Lewisville Police Chief Brook Rollins publicly announced Friday disciplinary actions against officers after an internal affairs investigation.
“They're human,” Lewisville Police Chief Brook Rollins said. “They made mistakes, and the easiest thing to tell the residents here is, I am sorry we did not perform at our best, and we'll fix it.”
Rollins said he was made aware of possible wrongdoing when the district attorney refused to prosecute 28 cases brought by the department.
“The reason they did that was because they believed that after probable cause had been established in those cases, the officers engaged in inappropriate physical contact with the suspected prostitutes,” Rollins said.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
The internal investigation found 13 employees were involved in violating policy with 11 being disciplined.
The disciplinary action included two sergeants and one officer being terminated. One captain was demoted. Five officers and two sergeants were suspended without pay for various periods.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Two officers were given counseling entries which is not a form of discipline.
“It's important to note that every officer that had sustained discipline didn't necessarily engage in the touching,” Rollins said. “Some of them engaged in touching. Some of them were sustained for issues of a lack of supervision and communication-related issues.”
It did impact 23 prostitution cases; 32 criminal charges and 28 suspects not being prosecuted by the district attorney.
Rollins said although the matter was handled internally the investigation continues outside his agency.
“We contacted the Texas Department of Public Safety's Texas Rangers to conduct a separate external and yet, you know, concurrent criminal investigation into the cases themselves,” Rollins said. “As of today, there's been no word of any charges being filed.”
The Lewisville mayor and other city leaders declined to comment on the issue.
