Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton fired
www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/082603dnmetbolton.4420b719.html
02:21 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 26, 2003

City Manager Ted Benavides fired Police Chief Terrell Bolton on Tuesday morning, ending the reign of an embattled leader whose tenure was marked by the fake drug scandal and a controversy about an officer involved in an off-duty shooting.

"After four years of Chief Bolton's leadership, I just thought it was time to go in a new direction," Benavides said. "I think he's a really good guy. Sometimes events overtake you."

Benavides said an “accumulation of issues,” not one single event, prompted the chief's firing. He said he had been considering the move "for a while."

At a news conference, Bolton, who had been police chief since October 1999, thanked the officers and citizens who supported him, and outlined what he considered his accomplishments: cutting his budget to stay within the city’s means, improving the officers’ salaries, reducing violent crime, and increasing the number of minorities and women in the department.

But he said he did not understand why he had been fired. “I’m still trying to work that out,” he said.

“I leave with no regrets,” he said. “I think that I’ve given Dallas everything that I could give Dallas within the resources that I’ve had.”

Benavides said he would begin a national search, which he expects to take at least six months.

Bolton's dismissal was effective immediately. In the meantime, Assistant Chief Randy Hampton was named to lead the department.

City Councilman John Loza said he supported the city manager's decision.

"I know it’s a very difficult decision on his part and I really do think to a certain extent that Chief Bolton maybe was a victim of circumstances beyond his control," Loza said. "But I think there was a lot on consensus that we needed to take a new direction and I can understand that.

“I think we have an opportunity now to hopefully find someone that will take some new initiatives and get us moving forward, [and] improve the morale in the department.”

Earlier this month, police officials announced that the department's internal affairs division would conduct a review of department hiring practices. Those practices came under scrutiny recently after The Dallas Morning News reported that Officer Derrick C. Evans had been the subject of emergency protective orders in Alaska for allegedly assaulting his wife, according to public records.

The orders were not found by the department's background check when Evans joined the department in February 2000. Evans was put on administrative leave this summer after he wounded a teenager during an off-duty confrontation that involved his stepdaughter.

The chief also was criticized about a July report that showed that Dallas would have the highest crime rate among the nation's largest cities for the sixth year in a row if projections hold true through the end of the year.

At the time, Bolton noted that the city's crime rate had fallen significantly in the last decade, despite an apparent spike in crime for the first half of the year.

The Dallas County district attorney's office has identified more than 80 Dallas police narcotics cases tainted after the fake-drug cases surfaced in late 2001. About two dozen cases involved fake or no drugs, and others were dismissed because of questions surrounding the involved officers and their paid informants.

Sgt. Gil Cerda, president of the Dallas chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association, said the decision to fire Bolton was not particularly surprising.

“All we can say is, we don’t know which straw broke the camel’s back,” Cerda said. “It was something that was in the making. The city manager made the decision to carry it through. I don’t know if he was stimulated by City Council members, or just by the trouble that’s happened over the past four years. Chief Bolton had a tough job. He was hit hard from day one. I don’t know anyone who could cope with that in those four years.”

Bolton supporters said they were disappointed that the city’s first black chief had been fired.

Councilman James Fantroy said he was concerned that race relations in the city will deteriorate as a result.

“The black community believed in Chief Bolton. And so I hope that this doesn’t cause any adverse effect on our city,” he told WFAA-TV.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price pointed to the chief’s clashes with Mayor Laura Miller as a reason he may have been dismissed.

“We understand the mayor has felt like that Chief Bolton was the weak link in the chain … and was probably disposable,” Price said.

Benavides said neither the council nor Miller played a role in his decision to terminate Bolton.

"The city manager hired Mr. Bolton," he said. "The city manager terminated Mr. Bolton."

Dallas Morning News staff writers Colleen McCain, Tanya Eiserer and Jason Trahan and WFAA-TV contributed to this report.

It's about time. That moron could not even talk coherently.

Only reason his ass was kept on the payroll this long is because he is colored and the first colored chief.

yeahhhh

That guy was a real piece of shit.

www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/tx-cgi/survey.cgi?survey=2697


also I wonder when the threathened "race-roits" < by the dallas city concil> will begin..

oh yeah I bet he/they < Bolton/city concil> blame the storms we are having now on him being fired  


edited to kill link.. it didnt work,,

it was the results to the survey on dallasnews.com about "how you feel about the firiing"

seems 80% was good ridance..

the other 20% seemed to sure it was a race issue.

I can't believe it took this long to get rid of Bolton. The "D" magazine survey this summer which involved 40% of the officers was scathing in the job Bolton has done. His "$100,000 a year spokesperson was but one example of genuine incompetency in a major PD.

Hooray for the city manager for doing what needed to be done-- this was a badly needed change.

Best-

Neil.

LONG overdue.

 Now we just have to get rid of Benevides, Miller, half the city council, the entirety of the DISD school board and their sycophants.


mm

From The Corner on www.nationalreview.com:

MAU-MAUING IN BIG D [Rod Dreher]
Here in Dallas, we're America's crime capital. Our police chief is seen by more and more people as--how to put this politely?--not up to the demands of his job. The bill of indictment would fill a day's worth of Corner postings. But Chief Bolton has one thing going for him: he's an African-American. Despite the fact that black Dallasites are bearing a disproportionate brunt of the crime, black leaders here are going to the mat for the chief. Yesterday, the chief's top defender on the city council, a black council member named Don Hill, came to visit the editorial board here at the Dallas Morning News. He's a very friendly man, but he laid down the law. He said, in so many words, that it doesn't matter whether Bolton brings the crime stats down, as long as he makes a show of trying hard. He said that he believes the newspaper is out to get Dallas' first African-American chief. He said that if the city moves to fire Bolton, there will be "racial unrest"--he said he wasn't promising a riot, but that conditions would be ripe for one. And he said that even if the black community is suffering disproportionately from the crime Bolton is not preventing, it didn't matter because African-Americans feel good about having one of their own running the police department.

Hopefully they will not riot in Little Elm.  I am down to about 7 cases of 5.56...

With the population of Little Elm, you probably only need one USGI magazine....

Bolton has a lawyer. The laywer states that his termination was conspired.

Also in response to Bolton's address: Violent crime went UP not down.

Now sit back and watch the racial peddling begin.

Quoted: From The Corner on www.nationalreview.com: MAU-MAUING IN BIG D [Rod Dreher] Here in Dallas, we're America's crime capital. Our police chief is seen by more and more people as--how to put this politely?--not up to the demands of his job. The bill of indictment would fill a day's worth of Corner postings. But Chief Bolton has one thing going for him: he's an African-American. Despite the fact that black Dallasites are bearing a disproportionate brunt of the crime, black leaders here are going to the mat for the chief. Yesterday, the chief's top defender on the city council, a black council member named Don Hill, came to visit the editorial board here at the Dallas Morning News. He's a very friendly man, but he laid down the law. He said, in so many words, that it doesn't matter whether Bolton brings the crime stats down, as long as he makes a show of trying hard. He said that he believes the newspaper is out to get Dallas' first African-American chief. He said that if the city moves to fire Bolton, there will be "racial unrest"--he said he wasn't promising a riot, but that conditions would be ripe for one. And he said that even if the black community is suffering disproportionately from the crime Bolton is not preventing, it didn't matter because African-Americans feel good about having one of their own running the police department.

 Very fricking disgusting.  So the guy does a shitty job, but happens to be African-American, then it's cool.  How BS.

Chief Moose was not "edumacated" and was racist (ie: white truck with two white males).

Well, if there's a bright side to this (besides the obvious one that Bolton was fired) is that he probably did more single handedly for promoting gun and ammo sales than any other thing in the Dallas area. After I read that D Magazine poll from the Dallas PD officers, I beefed up my ammo, gun inventory and training for home defense plus signed up for a CHL course.

I can only think the rank and file LEO in the Dallas PD is jumping with joy at the news; they could certainly use a break. Lets hope the new chief sets this all to right. Dallas is a great place to live and having a world class PD would be a very good thing.

My .000002 cents.

Neil.

i agree with internet guy. i dont live in dallas, and boy am i glad. i had about 5 friends get out of the Corps. the went to work for DPD only because they requirements are easy to meet. they got trained, then jumped ship. good ridance. even if he was black

if anyone needs reinforcements during the promised race riots there, let me know, got tons of ammo and need trigger time!