Questions raised on ramming motorcycles
BCSO Lt. asked about issue after deputies reported being surrounded
Barely an hour after a sheriff’s deputy aimed his pistol at a motorcyclist, one among a large group ride doing stunts amid traffic, a department lieutenant broached the idea of hitting motorcycles in similar incidents in the future.
Lt. AJ Rodriguez, along with others in the department, were emailing after the Oct. 7 incident in which deputies reported that the motorcyclists aggressively surrounded them, blocked them in, and made threatening hand gestures. They say a rider in a pink shirt got so close to the deputies’ unit he could have rammed it, prompting the deputy to point his gun.
But a video taken by a rider in the group — which Rodriguez and others saw before email-
ing one another — casts the deputies’ report into question.
Still, Rodriguez writes to his captain that the deputies “were in a borderline deadly-force situation” and if similar incidents happen again, he would approve “hitting the bikes, to create safe space ... if the deputies are being actively blocked in by motorcycles.”
Deputy Felicia Maggard, spokeswoman for the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, said the emails obtained by the Journal show the department “trying to figure out what happened so we could put out a press release.”
But what exactly happened in that incident is still unclear.
Maggard said the incident is being investigated internally and she can’t comment in order to avoid influencing it. She said department policies have not changed and policy does not address running over motorcyclists.
“No changes to our policy have been made,” Maggard said. “But upon completion of this (Internal Affairs investigation), if the sheriff decides to make some policy changes, this could be an outcome.”
Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III said in a news conference two days after the incident that the deputy was likely justified in pointing his gun at the rider.
“Driving a motorcycle on one tire is a traffic violation, and deputies are allowed to use a show of force according to our standard operating policies,” he said.
But at that time, he said he had not seen the rider’s video.
To video or not
Plenty of other people, though, did see the 24-second video taken by one of the riders.
It spread widely online, prompting “an overwhelming number of responses and messages from our community,” Maggard said in a news release the day after the incident.
While many of those comments shamed the disruptive motorcyclists, even more derided the sheriff’s department.
Numerous comments online held hope that video from BCSO dash cameras or body cameras would tell more of the story.
But BCSO does not require its deputies to use body cameras to record contacts with the public, and only three cruisers are outfitted with dash cams.
Gonzales said last month that he opposes cameras, because he believes they don’t increase safety and that video can be used against his department.
At the news conference, he urged the public not to jump to conclusions based on a “snapshot of what happened that day.”
‘It’s just out of hand’
On that Saturday afternoon, 911 operators received three calls from drivers who said a large group of motorcyclists, maybe 20, 50 or 100 of them, was disrupting traffic in a large group ride all the way from Paseo and Coors east to Tramway then south.
They were doing wheelies, blocking intersections to allow the group to stay together, weaving between cars, and even slowing down in all lanes of traffic to give riders ahead safe space to do tricks.
“It’s just out of hand ... it pisses me off, that’s why I’m calling,” one of the three 911 callers tells dispatchers.
Deputies Daniel Mauricio and Bradley Maestas, already in the Foothills area, were at the CVS and 7-Eleven on Tramway and San Bernardino when they say in their reports that they saw the motorcyclists passing by.
So they jumped into Maestas’ patrol unit and pulled into the middle of the pack of motorcyclists, a detail not disputed by motorcycle group riders who spoke with the Journal.
But there are several versions of what happens next.
Traffic infraction or not?
Rodriguez writes in his email that deputies “pulled out and hit the siren, just as a warning to stop being reckless.”
Maestas writes that he “engaged my emergency equipment while behind a rider in pink who at this time was doing a handless wheelie,” but he disengaged because “I can not pursue a motorcycle for traffic infractions.”
But in Deputy Mauricio’s report, the initial press release and an email from Capt. Broderick Sharp, the deputies are said to have “attempted a traffic stop,” which the motorcyclists ignored.
Deputies and their superiors would later cite disregard for the traffic stop to justify, in part, Mauricio’s show of a firearm.
This part of their reports is not captured on the video clip, but some of what they say happened next is.
Surrounded
Mauricio says in his report that “it felt like a cage in the water surrounded by sharks on the fear of being assaulted” as motorcyclists surrounded their unit.
In the initial department press release, the department says, “The motorcycles completely surrounded their patrol unit and began directing what deputies know to be gang related signs in their direction.”
But the video clip shows the deputies’ vehicle traveling in the right lane of Tramway heading south with vehicles and motorcycles almost indiscernible in the far background. No motorcycles are clearly visible on either side of the vehicle, though it is possible one is to the left of the unit as it pulls from behind a rider in a pink shirt, straddles the lanes, and drives up beside the pink rider.
Pink rider
That rider is mid-wheelie as the deputies’ unit pulls alongside him and Mauricio rolls his window down.
Mauricio points his gun, one-handed, at the rider, who comes down out of the wheelie. He appears to speed ahead as the rider taking the video fumbles the camera and the video ends.
Maestas says in his report that the pink rider “became parallel with my unit” and was “within feet of the passenger side.” He says there was no way for him to drive away from the group.
The deputies’ sergeant, Dave Priemazon, says in his email to his bosses that he had just watched the video with the deputies, and explains the incident like this:
The “motorcycle driver got close to the passenger door causing Deputy Mauricio to draw his weapon for his safety, in fear of the suspect attempting to ram (suspect in pink shirt) motorcycle into the patrol unit.”
Rodriguez says in his email to his bosses that the riders “slowed, surrounding the unit” and the rider in pink “did a wheelie next to the passenger side of the unit, so close, the deputy could have reached out and touched it. Because of that, he drew his pistol.”
The final news release says, “A deputy in the passenger side drew out his duty weapon, because he was in fear of an immediate and impending battery.”
Blocked in
What Maestas says happens next was not captured by the video clip.
“Soon after my unit was surrounded by the very large group of motorcycles and I was unable to speed up or slow down without the fear of possibly hitting one of the riders,” he writes.
He reported that motorcyclists also flipped the deputies off and made gun gestures with their hands.
Motorcyclists on the ride told the Journal that indeed they did flip the deputies off after the gun was pointed at them. They said they did not intentionally surround the vehicle.
Rodriguez, in his email, says the “riders nearly brought the unit to a stop,” which is especially troubling because “as you know, many of these guys are armed, which is my biggest concern.”
The rider in pink has not come forward to talk to the sheriff’s department or file a complaint or report, Maggard said.
Sheriff Gonzales said the motorcyclist would have to come forward for them to proceed with an investigation into the deputy’s use of force, but he said he wouldn’t be surprised if riders do not come forward “out of fear of being charged criminally because you were out there lawlessly driving in the streets and you might be identified as a criminal network.”