The Pima County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday suspended a constable without pay for the remainder of his elected term.
Oscar Vasquez, one of nine constables in the county who serve legal documents for Justice Court, was accused by colleagues of skipping work from April to September of last year. His suspension will stay in place until Dec. 31, the end of his term.
Vasquez previously told the Arizona Daily Star that his absence was due to multiple surgeries that resulted from a car crash.
Vasquez could not be immediately reached by the Star on Tuesday for comment on the board’s decision.
“It is not our job to evaluate the job of constable Vasquez, but all of us are required to be present and active in our job,” Chairwoman Adelita Grijalva said. “If any of us were not actively coming to meetings and working for three months, then all of us would be subject to this same action.”
Grijalva’s motion was seconded by Supervisor Rex Scott and was passed unanimously.
In 2021, county supervisors voted to dissolve Justice Precinct 5 on Tucson’s east side, leaving the county with nine constables. Vasquez’s suspension leaves the county with eight until the next election.
It’s not the first time Vasquez has faced discipline from supervisors.
At the end of his first term, Vasquez received a four-month suspension for “damaging several county vehicles, excessive speeding, confronting a citizen during a driving incident and public urination,” the Star previously reported. And in 2021, supervisors suspended Vasquez without pay for 180 days for failing to evict a tenant, an action at the time he called “morally wrong and unjust” due to the “current COVID-19 pandemic and housing crisis.”
