Dallas Officer Defended by David Sloane back on the job

Source: Dallas Morning News 10-31-2008

DALLAS-After 10 months of being at home collecting a paycheck from the city of Dallas, Officer Marcus Winn has returned to work.
Officer Winn was placed on administrative leave on Dec. 2, 2007, after he was accused of assaulting his ex-wife at her home in Arlington. Officer Winn was found not guilty last month of the charges. He returned to patrolling the streets of Dallas on Monday.
"I did not do it. I was at home laying down getting ready for work the next day," Officer Winn said. He said that the statements that the witnesses and his ex-wife gave did not match.
Officer Winn said he is relieved to be back at work. "This is a career that I love and there's nothing better than to help people that call for your assistance," Officer Winn said.Officer Winn has troubled history of finding himself on the other side of the law mostly in domestic-related clashes since his hiring by the Dallas Police Department in 2000. He acknowledged that he's had some bad luck during his career of "people trying to put allegations on me."
In 2003, he was accused of assaulting a fellow officer in the parking lot of the southeast patrol station, where he is still assigned. According to reports, Officer Winn said he approached Officer James Jablon over a comment that he had supposedly made about Officer Winn taking remedial classes. Another officer and Officer Jablon told investigators that Officer Winn bumped him chest to chest and struck him in the face with his index finger. Officer Winn denies that there was ever any physical contact. "He (Officer Jablon) didn't even show up in court," he said. "That's how that got dismissed." He received a written reprimand over that incident.
The following year, the off-duty officer was accused of breaking into a house and attacking his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend. According to a police report, Officer Winn flagged down responding officers and told them that he had broken into the house and struck the new boyfriend. The ex-girlfriend told police that she had broken off the relationship but that he kept harassing her. He was accused of burglary of a habitation over the incident. A grand jury subsequently no billed him. He was suspended 20 days over the incident. Arlington police records show that Officer Winn and his ex-wife have had a tumultuous relationship going back to at least 2003, resulting in numerous incidents of police being called out to deal with conflicts between them. She has repeatedly accused him of abusing her, though he also has accused her of the same thing. At one point in 2006, the ex-wife's neighbors who were babysitting their child told police that that they were scared of him because of the aggressive way he was acting when he came to pick up the child. In 2007, the ex-wife told police that they had gotten into an argument over their son and that he hit her with his head on the left side of her face. She also said that at one point, he kicked her during the October incident. "I tried to get up and he did not let me. He grabbed my hands and hugged me and sat me back on the bed and told me he was sorry," she told police, the records show. "I was crying and my son was screaming."
She told police that he apologized but took away her cell phone to prevent her from calling 911. She called the police after he left. He later denied that he had been at her apartment.
She later called police and said she didn't want to pursue charges because he was the father of her child. Police filed the charges anyway. They filed charges relating to preventing her from calling 911, unlawful restraint and assault. A witness had also told police that she had heard the couple's son state that his "daddy" had "hit mommy." Officer Winn says that witness is actualy a cousin of an Arlington police detective. Police records also show the witness had changed her account of when she saw Officer Winn's ex-wife with her supposed injuries. Officer Winn alleges that his ex-wife used Halloween paint to make herself look injured and then took pictures of her supposed injuries. Police records state that she did not have fresh bruising when she called police to the home to report the assault, the day after it supposedly happened. He also says that his ex-wife was dating an Arlington police officer. The department's internal affairs division is looking into the incident. What, if any, discipline he will receive has not yet been decided. Officer Winn, a Texarkana native, graduated from Southern Arkansas University with a degree in business administration in 1999. He applied to the Texarkana Police Department in Arkansas but was rejected because he failed the written test, records show. He was working as a shoe salesman at a department store when the Dallas Police Department hired him in March 2000.

DWI CHEKPOINTS APPROVED - MAY APPLY TO DALLAS FT. WORTH

AUSTIN -- Drivers in urban cities and counties could be stopped and checked for their sobriety at police checkpoints under a bill tentatively passed Monday by the Texas Senate.
The vote was 21-10 with six Republican and four Democratic senators voting no. A 1994 Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling outlawed sobriety checkpoints, but said the Legislature could make them legal.
The checkpoints would be publicized to deter people from drinking and driving, said bill sponsor Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas. He estimated that the drop in drunken driving would save 300 lives each year in Texas, which leads the nation in alcohol-related traffic fatalities.
Carona won support from lawmakers who previously opposed checkpoint bills by requiring that the stops be videotaped and audio recorded. The bill also prohibits police from asking for a driver’s license or insurance card.
Approval from a sheriff or mayor would be needed to set up a checkpoint, which would only be allowed in a county with at least 250,000 residents or a city with at least 500,000 residents.