Holden Goes Looking for Chief to Press Slander Claim

Robert Holden, vowing to avenge his son’s fatal shooting by police officers in May, marched into the downtown San Diego police station Wednesday afternoon and told officers he wanted to see San Diego Police Chief William Kolender arrested.

Holden accused Kolender of committing criminal slander against the Holden family.

Police officers refused to arrest Kolender, who was away from his office most of the afternoon, and sent Holden to the San Diego County district attorney’s office. Holden, a Cuyamaca College mathematics professor, asked the district attorney’s office to file a complaint against Kolender charging him with criminal slander for statements made during a June 17 press conference.

A prosecutor will read Holden’s request but the office is not likely to file charges, said Steve Casey, special assistant to Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller.

Holden claims that Kolender violated Section 258 of the California Penal Code when he stated: “It seems to me that he (Robert Holden) lost his son a long time ago.”

“He had no business saying my son was lost a long time ago,” Holden said. “That’s not the job of the police chief.”

Kolender made the statement during a news conference held in response to criticisms that the two officers who shot and killed Wayne Douglas Holden may have overreacted. Holden, a 21-year-old UC San Diego student, was shot and killed by police while brandishing a knife.

His father’s request to file criminal charges hinges on an obscure section of the Penal Code that is rarely prosecuted, Casey said. “Most of us here had not even heard of the section. We had to go look it up,” he said.

Holden said he discovered the section while thumbing through the state Penal Code. After two unsuccessful attempts to schedule meetings with Kolender, Holden said, he saw the criminal slander law as a way to “smoke that guy out of the house to talk about police policies.”