February 1, 2010

Craig Rudolph:

Consider this an official complaint against your officer Roderick Robinson over his investigation of a motor vehicle accident that my daughter was involved in, #1000000337.

On January 9, 2010 my daughter was involved in an accident that your department, specifically Officer Roderick Robinson, "investigated." My juvenile daughter was issued a citation for FAILURE TO YIELD ROW TO VEHICLE IN INTERSECTION, a moving violation Officer Robinson did not witness, but issued based on his "investigation."

I have included the completed accident report with this complaint.

There are numerous errors in this report, some could be considered minor, some quite egregious.

I've checked off the mistakes I've found, let's start with the lessor ones. SH 342 is defined in this report as rdwy. Part 1. I believe by calling this a part 1 roadway your officer is calling SH 342 an interstate.

Why does Robinson list a reference marker for an intersection wreck?

I do not believe that State Farm insurance is Financial Responsibility type 2.

Robinson lists this as an intersection accident, (it was) and lists SH 342 as intersecting with SH 342! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that the intersecting street should be Red Oak Rd.

Robinson's narrative does not correspond with his diagram. Robinson states "Unit 1 entered the right turn lane in an attempt to turn east onto Red Oak Road. Unit 1 failed to yield right of way turning left in the intersection..." What? What right lane? What is he talking about? Is he trying to say Unit 1 made a wide left turn from the far right side of the roadway?

Robinson lists the driver of unit 2 as a XXXXXXXXXXXX, and the owner of the car as XXXXXXXX who also happens to be listed as a passenger in the vehicle. After I received this accident report, my daughter told me that the driver told her that he was going to tell the police his friend was driving, because he had no driver's license. I would think an investigating officer would find it strange that a PASSENGER would be the OWNER of the car in a wreck, and I'd assume a skilled officer would ask pertinent questions to determine the driver. There were a total of four people in unit 2, not merely 3 as listed.

Unit number 2 WAS NOT INSURED, THE DRIVER WAS NOT CITED, AND THE DRIVER WAS ALLOWED TO DRIVE AWAY IN UNIT 2! I tracked down the policy Robinson listed on the accident, TFA24277 to Andrews Insurance at P O Box 39, Ore City TX.

2010-01-09 Citation page 1

2010-01-09 Citation page 2

2010-01-09 Citation page 3

On January 28 I talked to employee Wanda Holley (903 968 6840) and she advised me that the policy number listed in this accident report was a canceled policy as of August 21, 2009. Ms. Holley told me that on that policy was an '87 Olds, and there was never the '94 Honda Accord listed in the accident on the policy. The owner of that policy took out another policy on Jan 5, 2010 for a 97 Cavilier, and again there is no Accord on that policy. To confirm what I was told, I called the company again on January 29, talked to employee Robbie Humphrey, who reiterated what I was told the day before.

So, why did your officer list this car as insured, allowing it to drive away from the scene, without insurance? What was he given to convince him this car was insured? How did he get this bogus policy number?

Robinson records the license plate on unit 2 as BM1S937. According to publicdata.com that plate is not good, it does not come back to any vehicle in TX. Did Robinson write the wrong plate down, or were there obvious errors with that plate on that car that he failed to recognize? When unit 2 is run by VIN on publicdata.com the plate that comes back on unit 2 is CZT153, expired in 09/2009.

Despite the obviously flawed investigation conducted by your officer, Robinson saw fit to write my daughter a moving violation citation that he didn't witness. Your policy justifies writing moving violations at accident scenes when "moving violations that can be proven by physical evidence or impartial witnesses." Did Robinson take pictures to preserve evidence? Did he measure skid marks? Robinson lists no impartial witnesses on the accident report. Your written policy also states "Patrol supervisors check accident investigation reports to ensure completeness, accuracy of reports and issued citations." Did a patrol supervisor check this abomination? This is an academy level training exercise accident investigation, no injuries, both cars drivable, yet your officer and the supervisor that should have checked it display a glaring incompetence.

This accident report is laughable; what isn't funny is the fact that my daughter was issued a moving citation based on this flawed (to put it mildly) investigation. Most professional police departments in Texas do not issue moving violations that the officer didn't witness at the accident scene; as the ROPD Chief I suggest you research why. Contrary to the image of the Red Oak Police Department, there's more to police work than generating revenue from the citizenry.

This comedy of errors, although unacceptable, would be a bit more palatable if I hadn't had prior negative experiences with the Red Oak Police Department, starting with being humiliated by your Sgt Langham in December '06, your offer to come after my job with ROISD PD Chief Scott Lindsey suggesting "we" go to my boss after you received an email from Lindsey, and that traffic stop by the same Sgt Langham in which he offered to compromise a citation before and after he issued it to my wife.

Past experience tells me I'll have to file an open records request to learn how this complaint is resolved.

If it is imperative that your officers write my family tickets, I expect those citations to be accurate and justified, or they will be challenged in court, as Sgt Langham's citation to my wife has just been filed with Ellis Co Appellate Court.

Keith Johnson

December 6, 2009

AND PEOPLE SAY WE OUGHT TO GET OVER IT... on Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009, I was at a cheer competition in Garland. The event ended at about 6:30 and I was walking toward the door with my daughter, her teammates and other parents when I was suddenly assaulted. This woman in her Spirit of Texas jacket and purple hair purposely made physical contact, in an offensive manner, against me in the hall. At first, I didn't realize what was going on as this woman then gave me the dirtiest look I have ever seen. As I mentally rebounded from the surprise and unexpected assault, I realized the antagonist was Kellie Castillo. She hurried away with her toddler in tow. Kellie Castillo is the mother of the girl who got kicked off the cheerleading squad for viciously attacking my daughter on her Myspace. Kellie Castillo and her husband Freddie appeared on FOX news and professed their daughter's innocence afterwards, which set in motion the nightmare our daughter then endured at Red Oak ISD.

The next day, my daughter got a text message from a Red Oak friend who said that Kellie Castillo was bragging to the teenagers she took to the cheer competition that "she tackled me and hit my daughter" and then she said "no f----- excuse you b----".

Kellie Castillo works at a main hair salon here in Red Oak, Texas. When our situation spiraled out of control back in '06, we had heard from multiple sources that Kellie was running her mouth about us at work; Keith contacted proprietor to request that she muzzle Kellie while Kellie was at work. She dismissed us and didn't seem to be the least bit concerned about her employee spouting off about our 13 year old. I can't help but wonder if she's once again gossiping about us in the shop.

This must be how Jerry Springer gets his guests.

October 8, 2009

The update below was created on October 6, 2009. Apparently we weren't too clear on the actions taken by one of Lindsey's former ROISD officers, Greg Tapp.

Tapp followed a man in NE Dallas on November 20, 2008 in his personal car for the alleged offense of DWI. Tapp tailed the driver while calling Dallas PD to make the stop. The man drove into his apartment complex, and as DPD hadn't yet arrived Tapp executed a traffic stop, as he admits in a letter to Lindsey, with emergency lights in his PERSONAL VEHICLE.

When DPD arrived, Tapp played off his actions as a concerned off duty ROISD PD officer doing his civic duty. A DPD DWI officer tested the man at the scene, and determined he wasn't legally intoxicated, and the man was released without arrest.

Tapp generated a letter to ROISD Chief Lindsey regarding this incident on November 24 2008. Tapp stated in his letter to Lindsey that as he followed the driver "the SUV then pulled into a McDonalds drive thru." Tapp then goes on to state that the driver then pulled out of McDonalds parking lot and went west bound on the street in front of the McDonalds. Tapp then goes on to describe the route the driver took before Tapp stopped him in his apartment complex parking lot.

Lindsey accepted Tapp's actions and even defended Tapp having emergency lights in his personal vehicle. There is NO REASON for a police officer to have emergency lights in his/her personal car. As Lindsey read Tapp's account, why didn't he ask Tapp why he didn't contain the man as he sat through the McDonald's drive through lane in order to protect the public? Tapp's letter was very weak and either Lindsey is incredibly naive or he was complicit in covering for Tapp.

Later it was learned that this stop wasn't random at all. Tapp didn't just happen to follow this man, he had been hired as a PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR to sit up on the man by the man's wife to trap him in a DWI pursuant to a custody battle. Tapp waited as the man left a bar and followed him. Tapp played PI for hire, then became a "police officer" to entrap the citizen.

The irony bears repeating, that Lindsey accused me of trying to hire a PI as he had PI's on the ROISD payroll.

I notified the board of this when I heard about the connection between Tapp and the citizen, and no action was taken against Tapp until a DPD supervisor contacted the Red Oak PD after another incident with Tapp, and Lindsey called that supervisor to tell him Tapp had resigned. Lindsey has or at least had that DPD supervisor's phone number, he could have investigated Tapp if he had wanted to, as that supervisor was at the scene of Tapp's stop and has knowledge of the attachment between the citizen and Tapp.

If you read Schupmann's speech in the posting below, read at the June 1st 2009 Board meeting, the official position is that Tapp left because he didn't get permission to work an extra duty job. It is incredible how employees of this District, at the highest levels, will obfuscate, lie and attack the accuser to protect their perceived image.

Another part time ROISD PD officer left when Tapp did. Tapp implicates him in his handwritten resignation letter. In Rookwood's resignation letter, he references "recent events involving one angry and I believe troubled individual underscore the length that he is willing to go in his vendetta against you" (Rookwood's addressing Lindsey in the letter). In the context of Rookwood's letter, that "angry" individual has to be me. Rookwood is not a "victim" of an "angry" individual. No one on the ROISD payroll is. Although I get disgusted with District employees trashing me, spreading rumors about me, coming after my job and denigrating me in public, I'm an adult and I can handle it. I'm not a victim. The only victim in all of this is a then 7th grade child driven from her home town ISD. For a refresher on all of that, to understand the reason for creating this site, review Ryann's story.

No member of the ROISD school board can honestly claim ignorance of the issues raised on this site.

And you wonder why we call this site corruptredoakisd?

We've reported previously on this site about the June 1, 2009 ROISD Board meeting which was convened to hear my complaint of Lindsey trashing me on public emails, and the cover up of the former ROISD officer that attempted, for pay, to set a man up for a DWI arrest. Lindsey didn't show up for that meeting. Either he didn't have the guts to face his accusers or the District didn't want him there.

I suspect the former, but either theory reflects poorly on the District.

After that meeting we filed open records requests for the prepared dissertation Assistant Superintendent Schupmann read, and the resignation letter of the ROISD officer. The District, through their law firm of Henslee and Schwartz appealed to the Attorney General of Texas to prevent us from getting Schupmann's speech and the officer's resignation letter, with ridiculous arguments. The AG dismissed their claim and told them to give us the requested documents. After the District's stall tactic, Deron Robinson, the attorney representing the District even had the nerve to send us a statement which conveniently left out the sentence accusing me of following district employees around. We sent a heated e-mail to Robinson's law firm and the AG informing them of the "mistake"and Robinson did manage to locate and send us the requested document.

At that meeting, Schupmann read this bombastic speech aloud...

2009-06 Rebuttal

...accusing me of following "school district employees in the past." In response to a Texas Public Information Act, the District has no evidence of me or my family following school district employees. They have no evidence because none exists. Schupmann lied in this meeting to focus attention on me and away from his boy, Lindsey.

Lindsey was not practicing free speech when on public emails he forwarded an email sent to him by a gypsy cop stating I "tried" to hire him as a PI. One either hires a PI or one doesn't and I didn't. Lindsey, when forwarding this email to the Red Oak Chief of Police Rudolph, suggested I could be "lurking" around his house and that he could come up "floating."

Schupmann, in this letter, minimizes the actions of Lindsey's former rogue officer. Schupmann says that the officer resigned because he violated ROISD's policy of secondary employment. Schupmann states if any laws were violated that it was up to DPD to investigate. Ironically a DPD supervisor sits on the Board and listened to this, and to this date I know of no action he has taken. Additionally, Lindsey talked to another DPD supervisor after this officer, and another resigned over this. Lindsey has that supervisor's phone number; he could easily have followed up with him if he wanted or needed more information.

The Board sat and listened to Schupmann read his prepared statement blaming everyone but Lindsey for sending e-mails to the RO police chief. It falsely accused me of endangering him and covering up for Tapp's blatant misuse of police power. As is standard for ROISD, they found nothing wrong with what Lindsey did. The biggest irony is that they had Tapp's resignation letter the entire time in which he admits that he did exactly what I told his supervisors he did.

2009-01-12 Resignation Letter

Tapp has now taken his police gig down the road, hooking up with the Combine, TX police department on 6-8-2009 according to TCLEOSE.

Isn't it suspicious that the same day Tapp resigned, another officer named G. Rookwood (who was kept conspicuously off the ROISD Police website) also resigned. According to his website, he is the president of a company named Dimensional Analysis Group which offers Private Investigation services. How ironic that Lindsey accuses me of hiring a PI when, in fact, he actually hired a PI at taxpayer expense.

And you wonder why we call this site corruptredoakisd?

Ticket fixing in Red Oak, Texas alive and well... see video accompanying narrative

We appeared in Red Oak municipal court on September 10, 2009 to challenge the ticket Pam received from Sergeant Langham of the Red Oak PD on May 21, 2009. I believe the prosecutor's name was Dana Huffman, and the judge in this case was Judge Kurth.

Before the trial started, in a discussion with Judge Kurth, the prosecutor was running her mouth about this site, telling the judge that we were not to bring up Lindsey, ROISD, ticket quotas, or our "conspiracy theories." Prosecutor Huffman acknowledged that she read this blog, and her contempt for us and this website was obvious. If representatives of ROISD or the city of Red Oak are upset with this site I'm happy. I've been around a little, and I've never seen a prosecutor so hostile and vindictive over a purported traffic violation. I realize that Red Oak needs the money, but this wasn't the Manson family trial, it was a charge of whether or not a citizen was operating a motor vehicle faster than a posted sign said she could. Perhaps it was acting on Huffman's part, or maybe she needs more fiber in her diet, but on the surface she seemed to be taking this case way too seriously.

A deeper issue here was not the alleged offense of speeding, but the integrity of the officer that wrote the ticket. During the trial Langham took the stand, and in open court, in front of Judge Kurth, Huffman and the jury he admitted what we accused him of-offering to fix the ticket. When asked what he intended to do with the ticket if I had called him, Langham said he would have generated a memo dismissing the ticket. Langham stated this would be done in the guise of "professional courtesy"-- not that the ticket was flawed, or that the radar was faulty, but simply because I had called him. Incredible. Frankly, I don't believe Langham would have generated any kind of memo supporting his fixing of the ticket. I can't prove it, and I don't have to, but I think the citation would have been destroyed that night without a trace had I called him.

I was taken aback that Langham would be so open, so caviler about this. Apparently in Red Oak, if you're "somebody" a written ticket can be dismissed out of hand. Neither the judge nor the prosecutor seemed to have any objection to a cop stating in court that he would fix a ticket after a phone call.

There is discretion in police work. If an officer stops a violator and assesses the situation and decides for whatever reason not to issue a ticket — that is discretion. "Professional courtesy" or discretion stops when pen is put to paper, once that ticket is issued a mechanism is set in motion. Professional courtesy is not inviting me to participate in his corrupt good ol' boy custom. I've stated elsewhere on this site my previous encounter with Langham, and there was no hint of a fraternal bond. In fact, Langham told me I wasn't under arrest "yet" for an incident he hadn't investigated.

Huffman demonized Pam during the trial. In closing Huffman told the jury that Pam was offered a favor by Langham and in gratitude she complained on him. Huffman emphasized to the jury that Pam commented during the stop that her husband is a police officer, which is a fact. Pam did not ask for any break or favor when she made that comment. Langham testifed that he assumed Pam's comment was a request for a break. Langham also assumed I would call him.

What Huffman didn't tell the jury was that the complaint was over Langham's conduct, demonstrating corruption in front of our daughter who was a passenger in the car. Huffman didn't tell the jury that we were there on a Thursday night at 11:00 PM because we didn't take the easy way out, choosing Deferred Disposition. Huffman didn't remind them that, as Langham testified, had I called him the ticket would have been taken care of. No, Huffman chose to portray Pam as an unappreciative child. Huffman crafted a corny analogy that Pam opened the "cookie jar" and got caught, and was upset over getting the ticket, and that was why the jury was there. Pam was accused of having no integrity. In this context, the burden of integrity was on Langham, not Pam. Langham was the officer, Langham had the badge, the decisions made on this stop were Langham's; not Pam's. Langham is a supervisor with the Red Oak PD. Langham was responsible here, not Pam, and Langham offered to fix the ticket before he had even written it. That is corrupt. If Pam changes a math grade because a parent with influence asks, is Pam or that parent responsible for the grade change?

Huffman focused on the fact that Pam didn't deny speeding--Pam never affirmed the accusation either. Pam doesn't believe she was speeding, and Langham even testified that Pam acted surprised when he told her what her speed was.

Huffman won. The jury bought her shtick and came back with the maximum fine. It was a victory for Huffman. It was a victory akin to the Dallas Cowboys beating the Red Oak Hawks varsity team, as Huffman wasn't up against another lawyer and, candidly, Pam didn't make her case as forcefully as she should have. We respect the decision of that jury. The jury had been there for 5 hours and they were tired. They didn't clearly hear our position which was not their fault. If you were on that jury and reading this, thank you for your service. We would like to thank Judge Kurth for staying above the fray. We didn't hire a lawyer, because I didn't really believe an objective prosecutor would pursue a case where the officer generating the offense made such a fool of himself, his department, and demonstrated institutional corruption. A prosecutor's job is not conviction at any cost; it is seeking justice and truth. Apparently Ms. Huffman forgot this. If a cop will offer to fix a ticket before he writes it, how valid is the ticket?

Huffman won round 1 of this. Kudos to her. Round 2, our appeal, will be taken out of the Red Oak comfort zone, and having learned our lesson we'll hire a lawyer. We're posting the traffic stop here for the court of pubic opinion to decide. It'll be interesting to see how many "youtube" hits the video gets when we post it there.

There have been times I've been angered, other times I've been saddened over issues with the ROISD that we've documented on this site. In this case, the whole Langham offering to fix a ticket, Pam's the bad guy for complaining is too farcical to get mad or sad about. It's like bizarro world, a parallel universe in which Red Oak, TX operates under its own set of rules and its own code of conduct.

Recently, I was going through the cable channels, and hit upon the movie "Smokey and the Bandit". Part of the theme of the movie is making fun of small town southern police departments and their unique justice systems. I thought the movie was fiction. After sitting through Pam's trial, and witnessing the trials that went before us, I'm convinced now that the flick wasn't fiction, it was a docu-drama.

If there is no scroll bar, click the video to start and again to stop.

Overview