Jury Worries That Officer Is Racist : Lawsuit: Verdict goes in favor of Oceanside police, but the foreman vows to write a letter of criticism.

The foreman of a Vista jury says he will write a letter to Oceanside city officials complaining that one of their police officers may be racist.

The letter comes on the heels of the jury’s verdict that the Oceanside Police Department did not rough up a 27-year-old black man when he was arrested two years ago, as the man alleged in his lawsuit against the city.

Jury foreman John Tullis said that, although Allen Pettis was unable to prove that he was abused by police, he heard enough testimony as a juror to raise concern that at least one of the officers involved in Pettis’ arrest may have been racist.

“Two or three of the jurors said after the trial that we need to write a letter to someone (about the officer) and I said that, as foreman, I’ll write it,” Tullis said.

“I hope it goes into the officer’s file, so if he does abuse somebody, or uses racial remarks, he could be off the force and maybe need to find another job.”

David Thompson, who represented Pettis in his lawsuit against the city, said he was confused and bitter about the jurors’ voting against his client on the false-arrest and excessive-force charges but then deciding that a letter should be written addressing possible racism in the department.

“I think they are trying to assuage their consciences,” he said. “They knew that what happened (in the arrest of Pettis) was wrong, and they wanted to address that situation, but they didn’t want him to get any money.

“What they said was, ‘We want to look at ourselves in the mirror in the morning, so we’ll write a slap-your-wrist letter, but not cost the taxpayers any money.’

“It was not equal justice.”

The focus of the letter is Officer Scott Gillis, one of three officers present at Pettis’ arrest in December, 1989, as Pettis, 27, was taking pictures of police officers who were interrogating several black people at a reputed Oceanside gang hangout.

Police claimed Pettis, an Oceanside resident, was blinding them with his camera’s flash and refusing orders to move away. He was arrested for interfering with officers, a charge that was later dismissed in court.

Pettis later filed a claim against the city, followed by a civil lawsuit, seeking about $56,000 in damages, claiming that he was unlawfully arrested and subjected to excessive force.

The jury ruled, 10 to 2, Monday that Pettis was correctly arrested and was not subjected to excessive force. Pettis had said he was hit in the face, forced to the ground and roughed up.

Tullis, the jury foreman, said the evidence wasn’t clear enough to substantiate Pettis’ accusations.

But one of the plaintiff’s witnesses was a former girlfriend of Gillis’ who said the police officer held racist attitudes toward blacks and Latinos, and referred to them using racial epithets.

Her testimony, coupled with other evidence in the trial, persuaded Tullis to write the letter, which he said he hopes ends up in the officer’s personnel file.

“We have thoughts about the one officer that we thought needed to be brought up to someone’s attention, concerning his language at the time of the arrest,” Tullis said.

But the officer’s abusive language was not part of Pettis’ complaint, Tullis said, so didn’t weigh in the jury’s verdict in favor of the city.

Oceanside Police Chief Bruce Dunne said the jury’s verdict acquitting his officers of a violation of Pettis’ civil rights “reinforced our own departmental internal affairs investigation. It legitimized that.

“If a letter is forthcoming, any allegation that characterizes any employees of the department as being biased is of concern to the department. We’ll consider the information when we get it and act accordingly.”

Jim Turner, the interim city manager, said he couldn’t comment on any forthcoming letter until he read it.

“We don’t go out soliciting people to write us, but we certainly want to encourage people, if they have a concern, to let us know.

“The only way we can correct situations, if we have a problem, is to get to the bottom of it by receiving feedback from the community.”

Thompson said that, based on second-hand information he received about how the jury’s own deliberations may have been racially biased, he may seek a retrial for his client.

For his part, Pettis said he can’t reconcile the jury’s verdict, followed by the decision to write a letter to the Police Department.

“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” he said. “They first say they don’t think the city shouldn’t be penalized, then they want to write a letter. I can’t believe it.”