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.
So the town basically hired a gang of thugs to be their police while they extort travelers in their jurisdiction, sounds like a 70’s or later action movie/show like Dukes of Hazzard, Billy Jack, or Rambo.
Hopefully the main character shows up and kicks all of their asses and we all get a happy ending. (Meanwhile in reality they will just keep getting away with it because of the way Texas is ran and qualified immunity)
As an outsider, local city based police forces sound like some medieval throwback to me.
That must be a scary town to be stuck living in. Think time FBI step in and disband that police department.
I lived across the inlet on the same lake, about 3 miles from the major bridge that they use to get most their speeding tickets - Between Frankston/Tyler, there’s a long 4-lane bridge where they park on either end. There, the speed suddenly drops, directly on the outside of the city limits. There’s always at least 2 waiting to get all the speeders coming off the bridge, and there’s nothing at the end of that bridge but a Fat Dog Liquor and a closed/burnt down café.
Can confirm, Lindale over here. It brings to mind a little village next to Alvin TX (where the FBI picked up that lady for making threatening calls)- probably the same population…only 2 cops…it’s a husband and wife combo…and he’s also the judge! Ya learn quick --> not 1 mile above the posted speed limit, and sometimes one under just to play it safe
It’s the classic rent seeking example. Like throwing a chain across a river to charge a fee for crossing it.
💀
That’s a great way of putting it.
How does a town of 250 have the funds to pay 50 police salaries?
The town is probably a ticket trap or they make way too much money off of civil asset forfeiture, it all sounds shady AF.
Between insurance, pensions, salary, reimbursements, and fringe benefits, you’re looking at a minimum cost of $70k per full-time officer per year. They’d have to issue $3,500,000 in tickets to cover that alone, and even then, that leaves nothing for vehicle replacement/maintenance (which is huge on a fleet of cop cars), non-officer employee salaries (clerks etc.), rent/taxes/maintenance on the station, equipment and weapons, training programs, and so much more. No way tickets and forfeitures alone take in that much in a town of 250
Cartel town maybe? There’s probably some pretty surprising levels of corruption going on there.
How does a town of 250 have the funds to pay 50 police salaries?
Texas Highway 155 crosses Ledbetter Bay as it passes through Coffee City
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
That’s still nowhere near enough for 50 cops with public level benefits. Even if every dollar of that goes towards the cops, at $20k/year each, it would hardly cover federal taxes on their income, let alone the income itself
Because only 12 of the 50 are full time. The rest are reserves that are used as surge for events and stuff in other cities.
They’re not full-time:
The opportunity to wear a badge allows officers to make extra money. In the state of Texas, a commissioned reserve officer may work off-duty performing traffic control duties, commonly known as “road jobs.” Of the 50 sworn officers at the Coffee City Police Department, 38 are reserves according to state records.
Ahhh that makes more sense, but still crazy. Definitely staying out of Coffee on any road trips I take…
Corruption
This is a sanctuary city for cops who should’ve been deported to prison.
A deputy sheriff terminated for slapping a handcuffed inmate without provocation.
There is no acceptable reason for slapping someone who’s cuffed. Provocation my ass.
Why does the state government permit this? I don’t think it’s a liberal vs conservative thing, because everyone thinks speed-trap towns are bullshit.
Hey so one of the things i learned in college as a CJ major is that cops often make lateral moves in their career from one department to the next.
I bet small town departments like this only get the amount of recruits they do so they can get hired with “small town standards” and then transfer to the big city they couldn’t hope to pass an interview with.
I remember movies and tv episodes from where this was the scenario.
Backwater town near a busy state or interstate traffic axis has a fuckton of cops and a tyrant of a judge/mayor.
These people rob and incarcerate travelers and some especially unlucky ones never even make it out of this town.
This another case of these inbred backwardians looking at a dystopian piece of media and thinking that looks like an awesome plan?
Rambo?
Fuck the south.
Time to build a wall along the mason dixie line and cut off their federal funding.
Mexico can have them.
Fuck the south, build that wall. We need to keep all the criminals and filth out.
Feel bad for Mexico though, they deserve better. Hopefully they build a wall too.
Texas is a shithole.
Quick. Somebody post Spider-Man pointing at himself.
