Sheriff Javier Salazar Turns on His Officers

In an astounding set of articles, KSAT 12 has shown everyone what a poor sheriff, Javier Salazar is.  Investigative Reporter Dillon Collier did an extensive sit down interview with the Sheriff that he then broke down into two articles.  It’s obvious that Sheriff Salazar was informed that the first article was going to be about deputies who complained about the Sheriff, to Mr. Collier, and what was said.  Those deputies discussed how bad things are at the jail and the poor job the sheriff is doing.

They complained about their paychecks being shorted money that was owed to them and that they were at first told the money had run out.  Mr. Collier gave Sheriff Salazar a chance to respond to the the complaints against him.  Salazar said, “that’s heartbreaking,” in reference to the low morale.  He talked about it keeping him awake at night, that he only sleeps 4 hours a night.  Sorry Salazar.  Nobody believes that.  You originally said that you and your command staff were going to be doing mandatory overtime in the jail, just like the officers.  What happened with that?

But Salazar’s true colors come out in the second article.  Sheriff Salazar practically says that deputies let inmates go intentionally to make him look bad because they don’t like him, they don’t like change and they don’t like the people he has promoted into command staff.  He states that the BCSO is investigating this possibility.  Investigating.  They have actually opened up an investigation into officers trying to find someone they can scapegoat based on what?  Sheriff Salazar’s paranoia?

We can only see this as one thing, intimidation tactics.  The Sheriff is making sure all his officers are aware that if they start letting people know what is really happening under his command he is going to come after you even to the point of trying to pin criminal charges on you.  Now that the flood gates are open, don’t be surprised to hear that the failed inspections are a conspiracy.  Who knows, maybe even the suicides will be conspiracies.  He’s got a whole new area of excuses to try to hide behind.  Yeah, he sure is heartbroken over the low morale.

This is the same administration that hired a bunch of new civilians to take over the booking functions but didn’t bother to check to see if jail standards allowed that.  It doesn’t.  Then the sheriff tried to say civilians booking inmates was a practice that had been going on for over a decade but our sources say that is not true.  The civilians interviewed the inmates to update their personal information such as address, weight and other info, but they did not book the inmates, officers did.  But Sheriff Salazar has never let facts get in his way.

The new Justice Intake Assessment Center went live under an administration who doesn’t have enough sense to check what can or can’t be done, just makes snap decisions.  Instead of thinking that maybe his lack of knowledge and his preference for surrounding himself with yes-men might have something to do with the mistakes, he chose to attack his officers publicly.  There won’t be a shred of respect for him after this and he doesn’t deserve any.  If he thinks law enforcement officers will back him because his attack was against detention officers, he’s mistaken.  They aren’t stupid.  They know Salazar would do the same to them if he thought it would take some of the blame off of him.

Salazar won against Pamerleau by just under 4,200 votes.  Alienating the employees of the Sheriff’s Office to this extent is a career death wish.  Each person has family members and friends who they give advice to on about who they should or shouldn’t vote for.  With about 2,000 employees, I would bet the reach of their influence would easily surpass that 4,200 votes if he even makes it to the general election.

I have to give a shout-out to Investigative Reporter Dillon Collier.  He knew that all he had to do was give Salazar enough rope and Salazar would hang himself with it and that’s exactly what Dillon did.  He let Salazar make a fool out of himself for everyone to see.  Thank you Dillon.  The truth has to come out.

Tags: Deputies lose all faith in Salazar, Dillon Collier, KSAT 12, Salazar attacks his officers, Salazar says releases may be intentional, Sheriff Javier Salazar