Detective wins race for SAPOA President

Detective wins race for cops union chief

Web Posted: 01/27/2008 11:28 PM CST

Lomi Kriel
Express-News After winning a close runoff, San Antonio police Detective Michael Helle will take office this week as the top advocate for the department's officers, replacing former union chief Teddy Stewart, who is leaving the post after four years.

Helle, a detective in the department's Repeat Offender Program, takes the helm at a challenging time for the department. An outside review of its policies and practices is ongoing, community activists are assailing the department in the wake of a stream of alleged police abuse cases, and several police officers are facing criminal charges for a variety of alleged improprieties.

"It's never fun to step into a place where the problems are already there," Helle acknowledged Sunday. "But I'm an advocate for the members, and as these issues come up, we're just going to have to deal with them."

Helle, who was severely injured in a hit-and-run accident last year that left him in a wheelchair for months, defeated Michael Despres, a lieutenant on the East Side, by 81 votes early Saturday. Helle received 769 votes; Despres got 688.

Helle said serving as union boss is a "higher calling" for him to "help our brothers in blue."

He said one of his priorities will be to reassess the disciplinary process for officers in the wake of a highly publicized incident last year at a South Side bar. Four officers — two women with the Tactical Response Unit and two patrol sergeants — were suspended for their involvement in an alleged illegal strip search.

But many of the rank and file perceived the discipline handed to the supervisors — 40 days without pay — as too severe in a case in which they said those supervisors did nothing wrong. According to contract rules, officers first have to serve a suspension before they can contest the claims against them.

"That's a contractual issue that needs to be changed, and we're going to be talking about it," Helle said. "At least a common criminal gets to have his day in court. Why do we have to serve a suspension without pay first before we get to prove our case?"

He also said he would try to assuage community activists who have painted the Police Department as out of control and claim that officers too frequently resort to force. Helle denied that, saying, "You're going to have allegations, but whether or not they're truthful is something different."

Incidents of police abuse are a "complete abnormality," he said, and, if they do occur, they are "isolated incidents."

He said communicating that to the public would be a "big deal" during his tenure.

Another priority is working to relieve a chronic personnel shortage — an issue Stewart highlighted in a blistering advertising campaign last fall that eventually won concessions from city officials to hire more new officers than they had planned. Many see that as one of Stewart's biggest coups, although they also laud his ability to rebuild a once-fractured relationship with city officials and the police chief.

But his critics faulted him for working too closely with the administration and, at his lowest point, yanked him from his position on their pension fund in retaliation for retirement health care changes he had overseen. Stewart, a former burglary detective on the North Side, said those changes were necessary to ensure the long-term existence of the fund, and he lists it as one of his greatest achievements.

Stewart now will work in the department's emergency operations unit. He said he is "ready to slow down."

"I've done my time," he said.