A Texas state trooper is suing 18 different Department of Public Safety officials a second time, alleging that they retaliated against him after he sued them the first time and that documents about him were tampered with.
Trooper Billy Spears was reprimanded in the spring of 2015 for taking a photo with rapper Snoop Dogg. Spears was reprimanded because the rapper has several drug-possession convictions and DPS policies prohibit troopers from associating with known criminals.
Spears filed suit against his bosses soon after he was reprimanded.
Shortly after, Spears went on medical leave for a knee injury. While still on leave, high-ranking DPS personnel accused him of not being in compliance with DPS’s physical fitness policies, which Spears’s lawsuit alleges was a retaliatory attempt to get him fired.
DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said the allegations in the lawsuit are incorrect.
“The department looks forward to refuting these spurious claims through the proper legal proceedings,” said Vinger, who declined to comment further.
Spears was on medical leave from May 26, 2016, to Dec. 17, 2016, his lawsuit says. On Sept. 1, 2016, he was warned he was on the verge of being terminated because he had failed to take and pass physical fitness tests during that time.
Spears’s lawsuit says he requested a medical waiver for the test and hadn’t been aware it had been denied.
Spears requested his waiver form, and the lawsuit alleges that the memo Spears wrote in May 2016 “had been altered and post-dated to June 2, 2016. The date alteration was significant because it created the false appearance that (Spears) had not submitted his memo before the May 31, 2016 deadline.”
Spears is seeking unspecified damages and a jury trial.
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