3 April 2024 Steven Zimmerman

There comes a time when we must stand up to tyranny, no matter what form it takes. Recently, I’ve been extensively covering EPPD (El Paso Police Department). Many of you have asked me why I seem to target the department. This article will go a long way to explaining the problems with EPPD and why some sort of change needs to be made within the department.

“I’ve been here a few years now, one the force,” says one of the officers who shares information with us. “It’s time for me to leave. The department doesn’t know it yet, but my upcoming vacation will be used to find another job.”

When I asked him why he felt he needed to leave El Paso, his answer wasn’t all that surprising.

“Half this department,” he said, “is corrupt or lazy. They don’t care about anything else but the badge. It’s an ‘us or them’ situation that should not exist.”

In March of this year, I wrote an article about a police officer, a patrol sergeant, who saved the life of a suicidal individual. You can watch the video below.

To read the original article, To Save a Life: An EPPD Officer Puts His Life on the Line, click here, and it will open in a new window.

Almost immediately, EPPD began to expend taxpayer funds to launch an investigation into who leaked the video.

In another article, A New Inquisition, we quoted an officer who spoke to us about the video we shared.

“This video ain’t so much the problem,” a patrol officer with EPPD told us under the condition of anonymity. “The problem is it makes the CIT guys look a fool.”

In the video we released, which we will say was not received by a member of law enforcement, you see a pair of shoes hiding behind a bush. The officer hiding is Officer Herberto Perez, call sign CIT 707.

From the picture with the red circle, you see Officer Perez’s feet. Why was he hiding?

“I saw that video,” said a second officer, a detective, with the El Paso Police Department. “Why did Perez wait until the situation nearly ended before he chimed in?”

With the number of officers reaching out to us, the department seems to have gone into full panic mode. But is that reason enough to keep pushing articles about the El Paso Police Department? Not really, but the lies and cover-ups are enough to keep me going.

As part of the article A New Inquisition, we shared a PowerPoint presentation that was issued as a training directive for all officers regarding body-worn cameras.

The PowerPoint presentation:

This was the first time EPPD issued a written statement that speaks directly to the use and distribution of footage captured by body-worn cameras.

Here’s the problem: On 29 March 2024, another training directive was issued concerning body-worn cameras.

Did you see the issue in the above images?

The most current Policy and Procedure manual that several officers shared with us is ambiguous regarding body-worn camera footage. We searched for anything that spelled out the laws an officer might break for sharing videos, but nothing was found. We mentioned that in A New Inquisition.

The newest training directive says it became effective on 7 Feburary 2024, the day before the incident in the video we shared. The problem is the department, as stated above, shared this driective, with the 7 Feburary date, on 29 March 2024. How is this not an issue? How is this not the department willing engaging in a coverup to cover their own ass.

How can officers who want to make a difference work within a police department that changes the rules officers must follow and make those changes retroactive?

El Paso has officers on the Brady List. A Brady list is usually compiled by a prosecutor’s office or a police department containing the names and details of law enforcement officers who have sustained incidents of untruthfulness, criminal convictions, candor issues, or some other issue that has placed their credibility into question.

All departments or prosecutor’s offices must have and make available the Brady list under a FOIA. When I wrote for the El Paso Herald-Post, I attempted to FOIA that list from the department and the DA’s office, only to be told that they do not create new documents based on FOIAs and that there was no Brady list.

According to the national database, the El Paso Police Department is not in compliance with court orders regarding the development and maintance of a Brady list. See below:

El Paso Police Department

The El Paso Police Department (Texas) Brady List is the definitive Potential Impeachment Disclosure [PID] Database of information about: police misconduct, public complaints, decertification, do-not-call (Giglio List) status, and more…

Even the PIO (Public Information Officer), Sgt. Robert Gomez has had his issues.

Another problem with the department stems from the Summer of 2023. The police department has said in internal emails that they will be holding all level three and four calls. This means if you called for service last year and it was deemed to be one of the lower-level calls, you were not going to see an officer respond.

Click on either image above to read the full email.

“I’m going to retire,” said one officer who contacted us today. “They are trying to hem up a good officer because he did the job of someone else. And if we go back and rewrite a report to change dates, we would be in trouble. The chief and the people at the Academy can do what they damn well please with no concern. The changed the date on the body camera memo.”

This should concern everyone living in El Paso, Texas, and should be cause for an investigation into the department and command staff. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Why? Because when anyone points out issues, the response is, “It’s El Paso; what do you expect?”