Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton fired03:18 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 26, 2003
City Manager Ted Benavides fired Police Chief Terrell Bolton on Tuesday morning, ending the reign of an embattled leader whose tenure was marked by the fake drug scandal and a controversy about an officer involved in an off-duty shooting.
"After four years of Chief Bolton's leadership, I just thought it was time to go in a new direction," Benavides said. "I think he's a really good guy. Sometimes events overtake you."
Benavides said an “accumulation of issues,” not one single event, prompted the chief's firing. He said he had been considering the move "for a while."
At a news conference, Bolton, who had been police chief since October 1999, thanked the officers and citizens who supported him, and outlined what he considered his accomplishments: cutting his budget to stay within the city’s means, improving the officers’ salaries, reducing violent crime, and increasing the number of minorities and women in the department.
But he said he did not understand why he had been fired. “I’m still trying to work that out,” he said.
“I leave with no regrets,” he said. “I think that I’ve given Dallas everything that I could give Dallas within the resources that I’ve had.”
Benavides said he would begin a national search, which he expects to take at least six months.
Bolton's dismissal was effective immediately. In the meantime, Assistant Chief Randy Hampton was named to lead the department.
City Councilman John Loza said he supported the city manager's decision.
"I know it’s a very difficult decision on his part and I really do think to a certain extent that Chief Bolton maybe was a victim of circumstances beyond his control," Loza said. "But I think there was a lot on consensus that we needed to take a new direction and I can understand that.
“I think we have an opportunity now to hopefully find someone that will take some new initiatives and get us moving forward, [and] improve the morale in the department.”
Earlier this month, police officials announced that the department's internal affairs division would conduct a review of department hiring practices. Those practices came under scrutiny recently after The Dallas Morning News reported that Officer Derrick C. Evans had been the subject of emergency protective orders in Alaska for allegedly assaulting his wife, according to public records.
The orders were not found by the department's background check when Evans joined the department in February 2000. Evans was put on administrative leave this summer after he wounded a teenager during an off-duty confrontation that involved his stepdaughter.
The chief also was criticized about a July report that showed that Dallas would have the highest crime rate among the nation's largest cities for the sixth year in a row if projections hold true through the end of the year.
At the time, Bolton noted that the city's crime rate had fallen significantly in the last decade, despite an apparent spike in crime for the first half of the year.
The Dallas County district attorney's office has identified more than 80 Dallas police narcotics cases tainted after the fake-drug cases surfaced in late 2001. About two dozen cases involved fake or no drugs, and others were dismissed because of questions surrounding the involved officers and their paid informants.
Sgt. Gil Cerda, president of the Dallas chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association, said the decision to fire Bolton was not particularly surprising.
“All we can say is, we don’t know which straw broke the camel’s back,” Cerda said. “It was something that was in the making. The city manager made the decision to carry it through. I don’t know if he was stimulated by City Council members, or just by the trouble that’s happened over the past four years. Chief Bolton had a tough job. He was hit hard from day one. I don’t know anyone who could cope with that in those four years.”
Bolton supporters said they were disappointed that the city’s first black chief had been fired.
Councilman James Fantroy said he was concerned that race relations in the city will deteriorate as a result.
“The black community believed in Chief Bolton. And so I hope that this doesn’t cause any adverse effect on our city,” he told WFAA-TV.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price pointed to the chief’s clashes with Mayor Laura Miller as a reason he may have been dismissed.
“We understand the mayor has felt like that Chief Bolton was the weak link in the chain … and was probably disposable,” Price said.
Benavides said neither the council nor Miller played a role in his decision to terminate Bolton.
"The city manager hired Mr. Bolton," he said. "The city manager terminated Mr. Bolton."
Dallas Morning News staff writers Colleen McCain, Tanya Eiserer, Holly Becka and Jason Trahan and WFAA-TV contributed to this report.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/082603dnmetbolton.4420b719.html
