Around noon one day in May 2017, James Hiser of San Antonio was driving a pickup to his wife’s workplace in Boerne when someone in a black Porsche started following him and blaring the horn.

The pursuer followed Hiser into a parking lot. Hiser, 28 at the time, got out of the truck as an older man in shorts, sandals and a baseball cap emerged from the Porsche, yelling and advancing toward him.

“Don’t you know how to use a (expletive) turn signal?” the man said, court records state.

“What are you, the traffic police?” Hiser replied.

The man reached into a pocket and pulled out a badge, shoving it an inch from Hiser’s face.

“I am a constable, you stupid (expletive)!”

He was.

According to Kendall County commissioners, Hiser’s pursuer that day was Kendall County Constable Don White, who never filed a report of the traffic stop as required by law.

Last week, all five commissioners sued White in district court to remove him from office after years of alleged official misconduct and incompetency.

White, 59, has served as constable in Kendall County for more than 22 years. Until now, he’s been a beloved figure in town, officials said.

White declined last month to comment on the legal effort to remove him from office and did not respond Tuesday to an email.

Since January 2017 — the start of his most recent term — he hasn’t shown up to work or performed any of his duties, county officials said, even while collecting a salary of $51,043 in 2017. Last year, Kendall County commissioners voted to cut White’s salary to $26,000 and divert the remainder to fund a deputy sheriff to do his job.

Efforts to remove elected officials in Texas are rare, experts say. Before a removal, a judge must grant an order citing the official, triggering a jury trial.

The case against White, filed by Kendall County Criminal District Attorney Nicole Bishop, is similar to a civil lawsuit. On Tuesday, the case was awaiting a decision by Judge Stephen Ables of the Sixth Administrative Judicial Region either to throw it out or assign it to an out-of-county judge for a jury trial.

On ExpressNews.com: Officials target constables for removal

In the parking lot in Boerne, Hiser feared his confrontation with the constable would turn violent.

At one point, White told him, “If I was 20 years younger, I would kick your ass right now,” according to an affidavit filed with the petition to remove him from office.

“He just kept being superaggressive,” Hiser recalled. “I thought for sure he was going to swing at me. He just seemed crazy.”

At one point, Hiser told the constable he would contact his boss about his behavior.

“I’m a constable, I don’t have a boss,” White replied, the affidavit says.

“Come to find out, he was kind of right,” Hiser said Tuesday. “I went everywhere, and I couldn’t get anyone to reprimand him or do anything about it.”

A clerk at the Kendall County Sheriff’s Office told Hiser the constable indeed did not have a boss. Kendall County Judge Darrel Lux told Hiser “it was very hard to do anything about this because the constable was elected and only reports to the attorney general,” according to the affidavit.

“That was the biggest thing that got me,” Hiser said. “I could tell by the way this man acts, he truly believes he’s untouchable. And that is dangerous. There should not be people like (White) with badges out there. That’s like giving a monkey a loaded gun.”

About one month after Hiser’s encounter with White, the constable stopped someone else, slamming the brakes of his beige Lincoln Navigator several times in front of a Volvo, according to the petition.

When the female driver of the Volvo stopped in a parking lot, the constable approached the car, flashed his badge and “cursed her, calling her a bitch and telling her to ‘shut the (expletive) up’ two times” before slamming her door and then driving away, the petition states.

Bishop, the Kendall County DA, cited the profanity-laced traffic stops in the petition to remove White, as well as the constable’s “unfitness or inability” to perform his duties “because of a serious physical or mental defect that did not exist at the time of the officer’s election.”

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On Tuesday, Bishop said no one knows what’s wrong with White. At one point, she said, the constable sent text messages to a Kendall County commissioner that alluded to a medical condition.

“If I’m on my pain meds I can’t carry a firearm,” White texted, according to the petition. “Other option is I take opioids to function and the county is liable if I have an accident or shoot someone in the line of duty.”

Larry James served as Kendall County justice of the peace in Precinct 1 — White’s jurisdiction — from January 2007 to September 2018. In an affidavit filed with the petition to remove White, James said he never saw the constable after Jan. 1, 2017, except for once this past April at a UPS store.

“He looked drawn,” James said Tuesday. “I said, ‘Well, how ya’ doin’?’ He’s never been real up-front with what’s happened to him, what his illness is or his sickness. He just said, ‘Oh, getting along.’

“I really can’t think of anybody who doesn’t like him,” James added. “He’s just a good guy. It’s a shame that this comes down to this.”

bchasnoff@express-news.net