Uncertainty constant factor, officers say
By Gregory Alan Gross, San Diego Union-Tribune
It happens dozens of times a day: A police officer, his car’s roof lights flashing, pulls up behind a vehicle and orders the driver to stop.
For the typical motorist, it is just a rare and maybe costly inconvenience, but for the officer, it is a potentially deadly encounter with the unknown. For all the officer knows, that driver may not be “typical.” Truth is, there is no such thing as a routine vehicle stop.
“I don’t care if (the driver) is an 80-year-old grandma. From an officer-safety standpoint, you don’t do anything different,” said John Reese, a veteran San Diego police officer who spent 10 years training rookie officers on the street.
Law enforcement officers were reminded of that late Friday afternoon when Oceanside police Officer Tony Zeppetella was fatally shot while making a traffic stop in the parking lot of a credit union.
Adrian Camacho, 28, a documented gang member, was arrested on suspicion of murder.
Yesterday, county law enforcement officers talked about the risks and realities of conducting traffic stops.
“We’ve lost over 197 officers (statewide) since 1929, and most of those deaths were related to traffic stops,” California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Gregg said.
Drilled on caution
From the time they enter the police academy, caution is drilled into officers in handling traffic stops. The lessons are driven home again during their months on the street, when they are paired with more experienced training officers.
“The person you’re pulling over may look like the nicest person in the world, but you don’t know what their mind-set is,” Gregg said.
Officers also are taught to keep their weapon away from the grasp of a potential assailant.
“We call it the ‘field-interview stance.’ If I’m right-handed, I’m going to be talking to you with my left hip facing you,” Reese said. “I am not going to give you the opportunity to reach for my gun.”
Even so, it is possible to let one’s guard down, especially after a string of uneventful stops, he said.
“If you’re just running a license plate and it comes back expired, or the car has a cracked taillight, I tend to believe most officers would approach that vehicle and not have their defense mechanisms up,” Reese said.
Even when officers have their guard up, there are no guarantees. Every CHP officer is taught about “The Newhall Incident,” when a two-man CHP unit stopped a car north of Los Angeles one April night in 1970 after reports that one of two men in a red Pontiac had been seen with a gun.
Inside that Pontiac, unbeknown to the officers, were a pair of armed ex-convicts named Jack Twinning and Bobby Davis. When it was over, four CHP officers lay dead.
Twinning killed himself with one of the officers’ shotguns later that day as lawmen closed in on him. Davis was captured and is serving a life sentence at a maximum-security state prison.
That episode led the CHP to overhaul procedures for handling stops, especially high-risk or “felony” stops.
Officers on “hot stops” now wait for backup to arrive. And instead of approaching the car, they remain behind cover with weapons drawn and order the suspects out into the open with hands raised. These are now common practices for police agencies nationwide.
“You’ve got several cars backing you up, and you aren’t making the stop until you have cover officers with you,” said Cpl. David Cheever, a 13-year veteran assigned to the Encinitas sheriff’s station. “It’s very much controlled.”
Unknowns remain
But the unknowns of traffic stops, and the dangers that follow them, remain.
“Does the person have a warrant out for his arrest? Is he just now coming from a (violent family dispute) and he thinks you’re pulling him over for that? There are so many things on a traffic stop that you just don’t know,” Cheever said.
Even the time of day can be a factor, Reese said.
“On a typical traffic stop in the daytime, it’s supposed to be safer, but that’s not necessarily true,” he said.
None of the officers interviewed wanted to talk specifically about Friday’s shooting. They didn’t want to say anything that might be perceived as criticism of the slain officer or his department.
What they did say was that a traffic stop, any traffic stop, is fraught with uncertainty.
“You’re watching the driver as he pulls over,” Cheever said. “Does he look like he’s trying to hide something? Is he moving around a lot? When you walk up on the car, you’re still observing the driver.”
He described one incident in which he had stopped two young men for speeding. He wrote the driver a ticket and then returned to his patrol car, waiting for them to leave.
Only they didn’t. Instead, both men got out and walked toward the patrol car where Cheever sat alone, strapped in behind the wheel.
“Now I have to exit my car and yell at them, ‘Stop right there!’ ” he said.
It turned out that the two were coming to Cheever for help; they couldn’t get their car started.
“You’re out there on the road. You’re by yourself. You don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.