Date of Offense
Supporting Document(s)
Statement
I was at work when my supervisor called me to meet her on the 1st floor of the building that I clean (Pritchard Hall, a girls dorms). When I walked into the lobby my supervisor was there with two police officers (Chief of Police Dean W Stringer and Officer Zac D Smurphat of the Hardin Simmons University Police Department). They started questioning me about why I was in the refrigerator. I tried to tell them that I clean the sides of the door and I have permission to put things in there. Officer Smurphat showed me a video of me opening the refrigerator with my right hand, looking in the refrigerator, my left arm going up (I have nerve damage in my back which causes major numbness in my hands and I do hold my arms and hands in weird positions at times to try to get some feeling back), closing the refrigerator door, turning to my right to walk off (because I didn’t have anything left in there), and lowering my left arm/hand down toward my left side, and that is where Officer Smurphat stopped the video. It is clear that I had nothing in my hand. That is when Officer Smurphat started with the questions of what did you put in your pocket, what did you take out of the refrigerator, and so on. I kept telling them I didn’t take anything. He kept asking me if I was in the refrigerator and what did I take. I have PTSD and an anxiety disorder and when I am spoken to in that manner I get jumbled and confused and I kept trying to say that I was in the refrigerator but no I didn’t take anything. Then I asked him to play the video further to show that I did not take anything and put it in my pocket. He refused, they just started saying we’re done, they are criminally tressing me, and I needed to leave the campus. They showed this video to my supervisors and cut it off at the same spot so that I seemed guilty. So, I had to get my stuff together to leave. I had bought my own equipment to use at work (vac mop, carts, squeegees, and so on) and as I was gathering my stuff, one of them asked my supervisor if that was my stuff and she answered yes. My supervisor and I loaded it up in her truck because my transportation is an electric scooter, and went to my mom so I could get a ride home. I was loading my stuff in my mom’s car as my mom was asking our supervisor what was going on and our supervisor said she really didn’t know. As my mom was talking to our supervisor and I was loading the car, Chief Stringer was loudly saying she needs to leave the campus now and he was going to arrest me. After a lot of calls and research I finally got in touch with Stacy Martin (Vice President of Student Life, she was the one that deals with the Hardin Simmons University Police Department) and she told me she was going to speak with Chief Stringer and watch the video then get back with me. When I finally got to speak to her again, she had reviewed the video and such. She stated that nothing had changed and that the video showed my left hand reaching to my left back pocket and pulling my shirt out from being stuck between my phone and jeans back left pocket. That showed that I did not have anything in my hand and that I did not take anything because if I had something in my hand it would have fallen out to the floor when I freed my shirt from my phone. It also showed that Officer Smurphat had stopped the video at that point so that it would appear that I was guilty of stealing something to my supervisors. It was intentional. I feel that this was in retaliation to the officers not being able to ticket my daughter’s car or tow it, which happened on September 25, 2024, September 26, 2024, and the threat to tow it was for September 27, 2024, just prior to this. Chief Dean placed two tickets on my daughter’s car two days in a row. On the back of the second ticket there was a note stating it would be towed the following day. They tried to claim that it was parked in the wrong spot, which it was not. It was parked in the faculty/staff parking spot. It was also registered August 30, 2024 to be parked on campus by the Office Administrator. So on September 26, 2025 the Office Administrator gave us a rear view mirror tag and I also taped a temporary parking permit in the back window. It has been said by many that Chief Stringer did not like my daughter’s bumper stickers. Well, he was blocked from towing it and then I was associated with the car. The hanging parking permit was signed out under my name. I can give more information if needed, just please give me a call because I am sure that I left some information out on accident. In the evidence section, tag 51 is registered to me for my daughter’s car and tag 58 is registered to my son for my mom’s car. Anyway, I am now unable to go to work. I have missed 19 hours as well as overtime. My employer says I’m not terminated but I might as well be if I cannot go to work because of this situation.
