Police Chief William McManus effectively fired an officer Tuesday who was accused this month of sexually assaulting a prostitute while on duty.
Gregory Mickel, 31, was indefinitely suspended, which is tantamount to termination.
McManus' decision came about two weeks after he indefinitely suspended another officer who allegedly dropped his pants, exposing himself to two female students at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The officer, Patrick Muriel, 29, was arrested in February on a charge of indecent exposure.
Before Tuesday's decision, Mickel had been on administrative leave with pay following his arrest July 3 on charges of sexual assault and official oppression.
Mickel admitted to police that he had sex with a prostitute but claimed it was consensual. Yet police spokesman Joe Rios said such a scenario would not absolve an officer of wrongdoing.
“When you're on duty, there's no consent,” Rios said. “When you're in the official capacity of the office, you need to refrain from any of those activities.”
A woman called police last month and said an officer had sexually assaulted her in a secluded area on the East Side.
Officers, including Mickel, responded to the call, and the woman, 46, “made it clear at the time that it had been (Mickel) that sexually assaulted her,” according to an arrest affidavit.
Yet Mickel took responsibility for the call and did not mention the allegation of sexual assault, instead closing the call with an N-code, which relieved him of the responsibility of writing a report. He said he closed the call because the woman was “a psychiatric patient,” according to the document.
The woman that night refused to cooperate with a police investigation, the affidavit stated.
Two days later, she told police the following story:
On June 26, around 9 p.m., a man picked her up in a gray pickup. Soon after, an officer pulled over the truck, ordered her to sit in the back of his patrol car and told the man to leave.
Displaying her criminal history on his mobile laptop, the officer threatened to arrest the woman on her third count of prostitution and take her to jail on a felony charge if she did not have sex with him.
The woman asked the officer to put on a condom but he refused.
During the assault, the officer locked his duty belt in a vehicle compartment and lowered his uniform pants to his knees. Afterward, he drove her to a nearby location and told her to get out.
Computer records and a Global Positioning System later proved Mickel drove to the exact place the woman claimed the sexual assault occurred, the affidavit stated.
The other officer suspended this month, Muriel, who was arrested in February, was handed an indefinite suspension July 10, according to city records and a police spokeswoman.
The UTSA Police Department arrested Muriel after their own criminal investigation, during which the two victims picked him out of a lineup, according to reports.
--------------------------------
Previous Post: http://whathappenedtoprotectandserve.blogspot.com/2009/07/officer-gregory-mickel-charged-with.html
No comments:
Post a Comment