BROWNSVILLE, Texas – Brownsville Police Leaders and Patrol are not seeing eye to eye on schedule issues. It’s a he says-he says situation.
Currently the police department is an 8 hour a day, 5 days a week schedule. But before it was 10 hour shifts 4 days a week.
Dozens of officers protested outside city hall to change it back. Along side off duty Brownsville officers were members of CLEAT – the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. Together, CLEAT and the Brownsville Police Officers Association have filed a grievance against Chief Orlando Rodriguez.
However, Chief Rodriguez says the change was needed because covering shifts was a growing issue.
Chief Rodriguez, “That argument doesn’t really have any merit to it. We’re not talking about hours at a time because you can’t have a situation where there’s only one officer working downtown. Downtown for example those days are gone.
Charley Wilkison, CLEAT Executive Director, “We’re serious or not going away there’s eight grievances filed in a City the size of Brownsville. We don’t have eight grievances in San Antonio”
CLEAT and the Brownsville Police Officers Association believe the schedule will wind up being decided in state district court if city leaders don’t request the change in policy. 121 officers signed a petition opposing the change back in October. The 4-10 schedule had been in place for 4 years.