BENAVIDES, Texas – A former San Antonio police officer fired for giving a homeless man a feces sandwich was promoted to serve as the chief of a South Texas police department, according to records reviewed by KSAT Investigates.
Matthew Luckhurst began serving as the Benavides Police Chief on June 1, according to records from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. Benavides, Texas, is located about 150 miles south of San Antonio.
KSAT originally called Benavides City Secretary Tiffany Bazan on Wednesday to confirm Luckhurst’s position and start date as police chief. Instead of providing the basic public information, Bazan hung up on KSAT journalists multiple times.
KSAT has emailed Bazan and several other Benavides city leaders for information.
Luckhurst was approved for the promotion during an April 30 city council meeting and will be paid $28 an hour, according to council records.
He has been working for the Benavides Police Department since April 2023, according to a licensee service report.
KSAT Investigates has been following Luckhurst’s career since he was fired from the San Antonio Police Department a decade ago.
In 2016, a report showed Luckhurst bragged to a fellow officer that he had picked up some feces, placed it in a slice of bread and put it in a Styrofoam container next to a homeless man.
Luckhurst was a five-year veteran of SAPD and had been assigned to downtown bike patrol for about a year, police officials said.
Following his firing, Luckhurst was back in the force, this time in Floresville in 2022.
Floresville Mayor Cissy Gonzalez-Dippel said the city had been flooded with emails about Luckhurst’s position on the force in 2022.
In a statement, the mayor said, “Matthew Luckhurst was released from employment with the Floresville Police Department yesterday Dec. 13th (2022). Our city manager, Andy Joslin is implementing stricter hiring policies for all city of Floresville employees. He is also working with Chief Herrera on the Reserve program.”
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