SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies were arrested in 2022 more than twice as often as their counterparts with the San Antonio Police Department, records compiled by KSAT Investigates show.
Fifteen deputies, ranging from newly hired temporary jailers to longtime veterans of the agency, ended up on the wrong aside of the law this year, compared to just seven arrested officers from SAPD.
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The total number of arrested officers from Bexar County’s two largest law enforcement agencies was down slightly compared to 2021 when that tally reached 25 in all.
SAPD
Former San Antonio Park Police officer David Garcia was indicted in early January for tampering with his own probation paperwork in order to help land employment with another law enforcement agency.
Garcia was charged with scratching out the section of his deferred adjudication paperwork from a separate case that stated he could not work in law enforcement for two years and then presenting the altered paperwork to his Bexar County probation officer in January 2020.
He was given six months in jail by a judge in March but was released early from his sentence in mid-June, Bexar County court records show.
Veteran SAPD officer Rosemary Caudillo was arrested in February and charged with driving while intoxicated with an open container after police found her asleep behind the wheel of a vehicle near Loop 410 and State Highway 16.
A test later revealed that Caudillo had a blood-alcohol content of .232, nearly three times the legal limit.
Caudillo was fired by SAPD in June.
Her next court appearance for the elevated DWI charge is scheduled for Jan. 4.
SAPD officer Nesta Reid was arrested in March after investigators said he abandoned a department vehicle with its license plates removed and its laptop missing on railroad tracks just east of downtown.
Reid told police he left the vehicle parked at the department’s Central Substation, with the laptop still inside, and vehicle locator logs confirm that was the vehicle’s location when he signed off.
SAPD later determined Reid had collided with a barrier, which caused minimal damage to the vehicle.
Police said Reid tried to hide the crash before abandoning the vehicle.
He is free on bond facing charges of theft of a vehicle, tampering with evidence and obstructing a roadway.
His next court appearance is tentatively scheduled for April 2023.
SAPD officials said Reid resigned from the department following his arrest.
Reid’s attorney said he could not comment on the pending charges.
Former SAPD officer Michael Brewer, fired in 2020 for kneeling on a suspect’s neck, was indicted by a grand jury in March on a charge of unlawful restraint.
A second SAPD officer, Andre Vargas, was fired for his actions during the November 2019 incident but was not criminally charged.
His attorney, Ben Sifuentes, said Brewer should not have been indicted and that case records, including those of the suspect Brewer and Vargas were attempting to arrest, prove that Brewer did not use unlawful restraint.
Brewer has a scheduled trial date of March 10.
BCSO
Former Bexar County Sheriff’s Office deputy Armando Trevino, accused of making a drug deal while in uniform in 2019, was indicted in May alongside three members of the Texas Mexican Mafia.
Trevino faced six charges ranging from engaging in organized criminal activity to bribery and drug possession.
Trevino, who resigned a month after his initial arrest in 2019, is currently awaiting sentencing after getting his judgement deferred in the criminal activity case, court records show.
BCSO detective Ernesto Garza was arrested in early July on charges of DWI and evading arrest in a vehicle.
An SAPD DWI officer was traveling southbound on Interstate 10 West near Vance Jackson Road on July 1 around 2:20 a.m., when he noticed a Buick Encore going 80 mph in a 60 mph speed zone, failing to maintain a single lane and changing lanes improperly.
The officer turned on his emergency lights to initiate a traffic stop, but the driver didn’t pull over, an SAPD report said.
The officer then turned off his emergency light and began to follow the car and asked for SAPD’s helicopter to assist.
The Buick traveled on Interstate 35 North and exited at New Braunfels Avenue, where a couple of blocks away, Garza ran a red light, the report said. Garza stopped shortly after that and was taken into custody.
He was sentenced to one year of community supervision in early October on a charge of obstructing a highway-intoxication. Prosecutors dismissed the evading charge the same day, court records show.
Garza was issued a proposed dismissal BCSO the day of his arrest and then resigned in lieu of termination in late September, a BCSO spokeswoman confirmed.
Deputy Noe Avila was arrested in late July after he was accused of beating a woman inside a west Bexar County home and then threatening her with a handgun.
He faces a first-degree felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon-family violence.
Avila struck a woman inside a home multiple times, injuring her, before he pulled out a gun and pointed it at her in a threatening manner, BCSO officials previously said.
The victim was able to run from the home and call 911 from a neighbor’s residence.
Avila, a 19-year veteran of BCSO, took off from the home in his vehicle before responding deputies arrived, according to BCSO.
He was later pulled over by Atascosa County Sheriff’s deputies while driving southbound in the northbound lanes of Highway 16 South in Atascosa County, officials said.
BCSO deputies arrived at the traffic stop and took Avila into custody, later booking him at the Bexar County Jail.
Avila was terminated by BCSO Sept. 9.
He is free on bond awaiting trial after being released from jail in late September, court records show.
BCSO Cpl. Adelina Agosto was arrested in August after investigators said she showed up intoxicated to a resident’s home and damaged their front door when they didn’t answer.
Prosecutors agreed to a dismissal in Agosto’s case Dec. 13 in exchange for her entering a pretrial diversion program, according to court records.