Odessa Police Department Chief Tim Burton said a thorough ethics training will take place following the termination of two officers and the resignation of a third this week.

OPD Corporal Brian Sirmon and Sergeant Wesley Huse were terminated and officer Ricardo Rodriguez resigned, Corporal Steve LeSueuer confirmed Thursday evening.

“The FBI has agreed to come in and provide us with a block of training associated with ethical conduct but more specifically to ensure that they understand they’re not violating any individual civil rights, whether it be in their professional capacity or some action that you may take in your nonprofessional capacity that is just as violative of a person’s civil rights,” Burton said.

Burton said Rodriguez resigned following an internal affairs investigation. Rodriguez was not fired because the resignation was made before the department could take disciplinary action, Burton said.

“The investigation involved multiple violations that never came to fruition in the sense that discipline wasn’t applied because he resigned prior to that occurring,” Burton said.

Disciplinary hearings on Monday for Sirmon and Wednesday for Huse formally notified the officers of their firing, Burton said.

“We’ve decided to expose the entire department to some pretty thorough and intense training that will be coming up over the next few months,” Burton said.

The department is having training and advanced supervision for sergeants and lieutenants, and ethics training for all officers within the department regarding personal and professional conduct that will start this month and continue until early fall, Burton said.

Police documents state an investigation found Huse violated OPD policy when he conducted personal business on duty.

Huse had a sexual relationship with a woman starting December and used a city-owned phone to make and receive numerous phone calls and text messages with her while he was on duty, according to police documents. Huse met with the woman three to four times, including at her workplace and “engaged in consensual kissing and groping” while he was on duty, the documents stated. The woman Huse had a relationship with, the documents state, associated with “questionable friends involved in illegal activities.”

Huse said by phone Friday that some of the people who complained about him outside of the department were not truthful.

“I made personal mistakes…mistakes were made on my part,” Huse said. “I have no plans for the future; I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Huse signed paperwork of his immediate termination April 30.

Sirmon began a relationship with a woman he arrested with a DWI Jan. 3, police documents stated. Following the arrest, Sirmon called a bonding company to release the woman from jail, and then proceeded to start a relationship with her, according to documents. Sirmon and the woman sent sexual text messages and he visited her apartment while he was on duty, the documents stated.

When Sirmon was questioned by a Professional Standards Investigator, he said the reason for the relationship was to “gather intelligence on a suspected drug dealer,” documents stated.

Sirmon claimed he was trying to gain information on the woman’s ex-boyfriend, who he said was selling narcotics and having a sexual relationship with a minor, documents stated. Sirmon never identified the woman’s ex-boyfriend when he was questioned, the documents stated.

Sirmon said he did not recall sending inappropriate text messages or sexting with the woman, but investigations found several recovered sexual text messages between the two of them, according to documents.

A month after Sirmon arrested the woman, he went to the Ector County Sheriff’s Office while he was on duty to speak with a representative, documents state, to attempt to determine the fate of the woman’s charge by discussing the case outside his DWI investigation.

In emailed documents from Sirmon to the OA, he stated the woman texted him several times and sent photos to him, including one of her breasts. “I can not remember actually how I responded to the text,” Sirmon wrote. He visited the woman at her residence after she claimed she was in an accident. Sirmon confirmed he went to see a county attorney to discuss whether the county included rehab classes in a plea bargain. “I gave them a basic rundown of the case and asked them to not just drop the case but that [the woman] had issues and needed some alcohol counseling,” Sirmon wrote.

“I did flirt to what I felt was a mild degree because I felt that she “liked” me,” Sirmon wrote. “I did not feel that my behavior was going to bring disgrace on me or the department, and when I felt that there was some issues that had the possibility to get out of control I stopped my actions.”

Sirmon signed paperwork of his immediate termination April 29.

Rodriguez responded to an accident in the 3100 block of Rocky Lane Jan. 8 but failed to make a thorough investigation and confirm the status of the subject’s motorcycle license, the documents stated. Rodriguez placed incorrect information on the accident report and did not ensure if the motorcycle driver was properly licensed, documents stated.

On Jan. 27, Rodriguez began fighting in an IHOP restaurant while he was intoxicated, documents stated. The officer who responded to the incident did not allow Rodriguez or his girlfriend to drive away from the scene because he felt it was unsafe, according to documents. A police sergeant stated that Rodriguez met the legal requirement for public intoxication, according to documents.

On Feb. 1, Rodriguez was arrested in Rowlett for public intoxication and engaged in conversation with the officers on scene where they “antagonized each other,” according to documents.

The documents stated that following the three incidents, Rodriguez’s behavior “pattern over time has escalated and shows no signs of abating.”

Rodriguez resigned from the department April 23, and as a result no actions were taken against him for the violations.

“We take the integrity of the department seriously and we will not tolerate this kind of behavior regardless of how it manifests itself in our police department,” Burton said. “Sometimes it’s going to happen, but I want to reassure people that we have the procedures and processes in place to deal with it and we will.”