Officer Keith Alfaro is arrested

[KC]

A San Antonio police officer arrested last week on a charge that he assaulted a young woman at a community swimming pool had been accused of misconduct at least twice before, according to documents obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.

Officer Keith Alfaro — a 10-year member of the force assigned to investigate property crimes — was suspended without pay in April 2003 after his supervisors found some merit in two allegations of wrongdoing, both of which involved a pair of brothers who claimed they had been mistreated, threatened and pushed by the officer.

Detailed in a 186-page file obtained this week is a portrait of an officer who was accused of using his badge to intimidate the brothers. But the Civil Service records also depict a man whose annual reviews consistently showed a promising and talented young officer, every year deemed as meeting or exceeding the department's standards. He also was recognized on at least three occasions for using what his bosses termed "good use of police tactics."

Still, the July 22 incident, in which Alfaro is accused of beating 18-year-old Tamara Vaughan at a pool in their neighborhood while off-duty and as his family looked on, led to a news conference in which Police Chief William McManus acknowledged other "dealings with him in the past," though he said he would not characterize the officer as one with a "troubled past."

But those incidents, which took place in October 2002, led to unpaid suspensions totaling six days, of which Alfaro served two. He was also suspended for three days in December 1997 after a crash six months earlier on Austin Highway in which he was found partly at fault.

Those incidents, however, did not prevent the officer from earning promotions. He was made a detective last year, according to the department. And an expert said Tuesday that three suspensions over a decade of policing wouldn't necessarily raise any red flags.

"You're talking a few instances," said Geoffrey Alpert, criminologist at the University of South Carolina. "But the bottom line is there are systems in place where someone would question an officer if he's been suspended multiple times (and) they relate to each other."

Alfaro could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Edward Shaughnessy, declined comment Tuesday.

But Teddy Stewart, president of the city's police union, said he has talked several times to Alfaro in the days since his arrest on charges of second-degree aggravated assault and resisting and evading arrest.

"He was in shock, scared and didn't know what was going to happen," Stewart said, referring to a phone call he received from Alfaro after Bexar County sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to arrest him.

Stewart said the details of the July 22 incident are one-sided and that Alfaro "has a completely different opinion" about what happened when Vaughan approached him and asked him to put out a cigar he was smoking. Stewart would not explain further.


Vaughan also has alleged that Alfaro, 35, used a racial slur and attacked her sexual orientation. She has accused him of punching and choking her at the Village of Trinity Oaks homes community pool, near Loop 1604 and U.S. 281.

Because the incident happened while Alfaro was off-duty, police officials declined last week to comment on the details, saying only that an internal probe was launched into the officer's actions.

Vaughan's allegations came nearly five years after Alfaro was accused of striking a man in the chest with his forearm, causing the man to fall backward. This was after the man had called to report a burglary at his apartment.

Later, Alfaro allegedly told the man, whose brother said he witnessed the October 2002 incident, that the "only thing that's saving me from kicking your ass or killing you is that you are in your house," according to a sworn statement from the man that is in Alfaro's personnel file.

During an internal probe of that allegation, Alfaro denied threatening the man but said the man accused him of acting "bad" because he had a badge and gun and that he told him it was "the badge that was keeping him from getting his ass kicked." Alfaro said he used his "open right hand and a stiff right arm" to move the man because he was blocking a doorway.

Alfaro agreed to a one-day unpaid suspension, reduced from the five days his supervisors had considered.

Later that month, the officer had another run-in with the brothers, one of whom had given Alfaro an alias. Alfaro sought a warrant for his arrest for filing a false name, and the man was detained about two weeks later. At the scene, Alfaro allegedly called him a "wuss," which Alfaro denied.

The man's brother, who lived nearby and witnessed that incident, accused Alfaro of throwing him against a rail. Alfaro denied pushing the brother, but said the two struggled while he tried to arrest him. The brothers filed a formal complaint, and Alfaro was suspended without pay for five days, of which he eventually served one.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/ ... 9f10d.html

[WaTcHeR]

A San Antonio police officer arrested last week on a charge that he assaulted a young woman at a community swimming pool had been accused of misconduct at least twice before, according to documents obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.

Detective Keith Alfaro — a 10-year member of the force assigned to investigate property crimes — was suspended without pay in April 2003 after his supervisors found some merit in two allegations of wrongdoing, both of which involved a pair of brothers who claimed they had been mistreated, threatened and pushed by the officer.

Detailed in a 186-page file obtained this week is a portrait of an officer who was accused of using his badge to intimidate the brothers. But the Civil Service records also depict a man whose annual reviews consistently showed a promising and talented young officer, every year deemed as meeting or exceeding the department's standards. He also was recognized on at least three occasions for using what his bosses termed "good use of police tactics."

Still, the July 22 incident, in which Alfaro is accused of beating 18-year-old Tamara Vaughan at a pool in their neighborhood while off-duty and as his family looked on, led to a news conference in which Police Chief William McManus acknowledged other "dealings with him in the past," though he said he would not characterize the officer as one with a "troubled past."

But those incidents, which took place in October 2002, led to unpaid suspensions totaling six days, of which Alfaro served two. He was also suspended for three days in December 1997 after a crash six months earlier on Austin Highway in which he was found partly at fault.

Those incidents, however, did not prevent the officer from earning promotions. He was made a detective last year, according to the department. And an expert said Tuesday that three suspensions over a decade of policing wouldn't necessarily raise any red flags.

"You're talking a few instances," said Geoffrey Alpert, criminologist at the University of South Carolina. "But the bottom line is there are systems in place where someone would question an officer if he's been suspended multiple times (and) they relate to each other."

Alfaro could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Edward Shaughnessy, declined comment Tuesday.

But Teddy Stewart, president of the city's police union, said he has talked several times to Alfaro in the days since his arrest on charges of second-degree aggravated assault and resisting and evading arrest.

"He was in shock, scared and didn't know what was going to happen," Stewart said, referring to a phone call he received from Alfaro after Bexar County sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to arrest him.

Stewart said the details of the July 22 incident are one-sided and that Alfaro "has a completely different opinion" about what happened when Vaughan approached him and asked him to put out a cigar he was smoking. Stewart would not explain further.


Vaughan also has alleged that Alfaro, 35, used a racial slur and attacked her sexual orientation. She has accused him of punching and choking her at the Village of Trinity Oaks homes community pool, near Loop 1604 and U.S. 281.

Because the incident happened while Alfaro was off-duty, police officials declined last week to comment on the details, saying only that an internal probe was launched into the officer's actions.

Vaughan's allegations came nearly five years after Alfaro was accused of striking a man in the chest with his forearm, causing the man to fall backward. This was after the man had called to report a burglary at his apartment.

Later, Alfaro allegedly told the man, whose brother said he witnessed the October 2002 incident, that the "only thing that's saving me from kicking your ass or killing you is that you are in your house," according to a sworn statement from the man that is in Alfaro's personnel file.

During an internal probe of that allegation, Alfaro denied threatening the man but said the man accused him of acting "bad" because he had a badge and gun and that he told him it was "the badge that was keeping him from getting his ass kicked." Alfaro said he used his "open right hand and a stiff right arm" to move the man because he was blocking a doorway.

Alfaro agreed to a one-day unpaid suspension, reduced from the five days his supervisors had considered.

Later that month, the officer had another run-in with the brothers, one of whom had given Alfaro an alias. Alfaro sought a warrant for his arrest for filing a false name, and the man was detained about two weeks later. At the scene, Alfaro allegedly called him a "wuss," which Alfaro denied.

The man's brother, who lived nearby and witnessed that incident, accused Alfaro of throwing him against a rail. Alfaro denied pushing the brother, but said the two struggled while he tried to arrest him. The brothers filed a formal complaint, and Alfaro was suspended without pay for five days, of which he eventually served one.


http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/ ... 9f10d.html

[WaTcHeR]

SAN ANTONIO — A San Antonio police officer has been suspended indefinitely after an internal affairs investigation into allegations he used a racial slur and beat a woman who asked him to put out his cigar at a community pool.

Detective Keith Alfaro has until Friday to set up a meeting with Police Chief William McManus to appeal the "contemplated indefinite suspension," said police Sgt. Gabe Trevino. Trevino said the action is tantamount to a firing.

Tamara Vaughan, 18, said Alfaro, who was off-duty, hit her 25 times, choking her with his forearm, injuring her jaw and bruising her arm during the July 22 incident. Alfaro was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and evading and resisting arrest.



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 70378.html

[WaTcHeR]

Officer Keith Alfaro suspended indefinitely


A San Antonio police officer accused of assaulting an 18-year-old woman at a neighborhood swimming pool has been issued a notice of indefinite suspension — essentially, an action that is tantamount to being fired.

Police Chief William McManus said he gave Officer Keith Alfaro the notice on Friday — a day after a review board of seven police officers and four civilians made its recommendations to the chief.

Alfaro, a 10-year-veteran who was assigned to investigate property crimes, has a week to respond but the order is unlikely to be overturned.

Alfaro could not be reached for comment.

The chief's action was markedly more punitive than the suggestions from his review board, spurring deep criticism from police union president Teddy Stewart, who characterized the decision as political, and some praise from the alleged victim and her attorney.

McManus, in a meeting with the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board on Friday, said the four civilians on the review board voted that Tamara Vaughan's claims were unfounded — a decision he considered "concerning."

The seven police officers decided Alfaro should be suspended for 30 days.

McManus said the two suggested punishments were a "huge variance" from what he deemed appropriate, adding, "It certainly makes no sense to me."

Under police rules, McManus can consider his review board's suggestions but is not bound by them. Citing likely future litigation about the case, he declined to explain what led him to believe that the complaint was serious enough to merit termination.

"The whole affair from the start to the finish was concerning to me," he said.

Vaughan, who is African American, has charged that Alfaro used a racial slur and attacked her sexual orientation during the July 22 incident that she said started after she asked him to stub out a cigar he was smoking. Alfaro, 35, also allegedly punched and choked her. A day later, he was charged with second-degree aggravated assault and resisting and evading arrest.

But Stewart, who has repeatedly said Vaughan was more at fault than she has claimed, said the chief's decision left him shocked — especially given that the board's civilians deemed the claim was without merit.

Stewart suggested that Alfaro was treated more harshly because Vaughan's attorney, James Myart, has repeatedly and vocally accused the Police Department of brutality against minorities, and said Myart is, "try(ing) to incite racial issues when racial issues don't exist."

"I think the chief has caved in to public pressure from James Myart — which I never thought I would see," Stewart said. "That is beyond me that that could happen."

In a rarity that brought Stewart no joy, his reaction was similar to Myart's, who called McManus' decision a "PR blitz" that was orchestrated to coincide with the editorial board meeting.

Yet Myart also commended McManus, saying it was "about time."

"This needs to be a message to all San Antonio police officers who have those violent tendencies," he said.

Vaughan said, "I feel a lot safer knowing that (Alfaro) doesn't have a badge to parade around with."

In the likely groundwork for a civil lawsuit, Myart said Alfaro's probable termination would not absolve the city of its liability to Vaughan because the city "knew Detective Alfaro had violent proclivities."

Alfaro has been disciplined in three previous infractions. In April 2003, he was suspended without pay after supervisors found some merit in two allegations of wrongdoing, both of which involved a pair of brothers who claimed they had been mistreated, threatened and pushed by the officer.

In 1997, after a crash in which he was found partly at fault, he was suspended for three days.

His bosses also have recognized him several times for making "good use of police tactics."

[fed up in SA]

I realize the updated is overdue, but here it is anyway.


District Attorney Susan D. Reed, announced that a Bexar County Grand Jury returned an indictment against former San Antonio Police Officer Keith Alfaro, age 36, for Assault Causing Bodily Injury.

The allegations arise out of an incident that occurred on July 22, 2007, at the Trinity Oaks Subdivision Community Pool. While off-duty, Alfaro was approached by Tamara Vaughan, age 18, who asked him to put out his cigar. The pool had posted signs designating it as a no smoking area. Alfaro became angry and allegedly struck Tamara Vaughan in the face. Bexar County Sheriff Deputies arrived no the scene and after interviewing witnesses attempted to detain Keith Alfaro, who allegedly fled to his home.

At the time of the alleged assault Alfaro had been a San Antonio Police Officer for 11 years. In August of 2007, Alfaro was indefinitely suspended form the San Antonio Police Department, which is tantamount to termination. Assault Causing Bodily Injury is a Class A Misdemeanor that carries a range of punishment of up to 1 year in jail and a fine not to exceed $4,000.

Alfaro is also charged with Resisting Arrest and Evading Arrest, both misdemeanors. Both of these charges are pending in County Court At Law number 6, with a hearing date of March 8, 2008. No date has been set for the Assault case

[fed up in SA]

Former San Antonio police detective Keith Alfaro acknowledged on the witness stand Thursday he punched an 18-year-old woman during an argument two years ago at a neighborhood pool.

The 37-year-old also admitted he called Tamara Vaughan, who has black and Hispanic ancestry, a “half breed” while talking to a 911 operator. Alfaro also acknowledged he told Vaughan he didn't speak Ebonics and instructed her to “take that East Side attitude back over there.”

But while the remarks might have had racial undertones, they weren't meant to be negative, Alfaro told a Bexar County jury during the third day of his trial on misdemeanor assault and evading and resisting arrest charges. He said the single punch he delivered in the July 22, 2007, confrontation was only after being backed into a corner at the neighborhood pool, where his children were swimming.

“I did not attack Tamara Vaughan,” he said. “It was totally defensive... It was her own actions that forced me to take those measures.”

Alfaro was arrested a day after sheriff's deputies responded to his gated community north of San Antonio. While at the pool, which doesn't allow smoking, Vaughan asked him to put out his cigar, she told authorities. The confrontation ended with Alfaro repeatedly punching and choking her, she said.

Responding officers later said Alfaro ran inside his nearby home and refused to come out when they tried to arrest him.

Alfaro, however, said Thursday he was aggressively approached by the teen and she swiped at the cigar, which was still in his mouth. He declined to say if the other officers were deliberately lying about what happened. But they were in over their head and got it wrong, he said.

For instance, no one ever told him he was under arrest or to stop as he walked to his house, he said. And, contrary to the testimony of the first deputy on the scene, he never used the words, “I'm the f'ing po-po,” he said.

Alfaro also challenged the testimony of a witness who was watching her grandchildren at the pool and said she saw him “pummel” the teen, as well as the testimony of Vaughan, who estimated that she was hit 20 to 25 times.

Prosecutor Shane Keyser pointed to a photo of Vaughan during cross-examination, wondering aloud how she could have bruises on her chin and cheek if she was punched only once.

“You weren't going to have an 18-year-old girl at a pool tell you what to do that day ... especially if she was black, were you?” Keyser asked.

It was her attitude and aggressive manner — not her race — that were at issue, Alfaro responded.

“She though she was talking to a child,” he said. “She thought she was talking to someone she could bully — not an adult family man.”

Prosecutors tried unsuccessfully Thursday to show jurors an online profile of the defendant from a mixed martial arts site in which he allegedly brags to having “countless street KO's.”

“This is a man who's been in numerous street fights,” Keyser told the judge outside the presence of the jury. “This isn't an average citizen at the pool who's confronted.”

Prosecutors also were unable to admit internal affairs files from the San Antonio Police Department that they told the judge would show “numerous incidents of him being the initial aggressor.”

Chief William McManus opted to place the 11-year veteran on indefinite suspension — the equivalent of termination — a month after the incident. If convicted of the charges, Alfaro could face up to a year in jail.

[fed up in SA]

A former San Antonio police detective described by prosecutors as a racist and a “bad apple” was acquitted Friday afternoon of assault, but convicted of two other misdemeanor charges of evading and resisting arrest.

The split verdict, which came after more than six hours of deliberation, capped a weeklong trial in which Keith Alfaro and his attorneys claimed a rivalry between the Police Department and the Bexar County Sheriff's Office led to the charges.

Alfaro, 37, faces up to a year in jail for the resisting arrest conviction and up to six months' incarceration for evading arrest. A judge also has the option to sentence him to probation.

Alfaro was an 11-year veteran of the force when he was arrested — and subsequently fired — for a July 22, 2007, confrontation with 18-year-old Tamara Vaughan at a neighborhood pool.

Vaughan told investigators that the off-duty detective made disparaging remarks about her race and that he punched her 20 to 25 times after she told him to put out his cigar. Pool rules prohibited smoking.

Sheriff's deputies who responded to the incident said Alfaro left and wouldn't emerge from his house when they tried to arrest him. He turned himself in the next day.

“For some reason, rules don't apply to Keith Alfaro,” prosecutor Shane Keyser said during closing arguments. “He wants a different standard.”

On the witness stand, Alfaro disputed much of the testimony deputies and witnesses gave. He said Vaughan approached him in an aggressive manner, spouting profanities. Alfaro admitted to punching Vaughan once, but only after she backed him into a fence. He also acknowledged wrestling with her to the ground.

Vaughan was no victim, defense attorney John Convery added Friday.

“She's trouble. You know that,” Convery said, repeatedly referring to Vaughan in a sarcastic tone as “this delightful young lady.”

“They dressed her up and put her in here, (but) she is the pool bully.”

As for the evading and resisting arrest charges, Convery repeated assertions by Alfaro and a San Antonio Police Department lieutenant that Bexar County deputies seemed unprepared to deal with the situation.

But if the deputies seemed befuddled, it was because Alfaro took advantage of their professional courtesy to a fellow officer, countered prosecutor Charles Rich. That professional courtesy needed to end with the jury, Rich added, describing Alfaro as an “arrogant, cocky, racist fighter.”

Vaughan's voice quivered as she left the courtroom after the verdict. The assault acquittal was very upsetting, she said.