Brutality Complaints Tarnish ‘Nice Guy’ Image of Police : 20 Allegations Against 1 Officer

In the seven years Richard D. (Rick) Draper has been a San Diego police officer, he has earned a departmental reputation as a hard-charging patrolman not afraid to mix it up with those he perceives as bad guys. Draper’s arrest reports frequently indicate that he is resisted by the people he collars, forcing him to respond accordingly.

But some San Diego lawyers who deal with police brutality cases regard Draper as a 6-foot, 215-pound menace with a short fuse, a propensity for unwarranted violence and a file filled with more than 20 citizens’ complaints alleging excessive force.

Draper, 36, has been investigated by the department’s Internal Affairs bureau at least a dozen times: for shattering a man’s left shin bone with his baton in November, 1980; for accidentally discharging firearms both on and off duty, and for a host of other incidents in which he allegedly threatened, smacked, slugged and otherwise bloodied criminal suspects.

Draper chuckled when asked last week if any of the complaints against him are valid.

“That’s always a contention,” he said in a brief telephone conversation from the Police Department’s eastern substation, where he works nights. He declined additional comment.

As a matter of policy involving all officers, police officials would not discuss specific past complaints or disciplinary action against Draper. Department administrators expressed no dissatisfaction with his performance, and they explained that virtually all police officers are the subjects of citizens’ complaints, some more than others.

“As far as I know, (Draper) is doing his job and doing it satisfactorily,” said Police Chief Bill Kolender.

Others, however, are not so sure.

Draper’s critics contend that he is a person with no business on a police force, an officer given to excesses who has been the target of complaints of excessive force from a wide range of citizens. His continued presence reflects what they regard as the Police Department’s unwillingness to rid itself of its “bad apples.”

Even the Rev. Robert Ard, president of the San Diego Black Leadership Council and one of the Police Department’s strongest supporters in the minority community, once wrote a letter of complaint against Draper for the threatening manner in which Draper interrogated a group of teen-agers.

“Officer Draper is a loose cannon on the deck of justice,” said El Cajon attorney Tom Adler.

Adler represents attorney Richard J. Boesen, whom Draper arrested and handcuffed on March 3, 1983, after an incident at the County Courthouse. Draper claimed he had been assaulted by Boesen. Boesen claimed that he had merely bumped into Draper in a crowded corridor and was then manhandled by the officer.

Charges against Boesen were dismissed two months later, after the Police Department failed to disclose as requested in court that, at the time, there were 18 citizens’ complaints of excessive force against Draper.

Boesen has since sued Draper for false arrest and the city for conspiracy to hide Draper’s background. The trial is set for June, 1986.

“Obviously, something is deeply wrong,” Municipal Court Judge Tony G. Maino was quoted as saying when he ordered the charges against Boesen dropped in 1983. “It is incredible that an officer on the police force for only five years has this many complaints against him.”

Municipal Court Judge Ronald Mayo said last week that he has since disqualified himself from hearing cases in which Draper was scheduled to testify “because I wouldn’t believe a word he’d say.”

“There are some bad apples in every group, and our Police Department has its share and perhaps more,” Mayo said.

Henry Maxcy Jr., a 23-year-old construction worker, encountered Draper on the night of Nov. 2, 1980, when Draper arrested Maxcy for “challenging to fight in public.” Maxcy, an American Indian, said Draper attempted to provoke him by making remarks about Maxcy’s racial heritage. Draper contended that Maxcy took a swing at him.

During the incident, Draper smashed Maxcy’s shin with a baton blow, breaking the bone nearly in two. Maxcy’s attorney, William N. Pabarcus, said Maxcy still walks with a slight limp.

Maxcy eventually was acquitted when it was determined that the Police Department had failed to disclose Draper’s history of complaints before Maxcy’s trial.

Denver C. Williams, a trouble-shooter for San Diego Gas & Electric Co., met Draper one night in October, 1983. Draper and another officer were summoned to Williams’ East San Diego neighborhood on a report of a man with a gun.

Williams told investigators that, when the two officers drove up, they headed directly toward him as he stood in his doorway. Without a word, they slammed him against the wall and bent his arm behind his back, Williams said.

Williams, who is in his 30s, said that when he attempted to turn around to explain that he was not the man the officers were looking for, Draper threw him to the ground, crooked his arm around Williams’ neck, and choked Williams unconscious with a carotid restraint. Williams’ face was badly scratched and bruised.

Charges against Williams of resisting arrest were later dropped, and he has sued the Police Department. One source close to the case said that the city has offered Williams $5,000 to settle the matter out of court.

In a February, 1980, action that was not criticized, Draper shot and killed a Golden Hill man who was threatening another man with a knife. Authorities ruled the shooting a justified homicide.

Draper was called to an apartment building after the building manager reported that Edward Raye, 45, had threatened Paul Hogan with a knife. When Draper and other officers who accompanied him heard threats inside the apartment, they kicked the door open. Draper shot Raye as Raye, with knife in hand, lunged at Hogan. Hogan suffered a minor cut on the hand.

Draper was involved in an accidental shooting on June 16, 1981, in which “misconduct was noted,” according to attorneys who have obtained through court orders sketchy information about the officer’s conduct. In August, 1981, Draper was involved in another accidental shooting, this time off-duty, records indicate. No additional information could be obtained about the incidents.

Born in Lynwood, Calif., Draper attended high school in Anaheim, and served four years in the U.S. Navy. He studied at Fullerton Junior College and Miramar College.

He married his first wife, Lynda, in September, 1969. They had a son two years later and separated on Oct. 30, 1975.

The day before they separated, Draper struck his wife “on the right side of her jaw with his left arm, injuring (her) jaw to the extent that (she) can barely chew,” according to a court document that Lynda Draper subsequently filed in the couple’s divorce.

Lynda Draper also alleged that her husband, who was working at the time as a piano mover, struck her right arm and “threw (her) against the wall with such force and violence that he injured (her) back.”

Draper has said in court documents that he applied for work with the Los Angeles Police Department in 1970 and again in 1972. He said he underwent aptitude and psychological testing and was rejected both times without explanation.

He said he was rejected by the La Mesa Police Department in 1972, and by San Diego County Sheriff’s Department in 1975. He was hired by the San Diego Police Department on Feb. 6, 1978.

Draper married for the second time in December, 1979, to another police officer with whom he had attended the San Diego police academy, according to court records. They had a daughter in August, 1982, and were separated in January.

Citizens who have dealt with Draper in confrontational situations describe him as intense and intimidating.

Kathleen Sisterson, 59, a retired community college instructor of American government, encountered Draper in April, 1980. She said that Draper appeared at her front door with her then-husband, from whom Sisterson was legally separated. Her husband wanted to retrieve personal possessions.

When Sisterson refused her husband entry, Draper told him to kick the door in, Sisterson said. Sisterson then allowed her husband to enter, but said she insisted that Draper remain outside. Draper, Sisterson said, ignored her.

“He grabbed hold of me and shook me by the shoulder and said, ‘You better watch yourself’--the implication being that people have been arrested for less than this,” Sisterson said.

Sisterson said she later telephoned the Police Department to complain and was assured that she would be contacted in a few days. When she wasn’t, she called the department again.

“Somebody told me they thought he had been suspended for two days, but I was never able to confirm that,” Sisterson said. “He looked to me like me meant business. I wouldn’t want to meet him in an alleyway in Southeast San Diego without proper identification.”