Indicted Texas mayor jailed after disrupted council meeting

Crystal City Mayor Ricardo Lopez was arrested Tuesday night during a recess at a city council meeting during which council members were discussing a recall election to remove him and two other city officials from office.

Crystal City Mayor Ricardo Lopez was jailed pending a bond hearing Wednesday on charges that include hindering a proceeding by disorderly conduct, according to Zavala County jail records. The recall efforts started last fall after concerns from residents about high taxes and how public money was being spent, the AP reported.

Witnesses said during Tuesday’s council meeting, Lopez tried to dispute calls for his resignation, yelled at spectators and left to fetch a copy of the city charter. “I’m not going to another council meeting because I don’t want to be put in jail again”, Lopez said.

One of those council members has resigned.

“Only in Crystal City”, Police Chief Jesus Lopez, not related, told KSAT-TV in San Antonia as the mayor was led into a police vehicle. After more discussion, Lopez recessed the meeting so he could go home to collect documents that he said supported his position. Upon his return, multiple media outlets reported, he scuffled with an angry audience member.

“I believe it was a prescribed medication that wasn’t in the right container”, the sheriff told the San Antonio Express-News.

Lopez was arrested after allegedly pushing a woman during Tuesday’s meeting.

As he left the jail, Lopez told reporters he would not attend anymore council meetings.

That raised doubt about whether the city council would have the quorum required to continue its work as planned Wednesday night after the meeting a night earlier was cut short. “This has never happened before”, Dora Paloma, a former municipal judge, told the Express-News.

Lopez, along with former council member Gilbert Urrabazo and current council members Rogelio Mata and Roel Mata, face federal corruption charges stemming from a raid earlier this month.

Crystal City, a town of about 7,000 people and located 50 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, was once billed as the “Spinach Capital of the World”.