In the wake of George Floyd’s tragic death, Democrats in Dallas County have portrayed themselves as champions of reforming the police. Yet despite their grandstanding, Dallas’ Democrat district attorney is now actively fighting against revealing how many Dallas police officers and sheriff’s deputies have records so terrible that they can’t be called to testify in court.
In the last week of May, after the tragedy of George Floyd’s death at the hands of then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, a coalition of Democrat activists organized protests in the City of Dallas that became riots, claiming to do so for racial justice.
After an invitation from Democrat County Judge Clay Jenkins, activists presented a list of demands that largely had more to do with pushing Democrat Party priorities than police accountability and transparency.
“There are one or two items in this list that are actually decent ideas, but 99 percent of this list is liberal claptrap,” said Derek Cohen, director of Texas Public Policy Foundation’s criminal justice reform campaign Right On Crime.
One reputable item was terminating any officers who “have had sustained incidents of untruthfulness, criminal convictions, candor issues, or some other type of issue placing their credibility into question.” Prosecutors may add such officers to what are called Brady or Giglio lists, and district attorneys will not call officers on these lists to testify in court.
“From a public integrity standpoint, people with Giglio files should not be police officers,” Cohen said.
Democrat organizers have since largely stopped discussing this, preferring to demand taxpayer dollars for liberal agenda items in the name of “Reimagining Public Safety.”
As Democrats have stopped talking about the important lists, Texas Scorecard sent an open records request to the office of Dallas’ Democrat district attorney, John Creuzot, on June 8, asking for records tracking the year-to-year number of city police and county sheriff officers assigned to Brady and/or Giglio lists.
On June 11, we were told to resend our request to Creuzot himself, and on June 22, Assistant District Attorney Laura Coats asked us to “clarify” what we are looking for when we said “records corresponding to year to year tracking numbers.”
We replied in part that we meant “records sufficient to show how many Dallas officers have Brady/Giglio lists.”
On June 23, Coats gave the following response:
“Please be advised that this Office does not track the numbers of Officers on the Brady lists on a year by year basis. Therefore, we have no information responsive to your request.”
Does the district attorney really not keep track every year of how many law enforcement officers have a Brady list—an important guidepost in measuring the integrity of a police department?
This is just the latest sign that Creuzot refuses to do parts of his job as an enforcer of the law. Last year, Creuzot announced he would not prosecute some criminal activities.
Texas Scorecard has since sent a follow up open records request to Creuzot, seeking all Brady and Giglio lists from 2013 to present.
His office has 10 business days to respond.
Meanwhile, Dallas City Councilmen Adam Bazaldua, Omar Narvaez, Adam Medrano, and Lee Kleinman have been very public in their support of the coalition pushing Democrat policies in the wake of Floyd’s death, including taking taxpayer dollars away from Dallas police and towards funding Democrat priorities.
Of these four, only Bazaldua said he would speak with Creuzot and ask if any Dallas police officers are on a Brady or Giglio list, promising “to hold the department accountable to these horrible acts.” That was over two weeks ago, and since then Bazaldua has not made any other statement on the matter.
Democrat Mayor Eric Johnson has also not responded to inquiries from Texas Scorecard about this, nor has Jenkins replied when asked about Dallas Sheriff Deputies.
Concerned Dallas County voters may contact Creuzot’s office.
