Watching Over Texas

On Tuesday, December 5, 2023, three toddlers walked out through the infant room's back door at Building Blocks Childcare Center in Seven Points and into the parking lot of the Simmons Bank branch next door, where a customer leaving the bank nearly hit them.

That afternoon is back at the center of a week-long Facebook fight over the Building Blocks daycares and Trinidad City Councilmember Steven Stearman, whose family runs them. Four of the public posts at the center of it had drawn more than 700 comments and about 460 shares by midday Sunday, from parents, former staff, and Stearman's own family. Some of what is circulating holds up against the records. Some of it doesn't. I checked each claim against the State's licensing file, the police report, the court dockets, a sheriff's report, and Stearman's own written answers to my questions.

I noticed the noise around local daycares this week and had a few calls with people involved on Tuesday. I only started digging through the records and asking people specific questions on Friday. Of everything I was sent, the Building Blocks discussion had the most public noise around it, so that is where I started, and I've spent this entire weekend on it.

My own part in this comes first. I publicly endorsed Steven Stearman earlier this year, and I still credit his work on the council. Since September he and I have been in a public dispute: he blocked my personal Facebook account twice, and I drafted a formal complaint to the City of Trinidad about how he deals with residents and press online. I never sent it, and I'm still holding it. On October 13, I also commented in the Cedar Creek Lake Life thread where much of this played out. Parents, former staff and Stearman himself have contacted me since. Stearman unblocked me on October 16, after I asked him for an interview, and answered every question I sent him over the next two days, in writing and on the record. He welcomed the article. "I'm not against y'all publishing everything and put it all out on the table," he wrote.

According to Councilmember Raymond Mosley, Italy Mayor Clinton Sulak-Tovar is threatening to sue Italy Texas News (ITXN), Italy's local online newspaper, for defamation over five words: "I don't want to know." Mosley says the Mayor texted him on Thursday that he never said it, and that he could sue if ITXN doesn't fix it.

Mosley says the Mayor did say it, to him, after Monday's council meeting, about the sexual harassment allegations at the Italy Police Department. Mosley contacted me on Thursday for an on-record interview and to tell me what the Mayor had sent him by text.

Mosley also says that earlier on Monday, City Administrator Keith Whitfield told him there was no investigation: "no, there's not, it has been handled." On Thursday afternoon, the police department said it has been investigating the allegations since September 14, and that the employee involved is on administrative leave.

On Thursday afternoon, the Italy PD TX Facebook page posted a statement signed by Chief Chad Nelson. It says the department "is aware of recent social media posts concerning an allegation of sexual harassment involving members of our department."

According to the statement, the department received a complaint "from an outside source with knowledge of the alleged incident" on September 14, 2026, and has "been actively investigating the matter" since then, including taking written statements.

"Based on information gathered to date, the employee who is the subject of the allegation has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation," the Chief wrote. He also wrote that the leave "should not be interpreted as a final determination of wrongdoing," and that "the allegation should not be considered a finding of misconduct."

The Tool Police Department fired Officer Juan Ochoa over his body camera.

In an October 14 email answering my questions, Tool Police Chief Robert Walker wrote that Ochoa was terminated effective October 7 for his "continued failure to ensure that his department-issued body-worn camera was operational and functioning as required by departmental policy." Ochoa had already received verbal warnings and written discipline for not using his camera on calls and traffic stops, the Chief wrote, and "despite these previous corrective measures, the issue continued." The Chief's full email is at the end of this article.

The department's own records, which I reported on in April, show when the camera problem was first in writing.

The reason the Chief gave in October is the outcome the 2025 records warned of. About two years passed between the department-wide directive and the termination, and more than 15 months passed after Ochoa was disciplined over his camera.

The records the department released to me in April, in answer to my request for all of Ochoa's disciplinary actions, document multiple verbal warnings and two written disciplinary actions that cite the camera, Sgt. Mendoza's reprimand and the Chief's suspension letter, both over the June 2025 incident. They contain no camera violation after that incident, but they only cover his file through April 8, 2026, and I have not requested his records since. The Chief's October email does not say how many more violations there were, and the records I have do not show how many of Ochoa's calls and traffic stops after June 2025 lack video, or whether any case that came out of them was affected. In April, several residents told me they had been told there was no video of their encounters with him.

On October 6, an Italy resident emailed me a written complaint alleging that a sergeant inside the Italy Police Department is making sexual harassment remarks toward a rookie female officer. None of these allegations have been proven.

Italy Texas News (ITXN) published its own version of this story on the morning of October 9. ITXN is the nonprofit I founded in 2024. Today, it is managed by Shelby Browning. My copy had been sitting in my inbox for three days.

I held it because I did not know how to handle it. I was not sure how allegations like these would land in this town, or whether people would believe them coming from me, and I thought about what publishing would do to the officers' reputations. The formal route was records requests first, and in Italy that route is slow.

Then the allegations reached the public anyway, through the Italy Talk Facebook group on October 8 and through ITXN on October 9. They come less than three weeks after the city upheld the firing of Officer Kevin Oginski, in a case whose original allegation was not sustained.

I have faith in this community. If these allegations are true, I believe Italy will stand behind these officers and demand accountability from its police department and its city leadership. As of publication, the department had not addressed the allegations publicly, and I do not know whether it has opened an internal investigation.

On October 8, 2025, Police Chief Scott McAuley was fired without a council vote. Italy has no city manager. Its city administrator is Keith Whitfield. On October 20, the council voted 5-0 to put McAuley back on the payroll on paid leave. On October 27, it took the vote itself and upheld the termination 5-0. The same night, it adopted an ordinance requiring a two-thirds council vote before the city administrator can remove an officer, and it accepted the resignation of city attorney James Parker of The Parker Law Firm. Parker's letter, read aloud that night, gave the city 30 days' notice and no reason. The whole time, the city was also paying Messer Fort for legal services, and a Messer Fort attorney signed the city's 2025 answers to my records requests as "Assistant City Attorney."

Former Corsicana City Councilmember William A. Jones has sued the City of Corsicana and four current and former city officials in federal court, alleging they retaliated against him for his records requests, his questions as a councilmember, and his advocacy in his brother's homicide case until he resigned from office.

The complaint, filed September 23, names the City of Corsicana, former Mayor Michael Fletcher, City Attorney Kerri Anderson Donica, City Manager James Holgersson, and former Police Chief Robert Johnson. It was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, as Case No. 3:26-cv-03232, and is assigned to U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer. Jones, who represented Precinct 1 from May 2024 until July 2025, is represented by CJ Grisham and Ryan James Franceschina of GFA Law, PLLC, which announced the suit in an October 7 press release.

A complaint presents one side of a dispute. None of what follows has been tested in court, and the defendants have not yet responded.

According to the complaint, Jones's brother, Deantae Parks, was killed in Corsicana in March 2024, and Jones became his family's liaison to law enforcement around the same time he won his council seat. The lawsuit alleges that after he began requesting records, questioning city spending, and proposing public safety measures, city officials took a series of official actions against him.