The following was submitted to The Howe Enterprise by Attorney Micah Belden.
Last night, the Howe City Council refused to directly investigate lawful complaints by elected Mayor Karla McDonald and to consider taking action on the illegal conduct of City of Howe Police Chief Carl Hudman and Sergeant Keith Milks. Most puzzlingly, the council did not even call in its city attorney to the executive session, who was present to discuss the situation. Hudman, who refused to attend the meeting as ordered and was therefore insubordinate, had his lawyer open the meeting by intimidating the city council with the threat of the frivolous whistleblower lawsuit that Hudman is attempting to manufacture for himself against the city. But I in fact personally blew the whistle to the Texas Rangers on June 8, 2023 regarding the illegal detention and interrogation of Mayor Karla McDonald by Hudman and Milks. I also notified the City Manager and requested public records. I have received no report from the City Manager.
The interrogation of the mayor amounts to official oppression because the officers had no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing by Ms. McDonald and still cannot articulate any suspected criminal wrongdoing. Texas Penal Code section 39.03 states that a public servant acting under color of his office or employment commits an offense if he intentionally subjects another to mistreatment or to arrest, detention, search, seizure, dispossession, assessment, or a lien that he knows is unlawful. There should be a video of the custodial interrogation that we all look forward to seeing. It should show Hudman and Milks illegally detaining the mayor in a two-hour intimidation session in which she was threatened with arrest if she left and was told that she was not in charge of the city, that Hudman was. They accused her of no crime, and they cannot accuse her of tampering with a governmental record when she and others accessed an apparent police department suspect list that was open and published to everyone with a City of Howe email. The document isn’t a governmental record, and nobody made any changes to the document. And, as Mayor and chief law enforcement officer of the town by law, it is perfectly lawful for Ms. McDonald to access the document.
The mayor previously requested a copy of the last 24 months of financial accounts on May 22, 2023, a roster of city employees and their pay scale, copies of contracts with any city employees, and other documents which are not being provided despite being public records. It appears to me that Hudman and others are trying to intimidate elected Mayor Karla McDonald and other city councilmen out of taking employment action against them for violations of the law and multiple violations of the city policy manual that are well documented and easily proven. The City of Howe needs to be investigated from top to bottom by the city council and the Texas Rangers – especially those who have been on the job for years – compared to Ms. McDonald who has been on the job for one month. Ms. McDonald has committed no crime and is not reasonably suspected of committing any crime.