Palm Springs police open inquiry over slur
0The Palm Springs Police Department has launched an investigation after it was revealed last week that one of its officers referred to a potential gay sex sting suspect as a "cocksucker."
Palm Springs Police Chief David Dominguez told the Bay Area Reporter that he first learned of the slur last week and that it is in no way reflective of department policy. Palm Springs City Manager David Ready first learned of the slur from the B.A.R. and called it "very inappropriate."
Palm Springs Police arrested 19 men on sex charges last June during a three-day sting operation aimed at curbing public sex in the city's gay Warm Sands neighborhood. Five other men were arrested during the sting because they were wanted in connection with other criminal cases, Dominguez said.
The arrests took place after a decoy officer coaxed each of the 19 men to expose his penis in a dark parking lot of a gay resort. The men are being charged with penal code section 314, a charge that will require the men, if convicted, to register as sex offenders for life. The men would be on a sex offender registry in a database accessible to law enforcement only. The 314 charge is commonly used for flashers.
On Monday, June 14, during a court hearing over a defense request for public sex arrest statistics, it was revealed that a Palm Springs Police officer jokingly referred to a potential suspect as a "cocksucker." The slur was caught on tape and was made by an officer who was in a police vehicle while recording a decoy officer as he interacted with potential suspects. According to Roger Tansey, a public defense attorney for six of the arrested men, in referring to a would-be suspect, the officer quipped, "Are you a cocksucker? Yes." Another officer could be heard laughing.
The slur was first pointed out by attorney Bruce Nickerson, who specializes in cases in which men are charged with having public sex with other men. Nickerson was an expert defense witness.
Nickerson said that in his 30-year career of dealing with such cases, he's never seen such a "vicious" sting. He said the decoy officers pushed the men to commit more serious crimes even after they had done something that had warranted an arrest.
Nickerson told the B.A.R., "Every person was arrested for a registerable act, indecent exposure. In the video of the sting which I reviewed, there were many opportunities to arrest persons for the less serious lewd act in public. But the cops persisted in their enticement game until the person was cajoled into actually exposing himself and then and only then was the arrest made.
"In most sting operations," the attorney continued, "there is an amalgam of arrests, some for soliciting, some for a lewd act, some for loitering, and a few for indecent exposure. Here all were arrested for the one offense which is registerable."
At the same hearing last week, Palm Springs Police Lieutenant Dennis Graham testified that the department had reached a "consensus" with the Riverside County District Attorney's office to charge the men with the more serious 314 penal code charge requiring lifetime sex offender registry. Graham said that less severe prosecutions were not deterring the problem of public sex. A Palm Springs Police sergeant similarly testified previously during a deposition. A former prosecutor who was working in the Riverside County DA's office when the charges were first brought also said that there was a deal between the police and prosecutors to charge the men with 314 p.c. and that plea bargains would not be considered. But Dominguez reiterated to the B.A.R. that no such deal existed.
The Riverside County Public Defender's office had requested that a judge order the Palm Springs Police Department to turn over its records of arrests for public sex over the past 10 years. It is trying to prove a claim that the department discriminates against gays. After a hearing last week, a judge ordered the department to turn over its records for two years.
Dominguez told the B.A.R. that a community meeting over the sting controversy was held on June 8 and another will be held July 13. Next month's meeting will include Sergeant Don Mueller of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department who specializes in police diversity training, hate crimes, and police relations with the LGBT community.