Houston’s Harris County Sheriff’s Office continues to fire deputies and other employees for having sex with jailed inmates, using illegal drugs, employing excessive force or using their position to steal from the public, reports the Houston Chronicle. In the first three months of this year, Sheriff Adrian Garcia fired nine deputies, detention officers, and clerks after they committed criminal acts or violated department regulations.
Garcia also reprimanded 30 employees and suspended another 31. Their offenses included causing 34 wrecks, associating with convicted felons, sleeping on the job, leaving the doors to a jail facility open, and one case where an armed deputy got into a drunken bar fight. Since taking office in 2009, Garcia has increased the number of disciplinary actions compared to his predecessor. He has fired about 95 employees and handed down around 830 reprimands and suspensions without pay to others in the department. “We have up to 2,000 employees working in the jail system, and I am proud of the fact that nearly all do their jobs without complaint and without complaints against them,” Garcia said.