-
Fuller
A former North Texas police chief will serve as the new interim leader of the Burnet Police Department until a permanent chief can be hired, according to City Manager David Vaughn.
Sid Fuller, who headed up the Farmers Branch Police Department in Dallas County for 10 years before his 2016 retirement, will come on board beginning Monday, Aug. 17, Vaughn said last week in his weekly report.
Fuller currently serves as an adjunct instructor of criminal justice at Tarleton State University in Stephenville and as a law enforcement consultant. He began his career as a patrol officer in 1983 at the Irving Police Department and served there for 23, working his way up through the ranks to assistant chief before leaving to take the Farmers Branch position in August 2006.
He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and earned a bachelor of science in business administration from Tarleton State and a master’s degree in criminal justice from University of Texas at Arlington. Fuller is experienced in many areas of policing, including patrol, school resource, investigations and technical services.
He steps up to take over a police department where a former patrol sergeant, Russell Butler, was indicted on a charge of murder and three counts of aggravated assault after he shot and killed 25-year-old Brandon Michael Jacque in March 2019. An investigation revealed Butler violated BPD’s use of force policy and he was fired a month later.
Fuller has experience with handling similar situations as one of his officers in Farmers Branch, Ken Johnson, was indicted and convicted on a murder charge after Johnson shot and killed one 16-year-old male and wounded another while off-duty in March 2016. Johnson allegedly had seen the two teens stealing from his personal vehicle and chased them in his SUV, ramming their vehicle and running it off the road in Addison before unloading 16 shots into the car from a semiautomatic handgun.
In statements to the media and the public, Fuller condemned Johnson’s actions, stating there was nothing in his department’s protocols which justified Johnson’s behavior. Johnson was not fired because he voluntarily resigned his position before Addison police could complete their investigation into the incident.
The City of Burnet has received more than 50 applications for the police chief position since the job was reposted last month.
Vaughn prevously had offered the chief’s position to former Cedar Park Police Chief Sean Mannix, but Mannix rescinded his acceptance of the job on the day he was supposed to start after a protest from citizens over his hiring due to Mannix’s involvement in the wrongful conviction of former Leander football standout Greg Kelley.
