Dallas police officer, employee fired for arrests in spring

A Dallas Police Department employee and officer have been fired for their own arrests in the spring.

Interim Police Chief David Pughes terminated Northwest Patrol Division Officer Silvestre Hernandez Jr., according to a Dallas police news release on Friday, after an internal affairs investigation into his DWI arrest in Austin on April 30.

KVUE, an Austin TV station, reported that as Hernandez was driving, his vehicle jerked back and forth in its lane about 2 a.m. and was going 81 miles per hour when the speed limit was 55. His breath test resulted in a blood alcohol content of 0.11, above the legal limit of 0.08.

Support Services Division office assistant Laquita Harper was terminated after an investigation determined that Harper fled from a Corinth police officer trying to conduct a traffic stop on May 22, the news release said.

Harper also “failed to be courteous and civil when dealing with” the Corinth officer, and she failed to follow procedure by not reporting her citation to Dallas PD. The Denton Record-Chronicle reported that Harper was indicted for evading arrest in Corinth in September.

This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 1:24 PM with the headline "Dallas police officer, employee fired for arrests in spring."