Officers’ Firings Upheld by Civil Service Panel

Two San Diego police officers who lost their jobs, one for alleged sexual misconduct, the other for falsely reporting his involvement in an off-duty shooting, have lost their appeals to be reinstated.

In a report released Friday, the city Civil Service Commission ruled that the conduct of Officer Charles R. Demers was “offensive,” “deplorable and seriously jeopardized the reputation and public trust of the entire” Police Department.

Two young women testified in commission hearings that they were frightened when Demers pulled them to the side of the road in separate incidents, then began making sexual advances toward them in the summer of 1988--a time of heightened public awareness because of the Craig Peyer case. Peyer, a California Highway Patrol officer, was convicted of murdering a young woman he had pulled over on Interstate 15 late at night.

In its report, the commission noted that Demers provided “untruthful testimony” under oath and that his firing should not be revoked.

The commission also found that Officer David A. Nellis lied to his superiors and to the commission in fabricating the details of a shooting that he said occurred in the 2100 block of Saipan Drive on April 26, 1988.

The report cites Nellis for waiting “approximately 42 hours prior to reporting the shooting” to the Police Department. It notes that none of 13 area residents who were contacted about the shooting heard the shots “alleged to be fired” by the officer.

A clerk who worked at the convenience store where Nellis said the shooting took place testified that he did not hear any shots or observe any “shooting victims or any related activity,” the report says.

The commission supported Nellis’ termination notice of February, 1989, which says: “You falsely reported that you were involved in an off-duty shooting. Further, you failed to obey lawful orders of superior officers during the investigation, and failed to answer questions truthfully.”

The five-member Civil Service Commission also noted that Nellis refused to cooperate fully with internal-affairs officers investigating his case.

Everett Bobbitt, the attorney for both officers, said Friday that he will take the Demers case to court in an attempt to win back his client’s job.

“I definitely intend to pursue Demers through the courts,” he said, contending that the officer was fired and then reinstated on various levels of the command staff, and that Assistant Police Chief Norm Stamper eventually intervened and upheld the termination.

“That was unprecedented,” Bobbitt said. “And I’ve got new information that one of the alleged victims was a friend of (Dist. Atty.) Ed Miller. So I want to find out what involvement Ed Miller may have had.”

Bobbitt said he has not studied the commission’s report on Nellis and will “wait and see” whether to pursue that appeal.

Michael R. Pent, chief of the special-operations division for the district attorney, said on Miller’s behalf that “the district attorney has intervened in no way in the Charles Demers matter and has no knowledge of either of the two victims that were mentioned.”

The commission cited each officer’s otherwise impeccable police record in making its findings, but said the civil service violations in each case fail to warrant a repeal of the department’s dismissals.

In Demers’ case, the report says, “despite such record . . . the commission finds that the appellant’s egregious, unacceptable misconduct in this case, aggravated by his providing untruthful testimony under oath and his admission of issuing previous invitations to female citizens for personal conversations while conducting official business, critically detracted from his suitability and acceptance as a police officer.”

Demers was fired in March, 1989, after two years as a police officer in San Diego and after seven years as an officer in Rhode Island. The district attorney declined to file criminal charges against Demers, 32. John Vanderslice, a deputy city attorney who asked the commission to uphold the termination, said prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence for a guilty verdict of criminal wrongdoing.

A 24-year-old aerobics instructor testified that she and a friend were driving home from a nightclub in July, 1988, when Demers pulled them over. After giving her a sobriety test, she said, he threatened to take her to the County Jail at Las Colinas.

She testified that, later, while she sat in the back of the patrol car, he squatted 2 feet in front of her and asked her to show him her genitals.

The woman “responded by saying something to the effect of, ‘Give me a break,’ ” the report says. “The appellant (Demers) then backed up and said something to the effect of, ‘OK, you can go; go on, get out.’ ”

In another incident, a 19-year-old San Diego State University student testified that she was headed home after a late-night party when Demers pulled her over. She said he gave her a sobriety test, threatened her with jail and then said he would release her.

But she testified that Demers told her, “Since you’ve been partying with your friends all night, would you mind partying with me for a while?”

She said he motioned her to a patch of nearby shrubbery and when she cried, he asked her, “Are you embarrassed because you’ve never been with a man before?”

She said she began crying “really hard” and covered her face with her hands. She testified that Demers then told her that, if she stayed with him, “it would be the best five minutes she ever had.”