SAN ANTONIO – A 12-year veteran of the Bexar County Sheriff's Office was arrested Sunday on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, the office said in a news release.
Arnold Gomez, 35, was stopped just before 3 a.m. by the Sheriff's Office's Traffic Safety Unit, according to the Sheriff's Office.
The Sheriff's Office said the deputy, who is assigned to the detention bureau, was stopped in the 8500 block of State Highway 151. He has been placed on administrative duty, pending further investigation by the Bexar County Sheriff's Office's Criminal Investigations Division and the internal affairs department.
Gomez's mugshot was not available as of 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
“As an agency, we continue to send the clear message that this behavior, if founded, is completely unacceptable," Sheriff Javier Salazar said in an emailed statement. "Ongoing inservice training, preventive classes, training bulletins, roll call notices, literature, and email blasts are all currently being used to prevent DWI. Everyone has heard multiple times about the best methods to prevent and the consequences attached to unlawful behavior. I commend the deputy who professionally handled the stop/arrest and all BCSO employees who continue to work hard for this community.“
This comes nearly two weeks after the Deputy Sheriff's Association of Bexar County, the agency's union, filed a grievance against Salazar claiming that he wrongfully terminated his officers, listing the dismissal of Cpl. Ryan Ferrell as an example.
"The Sheriff has gone so far as to publicly advertise his disciplinary action to the public without media inquiry or request even before any administrative investigation has been conducted," the grievance reads. "The Sheriff's conceit strives to parlay the media attention upon the employee's conduct into a spectacle of the Sheriff casting out a cancerous employee from the organization. It is an obvious tactic to cut off the public criticism of the Sheriff personally.
"Sheriff Salazar is guilty of turning a civil servant's unfortunate and embarrassing events into opportunity for the Sheriff to promote his continued personal aspirations by publicly distancing the individual from the whole."
The union claims Ferrell -- who was involved in a street brawl in June 2017, while he was off duty, involved in the 2017 SERT team hazing scandal and arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in March -- was wrongfully issued a notice of proposed dismissal.
Salazar is up for reelection next year and has only one opponent, Jose A. Trevino, according to campaign records.