ACCUSATIONS STUN FRIENDS OF CHIEF'S EX-AIDE

Police say he might have pointed out undercover officers to drug
traffickers, bought guns for drug cartels and even escorted their loads.

It's in the newspaper and on television, but friends and acquaintances
of police Officer Luis Cortinas don't know what to believe.

"That's not Louie. Louie's a regular guy," said Joe Wardy, president
of Herman Miles Trucking, who participated in some of Cortinas'
community projects.

Cortinas, the former administrative assistant to Police Chief Carlos
Leon, was put on indefinite paid administrative leave by Mayor Carlos
Ramirez on June 26 to "separate controversy from the Police
Department," the mayor said.

Ramirez said the department turned over its internal investigation on
Cortinas to the FBI.

Cortinas has denied the allegations.

"He wants to go back to work," said Cortinas' lawyer, Dolph Quijano.
"He'd like to have his reputation back."

Internal police documents obtained by the El Paso Times under the
Texas Public Information Act, including Cortinas' Internal Affairs
files, show the officer was investigated twice before in cases
involving drug trafficking.

A 1975 Internal Affairs complaint said Cortinas and another police
officer allegedly tried to recruit a woman for a narcotics scheme, and
in 1982, Cortinas, off duty, gave a known narcotics offender a ride
home after police found the offender drunk at a Dunkin' Donuts.

The two cases ended in no more than documentation. Cortinas' lawyer
declined to comment.

The Police Department declined to comment on any matter involving
Cortinas.

In some instances, sheer bad luck appears to have cast a cloud of
suspicion over Cortinas. In 1981, police traced a gun used in a
homicide in Detroit back to Cortinas, who had bought it from an El
Paso gun store three years before. Cortinas was able to prove that he
traded the revolver in 1979 and that it had been resold to someone
else.

Cortinas' performance reports consistently rate him as "competent" or
"meets standards" by supervisors.

"It's an average rating. It means you're doing your job," said police
spokesman Sgt. Al Velarde. "You're not doing anything exceptional, but
you're doing what you're supposed to do."

But Cortinas, who joined the force in 1973, shined at community
relations.

In 1981, his supervisor wrote, "Officer Luis Cortinas has the ability
to deal with the public well, and he usually tends to leave a good
impression with the public."

Letters of commendation from schools, civic groups and local
businesses abound in Cortinas' file.

In 1986, Cortinas, then a community service officer, made a
presentation on drug and alcohol abuse to the students in the Junior
Reserve Officer Training Corps.

"Your ability to communicate with them, on their level, is seldom
found in persons who wear the uniform of a police officer," wrote
senior Army instructor Charles Burgin. "One student told me she was
giving up using drugs."

Lately, though, the same people who praised him declined to comment
publicly on his behalf.

Cortinas also acquired quite a reputation as a fund-raiser.

He is credited for getting the Camino Real Hotel to donate space for
the 1998 Texas Police Association Annual Conference and for gathering
$40,000 for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., a
program by the Police Department that teaches fifth-graders how to
build confidence and say no to drugs.

Lt. Ray Rodriguez wrote in May 1999 that Cortinas is "the person
behind the scenes meeting with the business and religious community
and making sure that all resources are obtained for police community
activities."

A former boss, retired Pebble Hills Regional Commander Eddie Cavazos,
said Cortinas strengthened his ties to the business community when he
became a police area representative, or PAR, officer in 1994. PAR
officers take on recurrent problems that can't be handled by patrolmen
and work with the community to find creative solutions.

Cortinas was assigned to District 71, which encompasses the El Paso
International Airport and Butterfield Trail industrial park.

"It's not a challenging district for police work," Cavazos said in a
recent interview. "But it got him closer to businesses."

Wardy met Cortinas about six years ago, he said, when Cortinas was
looking for funds for an anti-graffiti campaign.

"He was always professional about it. We were never strong-armed for
money," said Wardy, adding that it's not unusual for his business to
get solicited for money by different groups twice a week.

"(Cortinas) is very friendly, outgoing. You don't see (Cortinas) as a
police officer. Police officers are usually reserved," he said.

As a police officer, Cortinas showed some initiative, his superiors
reported, but also poor judgment in some instances.

"Cortinas never went out of his way to read the manual," Cavazos said.
"He is spontaneous."

Cortinas' Internal Affairs card shows he was given eight written
reprimands throughout his career and suspended nine days.

The suspensions covered the following incidents:

In November 1980, he failed to carry out an order and lost control of
a witness.

In July 1981, while on special night assignment looking for burglars,
he took two women acquaintances for an unauthorized ride-along.

In September 1992, he failed to complete a police report. However,
except for an instance in which he shot at the tires of a vehicle that
was allegedly trying to run him off the road, Cortinas has no record
of excessive force. He received a written reprimand for the shooting
incident.

One incident in 1983 showed Cortinas was capable of restraint while
being attacked by a stranger at his apartment complex.

Cortinas had gone to the parking lot to move his car when a man
approached him from behind and started hitting him on the head and
body and kicked him in the groin. Cortinas broke free and called the
police before chasing his attacker and handcuffing him, an Internal
Affairs report said.

Cortinas had been advised more than once not to get personally
involved in cases or matters involving relatives and friends, an
Internal Affairs document showed.

In one instance, he stepped in to help a friend retrieve a vehicle
that had been seized by the police department in an auto theft case in
1986. In 1989, he showed up in full uniform and a marked police unit
to ask a civilian who had been in a traffic accident with his nephew
to make financial arrangements. He was given a written reprimand after
that incident.

"It's an abuse of authority. You never appear in uniform unless it's
for official duties," Cavazos said. "(Cortinas) would tend to
rationalize. He would say, 'I was just trying to be helpful.' "