DA looks to head off problems in court after patrolman’s firing.
By Jason Trahan, The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Police Department began conducting criminal background checks on its estimated 3,000 officers this week, looking for any compromises to their integrity that might derail cases in court.
The checks come in response to concerns from District Attorney Bill Hill, who said Thursday he might also ask other law enforcement agencies in Dallas County to do the same.
Mr. Hill and acting Police Chief Randy Hampton met Thursday to finalize details on the background checks.
Mr. Hill requested the checks after Officer Derrick Evans was fired last month. Police said he falsified his application with the department. Mr. Hill said that raises issues of moral turpitude. The district attorney’s office is bound by law to disclose such information when the officer testifies in a criminal case, Mr. Hill said.
Mr. Evans’ case sparked an internal review of the department’s hiring policies and raised questions about whether other officers have backgrounds that could taint their testimony in court.
Chief Hampton said officers he has spoken to favor the criminal background checks.
“They’re concerned about what has happened over the last few months,” he said.
The president of the Dallas Fraternal Order of Police, however, questioned the need and legality of any type of checks once an officer makes it through the police academy.
“In the academy, background checks were a precondition to you being hired,” said Officer Michael Walton, Fraternal Order president. “What is the catalyst, the probable cause for doing these? If there are 100 people in a store, and I arrest one, do I check everyone for a criminal history? It’s guilt by association.”
The Police Department’s checks do not include civil matters, including court orders similar to those a judge imposed on Mr. Evans while he was living in Alaska. He was accused of assaulting his wife.
Mr. Evans was fired for violating two portions of the department’s Code of Conduct - for carrying a weapon in a manner that attracts attention in public and for “willful misrepresentation or omission” of facts about his personal history or qualifications for employment, according to the chief’s special assistant, Janice Houston.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Mr. Evans did not disclose a public intoxication arrest on his employment application, failed a polygraph test about an unsolved homicide while he was a police recruit and was twice the target of emergency protective orders stemming from domestic violence allegations in Alaska.
His arrest showed up in the department’s background check. The protective orders in Alaska did not.
Mr. Evans graduated with his academy class and became a police officer in 2000. At the time of his firing, he had been on paid leave while his role in a July shooting at a recreation center was investigated.
Mr. Evans’ attorney has said they would appeal the firing.
Mr. Hill said his office needs to know about all felonies and situations involving moral turpitude - including convictions for family violence, theft, indecent exposure or tax evasion - so prosecutors can inform defense attorneys in cases involving that officer.
Convictions, however, are not all that might raise red flags, he said.
“The checks will catch any conviction, from a Class C [misdemeanor] on up,” Mr. Hill said. “The Dallas Police Department caught Evans on the Class C public intoxication. He said he forgot about it.”
Mr. Hill said the moral turpitude offense was not that Mr. Evans was arrested but that he was caught lying about it on his application.
Officer Walton said it’s unfair to check only Dallas officers. Mr. Hill agreed.
“We’ll be talking to all the chiefs to get that done,” he said Thursday. “It wouldn’t be as large a task for the other departments, who have fewer officers than Dallas.”
Les Moore, the Irving Police Department’s legal adviser, said his roughly 230-member department would consider criminal history checks if asked, but he said his department’s hiring process is sound.
“Dallas has been faced at times with the need to hire a lot of people in a hurry, and that sometimes poses problems,” Mr. Moore said. “We don’t hire as many people. We make extremely thorough background investigations. But if Bill Hill asked us to do that, we’d look at it.”
Sr. Cpl. Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, said he has no problem with the checks.
“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “It may help take the shadow of doubt away from the Police Department.”
Acting Assistant Chief Ron Waldrop, who supervises the records unit, said his team would try to perform about 100 checks a day. The cost to the city would be minimal, he said, adding that he expects to be done in three months.
“This will be done with the people we have,” he said.