For One Recruit, Police Career Ends Behind Bars : Law enforcement: His insanity plea raises questions about the LAPD’s psychological screening.

All Todd Gardner ever wanted was to wear the uniform of a Los Angeles police officer. And, after working as a cop in Aurora, Colo., and San Diego, his dream came true in March when he was accepted into the Los Angeles Police Academy.

The only other thing close to his heart was his wife, Lisa, but that passion-turned-obsession cost him his future as a Los Angeles police officer, left him wounded by three bullets fired by a Denver-area police officer and landed him in a Denver jail in lieu of $1-million bail.

Although the Los Angeles Police Department had accepted Gardner, 28, as a recruit, he was shot after a bizarre rampage this summer in which he allegedly assaulted and kidnaped his estranged wife. The incident followed other domestic troubles, and Colorado police said that Gardner, who had repeatedly threatened to commit suicide, tricked the police officer into shooting him by pretending to have a gun.

These events have raised questions about the accuracy of psychological evaluations and background investigations of Los Angeles Police Department recruits, especially since Gardner appeared in a Denver courtroom Monday and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

“This is the first such occurrence that I’m aware of where someone who was accepted into the academy had what appears to be such an emotional breakdown,” said Sheldon Kay, chief police psychologist for the city, who has interviewed thousands of recruits in the last decade.

But what deeply troubles Kay and Police Department officials is that Gardner had begun displaying a dark side as early as last September, when he threatened to kill himself and police officers in Colorado--all long before he was sworn in at the Los Angeles Police Academy.

“I’m going to look into this situation and into his file and see what, if anything, we might have overlooked that could have been an indicator to the difficulties he was going through,” Kay said Wednesday. “In fact, it certainly is worth evaluating and investigating whether there is something in the process itself that resulted in this individual getting through us.”

Gardner was shot on June 23, five days after he quit the Los Angeles Police Academy. In that incident, he allegedly kidnaped his wife, led police on a chase through two Denver suburbs and then pretended to pull a handgun in what authorities describe as a twisted suicide attempt.

“There’s probably a couple of police departments with egg on their face over this,” said Matt Rippy, a detective in the Denver suburb of Westminster.

“If he’s insane, there’s good reason to think he should have been washed out of the Los Angeles recruitment program, because anybody capable of doing what he did could have been identified by police testing,” Rippy added. “I mean, I can’t imagine what L.A. must be thinking. Like, ‘How did he get past us?’ Pretty wild, huh?”

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. William Booth, the department’s chief spokesman, acknowledged that Gardner turned into an embarrassment.

“Sometimes we fail miserably,” Booth said of the officer selection process. “But we do our darndest to get the perfect candidate. We have a lot of other systems in place, especially our disciplinary system, to catch this sort of thing. But this time we failed.”

Gardner could not be reached for an interview. His attorney, Bob Ransome, said he wants to obtain copies of Gardner’s psychological test results to see how the department could have passed his client.

Gardner was described by his Police Academy superiors as an overachiever. He began his police work as an officer in Aurora, Colo., another Denver suburb, where he worked from 1984 to 1986. He later left for a yearlong stint with the San Diego Police Department, then returned to Aurora for a second tour of duty as a member of its elite police gang unit.

“He was a very nice, young, professional officer,” recalled Mary Schumacher, an Aurora police spokeswoman.

After his marriage began to unravel, Gardner left his wife and two young children--a boy and a girl--and moved to Los Angeles. He was accepted into the Los Angeles Police Academy on March 26, one of 90 recruits.

In Los Angeles, Gardner underwent a series of complicated, detailed examinations, tests of his physical agility and mental stability. The final phase of testing involves an extensive psychological evaluation designed to reveal any hidden mental problems.

Kay, the police psychologist, said that the tests should flag personality faults, such as impatience or anger, as well as more serious problems, such as depression, paranoia and schizophrenia. He said that Gardner also was interviewed by a police psychologist.

Of approximately 3,000 candidates who take the psychological tests each year, 15% to 20% “wash out,” he said. Gardner passed.

“He was a good recruit,” said Gardner’s academy drill instructor, Jerry Stokes. “He made good grades. He was one of the people who was in contention for a leadership spot, maybe a squad leader.”

Added Sgt. Jim McNair, the academy officer in charge of recruiting: “He blended in. He fit in. Normally, they come to my attention when they’re in the screw-up category, and he wasn’t one of those.”

But what the police and psychologists in Los Angeles had already missed was an incident that occurred last year.

Westminster Police Detective John Marx said that on Sept. 16 officers were called to the Gardner home when Lisa reported that her husband had left the house with several guns and threatened to commit suicide.

“At that time,” Marx said, “he also allegedly threatened to violently confront any police officers if she ever called them.” No charges were filed.

The incidents continued, officials said, even as Gardner entered the academy and was given a graduation date of Sept. 7.

Twice in early June, Westminster police were summoned back to the Gardner home, where Lisa had changed the locks to keep out her husband. Authorities said that Gardner was arrested on suspicion of various offenses, including burglary, theft, criminal trespassing, carrying a concealed weapon and resisting arrest.

In one episode, police said, Gardner waved a .38-caliber revolver in the air and fought with police who were trying to subdue him at the home.

“We arrested him on the spot during one of the burglaries,” Detective Rippy said. “He kicked in a front door and then he wouldn’t let our officers inside.”

On June 18, Gardner walked up to his academy supervisors and resigned. “He just indicated he had some personal problems he had to tend to back in Colorado,” Sgt. McNair said.

Five days later, Westminster police answered a report that Lisa was being abducted from her front yard. Officer Keith Henry said he arrived to see Gardner driving off with his wife, and began pursuit. The chase ended in nearby Arvada when Gardner bolted from the car, turned and faced Henry.

Arvada Police Sgt. Merle Westling said that Gardner “challenged the officer and told him he had a gun and was going to use it.” He said that Gardner reached toward the back of his waistband, as if grabbing for a gun, then began to slowly bring his hand back around. Henry fired three times, wounding Gardner in the stomach, hip and wrist.

Gardner, it turned out, was unarmed. The local grand jury ruled that the shooting was justified because Henry could not have known that Gardner was unarmed, said Brian Terrett, spokesman for the Jefferson County district attorney.

Some police officials believe that Gardner was acting out a death wish.

“He knew all the buttons to push, and he pushed all those buttons,” Rippy said.

“All he ever said he wanted to be was a Los Angeles cop, a big-city Los Angeles cop,” added Rippy, who interviewed Gardner at the hospital. “And I felt like I was talking with a cop, not an ex-cop, even though he was in a hospital all shot up.

“He just seemed to me like another cop with a lot of problems.”