A Mission police officer accused of burying evidence and lying under oath is fighting to get his badge back, and the fight landed in front of a neutral arbiter last Thursday. Javier Lara, former president of Mission Police Association Local #293, was placed on indefinite suspension in April after an independent legal review found merit in a misconduct and perjury complaint against him, and that review recommended he be fired. Now a third-party hearing is underway to decide whether that firing was unreasonable and should be reversed.
A Missing Affidavit Sparks the Complaint
The case traces back to November 2025, when Harjap Nanva emailed investigator Arturo Flores asking for a thorough probe into Lara, according to MyRGV.com. Nanva alleged that an affidavit was missing from his Hidalgo County District Attorney case file even though Lara had received a copy, and that Lara had denied under oath, during a 2023 civil proceeding, even knowing the document existed. The formal complaint was filed on Nov. 13, 2025, two days after that email — and Nanva has said he chose to file on his birthday, Nov. 3, 2025. He has said an 11-month delay in coming forward reflected time spent restoring his dental credentials and business and receiving PTSD care.
Nanva himself had been accused in 2021 of assaulting his ex-wife by striking her in the face; that case was dismissed in December 2024 for insufficient evidence and lack of victim cooperation. He is now pursuing a separate criminal case against his ex-wife over what he says was a false report, and he testified he does not intend to sue Mission or seek monetary damages from Lara. Nanva said he wanted to prevent what he believes was his false arrest from happening to anyone else, and that he wanted people to do their jobs with integrity.
Testimony Paints a Picture of an Incomplete Investigation
Neutral arbiter Ruben Campos oversaw the hearing, which took place at the Center for Education and Economic Development in Mission and heard testimony from Nanva, Flores, Police Chief Cesar Torres, and attorney Camela Sandmann. Flores, Torres and Sandmann all testified that Lara failed to gather as much evidence as he could have — he reportedly did not visit or photograph Nanva's home, interview additional witnesses, or obtain the alleged weapon. Nanva testified he would have let Lara search his home without a warrant. Flores separately testified that he could not locate police department records for Nanva because they had been expunged, though Nanva says he provided Flores with expunged evidence including videos and documents.
Torres testified that a city manager told him to stop the department's own investigation once the City Council opted to bring in an outside third-party investigator. He also testified that he offered Lara the chance to resign rather than be fired, an offer Lara refused. Torres said Lara's failure to obtain more evidence undermined a complete investigation, and that he would not have considered a two-week suspension for the conduct at issue. Flores, for his part, testified that an earlier 14-day suspension was only a placeholder and that he could not personally recommend discipline.
Declaration or Affidavit? A Legal Distinction Takes Center Stage
Attorney Craig Smith, of Denton Navarro Rodriguez Bernal Santee & Zech, P.C., testified that Lara conducted a sloppy investigation and lied when challenged, and said Lara had no credibility. Lara's attorney, David Willis, pushed back on the underlying paperwork itself, arguing the disputed material was actually a 37-page California domestic-violence separation-order packet filed by Nanva's ex-wife, containing medical records and her statement — and that Lara was never shown the packet during his internal affairs interviews.
Sandmann, who works for the same firm as Smith and reviewed the entire packet, agreed under questioning that the document was a declaration rather than an affidavit under Texas law, after reportedly mislabeling it as an affidavit. She explained that under California law, a declaration carries the same legal effect as an affidavit. Sandmann also acknowledged she never contacted the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office to get its explanation for why Nanva's assault case was dismissed for insufficient evidence. She ultimately recommended Lara's indefinite suspension based on his alleged untruthfulness, telling the hearing that lying amounts to what she called a professional death penalty for a police officer.
A 180-Day Deadline Dispute
Willis argued that the allegations against Lara were time-barred under a state law imposing a 180-day deadline, and he also contended the legal review wasn't truly independent because Torres allegedly dictated questions and required actions during it. Torres testified he had mentioned the approaching 180-day deadline to Sandmann, and Sandmann agreed the deadline applies to discipline rather than to the overall investigation. Willis further said the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office was the only entity that could cause Nanva's case to be dismissed. Mission's own personnel manual states that discipline for civil-service employees is governed by Texas Local Government Code Chapter 143, the city's local civil-service rules, and departmental policy — though the manual does not resolve how the 180-day argument applies to Lara's specific case.
The Texas Municipal Police Association, affiliated with Lara's union, weighed in months before the hearing. Executive Director Kevin Lawrence wrote to Mission on June 30 stating the association believed Lara's termination was based on what he called a trumped-up allegation.
An Echo of Torres's Own History in Edinburg
Torres, who became Mission's police chief in April 2022, brought his own contested employment history into the hearing. He testified that he disagreed with a 2021 decision by a neutral arbitrator in Edinburg — where he had previously served — but said he abided by it anyway, and he said some rehires in Edinburg were politically motivated. That Edinburg arbitrator had ruled Torres discriminated against officers Eric Salazar and Arnaldo Ysquierdo for union activity, ordering the city to reinstate them to their investigative positions with back pay dating to August 2019 reassignments, as MyRGV.com reported at the time. Edinburg went on to fire Torres that same year, and a separate account from KRGV noted he had also been suspended from duty for five days that January.
Torres directed questions about his Edinburg-era lawsuits to his attorney, Katie Klein, during the Mission hearing. Both he and Nanva testified that neither had known Klein represented the other in connection with the case. Torres also said he had since stopped personally transferring employees between divisions in Mission, leaving those decisions to assistant police chiefs, and that he had asked for Sandmann's outside legal recommendation because he considered the Lara investigation critical.
The hearing is expected to resume at a later date, with witnesses for Lara expected to be called by Willis. The evidence presented so far does not include a ruling from arbiter Ruben Campos on whether Lara's firing will stand.
