SAFD Captain Arrested for Insurance Fraud
A San Antonio Fire Department captain was arrested for insurance fraud on Friday, July 26. This is kind of astounding. The fire department personnel are some of our highest paid government employees among County and City employees, but apparently, it’s never enough. Captain Eric Ruiz told his insurance company that he had been injured and could not work.
The insurance agency paid out on Ruiz’s claim but an investigation showed that Ruiz had been working the whole time. I’m not sure how he thought he could get away with this. Maybe he felt the insurance agency would never check. The KSAT 12 article doesn’t say how the police were alerted to the crime or even if it was the police that conducted the investigation. It may have been the insurance company.
Regardless, two felony warrants were issued. Here’s where privilege comes in. San Antonio Police went to Eric Ruiz’s house on Thursday but according to the article, Ruiz would not come out of the house. Anyone else with a felony warrant, who the police knew was in the house, would have had their door kicked in and would have been taken into custody. SAPD chose to sit outside his house for 12 hours and were able to arrest him when Ruiz went to get into his car.
I’m not saying what they did was wrong or illegal but it’s sure not the consideration that is given to the general public and with good cause. Taxpayer money paid for those officers to sit there for 12 hours. It would have saved us all some money if they had forced their way in and taken him into custody.