Atwater detective paid while on leave for year after alleged DUI crash

An Atwater police detective facing misdemeanor DUI and hit-and-run charges has been on paid administrative leave for more than a year, the Merced Sun-Star has learned, costing taxpayers in the city nearly $110,000 in salary for an inactive employee.

Detective Lisa Howard was put on leave four days after an Aug. 1, 2013, crash in which the off-duty officer drove her 2011 Chevy Camaro into a palm tree, two parked cars and then a house on Augusta Lane. Following the 2 a.m. crash, Howard abandoned her smashed car and left the scene, according to multiple police reports.

Authorities believed Howard had been drinking based on her “red, watery” eyes and a smell of alcohol, according to the reports, but she retreated inside her home and refused to come out for sobriety testing.

The crash, which was originally reported as non-DUI, led to the District Attorney’s Office filing two misdemeanor charges against her in November 2013, three months after the incident.

The district attorney and Atwater police chief said they want the case to be quickly resolved. But court records show Howard’s hearings have been continued at least eight times over the past year, resulting in the 33-year-old officer being off duty for 17 months while being paid.

“She can’t come back to work until there is an outcome in the case,” said Atwater Police Chief Frank Pietro. “It is frustrating to us because she’s been out for a year, we’re down an officer, and we were hoping this would be resolved a long time ago.”

Pietro said his department will also conduct an Internal Affairs investigation into the circumstances surrounding Howard’s crash, which could lead to disciplinary action, once the case brought by the District Attorney’s Office is over.

Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II said cases like Howard’s get continued because attorneys might want more time to investigate or hire experts. Morse said the high volume of cases in his office is another delaying factor, with four attorneys juggling 6,000 misdemeanor cases a year.

“Our cases don’t get better the longer time goes by, and we want to move cases as quickly as possible,” Morse said. “But there’s nothing nefarious about the handling of this case. People love the drama and intrigue of thinking there is some double standard for police officers and that, factually, is not the case.”

According to some officials, Howard recently turned down a settlement offer from prosecutors that included a fine, two days in jail and a three-year suspension of her license. Morse declined comment on the offer, saying his office doesn’t discuss settlement offers on pending cases.

Howard’s case has been continued to Jan. 5.

In the meantime, city payroll records show Howard has collected her regular salary while off work, $85,077.16 through November. She earned a total of $111,438.79 during the period with other benefits included.

Howard declined comment when reached by the Merced Sun-Star this week. Her attorney, Kirk McAllister, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Howard, who is married to Merced County Sheriff’s Sgt. Rich Howard, has been with the Atwater Police Department since June 2007. Rich Howard pulled papers to run for sheriff earlier this year, but quickly dropped out of the race, citing obligations in his personal life.

A not-so-routine crash

In the early morning hours of Aug. 1, 2013, Atwater police officers responded to what appeared to be a routine crash. It wasn’t until later that day the officers realized it involved one of their own.

Lisa Howard’s abandoned Camaro was found in the driveway of an Augusta Lane home, with the keys still in the ignition. No driver was in sight. Officers found a deployed airbag ripped out of the steering wheel and laying on the passenger-side floor, according to the police report.

A palm tree had been struck by Howard’s vehicle, pushing the tree into the home’s wall and damaging the garage door. The vehicle then hit two cars parked in the driveway of a neighbor’s home before smashing into a portion of that house, police and CHP reports said.

Witnesses told police they saw a female driver exit the vehicle and quickly walk away. Howard claims she tried to contact the homeowners after the crash, but the residents told police no one knocked on their door all night.

Atwater police Officer Dave Sarginson went to Howard’s home after verifying the car belonged to her. Howard told him she left the scene of the accident to get her cellphone, which she had forgotten at home, to call police.

Sarginson wrote in his report that Howard appeared to be under the influence of alcohol.

“As Howard was speaking I could smell the moderate odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her breath and/or person,” Sarginson wrote. “I noticed that Howard’s pupils were dilated and her appearance was disheveled.”

The case was turned over to the California Highway Patrol since it involved an Atwater police officer. But when Howard overheard on Sarginson’s radio that CHP officers were heading to her house, she quickly went inside and refused to come out, the report said.

Howard told Sarginson she would tell CHP officers that she came home after the accident and took “three to four shots” of alcohol to calm down, even though Sarginson noted that there were no bottles or cans of alcohol inside the house.

According to the CHP report, Howard refused to exit her house, telling officers, “I just don’t feel like it.”

Lt. Shane Ferriera of the Merced area CHP said the case was not initially reported as a DUI incident because it was still under investigation. After interviewing more witnesses and analyzing the crash, the agency determined Howard was driving while under the influence of alcohol.

“We continued with our investigation and based on the totality of the circumstances – the crash and statements – we decided to make the determination that DUI was in fact a part of this collision,” Ferriera told the Merced Sun-Star.

The CHP recommended three misdemeanor charges: DUI, hit-and-run, and willful resistance and obstruction of a peace officer. But the District Attorney’s Office filed on just the first two charges.

An unusually long leave

In his 30 years at the Atwater Police Department, Chief Pietro said Howard’s administrative leave is the longest he’s ever seen.

Police officials at neighboring law enforcement agencies in Merced and Livingston agreed, saying they’ve never had an officer out of service for more than a few months.

Merced police Capt. Tom Trindad said officers are put on paid leave mostly in shooting cases until the agency can conduct an investigation, but they rarely drag on. “In my history at the Merced Police Department, we’ve never had anyone on paid administrative leave for that long,” Trindad said.

Livingston Police Chief Ruben Chavez echoed Trindad’s sentiment, saying the longest an officer was on leave was six weeks. “But it was a personnel issue and the officer was released from the job in May,” Chavez said.

Both agencies reported having no current officers on paid administrative leave.

A law expert said that while the Peace Officers Bill of Rights affords Howard some protections, having the case linger more than a year seems highly unusual.

“My instinct is this doesn’t sound like the kind of case that should be dragging on a year later,” said John Sims, a law professor at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. “It seems very odd.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2014 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Atwater detective paid while on leave for year after alleged DUI crash."