PR firm mounts campaign to support Sonoma County sergeant who fatally shot Andy Lopez

A group formed to support Erick Gelhaus, the Sonoma County sheriff’s sergeant who fatally shot 13-year-old Andy Lopez, is part of a campaign by a Southern California public relations firm whose founder said last week that he has been paid by Gelhaus for his services.

The new campaign, including a website, Facebook page and an online fundraising appeal, is the work of Robert Parry, an Army veteran who served in combat with Gelhaus in Iraq. His firm, Cop PRotect, specializes in representing law officers under public scrutiny for on-duty incidents.

Its work on behalf of Gelhaus, a 27-year Sheriff’s Office veteran, launched in late August under the slogan “Stand With Erick” as a response, Parry said, to protests by community activists riled by Gelhaus’ promotion from deputy to sergeant in May. The move, approved by Sheriff Steve Freitas, came less than three years after Lopez’s death in a shooting that exposed deep distrust in law enforcement within the local Latino community.

The public relations effort kicked off with an Aug. 27 op-ed column in The Press Democrat signed by Parry and Chris Chebahtah, who identified themselves as combat veterans and the founders of StandWithErick.org, an organization committed to “tell the truth” about Gelhaus and Oct. 22, 2013, shooting that claimed Lopez’s life on a Santa Rosa street near his home.

“We are friends, concerned citizens and colleagues of Erick who are unwilling to let a good man have his reputation, career and legacy of service destroyed by self-serving anti-police activists with the media’s full participation and omission of key facts,” the Stand With Eric website states.

In an interview Friday, Parry said that he and Gelhaus have a paid arrangement - a financial relationship that was not disclosed in the original op-ed, nor to newspapers’ opinion page editors. It is also not evident on the campaign’s online pages.

Gelhaus paid a fee to enroll in Cop PRotect, which says on its website it offers a “reputation defense system” for police officers involved in a “critical media-scrutinized incident,” Parry said.

Parry, a Monrovia-based public relations professional and former community newspaper publisher, declined to say what amount Gelhaus had paid for Cop PRotect’s services. The firm’s standard enrollment is $50 a year, according to the website. It’s going hourly rate for work that exceeds eight hours of time is $65, a fee the website described as “just 50 percent of our usual rate.”

Gelhaus did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

The public relations effort comes as race, gun violence and police tactics have swirled in an increasingly inflammatory national debate.

Since Lopez’s death, a vocal cadre of activists has criticized the Sheriff’s Office and the county and called for Gelhaus to be removed from street patrol while urging elected officials and law enforcement to pursue meaningful reforms in the way officers employ deadly force.

The debate has featured voices supportive of Gelhaus, including, at times, representatives of the Sheriff’s Office and the deputy sheriff’s employee union, as well as civilians.

Gelhaus, who was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by the county District Attorney’s Office and the FBI, has declined to offer any public comment.

Freitas has been conspicuously silent on the subject, steering clear of questions about Gelhaus in interviews. Earlier this year, he called Lopez’s death a “huge event, a tragic event” for the community and his department.

Lopez’s parents have sued Gelhaus, the Sheriff’s Office and the county. The civil suit, which seeks monetary damages, alleges the shooting was unjustified and claims Gelhaus acted recklessly when he fired eight shots at the teenager.

Parry said his campaign is attempting to enlist greater public support for Gelhaus, who he described as a client. The Stand With Erick website is “within the scope of services for a client,” he said.

He said he added some “bells and whistles” to his work for Gelhaus because he is a friend and former member of an Army combat unit Parry led in Iraq in 2005.

Parry was a lieutenant and platoon leader in Delta Company of the 184th Infantry Regiment of the California National Guard, and both Gelhaus and Chebahtah were sergeants under his command.

In the Aug. 27 Press Democrat op-ed column, Parry and Chebahtah wrote: “We definitely know Erick Gelhaus. We served alongside him, followed him and led him during a year of bloody combat in Iraq. We have fought for our lives with him and cried with him over the fallen.”

Chebahtah, an Antelope Valley resident, is not part of Cop PRotect but is collaborating with Parry in his work for Gelhaus, Parry said.