Posted on 08/05/2007 12:38:45 PM PDT by Daffynition
SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio police have opened an internal affairs investigation into the behavior of a veteran officer accused of using a racial slur and beating a lesbian woman who asked him to put out his cigar at a community pool.
Tamara Vaughan, 18, said her jaw was pushed in and she still cannot open it far after an attack by Detective Keith Alfaro, 35, who was off-duty.
Vaughan was hospitalized. She has bruises on her arm that she says are from Alfaro and estimates he hit her 25 times, including putting his forearm on her throat and choking her.
Alfaro was arrested last week and charged with aggravated assault and evading and resisting arrest.
Ed Shaughnessy, an attorney for Alfaro, said the case is pending before a grand jury and that Alfaro has not been formally indicted.
“Hopefully he won’t be,” Shaughnessy said. He added that his client maintains his innocence but would not elaborate.
The July 22 incident happened at the pool at the housing subdivision where Vaughan lives with her grandmother, aunt and uncle and cousins.
According to a written statement signed by Vaughan, she was at the pool with four cousins when the smoke from Alfaro’s cigar began to bother her. When she asked Alfaro, who was on the phone, to put it out, they got into a verbal fight.
Vaughan’s statement said Alfaro then used the N-word against Vaughan, who is black, and made comments about Vaughan’s appearance, saying “You wanna look like a man, I’m gonna treat you like a man.”
Vaughan said she was wearing swimming trunks and a T-shirt at the pool. Vaughan, who is a lesbian, said Tuesday, July 31, she believes Alfaro was attacking her sexual orientation.
Alfaro then allegedly hit Vaughan, who fell to the ground. She said he continued to hit her and then laid on top of her, placing his arm across her neck to choke her. After he stopped, she said she tried to get up but that he then started hitting her again.
During the altercation, Vaughan said her 15-year-old cousin jumped on Alfaro’s back to pull him off of her. Afterward, Vaughan’s cousin was yelling at Alfaro, who allegedly responded, “I don’t speak ghetto. I don’t understand Ebonics. Speak English.”
The incident is being investigated by Bexar County, since it happened outside city limits.
Alfaro’s has been placed on administrative duty during the police internal affairs investigation, police Sgt. Gabe Trevino said.
Vaughan and her father met with San Antonio Police Chief William McManus Tuesday, but said they won’t be satisfied until Alfaro is off the force. “The officer at the end of the day got paid for beating me,” Vaughan said. “I would love for him to be suspended. Fired. Something. But suspended for right now would be fine.”
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.
Those incidents, however, did not prevent the officer from earning promotions. He was made a detective last year, according to the department.
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.
Bryan Chu
Express-News
A San Antonio police officer was arrested Monday after an 18-year-old woman claimed that he punched her repeatedly at a community pool Sunday afternoon, an attack that she said came after she asked him to stub out a cigar he was smoking.
Detective Keith Alfaro was charged with second-degree aggravated assault, Police Chief William McManus said at a late-night news conference Monday. Alfaro, 35, also was charged with evading and resisting arrest.
Police said Alfaro, who was released from the Bexar County Jail late Monday after posting a $12,000 bond, will be placed on paid administrative duty pending the outcome of internal and criminal investigations.
"Any time these types of allegations are leveled against a police officer, they are concerning," said McManus, who would not comment on the details of the woman's claims. He deferred questions about the altercation to the Bexar County Sheriff's Department, which is conducting an investigation.
But Tamara Vaughan said she was so badly beaten that her face was red, black and blue, and that her arms remain swollen and bruised after the altercation that she said occurred at a community pool in the Village of Trinity Oaks, a gated community off U.S. 281 North outside Loop 1604.
Vaughan said she was swimming with four cousins when she noticed a man smoking a cigar, despite a rule that prohibits smoking within the pool fence. She said she asked the man, who was standing and talking on his cell phone, to stop.
Instead, she claimed, the man confronted her and punched her repeatedly. He also insulted her, Vaughan said, and attacked her ethnicity and sexual orientation.
"He told me: 'You (racial slur) need to go back to the East Side where you belong. Just because you think you have money, you think you can stay where y'all want,'" said Vaughan, who is Hispanic and African American. "Then he said, 'If you want to act like a man, (I'm going to) treat you like a man.' I was punched in the face with a closed fist. Before I could get up he was beating me in the head, neck, chin, and my arms. Then he choked me."
Sunday's alleged incident was not the first time Alfaro's conduct has come to the attention of police, McManus said.
"We've had some dealings with him in the past," he said, before quickly adding that he would not characterize the officer as one with a "troubled past."
McManus said the Police Department mandates a certain number of hours of sensitivity training through the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education. He said Alfaro, a 10-year veteran who was just promoted last year to a detective in the property crimes division, has gone through that training.
Vaughan said she was punched approximately 25 times. She was taken by EMS to North Central Baptist Hospital about 2:30 p.m.
Vaughan's cousin, Tylia Hopkins, 15, said she witnessed the encounter, and that the beating was "nonstop." She said she got out of the pool, jumped on her cousin's attacker and began "punching him."
"I was like, I gotta get this dude off her," Hopkins said.
The cousins said the man, who had Vaughan on the ground with his forearm at her throat, said he was going to make Vaughan pass out if Hopkins didn't get off. Hopkins did, but to no avail, they said, because the officer continued his assault until he finally stopped and walked away.
Vaughan's grandmother, Dina Bushrod, who lives a couple of blocks from the pool, said she received a call from Hopkins' mother after the alleged assault. So Bushrod and her nephew, Bill Shea, drove over and picked up her grandchildren from the pool. Bushrod said she looked for her granddaughter's attacker, and with the help of the grandchildren was able to spot him a few blocks away.
When Bushrod got out of her car to confront the man, he began threatening her and said he was a San Antonio police officer, she said. Shea, who is in his 30s, approached the man and was able to quell the situation, Bushrod said.
It wasn't immediately known who called police, but Bexar County sheriff's deputies arrived at the pool and tracked down the officer, Bushrod said. McManus confirmed that when deputies arrived Alfaro fled to his home.
A message left for a sheriff's official was not returned Monday.
Thanks.
No, you can't...or shouldn't.
However, it really helps to use the English language, and not some butchered version.
It helps with communication.
Asking about the police officer’s and his family’s immigration status? It took 15 posts...
What does that have to do with you already convicting the cop in the news article? Zip.
When did lesbian become an adjective? Somehow I think this is a loaded story.
There are laws against beating lesbians?
I think “anger management problems” was a good call, based on the other news sources we’ve seen.
In this thread: People who think JBT’s are grrrrrreat when they beat up on people we don’t like.
Sounds like a workman's comp-type issue, as well.
Why do you think Hillary Clinton has the Secret Service protecting her?
Cha-Ching ping!
It’s a gay/lesbian oriented newspaper.”
______________
Nuff said.
I’ll bet he was fighting for his life against an overwhelming foe.
$5 says if you had video of her making the charges that immobile jaw was flappin in the breeze quite freely.
Please read the article again. He hit her in the face and was also choking her.
There is no need to embellish....understand that. The pictures that were taken by the police proves her injuries.
Speaking of telling lies... seems like the Police officer had more to hide. That is why he ran home and barricaded himself in the house for a day before he turned himself in. Does that sound like a Police Officer that was justified in his actions????
she has a lot of brusies on her arm, face, neck and a swollen jaw, where did you get your info, look at the pictures! that was so wrong
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