Brown County Commissioners heard a grievance from former deputy Michelle Holder Thursday morning regarding her recent employment termination with the Brown County Sheriff’s Office which resulted in a disagreement in opinions between the County Judge Ray West and Sheriff Bobby Grubbs.
Given the option to have her grievance heard in a closed executive session or in a public forum, Holder decided to have the matter discussed publicly. Judge West stated that the purpose was to consider the grievance against Brown County Sheriff Bobby Grubbs for the termination of her employment. West explained the process required of first talking to her department head, which is the sheriff, and that she then had the right to have her complaint heard in commissioners’ court, according to the Brown County Employment Manual.
“What I want right now is to ask that my peace officer license, which he put down as general discharge, I would like that to be upgraded to honorable discharge,” said Holder.
She stated that she felt her status of “general discharge” instead of an “honorable discharge” damaged her possibilities of being hired as a law enforcement investigator in the future.
“It doesn’t keep me from getting a job as a police officer but it certainly might hamper me from getting jobs with a general discharge position,” said Holder.
She explained to commissioners that the purpose of her complaint was also to help clear her name after a media release of the firing of her and her husband Mike was released by the Sheriff on Thursday, February 27, 2014.
“I need to clear my name. I need to let people hear my side. Within two hours (of the firing) he made a big media blitz and pretty much trashed our name, that’s how the whole family found out,” explained Holder.
“My understanding on the general discharge is that it doesn’t keep you from getting a police investigator job,” said Holder. “I have done background investigation jobs for Lubbock and Brown County and when you see a general discharge come up, the chances of you getting seriously considered for the job, it pretty much is not going to happen.”
Holder stated that on August 6, 2012, she notified “anyone who would listen,” about the 8-liners at the business which her brother-in-law now owns. Holder stated the people informed about these included Sheriff Grubbs, County Attorney Shane Britton, Alisha Byrd and Tony Aaron. She stated that she had not seen an internal affairs report regarding any investigation into the machines.
According to Holder, the sheriff and others at a meeting later in 2012 held to consider a warrant about the 8 liners, were told by investigators that there were two 8-liners out in the county. She stated that the Brown County Sheriff’s Office was called to the business in the past when the machines were stolen and then later returned to the owner without any investigation of the legality of the machines at that time.
According to Sheriff Grubbs in the February press release, both Michelle Holder and Mike Holder were terminated “for their association with an 8-liner business in the North Lake area of Brown County.” It further explained that “an internal investigation was initiated concerning employee associations with an 8-liner business in the North Lake area of Brown County. It was determined that two employees were in violation of departmental professional conduct policies concerning their association with questionable activity (promotion of gambling).”
Holder stated she had not been charged with a crime that she knew of as yet. She explained that a formal complaint had been written and that she was informed she needed to make a written response to the complaint before BCSO would consider what action to take, possibly even firing her and her husband Mike who was employed part time with BCSO at that time. The events took place sooner than what she stated she was told and soon the two were fired and a press release was quickly dispersed to area media outlets.
“Evidently you can say anything about anyone as long as you say ‘alleged’ in there,” said Holder. “27 years in law enforcement, 26 of them active because I took one year off. This is the first time in 27 years I have ever had an internal investigation I have never had to respond to in writing and it resulted in this,” said Holder. “One of my big concerns in this town – in this area – trying to get a job after you have been terminated by Sheriff Grubbs, whether it is in law enforcement or any other thing, is nearly impossible. I think we have all seen that from other people he has terminated, whether just cause or not. They are not happy with just terminating you; they have to ruin your life.”
Judge West stated that Texas is an at-will employment state, which allows, even in county government, that any department head has the authority to hire and fire at-will, with or without cause.
West said he considered the status of Holder’s Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) license, and the status of her discharge, “a very serious action,” stating that “It is not so much in the action of the firing but in the action taken with regard to her peace officer’s license.” West asked Grubbs to explain why he chose to take this action.
Sheriff Grubbs responded during Thursday’s grievance hearing stating that the separation papers allow 3 types of discharges: dishonorable discharge, general discharge and honorable discharge.
“Michelle’s actions met the concept of a general discharge and was borderline on dishonorable discharge. It does not take her license away from her. It is on her record and it is required by TCOLE and we stand behind this decision,” said Grubbs.
West asked why Sheriff Grubbs believed it was appropriate to limit Holder’s future employment possibilities. “Because it is what is called for (by TCOLE), because of her conduct,” said Grubbs.
Commissioner Joel Kelton asked if Holder was going to be charged with a crime and Grubbs answered, “I’m not sure at this time.”
Chief Deputy Bobby Duvall stated that Holder had violated the BCSO ethics policy.
“It states very clearly that from the first day of employment, that you will conduct yourself in such a way that you won’t even be around anything that is associated with criminal activity, any criminals. It is crystal clear. We exhaustively investigated this,” said Duvall. “We knew it was a very serious thing when we started on it. We found volumes of information that led us right up to the probability of filing charges. We feel very strongly about our stance on this.”
Kelton asked Duvall if Holder had notified anyone at BCSO about the 8-liner operation, to which Duvall replied, “She was in violation of our policy up to that day. She was clearly knowledgeable about that operation, knows about the ins and outs about it and she had already crossed the line when we realized she was there.” He refused to give details because of the threat of potential litigation.
Judge West expressed his opinion, “Bobby, I disagree with you, I think that it is extremely important to this discussion. Whether she told anyone in the sheriff’s office, about her knowledge of a gambling operation, the 8-liner operation. Whether it was legal or illegal was not our province, it was to advise the office. If she did, then what the Sheriff’s Office is doing is wrong.”
Brown County Attorney Shane Britton explained that there has been more than one threat of law suit against Brown County about this situation and he stated that he advised Both Duvall and Grubbs not to talk and was going to take his own advice. He stated that they should not speak about the investigation in a public forum.
West continued to disagree and stated, “Appealing to the county commissioners’ court is an opportunity for the employee that feels aggrieved, to vent her frustrations, to make a private or public statement in commissioners’ court as to why she feels she was wrongfully terminated or any other actions she believes are wrongfully being levied against her. It is not the province of this court, there is no authority in the law for the commissioners’ court to overturn a decision by an elected official or any head of a department. This is not like a city government, we do not have the right to take any action that is not prohibited by law, we only have the right to do that which is constitutionally or legislatively permitted by the law. That is not one of the things permitted by the law, so we cannot unequivocally require you to do anything, we can make a strong recommendation, but that simply has to do with regulations and our opinion. That is as far as it can go. So, if the sheriff’s office is strongly against reversing its actions I wholeheartedly disagree with that position. I think the Sheriff’s Office has a duty to have an open mind and if someone is not charged with a criminal offense and has that sort of action taken against their livelihood, I think they have been wronged. Whether it violates policy in word, I disagree.”
Britton explained that an appeal is underway regarding this decision.
“There is an appeal procedure for decisions such as this. It is my understanding that the process has begun. You can appeal directly to the state and they will have a hearing where you can call witnesses and cross examine the Sheriff and Chief Deputy,” explained Britton. “There is a process where this will be played out in front of a neutral judge and then a judge will decide whether that action was appropriate. I don’t want y’all to think this is the end. She has appealed it and there will be an appeal hearing.”
West summed up his opinion, “What I am disappointed in is the adamancy. I feel the sheriff’s office has a duty to be open minded, so that if she is not found to have engaged in criminal conduct, and is not found to be as Mr. Duvall has said in violation of conduct unbecoming of an officer, then this office should reconsider its discharge.”
Duvall defended the Sheriff’s stance on the dismissal, “If you knew what we knew, that we don’t want to milk it out in this room, I think you would take the polar opposite of what you have just said.”
Sheriff Grubbs gave the last comments stating that there is a lot of evidence that cannot be presented to the commissioners’ court.
“There’s a lot of details that are not on the table we can’t discuss them at this time, choose not to discuss them at the cost of litigation,” said Sheriff Grubbs. He stated regarding whether Holder had informed him of the operation, “from my stand point she did not contact me.”
Commissioners’ court was recessed until a special meeting set for 2:30 PM on Tuesday, April 1, 2014.
Pictured above from left are Commissioner Joel Kelton, County Judge Ray West and Michelle Holder at Thursday’s meeting of the commissioners’ court.
