Sheriff fires deputies in Taco Bell case

KATE LIEBERS

Staff Writer

A nearly seven-month long inves­ti­ga­tion ended with the ter­mi­na­tion of the Delaware County Sher­iff deputies who left a drunk man at a Taco Bell before he was killed walk­ing along U.S. 36.

Deputies Derek Beggs, 30, and Christo­pher Hughes, 27, were fired Thurs­day evening, the DCSO reported Friday.

Ohio State High­way Patrol trooper Sean Car­pen­ter, 38, who also was involved in the inci­dent, is likely to be fired as well, OSHP spokesper­son Lt. Anne Ral­ston said. The OHSP’s inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion con­cluded with a rec­om­men­da­tion for Carpenter’s ter­mi­na­tion, although an offi­cial deci­sion has not yet been made.

In the deputies’ ter­mi­na­tion let­ters, Delaware County Sher­iff Russ Mar­tin cited a “lack of judg­ment and com­mon sense,” among other criticisms.

Beggs’ let­ter sug­gests an attempt to shadow details lead­ing up to the death of 22-year-old Uriel Juarez Popoca last sum­mer, and Hughes’ let­ter sug­gests an uncon­vinc­ing attempt to sep­a­rate his actions from those of his partner.

“I do not reach this deci­sion lightly,” Mar­tin wrote in both deputies’ let­ters. “A fun­da­men­tal duty as a law enforce­ment offi­cer should be the preser­va­tion of life, and inher­ent in that is the oblig­a­tion to put a cit­i­zen in a bet­ter place than where he or she was found — even if that place is in cus­tody for their own safety and/or the safety of others.”

Mar­tin stated Beggs “failed to thor­oughly inves­ti­gate a crim­i­nal offense, min­i­mized facts, and showed a lack of matu­rity and professionalism.”

Mar­tin also accused Beggs of insub­or­di­na­tion, writ­ing that he was “decep­tive and not forth­com­ing when ques­tioned about the events at issue” and even “pro­vided false infor­ma­tion in the (Com­puter Aided Dis­patch) system.”

The let­ter also acknowl­edged racial slurs were revealed in video footage recov­ered from Carpenter’s dash­board cam­era dur­ing the incident.

“The com­ments you made regard­ing the eth­nic­ity of the sub­ject, spray­ing on him of deodor­ant, and drop­ping the sub­ject off at Taco Bell because ‘some­one there should be able to trans­late’ is irre­spon­si­ble at best,” Mar­tin wrote to Beggs.

The let­ter directed to Hughes also con­tained crit­i­cisms spe­cific to that deputy.

Mar­tin wrote Hughes con­veyed a “lack of matu­rity and pro­fes­sion­al­ism” and that his “lack of com­mon sense was undeniable.”

The let­ter sug­gested Hughes, dur­ing the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, had said he had “sim­ply wit­nessed oth­ers’ misconduct.”

In response to this defense, Mar­tin agreed “there are vary­ing lev­els of cul­pa­bil­ity and mis­con­duct,” but he held Hughes respon­si­ble for not speak­ing out against “the gen­eral direc­tion of the unfor­tu­nate behav­ior on display.”

“You were one of our deputies on the scene, were entrusted with han­dling a sus­pect respon­si­bly and safely and did not meet the expec­ta­tions I have for this office,” Mar­tin wrote. “After being part of a scene where com­ments were made regard­ing the eth­nic­ity of a sub­ject and then you drop­ping the sub­ject off at Taco Bell because, as you stated, ‘Deputy Beggs was being funny’ is irre­spon­si­ble at best.”

“It is far too easy, and not very per­sua­sive, to state your objec­tions to how the scene was han­dled ‘after the fact’ in an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion when you did noth­ing to demon­strate your objec­tions at the time of the inci­dent,” Mar­tin wrote.

He also rep­ri­manded Hughes for not iden­ti­fy­ing the sub­ject and fail­ing to “per­form many of the basic require­ments of inves­ti­ga­tion of the under­ly­ing crim­i­nal offense.”

And had Hughes needed guid­ance that night, Mar­tin crit­i­cized him for not seek­ing a supervisor’s feedback.

In both let­ters, Mar­tin accus­ing the deputies of bring­ing “neg­a­tive pub­lic­ity to not only our office, but the law enforce­ment profession.”

“Your actions exhib­ited a lack of judg­ment and com­mon sense that is unac­cept­able for a pro­fes­sional law enforce­ment offi­cer,” he wrote to both.

The DCSO charged both deputies with vio­lat­ing the stan­dard oper­at­ing procedure’s code of con­duct, atten­tion to duty, patrol divi­sion, and uni­form and appear­ance. Beggs addi­tion­ally was charged with vio­la­tions regard­ing traf­fic crashes, offense reports and CAD entries.

OSHP charged Car­pen­ter with con­duct unbe­com­ing of an offi­cer, per­for­mance of duty and untruthfulness.

The inci­dent lead­ing to the deputies’ ter­mi­na­tion began July 28, when Beggs found a man parked along the median of Interstate-71 after receiv­ing mul­ti­ple 911 calls of a drunk dri­ver. Hughes and Car­pen­ter arrived later and debated how to han­dle the appar­ently intox­i­cated man who spoke lit­tle Eng­lish. They joked about find­ing him a trans­la­tor at Taco Bell, then agreed to do just that.

Hughes dropped the then-unidentified man at the fast food restau­rant near U.S. 36, unsu­per­vised, with instruc­tions to find a ride home.

Later that night, the intox­i­cated man walked onto the high­way, where he was fatally struck by a motorist.

A tox­i­col­ogy report later revealed Popoca had a blood alco­hol con­tent triple the legal limit and, even though the offi­cers did not find Popoca dri­ving, DSCO reported the deputies still had the author­ity to arrest him for oper­at­ing a vehi­cle while intoxicated.

All three offi­cers were charged with dere­lic­tion of duty, a sec­ond degree mis­de­meanor. The case went to trial in Decem­ber at the Delaware City Munic­i­pal Court.

Hughes accepted a no con­test plea nego­ti­a­tion hours before jury selec­tion began and con­victed of the lesser charge of fail­ure to aid a law enforce­ment offi­cer, a minor mis­de­meanor. He was fined $20 plus court costs, a total of $183.

After four days of court pro­ceed­ings, a jury found Beggs and Car­pen­ter guilty of two counts of dere­lic­tion of duty. They were fined $1,000 plus court fees, a total of $1,809.80 for each officer.

All three offi­cers had been placed on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave since August.

The motorist who struck Popoca was not charged.

Posted by Kate Liebers on Mar 2 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.