Unusual Treatment of SAPD Officer by Bexar County Deputies



SAPD Officer Hinojosa
SAPD Officer Jose Angel Hinojosa

On Saturday evening Bexar County deputies pulled over a vehicle that was going the wrong way on Presa Street.  The driver of the car turned out to be San Antonio Police Officer Jose Angel Hinojosa.  Deputies noticed that Hinojosa had bloodshot, watery eyes.  There was also a strong smell of alcohol.

Hinojosa told the deputies he was an off-duty police officer and according to the information released by the BCSO, the officer became belligerent, verbally abusive and refused to get in the patrol car once they had arrested him.  Here’s where I started wondering.

Normally when an officer is arrested, the on-duty supervisor from the officer’s agency is notified.  They normally send someone to the scene.  This helps calm the situation down.  An officer may be a jerk with an officer from a different agency but they tend to settle down when their own supervisors are on the scene.  Was SAPD notified while the arrest was taking place?  An arrest is not a fast process.  They could have been out there for quite a while especially if the car needed to be towed (don’t know if it was or not).  Did an SAPD supervisor ever show up?

Maybe the writer of the KSAT 12 article just didn’t choose to include anything about the SAPD supervisor being called, if he was.  Maybe the Sheriff’s Office didn’t give the reporter the information on whether an SAPD supervisor was contacted.  There could be a completely innocent reason why nothing is mentioned about an SAPD supervisor being on the scene but it’s curious.

Another surprising thing is the Sheriff’s Office having the SAPD officer escorted around by SERT as if the officer were some kind of high-profile criminal.  I would imagine that the booking area is used to dealing with people who are belligerent.  I doubt they are all escorted by SERT.  The ones who are outright aggressive would be but the SAPD officer wasn’t charged with anything other than DWI so it’s not as if he assaulted anyone.

Recently Sheriff Javier Salazar took a slap from Judge Nelson Wolff on how poorly the jail is being run.  Then he took a slap from SAPD Chief McManus about the poor decision to initiate a chase that the chief felt resulted in one of his men being seriously injured.  The unusual treatment of the SAPD officer almost feels like a bit of petty retaliation.  I sure hope it’s just a case of missing information.  Problems between our two law enforcement agencies would be detrimental to everyone.

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