Ogg Stumbles Again: Missed Deadline Forces Dismissal in Police Assault Case
The ultra-conservative Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a rare ruling in favor of a criminal defendant last week, “dismiss[ing] the indictment” against a police officer arrested for assaulting a civilian during a traffic stop as “time-barred because it was not brought within the two-year statute of limitations.”
In other words, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg couldn’t get her shit together in time to indict the officer even though she had literally two years to do so. Yet, legal pleadings filed on behalf of the alleged assault victim in a related civil case spell out a seemingly slam dunk criminal case but for Ogg tripping over her own feet on the way to the basket:
During the traffic stop, the officer (and his partner) “handcuffed [the motorist] and thoroughly searched him for weapons and found none. Still handcuffed, [the motorist] ran from the scene and was easily caught within a block by [the problem officer’s partner]. While the brief chase ensued [the problem officer] shouted for [his partner] to shoot [the motorist] twice with [the motorist’s] back to him and even shouted “BOP BOP.” This terrified [the motorist] so greatly, he defecated. When [the problem officer] caught up with the already restrained [motorist] he then used his steel handcuffs as “brass knuckles” and smashed [the motorist] in the back of the head at least three times.”
Tragically, Ogg’s error doesn’t simply rob the assault victim of the opportunity to secure justice. It also means, as Matt deGrood reports for the Houston Chronicle, that the officer’s lawyers will now leverage the lack of a criminal conviction to “go to arbitration with the Houston Police Department with a goal of getting his job back.”
Not An Isolated Incident:
Just last month, a Harris County judge was forced to “grant a $1 bond [to a man] accused of sexually assaulting a teenager and getting her pregnant” because Ogg “never secured an indictment from a grand jury.” As ABC News 13 reported: “the victim told police that [the defendant], now 25, gave her a drink of Smirnoff vodka. She said she passed out and woke up in the bed next to [the defendant], whom she said was naked. Three months after the encounter, the teenager found out she was pregnant, and court documents reveal a DNA test proved [the defendant] was the father. He was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child under 17 years of age[.]”
2,000 Drunk Driving Cases Dismissed. Ogg’s Office has dismissed over 2,000 drunk driving cases over the past eighteen months, according to data obtained by Houston Watch via public records request. For example, one defendant had three prior drunk driving conditions. He also violated the conditions of his pretrial release in this case—his fourth drunk driving prosecution—by blowing four blood alcohol readings on his interlock device, which is the device that stops his car ignition from turning on when he’s consumed alcohol. Further, he “has a total of 11 skipped tests.” Yet, prosecutors simply dismissed this case.
Two Dozen Sexual Assault Cases Dismissed. Over the one year period between 1/1/22 and 1/1/23, Ogg’s office dismissed at least two dozen sexual assault prosecutions. For example, Houston Watch reported on the case of “Grandpa Jack” who spent five years in prison in the early 2000s for sexually assaulting two young children. Then, in 2018, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office secured a new indictment of Grandpa Jack, this time on charges of “super-aggravated sexual assault of a child under six years of age.” Ogg’s office took five years to take the case to trial, which finally started in March 2023. But days after jury selection began, Ogg’s office dismissed the case.
A Dozen Murder Cases Dismissed. From January 2022 through June 2023—a period of eighteen months—Harris County has endured nearly 700 murders. Over the same time period, the District Attorney’s Office only managed to secure murder convictions in ten of those cases. Meanwhile, the officer dismissed at least a dozen cases over the same time period. For example, in one case in which prosecutors dismissed the charges, an eyewitness told police officers that she witnessed the defendant shoot four people—one who died— in a nightclub. The witness picked the defendant out of a lineup. Moreover, the defendant, who owns a “Glock … with a device that converts a semi-automatic handgun to a fully automatic handgun,” was also caught on video running away from the club and handing a black gun to another male. Again, it’s a slam dunk set of facts that most prosecutors would turn into a murder guilty verdict, but Ogg’s prosecutors dismissed it.