Police blow whistle on the shenanigans

By Dave Lieber
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

A North Richland Hills councilman recently berated me at a City Council meeting because I have written that Police Chief Thomas Shockley ought to be fired. Afterward, that same councilman, Lyle Welch, told me that problems in the department were not so serious because they were caused by "only one or two disgruntled officers."

I made a list of the disgruntled officers who have publicly testified under oath about administrative problems in the department. There are eight names on my list -- five are currently on the force and three have resigned in the past two years.

This is a stunning number of whistle-blowers for a police agency. Under normal circumstances, trying to get current and former cops to criticize their commanders on the record is a near impossibility. But in the North Richland Hills Police Department, the traditional police code of silence is as dead as the morale.

It's time for council members, the city administration and the taxpayers of North Richland Hills to understand the enormity of this problem. Civil Service Commission hearings held last week for fired officer Tim Burch highlighted more inequities and bizarre behaviors in the department led by Shockley.

The commission upheld Burch's firing for improperly handling a stolen car investigation, lying to his superiors and having sex with someone other than his wife during his lunch break while on duty. The commission, I believe, made the correct decision. The members had no choice because Burch admitted his errors.

Though he asked for forgiveness, I am not in a forgiving mood when it comes to this department. But I will say that the wrong cop was fired.

Trouble began for Shockley's department after the 1999 shooting of Troy Davis by the SWAT team after a tip that Davis was selling drugs. Trouble is still coming.

We saw that last week, when for the first time publicly, former officer Allen Hill, who killed Davis, testified at the civil-service hearing about that no-knock raid.

The city has publicly maintained that Hill and the SWAT team acted properly. Davis' mother, true-crime writer Barbara Davis, has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city.

Hill testified Wednesday night that after the chief and the council reviewed a videotape of the raid, he talked to the chief about their reaction. Hill said, "They all agreed I did not give that boy enough time to put that gun down."

Hill also testified, "Chief Shockley told me he resented the fact that I shot and killed Troy Davis because it was going to cost me my career and his as well."

Hill resigned from the department, he said, after "the atmosphere toward me declined. Chief Shockley referred to me as being psychotic."

The heart of the Burch defense was that Shockley, who wanted Burch fired, did not discipline other officers in an evenhanded way. Some, like Burch, were harshly punished, while others who acted unprofessionally never were.

After the chief learned that Hill exposed himself in a SWAT team photograph, Hill said the chief summoned him to a meeting for a verbal reprimand.

"I offered my resignation," Hill testified, "but he declined to accept it. At the end, he told me the situation was resolved. Then he said he initially had laughed when he saw the photograph. He kind of made little flippant remarks."

No wonder the department's morale, in the words of Civil Service Commissioner Bill Fenimore, "might be in disarray."

At the hearing, three more active officers joined the growing group of the "disgruntled."

All three are leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge representing North Richland Hills. Testimony showed that Shockley tried to dissuade FOP members, which include about 45 officers, from meddling in city politics. Last year, the FOP lodge endorsed former Councilman Russ Mitchell for mayor. Who campaigned for Mitchell? Why, Tim Burch.

After then-Councilman Oscar Trevino, who was eventually elected mayor without FOP support, wrote a letter of concern to city officials, Shockley sent a memo to the department warning that political involvement "could be injurious to the Police Department's future if continued."

Officer Dusty Scott testified that at a daily briefing of officers, Shockley warned them "that this was not a good time for any of us to cause problems in the city as far as getting politically involved, and basically we don't want to rock the boat. The City Council thought highly of us, and we didn't want to change that perception. And he said there are malcontents in the department and when he said this word 'malcontent,' he looked directly at Tim Burch."

Former FOP President Greg Crane testified, "There's a reason why Tim was treated differently, and I believe that's a part of it."

To prove a double standard in punishments, two other officers testified at last week's hearing that they also had engaged in sex during their lunch breaks while on duty.

Not too classy, but something these guys thought was necessary.

One of the two, current FOP President Greg Trickey, a sergeant, said he was called into a captain's office recently before he gave his testimony last week and questioned about what he was going to say.

Trickey said he believed the intention was to intimidate him, but he did not care. He broke the code of silence anyway.

"It's nothing but an arbitrary and capricious system," the sergeant testified. "I don't know who else to tell it to. Hopefully, somebody will hear me and fix this system."

The incorrect belief that all of these problems are being caused by "only one or two disgruntled officers" is the best example yet that city officials believe they can ignore this problem and it will go away. But it takes courage to stand up and speak out. These officers have put their careers on the line. Somebody in the City Hall administration has to show the same kind of bravery. So far, though, no one has.

Dave Lieber's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
(817) 685-3830 dlieber@star-telegram.com.

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