By Nathaniel Percy
Press-Telegram, Long Beach, Calif.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Long Beach Police Department must reinstate a police officer who was fired four years ago after he was accused of submitting a false police report, a state appeals court ruled this week.
In a unanimous decision from the three-judge panel, it upheld previous rulings by a city employment panel and a lower court, which found that Officer Dedier Reyes did not intentionally falsify police reports related to a gun possession investigation in 2018, but rather, he “truthfully reported his mistaken recollection at the time he wrote the report,” the appeals court ruling said.
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The decision means Long Beach must offer Reyes a job with the department that at least matches his previous role as a patrol officer.
“The City is disappointed with the Court of Appeal ruling,” Long Beach City Attorney Dawn McIntosh said in a statement. “We will be reviewing the decision and determining next steps, but we do not intend to appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court.”
Reyes’ past with the department includes 14 use of force reviews and 11 citizen complaints, as well as involvement in two civil lawsuits that cost the city more than $1 million, according to court documents. Of Reyes’ 14 use-of-force reviews, all were determined to be within policy, the appeals court ruling states. None of the 11 citizen complaints were sustained.
Reyes and his partner on the day of the gun investigation, David Salcedo, were fired in 2022, shortly after then-District Attorney George Gascon filed a charge of filing a false police report in relation to the arrests of a pair of gang members in 2018. Reyes faced an additional charge of perjury under oath. A jury acquitted the two men of those charges in 2023.
Reyes then successfully appealed his termination before the Long Beach Civil Service Commission and was ordered to be reinstated in 2024.
The charges stemmed from an incident in which the two officers stopped at a taco restaurant in Long Beach after recognizing two gang members loitering outside. Reyes, who was training Salcedo, was accused of lying in the report when he claimed he saw one of the men go inside and leave a bag containing a gun.
Surveillance video obtained days later contradicted Reyes’ report, as it showed the other man leaving the bag inside the restaurant. Reyes would admit he never watched the surveillance video until it was shown to him in an internal affairs review, the appeals court documents say. He called the inaccuracy an honest mistake and said he had “no axe to grind” against the two men.
The two officers continued working until Gascon filed the charges. Previous District Attorney Jackie Lacey had also reviewed the case and did not file charges against the two officers.
Though they were acquitted, the charges cast doubt on other cases involving the two officers, with the city prosecutor’s office at one point saying it was reviewing hundreds of cases involving them.
It also called into question at least one conviction in which Reyes was named a victim and testified. In 2022, Miguel Vargas was released from custody after serving 10 years of a 39-year sentence for assault on a peace officer.
Reyes had shot Vargas twice in the back after responding to a call of a woman with a gun outside a party. Vargas ran when he spotted the officers and Reyes testified during Vargas’ trial that he saw Vargas turn toward him with the gun while running away, prompting Reyes to fire. However, Vargas’ attorney said Vargas had ditched the gun 25 feet away and was unarmed when he was shot.
Vargas then sued the city, leading to a $550,000 settlement.
Reyes was also the subject of a second civil settlement for nearly $500,000 after he fractured the elbow of a man while detaining him in March 2018. Christopher Williams had been filming a fight outside a Long Beach bar along Pine Avenue and was checking on one of the participants when Reyes detained him, the lawsuit said. Williams was sat in the back of a police cruiser for more than an hour until an officer apologized and released him without medical attention, despite his request for it.
The injury forced Williams to miss four months of work as a city bus driver.
Reyes had also been suspended twice by the Long Beach Police Department prior to his firing, the appeals court ruling says.
In 2009, he received a 10-day suspension after engaging in inappropriate conduct by becoming involved in a dispute with a woman in which Montebello police officers were called.
Five years later, he received a 16-day suspension “based on several incidents in August and September 2014 of negligence and insubordination regarding administrative manners.”
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