SWAT operators carry out a raid in Desert Hot Springs, California. |
[Note: An earlier version of this essay inaccurately stated that Heath's death took place in 2012, rather than 2013. I apologize for the error.]
Andrea
Heath, a former police officer in Desert Hot Springs,
California, died two years ago at forty-four years of age. Her
untimely death was indisputably
the result of trauma she suffered in the line of duty. Yet she
was not the subject of an elaborate state funeral, nor was her name
inscribed on the Officer Down Memorial Page. She was an authentic
victim of what can legitimately be called a war on cops –
specifically, the unending war waged within law enforcement against
whistleblowers who cross the Blue Line.
Attorney
Jerry Steering, who
represents Heath's family in a federal lawsuit, describes her
suicide as the culmination of an unremitting campaign of harassment
by the police department and the
bankrupt Desert Hot Springs municipal government in retaliation
for her involvement in a federal civil rights investigation.
Andrea Heath |
“They
didn't pull the trigger, but they drove her to it,” Steering
asserts. “She told the truth and in response they retaliated by
driving her out of the department, driving her out of her mind, which
led to her suicide.”
In
October 2011, Heath, who had been cooperating
with the FBI, testified before a federal grand jury regarding
criminal misconduct by fellow officers and cover-ups undertaken by
their superiors. The most egregious episode of that kind took place
on Febuary 25, 2005, when a thugscrum led by Sgt.
Anthony Sclafani beat, kicked, tased, and pepper-sprayed a
handcuffed, intoxicated woman named Angelica Vargas and her
boyfriend, Jamal White.
According
to Heath's testimony, which eventually led to Sclafani's conviction
on federal charges, the sergeant and several other officers “took
turns kicking, stomping, and tasing [Vargas]... until she was
unconscious and convulsing on the floor of the station, and when she
crawled away from the officers, they pepper-sprayed her and continued
to torture her.” Sclafani would later insist that this was
appropriate treatment for a person he characterized as “a piece of
sh*t” who “was banging on the jail wall.”
On
previous occasions,
recounts her lawsuit, Heath had “witnessed several other DHSPD
police officers falsely arrest, beat, tase, pepper-spray, and
otherwise torture detainees and arrestees.” One of those incidents
involved a man named Edward Moore, who made the tragic mistake of
calling the police to report a hit-and-run in front of his home. When
Moore tried to hand Sgt. Sclafani a note containing the license plate
number of the vehicle, the officer – as if by reflex – responded
by pepper-spraying and punching him.
Behavior
of this kind is commonplace in law enforcement, rationalized by the
routine perjury called “creative writing,” and protected
through the tribal solidarity of the coercive caste. Whatever her
faults and weaknesses, Andrea Heath was blessed with the moral
honesty to recognize this conduct as criminal, and the character to
confront it. Local avenues of redress being unavailable, Andrea
reported the criminal acts of her colleagues to FBI
Special Agent Steve Novak and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lamar Baker
in April 2007.
Special Agent Novak |
At
the time, Andrea was an eleven-year veteran of the department. Within
days of her interview with the FBI, she noticed that “none of [her]
fellow officers were speaking to her, and were making remarks … in
her presence about [her] `ratting' them out,” narrates
the lawsuit.
Other comments made about Andrea – a relatively fair-complexioned
woman of African ancestry – were vulgar racial slurs. In one
instance she overheard Sgt. Sclafani describe her as a “bull dyke.”
In
April 2008, roughly a year after Andrea approached the FBI, she was
demoted from Investigator (a rank akin to detective) to patrol
officer, and given a five percent pay cut. Although she was informed
that her position had been discontinued for budgetary reasons, the
department simply hired an outside consultant to do the same job.
While privatizing police functions is always desirable, in this case
the decision was made in the interest of retaliation, rather than for
public benefit.
Not
surprisingly, Andrea was told by several people that her name was on
a “hit list” of officers being considered for termination.
Equally unsurprising is the fact that Sgt. Sclafani, who was the
subject of a federal investigation, was placed “in charge of
patrol, scheduling, training, armory, issuing weapons, hiring and
vetting of new police officers, [and] termination of police
officers....”
Because
of Andrea's retaliatory demotion, Sclafani became her supervisor, and
he made predictable use of his position to harass and threaten her.
In May 2008, according
to the lawsuit, Sclafani called Andrea into his office to
interrogate her about her conversations with the FBI. Andrea was
understandably reluctant to discuss the matter. This triggered a
petulant outburst from Sclafani, who whined that it was unfair for
him to face the possibility of prison time for beating “a piece of
sh*t” who, from his perspective, deserved to be stomped into a
bloody mess.
Anthony Sclafani |
Andrea
was told in that meeting that she should consider applying for a job
with another department. When she didn't leave, Sclafani began to
assign potentially violent calls to Andrea while refusing to provide
her with backup.
On one occasion, while responding to a report of a
fight at a hotel, Andrea arrived with another officer, who
immediately disappeared once she entered the building to confront the
suspects. Dealing with an injured manager and two belligerent men,
Andrea recruited a nearby citizen to help her pacify the situation.
For
more than a year leading up to her December 2009 grand jury
testimony, Andrea was routinely placed in situations of that kind,
and incessantly berated for her refusal to be a “team player.”
Things grew immediately and dramatically worse for her after the
deposition. Andrea's patrol car and computer were vandalized. She was
falsely accused of having another officer file her reports. During
one call responding to a report of armed suspects in a vacant
neighborhood, Andrea she discovered that “the entire magazine was
missing from the rifle” in her patrol car, and that all of the
ammunition had been removed.
Amid
proliferating rumors of her impending termination, Andrea learned
that she had been placed on “trainee status” – nearly a decade
and a half into her career with the DHSPD. She was told “that she
was going to start like a new trainee, and would go through all the
phases of what a newly hired officer would endure,” recounts the
lawsuit.
This
was done not because of any deficiency in Andrea's performance, but
because she had not learned the most important lesson – namely,
that Blue Solidarity is the only thing that really matters.
Sclafani,
meanwhile, continued to function as Andrea's superior, even though he
was under indictment. He had the enviable luxury of evaluating her
performance, choosing her patrol assignments, and deciding what –
if any – firearms and ammunition she could use. During an August
2011 “Skelly
Hearing” (a proceeding in which a government employee facing
termination responds to allegations against him or her), Andrea's
supervisors claimed that she was unfit for duty because “she was
afraid for her life to patrol the streets of Desert Hot Springs with
Sclafani being her supervisor....”
Heath
family attorney Jerry Steering readily concedes that Andrea was
fearful – with substantial justification.
“She
was afraid he would whack her for talking to the FBI,” he
explains.
Sclafani's
allies succeeded in getting Heath removed from the force through
a “non-industrial disability retirement” in September 2011.
This didn't put an end to the campaign of harassment and witness
intimidation, however.
On
the eve of her testimony in Sclafani's
February 2012 trial, Andrea “received e-mails and texts” from
the Desert Hot Springs Police Officers Association, the local police
union, “attempting to dissuade her from testifying against
Sclafani.” Four days earlier, while picking up her daughter at
school, Andrea was nearly rammed by two vehicles (one with the
California license plate number 6JTJ389, reports the lawsuit). On
the following day, the city canceled Andrea's medical insurance.
Despite
the implacable hostility, and overt threats, directed at Andrea by
the police department and the city government, Andrea testified at
Sclafani's trial. He was
found guilty of deprivation of rights under color of law and
sentenced to four years in federal prison.
Following
her ouster from the department, Heath filed a $5 million lawsuit.
Many of her allegations were confirmed in
a second lawsuit filed in November 2012 by Officer Paul Tapia, who at
the time was president of the Desert Hot Springs Police Officers
Association. Tapia, a 22-year Navy vet, claims that he, too,
faced retaliation following his public criticism of official
misconduct within the department. Significantly, Tapia had previously
been one of Andrea's tormentors: As the head of the police union, he
had allegedly sent her threatening e-mails in an effort to prevent
her from testifying in Sclafani's trial.
Support
for Andrea's claims was also provided by former
Desert Hot Springs Police Sergeant Eddie Cole, who like Andrea
cooperated with the FBI's investigation and testified before the
federal grand jury. In addition to corroborating Andrea's account of
the beating and torture of Angelica Vargas, Cole told the FBI of
several other incidents – including one in which two officers
“slammed” a wheelbarrow on top of a cornered burglary suspect.
In
February 2010, Cole – again, like Andrea – received a retaliatory
demotion, in his case from sergeant to patrol officer (which, despite
the penurious condition of the city, is
an extravagantly well-compensated position, to be sure).
Following
her termination, Heath found an honest job with a delivery company,
took care of her daughter, and invested her hope in the prospect of
vindication through her lawsuit against the city. That hope was
demolished in May 2013, when U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez
dismissed the suit. Heath's despair grew in crescendo for several
months, culminating with her suicide on October 8 of that year –
the day before a conference that had been scheduled to discuss a
settlement with the city. On September 28 of this year, a $30 million
lawsuit was filed on behalf of Heath's children.
“Could
you imagine losing your mother, her committing suicide because she
exposed criminal conduct by people charged with our security and
safety?” Steering asks. Although that is the advertised function of
law enforcement, Steering points out that the Desert Hot Springs
Police Department – like most others – is devoted first and
foremost to institutional self-preservation at whatever cost.
“These
people know no boundaries,” Steering declares. “They will stop at
nothing to get back at people.”
In
recent months, police unions and allied sycophants have taken up the refrain “Blue Lives Matter.” Amid the formulaic paeans to the
supposed valor and decency of the state's consecrated agents of
violence there is no recognition of the authentic courage displayed
by the occasional peace officer who is willing to condemn criminal
misconduct within the ranks. Some “Blue Lives,” apparently,
matter less than others.
Dum spiro, pugno!
6 comments:
When you make the poor life choice to join the Blue Line Gang and become a parasite on productive people, consequences may suck. I have a really hard time sympathizing very much when chickens come home to roost- even though her supervisors and co-workers were obviously more evil than she.
I hope that no one gets the idea that this woman was a "good cop". All she did was to make the right choice one time. As a cop she did the wrong thing thousands of times. One good choice does not negate the evil of thousands of bad choices.
Something isn't right here, not even a little bit. How did a citizen policeman who was facing federal felony charges keep his job and a gun. Citizens who have been charged with a felony lose their rights like gun rights to name one, until they are acquitted of the charges. How is it the FBI did not step in to protect their witness? There are too many unanswered questions that need to be answered and fixed if the citizens are ever to have law and order come from inside of lawless police departments. This matter has opened the door for honest government attorneys and federal LE to set things straight and restore some hope to the people that sometimes the system works.
How about this? We become the place Andrea can go for support? By we I mean civis.
Let the ones that try to do the right thing know we have their back. And I am in the camp that thinks cops I'm general are the standing army the US founders warned us against.
Heath died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head on October 8, 2012 ........?????
Following her termination, Heath found an honest job with a delivery company, took care of her daughter, and invested her hope in the prospect of vindication through her lawsuit against the city. That hope was demolished in May 2013, when U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez dismissed the suit. Heath's despair grew in crescendo for several months, culminating with her suicide on October 8 of that year – the day before a conference that had been scheduled to discuss a settlement with the city. On September 28 of this year, a $30 million lawsuit was filed on behalf of Heath's children.?????
Didn't anyone else note this contradiction posted in the article????
Something stinks about this whole incident.
The earlier version of this essay inaccurately reported that Heath died in 2012, rather than 2013. I'm sorry about that error, which has been corrected. Thank you for pointing it out.
Post a Comment