BALCONES HEIGHTS – The city of Balcones Heights took up the issue of adopting a tattoo policy for city employees at Monday night's city council meeting.
The policy comes in the wake of the murder of Balcones Heights police officer Julian Pesina this past May.
City council members unanimously approved the new tattoo policy that doesn't just apply to police officers.
"It applies to police, fire and what was referred to as civilian employees so all of us are subject to this policy," said spokesman Lorenzo Nastasi.
Nastasi said the policy bans all visible tattoos on all uniformed and civilian employees.
The city did not have a policy in place when Pesina was murdered earlier this year in what is believed to be a gang sanctioned hit carried out by members of the Texas Mexican Mafia.
Pesina's body was covered in ink, some of the art has been identified by experts as gang related.
Officers who saw Pesina's tattoo's grew concerned enough to bring them to the attention of former police chief Henry Dominguez, he was terminated for failing to take action even though there was no tattoo policy.
An independent review of the department identified the need for policy.
"Sometimes government doesn't react as quickly to things that are happening in the mainstream, we see that on all levels of government," Nastasi said. "This is an instance of being proactive with a phenomenon that's not going away."
The policy is similar to one adopted by SAPD earlier this month.
All visible tattoos must be covered with sleeves or a flesh colored patch. It extends to officers working off-duty security jobs but officers working undercover are exempt from the policy.
The policy also gives employees a way to report inappropriate tattoos and leaves it up to supervisors to enforce the policy and take corrective action.
"Tattoos have to be covered," Nastasi said. "If it's inappropriate that will be dealt with and it will be deemed if it's inappropriate or not."
The new policy will be circulated to all employees for them to review and sign before going into effect.