Full Notification

May 1, 2015

Dear Union City Community:

Last night a story was aired on ABC7 regarding a motorist who allegedly “turned the tables” on the Union City Police Department for issuing a false traffic citation. Unfortunately, the motorist who brought the story took considerable liberties with the truth about his driving violation. As chief of police, truth and trust are an unwavering premium in our relationship with you and so, even for the simple things like a traffic ticket controversy, I wanted to make you aware of the facts.

April has been declared National Distracted Driver Awareness Month in an effort to minimize the number of collisions, injuries and deaths related to drivers being distracted while driving. The Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) created a campaign in California to increase awareness and enforcement efforts and hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the state participate to decrease the number of avoidable collisions.

A little over two weeks ago, Union City Police Officer Michael Silva, as a part of this distracted driving enforcement campaign, stopped and cited a driver who had been texting on his phone while driving. Officer Silva literally saw the driver with the phone in his hand, raised in front of him, arms extended forward, scrolling and texting on the phone. Once the driver was stopped, Officer Silva also inspected the phone and noted the driver had managed to compose five words in the composition box before being caught. That information is officially documented as evidence Officer Silva will certainly introduce if there is a trial in traffic court. Frankly, texting while driving like that is a recipe for disaster, and any of us could easily be injured or killed if someone careened into us while texting. The price of a ticket notwithstanding, we should hope the driver would consider the citation could have very well saved his life or the life of someone else.

On Wednesday of this week (ten days later), that same driver apparently decided to create a self-made sting as a way to ruse police into pulling him over. By his own admission in the story that aired last night, he purposely propped his cell phone camera on console of his car and drove through the area apparently trying to bait the officer into stopping him; he did this by leaning over and placing his empty hand up to cover his ear and make it appear that he was talking on the phone. Sure enough, he drove past a motorcycle officer—ironically the same officer patrolling the same area working the same safety campaign—who pulled him over. This time video recording the officer’s explanation of why he was pulled over, the driver insisted the officer was mistaken and he had not been on the phone, pointing to it in its propped position on the console. As was done the first time, the officer asked to look at the phone and found there was no time stamp or other indication the phone had been in use. With the officer’s apologies, the driver was free to go on his way. The entire encounter took less than one minute.

By yesterday, the driver had published his experiment on YouTube, purporting the circumstances of his citation nearly two weeks earlier were the same circumstances he created in his ruse. He also took this story to ABC7 news and the story was carried with an undertow that the officer was somehow exposed for misfeasance in his traffic enforcement duties. This is offensive.

Community engagement, operational efficiency, professionalism, and pride are the cornerstones of everything we do at the UCPD. As chief of police, I firmly believe we should step up, own our mistakes if we make them, apologize, and fix whatever made us wrong. But, when it’s a matter of us doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons, but nonetheless our integrity is besmirched, it is important we be resolute in our effort to provide all the facts to our community. To that end, I ask that you, the Union City Community, to help carry the message about the dangers of distracted driving and about your Police Department’s pledge to continue enforcement as a part of this important, life-saving campaign.

Should you be interested in further information on the topic of distracted driving enforcement, please visit the following websites.

Sincerely,

Darryl C. McAllister
Chief of Police


http://www.americantowns.com/ca/anaheim/news/april-2015-is-distracted-driving-awareness-month-22460121

http://www.ots.ca.gov/Media_and_Research/Campaigns/Distracted_Driving.asp