Zachary Garcia

Introduction

Zachary Garcia is a Goliad County, Texas sheriff’s deputy who was fired from his previous job at the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office over sustained sexual-harassment findings involving a female dispatcher and a female supervisor — and who appeared three months later as “Deputy Garcia” in a campaign ad for US Rep. Monica De La Cruz attacking her Democratic opponent, former Latin Grammy winner Bobby Pulido, as “anti-cop.” The New York Post reported on October 9, 2026 that the De La Cruz campaign ran the ad starring a deputy fired over harassment and stalking allegations, reigniting questions about how Garcia kept his peace-officer license and returned to Goliad County duty after his termination.

Background Information

Garcia built a dual-agency career in South Texas law enforcement. Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) records reviewed by The Hawk’s Eye, a local news outlet, show he was appointed a Goliad County telecommunicator in August 2018, took a Wilson County deputy position in November 2022, and simultaneously held a Goliad County peace-officer appointment from September 2022 onward — an appointment that stayed active through his entire Wilson County tenure and after his firing. Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd has called him “a valued member of the Goliad County Sheriff’s Office since 2018” who “is well respected by our staff and local residents.”

He lives near the center of one of the country’s most competitive congressional races: De La Cruz is defending a toss-up seat against Pulido, and her campaign had been spotlighting Pulido’s past social-media posts about run-ins with police. The ad, shot in June, featured Garcia in uniform attacking Pulido — whose own cancellation record is documented on Bobby Pulido’s page — as anti-cop and accusing him of “standing with criminals.”

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations and sustained administrative findings — no criminal case. The claims in this section come from a Wilson County internal investigation summarized in records obtained by The Hawk’s Eye and reported by the New York Post. Garcia was fired after the county sustained misconduct findings against him; he was never criminally charged, and the interview statements were compelled under a Garrity warning, meaning they cannot be used against him in a criminal prosecution. Garcia admitted the phone calls described below but denied other allegations.

The investigation that ended his Wilson County career began, ironically, with Garcia’s own complaint: in late 2025 he accused a co-worker of creating a hostile workplace, and when supervisors interviewed that co-worker on November 19, 2025, the man turned the inquiry toward Garcia, alleging he had harassed multiple female county employees. Wilson County fired him 34 days later.

According to the investigative records, a dispatcher told investigators she and Garcia had been in an intimate relationship that began before she joined the sheriff’s office in January 2025, and that when she tried to end it, Garcia told her one of them would have to leave the agency — an allegation he denied. She said she kept seeing him for months because she feared his patrol colleagues would take his side, and that Garcia monitored her shared cellphone location, called when she turned it off, drove past her home while on duty and waited near her vehicle after shifts. After she ended the relationship on August 30, 2025, investigators documented more than 20 calls to her over two days from his saved contact, blocked numbers and his county-issued cellphone, and her photograph plus vehicle GPS data placed his marked patrol unit outside her home for nearly an hour on August 31 — with no dispatched call or enforcement reason anywhere in the area.

In a compelled December 9 administrative interview, with his lawyer and a county attorney’s representative present, Garcia admitted repeatedly calling the dispatcher on those dates and blocking his caller ID, acknowledged he had no legitimate reason for the calls, and agreed his conduct met the elements of harassment under Texas Penal Code Section 42.07. He could not explain why he had been parked outside her home, though he acknowledged that doing so in uniform, on duty and in a marked unit could be intimidating. He denied telling the dispatcher one of them would have to leave the agency, describing their post-relationship contact as friendship, but investigators found no record of any welfare check he claimed to have been making. A female supervisor separately alleged that after she helped him with groceries, Garcia invited her into his apartment and urged her to come closer and smell his cologne — comments she said she told him to stop, and which he denied.

Wilson County sustained sexual-harassment findings based on his conduct toward both women, cited additional violations for personal cellphone use, failure to activate his body camera during a service call involving the dispatcher, general conduct and neglect of duty, concluded the patrol-unit vigil outside the dispatcher’s home “appeared intended to intimidate and harass her,” and terminated Garcia effective December 23, 2025 — also issuing him a written trespass warning barring him from non-public areas of the sheriff’s office. The dispatcher did not ask to pursue a criminal case.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The consequence that made Garcia a public figure was the ad. The New York Post reported October 9 that De La Cruz’s campaign spotlighted an endorsement from “Deputy Garcia” months after the harassment findings surfaced in local reporting in August; her campaign said it was unaware of his backstory when the ad was shot and noted the public reports only emerged in August. Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd stood by him, telling the Post: “[I]t is unfortunate that partisan activists are smearing a man who risks his life to protect our community,” adding, “We will not be intimidated, and we fully support Deputy Garcia’s First Amendment right to speak his mind.” Attempts to reach Garcia were unsuccessful.

The Hawk’s Eye’s August reporting had already flagged the licensing gap: despite the December firing, Garcia’s Goliad County appointments remained active, letting him slide back into Goliad service. When the outlet asked Goliad County to explain his overlapping appointments and his dispatch hours, records superintendent Rebecca Weise replied that Garcia “did not work any dispatch hours in the past year,” and that deputies are allowed to be licensed with multiple agencies.

Current Status

As of the October 9 reporting, Garcia remains a Goliad County deputy and appeared in the congresswoman’s ad; no criminal charge was ever filed, the dispatcher declined to pursue one, and his Garrity-protected admissions cannot be used against him criminally. His termination from Wilson County stands as an administrative matter, and neither Garcia nor the Goliad County Sheriff’s Office has announced any review of his current status. The Post’s story landed mid-escalation of the De La Cruz–Pulido race, in which both campaigns trade character accusations: De La Cruz’s campaign points to Pulido’s ties to his ex-longtime bandmate Frankie Caballero, convicted of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl in 2014, after whom Pulido toured; Pulido’s campaign says he “was never made aware of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history.”

Impact on Their Career/Life

Garcia’s case has become a local example of a known gap in Texas peace-officer oversight: a deputy fired by one county over sustained harassment findings kept an active license through a second county’s appointment and simply returned to duty there. The national exposure from the ad — and the Post story naming him — now ties that gap to one of the most-watched House races of 2026. Whatever happens in the race, Garcia’s Wilson County file — sustained harassment findings, the compelled-interview admissions, the GPS-confirmed vigil outside a dispatcher’s home — remains part of the public record that follows him between counties.

Sources

• New York Post, “Texas rep ran ad starring cop fired for alleged sexual harassment and stalking,” Oct. 9, 2026 — source
• The Hawk’s Eye, “Wilson County Fired Deputy After 20-Plus Calls and Nearly an Hour Outside Dispatcher’s Home,” Aug. 27, 2026 — source
• @nypost, X post on the ad story, Oct. 9, 2026 — source