ABC 7\u2019s Dan Noyes spoke to Daffani Ryan<\/a>, who was driving eastbound on I-580 with her husband and two children last May, when a Jeep came flying by on the shoulder, snagging her driver\u2019s side mirror. Ryan described the bang from the impact as being as loud as a shotgun, which woke her kids up in the back seat.<\/p>\n\u201cIt woke up both my kids instantly,\u201d she said. \u201cMy four-year-old, when kids sleep, they’re sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the driver of the Jeep, which was unmarked, initially turned on its police lights before the impact, but then afterward turned off all the lights and quickly crossed four lanes of traffic before exiting the highway. Ryan\u2019s husband took note of the license plate info, and the California Highway Patrol dispatcher told them the car was from San Leandro.<\/p>\n
Ryan told ABC 7 that when she called the San Leandro Police Department, watch commander Lt. Antwinette Turner first claimed the Jeep wasn\u2019t from their department.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lady at San Leandro\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, that’s not ours,\u2019 and I was like, \u2018Yes, it is. I\u2019ve already, I already called the police,\u2019\u201d said Ryan.<\/p>\n
Turner reportedly called back five minutes later offering to fix the damage if Ryan skipped the police report.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very suspicious,\u201d she told ABC 7. \u201cI even told her, I said, \u2018it’s very weird that you’re trying to stop me from making a police report about a police officer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
According to ABC 7, Turner, who refused to answer any questions, is no longer with the San Leandro department. She\u2019s now Deputy Chief of BART Police, in charge of the \u201cProgressive Policing and Community Engagement Bureau.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief Averiett declined to speak to Noyes, but she told the CHP during the investigation that she \u201cstarted to experience chest pain\u201d while stuck in traffic and \u201cwanted to expedite her return home.\u201d She told the CHP investigator the chest pains stopped after exiting the freeway, so she didn\u2019t go to a hospital. She claimed she didn\u2019t hear any noises when she allegedly clipped Ryan\u2019s mirror. <\/p>\n
Although the damage was consistent on both cars\u2019 mirrors, the CHP didn\u2019t file charges due to Averiett\u2019s claims that she had no recollection of the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s no way in hell that you did not hear our mirrors hit,\u201d Ryan responded. \u201cYou could do a test drive, two cars going \u2014 one going 55, one going 65 and hit mirrors and tell me you don’t hear anything. Do a suburban and a Jeep. You’ll hear it, I promise.\u201d <\/p>\n
The police department’s Internal Affairs sergeant, Mike Olivera, reportedly filed a nine-page complaint with the city manager last month, claiming Turner and Averiett’s actions create \u201ca troubling pattern of lack of accountability, selective enforcement, and concealment of violations.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mike Rains, the attorney for the San Leandro Police Officers’ Association, told ABC 7 he also believes Averiett received preferential treatment.<\/p>\n
Rains said the police officers\u2019 association is considering splitting the cost with the city to hire a retired judge to look into the case and come to his own determination. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt just absolutely destroys the fabric of morale in the department, to think that your leader, to think that your chief, believes that she or he is above the law. And that’s what’s going on in San Leandro,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Image: San Leandro Police Department\/Facebook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHP\u2019s investigation into an incident involving San Leandro Police Chief Angela Averiett, who\u2019s accused of clipping a car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-247671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}