After video showed a trooper messaging ICE on Signal, a DPS commander told chiefs to keep police chats on approved apps

A senior Texas Department of Public Safety commander has told the agency's chiefs that officers should stop using third-party messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp for police work, after body camera video showed a state trooper using Signal to alert federal immigration agents during a traffic stop, according to emails obtained by Houston station KPRC 2.

The station reported Friday, and updated its story Sunday, that the email went out within five days of Austin station KXAN publishing the footage.

What the video showed

According to KPRC, the 28-minute recording from early May shows a trooper stopping an 18-year-old high school senior who was headed home after working overnight at an Austin fast food restaurant. The trooper photographed the young man's ID and sent it to Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Signal on his personal phone. ICE answered "detain" in the chat, then arrived and took him into custody.

The trooper had limited immigration enforcement authority as an officer trained under the federal 287(g) program, the station reported. A redacted screenshot DPS released in September shows the trooper's message, "18. Says he's from Mexico," and an ICE reply with the man's immigration identification number and the word "Detain."

KPRC reported that the man was released in time for his graduation after his lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition and U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, pressed for his release.

The records concern

In his email, Lt. Col. Jason Taylor, the department's deputy director of law enforcement operations, wrote that "it seems we are still experiencing issues with third-party messaging apps." According to the station, Taylor told the chiefs that using an outside app on a personal phone to talk with a federal agent made that phone subject to public information requests.

He directed officers to use approved tools, naming a platform called Bridge4PS as the main one.

KPRC also obtained a March 2024 email in which Taylor raised the same concern about group chats with other agencies during criminal cases, warning that those messages have to go to prosecutors with the case file under state law.

The Texas Department of Information Resources told the station it has a no-cost contract with Houston-based NP Strategies LLC that lets state agencies buy Bridge4PS at a set price. DPS had not answered the station's questions about the video or the emails, KPRC reported.

Tom Gregor, a Houston trial lawyer and board member of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, told KPRC the preserved messages suggest some officers are following the rules, but that the open question is whether the agency has a way to make sure all of them are.

Sources

click2houston.com