Coffee City, Texas,
A small town of about 250 people
and 50 police officers on the f.
Our investigative team dug throh
records and found half of those
officers had been suspended,
demoted or fired from previous .
Some even criminally charged
Jeremy Rogowski discovered the n
who hired them can have a shorte
when dealing with others who wer
the badge here in Harris County.
Coffee City's police chief routy
works an extra job 200 miles awy
at this Houston apartment compl.
And on this day, watch how
John J Portillo behaves.
I'm about to call Garcia
and tell him he's gonna be
It's an expletive filled rant
launched at the elected constabf
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 n
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 say,
was draining resources.
So Garcia reached out to the Has
County District Attorney's offi,
and we were advised to tell Chif
Portillo that he had to file the charges.
But when deputies did just that,
Portillo left a nasty voicemail.
And you can't your captions,
you can says, ever. Those numb s
are that you have working for y.
You know, tell them your guys nt
to help us out. It saddened me.
It upset me to hear that this
isn't something small. This is.
I mean, this is pretty upsettin.
What upset the constable?
Even more, the responses agency got back
after alerting Coffee City's ma.
I don't see very much there that
warrants any disciplinary action
from the city, the mayor wrote.
The officers are contracted by e
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 Se
criminal justice professor and retired
Houston police captain. Basical,
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 o
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 fod
that calls into question Portils
character and integrity and his
application to become Coffee City's chief.
He never listed this,
a DWI charge out of Florida in h
he failed to appear in court. Wy
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 sh.
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 werent
being truthful on the applicatin
to which you hold the job this ,
Chief. Yeah, I understand.
I mean, but that's not what it .
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 consequencesr
lying on a government document.
Lenin, man. OK, so there's more to this
investigation tomorrow night. Y.
Tomorrow we reveal how some Cofe
City officers were working fulle
right here in Harris County andw
the chief suspended that divisin
after we started asking questio.
We'll see that tomorrow night.
Thank you, Jeremy. That.