KERRVILLE, Texas — A nearly year-long saga involving a Kerrville police sergeant may finally reach a conclusion this year.
Kerrville police sergeant Jaiman Yarbrough has remained on the job since he was accused last year by his fellow officers of lying to obtain a search warrant that resulted in criminal charges against two people. In the months after the allegations, officers have resigned and scathing employee surveys have been submitted.
But Kerrville police chief David Knight chalked the conflict up to retaliation for changes the administration made to the special crimes unit which Yarbrough supervises. He said he stands by his decision to keep Yarbrough on the force. Knight said based on a review of the information, he believes there’s no reason to suspect Yarbrough was anything but truthful when he obtained a search warrant Jan. 24, 2019.
“When we look at the facts of the case, you look at who was there, who says they saw what, who did the affidavit on the search warrant and then go back and take a look at the video evidence and what we have on scene,” Knight said. “In looking at all of that, we haven’t made the determination that sergeant Yarbrough was being untruthful at this point in time.”
Search warrant called into question in motion to suppress
Court documents state Yarbrough, accompanied by fellow special crimes officers Jeffrey Purvis and John Latham, knocked at the apartment of Codie May in January 2019. Yarbrough wrote in a search warrant that a man named Christopher Crane answered the door and that he saw blunts, paraphernalia, cotton balls consistent with intravenous drug use, among other things, while standing in the doorway of May’s apartment in the 3300 block of Legion Drive.
Yarbrough noted in the search warrant that Crane attempted to close the door on officers before he pointed out the contraband in plain view and forced his way into the apartment. Yarbrough wrote that he found May at a sink with the faucet running.
While Crane declined to talk to police, May apparently told officers she had been smoking what she thought was marijuana with Crane and that he had given her methamphetamine, which she had used. The warrant notes officers found what they believed to be K2 or marijuana inside the home, along with syringes and trace amounts of methamphetamine.
Online court records show May and Crane were charged with possession of a controlled substance, a state jail felony. Crane’s case was dismissed last year. May’s case has dragged on.
A motion to suppress, filed by May’s first attorney last year, stated that after the warrant was executed, Purvis and Latham told officials with the Kerr County District Attorney’s office that they did not believe Yarbrough was truthful.
Purvis and Latham resigned last year. Both left amicable resignation letters.
The motion to suppress states that Yarbrough was interviewed by the District Attorney’s office and “could not articulate or explain why he included these untrue observations as part of his search warrant affidavit.”
Records revealed Latham was issued a reprimand by Yarbrough Feb. 6, 2019, days after the search warrant incident, for lack of productivity and lack of communication with Yarbrough. Latham tendered a retirement letter Feb. 19, 2019.
Special prosecutor, new attorney appointed to case
May’s first attorney, Garrett Emerson, has since gone to work for the Kerr County District Attorney’s Office. A special prosecutor was appointed to her case due to the conflict of interest, and May’s new attorney, Brett Ferguson, said he will move forward with the motion to suppress.
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Ferguson provided a statement which read, in part, ”We believe that the false statements made by Yarbrough was the only probable cause set forth in the affidavit for search warrant and that all of the evidence, including any statements made or possible testimony about the evidence, will be suppressed and deemed inadmissible at trial.”
Prior to the appointment of a special prosecutor, Kerr County District Attorney Lucy Wilke’s office was handling the case. Wilke declined to elaborate about the case and told KENS 5 via email,“I am not going to comment on any matter regarding Jaiman Yarbrough until after hearing on the motion on January 22nd.” The hearing was rescheduled for April 22.
Ferguson said he intends to have Latham and Purvis testify about what they saw that day.
Online court records show the case is set to go to trial June 22.
‘Unethical, immoral and criminal’
In the months following the allegations against Yarbrough an employee survey was sent out to all Kerrville city employees. Knight said the response rate among his patrol officers neared 50%.
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Many of the responses alluded to problems within the Special Crimes Unit. One read, “the special crimes unit is being run by a sergeant who does not have the required skills to make it an effective unit.” Another stated, “an unqualified and ill-fitting sergeant was promoted to the SCU sergeant position. That sergeant’s interpersonal skills, or lack thereof…” while another wrote, “I am disgusted by the ethical, immoral and criminal actions of a supervisor.”
Knight conceded that the survey responses highlighted a possible morale issue within his agency.
“Obviously there is a component that thinks that there is (a morale issue). I think that there are some stressors involved in police work and working in any agency and we’re certainly not immune to that here,” Knight said. “So, yes, I think there is a component of morale built into this. Whenever an agency is dealing with an issue where they have to affect change and correct some issues that are going on in a specific unit, it could create issues.”
Knight said the complaints about Yarbrough began shortly after his agency implemented a three-year rotation on Special Crimes Unit positions. Knight elaborated that the rotation would effectively prevent officers from spending more than three years on the force.
Asked whether he believed Latham and Purvis, who are now with other law enforcement agencies in Kerr County, would lie under oath about what they saw that day, Knight said he didn’t know.
“I will tell you that I think the catalyst for this was, right off the bat, was the correction of issues within the Special Crimes Unit,” Knight said. “Those individuals, when we put the rotation into place, we had two individuals who retired immediately because they didn’t want to leave Special Crimes Unit, and we had one individual who voluntarily went back to patrol immediately. When that happened, there were some loyalties to patrol officers -- a group of patrol officers to those individuals. And I think that some of this is driven by the decision to correct the issues in Special Crimes Unit and to put the rotation into effect.”
Knight said he made the decision to implement the rotation after seeing lawlessness among officers within the unit.
“We had issues that we were identifying that were occurring with those officers in the Special Crimes Unit that pushed the boundaries of adherence to policy and adherence to procedure,” Knight said. “We started to see pretty aggressive behavior, we saw an increase in use of force, we saw a lot of issues that were going on that needed to be corrected and that’s why we took the actions we took.”
Asked whether he would characterize the behavior he saw as “cowboy policing,” Knight said, “exactly.”
Knight elaborated that the moment he felt he needed to enforce change was an incident involving officer Stephehn Wherry, who received one of two suspensions issued in 2019.
Suspension documents state that Wherry used excessive force when he struck a suspect with his elbow during an arrest on Nov. 30, 2018. According to the disciplinary documents, the suspect was given three seconds to exit their vehicle before Wherry hit the suspect.
Wherry resigned from the force in October, nearly six months after he was handed down the 24-hour suspension. In his resignation, he wrote, “I refuse to work with an agency who condones criminal activity and persecuted officers who report these illegal acts. The administration of this department has not only let me down and persecuted with false allegations, but has let the entire department down along with the community as a whole.”
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