Are Police Officers Allowed to Visit With Family Felons in California??
More than lxxx constabulary enforcement officers working today in California are convicted criminals, with rap sheets that include everything from animal cruelty to manslaughter.
They drove drunkard, cheated on time cards, brutalized family unit members, fifty-fifty killed others with their recklessness on the road. But thank you to some of the weakest laws in the country for punishing police misconduct, the Aureate State does nothing to stop these officers from enforcing the law.
Those are among the findings of an unprecedented collaboration of newsrooms, including the Bay Area News Grouping, which spent six months examining how California deals with cops who break the law.
Today, we're unveiling that review, along with a unique searchable database of hundreds of current and former officers convicted of a crime in the past decade — the largest record of criminal action amid police force in California e'er compiled.
The review plant 630 officers bedevilled of a crime in the terminal decade — an average of more than one a week. Afterwards DUI and other serious driving offenses, domestic violence was the most common charge. More than a quarter of the cases announced never to take been reported in the media until at present. And nearly one out of v officers in the review are still working or kept their jobs for more than than a twelvemonth after sentencing.
It'due south a small percentage of the 79,000 sworn officers across the state. But given the quality of the land'southward record-keeping, it'south also incomplete, and exactly how many police officers with convictions are still on the beat today — or even the number of officers bedevilled over the final decade — is far from clear. Hindered by some of the strictest secrecy laws in the land, California residents don't really know who is carrying a gun and patrolling their streets.
Reporters found at to the lowest degree a dozen deputies with prior convictions are still on the roster at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Section. And the 5 officers with convictions working for the Riverside police force include the acting principal — Larry Gonzalez was a lieutenant in 2013 when he pleaded guilty to DUI subsequently reportedly crashing a city-owned SUV with a blood-alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit.
There'due south a Kern County Sheriff's deputy however working despite a conviction for manslaughter after running over two people while recklessly speeding to a call. And a Santa Clara County Sheriff'southward deputy is back on the force after dozing off at the bicycle and killing a pair of elite cyclists on a preparation ride.
"Was justice served? Absolutely not," said Jon Orban, whose friends Kristy Gough, xxx, and Matt Peterson, 29, were killed when Santa Clara County Deputy James "Tommy" Council crossed a double yellow line and plowed into a group of cyclists on a Lord's day morning in 2008.
"When someone holds a badge they should be held to a college standard; in this case he wasn't held to any standard at all," said Orban, an Regular army veteran who considers himself a supporter of constabulary enforcement. "I don't know of an organization where if yous kill two people you get to keep your task after millions of dollars are paid out considering of your fault."
All of the criminal cops who are nonetheless on the job were convicted of misdemeanors. Bedevilled felons tin can't be police officers in California — or in most other states.
However, the review found a 3rd of the convicted officers all the same working were originally charged with a felony or trigger-happy misdemeanor that could take price them their correct to comport a gun. Most managed to plead down to a lesser criminal offense to stay on the job.
The review besides establish convictions for about half of the officers still working announced never to have been covered in the media.
That includes an L.A.-area school officer convicted of child endangerment, a San Francisco Sheriff'southward deputy with 2 convictions in two years, and a California Highway Patrol officer who investigated a possible domestic homicide despite his own conviction after a domestic dispute years before.
"Given the power that police take — if you lot take cops with those kinds of records, it's sort of a expose of the public trust," said Roger Goldman, a police force professor at Saint Louis University who studies law enforcement licensing and standards across the land.
The reason and so many of these officers are still working — and the public doesn't know about their pasts — has everything to do with the way California oversees its law.
Piercing the veil
The Gilded State is 1 of only v in the country that doesn't "decertify" officers for misconduct — or effectively strip them of a license to work in law enforcement. That ways nigh all hiring and firing decisions are upwards to local chiefs and sheriffs.
"It seems to me nonsensical that the system responsible for setting the standards and training for the option of police force officers … has no ability to act in a case of a breach of that responsibility," said Mike DiMiceli, who spent more than 30 years at California'southward Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training — called POST — which accredits the state's law enforcement departments.
Even when an officer is found guilty of something egregious, the public — which can easily go online to larn the misdeeds of doctors, lawyers or real estate agents — would have to hear about an officers' run-in with the constabulary and then dig through the local courthouse for details.
When information technology comes to police misconduct that doesn't upshot in criminal charges, California shields nearly records from disclosure. But the wall of secrecy started to scissure — a little — this year. That's when a new police force, SB 1421, required police to release internal records most officer shootings, deadly force, sexual misconduct and dishonesty — a mandate many departments are even so fighting.
Soon later on that new police force took event, reporters from the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley got a rare glimpse into officers who didn't only violate department policies just committed crimes.
Through a public records request, they received a listing of the criminal convictions of nearly 12,000 people who accept been police enforcement officers in California or applied to be one.
The list was a stunning disclosure — and land Chaser General Xavier Becerra wanted it back.
The AG'due south office had created the list and so Post could update a database to flag when law officers are ineligible to work in the state.
But Becerra's function refused to answer any questions about the list, or clarify vital data that's missing, such as which names vest to officers as opposed to only applicants, and where they work. The attorney general has just said the list was inadvertently released and that the reporters were breaking the law by just possessing information technology. He fifty-fifty threatened legal action unless they gave it back.
Instead, the reporting programme at Berkeley joined with nearly three dozen news outlets beyond the state to learn more nearly California'due south criminal cops.
After trying to narrow downwards the convictions list to officers who take worked in the last decade, the reporters focused on nearly ane,000 cases, hunting down court files from almost every canton in California. They routinely encountered roadblocks, from uncooperative government workers to missing case files to sloppy record keeping. They too pored over 10 years of news clips to identify hundreds of boosted law enforcement officers missing from the state's secret listing who had been convicted of a crime in the by decade.
Ultimately, the reporters identified 630 current or former officers with criminal convictions in the past decade in California.
But given the state's persistent secrecy, the results are only a snapshot of officers with a prior conviction. If California's top law enforcement official knows the real number, he'south not maxim.
Becerra has declined numerous interview requests for this story.
Oversight in other states
One matter that is articulate: Many of the officers on the land's hush-hush convictions list who are still working today probable wouldn't be cops in other states.
About two-thirds of us with the power to decertify an officer do not even crave a criminal confidence to kicking someone from the profession, according to Goldman, the St. Louis professor. Misconduct findings by an administrative body can be enough.
But in California, where local departments decide the fates of trouble officers, it's nearly impossible for the public to get answers when police break the law.
Local law enforcement officials routinely dismissed questions for this story about why they continued to utilize officers with criminal convictions, citing the state's strict confidentiality rules on police personnel matters.
The Los Angeles Sheriff'southward role wouldn't explain why it keeps a dozen convicted cops on the strength, including cases involving allegations of domestic corruption, trespassing, perjury and drunken driving.
In San Francisco, reporters found Officer Warrick Whitfield still working despite 2 prior criminal convictions. He got a DUI in 2012, then was criminally charged 2 years later for using his law enforcement admission to dig upward confidential information almost a domestic dispute. He was convicted in that instance as well but again kept his job. And the San Francisco Police Department refused to explain why.
San Diego police wouldn't explicate their decision to keep four bedevilled officers, including Roel Tungcab, who was charged with domestic violence in 2011 on suspicion of knocking his married woman unconscious. He pleaded downwardly to a single misdemeanor charge of damaging her phone. Records show authorities take responded to multiple domestic incidents at Tungcab's home in recent years. And yet, records bear witness, Tungcab — who declined to annotate —- is even so working today.
And the Compton Unified School Commune wouldn't respond to questions about keeping school officer Donte Greenish on the strength after a jury convicted him of child endangerment. In 2014, Light-green left his 7-yr-old daughter alone in a car with his loaded gun. She grabbed it and fired it in the direction of a schoolhouse, records show. No one was hurt. Prosecutors insisted Green should be held answerable.
"Look, I appreciate what he does for a living," Deputy District Attorney Craig Rouviere told the jury during closing arguments at Green's trial. "But you know what? If I fall over dead tomorrow, they are going to bring in another D.A. to cease this case, because the organization is bigger than ane person. … We can't look at him and go, 'Yeah, man, he'southward a cop, man. Give him a break.' That's non how the law works."
A guess sentenced Dark-green to iii years probation and he had to take a National Rifle Association gun prophylactic form.
Information technology's possible none of those officers would be working in Florida or Georgia. The two states accept agencies with some of the broadest power to decertify officers over non merely convictions but a range of misconduct, including dishonesty, unethical conduct and "moral turpitude."
In Georgia, officers tin can exist booted from police enforcement for offenses such equally sexual harassment, drunken driving and undue force. Florida can revoke a cop's license for possession of cannabis and perjury.
Together the two states decertified nearly one,000 officers in 2015 — roughly half the decertifications nationwide, according to a 2016 study.
Glen Hopkins, an official at the Florida Department of Police force Enforcement, said fifty-fifty when local prosecutors let an officer off on bottom charges, his state tin aggressively pursue field of study.
"If they plead it down to a lesser misdemeanor — if nosotros've got the facts — we're not bound by that," Hopkins said.
Click here to read all of the articles in this series published
by The Mercury News and East Bay Times.
While virtually other states don't take every bit hard a stance, they do have stricter rules than the Golden State.
In Iowa, theft or defrauding the government can cost an officer his or her career. Merely in San Jose, Officer Jeffrey Enslen is nevertheless employed despite being charged with felony grand theft after an internal investigation plant he falsified dozens of timecards, costing the city nigh $ten,000. The felony would have banned him from the forcefulness, but he pleaded downwards to a misdemeanor and saved his task in California.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David Hernandez could have been banned from working in Alaska, Arizona, Montana, New United mexican states or West Virginia, according to records compiled past Goldman, the law professor. Those states tin can decertify officers for dishonesty, and Hernandez pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor for filing a simulated study after lying about why he pulled over a doubtable in a drug arrest, co-ordinate to court records and a news report.
And pretty much all of the convicted officers identified equally withal employed in California might exist finding a new line of work in Idaho where the state has the option to decertify any cop bedevilled of a misdemeanor.
Unions' powerful influence
In that location was a time when California was actually a leader on police oversight. In 1959, the Gold State became one of the first in the state to create a committee to oversee police hiring and preparation standards.
For decades, the committee known as POST could have abroad an officers' certificate to work in constabulary enforcement if they were convicted of a felony.
In the 1990s, the commission considered calculation more crimes like perjury that reverberate an officers' credibility, and so-chosen "wobblers," crimes that tin can be charged as either misdemeanors or felonies.
Just the commission retreated afterwards intense pushback from powerful police unions, and in 2003 the unions helped button through a bill that stripped POST of its ability to accept away an officer's certification unless it were issued in error.
"They were protecting their working members by doing something that would keep POST from e'er getting a bigger seize with teeth of the apple," said DiMiceli, Post's former assistant executive director.
Since then, POST simply adds a annotation to its database when an officer is convicted of a felony and is butterfingers from working as a law enforcement official past state police force. It doesn't marker anything for most other crimes. So law enforcement agencies are on their own to perform background checks that might flag criminal pasts.
Time to go tougher?
With police force transparency efforts on the ascension in Sacramento, the debate is heating upwardly on whether the state should do more to prevent problem law officers from working in California.
"Should at that place be statewide standards for constabulary officers and deputy sheriffs? If y'all ask me, the clear answer is yes," said Janet Davis, interim police chief in the Central Valley urban center of McFarland, a 14-fellow member department that has had a dubious record of hiring cast-abroad cops.
Before Davis took over, McFarland hired more than a dozen officers who had either been convicted of a offense or fired by another department for misconduct.
Brian Curiosity, a San Diego police officer who serves equally president of the state'due south largest law labor grouping, said he expects legislative efforts to decertify police officers in California in the near future — and insists his organization isn't automatically opposed to it.
"I just want to make sure there is a fair process if an officer is decertified. I think they should have the right to appeal that, and I remember there should exist some due process rights," said Marvel, whose Peace Officers Enquiry Association of California represents more than 75,000 officers.
One-time POST director Paul Cappitelli agrees that bad cops shouldn't be working in California, only he as well worries that if the state has the power to decertify police force, skilful officers might lose their jobs.
"You lot'd take no more police officers," said Cappitelli, who fears a small group of outspoken critics could sway POST's conclusion to decertify. "You'd accept the public deciding, and they often desire to fire people."
Others also worry near more country oversight. They say local departments should take discretion to decide whether a conviction should cost an officer his task.
"I've seen cops become a second gamble, go on to be amend officers and human beings because they have been humbled past their mistakes," Alameda County Sheriff'due south Sgt. Ray Kelly said.
Take the case of former Fremont constabulary Officer Nicholas Maurer.
In Apr 2009, Maurer was convicted of assaulting a man following a drunken dispute at a BART station in a highly publicized example that price him his task. Records show he was sentenced to 3 years of probation and 45 days of jail that he could serve through a work program — although a judge later shortened his probation after reviewing letters of support from law enforcement to help Maurer go another chore. With the assault on his tape, he yet couldn't carry a gun, though.
So he went on to piece of work for eight years at Ohlone Higher in the Bay Area every bit an unarmed officer.
"I made a fault — a huge error," Maurer said in a recent interview, pointing out he didn't try to cover up his wrongdoing. "I feel terrible."
Blown second chances
The news organizations' review found many departments in California generally choose to burn down officers convicted of crimes. For example, all only 1 of the 17 Sacramento Canton Sheriff'south Department deputies convicted of crimes in the review are gone, the bulk within half dozen months of charges being filed.
Only the review also constitute multiple examples of departments giving problem officers second chances that backfired.
Richard Sotelo was an Purple Canton Sheriff's Department correctional officeholder in February 2013 when he was charged with domestic violence for assaulting his estranged wife. He was immune to keep working despite the awaiting charges. Only months later he was defendant of a crime over again, this fourth dimension sexual battery against a male co-worker. He was charged for that as well. Sotelo ultimately took plea deals and was convicted in both cases and left the force.
The Los Angeles Police Department gave officer David Guerrero a second chance after he pleaded down a 2012 drunken driving charge to reckless driving. He was likewise the subject of multiple police reports — earlier and after that DUI arrest — that didn't result in charges.
In ane incident investigated by the Bell Police Section months before his reckless driving, Guerrero allegedly "threatened, assaulted and battered" a woman who was in a dispute with his girlfriend, according to courtroom records.
"That'south how you exercise it, LAPD style," Guerrero allegedly said as he drove away.
The DA'south office didn't file charges. It also didn't prosecute Guerrero in 2013 when he allegedly threatened to kill the female parent of his child, courtroom records prove.
He finally ended up behind bars in 2016 when he got into an argument and allegedly sucker-punched a man, leaving him bullheaded in ane center. Guerrero — who said in an interview he was defending himself — was charged with a felony and ultimately pleaded no contest.
"I certainly did not expect this from a Police Officer, whether he was off duty or non," the victim wrote in a alphabetic character to the guess who sentenced Guerrero to thirty days in jail and five years of probation.
This time, the LAPD got rid of him.
The San Francisco Sheriff's Section showed similar tolerance with Deputy James Naguina Jr.
He was charged with domestic battery in October 2008 after his ex-wife alleges he broke down a bathroom door and grabbed her during a violent confrontation.
Naguina managed to plead downward to a bottom charge — violating a court order — that let him stay on the strength. The judge let Naguina keep his gun for his task simply ordered he deport information technology for work purposes but.
Simply if that was his second hazard, Naguina was nigh to need a third.
Two weeks from the stop of his probation, Alameda officers spotted Naguina driving without his headlights on and making an illegal U-turn. Co-ordinate to the police study, he appeared drunkard and as he struggled to find his automobile insurance and registration, the officer spotted "a holstered pistol in the centre console."
Prosecutors accused him of violating his probation past carrying his gun exterior of work but only charged him with driving drunkard.
Naguina didn't lose his 6-figure-a-year deputy's job, though.
Despite his ii criminal convictions, he'due south still working for the San Francisco sheriff.
Jesse Marx and Lyle Moran of the Vocalization of San Diego contributed to this report.
Hear more than about the Criminal Cops project in this podcast
from Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
This story is part of a collaboration of news organizations throughout California coordinated by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and the Bay Area News Group. Reporters participated from more than thirty newsrooms, including MediaNews Group, McClatchy, Usa Today Network, Vocalization of San Diego, and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. The Jonathan Logan Family unit Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism provided support for this project. Click hither to read more nigh the project. Email u.s.a. at cacriminalcops@gmail.com.
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Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/10/californias-criminal-cops-convicted-but-stay-on-the-job
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