SAN ANTONIO – A former San Antonio police detective fired in 2018 for an unauthorized pursuit had his termination upheld this week, after the arbitrator overseeing the case said he falsely claimed he was nearly hit by the suspect’s truck prior to the chase.
Leroy Medlin, 36, argued during the hearings in early October that communication issues between him and his sergeant contributed to inaccurate information about the April 2018 incident making its way to investigators looking into the case.
Medlin, an outspoken critic of the department and its pursuit policy, argued during arbitration that SAPD management distorted what he said about the chase to falsely accuse him of being a liar.
Medlin pulled over a pickup truck just after 2 a.m. in the 18000 block of Interstate 37 South.
After Medlin asked the driver of the truck, which Medlin suspected of being stolen, to get out of the vehicle, it sped off, suspension records state.
Contacted by a supervisor over the radio, Medlin told him the driver almost ran him over.
The subsequent chase reached speeds up to 106 mph, SAPD records show.
In a ruling issued Wednesday, however, arbitrator Ruben Armendariz wrote that Medlin was never in serious jeopardy of being run over by the driver of the truck and thus gave a false statement to his sergeant in order to begin a pursuit.
“While I respect the Hearing Examiner’s award, I disagreed with his findings,” Medlin’s attorney, Ben Sifuentes, said via text message Thursday.
Medlin had previously been terminated by SAPD in 2015 for an unrelated unauthorized pursuit but eventually got back his job after signing a last-chance agreement with SAPD Chief William McManus.
Medlin was issued a third indefinite suspension in early 2019 after the administration accused him of writing traffic citations for violations he did not witness.
Due to Armendariz’s ruling, however, an appeal of that case will not move forward, an SAPD official confirmed Thursday afternoon.
Medlin was arrested in rural West Texas last year after investigators said he took part in a cattle theft ring.
Medlin and three other men, including Loving County Judge Skeet Jones, were accused of gathering stray cattle and selling them without authorization, which is illegal in Texas.
The Loving County District Clerk did not respond to phone calls seeking an update on the status of the cases Thursday.
Sifuentes said he could not comment on the status of Medlin’s criminal case because he is not the attorney of record in that matter.
Medlin had worked as a deputy in Loving County from January 2019 until leaving the agency in September 2020, officials previously said.