Deputy Fired (Maybe) for Lynching Comment
Bexar County Deputy Fired for Inciting Violence
A Bexar County Sheriff’s Office deputy was fired on Thursday for a comment he made on Facebook back in July. Deputy Jack Farmer posted the comment “You all should lynch mob his ass” in regards to mail being stolen. Comments like these, by law enforcement officers erode the public’s trust in the legal system. The death penalty is not the legal remedy for stealing mail. When an officer makes these kinds of comments, he is showing that he has no respect for the law.
But as we have seen, over and over again under Sheriff Javier Salazar, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has quite a bit of a problem with unprofessional officers. So much so, that it’s getting really hard to think of them as outliers, rather than the norm. For instance, in the same original article where KSAT first reported on Deputy Farmer, they also included a comment on Deputy Justin Silva, who was facing a proposed termination for the comment he posted on Facebook that mentioned killing people. Deputy Silva’s comment was in regards to the rioting but again, he was an officer and the constitution does not support extrajudicial killings. In other words, people do not get to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Why Did It Take So Long?
What is really concerning is that in the current article about Deputy Farmer is a quick note at the end that Deputy Floyd Berry was fired on the same day. We wrote an article about Deputy Berry back in December of 2019. Deputy Berry is facing actual criminal charges. He was “charged with three counts of official oppression.” Those charges stem from the complaints that were filed by his female victims, who said that during traffic stops, Deputy Berry would make the women expose their breasts.
How is it that under Sheriff Javier Salazar’s administration, if you violate Sheriff’s Office policy, they can propose and follow through with termination proceedings against you, but if you commit an actual crime, they stall for almost a year before terminating you? It almost gives the impression that they’re not putting much effort into the lynching comment because they expect the officer to win in arbitration and be reinstated, but they expect the termination of Deputy Berry to be upheld.
And that very well could be the case but if they don’t think they have a valid reason for terminating Deputy Farmer, one that would hold up under scrutiny, why did they terminate as opposed to some other form of disciplinary action? Is this all to con the public into believing they are doing something when the truth is, they know it won’t stick? After all, nothing can be solved before November 3 so the public won’t find out anything until after the fact. And if Farmer does get his job back, which I suspect will happen, it won’t really matter. Sheriff Salazar can always blame it on the arbitrators.