Officer Suspended Over His Police Novel

“The Rose Garden,” a supposedly tell-all book by a veteran Pasadena police officer that uses characters with fictional names involved in sexual promiscuity, theft and spousal abuse, has fast become a thorny issue for the author and the Pasadena police brass.

Authorities have suspended the author, Officer Naum L. Ware, and are weighing a decision on his future. His colleagues are being offered counseling because of the fallout from the book.

Most in the department compare the self-published book to a supermarket tabloid. Police Chief Bernard Melekian was so infuriated with the book’s derogatory remarks about women and gays that he forbade Ware to discuss it until recently.

Police union officials and 1st Amendment advocates, meanwhile, say that Ware’s suspension last month for “not keeping with the department’s values and mission” raises serious issues about freedom of speech.

The disciplinary action has also become an unwitting publicity boon for a 173-page, $19.95 book for sale at one of Pasadena’s most popular bookstores, Vroman’s.

“The book’s release was very low-key until they decided to suspend him,” said Dennis Diaz, president of the Pasadena Police Officers Assn. Peter Eliasberg, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the matter is a classic free speech issue.

If Ware sues, saying that his suspension is a violation of his right to free speech, Eliasberg said, the officer would need to show that his book raised issues of public concern, such as police malfeasance.

Yet, Eliasberg said, courts have allowed the removal of public servants who expressed bias against certain groups based on race, gender or sexual orientation.

Ware’s book describes a testosterone-driven force, where one officer is caught soliciting Hollywood hookers, an officer called “the vile one” tears up a traffic citation for sexual favors and a sergeant repeatedly rapes a cadet in the station.

Many incidents in the book are derived from events documented in court cases, police reports and newspaper stories over the last decade. But Ware builds on those accounts and weaves in other, uncorroborated tales.

Using pseudonyms, the book attacks superiors and alleges occasional corruption, such as the case of a lieutenant who deletes records of a 911 domestic violence call from the home of a former chief.

Ware, 41, said he wrote a department history as a cautionary tale, so the mistakes of the past would not be repeated.

“I knew they’d be aggravated. I knew it would be controversial,” said Ware, who is also a Baptist minister. “It’s like the president and Monica [Lewinsky]. We may not like it but that is what happened.

“Nothing is twisted. There is enough drama in the truth,” he said, adding that he has memos and notes to back up his scenarios.

Melekian, however, said the book is nothing more than unsubstantiated “in-house gossip.” Officials of the 232-officer department say that no probe has been conducted into its allegations.

“It’s full of hateful remarks,” Melekian said. “What I found was language that was unacceptable, directed at women and members of the gay community.”

He said the book’s attacks on women and gays--it refers to some female officers as “tramps” and has a chapter titled “Gays of Our Lives”--is not in keeping with the department’s policies.

Melekian said the book’s language may demonstrate Ware’s inability to deal with those groups impartially and professionally. As a result, the chief took Ware’s gun and badge Feb. 22 and put him on paid leave.

Ware insists that he is being punished for exercising his 1st Amendment rights. “I am not anti-gay or anti-women. I am trying to get women to be looked at as more than stereotypes,” he said.

Ware’s police union attorney, Richard Shinee, said the book is protected speech. “Is there a political litmus test for officers?” Shinee asked. “He has demonstrated no bias on duty.”

Other officers’ reaction to the book is mixed, said Diaz, the police association president. “Some of the stories are accurate and many aren’t,” he said, adding that the book “talks about just a few” on the force.

Others call the book “badly written trash” and “locker room rumors.”

A top police official from a neighboring city said: “I don’t [know] how I could work in a radio car next to this particular author.”

So far, Ware claims to have sold 400 copies of the book. Vroman’s said it has sold 233 since its release last month.

The book is Ware’s second. “Roses Have Thorns,” about department discrimination, appeared in 1994.

Ware said he knows all about that. A 23-year veteran, he has never been promoted, despite earning one of the department’s highest honors--the Silver Award of Merit--for work as an undercover narcotics officer in 1987.

Ware said that is because he was outspoken even as a rookie, when he once stood up verbally to a bigoted training officer. “I’ve never been one afraid to speak my mind,” he said.