San Antonio police officer who lost his job for trying to feed a feces sandwich to a homeless person wins an appeal to get his dismissal overturned
By Michael Nam
Daily Mail
March 24, 2019
A police officer in Texas who had been fired after he gave a homeless person a fecal sandwich had his dismissal overturned on a technicality.
San Antonio Police Officer Matthew Luckhurst argued that the timeline of the incident fell outside the window for allowing him to be indefinitely suspended, and an arbitrator agreed with him earlier this month, KSAT reported.
'The indefinite suspension is overturned due to the violation of the 180-days prohibition,' the arbitrator wrote in his decision based on the rule that Luckhurst's discipline fell outside of the time limit on punishing his behavior.
The arbitrator did note that while the suspension was overturned, the punishment was ''reasonable based on just cause for Luckhurst's action whether intentionally or grossly inappropriate, regarding the fecal sandwich being placed in a container close to a homeless person.'
Luckhurst had initially testified that the incident had occurred on May 6, 2016, when he had picked up some dog feces, put it on a piece of bread before placing the 'sandwich' in a Styrofoam container of a 'half-eaten meal' provided by a local religious group for the homeless in the area of the I-35 overpass in San Antonio.
He had placed it next to a sleeping homeless man who would wake up, pick up the container before smelling the contents and throwing it away.
Another bike officer reported that he told Luckhurst, a five-year veteran of the force, that he could not just leave the container next to the homeless person, and told him to go back and dispose of it.
The officer said he watched Luckhurst bike back and assumed that he threw it away, but it's not confirmed that he did.
Luckhurst was notified of his dismissal on October 28 of that year which fell within the 180-day window if the incident happened in May as originally believed, but the officer reviewed his medical records that would challenge the assumption.
According to his records, the officer had suffered an injury during a martial arts class that left him on light duty between April 6 and June 14, 2016, and would not have been able to ride his bicycle in May.
Witness and hearsay testimony in the record also provided vague or contradictory dates regarding the incident, there was no body cam or video footage to corroborate the date and authorities were unable to identify or locate the homeless man referenced.
His suspension was reduced to five days by the arbitrator for another incident where he failed to arrest another homeless person who had a warrant.
While he won this particular appeal, the former officer has yet another feces related claim he needs to address from 2016.
Luckhurst was given a second indefinite suspension in December of 2016 over an allegation that he and another male officer had defecated in a toilet assigned to women in the bike patrol office.
'The toilet was left unflushed by both officers intentionally,' the suspension document states.
'Officer Luckhurst and the other officer also obtained a brown substance with the consistency of tapioca and spread it on the seay,' the report continued. 'Officer Luckhurst then boasted of these actions to fellow officers. This inappropriate behavior was done after a female officer requested the women's restroom be kept clean.'
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