California prison guard kept job after incident that severed girlfriend’s thumb, report says

A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officer accused of assaulting his girlfriend, permanently disfiguring her, faced no discipline for his actions despite sufficient evidence of his guilt, according to a new report from the California Office of the Inspector General.

The report, which does not name the officer or the prison at which he worked, voices concern that, when faced with conflicting testimony, the department favors its officers’ versions of events over other witnesses and evidence presented.

The alleged assault took place on Dec. 15, 2018.

The officer and his girlfriend were arguing when he struck her in the face, according to the girlfriend’s testimony. As the officer got into his truck to leave, the girlfriend said that she pleaded with him to stay, only for the officer to slam the door shut on her hand, severing her thumb at the first joint.

“As the officer waited for the automatic gate to open so that he could drive out of the parking lot of the apartment complex, the girlfriend yelled, ‘My thumb is gone!’” according to the report.

The woman required six stitches on her lip, and medics were unable to reattach the severed thumb.

Police arrested the officer the next day and found trace amounts of blood in the door jamb of the front driver’s side door. The officer admitted to police that he slammed the car door in front of his girlfriend, and that he saw her fall to the ground even as he drove off, according to the reporter.

At a preliminary hearing, a superior court judge “concluded that the evidence in this case would lead a reasonable person to believe in, and conscientiously entertain a strong suspicion of, the defendant’s guilt,” according to the report.

The officer was not prosecuted. A district attorney opted not to pursue the case after the woman emailed saying she could no longer recall exactly how she sustained her injuries.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation conducted an internal investigation of the incident, interviewing both the officer and the woman involved. During the investigation, the officer denied that he punched his girlfriend and slammed a truck door on her hand, according to the report.

Despite that, the warden at the time sustained the allegations against the officer and moved to dismiss him from the department.

Before that could happen, a subsequent warden walked the decision back, siding with the officer and speculating that the woman simply tripped and fell.

The department attorney, who supported the initial decision to dismiss, then ruled that the department would be unable to prove its case against the officer.

Despite elevating the decision to three different department executives, those executives sided with the warden in finding that it was a “he said, she said,” case with no witnesses. They cited the district attorney’s decision to drop the case against the officer.

The report noted that a warden reviewed the case and found there to be sufficient evidence to dismiss the officer.

“This same warden correctly recognized the importance of protecting the integrity of the department and the absolute requirement that its peace officers be held to the highest standards of ethical behavior,” the report said. “Unfortunately, the department is not always willing to strenuously support these critical standards and values. This is one of those cases.”

In a letter responding to the Office of Inspector General’s report, Corrections Secretary Ralph Diaz wrote that, “The department had to make a credibility determination. Finding that [the woman] was not credible left the department without a preponderance of evidence to sustain the allegation against the officer.”

This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 11:53 AM with the headline "California prison guard kept job after incident that severed girlfriend’s thumb, report says."