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CITY OF SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA
DISCIPLINARY APPEAL
In the Matter of Discipline of )

Santa Maria Police Lieutenant )
)
DANIEL AST,
)
)
Petitioner/Appellant. )
_______________________________)
VOLUME I
Pages 1-149
REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA
MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2014
11:08 A.M. TO 5:12 P.M.
REPORTED BY:
YOLANDA C. HERNANDEZ
CSR No. 7389
THE HEARING IN THE MATTER OF DISCIPLINE OF DANIEL AST,
was taken at Santa Maria City Hall, City Council
Chambers, 110 East Cook Street, Santa Maria, California,
before Yolanda C. Hernandez, CSR #7389, a Certified
Shorthand Reporter for the State of California,
on Monday, June 2, 2014, commencing at the hour of
11:08 A.M.
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APPEARANCES:
CATHERINE HARRIS, ESQ.
HEARING OFFICER
5960 South Land Park Drive, Suite 255
Sacramento, California 95822-3313
916.444.3317
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FOR THE APPOINTING AUTHORITY CITY OF SANTA MARIA:

LAWRENCE, BEACH, ALLEN & CHOI, P.C.
BY: DENNIS M. GONZALES, ESQ.
RAYMOND W. SAKAI, ESQ.
100 West Broadway Street, Suite 1200
Glendale, California 91210
818.545.1925
dgonzales@lbaclaw.com
rsakai@lbaclaw.com
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FOR THE PETITIONER/APPELLANT DANIEL AST:

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NYE, PEABODY, STIRLING, HALE & MILLER, LLP

BY: JONATHAN D. MILLER, ESQ.
ALISON M. BERNAL, ESQ.
33 West Mission Street, Suite 201
Santa Barbara, California 93101
805.963.2345
jonathan@nps-law.com
alison@nps-law.com
McDANIEL REPORTING & VIDEO CONFERENCING
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ALSO PRESENT:
COMMANDER DONALD RODRIGUEZ
City of Santa Maria Police Department
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GIL TRUJILLO
Santa Maria City Attorney
DANIEL AST
Petitioner/Appellant
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OPENING STATEMENTS:
PAGE
BY MR. GONZALES
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BY MR. MILLER
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INDEX
OF
WITNESSES
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CITY OF SANTA MARIA:

CHIEF RALPH MARTIN
RD
RX
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INDEX
OF
EXHIBITS
(NONE)
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SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA; MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2014
11:08 A.M.
--O0O--
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5
THE HEARING OFFICER:
Good morning, everyone.
Let's go on the record.

This is a hearing
before the City of Santa Maria, in the matter of the
Termination of Santa Maria Police Lieutenant Daniel Ast.
I am Catherine Harris, and I am the hearing
10
officer selected by both parties to propose a decision
11
to the city manager.
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Before we go any further, would each of the
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parties, beginning with the appellant, please state
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their appearances for the record.
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MR. MILLER:
Thank you very much.
My name is
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Jonathan Miller, and I represent former Lieutenant Dan
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Ast, and with me is my partner, Alison Bernal.
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Thank you.
And the
19
record should reflect that Mr. Ast is also present in
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the hearing room.
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And then on behalf of the City of Santa Maria?
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MR. GONZALES:
Yes.
My name is Dennis
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Gonzales.
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associate, Raymond Sakai, and the city representative,
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Donald Rodriguez, and the city attorney for the City of
I represent the city.
Along with me is my
Page: 6
Santa Maria, Gil -- Trujillo.
Before we went on the record this morning, we
had some off-the-record discussions which I would like
to memorialize at this time.
Forgive me.
Thank you.
First of all, the parties have informed the
hearing officer that Mr. Ast has elected under the
administrative manual to have this hearing be public.
And so it's my understanding that everyone who is
10
present in the hearing room is here without objection
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from either party.
12
Is that correct?
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MR. GONZALES:
14
they're not a witness, obviously.
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That is correct, so long as
MR. MILLER:
That's correct.
Thank you very
much.
All right.
So I'll
receive that stipulation.

And then further, there is a request, I believe
20
it's a joint request, that witnesses not overhear the
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testimony of other witnesses except those individuals
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such as Mr. Ast, who is a party and has an absolute
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right to be present during the entire proceeding, and
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then of course Mr. Gonzales is also entitled to have a
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representative of the city present at all times.
Page: 7
MR. GONZALES:
MR. GONZALES:
We do have the city attorney who is present for

this limited area.
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It would be Don Rodriguez is our
designated representative.
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Who is your designated
representative?
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That is correct.
Right.
And I don't
believe the city attorney is on the witness list, or is

he?
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MR. GONZALES:
12
No, he is not.
He is not.
So as long as he's not a
13
witness, then we don't have any issues under the
14
stipulation.
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So that stipulation is also received.
I also wanted to mention that during our
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off-the-record discussions, it came to the hearing
17
officer's attention that certain witnesses are being
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called by both parties.
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that the parties are in agreement that when one of those
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individuals is called, whether it be by appellant or by
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the city, that that witness will be present for all
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purposes, and either side will have the right to go
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beyond the scope of direct examination to ask its
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questions in the interest of not having to call that
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witness back for a second appearance.
And so it's my understanding
Page: 8
Is that agreeable to both parties?
MR. GONZALES:
MR. MILLER:
That is correct.
So stipulated.
All right.
I'll receive
that stipulation as well.
Okay.
Then, while we were off the record, I
did tell the parties that I had reviewed the prehearing
briefs submitted by both parties and that I had also
this weekend had an opportunity to review appellant's
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motion to compel the production of various documents, as
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well as the city's response.
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discussion on the issue, and I'm not sure exactly which
13
numbers of which requests for production are at issue in
14
this discussion, but in general, we had a detailed
15
discussion of the issue of whether or not the entire
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investigative package that was submitted to the chief of
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police should be produced by the city to appellant.
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And we've had considerable
I understand that the audio interviews and that
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the written transcripts of those interviews have been
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supplied?
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No?
MR. MILLER:
The written transcripts have never
been supplied.
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MR. MILLER:
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Only the audio?
Correct.
Are there written

Page: 9
transcripts?
MR. GONZALES:
No, but what I had indicated
before is we provided -- the city had provided
previously the audio as well as the police reports.
MR. GONZALES:
All right.
The transcriptions, at our cost
of $23,000, we transcribed.
they would like those transcripts at that cost.
not hear anything back.
We offered whether or not
So to this date they, as far as
10
I know, do not have our transcriptions.
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did their own, I don't know.
12
All right.
Whether they
So are the
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audio transcriptions going to be introduced into
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evidence?
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MR. GONZALES:
I did
There will be excerpts, and I
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put a copy of those excerpts of Mr. Ast on your desk.
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We have a copy available at no cost to the appellant.
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All right.
Well, we'll
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reach those issues later, but I just don't want to find
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myself in the position of listening to tapes, if
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possible, because I find that that's a very laborious,
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time-consuming, and expensive process and that reading
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goes much more quickly from the standpoint of the person
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who has to make a decision here.
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Okay.
But returning to the issue at hand, the
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nub of the controversy has to do with 82 pages of
material which, as I understand it, contains the
impressions of the investigator.
investigator, Mr. Klapakis, I believe it was, who wrote
a report which, as I understand it, was submitted to the
chief of police, but the chief of police decided that he
would rely only on the testimonial evidence and perhaps,
I don't know, maybe some documentary evidence, but that
he was not going to rely on the impressions or
This is an outside
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conclusions or implied recommendations, if you will, of
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the outside investigator.
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whether or not these materials should be supplied by the
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city to appellant.
So the controversy concerns
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In the interest of moving the case forward, I
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believe that the city is going to provide the material
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to the hearing officer in-camera so that the hearing
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officer will have a chance to review it and make a
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determination as to what part of the materials should be
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produced and how it could be produced in a manner that
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would protect the privacy rights of other individuals,
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besides appellant, who may or may not have received
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discipline in connection with the officer-on-officer
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shooting incident.
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So is there anything else that either party

would like to add to what I have stated before I go off
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the record to conduct my in-camera inspection?

MR. GONZALES:
Just -- the city would like to
place on the record the concerns that the city had, and
we discussed in some detail previously off the record
that the privacy rights of the other individuals
non-subject of this termination, those concerns were
brought to the city's attention on a number of occasions
regarding whether or not the other disciplines that
might have occurred to other people would be public.
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And we assured them that the city was going to make
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every effort to keep those private and not distributed.
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At the same time, the city's position is not to in any
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way inhibit the appellant's right for due process.
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That's a balancing act.
We understand that.
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But the city is not in a position to make that
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determination independently, which is why the objection
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was made, and that's why we believe that the in-camera
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hearing is the only solution that is available.
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Yes.
And I also wanted
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to state, because I think it's important, that one of
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the reasons that I thought that it would be particularly
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appropriate to conduct an in-camera inspection of these
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particular documents is because the issue of whether or
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not this type of evidence can come into the record in a
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public hearing is not only significant as to these
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documents, but also as to the testimonial evidence that
will be presented by both parties during conduct of the
case.
how much of that evidence is going to come into the
record, not only for purposes of these documents but
also for the purpose of anticipating various testimonial
evidence which will be forthcoming in the days ahead.
So I think we need to set some parameters as to
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So, would appellants's counsel like to add

anything?
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MR. MILLER:
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just for the record.
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be incorporating our briefs that we submitted on this
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into the record.
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matter later.
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requires that a copy of all written materials, reports,
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and documents upon which discipline is based, including
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exculpatory or mitigating evidence, be provided to
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Mr. Ast as part of his fundamental due process rights
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under the law.
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Association vs. Venegas, 101 Cal.App.4th 916 and 926,
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supports that right to due process.
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difference and a distinction in our mind between
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discipline, i.e., you were terminated, you got five days
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off, you were suspended, and a factual criticism by an
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investigator that these individuals did something wrong.
I would
And I presume at some point we'll
We can do that as a housekeeping
But Page 5, Paragraph B(A)(4) of the CAM
The case of Sacramento Police Officers
There is a
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Our solution or proposed solution in this matter is that
to the extent that we want to talk about discipline in
this hearing, we would submit that the hearing officer
could, and we would agree, excuse the public and have
that matter be held in private and have that be subject
to protective order.
At the same time, to the extent we want to get
into criticisms of facts and what was done, we think
that information should be publicly produced, and we
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should have a right to cross-examine accordingly.
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Thank you.
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And I would like to add as a final comment that
Thank you.
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I did review the provisions of the California -- or of
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the administrative manual.
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City Administrative Manual, that pertained to
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evidentiary hearings and disciplinary matters, and I did
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review the Notice of Intended Discipline and Final Order
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of Discipline before we went on the record this morning.
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I believe it's the CAM, the
Anything else that either party would like to

add?
All right.
Then we'll be off the record in
order for me to review the documents in question.
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(A recess was taken.)
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We're back on the record

Page: 14
after a break, during which time the hearing officer
reviewed first an unwritten -- first, I'm sorry, a
redacted version of the approximately 82-page document
entitled Summary of Administrative Investigation, Events
Surrounding the Officer-Involved Shooting of Santa Maria
Police Department Officer Albert Covarrubias.
reviewed first the unredacted portion.
Then I requested
that the city provide me -- I'm sorry.
I reviewed first
the redacted version, then requested that the unredacted
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version be supplied to me.

I have now reviewed the unredacted version, and
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it is my judgment that Mr. Ast is entitled to receive a
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copy of the unredacted version of the report because it
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contains not only the investigating or the outside
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investigator's rendition of what he was told by various
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witnesses, but also his impressions of how to reconcile
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the conflicting testimony of various witnesses who are
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anticipated to be called during the course of this case.
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So, the city as I understand it, is going to provide
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this to appellant's counsel with the understanding that
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counsel are going to work together cooperatively in a
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manner that will respect the privacy rights of those
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individuals whose cases are not before the hearing
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officer in this particular proceeding.
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Now, the report does not reflect whether or not
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other officers were in fact disciplined, and if so, what
level of discipline they received.
that from this report.
that out not only with respect to documentary evidence
but also with respect to testimonial evidence that will
be presented during the course of the case.
So, Mr. Miller has suggested that perhaps we can close
the hearing as to certain portions of the case.
know if that suggestion is acceptable to the city.
I cannot discern
Presumably, counsel can work
I don't
I
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know that I have the authority to conduct the hearing in
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a manner that will lead to the discovery of what, in
12
fact, happened here so that I can make a reasoned
13
determination, but I also know that there's a rule that
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allows the appellant to elect either a public or a
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closed hearing.
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like to be heard on these issues, so why don't we start
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with Mr. Gonzales.
So I know both of you would probably
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MR. GONZALES:
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First, let me reiterate that the hearing
20
Yes, thank you.
officer's ruling is over the objection of the city --
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MR. GONZALES:
That is correct.
-- for the reasons previously
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stated, that we are very concerned about the privacy
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rights of the other individuals.
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going to abide, of course, by the hearing officer's
Despite that, we are
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ruling.
plaintiff's counsel.
seal, in other words, that it not be distributed.
can be utilized for these proceedings only after an
agreement has been made as to how we are going to
protect those individuals' rights.
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It
Is there any objection to
that request?
MR. MILLER:
it.
I don't understand the basis of
It doesn't contain personnel information.
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However, we would ask it be under
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We will be providing an unredacted version to
MR. GONZALES:
I'm sorry.
I didn't understand
the objection.
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Well, I think he's
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focusing on the fact that I reported that I could not
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really tell from this report which of these other
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officers, other than Mr. Ast, received discipline.
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could make some speculative comments about possible
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discipline, but I can't really say from the report if
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discipline was meted out, or perhaps someone was only
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warned or someone received a counseling or -- I can't
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really tell from the report.
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MR. GONZALES:
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itself.
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be quite obvious.
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That may be true in the document
However, in conjunction with testimony, it will
Okay.
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MR. GONZALES:
And therefore, if you only have
one-half of the items, then you don't have the whole
story, and that's what my concern is.
asked for it to be under seal.
That's why I've
All right.
Given that
representation, will there be any objection to the
document being received for the limited purpose of
assisting in the presentation of Mr. Ast's defense?
MR. MILLER:
Yes, to the extent that I can't
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use it then in open hearing to cross-examine the
11
witnesses and show portions of it, that's an issue.
12
13
14
That would not be -- you
mean to read from it?

MR. MILLER:
To read from it, or if necessary,
15
hand it to Mr. Klapakis and have him demonstrate what
16
was said and what he felt about it.
17
Well, what if before
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reading from it you would request that the hearing --
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hearing room be cleared for purposes of a portion of
20
your examination?
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MR. MILLER:
Respectfully, I don't have the
22
document, so I don't know what it says yet.
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problem I have with reaching a blind stipulation is I
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haven't had a chance to go through it.
25
All right.
So the
Well, I am
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very sympathetic to the request of the city that we do
whatever we can to keep the issue of other people's
personnel files private.
production of the report, I am asking counsel, pending
any additional motions he may wish to make after he's
had a chance to review it, I am directing counsel to
keep it private until such time as permission is granted
to use it in open hearing.
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MR. MILLER:
So while I am ordering the
No objection to that.
Thank you
very much.
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MR. GONZALES:
13
I'm not sure, because we've had so much
Okay.
That will be fine, Your Honor.
14
discussion off the record, that our position is crystal
15
clear.
16
but I want to make sure the record reflects it, and that
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is, prior to this hearing being conducted today, I had a
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number of telephonic phone calls and in-person
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face-to-face interviews with a number of individuals who
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are reflected in that report.
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those had concerns about their personnel record being
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distributed not only to the other side but to the public
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in general.
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I know that the hearing officer understands it,
And those that -- many of
I explained to them that the city was going to

make every effort to protect their rights, and we of
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course indicated that we filed a brief prior to today's
hearing that reflected that.
I understand the hearing officer's decision.
We are going to abide by it, but it is, of course, over
the objection of the city.
I think that's
understood.
that while I understand the city's concern about these
privacy rights, that I have an obligation to balance the
And for my part, I've explained to counsel
10
city's interest in protecting the privacy of those
11
individuals with the appellant's need to ascertain the
12
evidence necessary to defend his job, in which he has a
13
property interest, you know, under -- under law.
14
balancing both of those interests, I have ruled as
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indicated.
16
So,
So, let's take an extended lunch hour to allow
17
counsel time to review not only the unredacted summary
18
of the administrative investigation, but also the thumb
19
drive, which is going to be produced to him, which has
20
the written material which summarizes the audiotapes
21
that he had already been supplied with.
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23
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25
So is there any other matter that either party

would like to raise before we adjourn for lunch?
MR. GONZALES:
Well, I want to make sure that
we -- counsel has already agreed to this, that the thumb
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drive that had been provided to the city to date is a
copy of the original that we provided to them.
assured me that by tomorrow they will be bringing that
thumb drive that was provided to them back in I believe
March of 2013, to the city's attention tomorrow.
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7
MR. GONZALES:
MR. MILLER:
10
Absolutely.
No objection.
That's fine.
Thank you
for reminding me of that point.
12
13
So we can compare if
there is indeed a difference between the two.
11
They've
Okay.
And do we need a little bit more time
since we've been on the record?
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MR. MILLER:
15
By 2 o'clock?
By 2 o'clock.
All right.
We'll see you
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back here, and we'll proceed with the hearing at
17
2:00 p.m.
18
We're off the record.
19
(At 12:31 p.m., luncheon recess was taken until
20
2:06 p.m. of the same day.)
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SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA; MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2014
2:06 P.M.
--O0O--
4
5
after our luncheon recess.
either counsel wishes to say about the discussions that
we had off the record before we commence opening
statements?
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MR. GONZALES:
11
MR. MILLER:
And is there anything that
Not from the city.

I would just acknowledge that we
12
had a discussion off the record about the Bart Topham
13
investigation.
14
time being until the hearing officer hears opening
15
statements.
16
We agreed to reserve on that for the
All right.
Very well.
17
Then are there any other preliminary matters that either
18
party wishes to raise before we begin opening
19
statements?
20
21
All right.
Then, Mr. Gonzales, would you like
to make an opening statement?
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MR. GONZALES:
23
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///
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///
Yeah, I would, Your Honor.

I appreciate this opportunity.
Page: 22
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3
OPENING STATEMENT
BY MR. GONZALES:
Before we get into the substance of the
argument, I've got to give a little preview.
from the brief that was filed by Mr. Miller regarding
their theories in this case, and we know that in that
brief there's a claim that Chief Martin terminated
Mr. Ast for retaliation of a whistle-blower.
know from his brief that this whistle-blowing event
We know
Now, you
10
occurs in January 16th, 2012, and continues on through
11
-- up until the termination.
12
Chief Martin -- he was hired August 6th, 2012, six
13
months later.
14
was as a result, of course, of the shooting, the tragic
15
shooting death of another officer, Covarrubias, that
16
happened on January 28th, 2012.
17
We also know the date that
Now, the investigation that was conducted
Now, the brief that was filed, at Page 10,
18
refers to what their contention is in regards to Chief
19
Martin, and I'm going to quote, if I may, Page 10, Line
20
8 through 13.
21
"Ast had high hopes the new chief hired by
22
the city, Chief Martin, would make things
23
better with the department.
24
learned the city brought in Martin with the
25
express directive to clean house of those
However, Ast soon
Page: 23
raising complaints within the department, i.e.,
Ast.
the department, the city continued its efforts
through the new chief to silence and retaliate
Ast."
That's their theory.
7
8
9
Thus, despite the change in leadership in
That's where they're
going with this case.

Now, it has to be emphasized that the previous
chief, Chief Macagni, who had been chief for some time
10
previous to, obviously, the shooting of January 28th,
11
there's a contention that he was the initial retaliatory
12
actor from January 16th.
13
starts sometime around January 16th, supposedly,
14
according to Ast's theory.
15
investigation of the shooting, this began approximately
16
February, early February 2012.
17
takes place on the 28th.
18
couple of weeks thereafter, February-ish 2012.
19
So that's -- we know that
That means that the
We know the shooting
The investigation begins a
We also know that Macagni is no longer an
20
employee with the police department as of approximately
21
August 4th -- strike that -- I think it was the end of
22
July, July 30th, roughly, 2012.
23
retaliation is going on from the 16th of January up
24
through his departure in August.
25
So this alleged
Now, of course, again, we realize and we know
Page: 24
that the termination occurs by Chief Martin, and it's
based upon that investigation that was conducted
approximately six months or begun six months preceding
his getting that job.
Officer, that for the appellant's position to be
accurate, to be truthful, for them, what they have to
prove is that the powers that be here, the city manager
or some other high official in the City of Santa Maria,
when they're looking for a new chief of police after
That would mean, Ms. Hearing
10
Macagni retires at the end of January -- or July 2012,
11
that they had to, during their interview system,
12
indicate as a condition of his employment, of Martin's
13
employment, that you're going to continue on with this
14
retaliation.
15
retaliation continues on from Macagni and then is passed
16
on to Martin, who makes a final determination of
17
termination, that would mean that, and their contention
18
is and one of their theories is, that the powers that
19
be, which would be the city manager, somehow was able to
20
convince -- and the evidence will show that Chief Martin
21
was 37 years with the L.A. County Sheriff's, retired as
22
a commander, then did consulting work, has been
23
qualified in a number of areas in police work in both
24
federal and state courts, testified there -- that the
25
city manager or some other high official in this city
If their theory is correct, that
Page: 25
were able to convince that kind of a man to continue on
with the retaliation as they claim has occurred here,
which eventually results in the firing of Mr. Ast.
is not only ludicrous that, number one, the city manager
would do such a thing and take a chance that he's
talking to someone who's willing to possibly buy into
that, and number two, it's equally ludicrous that a
person with Chief Martin's background would accept that
kind of a conditional hiring.
10
That
In addition to it being just ludicrous on its
11
face, there's absolutely no evidence to support it.
12
It's going to be based on argument, speculation, and a
13
diversion from what actually happened.
14
What actually happened out there is what
15
occurred -- what led up to the tragic death of
16
Covarrubias and the decisions that were made that led up
17
to it, and that's where Mr. Ast was -- what he was
18
terminated for.
19
Now, I don't say this lightly.
I've been doing
20
this for a while, and I rarely get into this kind of an
21
argument.
22
this case, when it's all come in from all the different
23
sources that we have indicated our listing is, I believe
24
you're going to find that the actions of Ast border on
25
criminal negligence.
But when you finally hear the evidence in
That's a very difficult statement
Page: 26
to make unless it's supported by the evidence.
The evidence is going to show that there were
four bases upon which the termination of Mr. Ast was
relied upon.
of itself.
reprimand.
Three of them equalled termination in and

The fourth, certainly some kind of a
The first, and independent of the others and
therefore could very well and should have and would have
and did result in his termination, is complete gross
10
incompetence.
11
was the lead of that investigation.
12
investigator.
13
investigation.
14
of itself for termination.
15
The evidence is going to show that Ast

He was not an
He was the supervisor over that

Gross incompetence would suffice in and
Number two -- and the evidence is going to be
16
quite clear.
17
about.
18
Ast to get another lieutenant, a Lieutenant Flores, in
19
trouble that would eventually result potentially in
20
having Flores be removed from a plum job of overtime and
21
of a take-home car, and Ast, Come, and/or Ginter, which
22
are each other's alter ego, would have gotten that
23
position.
24
lieutenant to take over that plum job that Flores had.
25
That in and of itself would be sufficient for
It's not something that I'm speculating
There was a sinister motivation on the part of
They would have been the next in line as a
Page: 27
termination.
and the decisions that were made by Ast in the eventual
decision to go out and arrest in the field.
Gross incompetence, a sinister motivation,
And then finally, as far as the termination is
concerned, number three, during the course of the
investigation, it was obvious that Mr. Ast -- and I
don't usually use this word very often.
say he was fabricating; I'll say that he was less than
candid.
10
Usually I just
But in this case, it is so obvious that he lied
on a number of occasions to the investigator.
11
There was a meeting held by the new chief,
12
Ralph Martin, when he came in in about August 6th, 7th,
13
and 8th of 2012, where he said with all the staff
14
present, going through all the different aspects of how
15
he was going to try to change this dysfunctional
16
organization, "The one thing I won't put up with, I
17
can't have in this department, I wouldn't stand for it
18
before and I won't stand for it now, and that's someone
19
who lies."
20
as a law enforcement situation, if you were to take the
21
stand and lie concerning a criminal, that would defeat
22
the entire case.
23
beginning, "If I catch you lying, I'm going to terminate
24
you."
25
result in and of themselves in termination.
Everyone was put on notice.
And obviously,
Ralph Martin said from the very
That's the third of those three areas that would
Page: 28
And finally, the stun gun incident, which was
learned of during the course of different investigations
that preexisted this one, was such a showing of a lack
of leadership.
instance, over a bet where a couple of the officers were
talking about, "I bet you wouldn't stun gun yourself for
20 bucks," Ast, who was in the room, says, "I'll take
that bet," gets a stun gun out, stuns himself a couple
of times, wins the 20 bucks, and puts it in his pocket.
And the evidence will show that in that
10
When that reached Chief Ralph Martin, it just
11
corroborated and confirmed what he had read earlier.
12
Now, we know that there's a substantial amount
13
of investigative documents on this.
14
hear from Chief Martin as to what exactly it was that he
15
reviewed, relied upon in coming to his determination of
16
termination.
17
lightly, as you will hear from him as he testifies.
18
And you're going to
And he doesn't do something like that
There also has to be a little background that
19
this hearing officer has to have in relation to the
20
relationship between Ast and Lieutenant Flores.
21
actually goes back -- and this whole case frankly
22
revolves around money.
23
from the appellant that, in fact, they were a
24
whistle-blower.
25
all these different events that occurred as a result of
It
I think you're going to hear
They were trying to save the city from
Page: 29
being unsafe.
exactly what that first complaint was all about.
have to share with you the relationship between Flores
and Ast.
And I'm going to read to you in a moment

But I
Now, it actually goes back to an incident that
takes place in November, I believe, 10th, 2011,
approximately two months before the filing of the claim
or the grievance by Ast, which was January the 16th,
2012.
On November 10th or thereabouts, the then chief,
10
Macagni, calls in the lieutenants and says, Ast, Ginter,
11
Come, you're not going to have a take-home car anymore.
12
That's a couple of bucks out of their pocket.
13
number two, you're not going to have any more overtime.
14
We've got budget constraints here.
15
money issues.
16
overtime.
17
able to have a take-home car.
18
that he can take home, and he can have his overtime and
19
distribute it among whom he wants to distribute it.
20
He wrote the grant.
21
is going to be able to distribute that money as he sees
22
fit.
23
24
25
And
We've got some real
You're not going to be getting any
However, Lieutenant Flores is going to be

He also has a motorcycle
He got the federal money.
And he
You're going to hear that Ast, Come, and Ginter

are more than upset about this.
When you said, "He wrote

Page: 30
the grant," you meant Lieutenant Flores?
MR. GONZALES:
grant."
I'm terribly sorry.

You said, "He wrote the
Lieutenant Flores?
MR. GONZALES:
Flores wrote the grant, and the
money was provided by the feds, and he was able to
distribute it, according to his chief, as he feels fit.
He was not giving any overtime to Ast or the other two
lieutenants.
He was giving it to those that he felt
10
were worthy of it or possibly 'cause they were just
11
friends.
12
mad.
13
But he didn't give it to them, and they were
Ast was going to get back at Flores because of
14
this.
15
you're going to hear some actual language from Ast in
16
relation to his feelings about Flores and the
17
unfairness.
18
And you're going to hear both testimony and
You're also going to hear Ast in a telephone
19
conversation wherein he complains about this is not
20
fair; this distribution of overtime is absolutely
21
incredible; I'm not going to put up with it, and it's
22
going to cost the city some money.
23
Those are his words.
So that relationship between Ast and Flores --
24
and Ast is going to try to get back at Flores for what
25
he considers is more than a mere sleight; it's about
Page: 31
money.
to eventually show the driving force and his motivation
in the decisions he eventually makes in the
investigation of Covarrubias.
He's going to get back at him, and that's going
Now, you're going to hear that the
whistle-blower, Mr. Ast, and the other two -- 'cause
they're almost identical.
together.
the purpose -- this claim and the grievance -- for the
They're all grouped
You're going to hear that they did this for
10
benefit of the City of Santa Maria.
11
hear that there were safety factors involved.
12
you're going to hear that merely 12 days after they
13
filed the complaint or their claim, from January 16th,
14
2012, to the shooting, which is the 28th of January,
15
that it was because they were not -- their concerns were
16
not followed that this kind of a safety event occurs.
17
actually says.
19
employee Dan Ast.
20
on the ELMO.
This is the claim of January 16th, 2012,

Matter of fact, I'm going to put this
21
Is that working?
22
It says:
24
25
And
I'm going to read to you what that claim
18
23
You're going to
occurred."
"Date when dispute or problems
It's, "Ongoing."
"Location or problem:
Santa Monica (sic)
Police Department.
Page: 32
"Description of grievance."
Now, the description of the grievance, and I'm
going to read it verbatim, "Retaliation and threats
against me by the chief of police and/or others for,
among other things, complaining about the denial of meal
and rest breaks."
apparently for the time he spent to have a lunch break,
and he asked for it, and it was refused.
one.
10
11
Money.
He was not getting paid
Money, number
"Making a Workers' Compensation claim."
Money,
number two.
12
"Complaining about disparate application of the
13
department disciplinary treatment by quashing or
14
avoiding IA investigations for friends of the chief or
15
people the chief wanted to promote."
16
chief.
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
Buddies of the
He wasn't one of them.

"Complaining about favoritism within the
department."
Again, same thing.
"Complaining about improper assignments of

overtime."
Money, Flores in particular.
"Retaliation has included, among others, taking

away my home vehicle and disparate treatment."
Of those complaints, there's not one mention, I
24
suggest to this hearing officer, about safety.
25
whistle-blower, you're going to hear that that was the
As a
Page: 33
whole reason that they were out to get him.
was embarrassed because the very thing he complained
about happens 12 days later.
there about safety.
The city
You don't see one item in
It's about money.
Now, the investigation of Covarrubias's actions
with an Explorer, a 17-year-old girl who was an Explorer
with the -- with the department among other young --
young men and women who want to become police officers
eventually join this program.
It's a voluntary program.
10
She was 17 years old when this incident occurs.
11
29.
12
begins approximately 3:00 p.m. on January 28th -- strike
13
that.
14
It's a Thursday.
15
is an Officer Huffman who knows another lady, and that
16
lady is a mother figure to this Explorer.
17
refer to her as a victim, the Explorer, as the victim or
18
possibly the girl.
19
mother figure tells a friend who happens to be an
20
Officer Huffman, I was told by this girl, this Explorer
21
friend of mine, that there's been some inappropriate
22
activity.
23
Covarrubias is trying to kiss her, bought her some
24
jewelry, and it seems to me this is inappropriate.
25
since I know you're a police officer, I want you to know
Covarrubias was 29 years old.
He's
The investigation
January -- let me get my date right -- 26th.

January 26th, about 3:00 p.m.
There
I have it interchanged.
I'm going to
So this
Apparently this 29-year-old Officer
And
Page: 34
1
2
about this.
Huffman hears this.
He goes -- actually, it's
a couple days later, or certainly there was a little --
there was a time gap between when Huffman hears this and
goes and tells Van Meel, V-a-n, M-e-e-l.
is an investigator for the Santa Maria Police
Department.
Huffman says, hey, by the way, I gotta tell you, I was
told yesterday, day before, that there might be some
Paul Van Meel
They're having a cup of coffee, lunch.
10
inappropriate activity between one of your Explorers and
11
Covarrubias.
12
Van Meel immediately puts down the cup of
13
coffee, goes across the street and tells Ast.
14
about 4 o'clock, roughly, on Thursday, the 28th of
15
January -- strike that -- the 26th of January, about
16
4 o'clock.
17
It's
Ast says we'll get to an investigation on this,
18
get a team together.
19
of Van Meel, a guy name Terry Flaa, F-l-a-a, also Ruiz,
20
Alfonso Ruiz -- Alfredo Ruiz, excuse me.
21
might bring in a fellow named Steve Best for -- but
22
those three are the primary investigators, Van Meel,
23
Flaa, and Ruiz, with Ast as lead, as the lieutenant
24
above them.
25
investigators.
And the team is going to consist
He's overseeing it.
And then they
They are the
They're the ones that are going to go
Page: 35
out and pound the -- pound the sidewalk.
Well, this is Thursday afternoon.
There's
nothing -- they have some other obligations, apparently,
so they didn't really get started on the investigation
until Friday morning.
Now, remember now that we're on now Friday,
about 10 o'clock.
shooting takes place at about 1:16 a.m. on the 28th.
it's a very -- a time crunch from the time that the
This is the 27th of January.
The
10
actual investigation begins, which again is
11
approximately 10:00, 11:00 a.m.
12
Ruiz and Van Meel go to the reporting party up in San
13
Luis Obispo.
14
who first gave the information.
15
ask her, we have some information about some
16
inappropriate possible activity.
17
in?
18
And how that begins is
That's the lady who -- the mother figure

They go to her and they
Can you please fill us
She corroborates pretty much what they'd
19
already know.
20
attempt to get a kiss.
21
So
There was some jewelry passed in an

That's all she knows.
Well, there's something to this now.
It's not
22
just talk.
23
to do a cold call.
24
going to have the female mother figure make a call to
25
the victim and ask some questions.
So, they get the girl's name, and they want

A cold call, of course, is they're
And the officers are

Page: 36
going to listen in.
in the afternoon when she's out of school.
corroborates what has been told to them.
been trying to kiss me, and yeah, he's bought me some
jewelry, and I'm going to work tonight.
and we're going to be together.
That takes place around 3 o'clock

And she
Yeah, he's
I'm going to --
So the officers immediately leave San Luis
Obispo.
station, and they're going to brief him on what they
They go down to where Lieutenant Ast is, to the
10
learned.
11
Lieutenant Ast has already done something.
12
But when they get there, they find out that
Now, it has to go back about -- I think it was
13
about 5 o'clock on that 26th, on that Thursday, when
14
they first start talking about the plan, Ast, Van Meel,
15
and Ruiz.
16
before the actual time that they go out and talk to the
17
girl, they say, you know, you can't tell three people
18
about this investigation.
They've got loose lips, and
19
they're going to leak it.
You don't tell the chief,
20
Macagni; you don't tell lieutenant -- or rather a
21
Commander Green; and who you don't tell, for sure, is
22
Lieutenant Flores.
23
And during that conversation on the 26th,
That guy will leak it.
Ast goes along with it and says, yeah, you're
24
darn right.
25
especially don't tell Flores about this.
None of us tell those three guys, but
Page: 37
Well, number one, Flores at that time had this
"plum job," and that job was head of motors, which is
motorcycles.
to DUI checkpoints and so forth.
all agree that Flores is the last guy they're going to
tell.
And they had the overtime if they go out

So, immediately, they
Now, this is the first indication in review of
all the evidence that Ast is going to have a sinister
motivation.
I'm going to set Flores up.
I'm going to
10
get that job, or one of my two other buddies are going
11
to get that job.
12
I'm going to get Flores out of there.
So what does he do?
Now, we know that at this
13
point in time you've got Flaa, Van Meel, Ruiz, who have
14
the girl's name.
15
name.
16
strike that -- Herrick, H-a-r-r-a-c-h (sic), I believe,
17
Herrick, who is head of the -- supervisor of the
18
Explores, and therefore would have her name.
19
there's one more.
20
have gone to, that any of them could have gone to for
21
that name.
22
quarter to 5:00 on Friday, after the investigators have
23
already gone up, got the name, talked to the girl, know
24
what -- that there's something going on, they come back
25
to make the -- to make the briefing with Ast.
We know Huffman, who has the girl's
We know that there's a gentleman named Steve --
And
A total of six people that they could
Instead, what does Ast do?
About 4:30,
They say
Page: 38
-- Ast said, oh, hey, listen.
2
3
He had gone to Flores and said, hey, there's -I need to get the roster of your Explorers.
4
5
Well, Flores, who is very protective of his

guys, well, what do you want the roster for?
6
7
I got the roster here.
For tonight's -- I want it for tonight's DUI

check.
What do you want the roster for?
I can't tell you.
It has nothing to do with
10
the officers.
11
with the Explorer -- with the Explorers.
12
were five or six going out that night.
13
It has to do with something with the -I think there
Well, obviously, the one fellow that they all
14
agreed they weren't going to tell, Ast unilaterally goes
15
and tells him.
16
Sure enough, the very thing that they
17
anticipated happens.
18
and says, hey, guys -- and not the Explorers, just the
19
officers get their briefing -- and says, hey, guys,
20
watch your P's and Q's out there.
21
Ast is an IA, an internal affairs investigator.
22
something going on.
23
Explorers.
24
around these 16-, 17-year-olds.
25
tell their moms and dads, and we're going to get in hot
Flores calls the troops back in
Something's going on.

There's
He says it only has to do with the
Sometimes you guys use some foul language
They're going to go
Page: 39
water, "So watch your P and Q's."
He says, "P's and Q's."
"Watch your P's and Q's out there."
And that's a quote.
Everybody remembers that.
Well, Covarrubias, as it turns out, is having
intercourse with this 17-year-old.
We don't know that
yet until later on in the picture.
But he's in the
room.
this investigation has to do with him.
He hears this.
And he's wondering whether or not
There was absolutely no concern by Ast by
10
telling Flores if, in fact, Flores has these loose lips,
11
as they all considered, that he was going to go in and
12
say something to the troops, which he did.
13
what they planned -- what they thought he would do,
14
which is why he was excluded from being told anything.
15
And Covarrubias is now put on notice.
16
He doesn't know for a fact.
17
that this investigation involves him and the girl.
18
We're at the point in time now where they
Perfectly
He's not certain.
But there's a good chance
19
break.
20
the field.
21
the heck happens about this investigation, goes to
22
Kendall Green, his commander, and he says, Kendall,
23
Commander, what do you know about an investigation or
24
some kind of an inquiry by Ast and the Explorers?
25
All the officers are about ready to go out to

Flores, 'cause he is still not certain what
And he says, Kendall Green goes, I have no idea
Page: 40
what you're talking about.
it.
3
4
I don't know anything about
Well, something's going on, and I need to find

out what's happening with my guys.
Well, Kendall says, hang on.
Kendall immediately goes over, runs into Ast,
and says, hey, what's going on with this investigation
with Explorers?
Ast says, I can't tell you.
It does not have
10
anything to do with the officers.
11
with an Explorer, but I can't tell you any more than
12
that.
13
It only has to do
Well, you -- and this is a -- you're going to
14
hear from Kendall Green.
15
says, now, does it have anything to do with the
16
officers?
17
18
He remembers distinctly.
Ast reassures him.
Absolutely not.
He
It has to
do with the Explorers.
19
Okay.
He runs into Flores before he leaves to
20
go out to the checkpoint.
21
it.
22
anything about it, but he assures me it has nothing to
23
do with your officers.
24
time.
25
He says, don't worry about
It has to do with the Explorers.
End of story for a period of
They go to the checkpoint.
I don't know
They're all out at

Page: 41
the checkpoint.
the next -- this is approximately 5:00 p.m. on the 27th,
Friday -- until about a little before 1:00 a.m., right
around 1:00 a.m.
Nothing happens at the checkpoint for
So we're going to jump back to the
investigation that's taking place from 5 o'clock on up
until 1:00 a.m.
there's a conversation that Ast has with Van Meel.
Meel, as I mentioned, was going to go back and brief Ast
What happens is -- and by the way,
10
about what he had learned when he talked with the
11
reporting party and the ruse with the -- or the
12
conversation the Explorer.
13
got that name from the roster.
14
Van
And Ast says, you know, I
Now, he claims, Ast claims, that there was a
15
problem in getting the girl's name.
16
going to hear his testimony or his statement to the
17
investigator about this problem in trying to get the
18
name.
19
I'm going to wait for the evidence.
20
don't what the problem was, but it was something.
21
just couldn't get the name.
He -- and you're
I was going to play it for you now, but I think

And he's saying, I
They
22
The investigator, Klapakis, knows that Van Meel
23
already got the name, knows that Flaa had the name, knew
24
that Ruiz had the name when he made this investigation.
25
He said, well, wait a minute.
What kind of a problem

Page: 42
was it?
Well, I don't know.
I don't know the dynamics.
I don't know the particulars.
trying to get the name, and that's why I had to go get
the name from Flores, the very guy that nobody wanted to
share this with because of the very thing that he did.
He leaked it.
8
9
All I know is a problem
Now, we're at the point in time -- and that is

going to be, of course, reviewed by Chief Martin because
10
Chief Martin listened to 100 hours of these
11
investigative recordings.
12
summary that has been produced, it also makes reference
13
to that inconsistency, more than an inconsistency,
14
because you're going to hear from Ruiz and Van Meel that
15
there was no trouble getting that girl's name.
16
that name at about 10:00 to 12:00 a.m. (sic) on that
17
Friday morning, and all Ast would have had to have done
18
is to contact them.
19
But there was really no need for him to have gotten it
20
because they already had the information.
21
investigators.
22
those gentlemen probably tomorrow.
23
And he saw that.
And in that
They had
They would have given it to him.
They were the
You're going to be hearing from both of
We're at the point in time now where the
24
investigators leave the briefing of Ast at about
25
5:00 p.m.
They go out, and they're going to interview
Page: 43
the girl.
out there at the DMV checkpoint.
introduce themselves to the parents of the Explorer and
they say that there's been potentially some
inappropriate activity, and they still don't know for
certain.
and saying things out of school that never happened.
they're not convinced that there had been a
relationship.
Well, the girl is at the checkpoint.
She's
So they first
It could be that she's just kind of bragging
They tell the parents this.
So
They
10
convince them that we want to get the girl away from the
11
checkpoint.
12
They agree to a ruse, and they're going to say
13
basically to the girl that there's a family problem and
14
get her from the checkpoint at the DMV or DUI location
15
and then back to her home so they can interview her.
16
The mother agrees to it.
17
27th.
18
conduct an interview.
19
her to tell the truth, and finally she says we've had
20
intercourse on three separate occasions.
21
more than that.
22
go into the detail.
23
this guy and I have had an affair.
24
and, yeah, he's 29.
25
It's about 9:00 p.m. on the
The girl is brought home.
And Flaa and Van Meel
It takes some time to convince
She goes into detail.
We've done
I don't need to
It's in the reports.
And, yeah,
And, yeah, I'm 17,
So they convince her to do another -- what they
Page: 44
call a cold call ruse.
Covarrubias at the location.
They're going to have her call
Now, Covarrubias by now is getting pretty
suspicious.
that he was worried that might have been involving him.
Number two, the girl is removed from the location.
Even though there's a good excuse, there's a family --
eh, something's going on.
wall.
10
He heard the Flaa -- I mean the Flores leak
So he's starting to punch the
A couple guys are saying he's acting funny out
there.
11
They've got about eight or nine motor officers.
12
This unit that is a plum unit is a motorcycle unit.
13
They get the overtime.
14
vehicle -- their motorcycles, which is what Ast wanted.
15
But as lieutenant you get a car and a motorcycle.
16
didn't have one.
17
one.
18
They get to take home their
He wanted one.
He
He was going to get
So now we're at the point in time where
19
Covarrubias is out there, is looking a little anxious.
20
In retrospect, some of the other officers say, you know,
21
at the time I didn't think much about it.
22
under the weather.
23
24
25
He looked
We asked him what's going on.
He said, you know, I got a stomach ache.
I had
a bad meal earlier.

Okay.
I hope you feel better.
Page: 45
The girl makes the ruse call.
It's being
listened to by Flaa, who in turn -- and this is at the
house now.
Van Meel is listening in on the conversation.
So the girl is on the telephone at home.
Strike that.
Flaa is listening in on the conversation.
telling Van Meel.
station where Ruiz is standing next to Ast.
four-way conversation.
He's
Van Meel is calling back to the

It's a
It's a four-way transfer.
Girl
10
gets information that -- and Flaa can hear both ends of
11
the conversation.
12
said this.
13
He's telling Van Meel, oh, she just
Van Meel is on the phone talking to Ruiz.
Ruiz
14
is telling Ast, this is what's going on, in real time
15
minus a couple, maybe, 30 seconds.
16
At no point in time does Ast say, Give me the
17
phone.
18
point in time does he get the actual straight stuff.
I want to listen to this firsthand."
At no
19
That's okay.
20
The girl says, "Hey, Covarrubias, I'm pregnant.
21
It's fairly accurate.
You're the father."
22
He goes, "What?"
23
"Yeah, since you and I were, you know, making
24
25
love."
Covarrubias goes, "Wait a minute, now.
Is
Page: 46
there someone on the phone with you?
there listening in on this?"
"No, no, no.
it.
off the DUI location."
Are the police
I just took a test.
My mom found
It's positive, and that's why she came and got me
"Well, it can't be me.
We haven't been doing
this long enough for it to be positive from me.
only been a couple-three weeks, less than a month."
9
10
"No, it's you.
It's
I haven't been with anybody
else."
11
"Well, don't tell anybody.
12
by you.
13
off.
I'm going to stand
It can't be me, but I'll be there. I got to get
I'll talk to you tomorrow."
14
So it's a future -- what he says basically is
15
I'll be there to give you a hand.
16
to say, "I'm not going to be arrested.
17
Going to take me to jail.
18
But then he goes on

They're not
I'll kill myself first."
The officers hear this.
It's conveyed to Flaa,
19
Van Meel, and then to Ruiz and then to Ast at the
20
station.
21
Well, Van Meel immediately leaves, goes to the
22
station.
23
approximately 12:30 on the 28th, that Saturday morning,
24
12:30 a.m.
25
you're going to hear from Van Meel probably if not
It's only a few minutes away.
This is now
It's at that point in time that -- and
Page: 47
tomorrow, then Wednesday.
"I went and talked to Ast."
Lieutenant, do you know that Flores leaked this thing,
that Covarrubias has some idea about what's going on?'"
And Van Meel is going to say,

And I said, 'Ast,
And he said, when I interviewed Van Meel the
very first time, and what he'll testify to in front of
you and in front of everyone else, "When I told Ast
this, he was working at his desk at the station.
turned around and said, 'Oh, really?'"
And he
His reaction was
10
totally different from someone who did not expect or
11
know that that leak had already occurred.
12
that was just so unlike anybody who would have
13
first-time information that a leak on this kind of a
14
scale with this kind of an investigation -- it stunned
15
me.
16
Van Meel said
The reason he wasn't shocked is because he
17
already knew or expected that to happen.
18
that he set him up to do, it happened.
19
The very thing
Well, Ast at this point in time calls his
20
commander, Ritz, R-i-t-z.
21
Now, Ritz had been brought into the picture a little
22
earlier.
23
when this first comes to light with Huffman, Van Meel,
24
Flaa, and Ast.
25
allegation of one of the motor guys, Covarrubias.
It's about 12:36 that day.
Matter of fact, he was contacted on Thursday
Ast calls him and says, hey, there's an
Page: 48
And Flores -- or Ritz says, okay, well, get a
team together and get the investigation going, and keep
me up to date on this thing.
that same time that they had the briefing that first
day, Thursday the 26th, about 5:00.
The next day --
interrupt for a second?
MR. GONZALES:
10
That was about 5 o'clock
I'm sorry.
Could I just
Are you saying that Ruiz -Not Ruiz, Ritz.
I'm sorry, Ritz, the
11
commander, did not know about the commencement of the
12
Covarrubias investigation until day two of the
13
investigation?
14
MR. GONZALES:
No, at the beginning -- remember
15
now, we're talking about Thursday.
16
time.
17
tells Van Meel, Van Meel tells Ast.
18
Ritz.
19
just telephoned and told.
Thursday when this all comes to light, Huffman
Okay.
He is
I had written down
earlier that the investigation commenced on the 26th.
22
23
Ast then calls
So Ritz is not in the presence of them.
20
21
I'm going back in
MR. GONZALES:
20 -- the 26th was that
Thursday.
24
25
MR. GONZALES:
Okay.
And that's when the

Page: 49
investigation actually didn't start, but it was -- they
were all informed of this possibility.
MR. GONZALES:
Okay.
The investigation starts the
27th at about 10 to 12 o'clock in the morning when they
go out and talk to the -- they talk to the reporting
party.
8
9
10
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank
you.
MR. GONZALES:
So now Ritz has not been told or
11
updated at all from that conversation on the -- about
12
5 o'clock on the 26th, nothing at all on the 27th from
13
Ast until 12:30 in the morning on the 28th, when Ast is
14
told about, supposedly for the first time, the leak and
15
for the first time about possible suicide.
16
the phone, calls up Ritz, and says, hey, we got a real
17
issue here.
Ast gets on
18
Ritz says, I'll be right down.
19
We got probably -- and Ast says, we're going to
20
probably at least have to do a administrative -- relieve
21
him of duty on administrative, at the least.
22
You're going hear from Ritz.
Ritz is going to
23
testify by Thursday.
24
involvement in the case was really secondary, that the
25
lead was the lieutenant, and yeah, I'm the commander,
And he's going say that his
Page: 50
and yeah, I was informed, but I wasn't informed about
what was going on by Ast until about 12:30.
what Ast had to say, and I went along with it, and I
agreed with it.
intention to have Covarrubias arrested that night
immediately before the checkpoint started to break
apart, which is usually about 1:00, 1:15 in the morning.
That's when they start taking the cones up and breaking
it down.
I heard
And what they agreed to was Ast's
10
Ast made the decision to make the arrest out
11
there in front of Flores, in front of the other motor
12
officers to embarrass Flores and to continue to get him
13
in trouble.
14
station.
15
okay, we got to go out there right now.
16
want him to commit suicide.
17
Because what happens is Ritz is at the
Ast and he are talking, and Ritz says, yeah,

Yeah, we don't
Let's do it.
Now, at no point in time do they really have a
18
formulated plan on how they're going to make this arrest
19
by a uniformed officer that's got a weapon that is --
20
has some knowledge about what might be coming on and has
21
already said I'm going to shoot myself conditionally if
22
they're going to arrest me.
23
me, I'm not going to jail.
24
But he also, in that previous conversation with the
25
girl, remember, he said, "I'll be there for you.
"If they're going to arrest

I'm going to shoot myself."
We'll
Page: 51
talk about it tomorrow.
was not an immediacy of shooting himself right then and
there.
him being arrested.
I'll take care of you."
So it
It was only upon the -- the threat was only upon
Irrespective of that, Ast formulates a plan.
We're going to make the arrest right now.
at the station 'cause he was the one that was giving all
this information to everybody from Van Meel.
hey, you're going to go out there and make the arrest.
10
Ast says,
Ruiz, who will be testifying probably tomorrow,
11
is going to say, wait a minute.
12
It's not my shift.
13
about this investigation going on.
14
there, and it's going to go bad.
15
red flags.
16
And he refuses, basically.
17
18
Ruiz is there
I'm not in uniform.
He's already had some knowledge

You send me out
There's all kinds of
There's no way I'm going to go out there.
Ast agrees, yeah, you're not the right guy to

send out there.
19
And then, this one I think will shake us all.
20
It did me when I read it.
21
it.
22
there and arrest this guy, what's going to happen if he
23
breaks leather and pulls a gun?
24
25
It shook Ruiz when he heard
He says -- Ruiz says to Ast, well, if we go out
Ast replied twice, "Just kill him.
Just
fucking kill him."
Page: 52
You're going to hear that from Ruiz.
the guy that he's trying to save the life of.
3
4
Ruiz goes, whoa.
This is about 12:30, quarter
to 1:00 on the 28th of January, early morning hours.
Ast agrees, you're not going to go.
red flags.
uniformed guys out there.
8
9
I hear what you're saying.
11
far away.
12
experienced.
13
there and make the arrest.
Let's get them in here.
They show up.
Well, first they tell Chris
Wait a minute.
This guy's got a gun.
And you'll hear from Nartatez, probably

Wednesday, maybe Thursday.
20
kinds of red flags.
21
to make this arrest now?
24
25
What's
the rush?
19
23
They'll go out
Nartatez, hey, you got to go out and make the arrest.
16
22
Norling wasn't that
They're both in uniform, both sergeants, both
14
18
Let's get some
Nartatez and Sergeant Norling, they're on duty.

Nartatez was there at the station.
17
Too many
Nartatez and Lieutenant, or rather Sergeant
10
15
This is
He's going to say, I saw all
What are we doing going out there

What's the rush?
He says, the guy's going to commit suicide.

got to go out there now.
We
Let's do it.
He says, by the way, you know, I'm his cousin.

I'm his second cousin.
This is Nartatez saying, I'm his

Page: 53
second cousin.
2
3
Go out there.
We're going to make the arrest.
We'll bring Norling in here too.
Norling is called from the field.
He comes in.
He never really exits his car.
the police station back lot.
and says, hey, we're going to go out and arrest
Covarrubias out in the field at a DUI checkpoint.
He brings his car into

And Ast goes out to him
Oh, you got to be kidding me.
10
He goes, no, he's going to commit suicide.
11
knows a little bit about what's going on.
12
tell you that we need to go right now.
He
All I can
13
Well, what's the rush?
14
Now, Nartatez is there too, and they're both
15
seeing red flags all over the place.
16
We've got to go now.
I'm going to follow you
17
in the lieutenant's car with Ruiz.
18
behind you, about a block-and-a-half behind you.
19
We'll be right
Norling goes, wait a minute.
This is -- the
20
guy has got a weapon.
21
out there, has some idea of what this investigation
22
entails.
25
The guy is
It's a horrible plan.
23
24
He knows our tactics.
We're going to go right now.
Get in the car.
Let's go.
Well, he's a lieutenant.
They're only
Page: 54
sergeants.
They start to exit.
They leave the actual lot.
They get to the front portion where the street -- where
the driveway leads to the street on foot, and Norling,
who is driving the car, goes, I got to talk to him
again.
the front window of Ast, who is driving the white
lieutenant car, and says, for the record, I just got to
say again, this is a bad idea.
He gets out of the car, walks around, goes to
This is murder.
This is
10
murderous.
This is something that we just cannot do
11
right now.
What's the rush?
12
upon everything else I've said, Covarrubias is out there
13
with seven, eight other officers that know him.
14
go out there and make an arrest and there's a struggle
15
of some kind, those other guys are not going to know who
16
the good guy or who the bad guy is.
17
complete confusion.
And he says, in addition,
If we
There's going to be
18
Just go.
19
But what he does do, Ast does do, is he calls
20
21
We're going now.
Flores.
Now, before I get to Flores, we have some more
22
misstatements, less than candid statements by Mr. Ast
23
during his interview and investigation, as I think
24
you'll read in the summary and, more importantly, you're
25
going to hear from witnesses.
You're going to hear from

Page: 55
Ruiz, Nartatez, and Norling.
them that they continually tried to convey their
concerns to Ast.
Ast claims in his interview there weren't any
concerns.
something.
You're going to hear from
I never heard anything.
I wish they had said
And I'm going to read to you just one section
out of about seven, and this has to do with Norling,
Mark Norling.
10
But you're going to hear the actual
testimony.
11
12
MR. GONZALES:
13
14
MR. GONZALES:
15
How do you spell that?
N-o-r-l-i-n-g, Norling.
Thank you.
And this is the question.
"Do you remember contacting Norling after
16
this and discussing with him about a
17
discrepancy, this being a five-man response
18
team instead of two?"
19
We'll talk about the five-man team in a couple
20
of minutes.
21
"Dan Ast:
22
"Investigator:
23
discussion about?"
Yes."
24
"Ast:
25
"Investigator:
Okay.
What was that
Just that."
That you had heard that he

Page: 56
thought -- that he wasn't aware of it or
something?"
"Ast:
conversation.
because he made a comment.
when they were doing the FBI debriefing --"
No, I think that came up in our

No, I take it back.
"Investigator:
"Dan Ast:
It's
He made a comment
Yeah, uh-huh."
-- that 'I thought this was'"
-- and he's referring now to Norling -- "'that
10
I thought this was just a really fucked up
11
plan,' and that -- that hurt because I would
12
have liked Mark (Norling) to have shared that
13
with me, and I know that he says he did."
14
"Investigator:
15
did not at that time?"
16
"Ast:
And you're saying that he
No, we didn't.
Mark and I didn't
17
have discussions like that."
18
You're going to hear discussions like that that
19
are continuous from the time that they were first told
20
to go out and do this under these ridiculous
21
circumstances until the time that they actually go to
22
the location.
23
We're at the point in time -- that's another
24
item I might add that Chief Martin read and considered
25
when he made his determination to terminate Dan Ast,
Page: 57
whether or not he could be truthful.
Now, Ast was finally convinced to get ahold of
Flores.
station before they leave in the cars, Ritz says, "Tell
Flores we're coming."
you're going to hear this from Ritz when he testifies.
He tells Ast.
8
9
10
Just before they left, this is still at the
He says it two times.
And again,
Well, Ast claims in his interview statement,

you know, I never got credit for thinking about telling
Flores.
It was my idea.
11
We'll read that one to you down the line.
12
It was Ritz that had said and told him to do
13
it, and number two, when Norling goes over to the car,
14
he says, hey, you got to tell Flores about what's going
15
on.
16
Now remember, they're now driving down to the
17
location where the DUI checkpoint is.
18
going to take place with two sergeants that are going
19
back and forth with each other, "What are we doing?"
20
And you're going to hear them say, "I can't believe
21
we're doing this," on the drive over there.
22
three minutes is all that it was.
23
The arrest is
Two to
And their plan was not really a plan.
They're
24
just going to try to walk up on this guy and just try to
25
grab him or talk him out of what he was going to do.
Page: 58
They really didn't have any other plan because there was
no plan set in motion by the leader of the pack,
Lieutenant Dan Ast.
and figure it out.
They were just told to go out there
But they, according to Dan Ast, they were --
they were experienced sergeants.
You're going to read that in the interview.
8
9
They knew what to do.
The phone call from Ast to Flores is about a

couple of minutes, five, eight minutes after 1:00 a.m.
10
in the morning.
11
it's probably closer to 1:13 is when they actually go
12
out there 'cause it's only a three-minute drive.
13
Ast calls Flores.
14
Covarrubias out there.
15
close to him.
The shooting takes place at 1:16.
So
Dan
Hey, we're going to arrest

Keep an eye on him.
And stay
16
What?
17
Yeah, he's involved in a 288, which is child
What are you talking about?
18
molestation and/or child -- inappropriate action with a
19
child.
20
So we're going to be there.
Click.
You're going to hear from Flores.
He'll be
21
here tomorrow.
22
you what I was told.
23
going to be an arrest of one of my guys out there.
24
didn't have any idea.
25
stay kind of close to him.
And Flores is going to say, I'll tell

I was in shock that there was
I was told to keep an eye on him,

I didn't know how I was
Page: 59
going to do this.
Half of the stuff was already in the trailer.
to find out where he is.
We're taking apart this checkpoint.
So he sees him in the trailer.
So I got
He calls back
Ast, and he says, "He's in the trailer," words to that
effect.
7
8
They're still not there yet.
Another minute,
minute-and-a-half goes by.
Do you have a question?
10
11
MR. GONZALES:
No, I'm fine.
By then, Covarrubias has left
12
the trailer, is starting to walk over to where the
13
motorcycles are parked with the group of other guys, and
14
they're all standing there.
15
So when Nartatez and Norling, who was in the
16
first car, show up, he's not in the trailer.
17
to continue on around.
18
the trailer was to where they ended up.
19
group.
20
they start to walk.
21
They have
It's about a block from where
They see where covarrubias is.
They see the

They exit, and
Ast and Ruiz are still in the following car,
22
the lieutenant's car.
23
listen, Lieutenant, this is the white Crown Royal.
24
Everybody knows this car.
25
everything else out there.
Ruiz is saying to Ast, hey,
It's obvious, especially with

You never go to these.
Page: 60
Lieutenants don't ever go to these checkpoints.
talk about a red flag.
Hang back here.
Let's
Wait back here.
In the interview with Ast, when asked about
him, he says, you know, Ruiz, good cop, good guy.
we were going out there, he says, wait.
up on me.
When
He was freezing
He froze.
You're going to hear from Ruiz, and he's going
to testify, I never froze.
thought that car was going to be so obvious.
I told him to wait 'cause I

It was
10
going to give everything away.
11
might have had was going to be given away by him driving
12
there.
Any little surprise they
13
That's why told him to slow down.

I forgot to mention, we're talking about
14
inconsistencies and misstatements and being less than
15
candid.
16
going to testify that, as I mentioned a moment ago, as
17
he was driving out of the driveway, he parked the car,
18
stopped the car, got out and walked around to Ast and
19
gave another red flag, said the same thing he said
20
before.
21
You're going to hear from Norling where he's
He doesn't have really a response from Ast.

But in the investigation, you're going to hear
22
that when interviewer asked Ast, "Well, wasn't there
23
another time where there were all these concerns given
24
to you?"
25
And you're going to hear that he says, "I don't
Page: 61
remember any concerns.
were some tactical concerns at first, but those tactical
concerns were taken care of."
car and not being in uniform.
No one gave any concerns.
There
That's about the white
Well, what about when Norling stops and comes
around and tells you out there before you get into the
street?
8
9
10
Oh wait a minute.
As I remember it, I yelled
at him and had him stop, and I went over to his car and
asked him some questions.
11
And the investigator goes, wait a minute.
12
You're telling me that your memory is that you went over
13
there?
14
of you.
How would he have known to stop?
He's in front
15
"Oh, I yelled.
16
I invite this hearing officer to listen to some
I yelled at him."
17
of the audio-taped interview of Ast.
18
extensive.
19
It's 500 pages and typewritten.
20
a feel of the demeanor, the wiggling, the evasiveness of
21
that interview by Ast to the investigator, which, I
22
might add, Chief Martin listened to, every minute of it
23
to help make his determination as to terminate Dan Ast.
24
25
I invite -- it's
I've listened to it all twice.
It's long.
But you're going to get
We're at the point in time you're at the

location now.
We have the two sergeants who have exited
Page: 62
their car.
with another group.
well.
of Norling, jumps on him, but before he can do so, you
see that Covarrubias is moving back away, and he's able
to unholster his gun.
they go to the ground together.
thank God nobody was hit with that one round.
where it went.
They're walking up to where Covarrubias is

Flores is in that general area as
Immediately, Nartatez, who happens to be in front
10
As Nartatez grabs hold of him,
They're on the ground.
One round goes off, and
They're struggling.
11
Norling by now is up there.
12
location.
13
on the ground, with Nartatez on top.
14
struggling.
15
going on here?"
16
No idea
He has run up to the
The gun is in the left hand of Covarrubias,

They're
All the other officers are going, "What's
Talk about true irony of life.
Covarrubias's
17
best friend, the man who is his best man at his wedding
18
some weeks earlier, Matt Kline, sees the struggle.
19
hears Nartatez saying, "Help me, help me.
20
gun."
21
left hand of Covarrubias on the ground.
22
and puts three rounds in his best friend's back of his
23
head, or the back of the neck, killing him.
24
25
They see this struggle.
What led up to it?
He
He's got a
They see the gun in the

He runs over
Decisions by Dan Ast.
Decisions that were motivated by jealousy and greed.
He
Page: 63
wanted that plum position, and that's what happened that
night.
During the investigation, the interview that
was conducted by the investigator, asks Dan Ast, "What
would you normally do in a situation where you have a
civilian that has a gun who says, 'I'm going to commit
suicide'?"
8
9
All the interviewees that are police officers

said, well, of course, you isolate, you contain, and you
10
bring a negotiator out there to try to talk him down.
11
But the last thing you want to do in the world is
12
approach, for your own safety or the safety of a third
13
person.
14
that night because he wanted to make that arrest out
15
there in front of Flores before they all broke.
16
they broke up that checkpoint, he wanted to make darn
17
sure that Flores saw an arrest of one of his motor guys
18
that resulted in the tragic death of Covarrubias.
19
Precisely the opposite of what Ast had them do
In the investigation, the investigator says,
20
well, wait a minute now.
21
there?"
22
23
24
25
Before
No, no, no, no.
You had a two-man team go out
I had a five-man team go out
there.
Oh, really?
Who were the five guys?
it was Norling and Nartatez.
We know
Who are the others?

Page: 64
1
2
Well, Ruiz and I and, of course, Flores.

That's the five guys.
Well, wait a minute now.
of an arrest team if you're about a block,
block-and-a-half away from the guys that get there
first?
Oh, it was a delay.
How can you be part
We delayed a little bit,
let them get there, and then we were going to assist.
Well, how do you assist when the struggle is
10
already going on and the arrest has already taken place,
11
or the arrest attempt is already taking place?
12
Well, that's what we do.
13
As a layperson, I've never been a cop.
14
that.
15
arrest team?
16
I read
I go, my gosh, how can you consider that to be an
You're going to hear from all four of those
17
other individuals, Flores, Nartatez, Norling, Ruiz.
18
When they were asked about this five-man arrest team,
19
they go, what?
20
There was two of us.
21
He didn't tell us a darn thing to go out there other
22
than to make the arrest before they broke down that
23
checkpoint.
24
25
There was no five-man arrest team.

And we didn't even have a plan.
I read to you about that five-man arrest team,

that little blurb.
That's where that comes from.
Page: 65
Chief Martin read about that too, another misstatement.
There was a question posed during the
investigation concerning, why didn't you, Mr. Ast, call
up Flores and do an update on the way of driving there
to see whether or not he was still at the checkpoint or
at the trailer or moved on, as in fact, he did?
going to hear the reason was he didn't have his glasses,
and the Nextel, which is the telephone, he couldn't see
-- he couldn't see the numbers on it.
10
11
blurry.
You're
His eyes were
That's why he didn't call.

Apparently, it wasn't blurry a few minutes
12
earlier when he called with Ruiz there.
13
going to corroborate, because he was in the car with
14
Ast, that at no time, as Ast will testify, that he told
15
Flores to be there.
16
17
18
And Ruiz is
Flores is going to say, I never was told to be

there for an arrest.
I was told to keep an eye on him.
Ruiz is going to say he never -- I never heard
19
that coming from Ast.
20
keep your eye on him.
All he said was stay in the area,
21
He was never part of an arrest team.
22
poor sergeants had to go out there and do it.
23
Those two
When I opened my opening statement to you, I
24
indicated that this was gross negligence, incompetence,
25
and that was one reason that he could have been
Page: 66
terminated in and of itself.
sinister motivation, what drove him.
itself would be sufficient to arrest -- or rather to
terminate.
intentional being-less-than-candid all equate to lies.
He could be terminated for that.
final one, stun gun, and I don't think -- I think you'll
hear from Martin that that in and of itself would not
have justified termination.
10
The number two was a

That in and of
His consistent fabrication, misstatement,
Then we come to the
But it corroborated the
type of leadership, the kind of man Ast was.
11
What happened on that occasion, a couple
12
officers talking back and forth.
13
overhears it, hey, I'll give you 20 bucks if you stun
14
yourself.
15
16
Ast is in the room,
The other guys say, hell, I'm not going to do

that.
17
Ast says, hey, I'll take that bet.
He gets a
18
stun gun, puts it on his leg, hits himself a couple
19
times, takes the 20 bucks, puts it in the left rear
20
pocket.
21
reason I bring that up along with the other statements I
22
made in my opening is because there was no alternative
23
other than to terminate.
You couldn't have knocked him
24
down a couple of grades.
You couldn't have given him a
25
month off.
That's the kind of guy Dan Ast is.
And the
You couldn't have retrained this guy.
This
Page: 67
guy was sinister.
the very beginning of the tenure of Chief Martin, he
says, "I catch you lying, you're terminated."
This guy was willing to lie.
I want to thank you for your time.
And at
Thank you for your
statement.
Now, we're going to take a brief recess.
try to keep it no more than 10 minutes, and then I
believe we should definitely stay late enough to
10
complete the opening statement of the appellant.
11
we'll be off the record.
12
(Recess taken.)
13
Let's
14
record.
15
opening statement?
16
So
Let's go back on the
And Mr. Miller, would you like to make an
MR. MILLER:
I would.
17
18
19
20
OPENING STATEMENT
BY MR. MILLER:
May it please The Hearing Officer, Counsel, as
21
I mentioned, my name is Jon Miller, and I represent
22
former Lieutenant Dan Ast in this matter.
23
got done listening to the city's opening statement, and
24
I would posit to you that what this case is about is
25
fact versus fiction.
And we just
It's going to be your job as a
Page: 68
hearing officer to figure out what the facts are, and I
can tell you that everything that you will hear from Dan
Ast throughout this opening statement, in terms of what
we will prove, and what this case will show, are going
to be the facts.
And what you just heard from the city
is the fiction.
It's the after-acquired created theory
of why they did what they did to justify the termination
of Mr. Ast, who was a 23-year lieutenant veteran with
the City of Santa Maria Police Department, with an
10
exemplary career.
11
discipline.
12
chiefs throughout his career, and not one of them ever
13
saw just cause to discipline him.
14
opportunity to discipline him, what we get in this case
15
is termination.
16
What does that mean?
No history of
Mr. Ast had served under four different
And so at the first
And we just heard the whole story about how the
17
city gets to that decision, how they justify it.
18
think the facts will reveal that it had absolutely
19
nothing to do with his role in the shooting or the stun
20
gun.
21
wouldn't have been enough to terminate.
22
going to find out that it didn't go down like the city
23
said; that it was a training exercise with a bunch of
24
gentlemen sitting there talking about what a stun gun
25
might do, and the lieutenant walks in the room and says
But I
As they already acknowledged, the stun gun itself
And you're
Page: 69
this is what it does, this is why you shouldn't use it
in certain circumstances.
exercise, not how they worded that it went down.
He did it as a training
The Covarrubias shooting, you're going to
realize that his role in that shooting was a very minor
one at best.
Covarrubias's illegal acts in a time that he could have
prevented this.
Covarrubias, and he didn't pull the trigger.
He didn't have prior knowledge of
He didn't make the plan to arrest

All the
10
things that resulted in this incident Dan Ast did not
11
do.
12
Covarrubias's illegal activities before the shooting,
13
they could have acted on them.
14
city.
15
no less than six individuals who either knew or were
16
highly suspicious that Albert Covarrubias was having an
17
unlawful relationship with a minor, and they failed to
18
act on that, and they failed to report that.
19
And the individuals who had greater knowledge of
They still work for the
In fact, as we sit here today, the city employs
Why is that significant?
Because we all know
20
the police officers are mandated reporters under the
21
law; that they have an absolute statutory obligation
22
under the penal code -- it's a crime if they don't
23
report it -- to investigate it if they even have a
24
reasonable suspicion.
25
investigations in this case are going to show that they
And the independent
Page: 70
either knew or were highly suspicious, so they had more
than enough information to go investigate that there was
a rape of a minor.
what it is, because that's what the law provides.
And
yet, all of those individuals have been shielded.
In
fact, the first time that anyone has learned about that
detail in a public setting is here today.
8
9
And that's what we need to call it,
It's been shielded not only by the prior chief,

but also by Chief Martin.
So when we talk about what
10
Chief Martin is doing and whether or not he knows
11
certain things and whether or not he's acting
12
inappropriately, remember that he has a mandatory
13
obligation to make sure the officers that he knows who
14
break the law are referred to the district attorney's
15
office for prosecution.
16
has ever been done in this case despite six officers
17
knowing that a minor has been raped, who were highly
18
suspicious of an appropriate relationship.
19
There is no evidence that that
Why are we here then?
What is this case really
20
about?
21
at least not Dan Ast's role in it, and it's not about a
22
stun gun incident upon which he wouldn't have otherwise
23
been terminated.
24
beforehand, Dan Ast and these two other lieutenants, so
25
you have three of the four main lieutenants in the city,
Because it's not about the Covarrubias shooting,
It's about this:
It's about 12 days
Page: 71
coming forward and saying, "Enough.
conduct occurring here among our officers.
stop it."
they had said it over and over again ever since then, up
until the time that Lieutenant Ast was terminated.
We have illegal
We need to
And they didn't just say it on January 12th;
What kind of things did they complain about?
If we look at the top, inappropriate sexual misconduct.
You were shown only a portion of the record by the
attorney for the city.
You're going to find out when
10
the other totality of the whistle-blower complaints come
11
in, and they all went in on the same day all together
12
across the street, that had to a lot to do with sexual
13
misconduct.
14
city manager, Alicia Lara, number two in charge of the
15
city, and told her explicitly what kind of inappropriate
16
sexual misconduct was occurring, including failing to
17
discipline an officer for emailing unsolicited pictures
18
of his penis to a woman, in violation of the penal code,
19
failing to discipline an officer who was caught by the
20
Sheriff's Department receiving a blow job in public from
21
a woman who was not his wife, violation of the penal
22
code, not investigated, not prosecuted, not under the
23
prior Chief Macagni, not under this chief, Chief Martin.
24
And you're going to find he makes jokes about that.
25
being Chief Martin, thinks it's funny that there may be
And, in fact, Mr. Ast went to the deputy
He,
Page: 72
an officer out there getting a blow job in the car from
somebody other than his wife.
culture that continues to exist here in the City of
Santa Maria.
That's the kind of
What else did they whistle-blow about?
working conditions.
money is nothing more than a farce.
8
9
Unsafe
This whole idea that this is about
Excessive overtime.
Too many officers working
too much overtime complained about it in the traffic
10
division where the majority of the overtime was going
11
on.
12
13
The fatigue factor, the 16-hour fatigue factor

that was going on.
14
15
The chief issuing concealed weapon permits to

unqualified individuals, that was happening in the city.
16
The chief allowing an officer to carry and
17
discharge a weapon while intoxicated, that was happening
18
in the city.
19
The chief hiring and maintaining reserve
20
officers who failed to meet state standards, allowing
21
them to possess automatic weapons, that was happening in
22
the city.
23
These will be the things that you'll hear from
24
multiple witnesses that these three lieutenants
25
complained about on January 16, 2012.
Page: 73
What else did they complain about?
The failure
to investigate and report illegal activity; that with
respect to each of the violations above, when these
complaints were tried to be raised informally by these
lieutenants before they whistle-blew, the chief at the
time refused to investigate them.
lieutenants tried to raise these complaints again to the
new chief, he continued that refusal.
Why is that important?
When these
What did that cause the
10
city to do here?
11
inappropriate sexual misconduct, we know that's what
12
Covarrubias engaged in.
13
sexual misconduct.
14
allowed that to exist, and low and behold, it happened
15
and resulted in the rape of a minor.
16
Because when we talk about
He engaged in inappropriate
So you had an environment that
What contributed to the shooting?
Unsafe
17
working conditions.
18
investigation, Rico Flores, the one who leaked the
19
information, one of the main persons that is culpable
20
here, he was in his 18th hour of work.
21
fired the fatal shot, he was on his 19th hour of work.
22
He didn't even know he just shot his best friend.
23
That's how fatigued he was.
24
lieutenants complained about 12 days before the
25
shooting.
The officer who compromised the
The officer who
These are the things these
Page: 74
Why wasn't the shooting prevented?
Failure to
investigate and report illegal activity.
the six officers in Covarrubias's traffic department
either knew or were highly suspicious that an
inappropriate relationship was occurring, and they
failed to report it.
were the three categories of things that these three
lieutenants complained about, and then 12 days later,
the city is dealing with this incident, causes the city
This is where
The tie-in, the fact that these
10
to say, we have a problem.
11
across the street 12 days earlier and told us about the
12
impropriety of many of these practices.
13
facing public scrutiny because of this shooting.
14
going happen if this comes out from these lieutenants?
15
What is going to happen here to the city?
16
going to look in this instance?
17
18
19
Three lieutenants just came
Here we are now

What's
How are we
And here is how we know it's a problem.
Start
with the timeline.

January 16th, 2012, the whistle-blower report
20
to Alicia Lara, number two in charge of the city.
21
report was against the chief at the time, Chief Macagni,
22
for making and allowing all this illegal conduct to
23
occur in the city.
24
will show the chief knew.
25
whistle-blower compliant that these three individuals
The
That very same day, the testimony
He knew about the
Page: 75
had just filed earlier in the day.
Now, under any personnel policy, under any
harassment protection policy, the whistle-blower's
complaints should be kept confidential.
know, particularly not the subject of the
whistle-blowing action.
under oath that she told the city manager, Rick Haydon,
that she told the city attorney, Gil Trujillo, and low
and behold, Chief Macagni finds out about it.
No one should
But Alicia Lara will admit
So what
10
you have at the top of this city are three individuals
11
who then go back and tell the chief, oh, by the way,
12
three lieutenants just came over and blew the whistle
13
against you today.
14
Macagni is in Alicia Lara's office talking about the
15
whistle-blower complaints that our clients just filed.
16
And now all of a sudden Chief
So we talk about whether or not retaliation is
17
real here.
18
where the whistle-blower is present, and it happened
19
here.
20
That should never happen, not in any case
What happens as a result?
Well, again, we have
21
the Covarrubias shooting on January 28th, 2012.
22
going to come back and talk about Mr. Ast's role in that
23
in a moment, but I just want to highlight the dates so
24
you can understand what happened here.
25
And I'm
So the shooting happens out in the field for
Page: 76
the reasons that we've already discussed a little bit.
But right after that shooting, immediately after that
same night, the officers involved are put on a bus and
taken to be interviewed by the Sheriff's Department.
They're told not to talk about the incident.
that so critical?
you look at the Sheriff's office interviews that
happened on the same night as the shooting and you
compare those allegations to what happens later on in
Why is
Because you're going to find out when
10
the internal affairs investigation conducted by the
11
city, there are two very divergent stories that will
12
show themselves.
13
For example, we just heard the city's attorney
14
stand up here and say that Mr. Ast had made some
15
comments about -- to Ruiz about just go, excuse me, but,
16
"Just go fucking kill him."
17
heard that.
18
Right?
you heard that.
That sounded pretty bad.
If you look at Mr. Ruiz's Sheriff's office
19
investigation the night of the shooting, that doesn't
20
exist.
21
That's a created after-the-fact story, and you're going
22
to find that to be the case overwhelmingly so.
23
That whole story is nowhere in this document.
In all the folks that were interviewed on the
24
evening of the shooting, none of them blamed Dan Ast for
25
what transpired there, and they could not because his
Page: 77
role was extremely minor.
And what you're about to see is that all of a sudden
there is this whole notion that the protections for
these lieutenants had been removed by the chief.
are the people to blame for what happened, and go after
them.
concretely.
These
And you're going to see that here pretty
8
9
It was only after the fact.
On February 1st, 2012, there was a meeting with

the city.
At that meeting, the city attorney was
10
present.
11
police department was present.
12
was present.
13
publicly that none of the officers involved had done any
14
wrongdoing with respect to what transpired during the
15
course of trying to go out there on the shooting; that
16
at least with respect to the arrest, the attempted
17
arrest and what happened, none of the officers that were
18
involved had done anything wrong; that it was
19
Mr. Covarrubias and his bad decisions that had led him
20
to that place, not the conduct of anyone like Mr. Ast.
21
And so at least initially, there was no blame to be had
22
with respect to Mr. Ast.
23
The city manager was present.
The entire
And the chief of police
And at that meeting, it was announced very
Interestingly, the Sheriff's investigation gets
24
done.
25
just with the shooter.
That also finds that there is no fault, and not
Page: 78
1
2
3
I want to read to you the ultimate report from

March 12, 2013.
It's going to be our Exhibit AA.
"The Santa Barbara District County
Attorney announced today that in reviewing all
the information and the subsequent information,
no crimes have been committed by any members of
the Santa Maria Police Department relating to
this event, not just with respect to Mr. Kline
the shooter, but with respect to any of the
10
officers, including Mr. Ast."
11
And we heard a tremendous amount here --
12
I'm sorry.
Is that the
13
same -- is that the same investigation as the Sheriff's
14
investigation?
15
so I just want to make sure there's only one
16
investigation.
17
18
You mentioned the district attorney, and
MR. MILLER:
The district attorney reviewed the
sheriff's investigation.
19
20
MR. MILLER:
Okay.
Thank you.
So in reviewing the interviews
21
that happened close in time to the shooting, the
22
district attorney determines no one did anything wrong.
23
It's only in this hindsight internal affairs
24
investigation that there's there indication that somehow
25
now Mr. Ast has done something wrong.
Page: 79
There's also this claim about untruthfulness,
and I just have to deal with this right up front because
it's important.
Mr. Ast is being untruthful.
investigator, Mr. Klapakis, never determines that
Mr. Ast is being untruthful.
interview was it ever contended that he was being
untruthful.
The sheriffs don't ever determine that

The city's own
Nowhere in any document or
The Notice of Intended Discipline does not
10
intend to discipline him for being untruthful.
11
another after-the-fact fabrication.
12
now, when the city has to defend itself, it's going to
13
attack the accuser.
14
same road that so many have before, and so that has
15
nothing to do with anything, and you're going to find
16
that.
17
untruthful.
18
about "I'm not going to let anyone in the city work for
19
me who's untruthful," then let's talk about the six
20
individuals who either knew or were highly suspicious of
21
what was going on with Mr. Covarrubias because when they
22
went out in the Sheriff's investigation that was done on
23
January 28th, they didn't tell the sheriffs that they
24
knew or were highly suspicious that this affair had been
25
going on or the rape had been going on.
This is
For the first time
It's going to try to go down the
But, interestingly, they did find others to be

So if you hold Chief Martin to his standard
None of that
Page: 80
was disclosed.
was only upon the internal affairs investigation that
was done in the city when the Explorer Scouts came
forward, whose veracity could not be questioned, and
said, "Everyone in traffic was aware of this
inappropriate relationship." So the other Explorer
Scouts who were interviewed in the internal affairs
investigation said you couldn't have been one of the
police officers in traffic and not been aware of this
They concealed all of that.
10
inappropriate relationship.
11
home in his car at 1:30 in the morning.
12
In fact, it
This officer was taking her
There was all this discussion about what was
13
transpiring here.
14
officers finally start to tell the truth.
15
officers finally start to say, "Yeah, we did know."
16
So on that basis, some of the
We had all the red flags.
Some of the
Red flags weren't
17
with the investigation or with Dan Ast.
18
were with what was going on with Covarrubias beforehand.
19
And that became very clear at that point in time, and
20
then some of the officers continued to not tell the
21
truth.
22
investigation they were found to be untruthful, and yet
23
they still work for the city.
24
would have been terminated for untruthfulness has no
25
bearing in reality because he was not untruthful.
The red flags
And they were found to be untruthful.
In the
So this idea that Mr. Ast
Page: 81
What happens on February 23rd, 2012?
An
officer named Jesse Garcia, who you'll hear from in this
case, gets a red-penned report from one of the
lieutenants who whistle-blew, Lieutenant Norm Come.
He's one of the three.
doesn't like that he got this negative report kicked
back to him.
really like it.
I'm not really happy.
10
And he's irritated about it.
It was a report about a felony.

He goes to the supervisor.
He
He didn't
He says,
I got this red-penned report
kicked back.
11
He said, well, it's clearly deficient.
12
He said, yeah, but I'm just not really all that
13
14
happy about it.

The supervisor says, well, then why don't you
15
go file complaints?
16
lieutenants have wronged you, why don't you go file some
17
complaints?
18
You know, if you feel like these
So here's what happened.
I want to be very
19
careful here.
20
chief, you have Rico Flores, who we talked about
21
previously.
22
anything about the whistle-blowers.
23
whistle-blowers on that date.
24
across the street.
25
You have the chief.
Okay.
Underneath the
Rico Flores says, I can't do

He knows their
He said, you've got to go
Why don't you go file complaints?
And so what he does is Flores tells an
Page: 82
individual named Ronnie Murillo to get on his bike while
he's on work.
This is going to be unbelievable.
hear the testimony, but I already know it.
to come in.
You have to
It's going
He gets on his bike while he's on work on
taxpayer dollars, and he's told to ride to Jesse
Garcia's house and tell Jesse Garcia, you come in to
work tomorrow, and you file your complaints against
10
these lieutenants.
11
complaints you have.
12
You come in and file whatever
The next day, he comes back in to Alicia Lara,
13
and he files 25 different allegations against the
14
lieutenants who blew the whistle.
15
there's all these promulgated complaints.
16
So all of a sudden,
You sit there and say, okay, that just sounds
17
-- too much.
18
Topham investigation, we don't have the investigative
19
file.
20
occurred here in this case.
Here's the thing, though.
We have the finding.
21
The finding was retaliation
Dan Ast gets a letter, and you'll see it in
22
evidence, he was retaliated against.
23
happened.
24
25
In the Bart
Okay.
This
This actually happened here in the city.

You know, same with the other lieutenants who
whistle-blew.
They were retaliated against here in this
Page: 83
case.
And you're going to see it.
March 6th --
When you were
explaining about the Garcia matter --
MR. MILLER:
Sure.
chief to the lieutenants.
there, the commanders?
I'm sorry.
MR. MILLER:
-- you went from the
Isn't there another layer in
The way the command went down to
10
go tell Garcia to file these complaints, it went chief
11
to Flores, Flores to Ronnie Murillo, who was one of the
12
traffic officers or the bike officers, over to Jesse
13
Garcia's house, who was also a familial relationship.
14
He and Murillo are related.
15
16
So you are saying that a
layer was skipped in the chain of command?
17
MR. MILLER:
18
Yes.
I just wanted to make
19
sure I understood.
20
Go ahead.
21
MR. MILLER:
22
Well, actually, Flores is a lieutenant too.
23
24
25
No problem.
Thank you.
Right, but the commander
level was eliminated from your presentation.

MR. MILLER:
You're right, and I think that's
Page: 84
correct.
MR. MILLER:
Okay.
The city hires an investigator to
investigate Garcia's complaints.
makes the complaints on February 25th.
of, you know, two weeks, the city's already
investigating Garcia's complaints.
any investigation on the Covarrubias matter.
the first investigations only start to happen on March
Note the timing.
He
Within a matter
They've yet to start

In fact,
10
17th, 2012.
11
complaints against the lieutenants who blew the whistle.
12
They wait to start investigating the complaints on the
13
Covarrubias shooting.
So they race to investigate these
14
From the time Garcia comes forward with his
15
complaints, until May 21st of 2012, ultimately eight
16
internal affairs investigations get generated against
17
these three lieutenants.
18
Eight of them.
Now, you have to remember, prior to
19
whistle-blowing, zero.
20
investigations that had been generated against them.
21
After whistle-blowing, eight internal affairs
22
investigations were generated against them.
23
talking about three lieutenants that have almost 75
24
years of law enforcement experience between them, and
25
very, very good records.
They had zero internal affairs
You're
And all of a sudden, they have

Page: 85
eight internal affairs investigations generated against
them?
It doesn't add up.

They go back to the city on May 21st, 2012, and
they whistle-blow again.
retaliated against.
officer Jesse Garcia's side and thanking him for coming
forward, congratulating him for coming forward, shaking
his hand for basically having brought these complaints
out against us.
We understand the chief is taking
This is retaliation of the highest
10
order.
11
number two in charge.
12
They say, we are being
This complaint is made to Alicia Lara, again,
Two days later, two days later Jesse Garcia
13
comes forward himself to Alicia Lara with a memo, and
14
this memorandum is going to be put into evidence, where
15
he says Chief Macagni was taking him behind the building
16
and giving him shiny gold coins and pats on the back for
17
his complaints against these lieutenants.
18
later.
19
from Ms. Lara as to why she didn't take more corrective
20
or protective action against or for these lieutenants.
21
And, in fact, what you're going to find, which is going
22
to be most interesting, is that this memorandum where
23
Jesse Garcia says the chief was doing this conduct, it's
24
never provided to the investigator who did the
25
Covarrubias shooting, never provided to him, never
Two days
And yet there's going to be a lapse in memory
Page: 86
provided to the investigator who did the stun gun
shooting over the stun gun incident related to Jesse
Garcia's complaints, never provided it to him.
kept confidential this memorandum from everyone who
could have utilized it to find that, in fact, these
individuals were getting retaliated against.
Mr. Topham, who was doing a retaliation investigation,
he never got that memo.
later where they admit that the chief is giving him
The city
Even
How do you keep a memo two days
10
shiny gold coins and pats him on the back for his
11
complaints against these guys?
12
from the investigator doing the retaliation
13
investigation?
14
How do you keep that
On June 19th, 2012, the DA issues its initial
15
report.
16
But it goes in line and verse about what transpired
17
there.
18
once you go forward and try to make your decisions
19
because you're going to realize that, again, Mr. Ast's
20
involvement in the shooting was very minor.
21
That's the one that's relative to the shooter.
I think it's a very interesting read for you
On June 24th, 2012, Garcia lodges more
22
complaints.
23
and bring complaints against these lieutenants.
24
almost never-ending.
25
course here.
He's still being prompted to come forward

It's
You'll see that throughout the
Page: 87
In August of 2012, there's this, quote,
changing of the chiefs.
think Lieutenant Ast and the other lieutenants who
you'll hear from, they did hope that the city was
getting better leadership, management, and things would
change.
here they did not.
realize that what happened here is that the highest
levels, the individuals within city management who were
10
tasked with making these personnel decisions, were very
11
angry at these lieutenants for having whistle-blown,
12
very angry at the fact that Chief Macagni -- they had to
13
let him go.
14
I want to make very clear right here is they did not let
15
-- the city did not let Chief Macagni go for a role in
16
the Covarrubias shooting.
17
will be such that Chief Macagni was shown the door
18
because of the retaliation complaints by Mr. Ast and the
19
other two lieutenants.
20
real, and it resulted in the city being forced to get
21
rid of somebody they liked.
22
They liked what he did.
23
department even though it was not in compliance with the
24
law.
25
They were irritated that they had to get rid of this
And again, that's right.
But I think you're going to see very quickly

In fact, I think you're going to
They didn't let Chief Macagni -- one thing
The testimony of Alicia Lara
So this retaliation is very
They liked Chief Macagni.
They liked how he ran the
They felt like that worked here in Santa Maria.
Page: 88
chief, and only because these individuals had come
forward with valid retaliation complaints.
So when they bring in the new chief, that chief
is just there to finish off the internal affairs
investigations that had already been started by Macagni.
I want to make clear the stun gun incident,
this stun gun IA, that happened as a result of the Jesse
Garcia complaints.
One of the reasons we're here is for the
10
complaints that were promulgated by the chief.
11
there's a retaliatory motive for having come forward on
12
this first instance on those complaints, and it's found
13
to be retaliation, that's why it's relevant.
14
relevant because that's one of the two bases that this
15
new chief acts on.
16
found to have been a retaliatory basis, going against
17
the people who whistle-blew 12 days before this
18
shooting.
19
So if
It's
It's something that's already been
December of 2012, the Covarrubias internal
20
affairs investigation is completed.
21
go by.
22
anything that came out of the Garcia investigation or
23
anything that came out the Covarrubias investigation.
24
But the retaliation continues.
25
months at that point since the finding on the Garcia IA.
Three more months
No discipline against Dan Ast for either
So there's been seven
Page: 89
It had been three months since the finding on the
Covarrubias IA.
allow an officer, who the city will now contend was
dangerous or had some dereliction of duties or criminal
negligence, none of which was ever founded by anyone
else, even the IA that was done by the city, to suggest
that you're going to allow that person to remain in a
job for three months or seven months or whatever it may
be with that kind of demeanor and temperament is absurd.
10
So to suggest that you're going to
But that's what happened here.
In fact, the
11
only reason that the chief acts the way he does is on
12
March 2nd, 2013, the chief and the city manager get a
13
letter that says stop retaliating against these guys.
14
Stop.
15
this here, stop the retaliation against the lieutenants.
16
Let's sit down and resolve this.
Short of all of
Five days later, Notice of Intent to Terminate
17
Dan Ast, five days after they get the letter telling
18
them to stop retaliating against these lieutenants, they
19
move for the first time to terminate Dan Ast for events
20
they knew about for three months and seven months, and
21
what you're going to find out is they actually knew
22
about it much longer.
23
Look at when they first knew about the
24
Covarrubias shooting, January 28th, 2012.
25
a Notice of Intent to Terminate March 7th, 2013.
They first do
That's
Page: 90
over the one-year statute of limitations by POBAR.
the city is going to have to explain why they acted the
way they did and why they waited over a year.
And
With respect to the stun gun, the chief's
Letter of Intended Discipline says they knew about the
stun gun ever since Garcia came forward on February
25th.
of limitations prohibited by POBAR for any disciplinary
action.
March 7th, 2013, again, over the one-year statute
So management knew about the two events that
10
we're here on for over a year and failed to take action
11
within that one-year time frame.
12
issue, of course, but it's still an important one for
13
the hearing officer to consider.
14
minor compared to what you see here in the evidence.
That's a procedural
But that's going to be
15
April 9th, 2013, and only after the Notice of
16
Intent to Terminate, do they ever tell Dan Ast for the
17
first time that he was retaliated against.
18
after he said, wait a minute, it's been over a year
19
since I made my complaint, you can come forward with
20
this Notice of Termination, but what about telling me
21
whether I was retaliated against?
22
way, you were.
23
against.
24
to terminate him that he was retaliated against.
25
That did happen.
And only
Oh, yeah, oh, by the

You were retaliated
So they only told him after they had intended
And on March -- excuse me, March 10th, 2013,
Page: 91
they exonerate him from eight more of the Jesse Garcia
complaints.
complaints, and what you're going find out is he was
exonerated from every last one of them except the small
issue regarding the stun gun, and that's the one that
Chief Martin digs into to try to bullet-proof his
discipline of him here.
So there's this multitude of Jesse Garcia
I would posit to you that if the shooting was
enough, it should have been enough, and it wasn't, and
10
that's why the chief had to go back and dig for other
11
things because you're going to see here in a minute his
12
role was very minor.
13
14
15
And just to finish off, the factual timeline,

on June 20, 2013, the termination becomes final.
I thought it might be helpful to the hearing
16
officer at the inception to give a little bit of an
17
overview because we've been talking about a lot of
18
people, and I like to have a visual of who those people
19
are and where they fit in.
20
This is an organizational chart for the city.
21
And you can see here that in the city manager's office
22
we have Rick Haydon and Alicia Lara right there.
23
Rick Haydon is the city manager, and Alicia Lara is
24
number two in charge.
25
resources.
And
She's also in charge of human
So the idea that she should have known what
Page: 92
the whistle-blower protections were and how to protect
these individuals, these were all things within her
charge very squarely.
go to if they had complaints like this.
5
6
And she was the one they had to
In the city attorney's office, who is above

both of these individuals here, we have Mr. Trujillo.
And then down here, we have the police
department.
thing.
Why does that matter?
Well, here is the
I heard a lot about how it was Chief Martin's
10
decision to terminate Dan Ast.
11
under the CAM, and you'll see this very clearly, to
12
terminate Mr. Ast without the buy-off from both the city
13
manager, including Ms. Lara, and Mr. Trujillo.
14
had to take that decision back up to the individuals who
15
previously knew that Mr. Ast was a whistle-blower, who
16
previously knew of his complaints against the city, and
17
they had to sign off on the discipline against him, and
18
they did.
19
exculpatory memos and other things confirmed the
20
retaliation.
21
still allowed the termination to go forward on the same
22
grounds for complaints that they knew were probably
23
brought forth based on retaliation.
24
to both of those guys.
25
He wasn't permitted
So he
They all approved it, knowing that the
And knowing the retaliation occurred, they
So, the chief goes
Now, I want to switch gears and talk a little
Page: 93
bit about the Covarrubias shooting.
about how Mr. Ast was in charge of investigations, and
he should have known about all these things and done
everything differently.
is in November of 2011, the chief makes a decision, and
there's a memorandum on this, which we'll introduce into
evidence -- I'll show you.
8
9
We've heard a lot
What the city doesn't mention
And so we have Chief Macagni up top.

see.
Let's
We have two commanders at the time, Kendall Green
10
and Craig Ritz.
11
Flores, just to acclimate you here, the three
12
lieutenants who whistle-blew right there, and then we
13
have Kim Graham.
14
stationed off at Hancock College, so she doesn't have
15
any other supervisory roles other than being at the
16
college.
17
are here in the city on active duty at the time are
18
these four right here.
19
Okay.
Okay.
And then we have Lieutenant
And now she's just a lieutenant
So really the four main lieutenants who
But in November of 2011, Chief Macagni makes a
20
decision to take the four lieutenants -- if I could just
21
go back for a minute -- you can see here, they had
22
secondary assignments.
23
investigations as well as patrol, and then we have the
24
other secondary assignments here for the other
25
lieutenants, and I'll read them off into the record.
Dan Ast was in charge of
Page: 94
Easier to see.
2
3
Is someone going to put
an organizational chart into evidence --
MR. MILLER:
Okay.
MR. MILLER:
I am.
-- at some point?
Thank you.
And so Jim Ginter was also in
charge of support services, as was Norm Come, the other
two lieutenants.
10
underneath them.
11
And so they had these other roles
And so what happens in November of 2011 is
12
these three lieutenants get taken out of these
13
positions, and Craig Ritz, right here, very important,
14
Craig Ritz oversees investigations.
15
no longer are you, Dan Ast, going to oversee the
16
day-to-day criminal investigations.
17
criminal investigation, that's going to be done by Craig
18
Ritz.
19
The chief decides
If we have a
In terms of are you still going to do internal
20
affairs investigations, yeah, you can do some of them,
21
but primarily you're going to be on patrol now.
22
longer are doing criminal investigations.
23
memo.
24
about a month-and-a-half.
25
November 2011.
You no
It's in a
So this is before the shooting by
And so he puts those individuals down here and
Page: 95
keeps them primarily on patrol, takes away their other
assignments, and makes Craig Ritz take over criminal
investigations, which he does.
So I heard a lot about what Dan Ast did on the
evening of the shooting and the day before the shooting,
but what was left out of it over and over and over again
was what Craig Ritz did.
this call, the telephone chain call reported back.
Well, they forgot to mention Craig Ritz was in the room
10
For example, you heard about
when that call came in.
11
You heard about the incident the day before
12
when they all met to talk about this for the first time.
13
They forgot to mention Craig Ritz was looped in on what
14
happened there.
15
what transpired.
16
And let's talk about very specifically
You have right here, in the criminal
17
investigations, Van Meel, okay, who gets the information
18
regarding a potential relationship or inappropriate
19
relationship here involving Covarrubias and the Explorer
20
Scout.
21
questions.
22
he's a police officer, but he doesn't know.
23
and sees Lieutenant Dan Ast, who just happened to be on
24
the watch command that night.
25
because he was on duty.
He doesn't know what to do with it.

What do I do with this?
He has
He should know,
So he goes
He went to see him
Page: 96
1
2
So he goes and sees him.

I do?
Here is what we know so far."
3
4
He says, "What should
And Dan Ast responds, says, "If you have to ask

the question, you know enough to have to report it."
So this whole idea that this is some guy who is
surreptitious, trying to go out and frame Flores, this
is all just a farce.
you know enough to ask a question about childhood abuse
or a rape of a minor, you know enough to have to report
10
This is a man who says, hey, if
it.
11
He's not the one who never reports it.
They
12
immediately go together, same day, right to Craig Ritz.
13
The two of them sit in a meeting with Craig Ritz and
14
say, here's what we got.
15
to me.
You got to know Van Meel came
16
Let's go to our commander.

He knew it.
This is a problem.
He was the only one who knew it.
17
He was the only one who did the right thing when faced
18
with a charge of a minor being abused by a police
19
officer.
20
That's absurd, frankly.
These are people that
21
we rely on to uphold the law.
22
disparage his character, make sure you get the facts
23
right, because he is the man who took off and made sure
24
this was reported timely.
25
the investigation will show that.
But when you're going to
Everyone else sat on it, and
Page: 97
At that point, Craig Ritz had jurisdiction and
authority over the entire department for how this
investigation was going to be conducted.
going to see that clearly with what the Sheriff's office
found.
the internal affairs investigators found.
Ritz is the one who comes up with the plan.
is the one who decides to take Covarrubias in the field.
Does he disagree with what the chief said to do?
10
And you're
You're going to see that clearly throughout what

And Craig
Craig Ritz
Yes,
he did.
11
The chief said, wait.
12
Craig Ritz determined that there was too many
13
exigencies.
14
who knew how to use it out in the field, who was now
15
tipped off, and we got to go get him before he goes on a
16
shooting rampage in the public.
17
decision, in hindsight, we've seen an example of what
18
happens to people who are in that capacity, in that
19
stage, and how the public gets harmed.
20
We had a guy who was suicidal with a gun
So to second-guess that
The only person that got harmed here in this
21
case is the person who was raping a minor.
22
say that's only because they went out and took him in
23
the field.
24
other best alternatives because they didn't happen.
25
this was Craig Ritz's decision on what to do, and Dan
I'm sorry to
We don't know the other answer about the
But
Page: 98
Ast, all he did, was follow orders.
said, this is what we're going to do.
get in the field, Dan Ast said okay.
When Craig Ritz

We're going to
And he was the watch commander.
He was on
duty.
that's what was going to happen, and that's what
happened.
followed orders still works for the City of Santa Maria,
everyone else.
He informed the next folks beneath him that
And you know what?
Everyone else who
Craig Ritz wasn't terminated.
Dan Ast
10
was terminated.
11
fault when he's not the head investigator of criminal
12
investigations, he didn't come up with the plan, he
13
didn't take him in the field, all of that is again just
14
hindsight, ramshackle, try-to-cover-ourselves,
15
make-him-look-like-a-bad-guy justification for what
16
they're really doing here.
17
So to suggest here that somehow he's at
How do we know?
Let me skip ahead here.
How
18
do we know?
19
Because like I said, these guys are mandated reporters
20
under the penal code.
21
code that anyone who knows or has reason to suspect that
22
there has been a victim of childhood abuse and neglect
23
has to report it.
24
have to tell the district attorney's office.
25
Come back to the stun gun timeline.
It's very clear under the penal
In the case of law enforcement, they
That has never happened here.
This district
Page: 99
attorney's office, as we sit here today, there's no
evidence that's ever gone forward, that they even know
about it.
So what happens?
The city still protects those
who violate the law.
were highly suspicious of a relationship with a minor,
they still work here.
pictures of a penis to a female, he still works here.
Officer who is getting a blow job in public, he still
Six officers who either knew or
The officer who sent unsolicited
10
works here.
11
no discipline, and he's the one who said, hey, we got to
12
report this, we got to get out in front of this and do
13
these things, he's terminated.
14
There's something about that that's inherently wrong.
15
That's what we're here to discuss in this hearing.
Officer who after 23 years of service with
That just doesn't fit.
16
As we go through the investigation, we will do
17
our best to highlight the inconsistencies we've seen in
18
the two investigations.
19
was making truthful statements.
20
I said at the start of this, that Dan's case is going to
21
be all about the facts, and the city's case is going to
22
be all about this hindsight, what if, and the
23
justification to try to get rid of him.
24
to ask that that be reversed because it's just not right
25
given what transpired here.
We will do our best to show who

I think you'll find, as
And we're going
Page: 100
Thank you.
Thank you for your
statement.
All right.
Now, is there a witness available so that we
Thank you both for your statements.
could start the city's case?
MR. GONZALES:
It is our intent to call Chief
Martin, who is about two minutes away.
one of my representatives to get him, with the hearing
10
officer's permission, we can get started in about five
11
minutes.
12
13
If I could ask
All right.
We'll be off
the record for five minutes.
14
(Discussion held off the record.)
15
16
at the request of city counsel.
17
Go ahead.
18
MR. GONZALES:
19
When we were off the record, we both agreed
20
that certain documents would come in without objection,
21
and I still want to stand by that.
22
to suggest that a number of documents that are
23
apparently going to be proposed to be admitted into
24
evidence I think are totally irrelevant.
25
precede the events involving the current chief.
However, I do want
They all
Page: 101
The litigation of Garcia, for example, I and
counsel was involved with, that has been litigated.
That has been resolved.
into.
Come; it was not Ast.
went up before a hearing officer like yourself.
from there to the city manager.
both counts.
weeks ago.
His complaints were looked
And the complaints against -- at the time it was

And that has been resolved.
It
It went
It was sustained on
Went to the city council I think a couple

It was sustained by them.
That is a
10
resolved, done, over-with event.
11
relitigate it in here I believe is, number one, res
12
judicata, although it is a different party.
13
the one that was involved in that litigation, not Ast.
14
And it's just a revamping of that which has already
15
occurred.
16
For them to try to
So I would be making objections to
17
documentations that refer to that.
18
overrules me, I have no other objection.
19
words, it's a relevance objection.
20
21
Come was
If the court
In other
Well, I think we'll have
to address it with each document --
22
MR. GONZALES:
23
Surely.
-- that comes up.
And we
24
had had a discussion earlier on the general theme of how
25
deeply into the retaliation defense, you know,
Page: 102
appellant's counsel is going to be allowed to dig, and I
think I indicated that I would like to learn more about
the case before I shut any doors.
hand, I would like to conclude the case within the time
that we set aside, so we're trying to achieve a just
result here.
document by document I think.
So we're just going to have to take it
MR. GONZALES:
10
Fair enough.
MR. MILLER:
12
(Recess taken.)
15

record.
17
18
So we'll be off
And the city is calling?

MR. GONZALES:
Yes, Chief Martin.
Chief Ralph
Martin.
19
20
Okay.
the record.
14
16
But your objection is on
the record.
11
13
But on the other
Chief, I'm going to have you sit right over

there.
21
Thank you, Chief.
22
THE WITNESS:
23
24
Chief Martin, would you raise your right hand,
25
Sure.
Go ahead.
please?
Page: 103
CHIEF RALPH MARTIN,
called as a witness by the City of Santa Maria,
having been first duly sworn, testified as
follows:
5
6
THE WITNESS:
State your name for the record, please.
THE WITNESS:
10
I do.
Thank you.
My name is Ralph Martin,
M-a-r-t-i-n.
11
12
You may proceed.
13
MR. GONZALES:
Thank you.
14
15
16
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. GONZALES:
17
What is your current occupation, please?
18
I am the chief of police for the City of Santa
19
Maria police Department.
20
21
22
And what was the date of your hire, your hire
date?
A
I was brought in August 6th of 2012 as the
23
interim, and I became the permanent chief on December
24
15th of 2012.
25
Briefly, if you will, go through your education
Page: 104
background.
I graduated from Cal State Los Angeles in 1973
at the age of 21 with my bachelor's degree.
obtained a master's degree from Pepperdine University in
1978.
Angeles County Sheriff's Department when I attended the
academy.
Was hired in the summer of 1973 by the Los
profession.
10
11
I also
And let's talk about your background in your

When did that begin?
And if you could just
go straight through it, I would appreciate it.

A
Sure.
After graduating the academy, I was
12
assigned, like most jail deputies, I was assigned to the
13
county jail for about two years, at which time I worked
14
the inmate processing area, 1973 to about 1976.
15
then transferred to a patrol station in South Los
16
Angeles, the Firestone Patrol Station, where I performed
17
patrol duties in the Watts area, Compton, East Compton,
18
West Compton.
19
also assigned as a training officer, and I was also a
20
gang investigator.
I was
During that four-and-a-half years, I was
21
What's a training officer?
22
It is an officer who is selected to train new
23
24
25
patrol officers.
Q
Can anybody do that, or is it a select group,
or how does that work?
Page: 105
Usually you have to perform at a level where
the sergeants and lieutenants and the command staff
would, you know, feel that you're a quality person to
train others.
Excuse me.
I also was transferred there after about five
Continue.
years and selected to be a department spokesperson in
1980.
I had earned my master's degree in speech and
10
public speaking at Pepperdine.
11
two-and-a-half years, 'til about 1983, I responded to
12
major events in Los Angeles County as the spokesperson
13
and press liaison.
14
And over the next
In 1983, I was promoted to the rank of sergeant
15
and was sent to the patrol station in the San Gabriel
16
Valley, Temple Patrol Station.
17
we served and provided law enforcement services for
18
approximately five cities and a large unincorporated
19
area.
20
Stalker case, and I was responsible for the patrol
21
responses to sightings of the Night Stalker.
22
A rather large station,
During that time, that was when we had the Night
I was then transferred to Downtown Los Angeles
23
where I was the aid to the patrol chief as his aid
24
adjutant as a sergeant.
25
two-and-a-half years, so I would have been a sergeant
I did that for about
Page: 106
for about eight years.
In 1990, I was promoted to the rank of
lieutenant.
the maximum security facility up in Castaic at the jail.
I was there about one year.
And the first year, 1990, I was assigned to
I was then transferred to the Antelope Valley
area, back to patrol, which was my forte, patrol and
detectives.
Palmdale/Lancaster area.
I spent about two years in the

During that time, in 1992, I
10
led a platoon all four or five nights during the riots,
11
in 1992.
12
I had 60 officers assigned to me.

I was then transferred to the Crescenta Valley
13
Sheriff's Station, which is north of Pasadena, near
14
Altadena.
15
commander at that time.
16
And I continued to be a patrol watch
I was then put in charge as the operations
17
lieutenant, so I would have been the second in command
18
behind the captain at that point.
19
In 1999, I was transferred once more back down
20
to the Sheriff's headquarters where I became a
21
lieutenant adjutant for another patrol chief.
22
January 1st of 2000, I was promoted to the rank
23
of captain and then sent back to one of the patrol
24
stations to be the patrol commander.
25
about four-and-a-half years.
I did that for
It included the cities of

Page: 107
La Canada Flintridge, where I was the contract chief of
police.
Crescenta, and a very large portion of the Angeles
National Forest because we did a lot of search and
rescues.
It also included at Altadena, Montrose, La
It was April of 20 -- or of 2004, I was
promoted to the rank of division commander and sent back
down to South Los Angeles, into the Region 2 district.
I spent five years doing that.
That would have been
10
from April of 2004 until I retired.
11
30th of 2009.
12
two-and-a-half thousand employees.
13
reporting directly to me.
14
commander who assisted me.
15
together.
16
dollars a year, which is 10 percent of the entire
17
Sheriff's Department, about two-and-a-half billion
18
dollars.
19
It would be March
That assignment, I found that I had

I had 12 captains
I also had a partner

She and I ran the division
It had annual operating budget of 220 million
During that time, I had -- was responsible for
20
overseeing and ensuring compliance with the policy and
21
procedures of the Sheriff's Department, the largest
22
Sheriff's Department in the United States.
23
responsibilities included reviewing and imposing
24
discipline, which averaged about 70 internal affairs or
25
administrative investigations per year, literally one a
Part of my
Page: 108
week.
sign the actual Letter of Intent or Disposition to
Impose, and the discipline ranged from written
reprimands to termination, so it was the entire gamut.
Part of my responsibilities was that I had to
I, along with the other division chief, I held
Skelly hearings.
civil service hearings, and ultimately, in some cases,
superior court.
to all major events.
10
I responded to the county hearings,
I was also responsible for responding
Now, this was a division that had over a
11
million residents to patrol for.
12
patrol stations, so to put that in perspective, it would
13
be like eight Santa Maria police departments and four
14
bureaus, and the bureaus were county-wide delivery
15
services.
16
investigators I had assigned throughout Los Angeles
17
county, so it was a very, very big operation.
18
And it included eight
In one of the bureaus, I had 200 gang
On top of that, we had provided services from
19
West Hollywood to Marina Del Rey, Carson, Compton,
20
Lomita, and we had provided services for law enforcement
21
like Catalina Island and Avila.
22
diverse group.
23
So it was a very
And also, in responding to all the major
24
events, my partner and I, during that 60-month period,
25
we handled 180 officer-involved shootings, and that
Page: 109
averaged one every two to two-and-a-half weeks for five
years.
testimony at executive shooting review.
department, within a 10-day period, we were required to
report to the under sheriff and others a synopsis of
what occurred in the shooting within the past 10 days.
I also was responsible for attending force review
committees; that is, when there is an excessive amount
of force used in a case, we do a review.
I was also responsible for attending and giving

In the
We're one of
10
the first departments in the country to actually do
11
those.
12
In 2007, I was selected and I traveled to
13
El Salvador with the FBI and my counterpart in the
14
Los Angeles Police Department to assist the PNC, which
15
is the Policia Nacional Civil, which is their national
16
police department, to assist them in their handling of
17
MS13 gang members, which is a massive problem because we
18
deported about 7000 gang members back to
19
El Salvador.
20
state departments.
21
attorney generals's office.
22
successful officer exchange program where we would bring
23
officers from El Salvador up to Los Angeles for 30-day
24
periods and train them.
25
outcome.
As a result of that, I worked with the

I've worked with the FBI and the
And as a result, I set up a
So it was a very positive
Page: 110
I retired in 2009, March 30th.
I did receive
the department's meritorious service medal.
received a personal letter and plaque from Robert
Mueller, who's the head of the FBI, and not for going to
El Salvador, but actually for reducing the amount of
homicides in the City of Compton and in other areas
where we put extra police personnel there.
very closely with the federal government in all areas.
I also
We worked
Following my retirement, I became a private
10
consultant and took on about five or six cases and
11
wherein I was looking at force cases that police
12
officers were involved in.
13
use-of-force expert in about six cases.
14
was just up in the Sacramento Federal Court in October,
15
in Judge English's (sic) office or courtroom, I believe,
16
up there.
17
18
19
I was retained as a
The last one
Morrison English (sic) I believe his name is.

And then I was contacted in late July by the
city manager.
Q
I'm going to stop you there for a moment.
20
up where you left off in a minute or two.
21
follow-up questions if I may.
22
Pick
Couple of
Regarding the shooting reviews, approximately
23
how many would you estimate that you were involved in
24
during your tenure with Los Angeles County Sheriff's?
25
The executive shooting reviews?
Page: 111
Yes.
75 of those.
I'm sorry?
75.
And --
My partner would have handled some of the other
7
8
ones if I couldn't make it.

Q
Right.
Right.
And as far as the force review, approximately
10
how many would you estimate you were involved with
11
those?
12
The division I helped oversee arrested 30,000
13
people every year.
14
force about 600 times, which would come to about 1.8 or
15
less than 2 percent.
16
And of those 30,000 arrests, we used
We broke force down into two different areas,
17
significant and less than significant.
18
it was significant, it usually required hospitalization
19
or some treatment by a physician.
20
to those executive force reviews when the case was more
21
egregious, and it was a committee set up by independent
22
attorneys as well as some of the commanders on the
23
department.
24
a hundred of those.
25
And that -- if
And I would respond
So I would say I probably attended at least
And what would be your job function or duties
Page: 112
1
2
on the force review?

A
What would you do?
They would ask me my opinion as to the force
severity.
starting off with basic verbal commands and hands-on,
all the way to different instruments, until the deadly
force.
We broke force down into a severity chart,
About a eight-level criteria.

During the review, if we found that there was
anything necessary, then I would order additional
investigations, and they would be conducted by the
10
11
internal affairs bureau.

Q
So you would be the individual who would
12
generate an investigation if you felt there was
13
something that needed to be looked into further.
14
that an accurate statement?
15
Is
Actually, I would do that even prior to getting
16
to the force review committee, but yes, to answer your
17
question, it would also occur during that.
18
On the shooting review, what would be your job
19
function and duties there?
20
the force review or were they pretty much the same?
Were they distinguished from
21
Well, they're actually different.
22
Okay.
23
Shooting reviews are put on by our homicide
24
bureau, who is the lead investigator.
25
almost always the senior person at all of the scenes, so
I was usually
Page: 113
therefore, I would be in the committee while the
investigation was being put on to the other executives.
And I was there to answer questions because I was
personally at the scene.
while I was at the scene, and so we would develop
additional questions and look at tactics and things
throughout the investigations.
8
9
10
11
12
And many times I had questions
And during -- what years would that force
review have encompassed?

A
Over what period of time?
Actually, from the time I was a captain in 2000
until I retired in '09, so almost 10 years.

Q
And how long have you been involved in the
13
shooting review -- I'm sorry -- the force review?
14
says force the first time?
15
16
You did force first.
17
18
Did I
Force was about 10 years.
The shooting reviews would have started in

2004, but I did attend several when I was a captain.
Q
And did you have any kind of training in that
19
regard as to how to look at a shooting review prior to
20
actually being appointed?
21
training?
22
Was there any kind of
Well, part of my training was actually the
23
tactical training that the department had developed for
24
me throughout the years, mostly when I was lieutenant
25
and captain.
But, you know, we have very strict
Page: 114
guidelines and policies and areas, you know, such as did
the officer go by themselves and did they engage in a
foot pursuit and leave the other officers there?
there would be tactical concerns as well as policy
concerns.
So
Without jumping there yet, you had an
opportunity at some point in time to review an
investigation, a shooting that took place in January
28th, 2012, Covarrubias; correct?
10
Yes, I did.
11
And did you utilize any of your background,
12
training, and experience from that which you had back at
13
the L.A. County Sheriff's Department in your review of
14
that investigation?
15
Yeah, I used all of it.
16
Let's jump now back to your training -- or
17
rather your experience with the L.A. County Sheriff's
18
Department and talk about discipline.
19
Prior to becoming a commander, were you
20
involved in any kind of involvement with discipline
21
prior to that, let's say as a captain, as a lieutenant?
22
23
24
25
Oh, usually just as a captain or a commander I
would be involved in the discipline process.

Q
Describe a little bit what that would entail,
your job function and duties.
Page: 115
Usually internal affairs investigations or
administrative investigations are conducted by
lieutenants and sometimes sergeants from the internal
affairs bureau.
investigative package together, then submit them.
then ultimately, as a captain or commander, we would
decide what the discipline would be.
at the sergeant or lieutenant level.
They would collect the facts and put an

And
It was never done
Now, if I got my facts correct from your
10
previous testimony, you did about 70 a year for about
11
five years?
12
That's correct.
13
That's 350, roughly, that you were involved
14
15
with?
A
My partner and I had 350.
We would sit
16
together, do most of them.
17
were either like egregious traffic collisions, maybe
18
reckless driving.
19
most of them were on-duty.
20
A lot of them, like I said,
Some were off-duty incidents, but
Now, during these -- after these investigations
21
were conducted and you were involved in the discipline,
22
what function would you have?
23
determination, for example, that a person should be
24
terminated versus days off versus a written reprimand?
25
Would you make any
Yes, I would be involved in that process.
Page: 116
1
2
Okay.
And did you ultimately make any
decisions in that regard?
Yes, I did.
About how many would you estimate?
Ballpark it.
Well, all the investigations I had to sign.
Okay.
So I would have been involved in all of them.
Now, I usually brought in the station captain or the
10
commander at that time, myself and the patrol chief, and
11
they would make recommendations.
12
signature had to go on every one of them.
13
But ultimately, my
Now, you indicated that you had receive an
14
award from the FBI.
15
sorry, was whom?
The director at that time, I'm
16
Robert Mueller.
17
And what was it that made you unique in
18
19
receiving that award?

A
The South L.A. area back in '06/'07 was
20
experiencing a high number of homicides.
21
directly related to a dope ripoff, and there were
22
warring gangs, predominantly African American versus
23
Hispanic, and we had sustained somewhere in the area of
24
about 90 homicides and 400 or so gunshot victims over a
25
two-year period.
It was
Page: 117
I personally went to the board of supervisors
and obtained $1,000,000, 500,000 from each supervisor.
I put together a task force of 40 officers, and we
pretty much saturated the area for about one year.
reduced the number of homicides in one year from 90 down
to 24.
We
Have you received any other awards or any type
of awards aside from that?
No.
10
Now, you indicated that during your tenure you
11
did a number of investigations.
12
many officer-involved shootings would you estimate you
13
were involved in in some capacity?
14
You mean personally?
15
Yes.
16
Were you ever -- how
I mean as either a reviewer or in some
capacity other than being a shooter yourself.
17
About 125.
18
Now, let's talk a little bit about the
19
conclusion of your time with L.A. County Sheriff's.
20
were a consultant for a period of time; is that correct?
21
Yes, I was.
22
And what types of cases was it that you
23
24
25
You
handled?
A
They were relegated to use of force.
The L.A.
port police and the L.A. city attorney hired me to help
Page: 118
them with -- there were three cases.
traffic stops where it turned into a fight.
another case that I did up in -- the one I referred to
in Sacramento Federal Court.
that we prevailed on.
actually never testified in the case.
didn't need me on the very last day.
that I was involved with for over two years.
the town of Paradise.
10
11
12
13
14
They were mostly

There was
It was a civil rights case
It was a one-week case.
But I
They actually
But it was a case
It was in
Now, you were at some point in time interviewed
by Mr. Rick Haydon; is that correct?

A
Yes, I was initially called by City Manager
Rick Haydon towards the very end of July of 2012.

Q
Now, prior to that call from Mr. Haydon, did
15
you have any contact or any knowledge of this City of
16
Santa Maria?
17
any relatives here?
18
the Sheriff's Department or the hierarchy of the city
19
itself?
20
Did you have any close friends here, have

Did you have any association with
No, I didn't know anybody on the department.
21
knew nobody in the city.
22
on a map to see exactly where the city was.
23
24
25
In fact I kind of had to look
And how was it, if you know, that Rick Haydon
made contact with you?

A
Mr. Haydon had indicated to me that he had
Page: 119
talked to a former U.S. attorney down in Los Angeles and
that my name came up in a conversation.
3
4
And that U.S. attorney, is that Mr. Michael
Gennaco?
That's correct.
Is he the individual that conducts officer
7
8
9
10
11
reviews, reviews of different agencies?

A
Yes, he does.
He has what is called the Office
the Independent Review.

Q
And he worked for L.A. County Sheriff's for a
period of time under contract as far as you know?
12
Yes.
13
And did you have any knowledge of him?
14
15
Did you
and he know each other on a personal level?

A
Yes, to a degree we did.
We used to see each
16
other at the officer-involved shooting scenes 'cause he
17
was former the U.S. attorney, and I would be obviously
18
in the review that was retained by the board of
19
supervisors.
20
would be at the scenes.
21
He or one of his six former attorneys
To your knowledge, in addition to L.A. County
22
Sheriff's, did he also have other agencies in the state
23
that he did officer-involved reviews?
24
Yes, I believe he did.
25
Now, we're at the point in time where you were
Page: 120
contacted in late July of 2012 from Mr. Haydon.
Telephonically, that first contact?
Yes, he called me on the phone.
Tell us the substance of that conversation if
you would.
He just introduced himself, said my name came
up in a conversation, that he was looking for an interim
police chief.
And it was a very brief conversation.
Told me it was the City of Santa Maria.

He said he
10
actually wanted to come and interview me.
11
this was on a Friday.
12
And I believe
And I said, well, if you're the city manager, I
13
can certainly drive up to the city and talk to you
14
there.
15
to meet with him the following Monday.
And that's what -- we made arrangements for me
16
So this is again still at the end of July 2012?
17
Yes, at July 28th, somewhere in that area.
18
And let's talk about that face-to-face meeting
19
you had with Mr. Haydon on the second meeting, the first
20
face-to-face but the second contact that you had.
21
Yeah, I drove up on a Monday morning.
I think
22
it was around August 1st or maybe, very last day in
23
July.
24
11:00 or 12:00.
25
conversation.
It was a Monday morning.
I arrived here around
We had a -- about a two-hour

It was basically an interview.
He gave
Page: 121
me a little oversight on the department and said he was
going to make a change in the department.
of my background, he wanted me to seriously consider
taking the interim job.
And because
Now, we've already heard about your background,
training, and experience.
that to him during your conversation?
Did you pretty much relate
I did.
And you've also indicated that he wanted some
10
changes, in your conversation with him, within the city.
11
Is that -- did I understand you correctly?
12
13
14
15
16
Well, he said he was going to make some changes
with the police chief.

Q
Gotcha.
And what did he say in that regard?
Was there anything in particular?

A
No, he just said that if I was available, that
17
he was going to make some changes very soon and that he
18
was going to talk to the current chief in the next few
19
days and that he would be calling me back on that
20
Wednesday.
21
22
At any point in time, did the name of a
Mr. Daniel Ast come up?
23
No.
24
A Mr. Ginter?
25
No.
Page: 122
Or a Come?
No.
Was there any indication from the city manager,
Mr. Come?
Mr. Haydon, that there were certain conditions that were
imposed upon you prior to you being retained as a
potential chief of police?
None whatsoever.
Did he ever say anything about there had been
whistle-blowing going on prior to his contact with you,
10
and that we are going to, we, the city, are going to
11
look into the whistle-blowers and retaliate or any words
12
to that effect?
13
No.
14
Was there any conditions at all that were
15
preconditions prior to you being retained as the interim
16
chief the police?
17
No.
18
What did he tell you in regards to the
19
functioning of the department?
20
there anything specific he said?
21
Do you have any -- was
It was a very brief overview.
He stated that
22
there was an officer-involved -- couple of
23
officer-involved shootings where in one instance some
24
officers were injured.
25
was killed.
In another, an on-duty officer
And he said that they did have some other
Page: 123
officer-involved shootings during -- I think it was
March through -- until I arrived, but I think there was
like four.
that that was a big significant issue here.
But based on my background, I didn't see
And had Mr. Haydon or anyone else in the
hierarchy of the city indicated to you that before they
would retain your services as an interim chief of
police, that you were required to do certain things such
as retaliate against individuals that they felt were a
10
menace to the city?
11
Absolutely not.
12
What would you have said had that been
13
14
15
16
broached?
A
You know, based on everything I just told you,
I would not have taken the job.

Q
Was there any intimation from anybody in the
17
city, prior to you starting as the interim chief of
18
police, that intimated in any way that there were
19
certain requirements of you to retaliate or treat some
20
individuals differently than the others?
21
No, absolutely unequivocally no.
22
Now, subsequent to your face-to-face, were
23
there any other interviews that you had after --
24
withdrawn.
25
Let me ask you this, first.
Did you take the

Page: 124
job?
I did.
Okay.
start?
Was that the 6th of August 2012?

Monday morning, August 6th, 8 o'clock, I was in
Mr. Haydon's office.
7
8
And after you took the job, when did you
What did you do when you got up here on August
He was the only person I had ever talked to, so
6th?
10
he introduced me to the mayor within the first hour and
11
then the other four city council persons.
12
'til about 9:30.
13
that may have come in and out of that meeting.
14
That lasted
There were other city department heads
At about 10:30, 11:00, he called one of the
15
commanders at the police station, had him come over, and
16
he introduced me to the commander and stated that I was
17
the new interim police chief.
18
I then went over across the street and I spent
19
the next several hours walking around and just
20
introducing myself to different people, and by the end
21
of the day, I had at least gotten a layout physically of
22
the -- of the police station.
23
24
25
And the very next day -Q
Let me stop you on the 6th.
I want to ask a
couple questions concerning your conversations with the
Page: 125
mayor and all of those others that you had indicated,
city council members, up until the time you went over to
the layout of the department to do a walk.
me on that?
I am.
Any of those individuals that you spoke to,
Are you with
from the mayor on down to city council members, other
individuals in the hierarchy, did any of them give you
an intimation in any way that you were to treat certain
10
individuals differently than others?
11
No.
12
Did any of those individuals make any mention
13
of a gentleman named Ast, Come, or Ginter?
14
No.
15
We're at the point in time now where you are --
16
the following day, which would be the 7th of August.
17
Correct.
18
What happens that day?
19
That was Tuesday morning, August 7th.
I wanted
20
to hold a command staff meeting.
21
I had the two commanders in there and five lieutenants.
22
That would have been Lieutenant Kim Graham, who was
23
actually assigned to the local college as the chief of
24
police.
25
Dan Ast, it was Norm Come, Jim Ginter, and Rico Flores.
I did so at 9:00 a.m.
And there was four other lieutenants.
It was
Page: 126
And I proceeded to tell them that I just wanted to bring
some stability to the department, that I understand that
there's been a lot going on, but that I was not there to
make any decisions until I found out what was going on
good in the department and what maybe needed to be
changed later.
the room and ask them if they would all want to move
forward, and they stated they did.
start.
10
However, individually, I did go around
They wanted a fresh
And each person I asked individually around the
room stated that they wanted to move forward.
11
That included Dan Ast; correct?
12
That's correct.
13
Was there any statement in that meeting or one
14
soon thereafter about something about dying of a
15
thousand paper wounds, paper cuts?
16
When I walked around on Monday morning and I
17
talked to probably 25 different officers or other
18
civilians, maybe people in the records bureau and
19
others, there was just an absolute overwhelming
20
woundedness that was going on.
21
that, "You all seem to be dying of a thousand paper cuts
22
here; that I don't know what's gone on in the past, but
23
we're going to try to move forward and get through all
24
this."
25
And I made the comment
Now, we're only on the second day.
What
Page: 127
information from whatever source was there of this
controversy or -- "there's a lot going on," I think is
the statement that you made.
on" that you knew of at that limited point in time?
What was this "lot going
Well, I started to have conversations with
different sergeants, and specifically with the
lieutenants and commanders, and I knew that -- it came
to my attention within a few days that there was a rift.
There were camps within the department that were at odds
10
with each other; that there had been a change in
11
assignments for the lieutenants because there were seven
12
lieutenants, and now there's five.
13
become the chief of police I believe in Atascadero, and
14
the other ended up going to Lompoc where he eventually
15
became the chief of police.
16
as a captain.
17
seven lieutenants.
18
terms of who was assigned to what.
19
and looking at the assignments, the spreadsheet that had
20
at least some of the collateral duties, as I call them.
21
One had left to go
But I think he went there
So there was a reduction of two of those

That there was a lot of animosity in
And I was receiving
So in one case, Lieutenant Flores appeared to
22
have a lot of duties, and in one case I noticed that
23
Lieutenant Ast had detectives and internal affairs, yet
24
he was moved back to patrol.
25
got a feel for all of the different assignments that
So I was just trying to
Page: 128
1
2
they were engaged in.

Q
Now, you had indicated that there were two
different camps, two different groupings.
sides on which side of those camps that you thought was
right or wrong?
Did you take
No.
Now, up until this point in time, up until,
let's say, the second or third day that you were there,
had you ever spoken with the prior chief, Macagni?
10
11
12
13
No, I've never had a conversation and I've
never met the man.

Q
Up until today's date have you ever had a
conversation with him?
14
No.
15
Let's talk about what changes you did make
16
after you were there.
17
you did different.
18
Please tell us what, if anything,
Well, that Tuesday, after I held the command
19
meeting, Mr. Haydon brought me over to the Police
20
Officers Association meeting that happened to be held at
21
the fire department headquarters down the street.
22
were about 60 people there.
23
officers and the sergeants had their wives with them
24
because it was a general meeting that had to do with
25
insurance and coverage and things like that, so there
There
Some of them had -- the
Page: 129
was a lot more people.
out there was a new chief and that I was going to be
there.
minutes.
for a couple of reasons.
stability to the department.
bells that had gone on in the past.
of person that wants to go forward, so I always use the
term, "Take your rearview mirror and throw it out the
And also, I think the word got
So I attended it.
I spoke for about 15 or 20
And I pretty much told them that I was here

Number one was to bring some
And I can't unring any
That I am the kind
10
window because we're not looking back."
11
a statement at that meeting that told them, I said, you
12
know, "One of the biggest things and maybe the most
13
grand thing that you will be in trouble with me is that
14
if you lie to me, I will fire you.
15
lying either during an internal affairs or in any other
16
way because our word is gold when we have to go to
17
court, and if we don't have our word, then we really
18
have nothing as peace officers."
19
And I did make
I will not tolerate
Was Dan Ast at the meeting when you said, "I
20
will fire or terminate any individual I find that's
21
lying"?
22
23
24
25
There was 60-plus people, so I don't remember
who was in the room at that time.

Q
You have no independent recollection of seeing
every -- I was going to ask you about the other 59, but
Page: 130
that's fine.
2
3
4
5
6
Okay.
Is there any indication to you that Dan
Ast wasn't there when that meeting was held?

A
Yeah, I just don't have any independent
recollection.
Q
Okay.
Were there any additional changes that you made
soon thereafter, making reference, for example, to a
union?
10
What was going on with the union at that time?

Well, I want to finish by saying after I left
11
that meeting, I came to these chambers here and was
12
introduced formally to the city council that night,
13
Tuesday, at 7:00 p.m.
14
And what happened then?
15
The next day I had kind of an unusual thing
16
happen.
17
20-plus officers because, like many cities, they simply
18
did not fill the line.
19
budget issues.
20
of officers who had been off for administrative leave.
21
And when I looked into it, simultaneously I received a
22
call from a judge over at the courthouse asking me why
23
officers were not appearing for justified subpoenas,
24
legal subpoenas.
25
that it had been a policy of the department that when an
I found out that the department was down around
People had left because of
But I also found out there were a number
When I looked into it, I found out
Page: 131
officer was involved in a shooting incident, that they
would be off on administrative leave, but that they
would not be returned to duty until the district
attorney rendered a decision, which could be six months
away.
involved in an officer-involved shooting would return to
work, pending a compulsory meeting with a psychologist,
within three days, and that they would return to work
within five days as long as they were physically able
So I changed the policy that day, and anybody
10
to.
11
back to work.
12
13
14
So that Wednesday, we returned five or six officers
Were there any other changes you made within
that first couple of weeks, of any major consequence?

A
No, because I think it would have been too
15
presumptive of me to start making major changes at that
16
point.
17
wasn't, but I did spend the next week or two attending
18
briefings at various times and just trying to get to
19
know and listen to everybody.
20
I simply didn't know what was working well, what
About how long would you estimate -- how long
21
were you there before some major changes were
22
implemented?
23
24
25
Ballpark it.
Well, I began making schedule changes in
October, I think, of the lieutenants.

Q
And describe what those changes entailed.
Page: 132
Well, one of the changes I did was there was
some contentiousness with the lieutenants about
take-home cars, and so I took all the take-home cars
away.
that time was Rico Flores, so I took his car and his
motorcycle because even though he was head of the
traffic, I wanted it to be a little more even across the
board with everybody.
I think the only person who may have had one at
I also removed the lieutenants from their 4/10
10
schedule.
11
hours, but because it was overlapping, there was not
12
consistent management oversight during a 24-hour period,
13
so I put, I believe, Lieutenant Rico Flores on the
14
graveyard shift and spread the other lieutenants out so
15
that we had 24-hour coverage.
16
coverage during these times.
17
They were working four days a week, ten
I needed management
And what I found out, there was a lot of
18
overlap.
19
told them that they did not have enough supervisors,
20
that the ratio for sergeants/supervisors to officers was
21
just a little too high.
22
in most agencies it's about 8.
23
extra $750,000 to increase the 11 sergeants up to 16,
24
which took me some time to do because we had to do
25
promotions and look internally, which we did by March of
I also went to the city council in October,
It was about 12 or 13 to 1, and

They provided me with an
Page: 133
2013, because we did a testing process and the average
person that I promoted to sergeant had almost 19 years
on.
So it was a good group to choose from.

Q
Now, in addition to making or taking all the
cars away from all the lieutenants, was there any
changes in the overtime situation?
7
8
9
10
11
Yeah, I don't allow any lieutenants to have
overtime.
Q
So if any lieutenants had that at the time, you
removed it or -A
I did.
I removed it.
No lieutenants will have
12
overtime.
13
lieutenants would be assigned overtime.
There could be some exceptions, but mostly no
14
15
progressed?
16
What other changes did you make as time
I disbanded the narcotics team.
We didn't have
17
enough people on patrol, so I took the narcotics officer
18
that I did have and assigned him to the Regional County
19
Task Force, where there's a combination of other
20
agencies in the county.
21
that is the best practices feature wherein you look at
22
all of the information that the department has provided
23
to your sergeants and lieutenants and started looking at
24
areas on how to reduce crime in specific areas.
25
assigned all of the sergeants collateral duties.
I held a CompStat meeting, and
I
No one
Page: 134
on the department had really specified collateral
duties, so I identified 40 collateral duties, and
sergeants are now -- and some of the examples would be
who do you go to when there's a problem with the car in
the fleet?
Who is the person that is really over records, and who
is the person that is looking at our crime unit, and
others?
with the military because of Vandenberg Air Force Base.
So now we have a sergeant that I go to.
10
So we even had one where I wanted a liaison
One of the other things I was able to do was
11
convince the sergeants and the lieutenants to form their
12
own union.
13
described as a conflict of interest when the officers,
14
sergeants, and lieutenants are on the same union.
15
almost every agency I know, you usually have managers
16
and others that are in a separate union besides the
17
officers.
18
lieutenants and sergeants were conducting
19
investigations, they were not only of the same union,
20
they're using the same attorneys.
21
need for it, they would be using the same attorneys for
22
their own defense.
23
and lieutenants involved in the union.
24
separately, and it's been very, very positive for the
25
department.
There was historically what can only be
In
And what I found was that when the
And if they had a
So there are now about 20 sergeants
They negotiate
Page: 135
Did you just order that or was there a vote?
Well, I held a meeting with sergeants and
lieutenants and said if you really want this department
to go forward, we cannot have this continued conflict of
interest.
they voted to form their own union.
7
8
I left the room, and they did a vote, and
Do you know if Dan Ast was a -- in the union at
that time, or do you know one way or the other?
I wouldn't know if he was in the union or not.
10
Very good.
11
12
13
Thank you.
Were there any other major changes that we

haven't discussed thus far?
A
No, I just began starting to read all of the
14
internal affairs investigations that were -- had been
15
started through that period of time, and there was about
16
25 of them.
17
were minor infractions of department policy.
18
policies I did implement was that we have been
19
successful in doing a point system like DMV does when an
20
officer is involved in a minor traffic collision.
21
Rather than go through the entire process of an internal
22
affairs investigation, most of these cases are prima
23
facie, so to go through that is expensive.
24
lot of discernment on the part of the officers, the
25
sergeants, and the lieutenants who are doing the
Some were just traffic related.
Others
One of the
It causes a
Page: 136
investigation.
minor traffic collision, I give them one point.
they're involved in something that is more egregious,
say 2500 to $5000, they get two points.
points, then I start doing some additional.
them to be responsible for their own actions.
So now, if an officer is involved in a

If
If you get four

So I want
One of the other major things I did in the city
was that because of budget cuts, we had reduced our
community base police.
And I reimplemented that, and I
10
asked one sergeant, and we assigned three officers.
11
trifurcated the city.
12
so that citizens can call them directly in their car for
13
those issues that so many people don't want to call
14
about, whether it's graffiti on the walls or a
15
prostitution problem on the streets, or people being
16
accosted.
17
was just a lot of changes that we implemented as time
18
went on.
19
We
I gave each officer cell phones
And it's worked out very, very well.
So, it
How would you describe the morale when you
20
first came onboard and you say you were here for a week
21
or so?
22
interacted with each other?
Were you able to observe how the officers
23
It was awful.
24
And by the time -- let's say -- let's use March
25
of 2013.
That gives you here about nine months -- did
Page: 137
you see any change in the morale between when you first
began and you had an opportunity to observe it and then
in March of 2013?
Yes, I did.
And I do believe that morale, you
know, improved significantly.
is because they didn't know me.
think there had to be a trust issue that had to go on.
But when they saw what I was doing and the fairness that
I was imposing, what was good for somebody was going to
10
be good for everybody, I think they began to buy off on
11
it.
12
And why it took so long

I didn't know them.
Now, you indicated that you were reviewing a
13
number of internal affairs investigations.
14
those 25, approximately, when you began the review
15
predated your arrival?
16
Yes.
17
Okay.
18
Had all of
And I know they varied as far as volume
and such.
19
You're thinking.
20
21
there.
22
Okay.
23
I do remember that one.
24
I saw you thinking there for a second.
25
There was one that happened my second day
The other 24 all --
Page: 138
Sure.
-- predated your arrival.
3
4
And I'm sure that they -- that it varied as far

as volume of documentation that you had to review.
Yes.
All right.
Significant documentation.
Let's talk about the significant
documentation that you had to review.
those would you say of the 24 that were in existence
upon your arrival?
10
That were significant?
11
Yes, that were significant.
About how many of
And then I want to
12
ask you to define significant in a minute, but how many
13
of those?
14
About five.
15
And when you say "significant," what do you
16
17
mean?
A
They were either conducted by outside
18
investigators -- three cases were conducted by outside
19
investigators that I know of.
20
combination of a lot of interviews and were very
21
voluminous in nature.
22
And others were just a
When you say voluminous, give us an idea of
23
what you're talking as far as documents, pieces of
24
paper.
25
What do you think, ball park, on those significant?
Are we talking about a hundred, a thousand?
Page: 139
They were 300 to 1800 pages.
Okay.
And describe how you would go through
it.
take some time on each of those investigations?
5
6
7
Did you have just have a cursory review, or did you
I set up an office in my house here, and I
reviewed them all at home in the privacy of my office.

Q
Let's talk about an investigation involving a
-- the shooting of Officer Covarrubias.
with that, of course?
You're familiar
10
Yes.
11
And you'd classify that as one of the
12
13
14
15
16
significant ones?
A
Probably one of the most significant cases I've
ever been in.

Q
Okay.
About how many pages or documents,
ballpark, do you think that one was involved with?
17
About 1800.
18
I'm sorry?
19
About 1800.
20
21
It was four binders, and each
binder had approximately 4- or 500 pages.

Q
When you say binder, would this (indicating) be
22
a fair statement of the approximate depth/volume of each
23
of those four volumes?
24
Yes.
25
Did you read every page?
Page: 140
Every page.
Were there any recorded interviews?
Yes.
About how many hours would you estimate?
There were between 90 and 100 hours of
interviews, and some of them I'd listen to several
times.
Did you listen to them all?
I did.
10
And some more than once?
11
Yes.
12
What was the reason that you would listen to
13
some more than others?
14
They were extremely emotional.
15
And we're talking about individuals who were
16
involved in the actual shooting or what led up to the
17
shooting?
18
Yes.
19
Now, this investigation was conducted by
20
Mr. Jeff -- pronounce that name.
21
Klapakis, K-l-a-p-a-k-i-s.
22
I've heard 18 different pronunciations, so I'm
23
24
25
not sure which to write.
Thank you.
Now, when you received that documentation,

about when did that begin?
When did you physically get

Page: 141
1
2
the conclusion of his investigation?

A
I want to also add that he was assisted by
another retired lieutenant named Gary Kitzmann,
K-i-t-z-m-a-n-n.
the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department.
received that investigation, those four volumes, at the
end of November of '12.
Thanksgiving time.
It was two retired lieutenants from

And I
I want to say it was around
Had you ever known either of those two
10
investigators prior to receipt of those finalized
11
versions of their investigation?
12
No.
13
Did you give them any kind of direction, any
14
kind of marching orders, anything at all as to how or --
15
how they should conduct their investigation?
16
No, none.
17
Did you indicate to either of them certain
18
things that should be in that investigation?
19
No.
20
When you reviewed that investigation, about how
21
long did it take you to get from Page 1 to Page 1800 and
22
all the recordings that you listened to and including
23
those that you listened to more than once?
24
25
I spent every night in December, all weekends
into January, and I finished around January 20th, 25th,
Page: 142
1
2
completing the investigation.

Q
Did anybody from the city, referring now to the
city manager, any of the city council members, any
personnel in the city at any point in time give you any
suggestions as to that investigation and what you might
do with that investigation?
No.
Anybody come to you and suggest how that -- how
9
10
you should implement any kind of discipline, if any, up

until the time that you concluded that investigation?
11
None, nobody.
12
At the conclusion of that investigation, did
13
you impose any discipline on any of the individuals that
14
were referred therein?
15
any specific discipline that was imposed.
16
to know if that occurred.
And I don't want any names or

I just want
17
Yes.
18
And how many persons, without giving names.
19
Nine.
20
Thank you.
21
Nine.
Now, I've asked this question of you earlier.
22
You used your history, your background, your training in
23
all the reviews you've done in the past in the review
24
and the conclusions that you finally came to in this
25
case; is that accurate?
Page: 143
Yes.
And how would you describe the investigation
that you reviewed, aside from emotional, which was
obvious?
Did it deviate from what you understood to be the
appropriate approach?
background, training, and experience?
8
9
Was it conducted, in your opinion, correctly?
Or was it consistent, from your
It was a complete investigation.
It included
the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's initial review of the
10
shooting.
11
review.
12
and it contained, as I stated, about 90 to 100 hours of
13
audio interviews.
14
complete investigation, and I read every bit of it.
15
16
17
18
19
It included the district attorney's office

It interviewed approximately 30 individuals,
I would state that it is a very
Now, did you take into account the district
attorney's statements, that report?

A
I read them, but the internal affairs
investigation stands on its own.

Q
Did you ever receive a summary of that
20
investigation?
21
Affairs Investigation.
It's called a Summary of the Internal
22
I did receive an administrative summary.
23
And what date did you receive that?
24
I received it actually just a few days before I
25
completed -- well, let me back up.
Ballpark.
The first time I saw

Page: 144
it was when we did an administrative review at the end
of -- sometime in February.
beginning -- first week of February, well after I had
already read the case and listened to all the
interviews.
10
And had you come to any opinions or conclusions
prior to review of that summary?
8
9
It might have been the
I completed all my reviews, and all my
decisions were made prior to me reviewing any

administrative summary.
11
And, I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.
You said
12
you did or did not utilize that summary in any of your
13
opinions or conclusions?
14
No, I don't use a summary in any of my
15
conclusions or findings.
16
because in a summary, there is -- there is not all the
17
statements that you have to read by individuals.
In a
18
summary, you're not listening to the recordings.
It's
19
basically a synopsis of an overall of what occurred.
20
And for -- what has been my practice is I read the
21
entire investigation, and then I base my decision on
22
that.
23
24
25
And the reason I don't is
And what decision did you come to specifically
as to Daniel Ast?
A
Daniel Ast engaged in what can only be
Page: 145
described as gross mismanagement of a criminal
investigation.
3
4
We're going to get into particulars on that in
a moment.
Was there any other items that you saw or came
to conclusions of after review of all that documentation
and the listening to of all those audiotapes?
8
9
That he, Dan Ast, was dishonest and lied to the
investigators; that he failed to take in any part of
10
department policy; that I believe and I will always
11
believe that he ordered people to go to the DUI
12
checkpoint because of his mistrust and absolute hatred
13
of Rico Flores because he was in charge of the traffic
14
unit; that he failed to see every red flag that was in
15
front of him; and he engaged in investigative tunnel
16
vision where he was like in a slalom, going around every
17
red flag that was put up in front of him by his
18
supervisors, by another officer, and he was hell bent on
19
going up there to make that arrest when he didn't have
20
to.
21
officer when you have so many other options.
You don't arrest an on-duty in-uniform police
22
And every day in this country, police officers
23
and deputy sheriffs are called into a watch commander's
24
office or a chief's office, and they're relieved of
25
duty.
And Albert Covarrubias did not deserve the death
Page: 146
1
2
penalty.
Q
Now, did you ever come to any opinions as to
the motivating factor as to what the end result was of
what Ast was going after Flores for?
Money.
And what led you to that belief?
Rico Flores was in charge of the traffic
Absolutely, it was about money.
bureau, and as such, he was in charge of the Office of
Traffic Safety grants.
The city accepts the grants,
10
about $300,000 a year, to conduct DUI checkpoints and
11
saturation patrol.
12
charge of traffic, and he was getting a significant
13
amount of overtime because of it.
14
him for that.
15
Rico Flores was the lieutenant in
MR. GONZALES:
And Dan Ast despised
Ms. Hearing officer, I have
16
another 45 minutes.
I know we said we were going to
17
break at 5 o'clock.
It's 10 after.
18
19
Would this be a good time to break, and I'll

pick up tomorrow morning?
20
21
Let's go off the record
to discuss our scheduling.
22
(Discussion off the record.)
23
24
25
record.
By agreement of the parties, we're going to
Page: 147
adjourn now.
2
3
It's about -- almost 5:15 p.m.
We'll be back on the record at 9:00 a.m.
And
will we be in the same location?
MR. GONZALES:
I just was informed by the city
attorney that there is another room that will
accommodate this crowd at the library, and instead of
picking up at 3:00 o'clock and moving, maybe we should
just all begin there at 9 o'clock.
9
10

suggestion.
I think that's a good
And what is the address of the library?
11
MR. GONZALES:
Let me ask the city attorney.
12
MR. TRUJILLO:
It's about half-a-block that
13
way.
It's in the same complex.
14
15
MR. TRUJILLO:
16
17
MR. TRUJILLO:
18
19
What street is it on?
It's on McClelland.
McClelland?
Yes, the street right behind us.
It's in this complex.

20
We'll see you all at 9:00 a.m.
21
We're off the record.
22
(At 5:12 p.m., an adjournment was taken until
23
Tuesday, June 3, 2014, at 9:00 a.m.)
24
25
Page: 148
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO
)
) ss.
)
3
4
I, YOLANDA C. HERNANDEZ, CERTIFIED SHORTHAND
REPORTER, DO HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE FOREGOING PAGES
COMPRISE A TRUE AND CORRECT TRANSCRIPT OF THE
PROCEEDINGS HAD IN THE WITHIN-ENTITLED MATTER, REPORTED
BY ME BY STENOTYPE ON THE DATE AND AT THE HOUR HEREIN
WRITTEN, AND THEREAFTER TRANSCRIBED UNDER MY DIRECTION
10
INTO TYPEWRITING.
11
IN COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 8016 OF THE BUSINESS
12
AND PROFESSIONS CODE, I CERTIFY UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY
13
THAT I AM A CERTIFIED SHORTHAND REPORTER WITH LICENSE
14
NUMBER 7389 IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT.
15
16
WITNESS MY HAND THIS_______ DAY OF____________,

20____.
17
18
19
________________________________
20
YOLANDA C. HERNANDEZ
21
CERTIFIED SHORTHAND REPORTER
22
23
24
25
Page: 149

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CITY OF SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA

In the Matter of Discipline of )

REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

THE HEARING IN THE MATTER OF DISCIPLINE OF DANIEL AST,

was taken at Santa Maria City Hall, City Council

Chambers, 110 East Cook Street, Santa Maria, California,

before Yolanda C. Hernandez, CSR #7389, a Certified

Shorthand Reporter for the State of California,

on Monday, June 2, 2014, commencing at the hour of

FOR THE APPOINTING AUTHORITY CITY OF SANTA MARIA:

FOR THE PETITIONER/APPELLANT DANIEL AST:

NYE, PEABODY, STIRLING, HALE & MILLER, LLP

McDANIEL REPORTING & VIDEO CONFERENCING

CITY OF SANTA MARIA:

SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA; MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2014

THE HEARING OFFICER:

Good morning, everyone.

Let's go on the record.

before the City of Santa Maria, in the matter of the

Termination of Santa Maria Police Lieutenant Daniel Ast.

I am Catherine Harris, and I am the hearing

officer selected by both parties to propose a decision

to the city manager.

Before we go any further, would each of the

parties, beginning with the appellant, please state

their appearances for the record.

Thank you very much.

Jonathan Miller, and I represent former Lieutenant Dan

Ast, and with me is my partner, Alison Bernal.

THE HEARING OFFICER:

record should reflect that Mr. Ast is also present in

the hearing room.

And then on behalf of the City of Santa Maria?

associate, Raymond Sakai, and the city representative,

Donald Rodriguez, and the city attorney for the City of

I represent the city.

McDANIEL REPORTING & VIDEO CONFERENCING

Santa Maria, Gil -- Trujillo.

THE HEARING OFFICER:

Before we went on the record this morning, we

had some off-the-record discussions which I would like

to memorialize at this time.

First of all, the parties have informed the

hearing officer that Mr. Ast has elected under the

administrative manual to have this hearing be public.

And so it's my understanding that everyone who is

present in the hearing room is here without objection

from either party.

they're not a witness, obviously.

That is correct, so long as

Thank you very

receive that stipulation.

it's a joint request, that witnesses not overhear the

testimony of other witnesses except those individuals

such as Mr. Ast, who is a party and has an absolute

right to be present during the entire proceeding, and

then of course Mr. Gonzales is also entitled to have a

representative of the city present at all times.

McDANIEL REPORTING & VIDEO CONFERENCING

THE HEARING OFFICER:

We do have the city attorney who is present for

It would be Don Rodriguez is our

Who is your designated