Fired Officer’s Conduct Condemned at Hearing

Richard D. Draper, a San Diego police officer who was fired earlier this year for chasing down a college student and allegedly pistol-whipping him after a freeway altercation, squared off with his former supervisors Monday at a public hearing into his request that he be reinstated to the force.

The altercation on Interstate 8 in February was the latest in a string of 20 incidents that drew complaints, most of which stemmed from Draper’s allegedly aggressive tactics, that were filed against the highly controversial officer during his 10 years with the Police Department. The freeway confrontation led to Draper’s firing in May.

On Monday, the incident took a new turn when the college student who was allegedly whipped by Draper filed a lawsuit. In the suit, 20-year-old Scott McMillan contends the department knew Draper had a pattern of making “warrantless and unlawful and excessively forceful arrests,” yet it continued to let him carry a gun and a badge.

At Monday’s Civil Service Commission hearing, a deputy city attorney and a police captain described Draper as an officer unfit to serve, particularly after the February incident in which he, while off duty, initiated a chase of up to 100 m.p.h. through heavy night traffic that ended with McMillan suffering a serious head wound from the alleged beating.

“That is not conduct we expect of a San Diego police officer,” said Capt. Charles D. Crow. “Nor is it conduct we want from a San Diego police officer.”

Joe Battaglino, the deputy city attorney, described Draper as “totally out of control” when he pulled out his gun at the end of the chase and confronted the frightened McMillan.

“Officer Draper was ranting, raving and screaming, saying things like, ‘I ought to kill you for this,’ ” Battaglino said. “And yet Mr. McMillan was offering no resistance at all.”

However, Draper’s attorney, John Heisner, said his client chased McMillan and arrested him only after the student “assaulted him with a deadly weapon”--his car--by weaving through traffic and nearly forcing him off the crowded highway.

More important, Heisner said, Draper was a highly decorated officer who was fired only because he was a pro-active police officer who became involved in several controversial incidents that some police officials found embarrassing.

“The termination of Officer Draper was politically motivated,” Heisner said.

Driving Home From Desert

Much of the testimony Monday centered on the I-8 confrontation.

McMillan said he and his girlfriend were driving home from the desert when he inadvertently cut off Draper while trying to pass the officer, who was in his private vehicle.

He said Draper, whom McMillan did not know was a police officer, chased him through one exit ramp and then another, eventually forcing him to stop in El Cajon. Draper then allegedly jumped out of his vehicle and confronted McMillan with a Smith & Wesson revolver.

“He immediately jumped out, and he had the gun in his hand,” McMillan said. “I didn’t know what was going on. He came around the front of my truck and then to my side. He had the gun pointing at me.

“He was yelling at me not to move. He said he was a police officer. He said if I didn’t get out he’d blow my head off.

“I was just kind of frozen. He had the gun pointing at me. And he was banging on the window so hard I thought it might break. He pulled my door open. He grabbed me by my arm and he pulled me out.”

Gun Pressed Against Head

McMillan said Draper, who never displayed a police badge, forced him face-down against the hood of his pickup truck, with the gun pressed hard against the back of his head. He and other witnesses said the off-duty officer slammed McMillan’s face several times against the hood, and cut a gash in his head from the pounding of the gun barrel.

McMillan said he knew his head had been injured because “I could see the blood. I could feel the blood flowing down my face and I could see the blood coming down the hood of my truck.”

He said blood “covered my T-shirt” and that after Draper tore the shirt off him, the “blood was all up and down my front chest.”

The student’s girlfriend, Jill Hamilton, said she was pulled from the car by Draper’s wife, Sandra Byers. Byers, who also was then an off-duty San Diego police officer, has since been dismissed because of a hit-and-run accident involving her patrol car.

Hamilton, 19, said she stood outside the truck, watching her boyfriend being abused. She said she worried for his safety.

“When he pulled that gun out, that’s when I really got scared,” she said.

Initially Backed Him

Later, under questioning by Heisner, she broke down in tears as she described the scene. “I thought Scott was going to die,” she said. “I honestly did.”

Heisner, however, noted that the Police Department initially backed Draper in the altercation when it recommended that assault charges be filed against McMillan.

The district attorney’s office, however, eventually declined to file charges against either McMillan or Draper. But in a memorandum from Deputy Dist. Atty. Allan J. Preckel that was introduced into evidence Monday, Draper’s conduct was described as “heavy-handed and unprofessional.”

But Heisner maintained that, for several reasons, Draper was warranted in using force to arrest McMillan.

He said many motorists along that stretch of highway carry loaded guns in their cars as they return to San Diego from the desert, where they have been target shooting.

He pointed out that, at the time, freeway shootings and other acts of highway assault were occurring, similar to McMillan forcing Draper off onto the shoulder of the freeway when he passed the officer. He said Draper and his wife could have been killed by that act alone.

And he said that when Draper did stop McMillan, the young man’s hands were hidden below the seat of the truck, an indication that McMillan might have been armed.

“He followed proper police procedures,” Heisner said.

Capt. Crow, under questioning by Heisner, agreed that police use-of-force procedures call for an officer to use his gun when he is confronted with a life-threatening situation. Crow also acknowledged that Draper received numerous meritorious job evaluations during his years on the force.

But Sgt. Nancy Kulinski, Draper’s former supervisor, said he was ordered to take two days of counseling because of past problems with his behavior, and completed those sessions just three days before the altercation with McMillan.

Four other alleged behavioral problems involving Draper were mentioned at the hearing. Testimony indicated that he supposedly falsely arrested an attorney for bumping into him in a courtroom hallway, and allegedly threatened a doctor for not obeying his orders to draw blood from a suspect.

He allegedly intimidated another suspect by holding a flashlight to his chest and grabbing his shirt when he would not comply with Draper’s requests.

Draper’s name also surfaced as an officer who allegedly repeatedly harassed Chip Doonan, a Clairemont man who was killed in January by another police officer.

The hearing continues today, and Heisner promised to present a dozen San Diego police officers who will testify that Draper’s actions in arresting McMillan were not out of the ordinary and do not constitute police brutality.