Lubbock deputy police chief resigns from LPD a month after being arrested

Mateo Rosiles
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
November 20, 2023

A month after being arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of continuous violence against the family, Lubbock Police Deputy Chief Leath McClure has resigned from his position at LPD, the department announced Monday.

Leath McClure
Lubbock County Detention Center

McClure had been with the Lubbock Police Department since 2005 and assumed his current role this summer, was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 19. as previously reported by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

A police report obtained by the Avalanche-Journal at the time shows McClure allegedly used his "hands, feet and fists" to assault a civilian LPD employee with whom he was in a romantic relationship.

The woman told her supervisor that McClure became angry and pushed her into a wall and doorway at police headquarters before slapping her in the face in early October, prompting the Metro investigation on Oct. 4.

During the course of the investigation, it was made known that McClure used his service-issued weapon to threaten the female two times in two separate instances.

Investigators also searched McClure's city-issued vehicle and found a black backpack containing an unlabeled plastic bottle that held 17 pills believed to be tramadol hydrochloride, an opioid used to treat severe pain, and one pill believed to be a generic version of the anti-anxiety medication Xanax, the warrant states.

McClure was arrested in late October with a bond set at $500,000; however, a week later, Judge Douglas Freitag in the 140th District Court signed an order lowering McClure's bond to $100,000.

McClure was able to make bond and was released from jail but has a two two-year protective order that prohibits him from contacting the victim in the case against him or possessing a firearm. He is also required to complete a battering intervention and prevention program.

The charges remain pending at this time and LPD has not announced who will be filling the now vacant role.