Boone Watkins has a simple request: Can’t Harris County leaders stop Precinct 1 deputy constables from parking in no parking zones downtown?
The downtown oil and gas worker first emailed county leadership about the issue last fall. As months passed without action, Watkins started including photos of the offending patrol cars, and expanded the scope of his dispatches.
His email list now includes representatives from each of the county commissioners, several constable offices, the sheriff and even some Houston city leaders.
The habit sets a bad example for the many downtown workers who have to pay to park, Watkins said, and it’s embarrassing county leaders haven’t done anything about it despite eight months and more than a dozen emails, he said.
“Your staff at 1001 Preston continues parking illegally and blocking access,” Watkins wrote in January to county administrators, having spotted Precinct 1 patrol cars parked illegally at the county building. “Is this not something you have the ability to address?”
A spokesperson for Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen did not respond to a request for comment about Watkins’ emails. Officials with the office of county administration declined to comment.
“Law enforcement offices are independently elected and are not part of our staff,” one county staffer told Watkins in an unnamed January message from a general county administration email address. “For questions regarding their offices, please contact them directly.”
“I wonder if the employees of 1001 Preston ignore reports of illegal activities of all their staff, or only illegal activities committed by the police?” he wrote on June 2. “Either way the lack of accountability is a sad reflection of local government.”
Constable deputies may not be acting illegally by leaving their cruisers in no parking zones, said Jay Coons, a Sam Houston State University criminology professor, as Texas law lets emergency vehicles park in places other vehicles cannot.
But it’s a poor practice, Coons said, noting that many agencies prohibit their officers from parking in off-limits spots when they’re not responding to an emergency.
“Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies are directed to park legally when coming downtown for routine business (or anywhere else, at least in my day) and, if they receive a citation, it’s on the individual deputy to pay it,” said Coons, who retired as a captain at the sheriff’s office in 2018.
Greg Fremin, a former captain at the Houston Police Department who also retired in 2018, agreed that it was a bad look for deputies to be parking improperly outside of an emergency.
Watkins, he said, should file a formal complaint with Rosen’s office over the issue.