{"id":395909,"date":"2025-11-22T02:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/395909\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T02:00:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:00:14","slug":"dallas-police-union-leader-put-on-leave-after-fatal-crash-internal-affairs-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/395909\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas police union leader put on leave after fatal crash, internal affairs investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president of Dallas\u2019 largest police union was placed on leave<\/a> in connection with a fatal crash he was involved in while off duty earlier this year, according to newly obtained records reviewed by The Dallas Morning News.<\/p>\n

The department\u2019s handling of the March multi-vehicle crash in northwest Dallas that killed a pedestrian has been under scrutiny for months. An internal affairs investigation into an allegation two responding officers had failed to properly investigate the crash, records show, began 10 days afterward.<\/p>\n

Eight months after the crash, police brass placed Sr. Cpl. Jaime Castro, the longtime officer and Dallas Police Association president, on administrative leave as part of the internal inquiry. The department has declined to explain the Nov. 14 decision, what prompted the investigation or why Castro was removed from duty.<\/p>\n

A Dallas police spokesperson declined to answer a list of questions Friday, including why Castro was placed on leave months after the crash. A Dallas County district attorney\u2019s office spokesperson declined to comment.<\/p>\n

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Neither Castro nor his attorney, John Snider, returned messages seeking comment Friday afternoon. The two responding officers placed on leave after the crash, Officer Evan Muller and Officer Robert Wilcox Jr., also did not return messages.<\/p>\n

Castro, 52, joined the department in 1998 and is assigned to the department\u2019s alarm unit, which is housed in the office of the police chief. Dallas Police Association members elected him president in January 2024. Before then, he had served on the union\u2019s executive board since 2016.<\/p>\n

The crash<\/p>\n

Police were dispatched around 10 p.m. March 15 to a \u201cmajor accident\u201d in the 2500 block of West Northwest Highway, where a woman was struck while attempting to cross the roadway on foot, Muller wrote in a report obtained by The News.<\/p>\n

The report lists Castro as the front-seat passenger of the Cadillac sedan that struck the woman. The impact caused the SUV to swerve and hit a Toyota sedan trailing behind it on the roadway, Muller wrote in a report.<\/p>\n

Dallas Fire-Rescue personnel transported the woman to Parkland Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 10:43 p.m. She was identified as Atianna Washington, 25.<\/p>\n

Castro, two other occupants in the SUV, and two others in the Toyota stayed at the scene of the crash after the impact, Muller wrote in a report.<\/p>\n

The area where Washington was struck had no dedicated crosswalk and had \u201cvery little to no\u201d lighting, Muller wrote in a report.<\/p>\n

Muller and Wilcox, another responding officer, were placed on administrative leave on March 25. They remained on leave until at least Aug. 15, according to records reviewed by The News. <\/p>\n

Whether Muller and Wilcox faced disciplinary action and have returned to duty was not clear Friday. Corbin Rubinson, the police spokesperson, declined to answer The News\u2019 list of questions about their standing.<\/p>\n

Authorities ordered a toxicology analysis of Washington, according to a May supplement to the report. The results, the supplement report reads, showed she was intoxicated by alcohol and \u201cdrugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report does not specify the degree of intoxication or which drugs Washington may have used. It lists the findings under \u201ccontributing factors\u2019\u2019 in the crash.<\/p>\n

Scott Palmer, an attorney representing Washington\u2019s family, was unavailable to comment Friday afternoon when reached by The News.<\/p>\n

Speaking with KDFW-TV (Channel 4) earlier this week, Palmer said<\/a> he had \u201ca lot of questions\u201d and \u201cvery few answers\u201d regarding Washington\u2019s case and how it was handled.<\/p>\n

The attorney\u2019s office investigation<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, The News filed open-records requests with the police department seeking reports and the responding officers\u2019 body-worn camera footage captured during their investigation into the crash. <\/p>\n

In response, the department released a partially redacted version of Muller\u2019s incident report \u2014 with all names except Washington\u2019s blacked out \u2014 and declined to release additional records, instead seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office on whether the material could be legally withheld.<\/p>\n

In July, an attorney with the Attorney General\u2019s Office wrote back to the city, saying the state office agreed the additional records could be withheld in part because of an ongoing criminal investigation by the Dallas County district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

The scope of the investigation is unclear. In a statement Friday, Claire Crouch, the district attorney\u2019s office spokesperson, said the office would not comment on matters that \u201cmay or may not be under investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The president of Dallas\u2019 largest police union was placed on leave in connection with a fatal crash he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":385930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,347,4219,1596,7290,14842,38440,16288,5292,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-395909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-county","13":"tag-dallas-police","14":"tag-district-attorney","15":"tag-john-creuzot","16":"tag-public-safety","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115590884590292961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}