Sheriff Greg Capers was the picture of a Texas lawman as he announced the capture of a suspected mass shooter
Sheriff Greg Capers was the classic picture of a Texas lawman as he announced the capture of a suspected mass killer: white cowboy hat on his head, gold star pinned to his chest, white cross on his belt and a large pistol emblazoned with his name on his hip.
For four days, Francisco Oropeza had evaded hundreds of officers after allegedly killing five neighbors when they complained that his late-night shooting was keeping their baby awake. The sheriff said his deputies arrived in 11 minutes, but Oropeza was gone. With the search over, Capers had a message for the victims’ families.
“They can rest easy now,” Capers told a row of television cameras in May. The burly sheriff later personally hauled the “coward” across a town square into court.
But an Associated Press investigation led the sheriff’s office to disclose that deputies took nearly four times as long as Capers initially said to arrive at the mass shooting.
The AP also found Capers’ turn in the national spotlight belied years of complaints about corruption and dysfunction that were previously unknown outside the piney woods of San Jacinto County.
Capers did not directly respond to requests for comment.
What has played out under his watch is indicative of challenges police face across rural America, where small staffs must patrol vast jurisdictions. It also reveals the difficulty in holding powerful law enforcement officials accountable in isolated areas with little outside oversight.
Former deputies said Capers’ office has long neglected basic police work while pursuing asset seizures that boost its $3.5 million budget but don’t always hold up in court.
Deputies did not arrest Oropeza last year after he was reported for domestic violence and never contacted federal authorities to check his immigration status, although immigration officials say he was in the country illegally. Capers’ department also appears to have done little to investigate after another family’s call to 911 reporting a different man’s backyard gunfire nearly struck their young daughter.
The county paid $240,000 in 2020 to settle a whistleblower’s lawsuit accusing Capers of wide-ranging misconduct. Last year, county leaders hired a police consulting firm to examine the sheriff’s office but disregarded its recommendation to have the Texas Rangers’ public corruption squad investigate.
The LION Institute found evidence that Capers fostered a “fear-based” culture and oversaw the improper seizure of tens of thousands of dollars of property. The group’s report, obtained by the AP, also alleges deputies failed to follow up on reports of 4,000 crimes, including sexual and child abuse.
“The sheriff and his inner circle do whatever they want, regardless of law, with no consequence,” said Michael Voytko, who spent nearly five years as a San Jacinto County deputy before leaving in 2020 for another law enforcement job. “There was no accountability there for any of the deputies.”
After the April 28 mass shooting outside Cleveland, 46 miles (74 kilometers) northwest of Houston, Capers’ second-in-command said the sheriff initially gave his “best guestimation” about the response time. Chief Deputy Tim Kean added that low pay has left the office short of deputies to patrol the county, where 27,000 people live scattered along dirt roads through thick forest.
Kean also dismissed the consultant’s accusations as “straight-up lies” drummed up by the sheriff’s political opponents and said the county settled the whistleblower lawsuit to avoid a costly trial.
“This place is open any time to the Texas Rangers,” Kean said in an interview. “Any day they can come in here and go through this whole building top to bottom.”
In April, as Wilson Garcia and his wife tried to calm their crying baby boy, gunfire from the lot next door echoed off the pines around their house.
Garcia said he walked over and asked Oropeza to take his target practice farther from their home.
