It was late January 1998 and I had just finished buying some books for my girlfriend at San Jose Sate University. She is a student there, I am not. I thought I'd do her the favor while she was starting her new classes there. After class was over I met up with her, showed what I had bought and proceeded to make our way towards the car. Mind you it was her car and she was the driver. The car was parked in a multi-story garage on the campus. We started to back out of our spot when she realized that she wasn't going to clear the car to her right. She pulled back into the spot and backed out for the second time. This time she was successful and we started our way down the lane. This was a one way lane and we were traveling in the correct direction. No more than 5 seconds of forward movement was made when she informed me of a police car tailing her. I looked in the mirror on my side, and sure enough, this guy was no more than 5 feet behind us. I told her to go the speed limit five miles per hour, which she did. If anything, this upset the officer even more. He must have been in a hurry or something because he was about to hit her bumper. He turned on his lights and ordered her to pull over right there in the garage. She did. Her whole view on cops has changed since then.

He came to her window and asked for her driver's license, registration and insurance. She gave him all but the insurance. The whole time we were both asking what we did wrong and why he pulled us over. Not a word from the officer. He went to his car and sat in it for 6-7 minutes. By now my girlfriend is getting nervous. She manages to find her insurance info and gets out of the car to give it to him. He gets out of his car and starts talking to her. They talk for a few minutes more. Now I'm suspicious of what is happening so I get out of the car and ask again why we are being pulled over. She says she still doesn't know and the officer yells at me to get back into the car. I say "O.K., just tell me why we're being stopped." He gets upset and tells her to get back into her car and tells myself to stand in front of our vehicle. I do as he says still inquiring as to the reason for the stop. He comes around the front and tackles me against a car nearby. With one hand he's holding my arm behind my back while smashing my head against that car's hood with his other hand. The whole time I was screaming for help and I could see glimpses of my girlfriend crying hysterically. I felt worse for her than myself just for having to see me like this. The officers next action really surprised me. He grabbed my wallet, through me to the ground and ran back and locked himself in his car. I assume he was running my information. I went from screaming for help to screaming that I'm being robbed by the police officer. No joke, I still had no clue as to what the hell just happened. I walked back to his car and demanded my belongings. He refused. I stand in the way of his car and tell him that if he doesn't immediately call his supervisors or officials that I won't move. He looks bewildered but does as I ask. Still no reasons, explanations, nothing. Half an hour has gone by now when the whole garage illuminates with police lights. His supervisors came to the rescue. Or so I thought.

I was taken to the side to speak with Officer Hernandez of the San Jose State University Police. These guys were university cops! It gets better. This guy was apologizing to me and explaining how sometimes situations can escalate when there is a communicational breakdown. No breakdowns here man. I was communicating like a champ that day while the cop was impersonating a mime. Anyway, as two officers, at this point, are trying to calm me down and apologize for the "inconvenience to myself", I see the bastard that stopped us back at my girlfriends car talking to her. I later find out he asked her if I was her boyfriend, If I was a student at the university also, when she has classes. Sounds like a stalker if you ask me. Anyway he finally told her that he stopped her because she was going in the wrong direction in the one way lane. To bad this idiot was right behind us going in the right direction. He went back to his car and drove off, the officers apologized for one last time and also began to leave. This is where I might have made my mistake.

I asked for the officers name and badge number and the location of the police station, so I could go and personally file an internal investigation on this guy. Would you believe his name was Sergeant John Laws. God damned "Johnny Law". Living up to his name, you think? He never gave her a ticket for going the wrong way by the way. He did have to write a rebuttal to my accusations to that day. And his rebuttal ended up at the D.A's office somehow in the form of a police report. He gave some twisted recollection of the whole event, and I end up with an obstruction of justice charge. I managed to find this D.A., and funny enough, she had no idea that I'm the one who filed the complaint to begin with. She said she only had his report to go on and after reading it she felt as though I had obstructed justice from happening. I think it was where he stated "when I was trying to talk to the driver the passenger (me) wouldn't let me talk to her. This is the same nutsack who wouldn't open his mouth at the scene and explain as to why we where being puled over. You can imagine my dismay when instead of a letter of apology from this guy and his department I was sent a letter from his police chief stating that the officer in question is exonerated of all charges against him. A few days latter, I was presented with a warrant for my arrest in the mail. How does this happen in a system such as ours. How can innocent people try to help society weed out the garbage from our police departments when this same garbage is pinning false charges against them. At this point this whole situation has cost me dearly. How about $5000.00. I don't have that kind of money to begin with. Thank God for relatives and friends. That day in January there was no obstruction of justice until he pulled us over. He's the only one obstructing justice now, with his lies, to cover his butt. I have a scar for life now, mental and physical. I have permanent skin tissue damage from where he was pounding me against a car. The D.A. told me that if she had all the evidence, the reports I made, the tapes that were audio recorded, all for the internal affairs investigation that would not have charged me with the O of J charge. But like I said before, all she had was his lieport I mean report. So, you know what I did? I filed a little civil suit of my own.

Wish me luck and I'll keep you posted. If you have any advise please let me know. If anyone knows of the proper avenues to take towards obtaining an officers personnel file and/or mainly of any previously filed complaints against him, let me know also. Thanx.

An outstanding human, with a great record
in the community as an excellent citizen,
but hated by bad cops.

Tony

I'd like to post your story on the internet so that when someone looks up this cops name, or the san jose police, "san jose police brutality story" will pop up. Sorry for the delay in responding. I can either use your name or let you remain anonymous.

Erik

How's it going there my friend. Go right ahead and post it. As a matter of fact, let everyone know that I ended up getting a "disturbing the peace" charge, a $100.00 fine, and 10 hours of anger management classes. Talk about a complete joke. I wanted to plead not guilty at the pretrial but unfortunately could not afford the $2500.00 a day lawyer fee. This is what it was going to cost me every day the lawyer had to go to court on my behalf. I entered a plea of no contest so they couldn't use the case against me in my civil suit. But I wish I had the money to go all the way. I'm sure I could have won.

I still can't get over it. This whole ordeal will end up costing me over $3000.00 and all I did is get beat on by a faulty cop.

Anatoly

Return to the Police Brutality Page