The Coffee City Council deactivated its police department and fired its police chief after reports showed the town had one officer for every five residents.
Coffee City
MYSA
By Zachary Taylor Wright
After investigative reports showed a small East Texas town had one officer for every five residents, city officials canned their police chief and deactivated the police department. Now, locals are showing up at city hall to have their
tickets dismissed due to over policing.
Coffee City, a town in East Texas with a population of 250, had 50 officers heavily patrolling city streets and issuing millions of dollars in traffic tickets, according to a KHOU 11 investigative report.
“There’s not much to Coffee City, Texas,” KHOU 11 reporter Jeremy Rogalski wrote last month. “Two liquor stores, a couple of dollar stores, a pizza joint, and a motel. But this town, which is three hours north of Houston, has quite a reputation among those who drive through.”
The news outlet reported the 50 officers employed in the sleepy town earned the city more than $1 million in fines in 2022 with over 5,100 citations. Coffee City was employing five times the number of cops cities of similar size would retain, according to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records obtained by KHOU 11.
As a result of the investigation into the unusual level of law enforcement in the town, Coffee City Council didn’t even take 15 minutes to nix its police chief, JohnJay Portillo, and deactivate its police department, according to a September 11 article from KHOU 11.
The reporter for KHOU 11 obtained several personnel records on the officers hired to patrol the city, and not only did the investigation show the place was over policed, but the officers hired had often been relieved of duty in other places and had inappropriate social media interactions.
The personnel files showed, “An officer terminated for posting a Facebook message to a citizen (saying) ‘You should kill yourself, do the world a favor,” the article reads. “An officer suspended for smashing a window and entering his girlfriend’s home without consent. Two officers terminated for lying on their job applications.” There were several other incidents uncovered by the news outlet.
Now, after the scandal, residents are looking to have their traffic tickets dropped, according to a report released Thursday, September 21, by Fox News affiliate KETK.
“I intended to come up here with the hopes of getting the ticket dismissed since they dismissed all their policemen,” Steve Prather, who was at Coffee City Hall to oppose his violation, told KETK.
Now, the news outlet says residents are questioning whether they should pay the fines or contest them as the City Secretary said traffic violators must pay the fines or have the officer, who is likely either suspended or terminated, to testify to the lawfulness of the ticket. One man, according to KETK, questioned how these subpoenaed officers can be trusted.
“How can they [have] a policemen being a witness that they’ve terminated or suspended or whatever you call it, what quality of a witness would that be,” Prather said to KETK.