COLDSPRING, Texas (AP) — Sheriff Greg Capers was the classic image of a Texas lawman as he announced the capture of a suspected mass killer: white cowboy hat on his head, star pinned to his chest, a white cross on his belt, and a large pistol emblazoned with his name on his hip.
Capers spoke to television cameras in May at the end of the search for Francisco Oropeza, who had eluded hundreds of officers for four days after allegedly killing five neighbors as they complained his nighttime shooting was impeding their baby to sleep.
But an Associated Press investigation found the sheriff’s ride into the national spotlight belies years of complaints of corruption and dysfunction that were previously unheard of outside the pine woods of San Jacinto County.
Capers did not directly respond to requests for comment, but his second-in-command dismissed the accusations as “outright lies.”
Here are the key takeaways from the AP survey:
UNDERRATED RESPONSE TIME
When searching for Oropeza, Capers said his deputies arrived within 11 minutes and the suspect was already gone. The sheriff’s office now acknowledges that deputies took nearly four times as long to get to the shooting outside Cleveland, 74 miles northwest of Houston.
In response to questions, Capers office officials shared a detailed schedule based on call logs and radio traffic.
The first of many 911 calls regarding the Oropeza shootings came in at 11:34 p.m. on April 28.
Wilson Garcia later recalled telling his wife to “come in” as he watched Oropeza run towards their house, reloading his rifle.
At 12:11 a.m., a dispatcher heard gunshots on the open phone line.
The deputies arrived on the street five minutes later, 42 minutes after the first call. Garcia’s wife, 9-year-old son and three other people were dead.
Chief Deputy Tim Kean and another manager said the first calls were harassment complaints about Oropeza being fired on his own property and some calls required a Spanish translator. They said the three duty assistants were working on an aggravated robbery and the time it took for them to respond was “average” considering the size of the county and the rough roads in the area.
Kean said the sheriff’s initial timeline was his “best guess.”
PREVIOUS COMPLAINTS
Deputies have been called to Oropeza’s home at least three times in the previous two years, according to call logs. One came last June, when his wife reported he punched and kicked her and ‘banged’ her head on the ‘gravel driveway’ , according to court records. Logs Show Deputy Arrived 46 Minutes Later; Oropeza was gone.
A warrant for Oropeza’s arrest was dropped late the following month after his wife said she did not want to press charges, according to Kean. She is charged with obstructing his arrest in the mass shooting.
Experts say Oropeza’s immigration record prohibited him from having a gun. The 38-year-old Mexican national was deported four times before 2016 and entered the county illegally, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
His attorney, Anthony Osso, declined to comment on his client’s immigration status and said Oropeza would plead not guilty to capital murder.
Kean said MPs cannot check immigration records themselves and have not contacted ICE because they cannot find the agency responsive.
CONSULTANT’S REPORT
The year before the shooting, county leaders hired a police consulting firm to review the sheriff’s office, but ignored his recommendation to have the Texas Rangers public corruption team investigate.
The LION Institute found evidence that Capers encouraged a “fear-based” culture and oversaw the improper seizure of tens of thousands of dollars in property. The group also found that MPs failed to act on reports of 4,000 crimes, including allegations of sexual abuse and child abuse. The report, obtained by the AP, also said Capers dismissed concerns about an affair between a deputy and an informant.
Kean denied that deputies neglected investigations, largely blaming an “administrative error” in the department’s computer system and saying some victims could not identify their attackers. He also said LION CEO Mike Alexander never interviewed him or Capers.
Two county commissioners told the AP they defer to the district attorney on how to handle the report. The other two dismissed the inquiry as “a witch hunt” that rehashed the trial of a disgruntled former MP.
FORMER MPS ALLEVIATE CORRUPTION
Several former deputies said Capers’ office had long neglected basic police work while pursuing asset seizures boosting its budget by $3.5 million, but did not always hold up in court.
The one who sued was Michael Flynt, a retired Houston-area officer whom Capers recruited to lead an undercover drug unit in early 2017. The sheriff’s office fired him in June 2018, accusing Flynt to falsify government documents by lying on his job application. .
In his whistleblower lawsuit, Flynt accused the sheriff’s office of retaliation after raising concerns about Capers’ conduct. The judges ultimately dismissed and expunged the charges. Flynt unsuccessfully ran for sheriff against Capers in 2020.
That year, Capers admitted in a deposition that he told a former deputy to clean Facebook of information about the deputy’s romantic relationship with a confidential informant in a series of gambling cases. The county settled the lawsuit. of Flynt two months later.
The county settled the whistleblower’s lawsuit to avoid a costly lawsuit, Kean said. ___
Associated Press video journalist Lekan Oyekanmi contributed to this report.