Big Sheriff is watching you

Unbelievable.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office acknowledged Tuesday that deputies were assigned to watch two brothers who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the department over their arrest during a 2002 drug raid.

Sheriff's Capt. John Martin said one or two members of the department's investigative support unit conducted surveillance on Erik and Sean Ibarra for five or six hours over a three-day period last October.

While Martin and First Assistant County Attorney John Barnhill said the unit did nothing illegal, the Ibarras are threatening to sue.

South Texas College of Law professor Adam Gershowitz said the department's actions may have opened the door for a harassment or invasion of privacy lawsuit.

"It certainly doesn't make it good policy or acceptable just because it's not criminal," Gershowitz said.

I think "vindictive" might be a good descriptor here. The only possible reason to be doing this is to hope, however vainly, that you can catch them doing something illegal - moderately suspicious or embarassing will do in a pinch if you're doing video surveillance - and use it at trial to attack their character. Does any of that sound like a good use of public resources?

Lloyd Kelley, the brothers' attorney, said he was preparing to sue on behalf of the Ibarras and other people who sued the department and believe they were trailed by deputies.

"I just don't see how the sheriff's department can continue this kind of reign of terror," Kelley said.

Martin dismissed Kelley's accusations, describing the surveillance as a routine step in preparing for trial.

He said he was not sure what the deputies were looking for, other than "background information." Nothing useful came from the surveillance, beyond confirmation of the Ibarras' address, he added.

Oh, spare me. I just said what they were looking for. You can call it "background information" if you want, but that doesn't change anything.

He said the unit has conducted similar operations in the past for the county attorney's office, usually in workers' compensation cases. He said he could not say how much was spent on surveillance of the Ibarras because it was part of the unit's normal operations.

"We're not talking about some long, drawn-out, resource-intensive operation," he said.

Barnhill said the county attorney's office did not request the surveillance in this case. He said the office has 10 investigators who handle that work, though the sheriff's department may have assisted once or twice.

Translation: Mike Stafford, who has enough problems of his own to worry about, wants no part of these shenanigans. You're on your own, bubba.

Gershowitz said it was normal for attorneys to gather background information before trial, but it would be unusual for the person or entity being sued to do the spying.

"It just sort of looks bad," he said. "They may have had the best of intentions, although it's hard to see that, but it looks inappropriate."

Houston City Councilman Adrian Garcia, who is running for sheriff as a Democrat, said the department abused its authority.

Garcia is holding a press conference this afternoon, so I imagine he'll have a lot more to say about this. Here's KTRK video about this story, from Monday and yesterday. You can count on there being more to this as well.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on May 14, 2008 to Local politics