Reminder of What Salazar Said When Running Against Pamerleau
Blast from the Past
It’s that time of the year. The Sheriff’s forum is coming up on Thursday so we decided to take a look at a 2015 forum to see what Salazar said back then. Fair warning, though we use quotes we did eliminate a lot of Salazar’s stuttering and his struggles to speak. You don’t realize how bad a job he does speaking until you have to transcribe him. But we only took out duplicate words and all the “uh” stutters. We did not change the context. You can view the video below.
Ability to Do the Job
The moderator asks Salazar about his ability to do the job of sheriff since he has never been over anything as large as the Sheriff’s Office. Salazar basically gives his resume. The moderator then asks at the 4m 32s mark:
Q. “But it’s a little different in that role than, you know, a sheriff that’s in charge of not only the deputies, but also the jail and also courthouse security, and things like that. Would you at least concede that?”
A. “I won’t. Those are a lot of moving parts to it but it’s something that, I’ve been, I’ve spent 23 years preparing for this. And so I wouldn’t concede that point.”
Us: Being a law enforcement officer in no way whatsoever prepares you to run a detention facility. Having seen what he has done while in office we can now say that he was totally unprepared for what he was getting into. His answer was either arrogance or naivete. Probably both.
Salazar Takes a Shot at Pamerleau on Being Out of Touch
Starting at the 7m 53s mark Salazar attacks Pamerleau saying that under her leadership and watch, the military had one of the largest ever rape scandals. Actually, she retired about 5 years before the scandal.
Salazar at 8m 2s mark – “To me, it demonstrates the inability to be in touch with what’s going on under your command.”
We find this statement to be very interesting. According to Salazar, everything that happens under your command is your fault. That’s a far cry from what he has said since taking office. The killing of a 6-year old child, the arrested deputies, the deaths in the jail, the escapes, glitches in officers’ pay…all those and more can be laid at his feet. At least, that’s the way he felt when someone else was in the position.
Officers Being Intimidated
The moderator told Salazar that it wasn’t fair for him to make accusations then not give his sources.
Salazar at 8m 56s mark – “I won’t share those with you because this sheriff has demonstrated her willingness to intimidate those deputies.”
At the 16m 35s mark the moderator asks the following question to Javier Salazar:
Q. “Sergeant, do you think the jail is in a better place today than it was four years ago?”
A. “Absolutely not. I think that the story that KSAT brought to light, and thank you for bringing that to light a few weeks ago, when you interviewed those two deputies who, by the way, had to be interviewed with their faces covered up and their voices distorted…”
Us: In an August 16, 2019 interview, officers spoke anonymously with KSAT about the conditions under Salazar stating, “This is the worst it’s ever been.” The officers were too afraid to speak openly about the problems occurring at the jail and with good reason. KSAT spoke to Salazar in a 2-part series regarding what those deputies said and in the second part Salazar says they are looking into whether officers are intentionally releasing inmates to hurt Salazar’s administration. One of the newscasters in the video calls it a “bombshell revelation.” Wow! Now that’s some major intimidation and retaliation!
Suicides in the Jail
The moderator talks about the deaths that occurred at the jail. Javier Salazar gives the following remark starting at the 16m 58s mark:
A. “The 20 deaths that have occurred under the current administration is plenty of proof that nothing has improved there at the jail.”
Us: We didn’t count the number of deaths under Salazar over the last three years. It’s possible that it may be under 20 but if it is, I don’t think it would be by very much. What I would like to bring up here is that under Salazar the jail screwed up in wrongly assigning two inmates together that never should have been. One beat the other to death. But they didn’t learn from that. Some months later they went through almost the exact same thing except this inmate was fortunate enough to survive. Why wasn’t the situation addressed? Suicides are hard to catch but there is no excuse for this. Nothing like this happened under Pamerleau.
Lawsuits Against the County
Salazar is continuing on with his deaths in the jail answer when, at the 17m 15s mark, he makes the following statement in regards to the shortcuts that officers are having to take because of the manpower shortage:
Salazar – “Those shortcuts are leading to deaths. Those deaths are inevitably going to lead to wrongful death lawsuits, sometimes upwards of a million dollars. It’s something that, that’s an irresponsible use of the taxpayer dollars.”
Us: It’s true that the County gets sued for wrongful deaths. But Salazar is talking about suicides under Pamerleau. Suicides are harder to prove against an agency. If someone wants to kill themselves, they will find a way. Salazar’s had several people die in the jail that should have been taken to medical but it doesn’t appear they got the attention they should have due to missed checks. We will lose those. We will lose the lawsuit where the inmate was beat to death and we will lose the lawsuit where 6-year old Kameron Prescott was shot and killed by Bexar County deputies.
What He Would Change
The moderator asks Salazar what he would change. Salazar gives a generic, non-answer statement. The moderator tries to get him to give specifics twice. The second time starts at the 25m 37s mark.
Q. “How do you do that:”
A. “…First off, we need to get that manpower turned around…”
Us: The manpower is way worse under Salazar than it was under Pamerleau. The Sheriff’s Office is has close to 200 vacant positions, and as Salazar said about Pamerleau but definitely applies to him, they’re leaving in droves.
Video Visitation
The moderator asks about the Video Visitation facility. Pamerleau explains that it was needed because the jail wasn’t handling the volume well and if everyone who was entitled to a visitation tried to get one they would not be able to do it and would be out of compliance with Jail Standards. The moderator then asks Salazar for his comment.
A. “It’s a luxury item that I think there’s so many other ways that money could have been spent. Reinvest it in your personnel so they’re not leaving in droves.”
Us: Boy do we have something to say here. Everyone who works on this website has had either a family member or friend be incarcerated in the Bexar County Jail. It was because of the poor experience we had that we created this website to try to help others. The inmates are not a commodity on a shelf. They are people. The families and friends of those inmates matter. We are members of the community. The old way of doing visitation was horrible. Ridiculously long lines and waits that were hard on everybody but especially hard on the elderly and handicapped. Visitors had to use a bathroom that just had a couple of stalls with no doors on them. Salazar basically saying that it’s a luxury to treat the public as something more than cattle, shows a profound callousness and disregard for the public he is sworn to serve.
Voting
Sheriff Susan Pamerleau threw in a comment about Salazar’s voting record that I hadn’t known before. It starts at the 50m 55s mark.
Pamerleau – “…And I what I was disappointed to find is that my opponent has never voted in his entire life until last November when he was on the the ballot. That doesn’t say very much about one’s civic duty and responsibility to our community.”
Salazar is given a chance by the moderator, starting at the 52m 48s mark, to respond to Pamerleau. I’m not going to write all of his song and dance because I too believe it is our civic duty to vote. I’m just going to select certain passages. You can watch the whole thing on the video if you want.
Salazar – “I may not have always been involved in the voting process.” “Became disillusioned with the political process due to political rhetoric…make this their living…” “…haven’t always been the strongest voter…”
Us: Translation for first quote – I didn’t give a damn because I didn’t personally gain from it. Then he goes into excuse mode, he became disillusioned. If you’re disillusioned, then get in there and work to fix the process not just bail on the system. What a pathetic excuse but it gets worse. That political rhetoric they do for a living. What!?! He was the PIO at SAPD! In other words, he was their paid spin doctor. Oh my gosh, the hypocrisy! And lastly, end with a soft lie. not the strongest voter. No! You were no voter at all. You let others do the heavy lifting while you benefited from the fruits of their labor.
When a person says they are part of a certain party but they don’t do a single thing to help that party until it’s beneficial for them, they are not really a member of that party. What they are is an opportunist. Forgive me but I’m going to change a famous quote a little bit here, When someone tells you, or shows you, who they are, believe them.