AUSTIN, Texas — An Austin Police Department sergeant subjected to an internal affairs investigation regarding an event in January was suspended in July, according to officials.

A July 12 memo from Police Chief Joseph Chacon stated that Homicide Sgt. Jesse Sanchez neglected his duty on a homicide case.

Sanchez failed to follow the appropriate actions to secure a crime scene.

On Jan. 23, around 3 a.m., a person phoned APD to say a man was down in the roadway at a southeast Austin intersection and two officers responded soon after, the memo reads. Officer #1 arrived at the hospital where the victim was transported before police arrived on scene.

EMS and fire department officials told officer #1 they were uncertain whether the victim was assaulted or hit by a car. He was pronounced dead at 3:38 a.m. Officer #1 later learned from medical staff they found hair clenched in his fist and evidence of head trauma, according to the memo.

Officer #2 went to the intersection the victim was discovered. Fire crews had already washed the scene before the officer got there.

At 4:05 a.m., Sgt. Sanchez was informed to contact officer #1, in which he told him to release the scene, said the memo.

Sanchez communicated that detectives would not be responding to the scene.

Officer #2 got in touch with Sanchez to loop him into the details of the scene, saying that blood was visible, along with what could have been blood matter; a broken van window with blood spatter nearby; a stick with blood on it; and a notebook as well as debris on the ground.

Sanchez told officer #2 the same thing he informed the other. Officer #2 obliged.

When the afternoon rolled around, within that same day, Sanchez called his detectives to the scene. It was concluded that the victim had been killed. A suspect confessed to the crime and was charged with murder.

According to the memo, the case is still in pending status.

The memo continues that a complaint was filed with Internal Affairs on Feb.9, accusing Sanchez of not properly processing the crime scene. It was requested to start an investigation on Sanchez for his negligence.

“Sgt. Sanchez should have immediately sent the On-Call Homicide Detectives and the Crime Scene Unit to the scene to seek out and secure any potential evidence. Moreover, his Chain-of-Command also concluded that Sgt. Sanchez released the crime scene without having the scene properly processed, which could have impacted the prosecution of this case,” Chacon said in the memo.

He went on to say that although he’s aware that the fire crew compromised the scene with a wash down, Sanchez’s own statements and actions should have led him to follow through with the aforementioned protocol.

Given that Sanchez had no prior disciplinary actions against him and accepted full accountability, he was only suspended from July 13 through July 17.