09/24/2026
Texas, USA
Long read, but so worth the read!!!!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1M5p9DvAjG/?mibextid=wwXIfr
YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE IT, BUT THIS IS WHAT A STONE-COLD GANGSTER LOOKS LIKE
Alek Schott does not particularly look like a dangerous man in the video. He looks like a regular dude driving home from a work trip.
That is precisely what makes what happened next so remarkable.
On March 16, 2022, Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Joel Babb pulled Schott over on I-35 south of San Antonio, claiming Schott had crossed the fog line. Schott had his own dash camera running. He remained calm, handed over his documents, answered questions politely and did not start screaming about constitutional law on the shoulder of the highway. Federal court records say the video does not clearly contradict Schott’s contention that he stayed in his lane, and whether there was a lawful basis for the stop remains a genuinely disputed issue in his lawsuit. (GovInfo)
Then Babb told him he was getting a warning, put him in the patrol car and kept questioning him about where he had been, what he did for work, whether he had drugs and whether he had large amounts of cash. Schott calmly answered him. When Babb eventually asked to search his truck, Schott did something every American supposedly has the right to do:
He said no.
So they called the dog.
The K-9 supposedly alerted, deputies searched Schott’s truck from top to bottom and found nothing incriminating. The whole ordeal lasted more than an hour. According to the federal court record, Babb then told Schott something extraordinary after coming up empty: “Nine times out of ten, this is what happens.” (GovInfo)
Schott still didn’t lose his s**t.
He documented everything.
Then he went to Internal Affairs. According to allegations recounted by the federal court, one BCSO Internal Affairs investigator told Schott she had reviewed the footage and saw nothing wrong. Another supposedly told him the body-camera video showed his traffic violation and that if Schott didn’t like how BCSO conducted business, he could file a lawsuit.
There was one rather significant problem with that explanation: the deputy’s body camera did not even capture Schott’s vehicle until after it had already been stopped. (GovInfo)
So Schott apparently took the suggestion literally.
He sued their asses.
And this is where the story went from one angry motorist complaining about one traffic stop to something much bigger.
Discovery in Schott v. Bexar County began peeling apart BCSO’s Criminal Interdiction Unit. Depositions and records showed deputies were specifically looking for ways to “get into” vehicles during traffic stops. Schott produced 30 videos from the unit, 15 involving Babb and 15 involving another deputy, as evidence of what he alleges was a broader practice of unnecessarily prolonging stops until officers could obtain consent or otherwise manufacture a justification for a search. (govinfo.gov)
Then there was the dog.
Schott’s attorneys dug through the K-9 history and alleged that the narcotics dog used against him had essentially become an all-purpose probable-cause machine, alerting during roadside deployments at a rate so extraordinary that Schott’s lawyers challenged whether the alerts could actually be trusted. His attorneys further alleged that the dog was cued during Schott’s stop. The County disputes those conclusions, but the federal court has specifically recognized the alleged “cued” or “rigged” dog sniff as part of the factual dispute that remains for trial. (GovInfo)
And somehow, that still wasn’t the biggest thing Schott uncovered.
The stop wasn’t simply the product of one deputy noticing some random truck on I-35.
Reporting by the Associated Press later revealed that U.S. Border Patrol had been monitoring Schott’s travel pattern. Federal agents knew he had traveled from Houston into South Texas, stayed near the border region and met a female business colleague. Border Patrol passed that intelligence to Bexar County, and BCSO stopped him. (AP News)
Babb was also participating in a WhatsApp group called Northwest Highway, where Border Patrol agents and Texas law-enforcement officers exchanged intelligence about vehicles and drivers. Babb deleted the chat from his phone, but Schott’s lawyers recovered some of the messages. The AP subsequently obtained additional Northwest Highway chats showing Border Patrol agents and Texas deputies exchanging information about motorists’ travel patterns. (Scripps News)
So think about the progression here.
A guy gets pulled over.
He believes the reason for the stop is bulls**t.
He doesn’t fight the deputy. He doesn’t interfere. He doesn’t give them an arrest. He doesn’t give them disorderly conduct. He doesn’t give them some insane sovereign-citizen roadside monologue that everyone can laugh at later.
He stays calm.
He records.
He asserts his rights.
He files a complaint.
They tell him they did nothing wrong and, according to his complaint, essentially tell him: sue us if you don’t like it.
So he does.
And instead of merely litigating whether his stop was bad, Schott starts pulling records, deposition testimony, K-9 histories, other traffic stops and communications. He helps expose how a BCSO interdiction unit operated, how its deputies tried to get inside vehicles, how narcotics dogs were being used, and how information from a federal surveillance network could result in a completely ordinary American driving down a Texas highway suddenly becoming the target of an interdiction operation.
That lawsuit is not some crank case limping toward dismissal, either.
In April 2026, a federal magistrate judge concluded there was enough evidence for a jury to potentially find that BCSO had a pattern, custom or policy of unlawfully extending traffic stops. The court specifically pointed to Schott’s 30 comparison videos and deposition testimony from deputies. It also found a genuine factual dispute about whether Sheriff Javier Salazar knew, or should have known, about the alleged practices of the unit. (govinfo.gov)
The County tried to win the case without a trial.
It couldn’t dispose of those central allegations.
So I don’t know whether Alek Schott eventually leaves federal court with a jury judgment, a settlement, injunctive relief or some combination of outcomes. Nobody can responsibly promise that before the case is finished.
But the funniest part of this entire saga has already happened.
BCSO allegedly told the calm guy standing there with the receipts:
If you don’t like how we conduct business, sue us.
Alek Schott:
Okay.
And then he proceeded to spend years making them explain, under oath and in federal court, exactly how they conducted business.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may not believe it from looking at him.
But this is what a stone-cold gangster looks like.
