Olga Cortez told the 911 dispatcher that two men were trying to break into her home in the Oakland hills and that the intruders were still there. She said one of them had "jumped her" and that the other had a gun.

Imagine the surprise of the responding officers when they arrived at the quiet cul-de-sac to find out that the suspects Cortez had described were fellow Oakland police officers who were off duty. As it turned out, they apparently weren't trying to commit a home invasion but had gone to the wrong house by mistake after an evening of drinking at a bar in Montclair, according to news reports.

Oops. My bad.

The Cortez family (did not want to give first names) describe the attempted home invasion, assault and trespassing by at least two Oakland Police Officers during a news conference at the office of John Burris, right, in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group) ( Laura A. Oda )

Cullen William Faeth was arrested on suspicion of battery and disorderly conduct/public intoxication. Cortez's husband, Nemesio, says he held Faeth with neighbors' help until the police arrived. One neighbor told me Faeth kept banging his head against the window of the police car "like he knew he had really messed up."

So how come in the official police report by Officer Christopher Lorenz, Faeth's demeanor is described as "calm and polite"? How come this bizarre incident involving alleged criminal police misconduct happened about 9:20 p.m. on Dec. 7 but became public knowledge only Tuesday in a report by the East Bay Express? The paper reported that two Oakland police officers had been placed on administrative leave stemming from a "home invasion and assault committed by at least one of the cops on Dec. 7." Why haven't there been any criminal charges filed more than two and a half months after the incident? Why is there no mention at all of the second officer in the redacted police incident report?


In all, it turns out, four officers were placed on administrative leave. Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said the department can't comment on any specifics while there is an ongoing internal affairs investigation. The department has referred the findings from its criminal investigation to the Alameda County district attorney. "I do believe that a charging decision will be made soon, though I do not have an exact time line," spokeswoman Teresa Drenick said in an email.

Most of the information in the police report is blacked out. OPD says the department can't legally release information that would compromise the identity of victims or witnesses. But it also means that the public can't access even the bare-bones narrative about what supposedly happened.

So, and I stress here, the only publicly available information has come from the Cortezes and their attorneys. It would be irresponsible to jump to any conclusions based solely on their accounts. However, the couple's claims that various OPD officers tried to pressure them into "sanitizing" their story to make allegations against the officers appear less damaging are cause for great concern.

"I think what disturbs them most is that officers were coming back that night trying to get them to alter their statements and recollect it different," says civil rights attorney John Burris, whose firm is representing the couple in their claim against the city filed Wednesday. "They seemed to have a greater commitment to protecting the officers than getting the truth."

Olga Cortez, who has been an Alameda County probation officer for 18 years, is sticking to her story. Which is that a strange man who appeared to be drunk started banging on her family's door and screaming profanities, demanding to be let in. He tried to force himself inside and refused to leave. Her young daughters were awakened by the commotion and were frightened and crying.

Cortez says Faeth grabbed her in a "bear hug" and the two fell to the ground. She was wearing her robe and her lower nude body was exposed. She said a second man, who she thought had a gun under his shirt, ran around the side of their house and then fled. In her complaint against the city, he is named as Sgt. Joe Turner.

Cortez and her husband say police officers came back to their house at 12:30 a.m. the next morning and again at 3:30 a.m.

When an officer is accused of misconduct, it is standard procedure for investigators to return to interview alleged victims for both a criminal and separate internal affairs investigation.

It's not standard procedure to encourage alleged victims to say something happened that did not.

The husband and wife say they did not even find out until later that the intruders were police officers and that the department would not give them a police report until they hired a lawyer.

We must await the conclusion of the police and district attorney investigations. But if the couple's allegations are founded, it does not bode well for the supposed new era of transparency under the NSA police reforms.

Tammerlin Drummond is a columnist for the Bay Area News Group. Her column runs Thursday and Sunday. Contact her at tdrummond@bayareanewsgroup.com or follow her at Twitter.com/tammerlin.