Police misconduct roundup: Speed traps, fish stories and contempt of cop

Here are a few news items related to police misconduct that caught Grits' attention recently:

Sheriff's Captain acquitted of property room theft, convicted on other gun charges
A former Cleveland Police Department officer and Liberty County Sheriff's Office captain was convicted and sentenced to a year in federal prison for, among other things, using his law enforcement credentials to purchase restricted equipment for a third-party buyer. However, reported the Houston Chronicle, "At the same time, the jury found there was insufficient evidence to convict [Captan Harry] Kelley of the most serious offenses they were considering — illegally selling more than a hundred weapons taken from the Cleveland police and sheriff's property rooms. Kelley had been a detective and custodian of the evidence room for Cleveland police until his supervisor there, Henry Patterson, was elected sheriff in 2009. Patterson hired Kelley and made him a captain and allowed him access to the property room there." I know no more about the case than was reported after the verdict, but one wonders: If this guy didn't take the guns from the property room, where did they go? OTOH, as the nation was reminded with the Casey Anthony verdict, not guilty can mean a lot of different things.

Lying cop causes drug cases to unravel
Reports the SA Express News, "A judge has thrown out the no-contest plea of a San Antonio man who alleged that a Bexar County sheriff's deputy lied to get a warrant for a raid that netted cocaine and marijuana." The charges "stemmed from a sworn search warrant obtained by Charles A. Flores, a deputy who has since been fired and is being prosecuted for allegedly lying to get a search warrant in an unrelated drug case.
Sierra's lawyer, Scott Sullivan, argued that Flores also lied to get the warrant in Sierra's case, and the District Attorney's Office agreed, Sullivan said."

What does it take to get fired from the Dallas PD?
Robert Wilonsky at the Dallas Observer looks at recent DPD dismissals to answer that question, and also reports on the arrest of a DPD officer for family violence.

Does public need to know basis for police chief's suspension?
Zavalla police chief Jim Hodges has been suspended with pay but city officials won't disclose why.

'Proof of nothing'
Jordan Smith at the Austin Chronicle examines the often fuzzy distinction between the charges of public intoxication and contempt of cop.

Jogger arrested for encouraging obedience to speed limit
Speaking of "contempt of cop," a jogger in El Paso was arrested for notifying drivers of a looming speed trap. Given that the functional reality of telling drivers there's a cop just over the hill is to make them obey the speed limit, it's hard to understand why police would be upset about that if it weren't for a "gotcha" mentality. The cop in the speed trap would rather people break the law because it justifies his paycheck. Like the tree falling in the forest which supposedly makes no sound, if a speed trap is set and no one is ticketed, does the cop involved really exist?

FBI was paying "big fish" cartel leaders ATF wanted to arrest
This line from the LA Times about Operation Fast and Furious - the undercover gun deal where the feds sold guns to Mexican cartels and made me laugh out loud: "The ATF and congressional investigators learned later that those agencies apparently were paying cartel members whom the ATF wanted to arrest." Ain't it a bitch when a federal law enforcement agency wants to arrest somebody and it turns out they're another agency's employee? They're supposed to be running these undercover operations through so-called "deconfliction" centers to avoid stepping on one another's toes like that, but this whole mess sounds like an episode of Reno 911! relocated to the border.