McAllen Fireman Alleges Kidnapping

He said that two masked men pulled him into an unmarked van and stole his $15, but the story hasn’t stood up to the facts. It’s a fire department cover-up that didn’t find its way to the city’s recent $50,000 investigative report

McAllen fireman Gilbert Reyna pulled into an HEB parking lot at 8:30 am on October 11 — just off his shift from Fire Station No. 3 to buy groceries. But when he stepped out of his red Mustang, two monster-masked men jumped out of a white cargo van and pulled him inside, slamming shut the van’s sliding doors. Once inside the van, one kidnapper pointed a gun to Reyna’s head; the other took the wheel, driving Reyna around for hours while demanding money. Reyna gave the men his wallet, which had $15. The men took it and threw the wallet back at him, demanding more money. After driving him around for hours, Reyna said that he was suddenly back at the Pecan Boulevard HEB, where he was released.

After Reyna first related the details of the case, McAllen police investigators told him that the story sounded fishy. Kidnappers generally won’t perform such an involved crime for only $15, and they never return a victim, unharmed, to the scene of the kidnapping. But Reyna insisted it was true. The FBI was then called in to assist in the investigation, as required in aggravated kidnappings. Investigators again asked Reyna if the story was true.

“We asked Mr. Reyna that if he was making up this story in order to cover something else up, this was the time to be honest,” investigators stated in a police report.

As investigators started the fact-checking process, they soon discovered that Reyna’s claim that he was kidnapped was in fact a lie — an elaborate and illegal alibi to help him explain to his wife why he was missing for more than a day and hadn’t called her. “We learned that Reyna, who is married, had a girlfriend and that his girlfriend had just been by the station on Sunday night,” investigators reported. Two days later, Reyna would finally admit to the lie, explaining that he was never kidnapped but that he spent a whole day and evening with his girlfriend — time that, without the kidnapping hoax, he would not have been able to account for to his wife.

STILL ON THE JOB

Amado Cano, the McAllen Fire Department’s Deputy Fire Chief, helped make the decision at the time to simply suspend Reyna for the infraction, even though the crime of filing a false police report is one that could easily merit termination, according to the parameters of employee and fireman conduct. As a result, Reyna is still at his job at Fire Station No. 3. The McAllen PD pressed charges against Reyna for filing the false report — a crime that could draw federal felony charges because it involved the false report of the use of a gun in committing a crime.

Though the case has straggled on for more than a year, there’s no record of it in Hidalgo County prosecution files. Reyna told The Paper that the case is still pending, and that he couldn’t comment on the matter more than that.

SHODDY REPORTING

It might be unusual in itself that this story of a fireman who claimed to be kidnapped wasn’t picked up by any television or print media — splashed on local news headlines as the details of the case unfolded. Even more unusual, however, is the fact that this case of a fireman who used city resources to breach the public trust was never discussed in a recent report that was intended to document the state of the McAllen Fire Department. In 2004, the McAllen Civil Service Commission authorized attorney Jim Selman to compose a report on the state of the McAllen Fire Department, supposedly giving Selman broad range to investigate all aspects of the fire department’s management. But what Selman returned with a year and a half later was a report that alleged former Fire Chief  Anthony Rogers had orchestrated a vendetta against city commissioner Jan Klinck, targeting several of Klinck’s businesses and buildings that didn’t meet the fire code. Strangely enough, Selman’s report didn’t address the question of whether Klinck was actually guilty of fire code violations. Instead, the report seemed fixated on blaming former chief Rogers for the fire department’s current chaotic state. Nor did that $50,000 report include the way Cano handled fireman Reyna’s false police report, or other ongoing issues concerning personnel — like firemen being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, arriving to work while drunk, and other problems.

Though the department is right now headed by Roy Rubio, formerly with the Weslaco FD  (and hired in September), Deputy Chief Cano held the reins throughout much of the time since Rogers’ departure in 2002. Cano was also named as part of the supposed conspiracy against Klinck in 2002, a conspiracy that gave the city the contrived moral ground to terminate Rogers.“Lt. and now Deputy Chief Amado Cano engaged in conduct unbecoming of an officer of the McAllen Fire Department and abused his position and office, and likely violated criminal statutes,” Selman wrote in his report.

The Paper talked with Jim Selman to try to understand why he didn’t tackle issues like the Reyna false report, and why his report seemed to fixate on Rogers’ alleged vendetta against Klinck. But Selman said that he didn’t understand our question. The report is finished, he said, and that’s that.

A SERIOUS CRIME

Because Reyna’s false report involved claims that a gun was used in the kidnapping, the crime could be treated as a federal infraction. The Paper called the McAllen Fire Department to ask why Reyna was only suspended for the infraction. The fire department, however, referred questions to the city’s attorney Kevin Pagan, who did not respond to questions we sent to his secretary asking to explain why Reyna was not terminated and why Cano remains the deputy chief.

Former chief Rogers, who The Paper reached by cell phone while he was teaching fire safety administration courses in Chicago, said that simply suspending a fireman after filing a false report does a great disservice to the community. Rogers pointed out that filing a false report to cover up an affair raises another infraction that could merit termination: moral turpitude. You have to remember that suspending a fireman for filing a false police report sets a precedent. If, in the future, another fireman commits a similar offense, you won’t be able to fire him,” Rogers said. But also, letting a fireman remain on duty after filing a false report is a disservice to the community. The community needs to be able to trust in its law enforcement and fire department personnel. The question you have to ask is whether you would want a person like that responding to your home in an emergency, when your wife and children are in danger.”

With the City of McAllen out at least $50,000 for a one-sided report documenting the alleged state of the fire department, citizens have to question the real intention for the creation of such a report — especially when apparently broader conspiracies or missteps like sweeping Reyna’s false police report charge under the rug are lingering.

Maybe a sense of male camaraderie and an unwritten code that demands silence in the face of marital infidelity is one of the reasons that this case of the false monster kidnappers was kept hush-hush. A more likely explanation is that any chaotic situation in the McAllen Fire Department is not simply attributable to one man who held the reins for little more than a year. Rather, the fire department’s problems seem to go straight to the top, to the commission that turns a blind eye to the question of whether Klinck’s buildings really did violate the fire code, and the existing hierarchy that would allow such collegiate shenanigans as Reyna’s false report to remain relatively unpunished.

Current fire chief Rubio has less than two months left on his temporary assignment. If the City of McAllen is currently considering removing Rubio from his post and hiring someone from within the ranks, it’s a good sign that department’s problems are something that city leaders might actually want to remain existing — especially Jan Klinck, who, after months of lawsuits against Rogers, has still never had to account for his fire code violations that started this fire department mess to begin with.