Back before he became the high-sheriff of our fair city, Jeff Barnett was the police chief in Princeton, a town of 7,700 folks about eight or so miles east of McKinney, Texas, in Collin County, which is on the northern border of Dallas County. It’s main claim to fame is its relatively low tax rate, the result of it being a General Law city, not a home Rule one. While serving as police chief there, Barnett had a sexual affair with Suzanne Hurlston, who was then the wife of local anesthesiologist Glen Hurlston. On March 15, 2011, Suzanne gave birth to a boy fathered by Barnett but assumed at the time by Dr. Hurlston to be his child. In fact, they named the child Gerard Jeffrey Blake Hurlston. Dr. Hurlston said during testimony Monday at the appeal hearing of Kyle Police Sgt. Jesse Espinoza that he had absolutely no clue the child wasn’t his until he was tipped off 10 months later by Suzanne’s former fiancee, who has also fathered two children with Suzanne, that Barnett was showing up at Dr. Hurlston’s house when the doctor wasn’t there.
Needless to say, Dr. Hurlston was none too happy about any of this.
All of the above is indisputable. Chief Barnett has acknowledged paternity of the child and the infant’s name has since been changed to Jeffrey Blake Barnett. A lot of what follows has been disputed. What’s not in dispute is that on New Year’s Day 2012 Hurlston was arrested on a charge of felony domestic abuse after Suzanne claimed he attempted to strangle her. That charge was reduced to a Class A misdemeanor and Hurlston pled no contest. Subsequently Hurlston claimed his wife contacted Barnett in Kyle, telling him about the incident, and Barnett subsequently called in some favors from his former associates on the Princeton police force and that’s what led to Hurlston’s arrest. Hurlston testified Monday he wanted to know more about this Barnett person and learned he was being considered, along with Kyle resident and Austin Police Department supervisor Joseph Muñoz, for Kyle’s chief of police. At the time Espinoza was head of the Kyle police association and was actively promoting Muñoz over Barnett. Hurlston decided Espinoza might be someone who could provide him with information concerning Barnett. Eventually, in December 2013, Hurlston filed a lawsuit against a number of parties including Barnett and the City of Kyle. The city seems to believe Espinoza illegally supplied Hurlston with information that provided grist for the lawsuit. As a result Barnett in February placed Espinoza on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into Espinoza’s activities that related to Hurlston.
There were a number of problems with this action, however. First, Barnett’s actions could be viewed as nothing more than retaliation against an officer who did not support his quest for chief and who had aligned himself with someone who was not only pursuing legal actions against the chief, but had a personal grudge against him. To counter that perception, the city placed Barnett on administrative leave and brought in a former police chief from Waxahachie, Charles Edge, to conduct the investigation the city hoped would provide the necessary evidence to kick Espinoza off the force.
But there was a second, bigger, problem. According to the Civil Service regulations the City has agreed to in regards to its police department, the department can only discipline officers for actions committed within 180 days of when charges are brought against that officer. If Espinoza did anything the city believes he did in regards to Hurlston — and whether he did or not is still open to question — they were all done outside this 180-day "statute of limitations."
So the City concocted a new plan. They submitted Espinoza to (as close as I can tell) about seven intensive question-and-answer sessions, including one seven-hour session that apparently was videotaped, and at least one session with Edge. The man from Waxahachie testified Monday the answers Espinoza provided during these sessions were "non-responsive," and that non-responsiveness amounted to insubordination and that insubordination was the reason Edge suspended Espinoza from the force indefinitely.
The hearings I attended Monday and Tuesday were the last in a series of hearings Espinoza sought to have that suspension overturned. I obviously missed at least four previous days of testimony which were the real juicy, salacious parts of the hearing during which, from I have been told by a number of sources, testimony was presented on, among other things, the drinking and sleeping habits as well as the "illicit" sex lives of some of this city’s elected officials. I am not going to get into any of this because, for the life of me, who, other than the parties I have already named, was having sex and/or drinking with whom does not seem to have any relevance whatsoever to the issue to be decided, which is whether Espinoza’s suspension should be reversed.
What I do believe was relevant, however, was the testimony I heard myself, especially that from Edge who was the first person to testify Monday and the last of the witnesses called by the city’s hired gun attorney, Bettye Lynn, a labor law specialist. Edge cited the following exchange he had with Espinoza concerning a trip Hurlston was making to Kyle to attend a City Council meeting:
Edge: Did you call Dr. Hurlston?
Espinoza: I probably did.
Edge: Why?
Espinoza: I wanted to see if he made it.
Edge said that exchange constituted insubordination on Espinoza’s part because his second answer proves his first response was "non-responsive." Edge argued that since Espinoza talked to Hurlston to determine "if he made it," the answer to his first question should have simply been "yes."
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?
Hey, I am not a police officer and I have never been involved in the interrogation of a subject in a criminal investigation. But I’m betting most police officers who have will support me on this. If they are interrogating a potential suspect and they ask the subject "Did you commit this crime?" and the subject responds "I probably did," that suspect is going to be handcuffed, read his rights (if Miranda hasn’t already been applied) and dispatched to the lockup. If I asked anyone a question on any subject and that someone answers "I probably did," I’m going to interpret that to mean "yes," and I’m going to go way out on a limb here and argue that 99.9 percent of the English speaking world would interpret it exactly the same way.
Second: I will argue Edge proved to be one of those persons who would interpret it exactly the same way. If he had interpreted it any other way in his examination of Espinoza, then why did he ask the followup question?
Here is another problem I have with this. The first witness called for the defense on Monday was Dr. Hurlston and at one point he was asked when he met Espinoza. He replied: "Probably in 2013 or 2014." And you know what? Not a single person in that hearing room jumped up and claimed that answer was non-responsive.
Like I said earlier, I only saw the final two days of this hearing, but if the city is relying on Espinoza saying "I probably did" as the reason for suspending him, I am convinced Espinoza is being railroaded here.
What happens now is that each side, Lynn and defense attorney Grant Goodwin, will make their final arguments in the form of written statements that will be sent to hearing examiner Michael B. McReynolds, presumably at his home office in Fort Worth. Those statements are due around the end of the year and McReynolds said he would make his final determination, or "award," within 30 days of acknowledging receipt of the statements. So it’s probably going to be late January or early February before we know the outcome. How he’s going to rule is anyone’s guess, but I do know the only times he seemed to lose his temper during the two days of testimony I witnessed was when he told Hurlston "I am having real problems with some of your answers and some of your reactions" and when he put Espinoza down by telling him sternly "You don’t make the rules in this hearing."
So there’s that.
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