Lieutenant Michael Guerra is no stranger to Internal Affairs. In his current role with the Comal County Sheriff’s Office, his name appears across dozens of investigation entries as the official tasked with reviewing complaints, weighing evidence, and rendering findings. According to records obtained through open records requests, Guerra’s IA log is filled with entries labeled “Policy/Policies Violation,” with findings ranging from “Sustained” to “Unfounded” and “Exonerated.”
Yet Guerra’s credibility in this very arena has been questioned before. Documents from his tenure at the Seguin Police Department show that in 2018 he was implicated in a leak scandal that shook the department’s leadership. Guerra and another officer, Carlos Contreras, were investigated for conspiring to leak confidential details about a fellow officer to the media in order to discredit her. Both men were accused of lying during the investigation, deleting text messages, and revising a fabricated records request before it was sent out.
Internal investigators concluded the two “conspired as a team” to undermine their own department. Guerra eventually admitted, “Did I screw up with this? Yes—I did. I screwed up. I’ll take fault in what I did. I f***ed up.” Despite this, he avoided criminal charges and soon left Seguin behind .
The fact that this same officer is now responsible for Internal Affairs in Comal County raises a fundamental question: how much trust should the public place in the IA logs his office produces?
What an IA Log Really Shows
Internal Affairs records show Guerra presided over nearly fifty investigations, most ending with “sustained” findings. On the surface, that might suggest a tough, no-nonsense approach to discipline. But the real issue is not the volume of sustained complaints — it’s whether Guerra was credible in deciding which cases merited discipline, which were brushed off as “unfounded,” and which resulted in full “exoneration.”
That judgment call matters. A sustained finding could be as trivial as a uniform infraction, while an unfounded ruling could bury a serious allegation of misconduct. Without transparency into which complaints Guerra marked sustained and which he dismissed, the question lingers: did he treat minor issues harshly while letting more significant misconduct slide?
This concern is amplified by his own history. In Seguin, Guerra admitted he had lied during an internal affairs probe into a media leak. He was caught deleting messages and downplaying his involvement — conduct that would have ended the career of many officers. Yet years later, he was the one deciding the truthfulness of other deputies, making credibility judgments that shaped whether a complaint ended a career, triggered discipline, or quietly disappeared.
That conflict of trust cuts to the heart of the matter: can the public rely on the integrity of internal affairs decisions when the officer leading them once admitted to deceiving investigators himself?
The Conflict of Interest
The Comal County job description for lieutenant makes clear that one of Guerra’s duties is to “investigate internal affairs, complaints of patrol and report findings to Captain, Chief and Sheriff” . He also serves as a contact for media inquiries, meaning he helps shape the public narrative around accountability.
This dual role—investigating deputies while simultaneously managing the flow of information—creates a conflict of interest even under the best of circumstances. But with Guerra, the conflict is sharper. In Seguin, he was disciplined for misleading his own investigators about his involvement in leaking information to a reporter. Now he is the investigator, deciding whether other deputies are being truthful.
The signature block from recent records shows Guerra’s current assignment in Comal County: Support Services Division, Internal Affairs. It is an official acknowledgment that the responsibility for enforcing accountability rests in his hands.
Systemic Weaknesses
Guerra’s case illustrates a broader weakness in how Texas handles police accountability. The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) tracks licenses, certifications, and training hours, but it does not make public the details of disciplinary findings from individual agencies . That means an officer can resign under investigation in one department, as Guerra did in Seguin, and reappear in a neighboring county with little public record of past misconduct.
The only way to uncover these histories is through persistent open records requests, which often face resistance. Without sustained pressure, much of that history might never have surfaced. Did it factor into the hiring decisions by the Comal County Sheriff’s Office or promotion of Guerra?
Why It Matters for Comal County
Internal Affairs investigations are the mechanism by which sheriff’s offices police themselves. They are supposed to reassure the public that misconduct will be addressed internally, sparing the need for outside intervention. But that system only works if the public can trust both the process and the people in charge of it.
If a lieutenant with a past history of dishonesty is responsible for investigating deputies today, residents are left to wonder whether IA findings are being handled fairly. The stakes are high: IA outcomes can determine whether deputies keep their jobs, whether cases move forward in court, and whether prosecutors disclose credibility concerns under Brady rules.
In Guerra’s case, defense attorneys could argue that his 2018 admission of untruthfulness in Seguin undermines his credibility in any case where he testifies. That, in turn, could weaken prosecutions in Comal County. Whether local prosecutors have flagged him on a Brady list is unknown—but the risk is real.
Looking Ahead
The release of Guerra’s Internal Affairs log should spark a larger conversation in Comal County about transparency and accountability. Logs without context are not enough. The public deserves to know not only how many complaints are filed, but what they involve and what consequences follow.
For Guerra, the issue is not simply the past misconduct in Seguin. It is the question of whether someone with that history should be entrusted with the responsibility of judging others. When the investigator himself once admitted to lying in an internal affairs probe, how can residents have confidence that today’s IA findings are reliable?
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