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Top CHP Officer Not Charged With DUI Despite Being Legally Drunk
May 28, 2005- Sacramento Bee
A California Highway Patrol chief, arrested last year on suspicion of drunken driving and charged with failing to obey a command from a peace officer, is set to assume one of the department's highest-profile jobs.
Deputy Chief Gary Dominguez, scheduled to become commander in the CHP's Los Angeles-area division, was not charged with drunken driving, but faced the misdemeanor charge of failing to comply with a peace officer's order after officers had to forcibly remove him from his vehicle.  The charge was later dropped when the main witness was unavailable to testify, Pasadena Chief Prosecutor Connie Orozco said in an interview this week.
A breath test found that Dominguez, 45, registered a blood alcohol level of 0.10 percent, over the .08 legal limit for driving under the influence of alcohol. In a separate, administrative process, the Department of Motor Vehicles suspended his license for four months, a DMV spokesman said.
Sen. Gloria Romero, a Democrat whose district is in Los Angeles , said the case shows that the CHP's new commissioner, Mike Brown, is not living up to promises of reform.
"I am outraged at this appointment," Romero said. "This is a failure on the part of Commissioner Brown to stand up and clean up his own department. ... How do you convey to the public with a straight face, don't drink and drive, and all of a sudden you have this chief here?"
Brown vowed when he was appointed last September to bolster the CHP's reputation in the wake of a Bee investigation into abuses of workers' compensation and medical pension benefits, especially among top-ranking chiefs. He declared that chiefs would be subject to the same scrutiny as rank-and-file workers.
In the Dominguez case, the CHP says it has no reason not to transfer the deputy chief to Los Angeles . Investigations of the arrest and earlier allegations from his tenure as commander of the Central Division in Fresno did not result in personnel actions that would disqualify him, Assistant Commissioner Kevin Green said.
Dominguez is scheduled to take over the Southern Division, encompassing 4,000 square miles and a population approaching 10 million in Los Angeles County , on July 1. He will oversee 1,500 CHP employees.
"The bottom line is that Chief Dominguez is a deputy chief in the California Highway Patrol," Green said. "He is not prohibited from transfer eligibility. He is qualified for the transfer. ... We have no reason within policy or law to block" it.
While alcohol-related incidents in the ranks do undermine the department's message against drunken driving, Green said, the CHP gives officers a second chance before firing them. "We do consider we're working with human beings," he said.
Dominguez did not respond to requests for an interview.
He was arrested Feb. 21, 2004, after a Pasadena police officer found him apparently asleep in the driver's seat of a sport-utility vehicle about 2:25 a.m., according to the officer's arrest report. He was on medical leave from the CHP at the time.
The officer, David Llanes, reported that he became suspicious because the SUV did not have a front license plate and was parked in a cul-de-sac where car thieves abandon stolen vehicles.
Llanes wrote that when he shined a spotlight into the SUV, "Dominguez slowly opened his eyes and squinted into the light. He yawned and appeared to go back to sleep."
When Llanes walked up to the SUV with his gun out, Dominguez became agitated and said, "You can't point your gun at me," according to the report. He then refused to get out of the SUV, Llanes wrote.
At one point, Dominguez drove the SUV forward about six inches "and appeared to go back to sleep." Llanes called for backup. The other officer arrived and got Dominguez in a wrist-lock, the report says. At one point, Dominguez reached for something under the seat, causing Llanes to point his pistol at him and yell, "Don't do it. Show me your hand."
The two officers handcuffed Dominguez, who said he was a CHP chief. Asked why he didn't identify himself earlier, Dominguez reportedly responded, "I didn't know you were an officer. I thought you were a security guard."
Dominguez said that he drank four or five beers between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Montebello Golf Course, the report states. The golf course is about 13 miles away from where Dominguez was found sleeping. The breath test was administered later at the Pasadena jail.
The Pasadena city prosecutor did not charge Dominguez with drunken driving, apparently because he was seen driving only six inches, Orozco said.
Dominguez pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge of failing to comply with a peace officer's order, Orozco said. The charge was dropped in June, she said, because Llanes had left the department and was unavailable to testify.
The Pasadena Star-News reported last August that Llanes was fired after an investigation found that he bet a prisoner $20 that he could not win a fight with the officer Llanes was training.
Dominguez appealed the license suspension in a DMV administrative hearing in April 2004. His license was nonetheless suspended for four months, from May to September, DMV spokesman Armando Botello said.
The department followed its procedures in Dominguez's case, Green said. But he declined to say what discipline, if any, had been meted out. He cited the "peace officer's bill of rights," a state law that provides rights and protections for sworn officers.
Dominguez was the subject of a widely reported investigation in 2002 when he was commander of the Central Division in the San Joaquin Valley . The investigation also focused on a captain and two others in the same division for separate matters.
Around that time, Dominguez went out on injury leave after a traffic accident, and never returned to the Central Division command. Brown said in an interview this week that the investigation did not result in an adverse personnel action, such as demotion, against Dominguez. The department won't discuss the nature of the allegations.
The Fresno Bee reported in late 2002 that Dominguez was expected to retire. Instead, he returned from injury leave in late 2004, Brown said, when a doctor said he was fit for duty. He went to the information management division. When the Southern Division command position came open, Brown said, Dominguez was the only one to apply.
The commissioner has some discretion in granting transfers, but usually only intervenes if there is reason to believe the person won't be able to perform the job, Green said. One reason would be that the person would have to supervise a close relative, he said.
Dominguez's brother, Glen Dominguez, is a sergeant in the L.A.-area division. But because Gary Dominguez will not be responsible for reviewing his brother's performance, Green said, the situation does not violate the department's nepotism policy.
"We've got to be realistic on where people can and where people cannot go," he said. "It has to be sustainable in a challenge."
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