SAN ANTONIO — Editor's note: The above video was originally published November 7, 2019.
A San Antonio police detective fired in June 2019 will get his job back after an arbitrator this week reduced his punishment to 90 days, police confirmed Thursday.
The decision comes months after Emanuel Keith went before a hearing examiner in November 2019 to seek reinstatement to the police department. A police report for the May 2018 incident for which Keith was fired states that Keith, while off-duty, sent text messages that read, "I'm so freaking pist [sic]. I'm going to end you," "Dead bitch soon," and "Die bitch die."
During the June 2019 arbitration hearing, Keith admitted to sending the texts and voicemails but elaborated that they were sent after he said the woman made multiple calls and texts to him, his wife and others after he had called off the affair.
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He said that the woman would contact him from different phone numbers at all hours of the day and night and that he had threatened to contact her employer concerning the repeated calls, but that she had beat him to the punch, reporting him to police over the voicemails and calls.
“The ‘die’ was more like, ‘I wish you would just go away.’” Keith testified that he had also told the woman in the same text messages that he wanted her to go to another planet. “It wasn’t like, ‘die, I’m going to kill you,’” Keith said during arbitration.
The woman who Keith is alleged to have threatened declined to participate in any criminal or administrative case against him. While the case was forwarded to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, the case was rejected and Keith was never criminally charged.
“Family violence and domestic violence is a serious issue, especially here in Bexar County,” McManus told the hearing examiner last year. “Bexar County has the highest rate of intimate partner assaults (and) murders, than any other county in the state of Texas. To have one of my own police officers involved in a domestic violence, terroristic threats, incidents – can’t tolerate that. Won’t tolerate that.”
A spokesperson for the police department said Thursday the appeal was granted in part and denied in part, though the details of the arbitrator’s decision were not immediately available.
Keith will receive backpay for his time away from the police force.
“In accordance with this decision, the department will begin the return to duty process,” the agency said in a statement.