Nearly 4,000 tickets to be dismissed amid HPD investigation of four traffic officers

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- There has been a major development in a traffic ticket investigation involving four Houston Police Department officers and potentially thousands of tickets. Those tickets are being dismissed.

HPD Chief Charles McClelland says all tickets written by officers John Garcia, Robert Manzanales and Gregory Rosa could be called into question. The fourth officer, Rudolph Farias, committed suicide at HPD's Central Patrol station last month. They are accused of listing each other as witnesses on traffic tickets even though their patrol car's GPS showed they weren't present. Nearly 4,000 tickets could be affected.

"In the interest of justice and fairness, it's the right thing to do because if there is a perception that these citations may be tainted or someone questions the credibility or legitimacy it is better to dismiss them," said HPD Chief Charles McClelland during a news conference.

Later Thursday, Randy Zamora, the city's senior assistant city attorney, issued the following statements:

"At this time my office is dismissing citations that have been issued by any of the four officers that are under investigation. We believe that doing so is in the interest of justice and the right thing to do.

"Citizens that have citations issued by one of these officers should still appear in court. The city will make a motion in court to dismiss the citation the citizen simply needs to appear."

Meanwhile, McClelland says he will turn over the results of the pending internal investigation to the Harris County District Attorney's office for prosecutors to decide whether what the officers are accused of doing was criminal.

The surviving officers have been relieved of duty.