"We do the work, and then nothing happens~ it is so frustrating."
The first time I heard this statement, I stood in my front yard talking with San Antonio Police officers.
I had experienced a volatile neighbor who had moved into my childhood neighborhood and started harassing my family and me. It started subtly with requests to move our lights because they shed some light at night on his totally dark property. Then, the acorns and leaves fell on his yard and roof. Our 50-plus-year old Oak Tree that my parents planted when they purchased the house was now over 100 feet in the air and grand~ she was beautiful. My children and nieces had pictures standing in front of the tree. Day after day, there was another request from the neighbor to cut back our tree (which we did) more and more. The demands kept coming and became more volatile and harassing.
Our family had to call out the SAPD 20 plus times in 5 months because the 70-year-old neighbor targeted us with insane requests. SAAFE officers attempted to reason with the neighbor pointing out the young couple on the other side of his home; his trees hugged over and into their shared fence line. The neighbor would respond, "they don't bother me." The police recommended videotaping his behavior after they had come out when the neighbor could not stop yelling at us over the fence line. He suggested leaving the house to de-escalate, so we did. When we arrived home, the neighbor was dragging the top of a tree from his backyard - where he had no trees. While we were gone, he had gotten on his ladder, leaned over our fence into our backyard, and cut down 20 feet from the top of the tree. He left limbs hanging because we arrived home during the process. We were stunned! An attorney friend came over to assess the damages. During this time, we videotaped the 20-plus-minute interaction between the attorney and neighbor yelling at each other over the backyard fence. The "conversation" was irrational.
"I've been down this road before, and this won't end until one of us leaves, and it's not going to be me! I don't like their mixed family," the neighbor told our attorney-friend.
And he was right. Night after night, he would stay up, flash his headlights into our bedroom windows, putting his car in forward and reverse over and over, flashing his flashlight into my grandson's room, banging on his metal garages at night, waking up my 4-year-old grandson and dogs in the middle of the night. He put up metal sheets bordering our fence line to fall at night, creating a shattering noise, blaring his music out his side garage door into my grandson's room. Then the nights turned into all-day activity, staring at us from inside his windows when we were out front playing with my grandson. When a neighbor called me one day and said this man was sitting on his roof staring into our backyard and home, I knew he was not safe. We have over 100 photos and videos of him leaning over our fence and taking pictures of my grandson's room with his phone. I hired overnight private security and put up bigger fences, bushes, and landscaping. And he kept going higher and higher all day and all night long. Week after week, sometimes 2-3 times a day, we would call the police. When we heard him threaten to kill my son and saw him carrying a gun while walking in his front yard all day, I had to decide how to get out of this and away from him.
"I am going to ruin their happy home!"
And he did.
This home holds a special place in my heart, as it was my childhood home. My parents bought it, and like treasures, stored within it are all my cherished memories of growing up in a wonderful neighborhood. When my dad and husband died in 2014, this home and neighborhood welcomed me home and wrapped their arms around my kids and me to grieve.
So, deciding to file a temporary restraining order and then preparing to move was difficult. We filed charges of terroristic threats and harassment against our new neighbor and fled the home. We packed everything up, put it into seven storage units, and stayed in an Airbnb for three weeks until we closed on a new home. We had endured enough, proving him right~ One of us would have to leave, and it was us.
In the months after leaving, we learned he had the new owners cut back that 50-year-old tree he harassed us about for months. Even Judge Gabriel, who heard our civil case, said not to cut the tree. But when we moved and new owners moved in, he got them to do it ~ he was not going to stop.
In February 2023, the District Attorney's Office called us to pull together any receipts of things we had to pay for due to this neighbor's harassment (for purposes of restitution). It wasn't until then that we learned SAPD had pursued the terroristic threat and harassment, and detectives investigated before sending the District Attorney's office to press charges. The neighbor was arrested and released on bond. We finally felt some relief until we learned less than a week later that Assistant District Attorney Jessica Thompson would close the case due to insufficient evidence.
"Let 'em Go, Joe" had happened. When we called to speak with her, she said she had the authority to make the decision and did not represent us and owed us no apology because she represented the state. When asked if she had reviewed the 100-plus photos we had sent before the pretrial hearing, and the $21,000 in costs we incurred, she was quiet, sitting on the phone, breathing, not saying a word. Did she understand we had to leave our home? She said NOTHING.
Simply put, she was Apathetic and rude. I explained to her ~ We are the People of the State, and we were the victims.
I was stunned and thought, where is the opportunity for all of this? How does this experience create room for growth for anyone who goes through what we went through? How does the District Attorney educate his staff of attorneys, victim advocates, and clerks to walk a family through the process of how they came to their decision? How do they decide if they will drop felony charges to let the victims know what other options exist to resolve and find completeness around the pain? Right across the hall is the Dispute Resolution Office. How does this play into their roles so victims can find some resolution?
Calls to Ms. Thompson's supervisor, Dan Rodriguez, were not returned neither were attempts to reach the District Attorney himself. No one, not the Victim Advocate, the ADA, or anyone in their office, had the where with all to sit and explain how they came to their decision. I think that is what families deserve. I get it they have tons of cases piled on them, and they must determine which cases they can WIN and which they decide on without their investigation of calling the police and the victims and reviewing all evidence. Ms. Thompson personally did not conduct her own investigation. Was this a "trade" with the criminal attorney for some other case?
That neighbor walked out of the Bexar County courthouse and knew he had WON. That his harassment WON. And everything he said he would do to us was A O K.
Silence ~ that is what we got. I reached out to the police officers who had pushed these charges through, thanked them, and let them know that they were indeed right. The District Attorney may say he is "hard on crime," but we firsthand felt what they meant that the District Attorney Joe Gonzalez's office failed us and their hard work.
There is an opportunity for the DA; if he had called me back, I could navigate him to resources to help coach his team through implementing programs other cities' District Attorney's offices have for cases like ours. The felony crime initially charged against the neighbor in October 2021 was reduced to a misdemeanor before they even had the pretrial hearing in February. If a family must leave their home due to harassment and a death threat, what message does this send when the ADA drops all charges without any explanation?
There is room to improve the behavior and create a communication process for the Bexar County District Attorney's Office. But for now, Silence and Disappointment are what I feel.
Esther Cardenas Pipoly is the Owner and Founder of Loss of Life Advocates (LOLA), helping families, employers, and business owners navigate life crises and end-of-life events.
