enforcement Program and its funds are used to fund campaigns like “Click It or Ticket.”
The officers resigned amid an investigation into whether they falsified records to collect overtime covered by the grant. They have not been charged with a crime.
One of the documents entered as part of the court filing by the officers’ attorneys, Theresa Caballero and Stuart Leeds, does not match the one ABC-7 obtained from TxDOT.
The two documents, which highlight the 2010 Comprehensive STEP program for 2010, appear to be similar and have the same code information at the top and bottom of the page, and the same content — with the exception of a sentence that only appears in the TxDOT version sent to ABC-7 by TxDOT Traffic Safety Director Terry Pence.
It states: “Nothing in this agreement shall be interpreted as a requirement, formal or informal, that a peace officer issue a specified or predetermined number of citations in pursuance of the Subgrantee’s obligations hereunder.”
The sentence does not appear on the document presented to the court, so ABC-7 called attorneys Caballero and Leeds to find out why. As a response, ABC-7 Reporter Matt Smith received this text:
“It is the job of Channel 7 to carry forth the government’s falsehoods (that this is not a quota), not ours.”
In a reply to the text, Smith asked, “How do you explain the discrepancy between the document you filed and the one I received from TxDOT?”
The response was, “You have our quote.”
Tuesday, ABC-7 incorrectly identified the quotes as Caballero’s. The quotes actually came from Leeds’ phone.
Wednesday, ABC-7 asked the city of El Paso for its copy of the Comprehensive STEP grant agreement for fiscal year 2010. The third copy of the document matched TxDOT’s.
ABC-7 made repeated attempts to contact Caballero and Leeds again Wednesday to get their comment on the discrepancy shown in the documents, but they did not return our calls to address the issue.
ABC-7 also learned that because of the investigation, the Texas Department of Transportation has put the STEP grant on hold for the fiscal year 2012.
TxDOT confirmed that the police department has been without that money since Oct. 1.
Link:Document entered as part of the Petition for Injunction
