SAN ANTONIO — A 23-year-old Bexar County deputy is accused of Tasing a trainee and threatening another, Sheriff Javier Salazar said.
Andrew Garcia was arrested at his Guadalupe County home Wednesday afternoon. He had been with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office since Aug. 23, 2021.
According to Salazar, Garcia had been on administrative leave since Jan. 3, when a cadet reported the behavior to superiors and an investigation was launched.
Garcia allegedly used his Taser on an 18-year-old cadet during a training session on Nov. 28 while the weapon was in "drive-stun mode," meaning it was modified in such a way that it functioned like a stun gun rather than firing prongs. Salazar said investigators are able to determine when and how many times a Taser is used, and discovered Garcia used the gun eight times on that day (though that doesn't necessarily mean it made contact with the cadet all eight times).
"It will cause pain, it will cause discomfort," the sheriff said.
In a second incident on Dec. 26, Salazar said, Garcia allegedly threatened another cadet with his Taser, going so far as to activate its aiming function.
Salazar equated the actions to "terror" on the part of Garcia, who the sheriff said will be terminated from the agency. He's been charged with two counts of official oppression, assault and harassment.
"You're placed into a situation where you're entrusted to a senior deputy who's supposed to be training you," the sheriff said. "Instead you're being preyed upon and now you're worried about inmates in the facility, but you've also got to watch your back against somebody who's supposed to be training you."
BCSO investigators are now working to see if any other cadets who were assigned to Garcia for training may have also been threatened. Salazar added that incidents such as these "certainly don't help" when it comes to ongoing staffing and retaining issues facing the agency.
This marks the first arrest of a BCSO deputy in 2023, though a cadet with the agency was arrested on Jan. 3 on domestic violence charges. That suspect has since been released on bond and has a pretrial hearing set for Feb. 1, according to online court records.
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