There is in East Texas, a very small, uninteresting “city”, which is in reality more of a group of people living within earshot of each other than an actual city. It has a dollar store of course, and a couple of small businesses sitting along State Highway 110, which runs through the place, just before you cross over a bridge on Lake Palestine.
The only thing mildly interesting about the community is a weird guy in Army Jeep that sells military style clothing and other junk. To tell the truth, he probably does more business than the dollar store does. But there is one unique thing about Coffee City… their “police department.”
First, a little information about rules and regulations governing law enforcement in Texas. In Texas there are a few different categories of employment for police officer;
Full-time, paid police officers.
Part-time paid police officers.
Part-time, non-paid police officers.
Reserve Officers (volunteer officers who do not get paid, but the city keeps their peace officer commissions active).
This is very important….. per the Texas Department of Public Safety, the ONLY police officers that can work off-duty security jobs for money are Full-time, paid police officers, who work at least 32 hours per week as an officer. No other category of police officers are allowed to work off-duty security (unless they have a private security license, and another set of regulations then apply to them).
This is the law and they will gladly lock anyone up who is caught violating it.
Coffee City, Texas has a population of about 250 people. Their police department has over 50 police officers!
I hear you, “Captain, that can’t be right!” Well, I’m afraid to say, that it is true. But you haven’t even heard the best part yet!
Six of those 50 cops never set foot in coffee city!
I still hear you and no, I haven’t bumped my head. Six of the 50 Coffee City Police Officers, live and work at an apartment complex in HOUSTON, TEXAS!
These “officers” are part of a “Warrant Squad” that Coffee City Police Chief JohnJay Portillo, operates solely at that apartment complex in H-Town.
Now check this out…
These “Warrant Squad” officers get paid $150 for each person they arrest who has a Coffee City Arrest Warrant. But, Captain Black, that sounds like some kind of bounty hunter. Yep. When a reporter asked the Chief “Is this legal?” his response was “Uh, I think so.”
According to a KHOU 11 Investigation, this “Chief” was recorded cursing about a Houston Constable, who caught on to what these clowns were doing and told them that his office would not be taking their arrests off their hands anymore. This thoroughly pissed off the Chief, which you can clearly see in KHOU’s video. And I can tell you exactly why this pissed off the Chief, too.
If I am a cop in Coffee City, and I am in Houston, or Dallas, or Sweetwater, or any other city outside of my county…and I see someone who I know for a fact has an active warrant out of my city; I cannot just arrest the guy and haul him to the local jail. I must have an officer in that county jurisdiction arrest the man and book him into jail.
If the Chief’s personal bounty hunter squad doesn’t have a friendly local officer to take their arrests, then they can’t make any arrests in Houston. If they can’t make any arrests, they don’t collect their money, and something tells me that somehow, some way, this takes money out of the Chief’s pocket. That, of course, is just speculation on my part. Nothing, so far, has indicated that the Chief is making any profit off of his little set-up in Houston. Nothing so far.
The average number of Police Officers per residents in Texas is around 2.2 per 1,000. That’s 2.2 officers for every 1,000 residents.
In Coffee City, Texas they have 1 Police Officer for every 5 residents!
Now, look people, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I am smart enough to know that when the windows are blacked out with flies so thick you can’t even see through it, that there is a dead body of something or someone inside.
And I am seeing flies buzzing all around this one.