“Chief, you have to answer to the public, you realize that, right?”
The ABC7 Eyewitness News I-Team questions San Leandro’s police chief about why she left the scene of an off-duty accident in her unmarked police car on Interstate 580. She told the CHP she didn’t realize her mirror had clipped another car. But there is more to the story.
A sergeant from the San Leandro PD internal affairs first raised this and other issues in a nine-page complaint filed with the city manager last month. He says, in this case, the chief was treated differently than the rank and file would have been.
DISPATCHER: “911 emergency, What are you reporting?”
DAFFANI RYAN: “I just got hit by a police officer.”
Daffani Ryan was heading home with her husband and two children after a San Francisco Giants game, eastbound 580 approaching Dublin, close to 11 o’clock that night. She drove in the fast lane through a construction zone. As traffic picked up to 45 or 50 miles an hour, Ryan told the CHP this silver “Jeep was flying on the shoulder,” veered into her lane, and clipped her driver’s side mirror.
DAFFANI RYAN ON 911 CALL: “And I mean, he smoked my mirror.”
DAFFANI RYAN: “It woke up both my kids instantly. My four-year-old, when kids sleep, they’re sleeping.”
DAN NOYES: “What did it sound like?”
DAFFANI RYAN: “Like a shotgun. Oh, yeah. It was really-, it scared me. We got off at the next exit so that I can calm down ’cause I was like (makes face). It startled me.”
Ryan told the CHP, the Jeep had police lights flashing in the rear window, but that after the impact, the driver turned off all the vehicle’s lights, quickly crossed four lanes, and exited the highway. “He’s not pulling over or anything.”
Her husband was able to catch the license plate, and the CHP ran the number.
DAFFANI RYAN TO 911: “Who hit me because you guys can look that kind of stuff up?”
DISPATCHER: “It’s from San Leandro.”
DAFFANI RYAN: “Oh, it’s a San Leandro police officer, okay.”
DISPATCHER: “Okay. So-.”
DAFFANI RYAN: “Absolutely ridiculous.”
It turned out to be an unmarked San Leandro Police car assigned to Chief Angela Averiett and Dan Noyes questioned her, “Why didn’t you stop your car when you hit that car last May? Why didn’t you stop?”
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Through a spokesperson, Averiett declined my request for an interview, so we met her after work. “Chief, you have to answer to the public, you realize that, right?”
Chief Averiett didn’t answer our questions, but told the CHP, she was driving home, got stuck in the construction traffic, “started to experience chest pain and wanted to expedite her return home.” So, she “began to travel in the center median.” The investigator asked if she went to the hospital.
Chief Averiett answered, “She did not. The chest pains had subsided after exiting the freeway.” Averiett also told the investigator she “did not recall hearing any noises” from the impact.
DAFFANI RYAN: “There’s no way. There’s no way.” “
DAN NOYES: “What do you mean?”
DAFFANI RYAN: “There’s no way in hell that you did not hear our mirrors hit. You could do a test drive, two cars going- one going 55, one going 65 and hit mirrors and tell me you don’t hear anything. Do a suburban and a Jeep. You’ll hear it, I promise.”
We shared the CHP hit and run investigative report with police practices expert Rich Corriea, former commander at the SFPD.
DAN NOYES: “When I’m driving in my car, and I’m here, and the passenger mirror’s three feet away, max, I think I’m going to hear that.”
RICH CORRIEA, POLICE PRACTICES EXPERT: “Well, that’s common sense. The law is, you know, did you knowingly, and that’s a proof question but someone should take a close look at these things.”
Damage to both vehicles’ mirrors match up, but the CHP decided not to file charges because of Averiett’s statement that she “had no knowledge of the reported hit-and-run.”
Mike Rains, the attorney for the San Leandro Police Officers’ Association, believes the chief is getting preferential treatment, not facing the same scrutiny that her officers receive.
“It just absolutely destroys the fabric of morale in the department, to think that your leader, to think that your chief, believes that she or he is above the law. And that’s what’s going on in San Leandro,” he said.
Daffani Ryan says she called San Leandro Police Department that night, reached watch commander Lt. Antwinette Turner, who denied the Jeep came from their department. Again, Ryan on the 911 call: “The lady at San Leandro’s like, ‘Oh, that’s not ours,’ and I was like, ‘Yes, it is. I’ve already, I already called the police.”
Five minutes later, Ryan says Lt. Turner called her back with an offer.
DAFFANI RYAN: “Turner calls me back saying that ‘we’ll take care of your damage to your car if we cannot make a report.'”
DAN NOYES: “Did it seem odd to you that a police officer is trying to get you not to file a police report?”
DAFFANI RYAN: “Yes. It was very suspicious. I even told her, I said, it’s very weird that you’re trying to stop me from making a police report about a police officer.”
Antwinette Turner left the San Leandro Police Department this past December. The I-Team reached her by phone at Bart Police where she is now Deputy Chief in charge of the “Progressive Policing and Community Engagement Bureau.” She would not answer any of the questions we asked.
Her involvement is mentioned in the nine-page complaint filed by San Leandro PD’s Internal Affairs sergeant, Mike Olivera. He cites Turner and Averiett’s actions as “a troubling pattern of lack of accountability, selective enforcement, and concealment of violations.” Olivera also writes that Chief Averiett and “described this incident as ‘completely unfounded.”
We wanted San Leandro Mayor Juan Gonzalez’s reaction; he has cooperated with interviews in the past, but not this time. His spokesperson wrote that the mayor declined because “it’s a personnel issue.”
“With liberty and justice for all,” the City Council pledged.
We followed up by going to the City Council meeting.
DAN NOYES: “Hey mayor, how is the chief involved in a hit and run and an accusation of a coverup just a personnel matter? Isn’t that a matter for the public interest?”
JUAN GONZALEZ, SAN LEANDRO MAYOR: “Dan, there’s more information that you need to get, so-“
DAN NOYES: “Okay.”
JUAN GONZALEZ: “We’re going to get you some more information.”
DAN NOYES: “From-?”
JUAN GONZALEZ: “Be on the lookout.”
That additional information was sparse – a written statement: “The California Highway Patrol investigated the complaint against the Chief. In addition, the City conducted its own independent third-party administrative investigation. Those investigations are now complete.”
That’s it. No more details on the chief, her Jeep, and her accident. The lawyer for the POA is proposing hiring a retired judge – splitting the cost with the city – to look at all the information and come to a conclusion about what happened. We’ll be watching if the city responds.
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