Posts Tagged ‘DWI’

Texas Speed Trap City Dissolves Police Force

Saturday, September 30th, 2023

Sometimes a ratio is so out of whack that you know something is seriously screwy, such as Hillary Clinton’s 100x return on cattle futures. Such is the case with Coffee City, Texas, which had 50 police officers for a town of 250.

After raking in enough cash from traffic citations to pay a king’s ransom, Coffee City in Henderson County shuttered its police department last week after the mayor criticized the management of the small town’s law enforcement.

Coffee City is a small town on the shores of Lake Palestine on State 155 between Palestine and Tyler. It’s about 110 miles southeast of Dallas.

Mayor Jeff Blackstone published a news release on the city’s website on September 1 explaining the city council’s decision to suspend Chief JohnJay Portillo amid questions about his management of the police force.

“After being informed of the recent allegations against our Chief of Police and the city’s reserve officer programs, the city council and myself felt it necessary for us to place Chief Portillo on a thirty-day suspension,” Blackstone said.

“During this time, we will be investigating this matter internally as well as seeking counsel from an independent investigation firm to validate our findings. Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this issue.”

The investigation did not last long. Allegations of poor hiring practices by Portillo and numerous concerns about misconduct by officers in the Coffee City Police Department meant the council’s simplest option was to shut it down.

The department had 50 officers for a town of only about 250 people, an extraordinary ratio of one officer for every five residents.

CBS affiliate KHOU reported in late August that the city received more than $1 million in a single year from approximately 5,100 traffic citations, more than any other city of that size.

Speaking of KHOU, here’s their roundup report on Coffee City, where they talk about how a lot of Coffee City officers had problems on other police jobs:

  • “More than half of Coffee City officers had been suspended, demoted, terminated or dishonorably discharged from their previous jobs.”
  • “Their prior discipline ranges from excessive force to public drunkenness, untruthfulness, and association with known criminals. Criminal charges include DWI, theft, aggravated assault, family violence and endangering a child.”
  • Many Coffee City officers worked extra jobs…including the police chief. “Portillo was working security for a Southeast Houston apartment complex. Nearly 200 miles away from Coffee City.” And he demanded that Harris County Constables file charges on people. Indeed, Coffee City officers demanding Harris County constables file charges became a drain on resources.
  • When Portillo applied for the Coffee City job, he failed to mention that he had active warrants in Florida for DWI and failure to appear.
  • “Turns out there are a half dozen full time Coffee City police officers who don’t even work in Coffee City, Texas. Instead they work from home more than three hours and nearly 200 miles away in Houston.” There are some police administrative jobs that can be worked from home, but I can’t imagine a town Coffee City’s size having more than one or two. But that’s because it’s for the warrant division from the speed trap operation. And they’re being paid on “performance based” commission revenue of $150 for each warrant cleared.

    • Are speed trap legal in Texas? Yes, but they’re discouraged, as municipalities and counties are required to remit traffic ticket revenues exceeding 30% of the previous year’s total revenue to the state. It’s unclear whether this was done in the case of Coffee City.

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    Posted in Communism, Texas, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

    Remembering the Rosemary Lehmberg DWI Arrest 10 Years Later

    Sunday, July 23rd, 2023

    Before linking to my original story from just over ten years ago in this week’s LinkSwarm, I hadn’t thought of the Rosemary Lehmberg DWI case in quite a while. A short summary of the basic facts at the time of the arrest:

    [Travis County Democratic] District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested and charged with drunken driving Friday night in Northwest Travis County…

    According to the arrest affidavit, a witness called 911 just after 10:45pm to report a four-door Lexus wandering into the bike lane and then into oncoming traffic while traveling southbound on FM 620 near Comanche Trail. The car was being driven by Lehmberg, according to the affidavit.

    Lehmberg told the deputy that she’d had two vodka drinks earlier in the evening and that she was on a prescription beta-blocking drug. According to the arrest affidavit, there was an opened bottle of vodka in the passenger area of the vehicle within reach.

    (Sorry for linking to the Austin Chronicle but a lot of the original stories on the arrest no longer seem online.)

    Here’s a pro-trip, boys and girls: If you you find yourself driving around at night (well, any time, but especially at night) while drinking from an open vodka bottle (she evidently had a blood alcohol level of .239), you have a problem, and you should seek professional help and/or check yourself into rehab.

    Like, the next day.

    Eventually Lehmberg spent 45 days in jail and declined to run for reelection, but wasn’t removed from office.

    But the thing I remember most about the Lehmberg case was her in restraints…


    Eh, not quite like that

    …screaming “Call Greg!” (Dwight even bought me a bumper sticker.) The “Greg” in this case was then Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton, who Lehmberg obviously believed would get the charges dismissed.

    Ten or twenty years before, that might have happened, but one big reason it didn’t happen in Lehmberg’s case was dashcam footage. (Another was that Travis County LEOs seemed to hate Lehmberg’s guts.)

    Speaking of “Call Greg!”, many of the videos of her arrest I previously linked to seem seem to be dead. (It seems more likely for a book to survive 100 years than an online video to last 10.) So here is sort of a compressed “greatest hits” of Lehmberg at the booking station, including the magic phrase:

    Some valuable takeaways still true ten years after the fact:

  • Being drunk makes you stupid.
  • Belligerent entitlement and threats don’t make police any more likely to let you off (unless, perhaps, your last name is “Biden”).
  • No, seriously, shut the fuck up. When arrested, remain silent except to ask for your lawyer.
  • DWI is expensive, even if you don’t kill anybody. At a defensive driving class many moons ago, the instructor noted that it would be cheaper to hire a limo to drive you to Dallas, stay in a five-star hotel, dine at the city’s most expensive restaurant, down three bottles of their most expensive champagne, and have the limo driver drive you back than it would be to pay the legal fees to successfully fight a DWI in court.

    • I did a search to see what Lehmberg was up to after leaving office, but I couldn’t find out anything. It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth. Hopefully she got some help for her alcoholism.

    Ironically, though Lehmberg was an obnoxious drunk-driving Democrat who used her office to launch partisan witch hunt investigations of statewide Republican politicians, she was still better than current DA Jose Garza. For all Lehmberg’s myriad flaws, I never got the impression that Lehmberg was actually on the side of the criminals over law-abiding citizens.

    Unlike Garza.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Texas | 10 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for July 21, 2022

    Friday, July 21st, 2023

    More Biden corruption, a bit about music, and cute dogs. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Here’s a fairly extensive timeline of Biden corruption.

    2009 – The Obama-Biden administration takes office

    November 1, 2013 – China / BHR:

    Hunter Biden, business associate, and Chinese investors agree to create Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. (BHR), an investment fund controlled by the Bank of China, to focus on mergers and acquisitions, and investment in and reforms of state-owned enterprise.

    December 4, 2013 – China / BHR

    Vice President Biden travels with Hunter Biden on Air Force 2 to China and meets CEO of BHR, Jonathan Li. Shortly thereafter, BHR’s business license was approved and Hunter Biden was a board member.

    February 5, 2014 – Kazakhstan

    Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakhstani businessman, meets with Hunter Biden at a hotel in Washington, D.C.

    April 15, 2014 – Ukraine

    Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, appoints Biden business associate to their board of directors.

    Etc. etc. etc.

  • “California Democrats retreat on their effort to defend child slavers.”

    After initially killing a bill on July 12, 2023 that would have increased the penalties on child sex traffickers, the Democrats who completely control the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee reversed course one day later and voted to advance the bill.

    With a final vote of 6-0, including two abstentions from progressive Democrats, the bill now moves to the Appropriations Committee, after which, if it is approved, can move the bill to be voted upon by the entire State Assembly. If passed, SB 14 will make trafficking of minors a serious felony that would qualify under California’s three strikes law, which keeps dangerous, serial criminals off the streets, and make individuals convicted of the crime ineligible for early release.

    I highlight the two abstentions by Democrats. Even after a nationwide uproar over their willingness to block harsh penalties on those who traffic young children for sexual slavery, these two Democrats, including Assembly Majority Leader Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), still could not bring themselves to vote for the bill.

    (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • State Senator Charles Schwertner (my state senator) has his DWI charges dismissed. Still, he hardly crowned himself in glory. At least he didn’t yell “Call Greg!” (It did make me wonder what Rosemary Lehmberg is doing today, and if she ever conquered her alcoholism…)
  • Mexico surpasses China as America’s biggest trade partner. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Remember Toast Tab’s 99¢ fee from last week’s LinkSwarm? Well, public reaction was so negative that their shares cratered and they rescinded the fee.
  • Will the Biden Administration use a lizard to kill the Permian Basin shale revolution?
  • “This car has all the annoying things about EVs and none of the cool stuff…this car doesn’t live up to any expectations. Nothing
    works.    ”

  • TSMC delays Arizona plant opening due to labor shortage.
  • A detailed look at the recording of one of my favorite albums of all time: Peter Gabriel III.
  • Just what does electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick’s “Silver Apples of the Moon” sound like? You know that scene in a 70s SciFi dystopia where someone’s face gets ripped off to reveal they’re a robot? It sounds like that.
  • GWAR plays for NPR. So on one side you have horrible monsters who are unbearable to listen to, and on the other side you have GWAR…
  • That’s one sly kissing bandit.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

    Tuesday, August 13th, 2013

    “Travis County prosecutor charged with DWI.”

    A prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office was charged with driving while intoxicated after being involved in a traffic wreck over the weekend.

    According to an arrest warrant affidavit released Monday, Brandon Grunewald, 33, was in a collision Sunday afternoon on the southbound MoPac Boulevard service road near Barton Skyway, Grunewald was driving a 2008 Land Rover. The other driver was in a Mini Cooper.

    And what did his boss have to say?

    Grunewald’s boss, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said she is reviewing his case

    “It’s a first offense DWI and I don’t know what will happen until I have all the facts,” explained Lehmberg. “I have never terminated an employee for a first offense DWI and we have had employees with first offense DWI up and down the ranks.”

    Indeed.

    You know, I don’t think I’ve worked anywhere where “people up and down the chain of command” had “first-time” DWIs.

    Sadly, Mr. Grunewald was not reported to have stamped his feet and implored the police to “Call Greg!”

    (Hat tip: Blue Dot Blues.)

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Lawsuit Against Rosemary Lehmberg Moves Foward, Jury Trial Schedule for July 22

    Thursday, June 13th, 2013

    That’s what I’m gleaning from this Statesman article on Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg following her DWI, though it doesn’t say the July 22 trial is for her removal under state law for intoxication of public officials. (The trial is not for her DWI, for which she already plead guilty and served time.) Unfortunately, the piece by Ciara O’Rourke is hardly a model of journalistic clarity:

    Judge clears way for suit to remove Lehmberg

    Visiting Judge David Peeples made several rulings Tuesday in a lawsuit to remove Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg from office, including allowing another removal petition filed recently by a former district attorney candidate to proceed.

    Rick Reed, who ran against Lehmberg in 2008, filed a petition two weeks ago that claims 16 counts of official misconduct ranging from coercion of a public servant to retaliation.

    That and a separate petition to remove her from office on grounds of intoxication were filed under a state law that allows the removal of a district attorney on grounds of incompetency, official misconduct and intoxication on or off duty.

    Lehmberg pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated April 19, a week after Travis County sheriff’s deputies arrested her following a 911 call about a car driving for about a mile in a bike lane, swerving and veering into oncoming traffic, according to an arrest affidavit. A blood sample showed her blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit.

    Reed cites Lehmberg’s behavior as she was being booked in jail, including asking for Sheriff Greg Hamilton several times, as examples of her alleged misconduct.

    A jury trial is scheduled for July 22, though the Travis County attorney’s office, which is representing the state, could decline to pursue the suit on either ground.

    Executive Assistant County Attorney James Collins said the county attorney’s office is at this point preparing for trial on July 22, though he told Peeples that prosecutors haven’t finished reviewing Reed’s petition.

    A second hearing before the trial date was scheduled for June 21, when Collins told Peeples prosecutors expect to request to test a hair sample from Lehmberg and to further test the blood sample taken after her arrest.

    I’m assuming the trail is for “a separate petition to remove her from office on grounds of intoxication were filed under a state law that allows the removal of a district attorney on grounds of incompetency, official misconduct and intoxication on or off duty,” but the piece is so poorly written it’s hard to tell.

    The Fox 7 report is considerably clearer: “A petition filed by County Attorney David Escamilla calls for her removal on grounds of intoxication saying Lehmberg violated Texas Government Code. Lehmberg did not appear in court Tuesday when a judge decided there will be a jury trial.”

    In other news, as Dwight already reported, Governor Rick Perry is threatening to veto all state funding for the Travis County Public Integrity Unit, which Lehmberg heads as Travis County DA, unless she resigns.

    But there is one good spot of news for Lehmberg: She’s no longer a suspect in a hit-and-run that happened the night of her drinking-and-driving binge.

    Previous coverage here.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime | No Comments »

    Rosemary Lehmberg: Seen at The Gun Show

    Sunday, April 28th, 2013

    Hat tip: Dwight, who brings us news that Lehmberg “won’t be seeking reelection.” Well, duh. People who have been removed from office don’t run for reelection…

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats | No Comments »

    Rosemary Lehmberg: The Hits Keep Coming

    Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

    In a followup to yesterday’s video drop of Travis County’s Democratic DA Rosemary Lehmberg, we now have the dashcam footage of her DWI arrest:

    Deputies couldn’t believe who they had stopped

    2:10 in, hear her say “My career’s over.”

    Yep, pretty much.

    (Hat tip: Ramparts 360)

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Texas, video | 2 Comments »