The lawsuit is filed against
the city of San Diego and former Officer Christopher Hays
By Andie Adams
The San Diego Police Department
enforced an “unwritten policy” that encouraged police misconduct and led to
scandals involving former officers Anthony Arevalos and Christopher Hays, a new
lawsuit against the department alleges.
The suit was filed Wednesday by
three of Hays’ alleged victims against the former officer and the city of San
Diego.
In the 21-page document,
attorneys outline the allegations against Hays, including forced oral
copulation, masturbating in front of a woman and a suspicious traffic stop.
The lawsuit also tries to
establish a pattern of misconduct by listing sexual assault accusations levied
at Arevalos since 1999.
“That’s why we went back so
far, to show the City of San Diego created this mess,” said attorney Dan
Gilleon, who represents the alleged victims in the lawsuit.
Arevalos was convicted of eight
counts of sexual battery, assault and asking for bribes in 2011, though a judge
later threw out two of the convictions.
The lawsuit claims officers
felt they could get away with such inappropriate behavior after former SDPD
Chief William Lansdowne and other officials disbanded the anti-corruption unit
called the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) around 2003.
“The elimination of the PSU,
this specialized unit, was a signal and affirmation to the SDPD, its police
officers and its supervisory officials that those police officers who chose to
exploit their positions of power, authority and trust by victimizing members of
the very community they had sworn to protect would not be investigated,
prosecuted, pursued or punished for their actions,” the lawsuit reads.
As an example, the court
document claims another officer reported to his supervisors that Arevalos had
taken Polaroid pictures of a nude, mentally disabled woman, taunting her to
pose in a lewd manner with his baton.
Instead of punishing Arevalos
or reporting the incident up the chain of command, the lawsuit claims his
superiors instead destroyed the pictures and evidence of the incident and
intimidated the officer who had reported it.
The lawsuit says the alleged
cover-up is part of a “long-standing, unwritten SDPD policy that encouraged a
two-tiered system of justice.”
That system includes laws that
apply to ordinary citizens and a set of privileges and immunities that apply to
SDPD officers and other members of the law enforcement community, according to
the suit.
Additionally, the SDPD is
accused of instituting a process that prevented the public from lodging
complaints against officers directly with the internal affairs unit.
Despite Lansdowne’s promises
for reform directly after Arevalos’ conviction, the suit says things remained
unchanged at the SDPD.
Gilleon said that compared to
Arevalos, Hays was more of a sexual predator. The lawsuit claims Hays went
through the police academy and a field training officer determined he "was
unfit to be a SDPD police officer and he should be 'washed out' and not hired."
Still, Hays went on to join the
department. Hays’ father-in-law is SDPD Captain and now Assistant Chief Mark
Jones. Gilleon claims Jones made sure Hays passed the academy by getting “a
favor from the person in charge.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from the
city, though the attorney for the alleged victims says two of his clients’
claims are worth more than $1 million.
In response to NBC 7’s request
for comment, SDPD Lt. Kevin Mayer released the following statement:
"It would be inappropriate
for me to provide comments as there is pending civil litigation and a federal
investigation. In addition, PERF is conducting an independent review of the
Department as previously discussed at a press conference by Chief Zimmerman.”
NBC 7 has reached out to the
Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and the FBI to see if there iss any new
information on their independent investigations into the department. Calls have
not been returned.
