It’s almost Christmas, so I will try not to gloat too much and revel in the downfall of Officer David Kattner, a 26-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department. Just the facts.
In 2007, we published a story that involved Kattner. The story revealed how Kattner and his fellow officers would harass prostitutes and homeless people, writing them tickets for offenses they didn’t commit so that the cops could later arrest the people on felony charges after they didn’t take care of their tickets. The five cops in that story — Kattner, Jeffrey Nelson, Alfred Schoelen Jr., Timothy Stecker, and Walter Clifton — sued us for defamation. They appealed a trial court’s decision in our favor, taking the matter to the Fifth District Court of Appeal. They lost there, too. It took us four years to get these guys off our back.
Kattner was arrested yesterday on a sexual assault charge. It appears that he was forcing a prostitute to perform oral sex on him by “showing her her outstanding warrants and telling her he knew where her daughter lives.” Detectives are trying to determine whether there are other victims.
The end.
