Officer’s Five-Day Suspension Reduced to Written ‘Warning’

Officer Miguel Bin, a Los Angeles Unified School District officer, was a school resident officer most of his career. After the academy, for his on-the-job training, he was assigned to a specific campus, where the majority of his transactions were over a local, walkie-talkie, rather than the main police radio band.

He did not have a patrol car, and responded to most calls for service by foot. On those few occasions (mostly holiday periods), when he was assigned to patrol, he was given no specific instruction.

When he was finally assigned to patrol, he was merely handed the keys to the unit and told to go on patrol.

A few weeks after his reassignment to patrol, he heard a call of an officer, on foot, chasing a man with a gun. Bin, one of the closest officers, hearing the statement “roll code”, responded. Due to the terrible radio system, he was unable to make himself heard.

Bin then responded Code 3 for approximately one block, where he observed an accident. Hearing that there were other units nearby, he first checked to see if anyone was hurt in the accident and then notified dispatch that he was assisting at the accident.

Later, Bin received a five-day suspension for his Code 3 response and for allegedly causing the accident.

After a hard fought three day hearing, Hearing Officer Joseph Gentile overturned the five-day suspension and instituted a “written warning.” The department stated that the five-day suspension was for engaging in an unauthorized “Code 3″ pursuit, not notifying the dispatcher that he was responding to the scene and for “causing” an accident by going in pursuit.

On the first day of hearing, the district withdrew the charge that the officer “caused an accident”. This was quite appropriate because there was no evidence that the officer had anything to do with the accident. The officer’s unit was not in physical contact with any other vehicle.

In his decision, Gentile found that Bin was neither guilty of “inefficiency or inattention to duty” nor was he guilty of “dereliction of duty” or having committed a “willful or persistent act” in violation of the cited Manual sections.

The hearing officer pointed to a lack of adequate training, as well as to the CAL/OSHA citation for maintaining an unsafe radio system. The Hearing Officer stated that Bin did not act as a “cowboy” and that there was an absence of “meaningful training” in patrol procedures given to Bin upon his assignment to patrol.

Association attorney, Sylvia Kellison, of Kellison & Vasquez, LLP, stated, “In his decision, Gentile agreed with the issues raised at the Skelly hearing that the penalty was excessive, and that management contributed to or caused the problems because of the lack of proper training, poor radio communications ability, and lack of nexus between the alleged accident and Bin’s Code 3.”

The Personnel Commission, after hearing argument from Assistant Chief Perez, School District attorney Stith and association Attorney Kellison, upheld the hearing officer’s decision to reduce the penalty to a written warning.