Yesterday, I discussed how civilians are losing faith in their government to do the right thing. Much of the dissatisfaction is centered on the notion of them versus us. As you likely know, there is a controversy brewing over the comments made by El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen in regards to Black Lives Matter and the Dallas shootings. Today, I’d like to focus on Greg Allen’s demeanor and what it means for the continued erosion of support for government across the nation.
The KFOX TV and KVIA Interviews
First, let’s look at two news interview of Greg Allen. One was by KFOX TV and the other by KVIA. Although his comments about the Black Lives Matter are important, focus on Allen’s demeanor on both videos. Demeanor is important, especially from law enforcement.
Did you notice how confrontational Greg Allen was to the news reporters? Did you notice his posture? Police officers are trained to assert authority through demeanor and posture. They are also trained to observe people’s posture when interacting with them in order to ascertain details about their activities or mental state. Body language expresses a person’s attitude even though they may remain silent. Crossed arms across the chest demonstrates a negative attitude and/or defensiveness. Depending on other body-language indicators, it may also indicate an aggressive attitude. A clenched fist with crossed arms are indicators that a person is hostile, or about to get violent.
Did you notice the hostility in Greg Allen both at the press conference and at the questions posed by the reporters?
Police chiefs have the specific duty of being the face and voice of the police department. A police chief, as the face of the police department, is expected to be the link between the community and the police department. As such, police chiefs are expected to communicate with the public.
There are some who are arguing that Greg Allen has the First Amendment right to express his opinion. That is true, as long as Allen is expressing his opinion for himself. However, while in uniform in a press conference about city affairs, Allen is representing the city and thus his comments should be limited to the city’s official policy.
I am also aware that Oscar Leeser has expressed disappointment with the politicos who signed a letter demanding that the city elected officials hold Greg Allen accountable.
Interestingly, the city held a session earlier in the day “clarifying” the city manager governance model. The protocol is that officials direct their concerns through the chain of command. That means that other elected officials direct their concerns to the city’s elected officials and not directly to the chief of police. Notice how conveniently Oscar Leeser wants everyone to talk to Greg Allen now, but would likely demand that protocol be followed if there was another controversy and the mayor was placed in a bad situation. As expected, Oscar Leeser wants to keep the “it’s all good” lie intact.
Did you also notice in the KFOX 14 video segment how Greg Allen demanded to know who Courtney Schoenemann was? It is not as if Schoenemann approached Allen on the street. Greg Allen was leaving a press conference where many reporters were in attendance. Regardless, whether the individual asking a question was a news reporter, a blogger, a politician, or just an everyday citizen as the police chief, Greg Allen has the responsibility to answer questions about his department. Allen’s aggressive tone and demeanor was nothing more than an attempt to intimidate someone asking a question.
Is Greg Allen’s demeanor something the community wants in a police chief? It is not as if the El Paso Police Department hasn’t been mired in criminal and ethical controversies for many years. Let’s look at the various controversies. It is important to note that Greg Allen was an active member of the police department during all of these examples and as an assistant chief or the chief during most of them.
El Paso Police Controversial History
Much of the online rhetoric by those supporting the El Paso police chief centers on the fallacy of the “safest city” in the nation designation. It is this false label that both the police chief and the city government wants you to buy into. However, let’s peel away the false façade and look closely at the El Paso police department’s history.
The Montwood Riots
On January 28, 2003, about 100 Montwood students are holding a peaceful protest at their school about block scheduling. The school had given the students permission to hold the protest. El Paso police department officers responded with violence when the students failed to disperse promptly after ordered to return to class.
On January 13, 2005, six individuals filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of El Paso and former police chief Carlos Leon. On August 13, 2005, the Montwood riots lawsuit was settled. The City of El Paso agreed to pay no more than $25,000 for a consultant to review the training, policies and procedures of the police department and to implement a de-escalation plan for First Amendment activities. The City also paid $190,000 for medical and attorney fees.
Multiple Police Officers with Questionable Ethical Problems
In 2001, Luis Maldonado suffered a stroke on US54. Responding El Paso police officers pepper sprayed him. Also in 2001, El Paso police officer James O’Conner was indicted by a grand jury for striking Jacob Paz, a prisoner. In 2010, El Paso police officer Mark Muñoz was indicted on a sexual assault charge against an unconscious woman. Later that year, El Paso police officer Alberto Madrid was arrested for stealing a money box from a wedding he was being paid to protect.
In 2011, several El Paso police officers were arrested on various charges. Zake Rivera was arrested on charges of sexual assault while on duty. Miguel Lucero was arrested on charges of having an improper relationship with a high school student. Robert Barragan was arrested on marihuana charges. Several El Paso police officers were implicated in an overtime scandal and some of them leave the department for unknown reasons.
In 2012, officers Luis Acosta, Jorge Arellano, Michael Arzaga, Paul Bowden, Oscar Candelaria, Gabriel Castañeda, Enrique Davila, Francisco Enriquez, David Jimenez, Scott McFarland, Edward Nicholas, Luis Ortiz, Joshua Paulsen, Raul Ramirez, Zake Rivera, Ana Reza, Charles Romo and Luis Ruiz were indicted on tampering with government records charges. They were implicated in the overtime scandal.
Also, in 2012, El Paso police officer Anthony Weathersbee was arrested on charges of stealing a DVD and flashlight from a Walmart.
In 2013, El Paso police officer Jack Barrow, Jr. was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to traffic cocaine. He was one of 16 individuals arrested by the DEA and FBI drug trafficking investigation.
Drug Cartel Infiltration
As I have shared with you many times before, in 1999, George DeAngelis told then police chief Carlos Leon that Leon’s second-in-command at the police department was allegedly providing information to a Mexican drug cartel. As you know by now, the Juárez cartel is one of the founding member cartels that created Chapo Guzman and the leading cause of the drug violence in Juárez. Carlos Leon is now a county commissioner, and rather than investigate the serious charge of drug cartel infiltration of his police department, Leon instead went after DeAngelis. No investigation of the drug cartel infiltration was conducted and on June 26, 2000, Carlos Leon was reprimanded for falsifying a government document. This drug connection is important as you will see later in this write up when a drug informant is killed behind Allen’s house.
Drug Lab Decertification
On June 24, 2011, the El Paso Police Department Crime Lab was decertified and prohibited from analyzing certain drugs because the department’s competence was put into question and the security of the evidence chain was compromised.
Drug Cartel Hit on Greg Allen’s Street
In 2009, ICE informant Jose Daniel Galeano was killed in front of his house, Galeano, lived behind Allen’s house and somehow did not know that an ICE informant was living behind his house. Either Greg Allen, or his department is not trusted with confidential information like an ICE drug informant living behind his house, or his department is in such disarray that the information never made it to him. Either way, it further demonstrates serious problems within the El Paso Police Department.
In a discrimination lawsuit, Greg Allen was unable to name the police chief of Juárez during the height the drug war violence in Juárez. According to the deposition, Allen had had no contact with the Juárez police chief in over a year. This was during the height of the drug violence in Juárez.
In December of 2007, Greg Allen was named the El Paso Police Department Interim Chief by Joyce Wilson. This was Wilson’s first major appointment as city’s city manager. On March 2008, he became the police chief. Allen joined the police force in 1981. Allen has been assigned to patrol duty, police academy trainer, SWAT and the Gang Task force. He was made a deputy chief in 2003. Richard Wiles, the current sheriff, promoted Allen to the command staff.
In 2008, Greg Allen dropped the use of polygraphs during internal investigations of police officers misconduct. Allen called the polygraph “garbage.”
Also in 2008, former assistant chief Diana Kirk sued the City of El Paso and Greg Allen for employment discrimination after Joyce Wilson had appointed Allen the chief of police. In early 2011, Kirk settled the lawsuit against the city. As part of the settlement, Kirk agreed to retire after 28 year of service and received a 5% pay increase retroactive to December 1, 2007. In addition, the city paid up to $106,000 in legal fees.
During the 2009 deposition of Greg Allen for the Kirk lawsuit, Allen admitted to almost coming to blows with another assistant chief, Paul Cross, during a heated argument. Both Cross and Kirk were ranked higher than Greg Allen in the city’s police department organizational chart, when Allen was appointed as the interim chief by Wilson.
In the same deposition, Greg Allen stated that the police chief of Arlington, Virginia was brought to El Paso because Greg Allen “wanted to bounce ideas off of him as far as what he thought about the different people in the office here, as far as their loyalties to,” [emphasis mine] Greg Allen were. The “people” that Allen was referring to were Richard Wiles appointees to the management staff of the police department. In the deposition taken of Joyce Wilson for the lawsuit, Wilson stated that the Arlington police chief was brought in by the city to give Allen an opportunity to “bounce things off…chief-to-chief.”
As anyone that follows the legal drama shows on television knows, sometimes it is the preponderance of evidence that convicts someone when a clear smoking gun is missing. Review the evidence I have outlined above for you and ask yourself; does it not make sense to you that Greg Allen doesn’t want anyone snooping around his police department? If so, what is he hiding? What is it that Greg Allen doesn’t want you to know?
More importantly, whether you agree with Greg Allen’s comments about the Black Lives Matter group, or not, do you believe that Greg Allen has the proper demeanor to be the police chief? Do you trust Greg Allen as the police chief is the better question to answer?
This makes as much as sense as El Paso Hispanics yelling that the police department is prejudice against them. Amazing when 95% of the force is named Gonzales, Ramirez, Chuy, Jose.
Now a a Black man, the Chief is unfair to a radical Black organization ? Is this socialism gone amuck ? Oh excuse me, they prefer to be called progressives. The BLM doesn’t yell “kill the pigs” or “pigs in a blanket” because they aren’t yelling about Hormel bacon. It’s not all Blacks, well then where is the mass outrage? Isn’t that what we say about Muslims?
Leave the Chief alone ! He is being honest and the public is tired of all the lies and half truths. He’s doing a great job so what if he doesn’t agree with the progressives. We are progressing back to the sixties and all the chairs. The bald dudes with pony tails along with the sharpei skin women wearing flowery long skirts will be back in vogue. Nothing like greasy hair and filthy fingernails.
So who is signing these letters, a politician that is a former council member. Remember the demeanor and anger that was shown in the council meeting. They were angry and demanding to know who derailed a project. Nothing was said by the media, wonder why? Remember the cheese comments and whore house tours of El Paso and published in an international magazine. Not a peep from the media, wonder why. They went on to bigger and better things in politics. But, you want to fire a Chief that is telling the truth? What about Lucha libre Lilley ? What Evil Knievel Robinson with his traffic violations? What about the council member that has to wait for instructions from a perv ? What about the shoeless Hatfield/McCoy council feud ? What about the Plaza project?
The Police Department is singled out for having bad apples. What about 30 government officials doing time ? The school administrations that view school taxes as an additional income? Oh, let’s not that the staff that likes to be intimate with students? A former city manager that tells you, up yours and move on ? The county shouldn’t be pointing fingers at anyone, they have their share of shady manipulation by their staff and commissioners?
Do any I trust any of the previously mentioned people ? Oh hell no ! At least the Chief told the truth ! Btw, for all we know the neighbor could be an informer or witness protection program, aren’t these people supposed to be hidden and not tell anyone about them ?
So do we crucify the Chief and ignore all the rest ? El Paso is in very shape and getting worse. Forget the zika virus, the hoof and mouth disease among the politicians is more dangerous.
Martin
Really ! Been a better piece if you had talked about Vero and her 12 apostles who openly supported a racist hate group. Then after doing so talked trash on Tweeter about Allen and because of backlash from the public had to race and pull the tweeter comments. Yep Vero does speak volumes but not about Chief Allen. Geeez!
Martin,
Your narrow focus on Allen’s demeanor is racist. What you are saying is Allen is an “angry black man”.
You should be better than that.
Love,
Me
agree with Ali 100 percent Martin.
Martin, Of course he has the deameanor to the the police chief. He’s been doing so for years now. You just spewed a bunch of “arrests” not convictions to try and make them look bad. This is probably why your website has only 1200 likes. You suck at reporting, people can see through bs pretty quickly. Focus on those idiots who tried to reprimand Chief Allen for worry that they might be seen as “insensitive” to their constituents. GTFO with this crap. I fully support chief Allen. Do some reporting on the city budget so maybe the police department can get some new vehicles or better pay to up the numbers. Then again no one reads this crap but very few so it wouldn’t reach anyone important. I wouldn’t be here if if it wasn’t for chief Allen being involved, guess that’s what shitty reporters have to do is try and get readers by causing controversy. Do some legit reporting and maybe people would read it more.
Forget the demeanor. He spoke the truth and politicians in our city didn’t like it so now they want him disciplined.
That is absolutely, without question, WRONG! BLM is guilty of stoking the fire. To this day they still chant “hands up don’t shoot” despite the fact they know it was a lie. The DOJ investigated and couldn’t find any truth to it. Does anyone remember the name of the officer’s life they ruined? I doubt it. But everyone remembers Michael Brown. How about the Freddie Grey debacle? Three or four of the officers have been acquitted by a “black” judge. Yet they still protest. Why? Because it isn’t the justice they want or should I say this isn’t “street justice”….! How about the chant “pigs in a blanket” or “fry them like bacon?” This and the fact that some of their leaders have been arrested, now they want to dismantle law enforcement. I am glad Chief Allen had the courage to speak the truth. A rare commodity these days. Does anyone remember several years ago when State of Tx passed legislation to make abortions safe? I seem to recall Escobar and her cohorts on the courthouse steps with a clothes hangar (now that’s despicable) expressing their intense opposition to the legislation. Did anyone ask that they be “disciplined.” Although we were horrified by what we saw and every Christian of all denominations should have been up in arms, no one wrote a letter to anyone asking they be disciplined. I’m sure their defense would have been “freedom of speech.” So many things wrong in our city I pray, and ask others to join me, that El Paso wakes up to see the arrogance and total disregard for the citizens of EL Paso that a few would be bold enough to believe they speak for all El Pasoans. They don’t.
Barbara — Thank you. Very well said.
I love the disdain he has for the media vampires. Good job Chief. Those media slime are..well…slime.
Martin, FOIA requests about the conversations between the ones that decided to ramrod Chief Allen should be investigated. There were decisions being made within a quorum that created a document for action by the Mayor. This is in violation of ethics laws and Open Meetings Act.
Have you looked into this matter as well, like you did with the obvious business discussion by the usual culprits as you described in the Tolbert piece?