Clashes at work, chronic tardiness and vulgar social media posts. The city of San Antonio promoted him anyway.

Personnel records detail repeated issues with recently promoted court coordinator

San Antonio court coordinator Marcus Carter. (City of San Antonio, KSAT)

SAN ANTONIO – On Oct. 15, 2019, while records showed he was on the clock for the city of San Antonio, municipal court employee Marcus Carter shared a Facebook post describing a graphic, sexual encounter.

Eleven days later, city officials promoted Carter to the position of court coordinator.

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The KSAT 12 Defenders reviewed hundreds of pages of personnel records for Carter, a city court employee since 2011.

The records paint the picture of an employee frequently at odds with his co-workers, who is chronically late to work, accused of being disrespectful to other people inside the city facility and routinely singled out by court management for his inability to do his job properly.

City records show since the start of 2017, Carter has racked up at least 13 tardies, leading to five written reprimands for attendance issues alone.

He’s also been cited for leaving work early and for repeated time clock infractions, known as “missing time.”

Failure to follow instructions

Carter’s work file also includes a significant number of records related to not following instructions properly.

In February 2017, records show Carter assigned more than 400 citations to the wrong judge, forcing the judge to remove the citations.

The error caused a senior warrant officer to tell Carter via email, “As you mentioned that this has never happened before and we hope that it doesn’t happen with you, me or any other Warrant Officers in the future.”

Months later, in July 2017, city emails show Carter was not complying with his supervisor’s instructions or even responding to them.

“You didn’t acknowledge my instruction, never made eye contact nor give a response,” the supervisor wrote.

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Carter responded via email, “THAT’S NOT HOW THE CONVERSATION WENT EXACTLY BUT I WON’T COMPLAIN BOUT IT LOL.”

On Halloween 2017, then again two days later, supervisors wrote that Carter failed to notate that cases were set for trial.

In June 2018, when told that he needed to help locate defendants before departing, Carter responded via email, “FIRST TIME HEARING THIS RULE BUT YEA.”

Work disputes

In February 2017, a supervisor received a complaint from a municipal court defendant who had recently interacted with Carter.

“I had a defendant wanting to speak with your supervisor about how he was spoken to and treated after he was seen by the judge,” the supervisor told Carter via email.

The Defenders could find no record that Carter was ever disciplined for the incident.

In May 2018, Carter received a “coaching discussion,” for excessively using his cell phone while at work.

When asked to acknowledge that he read and understood the discussion, Carter responded simply, “YEA.”

Later that month, Carter told a supervisor via email that he thought it was silly that staff was told to rotate work computers.

In July 2018, Carter was documented for using a work computer to search a website that was not work related.

Last March, a San Antonio Police Department bike patrol sergeant filed a written complaint against Carter, stating that Carter had been rude to multiple officers on multiple occasions.

“Officers state that Marcus ignores them when they are attempting to turn in paperwork, that he has walked away, rolled his eyes, and seems bothered by officers doing their job. I was also informed that he has been rude to other officers in other sections of the department,” the sergeant wrote via email.

While municipal court administration acknowledged the complaint, the Defenders could find no record that Carter was ever disciplined.

A Defenders investigation late last year showed a number of social media posts ranging from insensitive to outright vulgar and sexual in nature linked to a Facebook account belonging to Carter.

Another post made by Carter on Oct. 13 appeared to have an anti-police sentiment.

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“Don’t call the police unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. Might get killed or taken to jail for some made up reason. #share,” the post read.

City officials did not respond to a request for comment on the decision to promote Carter to court coordinator on Oct. 26.


About the Author:

Emmy-award winning reporter Dillon Collier joined KSAT Investigates in September 2016. Dillon's investigative stories air weeknights on the Nightbeat and on the Six O'Clock News. Dillon is a two-time Houston Press Club Journalist of the Year and a Texas Associated Press Broadcasters Reporter of the Year.