12 March 2025, El Paso, Texas, Steven Zimmerman -Let me take you on a special and fanatical journey that I wouldn’t believe if I had not witnessed it.
You’re a police officer doing your job. One day, a call over the radio about a suspect that other officers are trying to take into custody. The only problem with what should be an easy job for four or five officers is that the suspect has a gun to his head.
You get on the radio, and since you have a background in mental health, you advise officers that only one officer should be talking with the suspect. When you arrive, you find nothing short of a circus.
You see officers who have drawn down on the suspect, shouting at him and sometimes giving conflicting orders. As a police officer, you think this is odd. Why? Where is the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT)? They were dispatched to this call as they allegedly possess specific skills to address similar situations.
That seems right. Officer Perez, badge #2765, hiding behind the bushes, and his partner decided to stay with the police unit. That seems right for CIT, a unit that doesn’t work after 5 PM.
Wait, what is CIT’s mission statement?
Again, “It is the mission of the El Paso Police Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) to provide citizens with behavioral or mental health problems a professional and safe response. The goal is to mitigate incidents through directed response of trained and specialized Officers. This will be executed through specialized training, partnerships with the community, other local law enforcement agencies and local mental health agencies.”
In the video above, you see an El Paso Police Patrol Sergeant risk his own life to save the life of another. Remember, what was done to save this man is something both the El Paso Police Department and the City Manager, former librarian Dionne Mack, say is not the officer’s job.
Don’t know who Dionne Mack, the new City Manager for El Paso, is? Let me give you a quick introduction.
Ms. Mack was the first African-American woman to head the Brooklyn Public Library. She hired the Five O’Clock Club, a downsizing company, to reduce library staff. Hiring such a firm or cutting staff is not ordinarily newsworthy, but her actions with the Five O’Clock Club and the Washington Post make it newsworthy. Click here to reand that Washington Post article.
Dionne Mack gave Eli Saslow, a staff writer for the Washington Post, unprecedented access to thirteen employees’ termination meetings. The article Mr. Saslow wrote all but named the fired employees.
When the article was published, which can be found by clicking here, Ms. Mack did what all politically minded people do: deny, deny, deny.
When the soon-to-be-fired employees met with the Five O’Clock Club, they were forced to sign an agreement not to discuss the firings. One fired staffer told the Daily News, “I felt violated.”
Daily News article can be found by clicking here.
After the Washington Post article was published, Mack stated that she had never given the journalist access to the story, which the reporter and library communications manager refuted.
From the Daily News article, we read “Library employees backed up the reporter Tuesday, saying the library’s top marketing staff had approved the access. “They thought it was a great media opportunity,’ said a staffer. ‘After the story came out, they realized it was public relations mistake.'”
Back to our story.
We have an officer placing his life on the line to save someone else’s life. This officer’s wife then shared the body cam video with the media. I was the only one who wrote about it without bending the facts.
You read that first part right; the officer’s wife shared the video. I can hear you asking me how that is possible. I’ll tell you.
Despite what Ms. Mack and the Chief of Police want to believe, officers routinely make copies of videos they feel are essential and can be used for training. Of course, other officers will copy footage and post it to their social media or send it to reporters like me. Since receiving the one the officer’s wife sent me, I have about one hundred other videos.
The officer was punished for his wife sending us the video. It would be understandable if every other officer who copied and shared the video also received punishment. I sent copies of the body cam video to the El Paso Police Department and asked if any of these officers had been punished. I will assume the answer was no; they were not. Why do I say this? Because the department doesn’t value transparency.
“The videos you sent went nowhere,” says an officer who works at Five Points, headquarters for the El Paso Police Department. “No one will be punished for other videos if they are not published. They just don’t like Camp.” [Camp is the officer who saved another man’s life]
Camp’s wife said she sent us this video because the El Paso Police Department needs something positive written about it.
So, what exactly is the point of this article? The point is that there is a problem within the El Paso Police Department and the City of El Paso.
We have a CIT team that is not sufficiently trained to handle anyone undergoing a mental health crisis. The night of 10 April 2024 proves this with the news of 11 April 2024.
PD was called on the night of 10 April, and a CIT team was dispatched. In fact, the female CIT officer hiding near the car in the above video, Mayra Ortega, badge #2980, was one of the CIT officers who responded on 10 April.
What happened is that a man, 27-year-old Martin Herrera-Garces, was acting erratic and out of character, as well as having episodes of violence. At one point, Herrera-Garces went to his room to play loud music.
When her son retreated to his room, Herrera-Garces’ mother went to her car and called 911.
CIT was eventually dispatched to the scene. When Officer Ortega, who does not possess a mental health degree, spoke to Herrera-Garces, she decided that he did meet CIT criteria for an emergency detention order or mental health intervention.
The following day, on 11 April 2024, another call went out to 911, indicating that shots were fired.
Patrol went back to Herrera-Garces’ home. When police arrived, Herrera-Garces fired at them as well. This triggered a SWAT standoff that ended with the suspect being shot.
Back to our problem. Over thirty-plus years as a reporter, I have learned that it is easier for government entities to cover up and ignore problems than to fix them.
In Feburary 2024, Sgt. Camp placed himself in the line of fire to save the life of another individual. Camp holds a mental health degree while responding CIT officers do not. While Camp was risking his life, CIT hid and only came out once Camp had the suspect on the ground and his weapon secured.
Two months later, Ortega, one of the same CIT officers, responded to another call from someone in the middle of a mental health crisis. Her less-than-educated judgment call led to the death of that person the next day.
Chief Peter Pacillas, badge #926, and City Manager Dionne Mack can solve the CIT problem by staffing the Crisis Intervention Team with officers with mental health degrees. However, there is one problem.
Chief Pacillas says he must run everything by his boss, City Manager Mack. On the other hand, Mack says she lets the department run itself and doesn’t interfere.
That lack of oversight, that lack of policing the police, is what EPPD currently finds itself in the state: Detectives working overnights as patrol officers, understaffed police regions, and officers working in units they are not otherwise qualified for.
“I’m going to Fort Worth,” says one officer who recently quit the El Paso Police Department to join the Fort Worth Police Department. “The Chief, many lieutenants, and some commanders don’t care what is happening to us. The command only cares about themselves. We are not keeping our word to the people of El Paso at all.”
So, who polices the police when they can’t meet their own standards?
You can contact the Chief of Police at [email protected] and Dionne Mack at [email protected]