Archive for May 31st, 2013

Bad week for the APD.

Friday, May 31st, 2013

Another one down,
Another one down,
Another APD officer bites the dust…

Second firing in two days. Why did this one get the ax?

Police detained Officer Manuel Garcia about 7:15 p.m. on Feb. 2 at Fiesta Gardens on Comal Street in East Austin, where his car was parked in a dark, unlit parking lot known for drug use and prostitution, the memo says.

…

The woman told police that she and Garcia had “dated” several times and that they had agreed she would perform oral sex for $10, the memo says. Garcia was arrested for prostitution.

…

During an interview with internal affairs, Garcia said he lied to officers when he told him he knew the woman, and that he actually had never seen her before when she suddenly jumped into his truck and refused to get out, the memo says.

But he denied having an arrangement for the woman to perform oral sex on him, “despite evidence to the contrary, including but not limited to, the ten dollar bill that was found folded up in the air conditioning vent of his truck when he was arrested,” the memo says. Garcia said officers “put that into” the woman’s mind and led her on.

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Random notes: May 31, 2013.

Friday, May 31st, 2013

Obit watch: Catholic priest and author Andrew M. Greeley.

“Sometimes I suspect that my obituary in The New York Times,” Father Greeley once wrote, “will read, ‘Andrew Greeley, Priest; Wrote Steamy Novels.’ ”

Also:

His niece Laura Durkin confirmed the death, saying he had died overnight in his sleep. She said he had been in poor health and under 24-hour care since suffering severe head injuries in 2008 when his clothing caught on the door of a taxi as it pulled away and he was thrown to the pavement.

I was not aware of this. What a lousy way to end your life.

Also: LAT obit for Jack Vance.

Julian Dawkins, a shuttle driver for “PBS NewsHour,” was found shot just before 1 a.m. on May 22 on Lynhaven Drive in Alexandria.

Police have made an arrest and filed charges in the case. The twist: the accused is a deputy sheriff.

The law of unintended consequences, continued: the city of Austin banned single-use bags effective March 1st.

Store managers and police say the ban, which went into effect March 1, has made it more difficult for them to distinguish between customers and shoplifters. They say people place items in their reusable bags while shopping and walk out of the store without paying.

(It is worth pointing out that reusable bags were common here even before the formal ban, and that there are no actual statistics as of yet showing an increase in shoplifting.)

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