Panel Deadlocked on Reinstating Officer : Compromise Urged in Case of Policeman Firing Gun Into Air

The Santa Ana Personnel Board is deadlocked over whether to reinstate a police officer who was fired after he and other officers fired their guns into the air from the top of a downtown parking garage after a night of drinking.

After deliberating for more than an hour Wednesday night on whether to reinstate Paul Coulter, 26, to the department, the board split 3 to 3 in a formal vote just before midnight.

In testimony before the board, Coulter admitted being drunk and firing his police weapon once in the air while participating in an off-duty drinking session with six other officers that ended atop the Orange County Transit District parking garage last June. He was one of five officers who fired their guns, and two bullets struck the offices of an aide to Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, according to an internal police investigation.

In his appeal of the decision to fire him, Coulter argued before the six-member personnel board that he didn’t participate in a cover-up of the incident. He also said that he had been offered a 90-day suspension by Deputy City Atty. Terrence Grace if he would testify against the others but that the deal was withdrawn a day later when two of the other officers admitted details of the rooftop incident. Coulter claimed that Grace said he could take four days to think about the offer.

Although he testified that he didn’t take part in meetings at two restaurants where other officers allegedly conspired to cover up the details of the shooting, Coulter said he didn’t reveal all the information he had to department investigators at first because of peer pressure from the other officers.

The former officer, who has been working for a construction supply firm since his dismissal, answered “yes” when Grace asked him, “Didn’t it occur to you during this time that you were following a path of lying and deception?”

Personnel Board chairwoman Joanne Lechner urged Coulter’s attorney, Malcolm Guleserian, and Grace to try to negotiate some punishment that both sides could live with by next Wednesday. If no agreement can be reached, the board probably will put the issue to an arbitrator, Guleserian said. He added that the board is supposed to have seven members but that Mayor Dan Young has not yet filled a vacancy.

A 90-day suspension would “be in line” with the punishment meted out to two officers who were involved in the incident but didn’t fire their weapons, Guleserian said. One received a 30-day suspension and the other received a 60-day suspension. Two of the five officers who did shoot, James Bland and Scott Zimmerman, resigned. Of the other two who were fired, Jesse Teshima declined to appeal and Jill Tangedal walked out of her hearing when it was opened to the public. She hasn’t scheduled another appeal.

Grace called for the firing to be upheld Wednesday night and denied offering Coulter four days to contemplate an offer of a 90-day suspension. He said he only told Coulter that a city decision on his punishment would be made in four days.

Grace noted that reinstatement with only a 90-day suspension would require the city to pay Coulter about $5,000 in back pay since he was fired in August.