🚨NO WHITE SUPREMACISTS INVOLVED🚨
KFOX14 published August 23, 2024: El Paso ISD officers arrested for attempting to falsely charge fellow officer, oust chief.
Two El Paso Independent School District police officers were arrested and charged with official oppression and tampering with evidence and a dispatcher was arrested and charged with breach of computer security after trying to impose false criminal charges on a fellow police officer co-worker and trying to get the police chief fired.
El Paso ISD officers Steve Romero and John Solis were arrested on June 21.
The El Paso ISD dispatcher, Yvette Renne Valliere, was arrested on Aug. 9.
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KFOX14 CBS News, El Paso, TX local
written by Erika Esquivel
Friday August 23, 2024
EL PASO, Texas — Two El Paso Independent School District police officers were arrested and charged with official oppression and tampering with evidence and a dispatcher was arrested and charged with breach of computer security after trying to impose false criminal charges on a fellow police officer co-worker and trying to get the police chief fired.
El Paso ISD officers Steve Romero and John Solis were arrested on June 21.
The El Paso ISD dispatcher, Yvette Renne Valliere, was arrested on Aug. 9.
The case was investigated by a Texas Ranger agent.
The Texas Ranger began the investigation on October 10, 2023, of allegations of official oppression against El Paso ISD officer Javier Moreno.
The Texas Ranger met with Moreno where Moreno said that for about a year he had noticed that El Paso ISD Sgt. Solis was targeting him. Moreno said he noticed he was being targeted after he refused to sign a petition to remove the El Paso ISD police Chief Manuel Chavira.
Moreno told the Ranger the department was divided into two clicks. One-click called the "Fraternal Order of Police" which organized the petition to remove the chief. Moreno said he refused to join the FOP.
Moreno said after refusing to sign the petition he received more pushback from Solis. Moreno said Solis would have other officers go back and review his investigations and specifically look for errors.
Moreno stated he was involved in an incident on Jan. 18 2023 at Austin High School regarding a vehicle burglary.
Moreno responded to the school after reports of two juveniles trying to open vehicles in an alleyway.
Both juveniles fled on foot. During the incident, one of the juveniles collided with Moreno's patrol vehicle. After the juvenile collided with Moreno's vehicle he fled again and got away. Moreno and other responding officers eventually found the other teen.
During the follow-up investigation, Moreno met with a woman at a home but since the woman could not provide proof that she was one of the juvenile's legal guardian, Moreno did not disclose any details of the case to the woman. The woman gave Moreno her new phone number in case anything else was needed.
The woman told the Texas Ranger that within days of the incident, she received a call on her new phone number from an anonymous caller.
The caller asked for the name of a different woman, the aunt and legal guardian of the juvenile. The anonymous caller said he would not identify himself and said he would never contact her again but was calling to tell the woman about the incident at Austin High School and that Officer Moreno hit the juvenile with his patrol vehicle and advised her that she should file a police report and file a lawsuit.
The woman immediately thought the call was suspicious and thought the caller was a police officer because her number was new and not a lot of people had her new phone number.
The arrest affidavit stated that within days of the incident Sgt. Solis stated in his report that he received a call from the legal guardian of the juvenile. According to the Texas Ranger report, that was untrue. The Ranger interviewed the legal guardian of the juvenile and the woman said she never contacted the police or the school regarding the incident.
Sgt. Solis told the Texas Ranger that he reviewed Moreno's body cam video of the day of the incident. Sgt. Solis said he saw discrepancies in the video and contacted a county attorney saying Officer Moreno was not being truthful.
Weeks following the incident, Moreno was reprimanded by his department through an internal investigation.
On March 29, 2023, Sgt. Solis assigned Officer Romero to investigate the case further.
The affidavit states that Romero also reviewed the body cam video and determined that Moreno was being untruthful regarding the facts of the case, without ever interviewing Moreno, or viewing the entire video.
Both Sgt. Solis and Officer Romero delivered the affidavit, report, and body cam footage to an investigator with the El Paso District Attorney's Office and presented the case against Officer Moreno for assault by a public servant.
The Texas Ranger report states Officer Moreno was not made aware of any of the criminal charges being conducted against him until Oct. 2, 2023.
The Texas Ranger met with Officer Romero on Nov. 8, 2023, where Romero admitted the investigation against Officer Moreno lacked evidence.
Romero allegedly stated he wanted to interview Officer Moreno but Sgt. Solis prohibited him from doing so. Romero said he recorded some of his conversations with Solis and provided them to the Texas Ranger.
In one of those conversations, Sgt. Solis implied he planned to bring charges on Chief Chavira for interfering with his investigation. In the recordings, he also expressed his desire to not let Officer Moreno be promoted.
The Texas Ranger stated he noticed Romero was being very selective about the recordings he was providing from his phone. The Texas Ranger believed Romero had additional recordings relevant to the case that he did not provide.
The Texas Ranger also met with Sgt. Solis.
Sgt. Solis told him that the juvenile legal guardian had gone to El Paso ISD headquarters to file a complaint about the incident. Solis said after reviewing the body cam video he believed Officer Moreno lied and brought the case to Chief Chavira.
Solis said he felt Chief Chavira was not addressing the case quickly or correctly so he reached out to the county prosecutor and said he launched the investigation against Officer Moreno. Sgt. Solis admitted he asked Officer Romero to investigate the case.
Solis told the Ranger that he agreed the case he was bringing against Officer Moreno was incomplete and said he should have given Officer Moreno a chance to defend himself and lay out his intentions during the time of the incident.
Solis also stated that Chief Chavira was not shown the case Solis had made against Officer Moreno.
Solis admitted to the Ranger that there were some political moves on both sides of the department. Solis also said he and Romero discussed filing charges against Chief Chavira if he stopped the investigation.
According to the Texas Ranger in his report, Sgt. Solis and Officer Romero showed an unfair investigation against Officer Moreno in an attempt to incarcerate him. The Texas Ranger stated the investigation was oppressive against Moreno.
The Texas Ranger said Officer Romero went along with the investigation even though he knew Sgt. Solis was going to lie about the case and stated Romero admitted to not looking at all the available evidence.
According to the Texas Ranger report, the Ranger noticed the dislike of Sgt. Solis had for Chief Chavira. The Texas Ranger also stated the Sgt. Solis's investigation against Moreno was due to him wanting to remove Chief Chavira from his position.
After Solis and Romero's arrest investigators found Solis had text messages withYvette Renne Valliere who was an El Paso ISD police dispatcher.
The messages included photos that Valliere took of the closed net EPISD security camera system and shared with Sgt. Solis. The report statedValliere conspired about the internal investigation.
Valliere also sent Solis photos of the Texas Ranger the day he was going to arrest Sgt. Solis, according to the report.
Valliere is charged with abuse of official capacity and breach of computer security.
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