DICKINSON, Texas – A former police chief in Dickinson is being accused of negligence.
Ron Morales had been the police chief in Dickinson for 25-plus years before retiring in the fall of 2022. He’s now accused of mishandling evidence and covering up investigations.
Current Dickinson mayor, Sean Skipworth, shared a newly released audit of the police department’s evidence room. Skipworth says the investigation into Morales’ alleged negligence began with the interim police chief, Oscar Stoker, who took over after Morales and noticed discrepancies.
“The former police chief had left along with the lieutenant who was over their evidence room. They both left at the same time, you know someone else had to go to the evidence room, and so some new person is taking a stock of the evidence room. They go to the evidence room and immediately there’s a sense that this is not right,” Skipworth said.
The audit was finalized by the current police chief, Michael Berezin and City Manager, Theo Melancon Wednesday and released to city council.
“1,100 pieces of evidence missing. That’s a serious problem. There was evidence in the former lieutenant’s office just loose in there. There was ammunition unaccounted for. Numerous people had key card access who were civilians. Not to the evidence room, but to the back offices of the police department,” Skipworth said.
Skipworth says perhaps the most egregious allegations have to do with 20 rape kits that should’ve been processes within 30 days but weren’t. Some of those kits, Skipworth says, date back to 2007.
“It’s not even that those were lost, I think it’s worse they weren’t lost, they were in evidence, and they just didn’t get tested,” he said.
The mayor says even though Morales is no longer the police chief, he currently sits on the water board and wanted to be transparent with his constituents.
KPRC 2 was able to speak to Morales who said Skipworth, who is running for re-election, is pulling a political stunt.
“He’s trying to conjure up as many votes as he possibly can,” Morales said. “I know the mayor is trying to run for re-election and that would be a feather in his cap if he can come up with something great. He’s got a bunch of other issues, city issues…that I think he probably needs to spend a little more time on instead of focusing on the police department.”
Morales also denied doing anything illegal or unethical while he was the chief.
“I hadn’t been there in almost two years. I don’t know what went in and went out when I left,” Morales said. “Without looking at each individual case, I can’t really comment on it…there were no (rape kits) cases that just sat on the shelf like the mayor in his little speech would lead you to believe that nothing was done with them. Every one of them, something was done with them. They were handled by detectives,” Morales said.
Morales added that the civilians who Skipworth claimed had unauthorized access to the police department were a few graduates of the citizens academy who underwent background checks, and says they were under surveillance whenever they entered the building.
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