New Tonight, a tiny Texas town
of about 250 people has 50 sworn
police officers on the force.
We're talking about Coffee City
that's up in Henderson County,
some three hours north of Houston.
They have one cop for every 5 residents.
And what's more,
Jeremy Rogowski discovered many
of those officers have a history
of problems wearing the badge
on the banks of Lake Palestine,
some three hours north of Houston.
This thought on the map has quite a
reputation among those who drive through.
They're everywhere,
literally everywhere. They
run back and forth, back and forth, a
lot of officers policing a
very small number of people.
Only 249 people, says the
sign on the edge of town.
And when you add up all the
fulltime cops and reserves
fifty officers, good Lord, that's crazy.
It's such a small town. Why do we need
so many? Makes no sense
why you need that many officers.
Coffee City hauled in $1,000,000
in court fines last year for
more than 5000 violations.
Officers wrote the most in the
state for a town its size.
But this isn't a story
about a small town writing a bunch
of tickets. You see, Coffee City
is a magnet for troubled cops.
How do we know?
K U2U11 Investigates obtained personnel
records from other police agencies
and found more than half of Coffee
City officers had been suspended,
demoted, terminated or dishonorably
discharged from their previous jobs.
A dozen were even criminally charged.
I was astounded to think that they've
been hired by another agency.
Greg Freeman is a Sam Houston State
criminal justice professor and
retired Houston police captain.
I've never seen anything like that in my
professional career, and I've seen a lot.
Their prior discipline ranges
from excessive force to public
drunkenness, untruthfulness,
and association with known criminals.
Criminal charges include DWI theft,
aggravated assault, family violence,
and endangering a child
If you knowingly or hiring an officer
that has a very troubled past in
history and has no business to be
wearing a uniform, and it's a very,
very precarious slope that that
city is engaging in by hiring.
This is the man who hired them.
Chief John J Portillo quadrupled
the department size since he took
the job two years ago, he says,
to provide 24/7 coverage for the town.
Why would you hire so many
people with all these red flags?
There's more to just what's on paper.
And that's where I I rely on my captain
and my my background investigators to
go in and dig and say, hey, what's that?
What's the truth behind this?
The chief says criminal
charges were often dismissed,
dishonorable discharges overturned.
He claims most applicants hired got
on the wrong side of agency politics.
If you go back to the totality
of a lot of these officers stuff,
I would say 75% or not more,
they're being retaliated
against from their agency.
Retaliate. Why would you
take a chance, chief? They
tried to look at the good in
everybody and I believe everybody.
There's an opportunity.
You give a lot of opportunities.
Yes, we do. Yes, we do.
The opportunity to wear a badge allows
his officers to work extra jobs,
which can mean real money,
$50.00 an hour or more.
I mean let's not hide it from anybody.
They're making probably about 80
to 100,000 a year doing that.
And I asked Portillo directly,
does he get a cut of his
officers extra job wages?
Twice During our interview the chief said no.
The only money he makes from extra
jobs is from the ones he works himself,
and that takes us from Coffee
City to Houston and what's
coming up tomorrow night at 10.
That's Chief Portillo caught on
camera cussing out an elected
Harris County constable.
Portillo was working security for a
southeast Houston apartment complex
nearly 200 miles away from Coffee City.
More on that video and what else we
learned about Chief Portillo's past as our
investigation continues tomorrow at 10.
Letting me Jeremy
Rogowski. Fascinating report there.
We'll see you tomorrow for more.
Thank you Coffee City, TX,
a small town of about 250 people and
50 police officers on the force.
Our investigative team dug through
records and found half of those
officers had been suspended,
demoted or fired from previous jobs.
Some even criminally charged.
Jeremy Rogowski discovered the man
who hired them and have a short fuse
when dealing with others who wear
the badge here in Harris County.
Coffee City's police chief routinely
works an extra job 200 miles away
at this Houston apartment complex.
And on this day, watch how
John J Portillo behaves.
I'm about to call Garcia and
tell him he's going to be.
It's an expletive filled rant launched
at the elected constable of Harris
County Precinct 2, Jerry Garcia
Portillo wanted Precinct 2 to
file charges on a man he says
assaulted him at the complex.
It was just one of many requests
the constable says kept coming in
from off duty coffee City cops,
which at first was, you
know, no big deal, we help anybody
and everybody, but then we noticed
that it was becoming a pattern.
That pattern, the constable says,
was draining resources.
So Garcia reached out to the Harris
County District Attorney's office,
and we were advised to tell Chief Portillo
that he had to file the charges. But
when deputies did just that,
Portillo left a nasty voicemail.
And you can't. You're captively can.
So whoever those numb nuts are that
you have working for you, you know,
tell them your guys not help us out.
It saddened me. It upset me to hear that
this isn't something small. This is.
I mean, this is pretty upsetting. What
upset the constable?
Even more, the responses agency got
back after alerting Coffee City's mayor.
I don't see very much there that
warrants any disciplinary action
from the city, the mayor wrote.
The officers are contracted by the
property for off duty police protection.
You may want to reach out
to them with any complaints.
Didn't think that it merited any disciplinary
action against them. It's it's crazy.
Greg Freeman is a Sam Houston State
criminal justice professor and
retired Houston police captain.
Basically, that's you're enabling
bad behavior now and that's
exactly what the mayor has done. So
what does Chief Portillo
have to say for himself? If
I was amped up and I apologize to
my City Council at City Council.
Did you apologize to Constable Garcia?
No, I haven't had a chance to.
I haven't talked to him.
The cussing incident
happened six months ago. Is
that the real John Jay Portillo that
people are seeing in this video? No,
I don't. I don't just go off the handle.
Well, you did hear.
Yeah, because I was.
I got socked in the face.
I was mad. I was red.
And I was upset because I
could they wouldn't, you know,
help me file the charges.
It's not the only example we found
that calls into question Portillo's
character and integrity and his
application to become Coffee City's chief.
He never listed this,
a DWI charge out of Florida in which
he failed to appear in court. Why
wouldn't you disclose that? Chief
didn't disclose. It was over 10 years ago.
You had an active warrant, huh?
That was disposed of?
No, it wasn't, Court records show.
The day after our interview,
Portillo hired a Florida defense attorney
who filed a not guilty plea in the case.
From the looks of it, you weren't
being truthful on the application
to which you hold the job this day,
Chief. Yeah, I understand. I mean,
but that's not what it is.
I'm not not being truthful.
You forgot. I just.
I put down everything that was in
my mind when I filled out my case,
to the best of my knowledge.
Well, that same job application states
there are criminal consequences for lying
on a government document. Lenin, Mia.
OK, so there's more to this
investigation tomorrow night.
Yeah. Tomorrow we reveal how some Coffee
City officers were working fulltime
right here in Harris County and how
the chief suspended that division
after we started asking questions.
We'll see that tomorrow night.
Thank you, Jeremy. See you. That
AKA to you 11 investigation
leads to changes at a Texas
Police Department this week.
We've showed you how the town of Coffee,
Coffee City, 3 hours north of Houston,
is a magnet for cops with
troubling backgrounds.
Now the chief is temporarily shutting
down a division that works here in
Harris County after Jeremy Rogowski
question whether it's legal.
Coffee City,
Texas, a dot on the map with
barely 250 residents as a
police force of fifty officers,
five times the number of cops than
any other Texas town its size.
And that's not the only thing unusual or I
turns out there are a half dozen
fulltime Coffee City police officers
who don't even work in Coffee City, TX.
Instead, they work from home,
more than three hours.
And nearly 200 miles away in Houston.
It's hard to believe that that is happening.
Greg Freeman is a Sam Houston
State criminal justice professor.
I've never seen anything like that.
There are 100 questions
that come to my mind. Who
are these officers?
This internal e-mail shows they're
part of a warrant division, it reads.
There is no need to go to Coffee City
because you will be spending 95% of
your time on the phone calling people
who have outstanding warrants and
collecting failure to appear fines.
And because it's a fulltime position,
there's an added perk.
Gives them the ability to
go work out an extra job.
Coffee City Chief John J Portillo
concedes They're on the books as
fulltime because state law only allows
fulltime cops to work extra security
jobs at this Houston apartment complex.
Some Coffee City warrant officers do just
that and make more than $50.00 an hour.
They work 2-3 days a week, four days a week.
But is it all above board?
The warrant division is a
performance based division and
officers pay is based on the
failure to appears. They collect
and they're basically
bounty hunters in a way,
Freeman says, That amounts to a
Commission for collecting fines.
It doesn't make any sense
from a ethical perspective.
It just screams questions about the
legitimacy of what they're doing. That's
because state law requires fulltime
peace officers to get paid at least at
the federal minimum wage. But again,
at the Coffee City Warrant Division,
the court gives them $150.00 for
each warrant that they clear
so they don't earn a salary.
Apart from that $150.00, No Sir.
No Sir. Ahead. Is that legal?
I believe so.
Two days after our interview,
Coffee City PD change course,
sending out this e-mail to
warrant detectives that said
due to unforeseen difficulties,
the program has been suspended until
such time as I can make sure that we
are in compliance with labor laws.
So whose job is it to police the police?
The Department of Public Safety
enforces any extra job violations.
The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement
or Chico has the power to suspend or
revoke a peace officer's license.
That agency confirms to us it does
have an open investigation into
the Coffee City Police Department.
Guys, you raising a lot of
eyebrows. Jeremy, thank you.