SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar on Friday cut ties with Assistant Chief Deputy Ronald Dale Bennett, one of the longest serving members of his administration, the sheriff said.
Bennett, who oversaw BCSO’s law enforcement division, retired in lieu of being terminated by Salazar, the sheriff said at a Friday afternoon news conference.
Salazar said that he and Bennett disagreed with the way the sheriff believes the agency should be moving forward. The sheriff said he wants to make changes to some of the agency’s units and Bennett didn’t agree with Salazar’s plans.
“The fact remains is that where we were at as an agency in his area of responsibility, I was not satisfied with what I was seeing to that point, and I don’t think that he and I agreed necessarily on where we needed to go moving forward. And so the decision was reached that we needed to part ways,” Salazar said.
The sheriff said he wants BCSO to focus more on organized crime and domestic terrorism, which Salazar said is the “next big threat” in San Antonio and across the U.S.
“We have to be at the front end of this,” he said.
Salazar said that he also wasn’t please with the way Bennett oversaw the case involving the shooting deaths of a mother and her two daughters at their Anaqua Springs home. The investigation has been ongoing with assistance from the FBI since Jan. 10, 2019. Not satisfied with the way the case was handled, Salazar reassigned the case recently to a different investigator within the department.
“That case was not handled to the level that I believe that it should have, especially in light of the fact that we’ve been at it for two years now,” Salazar said.
Bennett was one of Salazar’s original appointments, and took part in a ceremony announcing a revamped administration days after Salazar took office in January 2017.
Bennett has been on and off with BCSO for 34 years.