Keel: The Real Deal

Travis County Sheriff Terry Keel recently bragged about the time that two men tried to carjack him on his birthday two years ago. In an October 8 article in the Austin American-Statesman, Keel portrayed himself as a brave crimefighter who was confronted on January 13, 1993 by "two thugs who tried to run me down" on MoPac near FM 2222. The article said that "they edged [Keel] off the road, abandoned their car and ran for his. Keel whacked one man with his car door, grabbed him by the hair, laid him over the hood and," Keel told the daily, " [I] took a bead down on the other one coming around front."

It's a harrowing story befitting the chief law enforcer of the county. The only problem is, say the two men who were detained by Keel that night, the tale isn't true.

"That's bullshit," says truck driver Larry Ruiz, 26, one of the men who had the run-in with Keel that evening. "There was never any carjacking -- I was driving a brand new truck."

If Keel's story proves false, then the sheriff should be held accountable, says Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire, one of Keel's most outspoken critics. "There are Austin police officers and deputies who've been real heros and heroines putting their lives at stake," he says. "It is shameful for them to have to sit there and listen to false aggrandizements from a self-promoting sheriff whose lack of self-control causes him to get into these hotheaded fights."

The carjacking fiasco is just the most recent in a string of allegations being levelled at Keel. For a while it seemed that he could do no wrong. Since his days as a hotshot county prosecutor, Keel's relationships with victims of violent crime have served him well, casting him as a savior to those taken advantage of by the criminal element. Since he took office as sheriff in 1992, Keel has gained an even greater reputation as a victim's champion. His zealous attack on the lawyer of convicted baby-killer Cathy Lynn Henderson earned him steadfast loyalty from victims' rights groups and glowing press -- even after his arguably over-aggressive tactics cost taxpayers over $300,000 in settlement costs and attorneys' fees last month. At the hint of negative press coverage of Keel, his friends and supporters launched a radio call-in and letter-to-the-editor writing campaign describing Keel as "the best sheriff Travis County's ever had."

But lately the media attention has turned ugly, as other people with whom Keel has come in contact have stepped forward to paint a different picture of Travis County's sheriff. According to more than a dozen people who have gotten cross-wise with Keel -- including former employees, defense attorneys, and private citizens -- he is a dangerous bully who uses his authority to retaliate against anyone who gets in his way, be it a young female defense lawyer, a veteran sheriff's officer, or a motorist stopped on the street.

"[Keel] has this mentality that the ends justify the means -- that he is a crime-fighter, the only one in Travis County that can save us from the criminal element, and so he tramples on Constitutional rights," says Ron DeLord, president of the Combined Law Enforcement Agencies of Texas (CLEAT), a state-wide association of peace officers.

Keel, 37, usually prefers to be photographed by the media outdoors wearing his uniform, complete with gun and baton, but in reality, he spends a good deal of time in a suit and tie behind a desk on the top floor of a converted bank building downtown. As chief law enforcement officer of Travis County, Keel supervises a staff of over 1,200 corrections and law enforcement personnel, and has jursidiction for over 800 square miles of unincorporated land in the county. Surrounded by framed drawings by his twin 8-year-old boys of him as "Robocop" and an autographed photo of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Keel is adamant that the recent media firestorm surrounding his tenure is a pack of lies orchestrated by liberal Democrats to boot him out of office. "Out of 43 elected county officials I'm the only Republican -- I'm a lightning rod," Keel explains. "I'm a rising star they want to shoot down before it's too late."

As for the press, and specifically the Chronicle, Keel says that reporters only talk to disgruntled employees or criminals he has arrested. "That is sensationalism -- when you just talk to people with beefs," he says. "Of course the story is going to be unfair."

But Keel's detractors say that there are reasons why Keel is being criticized, and they have nothing to do with political maneuverings on the part of Democrats or headline-hungry journalists. An examination of the birthday carjacking incident, according to CLEAT president DeLord and Judge Aleshire, reveals what can happen when a tyrant is allowed to carry a badge and a gun.

Ruiz and his wife's cousin, David Joe Moran, 25 (neither of whom were aware, they say, that Keel has been circulating a carjacking story in the press), say they were driving to the New West night club when they noticed a car tailgating them, "like whoever it was wanted to agitate the driver," Moran says. Then, he says, as the car pulled up beside the driver's side, Ruiz "flipped off" Keel, and the two started yelling at each other through the car window. Ruiz says he had no idea that the person in the car next to them was a law enforcement officer, so when Keel told them to pull over, Ruiz was ready to rumble. Keel, who doesn't deny the incident happened, claims he never tailgated Ruiz, and thinks they targeted him by mistake. Ruiz admits that could be true, but Moran is steadfast in his belief that Keel instigated the exchange.

Ruiz pulled into a Stop-N-Go on instructions by Keel to pull over, say the two young men, and Keel followed. Ruiz recalls that when he approached Keel's car door, Keel met him with a gun held against the middle of his forehead. "I still didn't know it was a police officer," says Ruiz. "He never identified himself. Aren't they supposed to do that before they pull a gun on you?"

Moran says that from inside the truck it appeared that his friend was a goner. "I knew it was Terry Keel when he got out of the car -- I voted for him," he says. "I knew what he was supposed to look like, but a crazy man is what I seen that night. He was sweating, and his hands were shaking. He looked like he was fixing to kill somebody."

Ruiz also believes he narrowly escaped being shot. "The thing I remember Keel saying to me was, `I was hoping that one of y'all would come out with something in your hand -- you wouldn't have gotten past the [truck's] tailgate,'" Ruiz recalls. Moran says he also remembers the comment.

Keel denies he ever said that, and he reiterates that the men did indeed try to carjack him. "What is a carjacking?" he says. "It's when someone runs your car off the road... and tries to take your car... That is my interpretation of that incident."

(A sheriff's deputy who was the first to arrive at the scene, Steve Burgess, said that Keel's car was parked directly behind the truck, corroborating Ruiz's and Moran's story that Keel folowed the men off the road rather then being edged off it.)

After a cursory search for drugs or weapons that yielded nothing, Ruiz says, the police officers who had arrived at the scene took him to jail for having no insurance. Ruiz says that one of his jailers told him he was lucky to be alive -- Keel was a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode.

An Austin Police Department report of the incident obtained by the Chronicle under the Texas Open Records Act bolsters the two young men's version of events in that it never mentions a carjacking attempt, nor does it say the men ran Keel off the road. The APD officer who authored the report wrote: "Arrived and found Sheriff Terry Keel with a silver pickup stopped and a Hispanic male spread on his hood. Asked Keel what happened, Keel explained that... male in silver pickup pulled up alongside and started yelling and cussing at Keel. The pickup then pulled in front of Keel cutting him off. They pulled into a Stop-N-Go... Hispanic male jumped out and tried to start a fight with Keel. He was subdued." Although it seems odd under the circumstances, all three men involved say Keel drove Moran home.

"The only thing I can say to all that is that it's totally untrue," Keel replies. "They instigated the conflict, motioned me over to the side of the road to try to assault me... Why would you take the word of some fugitives over me?" Keel points out that Ruiz had fictitious plates on his car and outstanding warrants. He says he didn't bring up the carjacking to officers on the scene because all he cared about was that Ruiz go to jail that night.

Ruiz and Moran admit they are no choirboys -- Ruiz was arrested nine months after his confrontation with Keel for carrying a stick that was considered a concealed weapon -- but they point out that they have no reason to lie. "I admit I wanted to kick [Keel's] ass that night, but it didn't happen the way he said," Ruiz maintains. He says Keel flew off the handle by drawing a gun on an unarmed citizen.

"He knows damn sure we didn't try to carjack him," Moran adds.

The birthday altercation is not an isolated incident, if Ronnie Alexander, another driver pulled over by Keel on Bee Caves Road a year ago, is to be believed. Alexander, 24, a data systems specialist, says that last August he also was detained by the sheriff who was, once again, dressed in plain clothes and driving an unmarked car. "I'm behind him at a light, I signal to change lanes [to get in front of him], and he tries to cut me off," Alexander recalls.

After asking for his ID and proof of insurance, Keel ran the license plates on Alexander's car. However, since the car was brand new at the time, Alexander put on his old plates while he waited 60 days for the new plates to arrive. He says he told Keel he had a receipt for the car's registration in an envelope inside the car, but when the plates came up not matching the car, Keel and another sheriff's officer slapped cuffs on him for possible auto theft.

"I don't do drugs. I don't smoke. I don't drink," Alexander says. "Other than speeding tickets, I've never been in trouble in my life and now I was being treated like a criminal."

"[Keel] wouldn't listen to me or check my registration," Alexander adds. "He just kept shining a flashlight in my car. I kept thinking, `Here I am, sitting in the road handcuffed for no reason -- why shouldn't he plant drugs in my car or take me somewhere and beat me up?'"

After about half an hour, Alexander says, Keel had another officer write him up for speeding and failure to show proof of insurance before letting him go. He says he asked if he could get all the responding officers' names and badge numbers, which prompted Keel to get in his face and ask, "Who's the judge gonna believe, you or me?" Alexander says the experience stayed with him for days: "It may sound silly to a normal person, but for a while after that I was terrified. It affected my work and personal life. I couldn't get what happened out of my head."

Keel's usual response to stories that don't jibe with his is to chalk them up to politically motivated lies. But in this case, he says, it's just plain lies. He says that Alexander blew past him going over 80 miles per hour, and that he was belligerent once he was stopped. As for the judge comment -- it never happened, he says.

Other sources support the theory that Keel stoops to threats and intimidation when things don't go his way. Specifically, Linda Icenhauer-Ramirez, an attorney for the woman who murdered baby Brandon Baugh, says that Keel could have obtained the map of where Baugh was buried through a lawful grand jury subpeona, but instead went after Cathy Lynn Henderson's attorney Nona Byington with unnecessary ferocity and sly dishonesty. He obtained an arrest and search warrant without telling the judge who signed the warrant that there were indications -- from both Byington and law enforcement authorities -- that the baby was deceased.

According to an affadavit by a former girlfriend of Keel's, Elvira Eller, Keel knew the baby was dead, but he "needed to have the public believe the baby might be alive so that he could get the map." Eller further swore that Keel told her he wanted to "scare" Byington into giving up the map. "Terry told [his law enforcement chief April Bacon] that when they stopped Ms. Byington, he wanted them to be sure and stop her in a real public place where a lot of people will see her and where she will be humiliated," according to Eller's affadavit. "He said that he would have given anything to see her face." Byington was arrested on February 4 while her car was searched in full view of passing traffic. Her office was searched twice, the second time without a search warrant.

Keel responds that Eller, who could not be reached for comment, is a liar who, in her efforts to harass Keel, has spun "pure fiction," and contrary to her affadavit, he was not dating her at the time of the baby's disappearance. "We didn't know if the baby was alive or dead," protests Keel. As for going after Byington with a search warrant, he says that with a baby missing, and perhaps dying, he had no choice but to do everything he could to locate the child.

One could argue that the Byington case is an instance where Keel was aggressively advocating for a particular side. But does his reputation fare any better when it comes to dealings with his own employees?

Not according to CLEAT representative Randy Malone, who says his troops fear more than admire him. "It's because he retaliates against people with a vengeance," he explains. "People are scared."

An anonymous letter printed in the Travis County Sheriff's Officers' Association (TCSOA) newsletter last July bears out that sentiment. In her letter to fellow TSCOA members, a female officer asks, "Are you afraid to go to or join or even remain a member of the TCSOA?... If you do not like the gestapo-like tactics of this administration, even if you are afraid, you must stand up." The letter also makes mention of the KGB, a term known among Keel's troops to mean Keel's Good Buddies. "...Openly support those who have been unjustly treated by the KGB," the officer writes.

That unjust treatment, says Malone, includes the use of polygraph tests to ferret out those who criticize the sheriff. Keel used lie detectors to mount a manhunt for the authors of an underground publication that was circulating among sheriff's officers entitled the County Clusterfuck. The amateur gossip sheet, filled with foul language and unsubstantiated rumors, was thought humorous by some and morale-damaging by others. Among the dozen people that "Keel's Good Buddies" in internal affairs targeted for investigation was Sergeant Bill Wiese, corrections supervisor and president of the local TCSOA. After being questioned about the publication, Wiese admitted that he had received a copy of the last three issues of Clusterfuck in his box, but that he had no idea who was putting them there. He said that he had allowed interested officers to read his copy if they asked for it, and let a couple of them take the newsletter out of his office to photocopy it. When asked by internal affairs whether he let them do this while they were on duty, Wiese said no, but on the following day, right before being administered a lie detector test, Wiese informed his questioners that he may have misspoken on that point.

"Well, I thought long and hard about that last night and in the past, prior to the last issue coming out, there may have been people coming to me on duty," Wiese told internal affairs investigators according to a transcript of the interview. "I felt that I didn't consider the entire time frame [when the question was posed]," In other words, Wiese said, he thought his questioners had been referring to the last issue -- not all three.

Internal affairs took swift action to try to arrest Wiese for perjury. But the county attorney who was asked to okay the warrant wrote in a memo that the sheriff's office was "obviously pressuring us to file, it's clear they are hoping that threat of prosecution will make Wiese quit, so they won't have to fire him." The attorney found that the time frame of the question was indeed ambiguous, and that there was no case for perjury: "It would be difficult to prove that Wiese... intended to deceive the questioners."

But the sheriff's office didn't need the county attorney's blessing to get rid of Wiese; he was fired for lying and distributing the newsletter to employees. The act is especially "sickening," says CLEAT president DeLord, in light of the fact that Keel, who has said publicly that he can't tolerate a liar, has shown no respect for the truth. "[Wiese] is fired for supposedly lying about whether people read a document on duty," he says. "So that must mean Keel has to resign if he lied in a newspaper about whether he was involved in a carjacking."

Keel says Wiese was fired because he "allowed racist, sexist vulgarity to be distributed."

All this legal action is costing valuable tax dollars, notes Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire, Keel's political nemesis on the county commissioners court. In addition to the $100,000 Byin- gton settlement, taxpayers had to fork over more than $230,000 to defend the sheriff. Most of that money went to Baker & Botts, the prestigious law firm Keel handpicked to defend him, and of which his brother is an associate member.

And to defend his firing of Wiese, Keel proposed, and was granted, the hiring of another big gun -- this time from out-of-town: Betty Springer of Dallas' Haynes and Boone. An interesting choice, notes DeLord, in light of the fact that Springer is known for her union-busting skills throughout Texas. So far, Springer has charged the county $13,000, and she has a contract to charge another $15,000 if her services are required in another employee dispute concerning Sergeant Bennie Cureton. (Cureton was fired in September for leaking a memo to Aleshire that directed sheriff's officers not to release any information directly to the commissioners court. He was later allowed to return to work after receiving a demotion.)

Keel explains that with the proliferation of lawsuits of all kinds, and with several being directed at him for political reasons, he is compelled to hire adequate representation.

Perhaps Keel will avoid further lawsuits by getting out of the sheriff business altogether. Former congressional candidate Jo Baylor says that Keel told her he was planning to run for Republican Susan Combs' seat in the Texas House of Representatives next year. But Keel says he's undecided. Baylor, who has already announced that she is seeking Combs' seat, thinks he should stick to enforcement. She says Keel's crime-fighting attributes serve him well as sheriff, but could trip him up with legislators. "That in-your-face mentality and confontational style won't work in the Legislature," she says.

But political consultant Dean Rindy thinks it would be a wise career move. "Politically it makes sense for him [to seek higher office]," Rindy says. "The only thing staying sheriff will do for him is get him into more trouble." n