They will be punished

Bottom line on this is, the guys were drinking and someone died. Should they be punished? You bet. However, the police/others did not do their jobs correctly and that opened a get out of jail pass for them. Had the procedures been followed correctly, I doubt any of this would going on.

*shrugs*

The prosecution can only do well if the investigation is comlete.

i'll laugh it once the prosecution loses.

Maybe this case had such a magnitude that to decline prosecutiion citing lack of evidence would have been a crime within itself!

true, but then you wouldnt be wasting the court's, your's, the defendant's, and the defense attorney's time with a case in which the jury was going to come back and say, "not guilty" bc you didnt have enough evidence to prove tht they should give you a guilty verdict.

Many of you are forgetting that both drivers have a duty at a stop sign. One single driver doesn't cause an accident. What was the other driver doing? Had they been drinking too? Who knows? Let this play out in court and stop finding people guilty in the court of public opinion before they have had their day. That is what we would all want and deserve if it were us or a loved one on trial. It is a horrible tragedy made worse by all the misinformation and fighting amongst the agencies.

You are dealing with two different and separate entities....the police who investigate the crime and the DA's office who prosecute the crimes (insert sound here). As I stated before, if the prosecution shows the weaknesses during trial then they are saying basically that even though there are these deficiencies the case is still good. If the prosecution allows the defense to show all the deficiencies than the prosecution will come across to the jury as incompetent. AND if you wait to get all your ducks in a row as you wrote, the case may never get to trial!

lol it sucks when u dont have faith in your own staff

my advice is to get all ur ducks lined in a row before u go to trial, if u can rip ur own witness to shreds then your doing the defense attorney's job for them.

god forbid the people in this town have a place to discuss and argue the news of Victoria !

if you don't like this discussion, don't open the thread.

The Advocate should shut down this gripe section because that's all some people do! No matter what or who or where somebody's gonna gripe! You all are a bunch of unhappy people with nothing better to do! Live a good life and get involved in helping the law instead of all the negativity against the DA or the police dept!

mimi you could have not said it any better!

Why doesn't everyone get off this DA's Office vs VPD bulls**t? It only serves to further divide the community and fan the flames of the rift.

Let us hope that Mr. Garza is professional enough to work with the PD personnel in this case and obtain the conviction of this man, whose stupidity and recklessness took the life of two people, and left a small child without a mother! I don't think Mr. Garza, Mr. Tyler, Ure, or anyone else, should be using this tragedy to make one or the other look bad. That's petty and childish! And offensive to the family of the victims.

If the DA can't make the intoxicated manslaughter stick, then try for vehiclular manslaughter or reckless endangerment!

But for the actions of the defendant, a little boy would not have been seriously injured.... but for the actions of the defendant, a little boy would not have lost his mother.... but for the actions of the defendant, two people would still be alive today.

It was not the VPD's fault that this guy was drinking and driving too fast --

LOL DonMader!

Golly,
I think you are forgetting that Garza was once a prosecutor before going into private practice. So, maybe he is going back to what he wanted to do in the first place and that it put bad guys away! Maybe losing cases as a defense attorney actually was what the community needed, and that is criminals found giulty.

First let me say that this whole thing is a bad deal. For everyone involved. In no way am I defending the Police, but I am going to point out the obvious about both the DA'soffice and the VPD.

The prosecutor in question. Eli Garza, was a long time defense attorney here in town who many times voiced his displeasure with the police while he worked against them, as he was working on behalf of the criminals of this community. You have to wonder how you go from adamately defending criminals one day, to prosecuting them the next
? I personally heard comments one day that he made to some VPD officers that was not only extremely unprofessional, but sour grapes, and he should have never said what he said. He was real mad that he had just lost a case and verbally took it out on the investigators that just successfully presented their side. They just had a pretty bad dude convicted. Ridiculous and immature, but go figure, I'm sure his client had just gotten a pound of his rearend after his performance, or lack there of, in the court room that day.

It just doesn't work in my mind, but each to his own. Garza lost cases over and over as a defense attorney. More often then not he was beat around the court room by good hard working, experienced, investigators that apparently knew the law a little better than he. IMO, this wore on him and he now has a grudge against the police. Naturally the police weren't his favorite people as he represented crooks and extremely bad people time and time again. I guess when the police prove all your clients guilty over and over it probably tarnishes your reputation and leaves your ability as a defense attorney in question? I'm guessing his practice was suffering? I'm sure he was licking his chops to get into that DA's office and make law enforcement's lives a living nightmare. Noone will ever convince me that he is there for the good of this community. Not to mention, he was going to get a steady pay check. Looks like he is succeeding in his payback efforts. I really am not familiar with his work as a prosecutor other than what I hear and read in the paper. Looks like he picked up right where he left off though. Bashing the police, and stomping holes in their testimony. All experienced law enforcement officials and District Attorney's know that there is a right way and wrong way to handle case discrepencies. Garza's method is way out of line and severly unprofessional. His choice to berade and hammer his officers on the stand speak volumes about Garza's character. That was not indicative of a good prosecuotr, but rather very reflective of a person who has an axe to grind at the exspebnse of victim's and a community. Hang in there law enforcement...... not too much longer left until Steve Tyler's term is up. Before you know it there will be an election and a new DA will be in place. That's a given.

As for the VPD, they are not without fault either. Again, the general public needs to understand that the VPD is very young and inexperienced. Not an excuse, just a painful fact. They went through a huge transformation when Chief Tim Braaten was fired, (uhhh I mean when he resigned willfully). You can partly blame the city leaders for the problems the VPD is experiencing now. The VPD lost more experienced Supervisors, Patrol Officers, and veteran Investigators then they ever had before in the history of the department. I think something like half of the Investigations division and a large majority of management left. If I remember correctly one Police Officer told me it was about 35 or 40 officers that walked away that next year, once Braaten was forced out. Most of these individuals went to work at other agencies in the area such as the Victoria Sheriff's Office and other agencies. It's funny, you really don't read about any difficulties the VCSO is having getting people prosecuted? They aren't, because they have the majority of the experienced managers, supervisors, and veteran investigators on staff that all came from the VPD. This was not talked about much, but on a few occassions the Advocate wrote a story or two about the shortage of officers and the mass exodus at the VPD. It was staggerring! The good people on the inside at the VPD knew that these days were ahead. What Victoria is seeing now is the after affects of what occurred about 3 years ago with the transition of Braaten's administration to the Richard Jones era. Chief Ure, whether he is to blame or not, has inherited a mess. He has to lead now! These times call for a leader who will buckle down, lead from the front, and most importantly set expectations, and hold his people 100% accountable. Just doesn't seem to be happenmning, for what ever reason?

That was one of the rockiest times ever in the history of the city's police department. The department was driven into the ground almost over night. I'm sure Steve Tyler was well aware of this and saw what was happenning as a defense lawyer.

The VPD was once aproud department with unbeleivably high standards. Chief Tim Braaten, now the Excutive Director of TCLEOSE (the governing body of Law Enforcement for the entire state of Texas) built a department that was respected nation wide. People should not wonder how he got that job. He's a good leader, exceptionally smart, and has extremely high expectations of everyone around him. Quilaity employees, excellent customer service, and high quality results is what the VPD delivered under Braaten. That was just how Braaten ran the department, and unfortunately it all went away when he resigned.

That doesn't make it right or any better, but that's why these problems exist. The VPD needs to be held accountable. They need to do high quality work. They aren't afforded the luxury of making mistakes. They have a tough act to follow. For a lack of better terms, they have "huge shoes to fill". The VPD is not what it once was. It can't be. You can't lose that many qulaity investigators and supervisors and expect it to be the same. It's just sad that our community has to endure the incompetence and bad police work that apprently is occurring. The VPD is going to have to work extremely hard to win the trust of this city again. It will be along time before the community recovers from the DA Police department fued. It will take an amazing effort to put VPD back on the map as a premier law enforcement agency once again. It won't happen overnight, but we pray that it occurs sooner than later.

Tinstar,

It's obvious that you don't work for the VPD, the SO or the TACB, so let me guess.....you're a dogcatcher for the County Health Dept, right?

A horrible and tragic case jeopardized by VPD’s incompetence.  Hang in there Mr. Garza, no one deserves what this dangerous man did to Ms. Jasso and Mr. Flores.
Steve, This is why many of us are with you in this battle with our elected and appointed morons.

So let's put this into perspective: You have a Chief of Police under felony indictment for agg perjury, not to mention he also has an extremely rocky and contriversial past, and a Police Sgt under indictment for the same thing, and now it comed to light that "some" of the VPD Officers are apparently completing investigations on the same level that you would expect from a mall security guard, and some people wonder why the DA has issues with these guys?? As the DA, its safe to assume that his workload is much larger than any 1 individual VPD Officer, so I find it totally acceptable that he would ask these Officers to sign affidavits that they did a thorough investigation into each case. Why should he have to go back and proof read every sentance of every case like he is an elementary teacher checking these Officers work. He should be able to count on their work being thorough, true, and accurate, which obviously he has not been able to do as of yet. Time to run the criminals out of office people!! Go ahead and decide not to, just don't complain when a member of your family gets the short end of the stick when it comes to dealings with VPD. I'll end with a question, am I only one who see's a pattern of Ure's ability to run a department into the ground?? All you gotta do is google his name and the information about his sketchy past is right there.

I get your point, but I work with an agency that has a GREAT relationship with the DA. If our case is lacking he points us in the right direction prior to the stand. We don't cover it up, he let's us know what things would sure up our case, before trail. If it won't fly in court we don't get that far. I think the DA has used this trial to prove his point that cases need to be better and also shows the unwillingness of the 2 agencies to work together.

Hey tin
I don't think it's an issue of the DA and VPD not willing to work together, but it looks like it was the DA trying to get the VPD to do thorough investigations and the VPD became offended and will do things their way no matter what.

With the inability of VPD and the DA's office to work together, the citizens and victims will be the ones to lose this fight. In most cases, the DA and LE would work closely to make sure all the t's were crossed and the i's dotted. The damage has been severe to both sides and I'm afraid it will be quite some time before the two meet and true law enforcement begins again in Victoria. Until then the citizens of Victoria will pay the price.

It would be nice to have the Advocate interview Chief Ure to see what he thinks of his officers and the job they performed in this case. Doubt that will happen, though...

Their head of training is currently under felony indictment, just like their chief!

Simply more evidence that the VPD needs an overhaul, starting at the top. It is unbelievable how  much they screwed up this investigation, yet people still come to their defense. Buck may have done okay on other cases, but in this one he clearly screwed up.Who is in charge of training these guys??? Oh yea...it's Ralph Buentello.  What a great example of a leader he is.
Two people lost their lives because  of this man, and there is a very good chance he will be found not guilty.  The people who defend the VPD in this case should be sure to make their thoughts known to the families of the dead.  I'm sure they will understand.

I see it this way. If the prosecution points out the problems with the investigation, it's like saying, "We know that there are problems with this investigation but still believe that it doesn't change the facts of the case". If the prosecution says nothing and the defense points out the problems in the case, then it's like the prosecutors are saying, "We didn't see a problem". Maybe if law enforcement cooperated more with the prosecutors these problems could have been taken care of sooner and wouldn't have been such a big deal in court? Just my opinion from reading all of this.

I't appears the Police Officers are on trial here, being tried by the defense and prosecutors office. These officers need to be taking their own defense attornys to court. It's obvious Filley and Garza are working together against the PD.

Officer Buck is not how he is portrayed in this article. Officer Buck is very thorough and would give anyone the shirt off of his back. My ? is, was he going against 2 defense attorneys here?