Transient Dispersal Described at Trial of 2 Police Officers

A former San Diego police officer testified Monday that it is common practice for city patrol officers to round up transients, homeless people and illegal aliens who cluster in the downtown and transport them to isolated areas outside the commercial zone.

Under sharp questioning by an assistant prosecutor, Ronald K. Bruns, now an officer in Chula Vista, said the San Diego Police Department often deploys two paddy wagons and patrol cars to move street people out of downtown because of complaints from many of the local merchants.

Bruns’ testimony came in the trial of Lloyd J. Hoff Jr. and Richard P. Schaaf, who are on voluntary leave as San Diego police officers and charged with felony kidnaping and robbing a group of undocumented Latino workers last August. If convicted, the two could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison.

Their defense attorneys contend that the three illegal aliens were not kidnaped or robbed. Instead, the lawyers said, Hoff and Schaaf simply followed Police Department policies when they picked them up and drove them out of the downtown--without arresting them first.

Bruns’ testimony Monday seemed to bolster that claim, particularly when he said that police supervisors would remind patrol officers of the policy during line-ups at the Central Division station.

“We had several paddy wagons assigned to the Central Division that were used for that purpose” of transporting street people, he said. “There were complaints from the inner city of a lot of transient people, of drunks lying around in doorways.

“We would bring the paddy wagons out and transport them to these other areas where they would be out of the downtown area and take them somewhere else where they could take care of themselves.”

He said that sometimes as many as seven street people would be put in the wagons, and that those vehicles were primarily used to transport transients to the alcohol detox center or one of two city missions.

But he said officers also used their patrol cars to transport street people to isolated areas near the San Diego Bay or along a set of railroad tracks.

“Did you ever see any officers drop off some (street people) from their patrol car?” asked Craig Rooten, a deputy district attorney.

“Yes,” Bruns said.

“Their names?”

“All of the officers I worked with at Central Division.”

“How many did you transfer down there?”

“A whole bunch.”

Testifying against Hoff and Schaaf on Monday were several other police officers who said they spotted Hoff and Schaaf transporting one or two of the alleged victims in the back of their patrol car last August, without taking them directly to an area outside downtown.

In addition, James P. Culligan, an acting police sergeant, said he interviewed one of the alleged victims, Javier Perez-Gonzalez, who said he was struck in the testicles and robbed by Hoff.

Culligan said Perez-Gonzalez later took him back to the site, where he saw the alleged victim retrieve a small amount of change that he claimed Hoff had tossed into a muddy puddle. “There were a few coins, I believe about 45 cents,” he said.

The trial before Superior Court Judge Judith Haller continues at 9 a.m. today.