Jennifer Combs runs a community Facebook page in Trinidad, Texas — a small town in Henderson County. Earlier this year, residents started noticing their tap water was brown. Combs did what any normal person would do: she encouraged her neighbors to post photos, videos, and reports about the water quality.
The Trinidad Police Department charged her with a felony.
Specifically, they hit her with felony false alarm — a criminal charge for a Facebook post about dirty water. City leaders claimed she was spreading misinformation. A grand jury later declined to indict her, and state investigators who actually looked at the water system confirmed there were legitimate problems requiring repairs. The water was, in fact, dirty. The mom was right.
Now the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement — TCOLE — has ordered the entire Trinidad Police Department disbanded. The agency stated in a letter to Trinidad's mayor that the department "failed to meet minimum standards" and "was unable to provide evidence that the agency provides public benefit to the community." The department will lose its TCOLE licenses by Friday.
The investigation found deficiencies that would be comical if they weren't terrifying. The department lacked bulletproof vests for its officers. It had no evidence room. It was missing nearly two dozen required policies — including policies on use of force, active shooter response, vehicle pursuits, and basic officer conduct standards. A police department without a use-of-force policy. They had time to arrest a mother over a Facebook post but couldn't be bothered to write down the rules for when officers are allowed to use force.
Trinidad City Council Member Steven Stearman put it simply: "It didn't happen overnight. The state finally came in, stepped in and shut it down." Stearman suggested the money that had been funding the police department could be redirected toward fixing the water system — the same water system that Jennifer Combs tried to warn people about before she was slapped with a felony.
The Henderson County Sheriff's Office has assumed law enforcement responsibilities for Trinidad. The district attorney had already been declining to prosecute cases handled solely by Trinidad police, which tells you everything about how much confidence the local legal system had in this operation. Texas Rangers are still investigating city and police officials regarding multiple controversial arrests connected to the water controversy.
This wasn't a department that made one bad call and got unlucky. This was a department that lacked the basic infrastructure of professional law enforcement — no vests, no evidence room, no written policies — but somehow found the resources to pursue a felony case against a woman who posted about brown tap water on social media.
