Anonymous DPS trooper blog bites the dust
The Texas State Troopers Association has shut down a blog that for almost 13 years let members post anonymous -- and often critical -- comments about their employer, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and officials of their own organization.
"We all agreed it got out of hand," said Lee Johnson, a Beaumont lawyer and former DPS trooper who is president of the nonprofit association, which claims about 1,000 commissioned officers and retirees as members. "This anonymous stuff is pretty bad. They should be man enough to say who they are.”
The "we" Johnson referenced is a select group -- basically the four people who run the TSTA. They are the same people who founded it in 1984 -- Johnson; his wife, Anne; and Herschel Henderson, another retired trooper from Beaumont -- plus executive director Clyde Hart. Records show that Hart and Lee Johnson earn the largest executive salaries at the association.
Johnson said that occasional criticism of DPS director Steve McCraw in anonymous postings played no part in the decision to stop the blog in July.
More at http://www.statesman.com/weblogs/investigations/2013/aug/26/anonymous-dps-trooper-blog-bites-dust/ .
