In retrospect, the cop sort of blew it when he went to the scene of his brother-in-law’s traffic accident. Of course, that would have pissed off his wife. But he should have known that he was intruding on their territorial prerogative.
VINDICATION FOR AN LAPD OFFICER WHO WAS FIRED FROM THE FORCE
Officer Sergio Arreola was dismissed after allegedly assaulting a Pomona officer in 2012. But he got his job back after he was found not guilty
By Joel Rubin
Los Angeles Times
May 27, 2013
Just 11 months into his job as a Los Angeles police officer, Sergio Arreola had a choice to make: resign or be fired.
The day before, April 11, 2012, he had been handcuffed and booked by Pomona police for allegedly assaulting them during a traffic accident investigation and resisting arrest. Arreola's captain had issued the ultimatum after getting word of the incident from Pomona officials.
The 25-year-old Marine veteran, who had dreamed about becoming an LAPD cop, felt his world crumbling around him.
For a moment, the young officer considered resigning. Doing so, the captain told him, would spare him the black mark of being fired and give him a chance at finding another job. But Arreola dismissed the idea just as quickly. Resigning would signal that he had done something wrong.
He told the captain that he hadn't done any of the things the Pomona officers alleged. Arreola asked the captain to investigate the situation before signing the paper that would boot him from the force. He offered the captain the phone number for a tow truck driver who had witnessed the incident and told him that at least one other witness, his brother-in-law, had recorded a video of it.
"With all due respect, I have done a lot for this country and I've worked really hard to get here — to get to this position as a police officer," Arreola said. "I'm not going to resign. If you want to terminate me, go ahead."
The captain was unmoved. The Pomona officers' description of the incident made it clear that Arreola was not LAPD material.
Arreola turned in his equipment and left the station for what he assumed would be the last time. Once out of earshot in the parking garage, he dialed his wife.
"He fired me," Arreola told her, tears streaming down his face.
Arreola had been on the way to his in-law's house in Pomona after having finished an overnight shift when his wife called. A relative had gotten into a minor traffic accident nearby, she told him. She gave Arreola the location and asked him to meet her there.
Pomona police Officer Eric Hamilton, who first responded to the call of a single car accident in a quiet neighborhood, said in his arrest report that Arreola immediately was aggressive and belligerent when he arrived, refusing to obey Hamilton's commands.
When Arreola identified himself as an off-duty LAPD officer, Hamilton demanded to see his badge. Arreola went to his trunk to pull out the rain jacket where he had pinned his badge and lifted it up for the officer to see. Hamilton had an audio recording device running.
On the recording, a copy of which The Times has obtained, Hamilton is heard telling other officers after the arrest that he was so suspicious of Arreola that he "broke leather" — cop lingo for unclasping the safety lock on his gun holster — as he saw Arreola move toward the trunk and kept a grip on his gun in case he needed to draw it quickly.
Worried that he was losing control of the situation, Hamilton put out a call over the radio, asking for assistance to deal with a combative LAPD officer. Officer Chris Tucker heard the call and rushed to the scene. Both officers described Arreola's demeanor as "extremely angry," and, within minutes of arriving, Tucker attempted to handcuff Arreola. He tackled him to the ground when Arreola "began to twist and tense up, pulling his arms from our grasp," Tucker said in his report. Hamilton quickly came over to assist. The officers alleged that Arreola tried to punch Hamilton in the face as they restrained him.
But, according to Arreola, it was Hamilton who was hostile from the outset. As he approached the intersection, Arreola recalled seeing Hamilton yelling at this wife. Confused, Arreola said he got out of his car and, from about 30 feet away, called out to his wife, "What's going on, Erika? Let's go."
Hamilton responded angrily, swearing at Arreola and telling his wife to "shut up" while pulling her back by the elbow, Arreola recounted in his official account of the incident to LAPD officials. Arreola acknowledged that he told Hamilton a few times that he shouldn't be talking to his wife "like a criminal" over something as minor as a one-car traffic accident. Hamilton, he said, responded with more profanities and threatened to arrest Arreola. At that point, Arreola said, he asked Hamilton to call for his supervisor.
Arreola denied ever resisting the officers. Tucker, he said, intentionally pulled him off balance while he was being frisked and, when Arreola stumbled, the officer used it as an excuse to take him to the ground.
On Hamilton's recording, the officer is heard telling Arreola repeatedly to "stop resisting" and Arreola saying that he is not resisting. Arreola is also heard pleading with onlookers to record the scene. Once on the ground, Arreola said, the officers punched him repeatedly. Hamilton, he said, bent his left arm back violently and Tucker attempted to subdue him by using a choke hold.
Through the head of the union that represents Pomona police, both Hamilton and Tucker declined to be interviewed for this article. The union official cited an ongoing internal investigation by the Pomona department into the officers' conduct, which he said bars them from speaking publicly.
Based on the officers' account of Arreola's behavior, prosecutors in the L.A. County district attorney's office charged Arreola with three misdemeanors for resisting arrest, assaulting Hamilton and obstructing the officers' work. Although they eventually dropped the assault charge, Robert Rico, Arreola's attorney in the criminal trial, said prosecutors refused to discuss any sort of deal on the other two accusations. Their only concession, Rico said, was to spare Arreola time in jail if he pleaded guilty to the charges.
1 comment:
The road to hell (or at least Pomona) is paved with good intentions.
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