OAKLAND -- The head of the Oakland Police Officers Association wasousted from a courtroom Thursday as a cop returned to the witnessstand to tell of being branded a traitor by his peers for comingclean about the "Riders" making him write false arrest reports.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner banned policeunion President Robert Valladon from the gallery after DeputyDistrict Attorney Terry Wiley pointed out that Valladon could be awitness at the Riders retrial. Potential witnesses are barred fromattending trials to prevent them from being privy to what others sayat proceedings.
Valladon was among the few spectators in Horner"s court whenOfficer Steven Hewison began testifying Tuesday. Under questioning byWiley, Hewison told of being a rookie fresh out of the 146th OaklandPolice Academy when field training officers Frank Vazquez andClarence "Chuck" Mabanag had him copy, verbatim, police reports thatcontained lies about what Hewison did or saw.
"I didn"t see anything," Hewison said while describing how Vazquezhad him write a report stating he arrested a suspected drug dealerafter spying the man toss away rock cocaine in West Oakland in thesummer of 2000.
Hewison"s academy classmate, Keith Batt, triggered a probe intothe Riders" reputed dishonest and thuggish tactics after he resignedfrom the Oakland Police Department on July 4, 2000.
The internal investigation resulted in Jude Siapno, MatthewHornung, Mabanag and Vazquez being placed on leave from their copjobs and eventually fired. Siapno, 36, Hornung, 33, and Mabanag, 39,were tried last year on criminal charges based on accusations theydoctored police reports to justify drug arrests or cover up beatings.
Vazquez is believed to have fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution.The original trial ended in 2003 with a jury acquitting Mabanag,Siapno and Hornung on eight criminal counts and deadlocking on theremaining charges. A retrial on 15 criminal counts began with openingremarks Nov. 1.
Hewison and Batt, now a Pleasanton police officer, are consideredkey witnesses because those testifying as victims of the Riders" law-breaking tactics have ties to the street drug trade.
Defense attorneys at the initial trial portrayed Mabanag, Siapnoand Hornung as wrongly maligned soldiers who were following orders ina sanctioned battle against crime at known "drug hot spots" in WestOakland.
Prosecutors counter that the Riders were renegades who lied inreports to justify arrests that got them accolades and admiration.
While testifying Thursday, Hewison said he and Batt were reviledas "snitches" after telling investigators what they knew of theRiders dishonest tactics. The academy class the rookies graduated aspart of was derisively dubbed "the one-forty-snitch."
Graffiti in the police locker room included "Hewison is a lyingrat" and "Hewison, yours is coming," along with "Yellow betraysblue," according to photographs introduced into evidence by Wiley.
Hewison agreed with Wiley that he "paid a price for violating thecode of silence."
"I didn"t feel like part of the family," Hewison said, blaming thedepartment and field training officers Mabanag and Vazquez for hispredicament. "I just wanted to be a police officer."
Thursday ended with defense attorney Ed Fishman launching anattack on Hewison"s motives and honesty. Fishman used excerpts ofprior courtroom testimony by Hewison to imply Hewison had felt stuckwith a field training officer more interested in traffic tickets thanfelony drug arrests and that he envied Batt being teamed up withMabanag, who had Batt jumping from unmarked cars and catching felons.
Fishman hinted that Batt had telephoned Hewison to coax him intogoing along with accusations they were made to write false reports.
"Keith Batt never influenced me on coming forward," Hewisonresponded to Fishman. "I knew I"d written a bad report and what I hadto do."
Hewison said he was never out to bring down a fellow officer, heonly wanted to do what was right.
Cross-examination of Hewison will continue today.
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