Mapping the Case Against Enlow

Photo By John Anderson

After eight days of testimony spread over two months and concluded Nov. 20, the decision whether former Austin Police Dept. officer Timothy Enlow will be reinstated to the force is in the hands of a civil service arbitrator. Enlow testified for the final two days of the hearing, and arbitrator Harold Moore's decision is not expected until early next spring. In the interim, the hearing left open numerous questions about APD's internal investigations yet did little to answer its central question: Why was Enlow fired in the first place?

Officially, Enlow was terminated -- "indefinitely suspended" in APD terminology -- in August 2001 for a litany of departmental violations including dishonesty, insubordination, unauthorized off-duty arrests, and "failure to maintain an impartial attitude." The latter charge stemmed from Enlow's March 2001 arrest of two African-American teens at the 381/2 Street Fiesta supermarket. Enlow told APD's internal affairs investigators that his suspicions had been aroused in part because in that neighborhood it was unusual to see two African-American teenagers driving a late model Ford F-150 pickup. APD Chief Stan Knee initially told a reporter that Enlow was the first officer to be fired for "racial profiling," citing the same charge in his official civil-service suspension letter to Enlow. But in its official response to Enlow's appeal, the APD repeatedly insisted that it never really meant to imply that Enlow was being fired for racial profiling -- no doubt in part because, as Enlow's attorney had been quick to point out, in March 2001 the department didn't even have a policy on racial profiling.

The department's self-contradictory approach to the racial profiling issue served all too well as a harbinger of its strategy in the arbitration proceeding itself, which alternated between a circus of circular logic and a quagmire of police-procedural minutiae. As the hearing proceeded, it became increasingly apparent that the city could provide very little evidence to support its charges of reprehensible behavior by Enlow.

For instance, to defend its claim that Enlow made unwarranted or questionable off-duty arrests, the city relied mainly on the testimony of three people Enlow had in fact arrested. Assistant City Attorney Mike Cronig, saddled with the uncomfortable task of defending Enlow's suspension, made it clear that the city found the arrestees -- including one who was subsequently sentenced to nearly a decade in federal prison -- more credible than its own former officer. When Enlow's account of a specific arrest differed from that of the arrested suspect, Cronig mockingly asked Enlow how the two versions could be so different. If Enlow was indeed the fair and impartial officer he had claimed in his own testimony, Cronig continued, why hadn't he asked any of the people he'd arrested to testify on his behalf? Cronig was apparently oblivious to the absurdity of his own question, but it wasn't lost on the small audience of family, media, and police officers gathered in the hearing room. Whispered one observer, "That's like asking why a victim doesn't testify at a murder trial."

The city's "evidence" against Enlow didn't get much better. The city had charged Enlow with insubordination for allegedly disobeying an order not to use his unmarked SWAT vehicle to work his off-duty Fiesta security job. Enlow denies he had ever received such an order -- and in addition, last week a veteran officer who spent 13 years on the SWAT team testified that it was common practice to use SWAT cars for off-duty and even out-of-town events. According to 23-year APD veteran Corporal Mike Martínez, several supervisors -- including at least two who had testified for the city in September -- had used their SWAT vehicles off-duty on numerous occasions. One had taken a SWAT car on a family outing to Fiesta Texas in San Antonio, he testified, another used the SWAT team's "raid van and training trailer" for a house move, and yet another used a SWAT car to drive to Temple to pick up a smoked turkey for an office party.

The city also had a hard time supporting its charges of dishonesty. The allegation had already taken a beating in September, when Internal Affairs Detective Sandy Hutchinson, who conducted the department's IA investigation, noted that she had no idea where one of the purported statements of fact in Enlow's termination letter had originated. (See "Matters of Perception," Sept. 27.) In the final minutes of last week's hearing, Cronig was grasping for more straws, seeking to enter into evidence two police reports written by Enlow in 1998 and 1999. Cronig told arbitrator Moore the evidence would support the department's allegation that Enlow "isn't truthful or accurate in his reports." (Cronig's move also confirmed that in preparing its case, the city had apparently combed through every arrest report Enlow had ever filed, looking for any inconsistency -- although these had neither been cited in Knee's suspension letter nor provided to his attorney as potential evidence.)

In one report, Cronig pointed out, Enlow had written that the suspect was a known gang member who didn't live anywhere near Chicon Street (where he was arrested) but "nearly 20 miles away in another part of Austin." Cronig noted sternly that the suspect's last known address was on Donahue Street, a mere "6.36 miles" from Chicon -- not 20 miles, as Enlow had written. "If he's as inaccurate with his mileage," Cronig argued, "[Asst. Chief Jim] Fealy is worried about [Enlow's reasons] for probable cause." To judge from the widespread laughter that greeted that final accusation, the hearing room was unconvinced.

At that point, even arbitrator Moore -- who told Cronig he would decide later whether such after-the-fact evidence against Enlow is even admissible -- found it difficult to conceal his amusement, especially when Cronig provided him with an Internet MapQuest printout to confirm the mileage discrepancy. "I don't know that I can trust MapQuest," said Moore with a smile. "I tried to use their maps one time in Florida, and I got lost."