Brett Kelman

The Desert Sun

It was almost midnight on August 21, 2014, and tempers were flaring at the sheriff’s station in Cabazon. Raul Lopez, a 15-year deputy, got into a shouting match with two sergeants about a police report. He was sent home for the night and left the station in a huff.

In the parking lot, Lopez climbed into his car but did not leave immediately. Instead, he talked to another deputy who was headed to his vehicle. Lopez, still visibly upset, complained to the deputy about his supervisor, insisting she was incompetent.

Then the deputy noticed something – Lopez had a gun in his hand.

“(The deputy) observed Lopez in the parking lot with a weapon, and displaying it in a way that caused (him) to change his stance,” state Riverside County court documents. “Additionally, because of the heated discussion that occurred at the station, (the sergeant) was in fear of workplace violence.”

This incident, which has never been made public until now, was the last strike in Lopez’s checkered career in law enforcement, which included at least four prior suspensions and one arrest. Lopez left the Cabazon station peacefully that night, but he was fired nine months later for insubordination due to the report argument. In the resulting termination appeal, his supervisor, Sgt. Rose McKinney, described Lopez as “ready to snap."

“(I) was concerned that he could be out on the street and just lose it, and that would not be good for him or the department,” McKinney said during the administrative hearing, according to a summary filed in court.

Lopez is now representing himself as part of a long-shot lawsuit to get his job back, despite not being supported by the deputies' union. The sheriff’s department is opposing any reinstatement, and as the legal battle pulls back the curtain on Lopez's longstanding discipline problems, a probing question arises: Why wasn’t he fired sooner?

Lopez made his first court appearance in the lawsuit on Monday, but the hearing was rescheduled until April to give the former deputy time to hire an attorney. Outside the courtroom, Lopez said he had been framed by the sheriff's department but declined to make any additional comments on the case until he had spoken with an attorney.

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Sheriff’s department officials were also unwilling to comment on Lopez, his termination or the “workplace violence” incident in the Cabazon station parking lot, saying all of these matters are confidential under California law. However, after reviewing court documents about the case, a department attorney conceded that Lopez appeared to present a danger to employees at the Cabazon station.

“That’s pretty much how it reads,” said Anthony Snodgrass, who represents the sheriff’s department in the lawsuit. “I cannot disagree with you.”

The description of the parking lot incident comes from Lopez’s own lawsuit, filed in December, which offers a rare glimpse into the disciplinary history of the troubled cop. Records like these are normally confidential due to California's strict police officer privacy laws, but the lawsuit volunteers a surprising amount of information from the former deputy’s personnel file.

According to Lopez’s lawsuit, his disciplinary history includes:

Mishandling evidence in 2004, in which Lopez failed to follow sheriff's department policy;

Suspensions in 2005, 2008 and 2013 because of off-duty incidents that led to Lopez being part of an investigation by another law enforcement agency;

The 2013 off-duty incident, a domestic squabble, resulted in Lopez facing misdemeanor charges of resisting police, battery and interfering with a 911 call. He pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace as a misdemeanor in December;

Disregarding orders by leaving his patrol area while on duty in May 2010, which led to suspension;

An accidental shooting in August 2010 in which Lopez did not follow firearm handling policy;

An additional insubordination complaint by a Cabazon policewoman, who alleged Lopez would stare at her during briefings and “grab his crotch and rub himself until (she) looked away.”

The lawsuit does not go into depth about any of these incidents. The sheriff’s department confirmed it possessed documents about each of these incidents – with the exception of the off-duty incident in 2008 – but said the documents were exempt from California’s public records laws. The San Bernardino Sheriff's Department refused to provide any details about Lopez's arrest in 2013, claiming the information is not public because it is four years old.

Snodgrass, the attorney representing the Riverside sheriff, said Lopez justifies his firing by listing these incidents in his lawsuit, as if arguing against his own case.

“He pretty much tells the story himself,” Snodgrass said. “Well, that’s what the department thinks.”

Lopez’s discipline records read like a textbook example of “progressive discipline,” the law enforcement standard for dealing with problematic officers, said Jim Bueermann, a former Redlands police chief who now leads The Police Foundation, a Washington D.C. think tank.

In these cases, the misbehaving officers face an escalating series of warning and suspensions, designed to send a clear message of accountability without knee-jerk terminations that would waste the time and money invested in training recruits. Officers are given several chances to reverse course, but some don’t – or won’t – get the message.

“The idea is that you are trying to salvage someone who has the potential to be a good police officer, but at some point you realize there is no saving this guy’s career,” Bueermann said. “By consistently ignoring the directions of their organizations, most of these guys end up basically firing themselves.”

“Sometimes, the terminating offense is not necessarily all that severe,” Bueermann added. “But on top of everything else, it’s the final straw that breaks the disciplinary camel’s back.”

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That appears to be what happened to Lopez. Compared to all discipline issues revealed in his lawsuit, the argument that got him fired seems relatively innocuous.

Earlier on the night of the argument, Lopez was dispatched to a residence in North Palm Springs to help with a stolen vehicle investigation, according to the lawsuit. At the residence, Lopez and two other police officers detained a man they deemed suspicious, then were allowed to search inside the home. Inside, they found four guns and a “ninja sword," then radioed their police dispatch asking for a background check to see if the man was a convicted felon. Soon after, a sergeant told the officers to let the man go and return to the police station.

At the station, Lopez was confronted by a supervisor, Sgt. John Reinbolz, who insisted police had no reason to detain the man or seize his weapons. Reinbolz said that, because the officers had run a background check, Lopez was required to write a report documenting the search. Lopez didn’t think the report was necessary, but he claims in his lawsuit that he never refused to write the report. Regardless, the disagreement led to a shouting match between Lopez, Reinbolz and McKinney.

Lopez was ordered to go home immediately, then headed into the parking lot, where he was later seen holding his gun in his car. Lopez called in sick the following two days, then took his normal three days off. When he eventually returned to work, Lopez discovered he had been reported for insubordination.

Lopez was officially fired about nine months later on May 29, 2015. He then appealed the termination to an administrative hearing officer, who upheld the firing as justified last September. Lopez filed his lawsuit three months later.

Although Lopez is representing himself, his lawsuit was filed with some assistance from Stone Busailah, a Pasadena law firm that specializes in defending police officers. Last week, however, a Stone Busailah representative said neither the law firm nor the Riverside Sheriff's Association, a deputies' union, are representing Lopez in his lawsuit.

Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached by phone at (760) 778-4642, by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com, or on Twitter @TDSbrettkelman.