An Associated Press investigation led the sheriff's office to disclose that deputies took nearly four times as long as Sheriff Greg Capers initially said to arrive at the mass shooting.
Francisco Oropeza, the man accused of killing five of his neighbors in San Jacinto County, was indicted on a capital murder charge.Sheriff Greg Capers was the classic picture of a Texas lawman as he announced the capture of a suspected mass killer: white cowboy hat on his head, gold star pinned to his chest, white cross on his belt and a large pistol emblazoned with his name on his hip.
Former deputies said Capers' office has long neglected basic police work while pursuing asset seizures that boost its $3.5 million budget but don't always hold up in court. "The sheriff and his inner circle do whatever they want, regardless of law, with no consequence," said Michael Voytko, who spent nearly five years as a San Jacinto County deputy before leaving in 2020 for another law enforcement job. "There was no accountability there for any of the deputies."
Garcia said he walked over and asked Oropeza to take his target practice farther from their home. When Oropeza refused, Garcia and his wife made their first of many 911 calls at 11:34 p.m.Deputies were called to Oropeza's home at least three times in the prior two years, according to call logs. One came last June, when his wife reported he punched and kicked her, "pounded" her head on the "driveway gravel" and threatened to kill her, court records said.
The logs do not clarify the nature of all the calls to Oropeza's home, but Capers has said his office previously received complaints about the man's gunfire. In January, the family was enjoying a backyard campfire with friends when they said their neighbor began shooting. Bullets blew holes through their fence and one sprayed sandy soil up at their 8-year-old daughter as she ran, screaming, they recalled.
Keith Pinkston, a self-described "country boy" who often carries a handgun and generally supports police, showed the AP round holes in his fence that he said were from shooting by the neighbor. He called Capers and his deputies "worthless." The group's report lays out evidence that the sheriff's staff falsified training records and failed to pursue 4,000 reported crimes over the years, including 106 alleged sexual assaults. The report said Capers dismissed concerns about an affair between a deputy and an informant and brushed aside reports that the same deputy leaked investigative information to suspects.
That lawsuit, brought by Michael Flynt, accused the sheriff's office of retaliating after he raised concerns about Capers' conduct. Flynt was a retired Houston-area officer whom Capers recruited to run an undercover drug unit in early 2017. The sheriff's office had fired him by June 2018, charging Flynt with forging government documents by allegedly lying on his job application.
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