According to an affidavit, Clemente Lopez Jr. admitted to “allowing these types of assaults” in recent months.
BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a detention deputy days after an inmate died at the facility, saying he allowed other inmates to “violently assault” him in his cell. Records say 20-year-old Clemente Lopez Jr. also admitted to “allowing these types of assaults” in at least three other recent instances.
On Friday afternoon, the Texas Rangers arrested Lopez in connection with 46-year-old Francisco Bazan’s death. He now faces a murder charge and resigned from BCSO after speaking with investigators, the agency said.
Bazan was pronounced dead in his cell early Wednesday morning. BCSO and the Texas Rangers were investigating the incident and categorized his death a homicide due to “blunt force injury to the torso.”
According to an arrest affidavit, an investigator with the Texas Rangers arrived to the jail Wednesday morning, where a fellow inmate said Bazan owed his cellmate money “and failed to pay.” As a result, the cellmate met with other inmates at the facility and “a coordinated effort to assault Bazan was planned.”
On Monday morning, the affidavit goes on to say, that group of three inmates approached Lopez “and instructed him to open the door” to Bazan’s cell. When he did, the affidavit says, the inmate speaking with the investigator saw them “assault Bazan by kicking Bazan’s face and smashing his head on the concrete.”
Lopez “was observing the entire assault” from outside the cell, the affidavit says. When the now-former deputy spoke with investigators, he admitted to opening the cell door before telling the inmates “Don’t make it bad.”
Lopez had been with BCSO’s detention division since Aug. 17, 2023.
The Texas Rangers are still leading the criminal investigation as a separate but concurrent administrative investigation is conducted by the BCSO Internal Affairs Unit.
“From the first day of training, cadets and deputies are reminded that inmates are neither their friends nor their enemies,” Sheriff Javier Salazar said in a release. “This suspect ignored both of those points and is now paying for it with his freedom and his career.”