In this case, Plaintiffs brought suit against the Defendants for: harassment, blackmailing and conspiring to boycott their classes and attempting to have them terminated from East Texas Police Academy (“ETPA”) in retaliation for their testimony in a case against another police officer involved in a shooting incident. A New York Criminal Lawyer said plaintiffs also claimed violations of: their rights to testify freely under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(2); their right to freedom of speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendment; their right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment; and tortious interference with business relations. Plaintiffs were instructors at the ETPA, in Kilgore, Texas, which provides basic and advanced training for law enforcement officers in the greater East Texas area. Defendants are the police chiefs or sheriffs from seven cities and counties within the greater East Texas area and who possess final authority over the training of the officers employed by their respective agencies.
Before the fall of 1998, Defendants enrolled their officers in ETPA courses on a regular basis, including courses taught by the Plaintiffs. The defendants were not contractually bound to continue using either the ETPA’s services or the services of Plaintiffs in particular. In August 1998, Plaintiffs voluntarily testified as expert witnesses against a police sniper from Kerrville, Texas who fatally shot a teenager. The said police officer was not trained at the ETPA nor belongs to the police agencies headed by the Defendants. In the said case, Plaintiffs testified that the Kerrville police officer used excessive force and that the Kerrville police department failed to implement the proper policies necessary to direct the conduct of officers acting as snipers.
A New York Drug Crime Lawyer said the said testimony irked the Defendants and threatened the ETPA that they will all stop engaging their services for officer training. One of them said that Plaintiffs testimony “is in direct conflict with the basic fundamentals and expectations that we have come to enjoy from Academy instructors.” It created “conflicts of interest” and violated principles of “cooperative responsibility.” They believe that an unacceptable conflict of interest exists whenever a police instructor testifies against a police officer, regardless of location and regardless of whether the instructor had trained the officer. Such a conflict does not exist when an instructor testifies for police officers.