Constable Ray Helm has permanently surrendered his peace officer’s license and submitted his resignation while also admitting to investigators that he falsely reported training to the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement that he knew did not constitute training for TCOLE purposes. A TCOLE investigation says that Helm “fabricated” documents to “memorialize” the training session they say did not occur.
Helm confirmed that the resignation and surrender of license is part of a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the Texas Attorney Generals’ Office. The deal offered to Helm, in general, is to resign and surrender his peace officer’s license instead of facing criminal prosecution. This also keeps him from being a law enforcement officer in the future.
“I will get through it and make the best of it the best I can,” Helm said. “It is a bad situation. I made my mistakes, that is for sure. I didn’t realize it was that extreme but discrepancies happen with agencies. Anybody can go into any agency and find something. With government paperwork, if you don’t cross your T’s and dot your I’s it can come back and bite you… I take responsibility for it.”
The issues stem from a commercial the constables helped film for a local company called Drone Pilot, Inc. Helm was the only person quoted in the investigation by TCOLE that stated the commercial was a training exercise before eventually submitting in writing it was not.
“I conducted certain drone-related activities on or about April 10, 2018 which did not qualify as training for Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (“TCOLE”) purposes,” Helm said in the summary of reasons listed on the surrender of his peace officer’s license. “Knowing that those activities did not constitute training for TCOLE purposes, I nevertheless falsely reported those activities as training to TCOLE.”
Helm told The Wimberley View he still feels like drone training occurred on the day in question.
The commercial was filmed over a 10 hour period in April of 2018. Helm brought deputy constables Gary Griffin, Cody Cheatham and Donny Torres to the site of the commercial which was intended to show “the use of the aircraft (drone) in a public safety scenario,” according to the investigation. The commercial shows a drone helping the constables chase a suspect.
The investigation says that the Hays County Sheriff’s Office had initially agreed to help film the scene “and then at the last minute pulled the plug,” causing the company to ask the constable’s office to participate.
Helm submitted the commercial as five hours of drone training to TCOLE for himself and the three deputies.
A website called truthaboutrayhelm.com published a report nearly two years later that Griffin did not go through drone training yet had training on his record. After that was brought to Helm’s attention, he “fabricated documents (four evaluation forms and a memorandum) to memorialize a training class that was nothing more than a commercial for a drone company,” the investigation said. Helm presented those evaluation forms, which purported to be each deputy’s evaluation of the training, and a training manual he allegedly created after the fact to investigators as authentic records stating they were created at the time of the training.
Helm was told by investigators not to try and “influence his people” during the investigation. The investigation states that Helm contacted the two deputies, who were still within the constable’s office, multiple times to try and discuss what they remembered from the day of the incident. The investigation says that when one of the deputies told Helm he couldn’t remember, Helm threatened to fire him. He later recanted that statement saying he wasn’t going to fire the deputy. Both deputies then hired a lawyer.
In follow up interviews with investigators, Helm continued to state that the documents he submitted to prove training occurred were authentic and that they were completed by the officers in April of 2018. In subsequent interviews, Helm eventually admitted to creating the documents himself to “memorialize” the training.
The investigation states that Helm “submitted fraudulent documents to” TCOLE and that the filming of the commercial was “never purported to be training.”
“I appreciate my time here, and the efforts I gave in the community were from the heart,” Helm said. “I believe we did a good job and to watch it come crashing down like that… It’s a bad position to be in.”
