SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio police detective who was credited with breaking up a violent burglary and car theft ring last summer was fired months later after investigators said he struck two teenagers during their arrests.
Detective Jack Harper was given an indefinite suspension on Dec. 18 for SAPD policy violations including excessive force and interfering with an internal affairs investigation, city discipline records state.
Harper’s attorney, Ben Sifuentes, criticized SAPD’s internal investigation of his client and slammed SAPD Chief William McManus for what Sifuentes described as the chief’s uneven approach to issuing discipline in use-of-force cases.
Violent burglary and crime theft ring broken up in June
Last June, Harper, an SAPD property crimes detective, developed evidence that three teens had committed nearly a dozen car thefts and burglaries over a nine-day period.
SAPD and Bexar County Sheriff’s Office incident reports obtained by KSAT Investigates detail a violent crime spree, in which the suspects were often armed and used facemasks to conceal their identities while stealing vehicles or breaking into vehicles and taking property, including debit and credit cards.
In one incident, on June 18, one of the teens was accused of firing from a moving vehicle at another vehicle driving on U.S. 281 near Jones Maltsberger Road. SAPD records indicate that a 7-year-old girl was inside the vehicle that was shot at.
During a related aggravated burglary incident, the suspects also fired shots, BCSO records show.
Crime spree broken up June 28
Harper, other property crimes personnel, SAPD’s street crimes unit and an SAPD EAGLE helicopter were conducting surveillance on the teens the night of June 28 when they were spotted in a stolen sedan in traffic along Interstate 10 just outside Loop 1604, SAPD records show.
Officers used a stop stick to deflate the sedan’s tires, and after the sedan crashed into two vehicles in an attempt to evade police, the teens bailed out of the car and ran toward a wooded area between the highway and Old Fredericksburg Road, Sifuentes told KSAT while reconstructing the scene using Google Earth.
“When they bailed out, several officers observed that they were armed with guns,” Sifuentes said.
Sifuentes described a chaotic scene in the wooded area with no light, with officers shouting commands, a helicopter hovering above and a police K-9 barking.
After Harper came across an officer who had captured one of the teens and put him in handcuffs, Harper called the teen a b**** and struck him in the head with an open hand, discipline records show.
While a second teen was being taken into custody in an area of heavy brush against a chain link fence, Harper struck the teen in the face with a closed fist, knocking him to the ground, discipline records show.
Harper then struck the teen six more times in the face and head with a closed fist and once with an open hand while the teen was on the ground, records state.
While Harper’s discipline paperwork states the second teen appeared to be obeying officers' commands, Sifuentes said Harper used the force needed to gain control of one of the suspect’s arms.
Sifuentes added that a second SAPD officer had to use both of his hands to gain control of the teen’s other arm, an indication that the teen was not cooperating.
KSAT is not naming either teen because they are minors.
“De-escalation, despite what people might think, is using the minimum force necessary to avoid the use of deadly force, which Jack did,” Sifuentes said.
Sifuentes told KSAT Harper tapped the first teen on the head and during a subsequent meeting with McManus the detective “admitted to the chief he shouldn’t have done that.”
Harper also failed to notify a supervisor that he had used force on a suspect until after the suspect was taken from the scene, “delaying the supervisor’s on-scene investigation of the Use of Force,” discipline records state.
The detective also turned in an inaccurate report that mischaracterized the amount of force he used during the arrests, discipline records state.
Harper was also dinged by internal affairs for contacting a fellow detective who was at the scene that night and discussing details of the incident, the records show.
A previous use of force violation by Harper was taken into account by the chief when deciding punishment in this case, discipline records indicate.
Sifuentes calls internal affairs investigation incomplete
Harper appealed his indefinite suspension shortly after it was issued, meaning the case will eventually be heard by a third-party arbitrator.
In the written appeal, Sifuentes noted numerous issues with the internal affairs investigation, including that the IA sergeant assigned to it failed to obtain all body-worn camera footage from the June 28 incident.
“If there’s something that’s going to exculpate someone, then you get that. If the San Antonio Police Department has values of fairness, justice and integrity, they need to get all the evidence, including that that’s going to show someone is innocent,” Sifuentes said.
Sifuentes described the allegation that Harper interfered with the internal affairs' probe of him as “wholly false.”
Harper called a detective who was behind him during the actions in question and asked him if he would be comfortable going to IA as a witness, according to Sifuentes.
“Nothing in the conversation suggested what should be said,” wrote Sifuentes in the formal appeal.
Disparate treatment likely to play key role during Harper’s arbitration
Sifuentes has repeatedly used the disparate treatment argument during arbitration for SAPD officers to get their discipline reduced.
The argument contends that varying levels of discipline are issued to officers by McManus, despite some of the misconduct incidents having similar circumstances.
Sifuentes used the disparate treatment argument during the arbitration hearing for SAPD Officer Andre Vargas in June and December 2023.
Vargas was given an indefinite suspension in 2020, months after investigators said he used excessive force and profane language during the November 2019 capture of an evading arrest suspect.
An arbitrator rescinded Vargas' indefinite suspension in October, noting that McManus did not have a strong command of all of the facts of the case.
Vargas’ termination was replaced with a five-day suspension, city records show.
A second SAPD officer fired over the incident, Michael Brewer, was reinstated to SAPD last month, before his case was heard by an arbitrator.
Brewer had been accused of using excessive force on the same suspect during the November 2019 incident.
A Bexar County grand jury indicted Brewer in March 2022 for felony unlawful restraint.
Prosecutors, however, dismissed the case in May 2023.
“My deduction is that McManus will make decisions based upon optics and what he thinks the public will like or dislike, and he doesn’t really care about the merits of the case,” Sifuentes said. “There’s no rhyme or reason for how he views use of force.”
SAPD officials refused to make McManus available for an interview for this story and said Harper’s suspension paperwork would eventually be published online.
Sifuentes provided KSAT with a stack of other SAPD use of force cases that did not result in officers receiving indefinite suspensions.
SAPD Officer Bless Achor was suspended 10 days last year after showing up at the wrong address and tripping a man he was trying to detain.
Achor was suspended for rules violations, including conduct prejudicial to good order and for use-of-force violations, discipline records state.
The homeowner told KSAT last year that Achor was “very aggressive” when pushing the man into his own residence, forcing him to the ground and handcuffing him.
SAPD Officer Gary Tuli was suspended five days in 2017 for a use of force violation after punching a man in the face twice during a family violence call, causing him to lose consciousness, discipline records state.
Tuli was attempting to get the man to roll onto his stomach and had warned him he would punch him in the face if he did not comply, records state.
The same month as that incident, Tuli was accused of repeatedly punching a 14-year-old girl in the parking lot of an East Side event center.
Even though SAPD officials later determined no policy violations had taken place, Tuli was indicted in 2018 for official oppression and giving a false report to a peace officer.
The criminal case was ultimately dismissed in 2019 due to insufficient evidence, Bexar County court records show.
Two SAPD SWAT officers and an undercover detective were each suspended five days in 2014 after punching and kicking a man at a far West Side construction site.
The officers used excessive force on Roger Carlos after mistaking him for a suspect they had been chasing.
Carlos suffered significant abrasions and swelling of his head and injuries to his neck.
He was left a quadriplegic after surgery in 2015 to alleviate ongoing pain in his neck, according to federal court records.
A federal jury last fall awarded Carlos $7 million in damages.
Sifuentes described McManus' decision to suspend the officers in all those cases while terminating Harper as an “unfathomable” decision.
Harper is a 13-year veteran of SAPD.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.