San Antonio City Council Passes Police Contract
The San Antonio City Council passed a police contract that has some positive changes but does not go far enough. After over 70,000 voters said they were sick of the San Antonio Police Officers Association (SAPOA) keeping bad cops on the force, a few cracks have shown up after successful lawsuits by attorneys Edward Pina, Thomas J. Henry, and others. The Jesse Aguirre Case has been settled (the George Floyd case of San Antonio), and the Antroine Scott case for 450,000 dollars. According to KSAT 12 News,” In the new deal, an arbitrator can only overturn an indefinite suspension if the chief fails to establish that the conduct was either bad enough that keeping them on would be detrimental to the department, or that ‘law and sound community expectations’ would see as good reason to fire them.”’ Additionally, the SAPD Chief now has a longer window to bad cops, and allows the chief to include any prior discipline related to the bad conduct. However, there was no change in the ability for citizens to subpoena cops that violate rules and the law.
The recent news that the City of San Antonio has agreed to settle the case of Jesse Aguirre dating back to 2013 comes as no surprise to those that have waited all of these years for justice. Mr. Aguirre was strangled to death by SAPD officers. Mr. Aguirre was attacked while having a mental episode on one of the expressways and was thrown over a concrete barrier head first after a female SAPD officer threatened to shoot him while she was cursing him. According to news reports, SAPD officer Cristina Gonzales began yelling and screaming using strong curse words at Aguirre and threatening to shoot him as he was simply walking. Several other SAPD officers jumped on after Mr. Aguirre was thrown to the pavement face down after offering no resistance. Soon thereafter these cops sat on him so that he soon lost his ability to breathe and died.
In one of the most savage acts by SAPD officers Jesse Aguirre tried to cry out but they sat on top of him for over five minutes until he died. Camera footage recorded SAPD officers laughing as the man was dying. Justice could have been served if the San Antonio Police Officers Association (SAPOA) was not so interested in protecting bad cops and the District Attorney at the time, Susan Reed, was not in cahoots with injustice. Why were these officers not charged criminally? The video tells the story quite clearly that Mr. Aguirre was murdered by out-of-control SAPD officers that received a free pass from a system that is broken.
San Antonio has a long history of racial abuse and police brutality. Recently, the City had to settle the case of Antroine Scott who was killed by law enforcement. Scott, a Black man, was unarmed when he was shot by Officer John Lee on Feb. 4, 2016, at the Wood Hollow Apartments on Isom Road on the city’s near North Side. It took six years to see some kind of justice, while if a person of color shoots a cop or a “white” person the “justice” is swift. What is important in these cases is the fact that San Antonio is as bad as other cities for racist abuse by law enforcement. San Antonio has an extremely bad cop reputation that seems to be permanent cancer. The case of Bobby Joe Phillips in 1968 highlights the problem of bad cops and the fact that justice is often never served.
