SCHERTZ, Texas – The former interim chief of the Schertz Police Department was named in multiple internal complaints this year, prior to his exodus from the agency, records obtained by KSAT Investigates confirm.
Marc Bane, who served as SPD’s assistant chief and then interim chief, retired from the agency on July 29.
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Documents handed over by SPD following a records request from KSAT detail complaints filed against Bane in the months before he left.
SPD officials attempted to block the release of records, but were forced to hand them over after a ruling by the Texas Attorney General’s Office late last month.
A lieutenant, who later took a voluntary demotion, described Bane as “intimidating” and that under his “faulty leadership” as assistant chief she suffered from health issues, including significant weight loss.
“I left that meeting feeling completely ill, light headed, and feeling as if I had just been kicked in the gut,” the lieutenant wrote, describing a February 2021 meeting with Bane about her work performance.
“Asst. Chief Bane continued to chip away at what spirit I had left with his demeaning communication, and lack of assistance to help me improve,” the lieutenant wrote in a 10-page complaint submitted earlier this year.
SPD officials confirmed this week the lieutenant still works for the department but now serves at the lower rank of corporal.
Bane’s tenure in charge was previously marred by an evidence destruction controversy.
KSAT Investigates revealed in July, weeks before Bane’s departure from the agency, that over a decade worth of evidence was destroyed or removed from the Schertz Police Department’s property room without prosecutorial review.
Schertz police officials confirmed that 1,047 cases — mostly in Guadalupe County — were impacted after evidence from the department’s property room was improperly disposed of.
The Guadalupe County Attorney in recent weeks dismissed felony cases against five defendants after evidence in each of the criminal matters was wrongfully destroyed during the purge.
The former lieutenant, in her lengthy complaint, described the purge as an “illegal evidence destruction process” and said a consultant had been brought in to spearhead the project at the direction of Bane.
Internal SPD records show Bane played an instrumental role late last year in getting the city to bring on Gayla Robison Consulting as a vendor to handle the project after the two were introduced at a conference.
Robison, according to internal SPD records, charged the city $1,400 a day to clean up the property room during a project covering a week in January, with the assistance of SPD staff including the former lieutenant.
Bane, according to the same records, began to contact district attorney’s offices in March about evidence being disposed of without a proper review.
A second SPD employee, a civilian evidence technician who assisted with the evidence purge, filed a complaint against Bane in April stating that the interim chief failed to address a pay disparity between her and another evidence technician.
The technician stated that she had deferred to Robison throughout the evidence destruction project at the direction of Bane.
A third SPD employee, Capt. Manny Casas, filed a complaint in May accusing Bane of berating him during a meeting about command staff issues.
Casas wrote that Bane retaliated against him following the meeting and that the then interim-chief ceased communicating with members of his command staff.
SPD officials this week declined to comment on the complaints, describing them as “personnel matters.”
Bane did not respond to an email or text message seeking comment for this story.