“HE WAS FALSELY IMPRISONED”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Oct. 11, 2015) — The Post & Email recently interviewed a 17-year law enforcement officer who was called upon to testify against his former Field Training Officer (FTO) and another officer regarding an incident he witnessed of excessive use of force.
After moving from one state to another in 2011, the officer we interviewed applied for and was accepted into a local police department training program lasting approximately three months, which is considered a probationary period in the profession. He had previously worked as a local police officer in his home state and been promoted to the rank of detective before relocating to attend to pressing family matters.
He also had acquired canine training and worked with a police canine for approximately a year.
“My first week into my training, and my first day on patrol, my responsibility was to observe, but my training officer chose to have me participate in traffic stops because I’d had previous experience,” he told us.
His story raises the civil and constitutional issues as it goes to policing which have become the subject of intense scrutiny by many over the last several years.
OFFICER: It was the first night on patrol, and my FTO stopped a car for not using a turn signal. There were several individuals in the vehicle. He were attempted to identify them, and they weren’t really giving us the information we needed. There was one person who gave us a name, and things weren’t coming up very well. The information we ran through Dispatch wasn’t coming up correctly. So we got him out of the car to try to identify who he truly was. I searched him for weapons; he had no weapons. He was sitting on the curb while we were back at the patrol car trying to find out who he was. He stood up, and I told him to sit down, and then he started to walk away, and I walked after him, and then he took off running. I took off running. The other officer, whose name was M——-, took off, too. It was a trial chasing this guy. I was the closest to him. He went around the corner, and I had a six-inch-long flashlight called a “streamlined flashlight” which I threw at his back legs to distract him in hopes he might slow down while he was running, to get him in a position where I could handcuff him.
He tripped after the flashlight hit its mark. I had gotten his hands behind him to handcuff him when all of a sudden I felt someone pull me off the guy. I turned around to try to re-engage him when I felt wind go past my head, then I heard a thump, and I backed up, and I saw that both M—— and my FTO were striking him with their impact weapons, which are expandable batons. They were hitting him hard; you could hear the thumps and you could hear him screaming. So this went on for a while until my FTO got struck in the wrist, and he backed away. M—– kept going. He went for some time after that until he told me to handcuff the guy. He was just lying on the ground in a mess.
I handcuffed him and walked him back to the car. We took him to the hospital to have him checked out. My FTO had his wrist checked out while we were there. I kept asking my FTO, “Can I take pictures of this guy?” and he said, “We’ll do it later.” Some time went by, and I asked again, “Do we need to take pictures?” and he said, “No, don’t worry about it; we’ll take care of that.” He was avoiding it; he didn’t want to do it.
So I got my phone out and I took a picture when they weren’t looking, because I thought, “I’m going to get pictures because I want to be able to show what happened.” So we took him to the jail to get booked. I don’t remember the exact process; somebody must have booked him in. It seemed as if we went directly in. We did go in to Dispatch, and they had me sit down to write a report, I had gone through maybe a line or two, when my FTO said, “Can you go in the back room and work on your other reports? I’m going to have M——- finish this report because he’s good at these types of reports.” So I left.
About a month went by, and it was really bugging me about what happened. I had seen a lot of other things going on with this department. I saw other officers doing some really awful things. I saw a completely different officer slam a guy down on the hood of his car to handcuff him because he was intoxicated and flipped us off in the parking lot. He slammed the guy down face-up on the hood and he had his hand around his throat. There were a couple of guys there standing with phones, and I thought, “This is not right.” But this was a Field Training Officer, and he was a different FTO than the one the night we chased that guy.
There was a lot of stuff like that, and my FTO did some things that were really bad: putting the public’s life in jeopardy, speeding down the highway when we didn’t need to be, really bad stuff that was not a good idea…
THE POST & EMAIL: This must be very difficult for you to have seen this and to tell me about, given that you are a police officer and there appears to be a “war on police” right now.
Oh, yeah. But I knew this wasn’t how most departments are; I knew this was a bad department. I didn’t know it before I went to work for them. The sheriff’s department I work for now has a substation that borders that police department, and they don’t want anything to do with them. They said, “They’re crooked, corrupt,” and they don’t want anything to do with them. They’ve had a history of it at this department, and they’ve gone through chiefs and everything, but it is what it is.
So I decided I didn’t want to be part of this police department; I wanted to get out of here. So I took all my stuff and went in to the chief and said, “I’m going to turn my stuff in because I’m going to tell you something that I witnessed, and I don’t want to be a part of it; I don’t want to be here.” So I told him everything, and he said, “Do you have any evidence of any of this?” and I said, “Yeah, I have pictures of the guy.” So I went and printed them out and showed him, and I could see the concerned look on his face.
This was after a 12-hour shift the night before, so I was half-asleep tired, and I wanted to turn in my stuff and leave. And he said, “I want you to type up what you witnessed.” So I went in the back room where we did reports, and typed up pretty-much verbatim everything I’ve told you. I handed the papers to him along with a photograph. He and the sergeant – the sergeant who was over the FTO program – went out back.
My dad was sitting in the car; he had ridden down with me and could see them out back. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he said he could see the chief really laying into this guy, and he seemed upset, and the guy was shaking his head, so they were obviously having a discussion about this whole mess. They came back in, and the chief said, “I don’t want you to resign; you’re a really good officer; I don’t want to lose you. We’re going to look into this; I promise you that something is going to be done. No one’s going to say anything,” because I had told him, “Once I say something, I’m going to be blackballed; they’re going to know who it came from. That would be part of the investigation; they’re going to find out.” He assured me that everything was going to be OK; that if anybody said anything, I was to come to him and he would take care of it.
I decided I couldn’t just quit because I had child support and a lot of responsibilities, so I stayed on. I continued to work with an FTO, although not the same one as before. Neither one of them was working with me anymore.
While the supposed investigation was going on, these individuals were still working on patrol and training new recruits. That is totally against any kind of practices I’ve ever witnessed in other departments, because when you’re under investigation, you’re normally on some type of administrative leave. They don’t have you training recruits. They were training, and I was getting feedback, and I knew things were not going to be good.
One of the sergeants came in and asked me about the incident for their investigation. He had me look over the report that they had typed, and it was nothing like what had occurred. I have the report they gave me for the court hearing that I attended to testify against this guy. They said that I had dropped my flashlight and the guy had gotten a hold of it, and that’s why they began to use force on him. None of it was factual at all; none of it.
So the sergeant came in; he interviewed me about what I had witnessed. He tried to trick me up on things; this was again at the end of my 12-hour shift when I’m tired and ready to go home. He asked me all these questions. I knew what he was doing; they try to discredit the witnesses so that they can say, “We don’t have enough reason to believe that this really happened.”
It was the next day or so that I was let go, supposedly because I didn’t meet their standards during the probationary period.
THE POST & EMAIL: Was that true, or were they afraid of what you had seen?
OFFICER: No, it was partially true. After I witnessed this, I was trying to focus on my job, but I was having a hard time. I was pulled between “Do I want to work for this department, or do I want to leave?” I was trying to focus, but I couldn’t focus. Finally I decided – after he assured me that things were going to be OK – that the only way out of there was to get them to terminate me because I wasn’t able to quit. So I just let my training go downhill; I didn’t care after that.
THE POST & EMAIL: How did that work? Did you not study for a test?
OFFICER: My morale was gone, and I didn’t care about the department, so when I was out on patrol, when they were evaluating me, my head really wasn’t in the game. I just wanted to be out of there. So of course, at that point, my evaluation was going to go way down. I’d even mentioned to him that what I witnessed was really bothering me, and he gave me some brochures on counseling, but this was right at the end when they terminated me. It was like, “OK, see ya; go get counseling…”
After I was let go, some time went by. I don’t remember how long it was – maybe weeks – but I contacted a group called Police Abuse, and they investigate things like this. I told them my story, and they wanted to run it on their website, and I told them they could. They had told me that if they call you in for any kind of investigation, you need to have someone go with you, because you’re no longer working for them and you’re a witness, and this could not be good. So the police department where I had been working called me back and said they wanted to do a follow-up investigation. I told them, “I pretty-much told you everything I have to say; I’m not going to say anything more.” They said, “Well, we need you to come in,” and I said, “No, I was advised by counsel not to speak to you.”
I didn’t hear a peep from them after that.
I later learned that my former FTO came up with the name of the subject beaten during the traffic stop. Apparently this subject had warrants out of Virginia; the U.S. marshals were looking for him because he was an escapee, so they got involved, and they came and picked him up from my former police department. I got a call sometime after I was let go from the marshals, and they wanted to speak to me.
I then got a call from a public attorney who said they’d had a report of some type of abuse, and they got it from a defendant’s attorney and they wanted to ask me about this case. They wanted to give the U.S. attorney my phone number, and I said, “Fine,” but I never heard anything after that about it. So that was pretty-much all the contact I had from that point on.
A couple of months ago, I got a call from an attorney’s investigator, and he said, “I understand that you filed a complaint against the XXXXXX Police Department,” and I said, “No, I never filed a complaint; I had recorded an incident where an officer and my FTO beat a guy,” and I told him the whole story.
He then said that the attorney he was working for wanted me to testify against M——– because she was representing a guy that M——- had arrested and she thought that by my testimony, M———– would be discredited and the defendant might be released. I said, “That’s fine, because M——- shouldn’t be working there.” I learned that M——– was not only still working at that department, but is also a canine officer. That’s a big responsibility. Of all the people, this guy is not stable enough, and now that he has a dog…this is scary stuff.
I agreed to testify. I faxed him my report, because I had kept all of my paperwork, and they reviewed it. They said I might be contacted by the district attorney because they’re probably going to have some questions. So I said, “I’m not going to speak to anybody unless you’re accredited, because I don’t trust these people. All they’re doing is trying to prosecute this guy that M——– arrested and they’re working with M——.” So she said, “That’s fine,” and the DA never contacted me.
Court day came on August 19. This was a really interesting hearing. The jury was there, and they were hearing evidence only. There were no members of the public. There were the jury, the judge, the district attorney, the defense attorney, and the suspect who the attorney represented, and his wife was present.
THE POST & EMAIL: Was it closed to the public?
OFFICER: No, I’m sure it was open to the public; the district attorney’s wife was there, but there wasn’t anyone else there for whatever reason.
They called me in; I got up on the stand; the defense attorney asked me to give them an overview of my experience and training. I did a really excellent job; I explained everything that I’d done, how many years I’d been in law enforcement, that I’d been a detective and a canine officer and everything. Then she asked me how I knew M—— and showed me a picture of him. She had me explain the incident that I’d witnessed. I described that incident in detail, graphically, where the jury could hear everything. The DA was looking up the whole time and shaking his head as if he didn’t want this stuff to be heard. He had a concerned look on his face.
Then it was his turn to cross-examine. I went in at 11:00. They took a break at 12:00 and came back at 1:00. The majority of that time, I was being cross-examined by the DA.
He produced a document which was the booking sheet that we used. A booking sheet is also known as a probable cause declaration. When you arrest someone, you have to have probable cause. You cannot confine someone without any probable cause because that’s against their constitutional rights. A probable cause report has to list the laws that were allegedly violated and write a short summary of what happened. That has to be turned in at the jail; the jail has to review it to make sure it’s complete. Then a judge has to review it to make sure it’s a legitimate probable cause before he can sign it.
Well, he produced a probable cause declaration that was filled out, and he asked me, “Is this your handwriting?” and I said, “Yes, it appears to be a copy of what appears to be a probable cause declaration that appears to be my handwriting, but I can’t say that it is.” So he said, “Do you notice at the bottom that it doesn’t have a signature or a date or anything on it?” and I said, “I do notice that.” He said, “OK.”
Then he asked about another document and if it contained my handwriting, and some of it looked like my handwriting and some of it didn’t, and I told him that. He was kind-of trying to nail me on that. I said, “I don’t know why some of this is my handwriting and some of it’s not, but there is a possibility that my FTO might have been helping me. He was shadowing me; it was during my observation period and I wasn’t supposed to be doing any of this.” I explained later on that sometimes the FTO will be right there and he will make corrections to anything that you’re doing after you turn it in.
During the questioning, I elaborated on my answers, which they don’t like you to do. They like you to answer, “yes” or “no,” because when you elaborate, you can tell them the true story of what happened. I did at certain points elaborate; one was when I told them that I was contacted by the marshals and the U.S attorney about the fact that they were investigating the alleged abuse. The judge stopped me, and the attorney said, “He’s not answering the question briefly; he’s elaborating,” and the judge reminded me, “You can’t do that; you need to answer briefly.” So I said “Sorry, your honor,” and the judge said, “Strike that off the record.”
Then the attorney I was there for asked, “When you complete a form like this, would you normally not sign it?” I said, “No, I wouldn’t make a mistake like that, because I realize the consequences. This is a civil rights issue. If a person is incarcerated without probable cause and it’s not signed, it’s an incomplete form. If this happens, there are all kinds of ramifications.”
When I said that, the DA was shaking his head. He did not want any of this to come out. I was digging deeper and deeper into this and bringing it to the jury’s attention, because these are things that are not legal. If this is the probable cause declaration, then this guy was incarcerated illegally because the probable cause form was incomplete. And if the guy pleaded to the charges, he pleaded to something that wasn’t even legal because there was no legal probable cause declaration.
This was booked into evidence; I brought it to the jury’s attention. The district attorney did not want me releasing this information. He did not want the jury to know that this was a civil rights issue and the judge heard it. He knows that this guy’s civil rights were violated; he was booked in without any probable cause; he was tried and admitted to the charges and found guilty under something that wasn’t even a legal arrest. He was falsely imprisoned.
I brought some points up to the jury that were very damaging not only to the police department, but to the county DA for prosecuting and standing up for M——. After that day in court, I know that the DA knows without a shadow of a doubt that the XXXXXXXXXXXX Police Department is completely corrupt and that there’s all kinds of stuff going on there. Where it’s going to go from here, I don’t know, but it’s been brought to their attention that all this has happened. So if anyone is responsible, the district attorney is responsible for looking into this.
So the judge knows, and the jury knows.
After the hearing, I was contacted by the attorney for whom I testified, and she wanted to thank me for the good job that I did. She said that M——- had come up and testified and that the jury believed me over M——- and dismissed the charges against the guy.
The judge, jury and district attorney now know that M—— is a bad cop. I told the attorney, “Any time you need me to testify for anything that M—- does, contact me, and they can get their clients off. These guys are corrupt and shouldn’t have any credibility at all.
THE POST & EMAIL: Do you think the people in that town know how corrupt their police department is?
OFFICER: Getting feedback from the community – and the only ones I had contact with were those we directly dealt with – they don’t trust the police department. You can understand why; it’s a very violent cop town. I recall one incident with my FTO with a truck that was parked halfway out in the road in front of a residence with a couple people in it. We stopped them and got out and told them, “You need to move your car further in; it’s out in the road,” and the girl kind-of had an attitude. Well, my FTO got out and started cussin’ at her – and this was not criminal; it was just a parking issue. I was thinking the whole time, the way he was baiting her that he would tow the truck if she didn’t move it, using foul language, “If this is how he speaks to the public, then this is awful. This guy’s not even professional.” This was not some hardened criminal. To use such foul language is so unprofessional for any officer. I could empathize with the public as to why they dislike the police department so much after seeing this stuff.
THE POST & EMAIL: Do you think that kind of behavior is widespread?
OFFICER: I would say it’s on a case-by-case basis; it depends on the officer. It’s not so much the departments. There are a few officers at the XXXXXX PD who are awesome, really good officers, and I’ve worked with them and respect them. But there were others on the midnight shift where I worked who were all really bad officers. They did things that were totally unethical. It was not a good group of people. Then the chief, and the sergeant, from what I learned, were good friends with my FTO – they were all buddy-buddies – and this is a sergeant who supervises the FTO program. This is the guy who’s supposed to make sure that the officers working under them are on the up-and-up. So if the officers are corrupt, the sergeant is corrupt. You can see the connection.
THE POST & EMAIL: How difficult is it to always have civil and constitutional rights in mind as you do your job? Is it part of your training?
OFFICER: Yes, in your academy training they talk about civil rights, the implications, what could happen; you could lose your home if there’s a lawsuit against you; they scare you with all that. I don’t think they go nearly in-depth enough on civil rights. I don’t know if they don’t want to scare the officers…But as I said, every department is different; every individual is different. But I can tell you this: in general, being in the law enforcement world, I can say that because police work around such negative elements of society, they do, after a while, get the feeling that it’s “us and them.” It’s almost as if everybody together is “them.” But there are good people out there, too.