S.C. DEPUTY CHARGED WITH HINDERING SON’S ARREST

Richland County deputy Lisa Grazioli allegedly admitted that she knew better than to interfere with an arresting officer but "it was her child."

BY Rachael Myers Lowe

The Columbia State
September 16, 2016

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Richland County deputy Lisa Grazioli was charged with hindering officers after she allegedly arrived on the scene of a Kershaw County incident involving her son, Victor Manuel Ortiz Jr.

Her son was charged by Kershaw deputies with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and operating a vehicle without registration and license.

Grazioli was disciplined by the Richland County Sheriff's Department, but what form that discipline took was not disclosed Thursday.

Ortiz was pulled over on U.S. 601 in Kershaw County around 8:20 p.m. Sept. 6 when the deputy noticed the Chevy Impala driving without lights on.

The arresting deputy told his boss that "he was just going to tell Ortiz to turn on his lights and give him a warning ticket, but he got an attitude that escalated the encounter," Sheriff Jim Matthews told The State newspaper Thursday.

According to the incident report, the deputy thought he might be dealing with a DUI after seeing the car swerve several times before turning on his blue light and stopping the driver south of downtown Camden.

The deputy reported that Ortiz "immediately became verbally aggressive," after he approached the car and told Ortiz to turn off the engine. Ortiz refused to get out of the car and said several times that he was going to call Randy Scott, a former Richland County deputy and former Columbia police chief.

"Randy will take care of this," the incident report quotes Ortiz as saying.

As he was waiting for his backup to arrive, Lisa Grazioli arrived on the scene in a Richland County Sheriff's Department patrol car. Grazioli "began getting involved with the traffic stop [...] and she stated that's my son," the incident report says.

Grazioli was told to return to her vehicle, but she refused. Ortiz was told to get out of the car, that he was being placed under arrest for "Public Disorderly due to him yelling profanity out of his car window at 1660 Hwy 601." Ortiz refused to leave his vehicle and resisted when the officer and his backup tried to remove him from the car.

There is dashcam and body cam video of the incident, the report states.

A third officer arrived and said in his account of events that Grazioli, who was dressed in civilian clothes, was standing by the driver's side of the stopped car where the two officers were struggling to get the driver out.

"I was unsure who she was and where she came from," the officer said. "I asked her repeatedly to step back away from the vehicle where other officers were trying to make an arrest [...]. The female would not back away."

This officer put his hands on her shoulders and walked her away from the scene, he reported, but "As I started walking back [...] the female subject had walked back up behind trying to push around me."

"She told me she was trying to video record and I advised her we were already doing that."

Grazioli was arrested after she "refused to comply." She was bent over the hood of her son's car and handcuffed.

At that point, she told the arresting officer that she was a Richland County deputy, the driver being arrested was her son and that he had called her. She said Scott told her to record the incident. She allegedly admitted that she knew better than to interfere with an arresting officer but "it was her child."

Grazioli was taken to the Kershaw County jail and charged.

Sheriff Matthews said he did not call Sheriff Leon Lott about Grazioli's charge that Tuesday night.

When told that Grazioli had been disciplined, Matthews said, "My people know if they did something like that they probably would get fired, but I'm not going to criticize what he (Lott) does. It's totally his call."

EDITOR’S NOTE: "Public Disorderly due to him yelling profanity out of his car window at 1660 Hwy 601." – what kind of chickenshit charge is this when the suspect curses on a highway where no civilians were likely to hear him?