ELECTION FALLOUT: SHERIFF STAFF GET IN LINE TO SUE...

Special to El Run-Rrun

A lawsuit has been filed in federal court charging Cameron County Sheriff Eric Garza and Executive Chief Deputy Robert Gracia with concerted action arising from the deprivation, under color of state law, of rights, privileges and immunities secured by the First Amendment to retaliate against Sgt. Rodrigo Almanza for supporting Garza’s opponent, Omar Lucio, in the recent election for sheriff.

The lawsuit claims that among these actions are included:

a. transferring him to the Transport Division from the prestigious Criminal Investigations Division, where he handled major crimes and also served as liaison to the CCSO’s counterpart in the Republic of Mexico;

b. stripping him of all subordinates and supervisory duties

c. assigning him to shift schedules and working conditions not given to other CCSO supervisors;

d. having him report to a person not certified as a peace officer; and

e. requiring him to perform menial and pointless tasks like distributing inmate meal carts and physically manning a perfectly operational gate during the "lethal" freezing weather.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday and Garza and Gracia were served today. David Willis, Almanza's attorney, declined to comment on the case. Attempts to reach Almanza were unsuccessful.

This lawsuit is the flip side of a lawsuit filed December 30 against the former sheriff and his officers by former jailer Jose Calvillo for retaliating against him for supporting Garza through contacts with Gracia.

Almanza's lawsuit asks that the court give him and injunctive relief that requires Garza and Gracia to assign Sgt. Almanza to a position that exercises supervisory authority, with all of the customary benefits and privileges customarily granted to supervisors of the CCSO, and prohibiting them from subsequently reassigning him from there based on his protected activity of supporting Omar Lucio’s political campaign. 

The previous lawsuit was filed by Jose Calvillo, a former Sheriff's Department jailer fired after his superiors accused him of releasing a video purporting to show an inmate being abused by another jail guard. He filed a lawsuit in federal court against former Sheriff Omar Lucio and two other officers charging them with political retaliation for his perceived political association with challenger Eric Garza in violation of his constitutional rights.

Calvillo, who had been a jailer for the past six years, claims Lucio and Sgt. Edgar Rivera, and Lt. Joe Elizardi retaliated against him while acting under the color of the law and took adverse action motivated by political association that resulted in his wrongful termination. 

He is asking for the court to award him $1 million in exemplary damages for their acts in their official capacity, and $333,000 each of the defendants in their individual capacity.

Calvillo – through his attorney John Shergold – claims that after video aired in a Facebook page called RGV Truth on July 9, 2020, five days before the Democratic Party runoff election July 14. Garza went on to win that runoff and then beat Republican challenger John Chambers.

Calvillo claims that after he saw the video on the Facebook page, he fowarded and reported it to Capt. Jorge Hernandez, a jail supervisor. Nearly two months later, on September 4, he said he got a call from Le Roy Valladarez, his immediate supervisor, who ordered him to report to Sgt. Rivera who along with other officials – interrogated him for nearly two hours and was "falsely accused" of releasing the video recording. At the time, Rivera confiscated his cell phone.

Almanza was assigned to the Criminal Investigations Division (“CID”) and held the position of Criminal Investigator. With this assignment, Sgt. Almanza’s duties included: responding to emergencies; analyzing crime scenes for evidence; collecting evidence; obtaining warrants for arrest; arresting suspects; interviewing witnesses; testifying in court; and writing case reports. \

As a CCSO supervisor in CID, Almanza supervised approximately six (6) subordinates. He claims that an assignment to CID is considered prestigious because deputies assigned to the division work in civilian clothes, have an office, are assigned a preferred work schedule of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with weekends off, are assigned late-model fleet units, and due to the nature of the work, have access to professional advancement and accolades. 

Almanza’s duties also included the "very prestigious" assignment of being the liaison to the CCSO’s counterpart in the Republic of Mexico, responsible for coordinating the Sheriff’s Office’s operational needs with its Mexican counterparts.

When Garza announced his candidacy for Cameron County Sheriff, in opposition to former Sheriff Lucio, Almanza was a public and vocal supporter of former Sheriff Lucio and participated on his campaign by block walking, assisting at political events, and posting supportive messages on social media.

Almanza's lawsuit claims that shortly after Sheriff Garza won the election, he named Gracia as his Chief Deputy, despite the fact that Robert Gracia was not a peace officer certified by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (T-COLE).

On December 30,  Gracia issued a memorandum ordering all deputies of a certain shift, and those not scheduled to work on January 1, 2021, to attend swearing in ceremonies at particular times and to fill out employment packets for continued employment with the CCSO.

The next day, the lawsuit charges, Gracia began issuing orders to Almanza regarding active CID cases he was working on without being a certified peace officer. Almanza questioned these orders and took them as an attempt by Gracia to interfere in his investigations.

The dramatic shift assignment from CID to the Jail Division and the total loss of professional responsibilities, when combined with the supervisory vacancies in the patrol division, caused Almanza to believe that his reassignment was not done to meet the operations needs of the Sheriff’s Office, but rather to professionally humiliate him to the point that he would resign. 

He believes were reinforced by the fact that Gracia told Primera Police Department Chief Deputy Manny Trevino that he was going to “make [Sgt. Almanza] quit,” according to the lawsuit.

In his lawsuit, Almanza also alleges that the actions by Garza and Gracia are in retaliation for engaging in constitutionally protected political speech and seeks declaratory, injunctive relief, and compensatory and punitive damages.