> Officer Matthew Luckhurst's rehiring was the centerpiece of an investigation into Texas' lax and fragmented oversight of police licensing.
> Matthew Luckhurst, the now-former San Antonio police officer who drew international outrage for trying to give a sandwich filled with dog shit to a homeless man, is once again working as a cop, the Express-News reports.
> In an investigation looking at how lax and fragmented state oversight enables problem police officers to seek jobs with other departments, the daily revealed that Luckhurst was hired as a reserve officer on the Floresville Police Department five months after he was last terminated from SAPD.
> It's unclear how Luckhurst's current job duties differ from those of regular cops in Floresville, a town 30 minutes southeast of San Antonio, since neither the department nor the officer himself responded to the paper's inquiries.
> Even so, a position as a reserve cop in Texas allows Luckhurst the "same legal authority as any law enforcement officer," according to the Express-News.
> In case anyone needs a refresher, Luckhurst drew international headlines after he gave a homeless man the feces sandwich. SAPD fired Luckhurst, then a bike officer, over the incident. However, a third-party arbitrator returned him to the force three years later.
> Luckhurst was terminated a second time after a separate investigation found that he left an unflushed turd in a women's restroom at a downtown police station and smeared a brown substance on the the toilet seat after a female officer requested that staff keep the restroom clean.
> In 2020, an arbitrator upheld the second firing. Even so, the incidents were an embarrassment for SAPD and bolstered activists' demands that San Antonio revise its police contract to give arbitrators less power — something city council ultimately did.
> By some estimates, two-thirds of fired SA cops were allowed to return to their jobs under the old union contract's arbitration clause.
> The Express-News' investigation of fired officers' ability to find new work in other cities draws heavily on a recent study by Texas' Sunset Advisory Commission. The commission examined the effectiveness of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the agency that oversees licensing of police and jailers.
> “The state’s regulation of law enforcement personnel and agencies is, by and large, toothless,” the Sunset Advisory Commission concluded.
Kw5kvb5ebis OP t1_j060shg wrote
Reply to San Antonio's 'shit sandwich cop' working as a police officer again, this time in Floresville by Kw5kvb5ebis
> Officer Matthew Luckhurst's rehiring was the centerpiece of an investigation into Texas' lax and fragmented oversight of police licensing.
> Matthew Luckhurst, the now-former San Antonio police officer who drew international outrage for trying to give a sandwich filled with dog shit to a homeless man, is once again working as a cop, the Express-News reports.
> In an investigation looking at how lax and fragmented state oversight enables problem police officers to seek jobs with other departments, the daily revealed that Luckhurst was hired as a reserve officer on the Floresville Police Department five months after he was last terminated from SAPD.
> It's unclear how Luckhurst's current job duties differ from those of regular cops in Floresville, a town 30 minutes southeast of San Antonio, since neither the department nor the officer himself responded to the paper's inquiries.
> Even so, a position as a reserve cop in Texas allows Luckhurst the "same legal authority as any law enforcement officer," according to the Express-News.
> In case anyone needs a refresher, Luckhurst drew international headlines after he gave a homeless man the feces sandwich. SAPD fired Luckhurst, then a bike officer, over the incident. However, a third-party arbitrator returned him to the force three years later.
> Luckhurst was terminated a second time after a separate investigation found that he left an unflushed turd in a women's restroom at a downtown police station and smeared a brown substance on the the toilet seat after a female officer requested that staff keep the restroom clean.
> In 2020, an arbitrator upheld the second firing. Even so, the incidents were an embarrassment for SAPD and bolstered activists' demands that San Antonio revise its police contract to give arbitrators less power — something city council ultimately did.
> By some estimates, two-thirds of fired SA cops were allowed to return to their jobs under the old union contract's arbitration clause.
> The Express-News' investigation of fired officers' ability to find new work in other cities draws heavily on a recent study by Texas' Sunset Advisory Commission. The commission examined the effectiveness of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the agency that oversees licensing of police and jailers.
> “The state’s regulation of law enforcement personnel and agencies is, by and large, toothless,” the Sunset Advisory Commission concluded.