DISD officer Susan Craig to take on Beth Villarreal for Precinct 5 seat, while attorney John McCall aims to follow in his father’s footsteps
Susan E. Lopez-Craig, left, and John McCall Jr.
The 2014 election season is upon us, and that means LGBT candidates are launching bids for Dallas County offices.
Susan E. Lopez-Craig, a longtime police officer, is hoping to oust Democratic incumbent Precinct 5 Constable Beth Villarreal. So far, three candidates have lined up to challenge Villarreal in the primary.
Villarreal, a former volunteer police officer from the small Ellis County town of Italy, won the LGBT vote in 2010. The precinct includes the city’s most heavily LGBT neighborhoods in Oak Cliff and Oak Lawn. But Lopez-Craig said the office has failed to engage the community under Villarreal’s leadership.
“When you’re a public servant, you have to reach out to people and see what they want and that’s what I’m going to do for the community,” she said. “I want to reopen the door to the community. They were shut pretty tight the last six months to a year.”
Precinct 5, once represented by openly gay Constable Mike Dupree, has seen its share of controversy.
Dupree resigned as part of a settlement agreement with Dallas County and the Texas Attorney General’s office to avoid a trial to remove him from office on allegations of official misconduct and incompetence. Villarreal replaced Jaime Cortes, who faced a wide-ranging investigation and forced removal from office by jury trial. He resigned after losing to Villarreal in the Democratic Primary.
Lopez-Craig, 56, got her start in law enforcement late in life, deciding to attend the police academy at the age of 40.
She’d previously worked security for the women’s pro tennis tour.
“I’ve always wanted to be a police officer and just delayed it,” she said.
She went to work for the police department in Lavon, a small town near Wylie in Collin County.
“Not a lot of places wanted to hire a 40-year-old rookie,” she said.
After a few years, she took a job as a deputy constable with the county under a grant. When the grant wasn’t renewed a year later, she went to work for Dallas Area Rapid Transit for almost eight years.
DART fired her in 2007 after fellow officers claimed she faked an injury to her right eye. DART referred her case to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, which resulted in Lopez-Craig being indicted on three charges, including falsifying a document and tampering with evidence. She was tried in 2009 on the tampering charge and acquitted.
Lopez-Craig wouldn’t discuss her termination, but said her time at DART was difficult.
“I had a hard time over there,” she said.
She said she was the agency’s first openly gay officer when she came on in 2000 and later helped other officers be comfortable being out and open on the job.
After leaving DART, she said she went back to the county working as a truancy officer. She now works for Dallas Independent School District as a campus security officer.
While she likes working for DISD, and has organized a school supplies drive for the past decade, she said she wants to make more of an impact in office.
“I love working with kids. I like being a mentor to them,” she said. “It’s time for Precinct 5 to get back to work. The Dallas community deserves better.”
Lopez-Craig said she plans to seek an endorsement from the Washington, D.C.-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee that supports out candidates.
While Lopez-Craig seeks the Precinct 5 constable seat, two LGBT candidates have lined up to run for justice of the peace for Place 1, Precinct 5, which also covers Oak Cliff and Oak Lawn.
Gay Dallas attorney John McCall Jr. has been practicing law for 10 years and said he thinks his experience is right for the job. He also said he wants to follow in the footsteps of his father, who was a county judge.
“I’ve always wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps, and you pick an election you think you’re qualified and can win,” McCall said.
It’s an open seat with no incumbent, so McCall said it’s an “open game for all the candidates,” with several already lined up. The court handles evictions, which McCall said he does every month.
“I’m probably the most experienced out of the candidates so far for this position,” he said. “I feel I have the best chance of taking over this position.”
Sara Martinez, an out lesbian public defender, is also running for the position. She couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Omar Narvaez, president of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, said this is the first time openly gay candidates have run for justice of the peace.
“This would be the first that I know of or have heard of that a candidate for justice of the peace would be running openly gay,” he said.
Openly gay Dallas County officials include Sheriff Lupe Valdez, District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons, who is not running for re-election next year, and Judge Tonya Parker.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 13, 2013.