COSTA MESA : Police Chief Ordered to Reinstate Officer

A Superior Court judge has ordered Police Chief David L. Snowden to reinstate an officer who was fired for abandoning a drunken and injured homeless man outside a hospital and then falsely reporting the incident.

In a written decision last week, Judge William P. Rylaarsdam ruled that while Officer Bernard Rubio failed in his duties by leaving the man without getting him help and then falsifying the report, his firing was too harsh a punishment considering that the department had apparently tolerated similar actions from officers in the past.

Rylaarsdam ordered Snowden to reinstate Rubio and to impose a less severe punishment, such as a 30-day suspension without pay.

The judge noted that “the city has a policy to permit officers to leave a person who is so intoxicated as to be unable to take care of himself where found, or even a policy which would discourage an officer from seeing to it that aid is rendered to such a person.”

Such “a policy would seem to create an atmosphere where conduct such as (Rubio’s) implicitly is given an aura of approval,” Rylaarsdam concluded.

Snowden on Tuesday disputed Rylaarsdam’s finding as being “inaccurate.” And he said he stands by his decision to fire Rubio.

Snowden said that his department follows the state penal code, which says that officers will arrest those too drunk to take care of themselves, and that Rubio “obviously violated that code.”

“I know of no other officer who would leave a drunken and injured person and deposit him in the weeds in front of a hospital late at night and leave without assuring (he was) safe,” Snowden said.

Rylaarsdam’s written ruling came after he made a decision from the bench last month. The City Council voted three weeks ago to appeal, Snowden said.

Snowden fired Rubio in January, 1992, after an internal investigation. According to court records, Rubio found Philip Stennett drunk and loitering at a liquor store on Dec. 10, 1991. The man had sustained a slight cut on his face.

At Stennett’s request, the officer drove him to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, where he said his medical records were kept.

There, Rubio dropped Stennett off and drove away. Stennett walked toward the hospital entrance only to collapse into some bushes. A hospital official testified that he brought Stennett into the emergency room in a wheelchair.

Meanwhile, Rubio logged “GOA,” or gone on arrival, on the incident report, meaning that Stennett was gone by the time the officer arrived and that no statement was taken.

According to court records, Rubio contended that he left Stennett once he determined that the man was not hurt and that he never saw Stennett falling down.