Bastrop sheriff demotes, suspends two supervisors

Records of deputy who killed woman allegedly changed.

A lieutenant and a sergeant at the Bastrop County Sheriff ’s Office have been demoted and suspended after Sheriff Terry Pickering said they modified the training records of a deputy who shot and killed a woman last month.

Lt. Joey Dzienowski was demoted to patrol deputy and suspended for 240 hours, and Sgt. David Repka was demoted to patrol deputy and suspended for 32 hours, according to the sheriff ’s office.

Disciplinary action is pending for five other supervisors who the sheriff said modified Deputy Daniel Willis’ field training records after he fatally shot Yvette Smith on Feb. 16.

Dzienowski, Repka and the other supervisors modified Willis’ records “after the shooting in an effort to make sure the records were completed accurately,” according to a statement issued by the sheriff ’s office Wednesday.

“I honestly don’t believe there was any illwill or malice,” Pickering said in the statement. “They knew the records were not up to date prior to the incident and were in the process of correcting them.”

A spokeswoman for the sheriff ’s office said officials would not comment on why Dzienowski was suspended for what amounts to six 40-hour weeks while Repka was suspended for less than a week because the issue is a personnel matter.

Pickering told the Bastrop Advertiser last month that several weeks before the shooting, officials had noticed some training records of new deputies had not been properly handled. Supervisors had not signed off on the forms that show how well Willis and others performed during field training, Pickering said, and officials had been reviewing the records, tabbing pages that needed signatures and then sending them to the appropriate people for signatures.

Dzienowski took it upon himself to pull Willis’ records to be signed after Smith’s death, Pickering said, but no changes should have been made to the records due to the ongoing investigation into the shooting. Smith’s death had already drawn scrutiny before the record modification came to light when officials initially said the 47-year-old was armed when Willis shot her, and then retracted that statement.

Officials have said that deputies responded to a disturbance at a home in the 100 block of Zimmerman Avenue. Sheriff ’s officials originally said that Smith came to the door with a firearm and disregarded a deputy’s command. Willis, a 28-yearold first-year deputy, then opened fire, the sheriff ’s office said immediately after the shooting. It later said it was unclear whether Smith was armed.

The Texas Rangers are investigating Smith’s death, and Willis has been placed on administrative leave, which is common after a law enforcement officer uses lethal force. ‘I don’t want to force it upon her,’” Jake Schwierking told jurors. The witness said from his understanding, all sides had agreed to the wedding.

For a year after he married Shriya Patel, Bimal Patel worked through the bureaucratic paperwork necessary to bring her to the United States and was only interested in helping her adjust, Jake Schwierking said.

Chelsea Schwierking, who went to the Patels’ wedding with her husband, wept as she told jurors she had never told Bimal Patel about her conversation with his wife. She said that she and Jake Schwierking believed the news would not stop the wedding and only hurt Bimal Patel, who genuinely seemed to love his bride.

“I feel guilty because maybe if I would have said something I would have my friend, Bimal,” Chelsea Schwierking said.