Twice-fired Dallas cop arrestedBy TANYA EISERER Staff Writer
teiserer@dallasnews.comPublished 29 June 2011 03:14 PM
A Dallas police officer with a troubled disciplinary history was arrested Wednesday and accused of stealing a gun from a motorist, authorities say.
Officer Lavar Horne faces a charge of theft by a public servant and tampering with evidence. Both are third-degree felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Officer Lavar Horne
Police Chief David Brown fired Horne and two other officers Wednesday during disciplinary hearings. One officer fought with a hospital employee and wrote about it on Facebook, and the other fought with the owner and a bouncer at a Greenville bar, police officials said.
With these firings, 24 officers have been terminated through the department’s internal affairs disciplinary process since Brown assumed command of the department more than a year ago.
Brown did not respond to a request for comment. Horne’s attorney declined to comment.
Authorities say Horne conducted a traffic stop on April 28 during which he searched a vehicle and seized a handgun and marijuana. He allowed the occupants of the vehicle to leave without arresting them.
Horne, who was assigned to northeast patrol at the time, did not take the gun and the marijuana to the property room at the end of his shift as required, police officials said. Later, a man in the vehicle contacted a supervisor at Horne’s patrol station and told them that Horne had taken the gun.
Horne told the supervisor that he didn’t have the gun but later told police commanders that he had forgotten he had it in his bag. He told investigators that he threw the marijuana away, police said.
Investigators also found that he turned off his digital video recorder during the traffic stop. They also discovered that he had turned off his in-car computer and didn’t notify police dispatchers that he’d stopped a vehicle.
Horne, who grew up in South Dallas, was featured in November 2003 in The Dallas Morning News in a series of stories about the department’s questionable hiring practices.
The department rejected Horne the first time he applied in 2001. He failed the civil service exam. A three-officer screening board deemed him “unable to logically process information,” according to department records.
He reapplied, and the department hired him in December 2002. He was fired in October 2003 after the department discovered his license had been suspended for eight months for not having auto insurance. As a probationary officer, he had no right of appeal.
In January 2004, then-interim Police Chief Randy Hampton reinstated Horne after he told Hampton that he had never received notice that his license had been suspended. He also showed Hampton evidence that he had always had insurance.
“Some people had been saying I was a bad officer, and I’m going to prove them wrong. I’m going to go back and do my job,” Horne told The News at the time.
Between 2005 and 2007, Horne was disciplined three times for missing court. In December 2008, he received a 20-day suspension after internal investigators said he had had turned in fake doctor’s notes.
When confronted, Horne admitted they were fake and said he made a mistake because he panicked.
“I apologize to the department … for my conduct in making a very bad decision,” Horne wrote to police investigators. “I can promise and assure you this will not happen again.”
Around that same time, Horne also fell under scrutiny after vice detectives believed he had tipped off club employees about an impending raid. Horne denied having tipped anybody off and said he was not aware of the upcoming raid. Internal affairs investigators ultimately couldn’t prove that Horne had tipped anybody off.
Also fired Wednesday:
Sgt. Hector Roa, once a rising star in the department, was fired over an off-duty February 2010 incident in which authorities say he fought with and pulled a gun on a Greenville Avenue bar owner and bouncer in a drunken rage as they tried to get him to leave at closing time. Roa faces two counts of aggravated assault in connection with the bar incident but he has not been indicted — highly unusual given how long ago the incident occurred. Roa told investigators that he was acting in self-defense.
Sgt. Hector Roa
Also cited in his firing was an incident that occurred in September 2010 where he hit a parked car in the parking garage of his apartment complex. Roa told investigators that he accidentally hit the parked car and placed a business card on the vehicle. No card was found. When police supervisors arrived at Roa’s apartment, they found him intoxicated. Roa was on administrative leave for the February incident at the time, and since the accident occurred during what would have been his duty hours, he was found to be drunk on duty. Roa denied being intoxicated when he hit the parked car.
Senior Cpl. Cat Lafitte was fired after internal investigators found she escalated a February disturbance and posted comments on Facebook that could put the Police Department in a bad light.
Senior Cpl. Cat Lafitte
She is now facing a misdemeanor assault charge over the incident, in which she was accused of attacking a hospital employee with a boot at a Plano hospital. Lafitte told investigators that she acted in self-defense when the employee tried to put her in a headlock and slammed her to the ground. Lafitte bragged about the incident on Facebook, noting that she “took his [expletive] to school.”
She later told investigators that she made these comments during a medical crisis and said, “There is nothing offensive or inflammatory about them unless they are taken out of context.”
Internal investigators also found that Lafitte was absent without leave for a week in May and that she violated the department’s sick leave policy.
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