The Dallas Police Department would like you to know they've fired one officer and disciplined another, effective immediately, following two disciplinary hearings Thursday morning.
The first one is pretty straightforward: Officer Kelly Schumpert was arrested in Forney for DWI in February of this year. An Internal Affairs investigation concluded she had "engaged in conduct which adversely affected the morale or efficiency of the Department or which had a tendency to adversely affect, lower or destroy public respect and confidence in the Department or officer." Schumpert had been with DPD since 2009.
The discipline involves Senior Corporal Stanley McDaniel, an 25-year officer who was successfully sued for excessive force in 1998 and then fired in 2008. The firing occurred after an internal investigation concluded he and another officer lied about a shooting that happened while the two were working an off-duty security job.
McDaniel and the second officer, Andrew Cortes, originally claimed that they had tried to stop a man in a Chevy Silverado who was driving recklessly through a parking lot, and that Cortes then fired towards the car after the driver tried to run him over. But witnesses told WFAA that the car had never tried to run Cortes over and that he'd shot at the vehicle for no reason. The two men were both fired, though McDaniel was later reinstated after an administrative appeal.
But McDaniel's suspension today stems from an October 2010 incident, when he and rookie officer Quinton Furr arrested a man named Jonathan Carr.
According to the Morning News account from the time, while the two officers were on duty, McDaniel told the rookie officer to make a note that they were stopping to check on an abandoned vehicle, despite the fact that they weren't. Instead, they drove to a house on Williams Way. When they arrived, McDaniel had Furr run Carr's name, to confirm that he had an outstanding warrant.
The two officers then went into the home, where McDaniel introduced a woman as his girlfriend and told Furr to arrest Carr, who was one of her relatives. Furr did. As the two officers drove to the jail, with the presumably pissed-off Carr in tow, McDaniel told Furr to note that they had stopped because a passerby had flagged them down about a "suspicious person."
The Internal Affairs investigation concluded that McDaniel had entered false information on a police report and then lied to investigators again in December of that year, when he told them that he didn't know Carr's full name and date of birth.
Although McDaniel was recommended for demotion, after the hearing today he instead received a 30-day suspension. DPD states that McDaniel's "past disciplinary history played a significant role in determining today's discipline." However, they add, his previous firing did not influence his punishment.
