Gangsters in Blue

Earlier this week, I posted on a DUI case in Mesa, Arizona where a police officer oddly saw signs of drunkenness in a woman whose blood-alcohol concentration came back .00.

Now out of San Jose, California comes a story about a well-connected former police officer who, apparently flat-out knockered, rear-ended an Escalade, which then flipped the median and struck an oncoming Jetta.

The ex-cop’s name is Sandra Woodall. We only know that thanks to the San Jose Mercury News. The police department wouldn’t release her name. Woodall now works as an investigator for the Santa Clara district attorney’s office. Her husband is a sergeant with the local police department. And her father-in-law was formerly a lieutenant at the same department. He’s also now an investigator for the district attorney’s office.

Unlike the case in Mesa, where a police officer reported he could smell booze on the breath of a woman who hadn’t been drinking, the cops in San Jose pointedly couldn’t smell liquor on the breath a former cop who was so drunk, she couldn’t remember what year it was.

Newly obtained court documents show there was ample evidence a former San Jose police officer was drunk when she crashed her SUV in March, but police chose not to question her about alcohol use or test her blood.

Soon after Sandra Woodall’s March 25 multi-car accident, she told paramedics that she was just out of rehab, had consumed “a lot” of alcohol and was so disoriented that she thought it was 2006, according to documents. Both of the paramedics who treated Woodall noted the strong smell of alcohol on her breath.

Sgt. Will Manion - a well-regarded senior officer who was the police supervisor on the scene - noted none of these things. Instead, Manion seemed to EMTs to be coaching Woodall on the correct way to answer their questions. He later tried to prevent them from taking her to a hospital, an EMT alleged. Manion insisted that he had no evidence she was drunk, and was trying to determine whether she could be forced to go to the hospital against her will.

But instead of exploring the possibility that Woodall was intoxicated, officers at the scene concluded that the speeding accident could have been caused because Woodall was eating egg rolls from Jack in the Box while she was driving. They decided not even to cite her for speeding - an unusual conclusion in so dramatic an accident.

The police didn’t give Woodall a field sobriety test. They didn’t ask her to take a breath test. And they didn’t take her blood.

Woodall has now finally been charged with felony drunk driving, though no thanks to the investigating officers. It took an outraged phone call to senior police officials from one of the people Woodall hit to get a proper investigation.

I’m sure Woodall will lose her job with the DA’s office. The real question is whether the officers who covered up for her will lose their jobs, too.

Oh, and this certainly isn’t the first time police officers have been caught letting fellow officers off the hook for DWI.

Thanks to Dan G. for the tip.

If it was indeed left by a prosecutor, this comment at the Volokh Conspiracy speaks volumes.

The high school principal who wrote a letter of support for Derrick Foster, the man charged with attempted murder for wounding two police officers conducting a paramilitary-style drug raid last month, has since apologized. Pickerington High School’s Scott Reeves apologized in front of 14 police officers after the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police organized a campaign against him for daring to vouch for the character of a man who mistook raiding cops for armed robbers during the raid.

Yes, Reeves wrote the letter on school letterhead. But why do I get the feeling that if he’d written a similar letter in support of say, a police officers accused of misconduct, the police union wouldn’t be calling for his head?

This is blatant witness intimidation. Foster’s character could very well factor into his trial, which will be an effort to determine if Foster knew the men breaking down the door were police officers. It isn’t at all inconceivable that Reeves might be called to testify at Foster’s trial. Same for the other 13 people who vouched for Foster’s character at his bond hearing, many of whom were also harassed by the police union, including organized boycotts of their businesses.

Maybe some criminal attorneys can help me out, here. How is it that the actions of the police union in this case don’t amount to obstruction of justice?

On May 18, police in Easton, Connecticut conducted a heavily-armed drug raid on the home of Ronald Terebesi, Jr. They began the raid by throwing flashbang grenades through Terebesi’s windows, then battering down his door and storming the house. Friends say at the time of the raid, 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan was visiting Terebesi to discuss the possibility of opening an employment business. According to police, the unarmed Guizan charged the raiding officers, at which point they shot and killed him.

As usual, the police, prosecutors, and state investigators are hunkering down, and not talking to the press. But some information is tricking out. Here’s what we know:

• The raid came after a tip from a stripper who had visited Trebesi’s home. She reported seeing two glass pipes and said she witnessed Trebesi smoke a small amount of crack cocaine he stored in a tin. She made the report at 9am on the same day of the raid.

• There was a reported drive-by shooting at Trebesi’s home in March, though Trebesi appears to have been the victim, not the perpetrator.

• Police found no guns in the home, but did find some cocaine and the two pipes, and have charged Trebesi with possession, which means there wasn’t enough to trigger an automatic charge of distribution.

So we have a heavily-armed, paramilitary-style raid conducted based on a tip from a stripper of drug use, not distribution. In the process, a slight, unarmed man runs toward the raiding police officers, and is shot dead.

I think it’s safe to say that Guizan likely had no idea the intruders were police. If he was aware of the shots fired at Trebesi’s home in March, he likely thought Trebesi was being attacked again. But it seems unlikely (to put it mildly) that an unarmed man would knowingly run toward a team of well-armed, raiding police officers to protect his friends small stash of cocaine.

We’re told over and over that even in no-knock raids, the police announce themselves as they’re coming into the home, and that everyone inside ought to know they’re being raided by cops, not criminal intruders. But if that’s the case, why deploy flash grenades just before making entry? They’re designed to disorient and confuse. That’s the whole reason for using them. You can’t at the same time say it’s necessary to disorient and confuse people, but that they also should hear, recognize, process, and believe the police announcement you make at the same time you’re deploying the concussion grenades.

Finally, it looks right now as if the raid was a reaction to a tip from a single source that Trebesi and possibly Guizan were using drugs. There’s as yet no indication there was any evidence of distribution. The raid was done within hours of the tip from the stripper, so it’s unlikely the police did much surveillance or attempted a controlled drug by from Trebesi.

The police will argue the officer who shot Guizan was reacting to a volatile situation. He had precious little time to determine whether the man running toward him was armed, or whether he presented a threat to the officer’s safety. That’s all probably true, though it doesn’t account for the fact that the police created those volatile circumstances in the first place. It also doesn’t account for the fact that had Guizan been the one who misjudged the threat and shot and killed one of the raiding officers, he’d almost certainly be in Ryan Frederick’s shoes right now.

The best solution is of course to stop these aggressive drug policing tactics, which continue result in unnecessary deaths and injuries. But if you’re going to insist on using them, you can’t keep holding the people you’re raiding to a higher standard than the (hopefully) well-trained police officers conducting the raids.

Guizan’s parents—who lost their only other son in a car accident—are considering a lawsuit.

My friend Pete Eyre gets all Jimmy Justice on an Arlington County police officer. Pete’s quite a bit more polite than Jimmy, though. Which I think makes this kind of thing much more effective.

I’ve also noticed that Arlington and Alexandria officers are also particularly bad about turning on their lights, zipping through a red light, then turning off the lights and continuing on their way.

I know some people think this is petty stuff. It isn’t. The police aren’t above the law. And it’s dangerous to let them think they are.

Derrick Foster is the man who recently shot and wounded two Columbus, Ohio police officers conducting a drug raid on a house where Foster was shooting dice. There were no drug charges as a result of the raid. In fact, the only charges to come out of the raid are those against Foster and another man, both of whom say they mistook the raiding officers for armed robbers. Foster is a code inspector for the city of Columbus, Ohio who received glowing reviews from his supervisors, a former Ohio State football player, and a father of two. He had no prior criminal record.

As Foster’s initial court appearance, his attorney introduced several letters attesting to his character from Ohio State athletes, local businessmen, and local educators. Many called him a role model.

That apparently has disrupted the police narrative that Foster is a dangerous cop-killer.

The Fraternal Order of Police passed on many of the supporters’ letters to its 4,100 members and encouraged them to express their displeasure or boycott their businesses.

"I still believe he’s a threat to society. The minute you put your thoughts on a letterhead, you open yourself and your business up to criticism," said Jim Gilbert, president of Capital City Lodge No. 9.

"We’re asking our officers and the public to stand up between the citizens and the violence they put against our officers."

Weiner said the union is off base. "This is witness intimidation. I might be calling some of these people as character witnesses for the defense," he said recently.

The first two union targets were Michael McGuire, the owner of a Budget car-rental location and a lifelong friend of Foster’s; and Pickerington Central High School Principal Scott Reeves, who met Foster at OSU in the mid-1980s. McGuire said he felt threatened when one officer called him and the union sent him an e-mail after he wrote that Foster "is a tremendous role model to his children and other teens in the community."

Wonder how the union feels about the violence Columbus police use against nonviolent citizens in these raids?

The high school principal was reprimanded by his boss, the school superintendent. The police union says it also plans to send a cadre of officers to the school’s next school board meeting, again to register their displeasure for the principal’s support of Foster. The superintendent may have a point in that the principal shouldn’t have used official letterhead in his note of support for Foster. But then, I wonder how many of these police officers have acted in their official capacity in their efforts to intimidate Foster’s supporters. I’d presume the answer is "all," given that if they hadn’t, the recipients of their emails and phone calls wouldn’t have known they were cops. How many will show up at the school board meeting in uniform?

So in sum: The Columbus police waged a hasty drug raid (the third that night for the same SWAT team) on a house where no significant amount of drugs were found. In the process, a man with no prior criminal record and who worked for the city understandably mistook them for armed robbers, and fired his legally-registered gun in self-defense. The authorities are now charging that man with attempted murder, and any of his friends or acquaintances who dare vouch for his character and judgment (both of which are pretty important to establishing his guilt or innocence) can expect intimidating phone calls, emails, and visits from the police, as well as police efforts to interfere with their careers and livelihood.

Foster’s attorney is right. This is blatant witness intimidation. Ohio’s attorney general needs to rein the police union in.

We continue to get these cases where someone with no prior criminal record fires on a team of raiding police officers. And every time, we’re supposed to believe that said person knew the armed men breaking in were cops, and that for whatever reason, each time this person who had shown no prior indication of criminality suddenly turned into a deranged cop killer.

Hardly seems likely, does it? Isn’t the more rational explanation here that these raids are dangerously volatile, confusing, and violent, and put the people on the receiving end of them in understandable fear for their lives?

D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier rehires 17 police officers previously fired for misconduct.

Then she decides the city will arm them with semiautomatic weapons.

What could possibly go wrong?