Nortex Times

A Jack County judicial candidate alleges that on Feb. 9 the brakes on his truck were tampered with.

According to a police report filed with the Jacksboro Police Department, Mike Moore claims he was at Jacksboro High School for a candidate forum on Feb 9. After the forum, Moore and his neighbor stopped at JR’s Chophouse for lunch about 11 a.m. Moore states in the report that he noticed the brake light warning in his truck was on while he drove home from lunch, and he had a brake failure moments later. 

Upon arrival at his home, Moore said he noticed that a brake vacuum line was broken and had a missing part. The next day, a mechanic informed Moore that multiple brake vacuum lines were missing, according to the report.

"From what (the mechanic) could tell, someone reached up into the wheel well, grabbed a handful of cables/cords and yanked, then cut most," Moore said in the police report. "Some of the vacuum hoses are completely missing. They took pictures of everything and told us the police had been there to take pictures as well."

When asked who may have tampered with his vehicle, Moore didn't point any fingers but did bring up some coincidences related to the candidate forum.

"Each candidate was given five minutes to speak except for Keith, who took over and spoke for 25 minutes," Moore said in a written statement. "The only candidate not present was Stacy Spurlock (the JP). Interestingly enough, that morning on the local Facebook Rants and Raves page, someone posted Stacy’s felony record on there. That’s a whole issue in itself."

The sitting judge is Brian Umphress, who was elected in January 2019.

According to Ballotpedia, the population of Jack County is 8,472.