deposition of fcso captain
DESCRIPTION
Transcript from a March 2015 deposition of Capt. Brad Segree.TRANSCRIPT
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TN THE CIRCU]T COURT OF THESECOND JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, INAND FOR FRANKLIN COUNTY, FLOR]DA
STATE OF FLORIDA
VS. CASE NO. 2OL4_CF_63PAUL BYRD,
Defendant.
DEPOSITION OF: ERIC BRADLEY SEGREETAKEN AT THE TNSTANCE OF: The DefendANtDATE TAKEN: March 24, 2015LOCAT]ON: 34 Forbes St.reet
Apalachicola, FloridaCOMMENCING: I:I'7 p.m
2:54 p.mCONCLUDNG:REPORTED BY: PEGGY OWENS, RMR
Registered Professional-Reporter
PEGGY OWENS & ASSOCIATES (B5O) 222_601.0
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APPEARANCEEMILY FRAZIER, Assistant State Attorney,
Second Judicial- Circuit, 34 Forbes Street, Suite 2,Apal achi co1a,
State.DON
Law Offices of
Florida 32320; appeared on behaf of the
PUMPHREY, JR . I Attorney at Law, of thePrince, 553 East TennesseePumphrey &
Street., TalIahassee, Florida 32308; appeared on behalfof the Defendant.
INDEXlVITNESS PAGE
ERIC BRADLEY SEGREEDirect Examination by Mr. Pumphrey J
EXHTBTTS
No. I Ruse Narcotics Checkpoint Ops Plan 11207I Ruse Narcotics Checkpoint Ops Pl-an 15Diagram 28
No. 2No. 3
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DEPOSITIONWhereupon,
ERIC BRADLEY SEGREE,cafled as a witness; after havlng been first. dulyshrornr ws examined and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAM]NAT]ONBY MR. PUMPHREY:
O Pl-ease state your ful-f name f or the record.A Flric Bradley Segree.a Okay. You spell your first, middle and last
name, just to make sure we are straight.A Eric is E-R-I-C, middle is B-R-A-D-L-E-Y,
last name S-E-G-R-E-E.O Captain, for the record, Don Pumphrey, Jr. on
behalf of Paul Byrd. Also present?MS. FRAZER: Emily Erazier for the State.MR. PUMPHREY: F-R-A
--
MS. FRAZER: Z--E-R.MR. PUMPHREY: Okay. Court reporters always
appreciate it. when we ask things like that.MS. FRAZER: Of course.
BY MR. PUMPHREY:
O So Captain, I don't think you and I have hada depo together before.
A No, sir.25
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O I don't know if that's a good thing or a badthing. So I'm going to ask you some questions. Tnotce you have a copy of the ops plan which isprimarily what we wil-l be talking about?
A f have a copy of it. Trve al-so got a copy ofthe probable cause that Dwayne Coul-ter wrote and thesupplement that R. J. Shelley wroter s wel-l .
O Before we get oriented to the ops plan, \^Iereyou actually on scene and running the operation or
A Yes, sir. I guess you coul-d say that. I l^/asthe supervisor on scene at the time.
O Kind af , I guess what. hras confusing to me isI coul-dn't establ-ish whether this hias an act.ual-checkpoint or this was just traffic interdiction thatwas being done and a concerted effort?
A Right. I guess you coul-d bascalIy cal-l itjust. what it says here. The ruse or fake checkpoint,if you will. It was, it was set up just l-ike the plansays, to l-ook for any criminal- activity that. is takingplace on our roadways in Frankl-in County.
O So the reason f started here is because Ithought. about this for the l-ast year and kind of wentthrough it in my head. f've never seen the rusenarcotics checkpoint. I actually had to look up whatthe word f'ruserr meant. r Lhought I knew what it meant,25
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but it is basically like a trick or something. So Ifmlike, well, maybe they didn't mean for it to be acheckpoint. Maybe that's because t.here is t.wobeasts we are looking wth, two different analysis.One is as a l-aw enforcement officer, if you seenillega1 activity on the roadways or something, you cantake action.
A Sure.O If you have a checkpoint, then certain
requirements and things you have to go through. Thatrsa different analysis.
A Right.O So just to start off, I mean, I haven't
talked to you before, have I?A No, sir.O OkaY.A r donf t bel-ieve we have.O So sorry I didn't just pick up the phone and
tal-k to you, but prosecutors usually l-ike it if we allsit down
A Sure.O and talk together.A Oh, yeah.O But if this hras something that was more or
l-ess, because this is the Chili Cook-Off .25
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And Miss Peggy, if f start talking too fast,please l-et me know.
So my thought was since 98 comes rightthrough Franklin County is it Putnal- Street.?
A Putnal Station, Putnal Street. It was theol-d gas station at one time, Putnal Station out there.It is a buij-ding.
O For those of us who gre\^/ up in t.he Big Bendarea, I had family in Sumatra. So travel-ed theroadways a little bj-t
A Right.O f remember when there was a station there.A R-ght .O But Highway 98 is one way in and one hlay out.
The next a.l-ternative route would be in Carrabel-l-emaybe?
A Yes, sir, Highway 61 North.O Okay. So once highway, you pass Highway 61
North, headed in the direction to Putnal, 98, there isno al-ternative routes t.o get to St. George Isl-andbetween Putnal- and 61?
A No, sir.O Okay. No, sir, t.here are no other rout.es or
A There is, I mean there is multiple street.s25
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t.hat would run, and you could bypass different areas;but to get from Putnal- Station basically to St. GeorgeIsland, you are going t,o travel- west on Highway 98.
O Okay. And so that hias the direction oftravel- that was, t.hat. you guys were looking at.
A Yes, sir.O Okay. Were you looking at the other
direction of t.ravel?A I wasnfL, oo sir.O Okay. Wel-l-, now, make sure Irm cIear, you
are the captain who creat.ed the ruse ops plan.A I did. Now, I can't take credit for the
idea. We l-earned of this type of activity through atraining cl-ass that \^re had been through. And I havetried t,o recal-l the name of the cl-ass t oy even whatclass it was that I had taken, but. T canrt do that,but
O That's okay.A f did l-earn of this type of operation
through a cl-ass that we had sat in.O Vfhen you say you sat in a class prior to the
date of this operation, was it. a criminal- justicestandards cl-ass?
A No, sir. It was, it was an extra c.l-ass ornarcotics identification cl-ass or something along those
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lines. It wasnft, it. wasn'Lstandards, you know, through
O Okay. Wel-l-, whenstandards and you correcLenforcement a long timer sobut we used to take c.l-asses
based on the, t.hePat Thomas.
I say criminalfr I
thingsand we
fve beenmay have
justiceout of law
changedsecondwould get
dollar funding.A Right.O fn other words, you would take a cl-ass. In
exchange for that, because you had a higher degree ofknowledge, you'd get paid money. But al-l of those arerun in some wy, shape or form through criminal just.icestandards to make sure t.hey are meeting t.he standardsfor state law enforcement?
A Sure, yeah, f would agree with that.O Okay. Was this cl-ass no\^I' there are all
kinds of cl-asses?A Right.O You coul-d have taken a Word Perf ect cl-ass.
And I'm sure that criminal- justice didn't. care aboutrecording that or keeping'track of it.
A Yeah.O Vice narcotics, narcotics interdiction,
things, things of that nature, usually there is somecurriculum that is created, power point.s, things like
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that.A Uh-huh.O And so who put this particular cl-ass orlr if
you recal-l?A !ell-, that's what I say. I can't recall- what
cl-ass. You know, you try not to create memories, butmyself, R. J. Shelley and Skip Shiver, who youmentioned earl-ier, Sheriff Shiverr w al-l three went toa narcotics cl-ass.
It \^ras actually more l-ike a conference' ifyou will, out in Tul-sa, Oklahoma/ whil-e he was sheriff .And if memory served me correct, thatrs where welearned of this type of ops plan.
O Usually when you get things like this, it isusually from a training program or something like that.
A Right, you pck up tidbits here and there.a So it is in Tulsa, Okl-ahoma. Was it, how
long before this particular operation did you guys gothrough that training?
A It woul-d have been during t.he four years ofSheriff Shiver's Lerm.
O Okay. And so hie wil-l try to f igure t,hat outas hre go. If you remember where it u/as l-ocated inTulsa, a particul-ar facility or anything else?
A I believe it was a Hard Rock Cafe in Tulsa.
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O OkaY.A Which is huge.O Pret.ty good place to have a narcoticsA Wel-l-, it is a huge convent,ion center is what
it is, motel-, convention center, whaL have you.O All right. So was this a national- law
enforcement. conference?A I bel-ieve it. was with it being held in Tulsa,
Okl-ahoma.
O All right. So, well, that's helping mebecause Irm wondering is it something yrall created,something you learned. So you l-earned this. So whogave the input of this particular operational- plan thatwas used on this date? Was that. t.otally you or did youguys have meetings on it.?
A I tel-l- you on this date, I sat in my officeand put the stuff on paper myself on this date.
O Okay. Now when you say this dat.e, theA Well-, for this ops plan, ys, sir.O All right. And so we are referencing you are
showing February z9Lln.A Wel-l, this was the dat.e we actual-ly done the
operat.ion. It. may have been on the 21th or so that Icreated or put the paperwork together.
O That's okay. I'm just trying to establ-ish a25
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time l-ine.A Right.O So you sat down at Your desk, o Your
computer, and created what you have in your hand. Byt.he wy, after we are done here today I think \^/ehave this in discovery, the State Attorney can look at.it but hie will- mark it just so l-ater there is noquestion about what we are talking about.
A Sure.O Because you have a cofor copy. We will mark
that as Defense 1.(Whereupon, the document was marked as
Defense Exhibit No. 1.)BY MR. PUMPHREY:
O She wil-f just attach it to it, so it will bea copy to t.he transcriPt.
A All right.a So when you sat down to do this first of
all, were you at your comPuter?A Yes, sir.O Okay. And Rex was actually abl-e to find some
i-nformation that, does indicate that. it \^/as created onthe 2lLht which we had done a II9 request. thinking,wel-l, that wil-l- tel-l- us when it. is; but. we requestedwhat is ca.l-fed metadata. Do you know what metadata is?
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A You know, he's discussed it with me, tried totell- me what it all entail-s; but flor sir, I don't fullyunderstand what metadata is.
O Not that Ifm an expert in it, because I haveto go to somebody
A Sure.O and l-earn about it; but metadata is
covered under Floridats publc records law.. A Uh-huh.
O But bef ore I did the 1"I9, I let Mr. Pattersonknow I'm going to do a 1"I9, rather than us having to gothrough a bunch of rigmarole to try to do it because Ifigured there may be some difficulty figuring out whatwe are looking for.
A Right.O So I t.al-ked to Rex that's his name, right?A John Rex.O John Rex, Irm sorry, Mr. Rex. And I think I
helped him because we got an e-maif that showed themetadata. And the reason I tol-d him, I saj-d, you know,our expert is t.elling us that rich text format doesn'tsupport certain forms of qraphics. And there is a lotof this stuff that. is over my head. And so when we gotthe I1,9 response, there was a graphic in it.
A This, t.his graphic?
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O I don't it was a graphic. It doesn'tmatter. So we are like, okay, wel-l- w are just tryingto f igure it, out . So I tol-d Rex. I actually wanted toput him in touch with my guy. My guy is out of thecountry and I probably can't know where he is at rightnow.
And Rex f ound the metadata. What \^Ie werejust trying to do s probably what you would have toldus here today. Okay, when was this created? Whatchanges were made? Did it come from another program oranother document,? In o|her words, sometimes you createsomething and you use it over and over again.
A Right.O You may have used it again this year.A No, we are actual-l-y wating to see what.
happens with al-l these cases before we do it again.O Okay. Welf, it is what it is.A Yeah.O So I always like to say T make l-aw
enforcement officers better at their job.A As we do you.O You do. You do make me better at my job.A Yes, s j-r .
MR. PUMPHREY: Off the record.(Discussion off the record. )
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MR. PUMPHREY: Let's go back on the record.BY MR. PUMPHREY:
O So, /e just had a brief discussion off therecord to orient a couple of issues.
So the 21Lh is the first day that thisoutl-ine hras ever created. And you are the only onethat created it. Is that my understanding? If Irm\^/f Ong
A !Vel-l, this, see that's something that me andJohn has tried to determine, I guess, if you wiIl. Ityped this document up in my office the day prior, fromwhat I understand, from what I can determine, prior tothis event. Now
O OkaY.A back when myself and Investigator Shelley'
or now he is a l-ieut.enant, Lieutenant Shelley, R. J.Shelleyr we worked the narcotics unit for a period oftime during Sheriff Shiver's t.erm. May have been hisl-ast couple of years in of f ice.
f\ Wacy '-j Sl-f .
A When we come back from this training, weattempted a couple Lj-mes to put something like thistogether. And during t.hat time when we may would pJ-anone/ something would fall through. Either we woul-dn'thave enough guys to do the, to take care of the ops
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pl-an or the operation but anyway, something justal-ways f ell throuqh.
So f 've got one on my computer right no\^rfrom, it seems l-ike it \^ias a 2013 model- or somethingwhere we it had different officers' names in it..Like you can see on this one/ where we assigned eachof f icer to do a cert.ai-n task.
O You are referencing what we are marking aspart of this deposition as Defense 1.
A I wish I had print,ed and brought. it over. Idonft mind you seeing it.
O That's okay. You can always supplement that.A Sure.O If the st,ate doesn't have any objection,
we'll get a copy of it and make t Defense 2.A Sure.
(Whereupon, the document is t.o marked asDefense Exhibit No. 2 when provided to the reporter.)
MS . FRAZER: That.'s f ine.THE WITNESS: But any\^Iay, on the one Irm
talking about now, we just had officers, differentofficers's names for different jobs or differenttasks.
BY MR. PUMPHREY:
O So t.he same template, and I'm going t.o use
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the word "templatef'.A Right, sure, sure.O And what word processing program are you
using that has the template on it, if you know?A It is, I think it is Word 2007.O Okay. Microsoft Vord 2001?A f 'm pretty sure that's what it is.O Okay. So now when you saved the orignal
document --
which is not Defense I, but Defense 2, theoriginal templat,e
A Okay.O how did you save that? Did you take any
special hay to save it.? Or did you just l-et MicrosoftWord save it. on your computer?
A That's something else I talked with John Rexabout to try to determine. At. the t,ime we were, whenwe created this, myself and Shelleyr w were in thedruq unit in the narcotics task force.
O Right.A I thought and we discussed it with
Shelley, because t.his metadata, we are trying to figureout what you are trying to l-ocat.e really. T hadthought at one time I was a captain before underSheriff Mike Mock. Sheriff Shiver come in office, I\^/as captai-n for a l-ittl-e bit of time under him. Some
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changes were made. I went back to the road for aperiod of time and then went. into the narcotics, whichit, hias a good change. It wasn't nothing again, meand Sheriff Shiverr we are stil-l- great friends.
But anyway, when I l-eft and went into thenarcotics unit, I t.hought I had took my computer withfle r the big tower or whatever you want to call- it.
^VaY '-s sl_r.A Shelley seems Lo think, flo you didn't take
that with your that we got new computers whil-e we weren the narcotics unit.
So if , if that is t,rue, f rve got a rusecheckpoint saved on a t.humb drive. And again, you aremore t.han welcome to see it or get take a look atit, whatever, whatever ttre need to do, but
O Wel-l, what r^/e are doingA So where t.he original from the time it was
first created and saved on a thumb drive, to thispaperwork here, T can't tel-l you if it ^ras on mycomputer, fly, t.he tower, if it. come from my thumbdrive. I just, I can't anshrer that and be, be truthfulabout it and be accurate.
O And we are all trying to fol-l-owA Change that word "truthful-". I'm being
truthful, but I just can't say if it. come off my t.humb
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drive or off the comPuter.O Irm with you. Vrle are all t.rying to fol-Iow
this through.A Yeah.O I know I t.alked to Mr. Pat,terson. We're
truly trying to follow the chainA Sure.O so we el-iminate the time l-ine issues and
the development of the plan. But t.he realit'y is, youdidn't really need a plan, you were just going to havea concerted effort of law enforcement making t,rafficstops and things of that nature.
A They \^/ere looking for criminal- activity ortraffic infractions, Ys, sir.
O And the reason, when I started the firstconversation, if you are just doing certain activitiesand it. is what t is, that's one thng.
A Uh-huh.O In other words, if you are on patrol and you
l-eave here at the courthouse and you see criminal-activity, obviously you are going to stop it.
A We wil-t resPond to it.O If you get a group of You, five, and you are
just observing criminat activity, we]l, You know, it isjust you doing your job.
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A checkpointr e actua.l- checkpoint is adifferent type of scenario, different set ofcircumstances. What I'm trying to get to, because itsaid ttrusett.
A Uh-huh.O So it may be this is just, like you said a
faux, which means a false operations plan.A Right.O Not that you were lying about whatfs in the
operations planA Right.O but there really was no need for an
operat.ions plan if t.here \^ias no checkpoint.. If therewas a checkpoint and this is the operat.ions plan, well,it is what it is. It is not a ruse. It is, itfs acheckpoint. I don't know which one it is.
A There r^/as no checkpoint.O Okay. And so if there is no checkpoint, then
what we have is we have a group of l-aw enforcementofficers coming together and making a concerted effortto observe criminal- activty.
A Okay.O Wel-lr Do, I' m asking you.A I agree with that.O Wel-l-, I don't want it t,o be my words because
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I didn't put this together and I wasn't thinking itthrough on how we are going to do it. So let's startfrom where you had the first idea to do this.Obviously, t,here is a biq event occurring on St. GeorgeIsl-and.
A Sure.O There is going to be a lot of traffic.A Sure. !e have a drug problem in Frankl-in
County. We have underage drinking in Franklin County.A l-ot of that happens whenever there is a big event inFrankl-in County; namely, Lhe Chili Cook-Off at thetime
Ve knew there would be a l-ot of traffic onthe roadways. We assumed there would be a l-ot. oftraffic viol-ations on t.he roadways of Highway 98 and inFranklin County. Possibly ndividuals with criminal-warrants active that was going t.o be on our roadways inFrankl-in County.
W, I say we, I mean I guess you coul-d say I,it was discussed around the office, hey, let's putsomething toqether. This is what. we done.
O But no briefings or staffing or officialmeetinqs where assignments
A Prior t.o?O Right.
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A No, sir. Now, when we went. out to thel-ocation to Putnal Street, Lo Putnal- Stationr w al-]met, the guys, the players that were involved' we metthere.
O When you say playersr You are talking aboutthe law enforcement officers.
A Yes, sir.O The record doesn't reflect you are pointing
to the l-ist of officers?A rm sorry.O Don't aPologize. I'm verY goodA Yes, sir.O at making a record.A Sure.O And I don't want, somebody to read this later
and think differently of it.A Right.O So I'm just. making sure.A Right.a V{hen you say playersr w are not talking
about the I9B7 Buccaneers football- team. We aretalking about the officers and the lieutenants andeverybody. And you are point,ing your hand to the listof officers in whatrs been
A Yes, sir.
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O premarked and will- be entered into theevidence for this depo as Defense 1. So you can sayplayers.
A Yes, sir.O Nothing /rong with that. So the group, your
group or the players got together out at Putnal street..A We did.O What time was that?A Just, just prior to this, this operation
taking place. I can't say a specific time'O That's okaY.A I would have to go back on record and take a
l-ook.
O So can You, for purposes of this and I wasgoing to orient you to that because obviously everybodyis checking on or going 10-8.
A Right.O 10-B means in service?A Yes, sir.^ c* il_l_ ?\ rJu-
A Yes, sir.o so do officers with the sheriff's office here
in Frankl-in Count.y go 10-B from their home?A Yes, sir.Ookay.Sothereisnot]-ikeanactualcheck
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on at the st.ation like some municipalities or otherdepartments?
A No, sir. If t.hey were going to come andparticipate in this, in this operat.ion, they would havecome just for me, example, Frankl-in 3, 1-0-8, signal15 is on board.
a Signal 15, special detail-.A Yes, sir.O Okay. And sor adam Court Report,er, are the
10 codes okay? I'm very court reporter friendly.A Yes, sir.O f don't want. her mad at me.A No, sir.a So now this is in your mind. It. had been
discussed around t.he office for severa.l- years to putsome kind of operat,ion together both you andLieutenant Shelley, after coming back from the trainingwith Sheriff Shiver; but until you sat down at yourdesk and started thinking this t,hrough, had there beenany actual- formal meet.ings to come up with a design oranything?
A No, sir.O Okay. So the first time this comes about,
know that the Chili Cook-Off is going to occur on the2BLh, r think. rs that right?
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A It was going to be on the first 'O On the first?ATheChiriCook_offisgenerallythefirst,
weekend.This\^lasonaFriday,the2BL:r]\^IaS.ThatSaturday was March 1st.
O Okay. And so hist'orically, having been inFranklin county a long time and many chili cook-offs,you know the majority of traffic coming from?
A Comes from, I guess you coul-d say west' oreastbound, rather.
O Eastbound on HighwaY 98?A Yes, sir. Well-, they are westbound' but they
come from the east on 98.O Okay. Right'. Vrle have to remember it is a
big bend.A Oh, Yeah, Yeah.Osothisparticularareawassefectedforwhat
reasonf any Particul-arA Because of the high traffic area'O High traffic area.A Yes, sir.OAndallthepeople,al-lthectizenscoming
from wherever they are comj-ng are going to come downmainly HighwaY 9B right there?
A Yes, sir.
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O Okay. Now, why Putnal Street, why was thatarea
A Because I guess you coul-d say the, the areathat we were in or the location, t.here was' one, a goodstaging area with Putnal- Station. You have the parkingarea. So we coul-d stopr w coul-d meet, 90 over the opsplan. V{e had just the design I guess of the operation,itsel-f .
O And now when you say ops plan' are youtalking about. just l-ike, hey, I want you to go here, Iwant you to go there? In other words, this wasn't aformal- document handed o'u: the day before?
A I didn't handO A formal briefing?A Did. not, hand it out. When we met at that
locat.ion I want. to say it \^/as just after lunch,because you know us law enforcement officers, we liketo eat, so we wil-l make sure \^Ie get l-unch first. Butanyway
O So the 1unch, you didn't have like a briefingat l-unch' or anything?
A No, sir.O It. is just like, hey, you guys meet me over
here. We are going to go over what hle are going to dotoday.
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A Yes, sir. We met at Putnal station. Wegathered in a circl-e. I read the ops plan. I ddn'thand any out. One or t.wo guys may have had a copysimply from being at the offce with me. But T donrtthink they did; but anyuiay, I read the ops plan whilewe were at Putnal- Station. Said, hey, you are qoing todo this. This is what I need you doing. And then wetook our postion.
O Now, so t.here were no briefings so peoplecould study what their exact responsibilties were. Itis kind of like, okay, you are going to be at, thislocation. I want you to look out for this. You aregoing to be over here at this l-ocation.
A Yes, si-r .O In other words, it is, although you guys
weren't changing location, it h/as more of a rovingsituation. Everybody is helping everybody out.
A Yes, sir.O Okay. And sor now, explain how everybody is
helpinq everybody out. In other words , if you hadmultiple cars stopped, who woul-d come and help asbackup. Obviously, you have officer safety issues.
A We do, yes.O So explain to me how each of t.he officers
woul-d change or woul-d be abl-e to change in their own
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discretion, different Positions.A Depending on whether there was a traffic stop
that \^/as taking place say I made a t.raf f ic stop.O Yes, sir.A And you \^Iere parked on Put.nal- Street and you
didn't have flY, anythng t.hat. you were doing, if youwas not invol-ved in a traffic stop yourself , you wouldsimply pu1l over and assist. t.hat. officer that had thetraffic stop and the investigation taking place'
OOkay.Andhowwererhowwerepeopledirectedoff of 98 onto Putnal- Street?
A They, theY were not directed.O They weren't?A No, sir.O Okay. How did they get on Putnal Street?A They simply decided to turn I believe to
avoid. the, what they thought \^Ias a checkpoint'O Now, when You sayA Have you looked at a map? Or I could draw
you something.O I have looked at a map. I didn't bring one
with me. I'm goi-ng to hand you a pen.A Yes.O We'll- mark t.his as Def ense 3 .A You want me to write on back of this PC?25
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MS. FRAZER: I can give you a paper. Here.MR. PUMPHREY: Fine, You can do that.(Whereupon, the document was marked as
Defense Exhibit. No. 3.)MR. PUMPHREY: We can go off the record while
he draws a map.THE WITNESS: YCAh.(Discussj-on off t.he record. )MR. PUMPHREY: Let.'s go back on the record.
BY MR. PUMPHREY:
O So whil-e off the record, the captain was kindenough, a pi-ece of paper \^Ias offered by the StateAttorney. And he has drawn a map that is not to scal-e.
So if you want to explain this map to us ' Itlooks like you've even goL a north, south, east andwest.
A Yeah, sort of make shift , if you wil-l-.O okay.A This is all the bay area over here. Highway
98, which I didn't put that on there. Anyway. V{e areeastbound on Highway 98.
^ Va
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O Okay. Now, the cones being reflectiveA Orange cones.O Orange cones, what height?A Orange traffic cones. I would say
approximately 3 feet t.all-.O Okay. So these are the largeA Yes.O traffic control device traffic cones. I
think the Department of Transportation has some, Somerul_es or guidelines that, you know, delineate trafficcones. They probably do. Did these have ref l-ect.ors onthe top?
A I can'L answer positively on that..O That's all- right. So three big cones in the
middl-e of the road.A Now, I wrote three there. It could have been
five. I canrt say for sure of that either.O What \^ias the Purpose of the cones?A Wel-l, that's, we al-so at. the area t.hat we had
cones, w had a patrol caf on each side of the roadway.write patrol car. Both of them marked with emergencylights on.
O So marked patrol units wit.h fl-ashing bluelights.
A Yes, sir.25
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ONowrinFloridawehavetherandatthet'imeof this we had the Florida
A Slow down, move over.O Sl-ow down, move over law.A Yes, sir.O Highway 98 at this locatj-on is a doubl-e
yellow line or single passing? vrlhatever the roadway is
A
yes, sir,O
around?
I think it is at it is a single passing lane,in this area.Okay. Single for the eastbound' to pass
Althinkbothdirections.Thiscurveherewoul_d be on quite a little ways up. so I'm pretty sureit is passing on bot.h sides.
OAnyreasontothnkit'ischangedsincethedate of this?
A I don't think so.O OkaY. So we can go and look at it 'A Yeah.O All rightr soA We have patrol cars there, ftashing lights to
simulate a checkPoint.O Okay.A All right. vrTe had signs back up here on this
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curve.
Now, when you say signs?They hrere the flashing, fl-ashing message
boards.O Now, when you say flashing message boards,
like the ones that are on two wheels you can t.ow around.and maneuver
A Yes, sir, ys, sir.O that t.he Department of Transportation
uses , I' m talking about big, l_ike 6 by B f ootA Yes, sir.O or something like that?A Yes, sir. We have a couple, the sheriff's
office has.O And because of the time of year and the
particular time, we are going to get to were theylighted where you could see them?
A They were, ys, sir.O So they are lighted boards. And there is two
of them.A Yes.O Approximately, for the record and for the
court reporter, where \,vere these signs located on theroadway leading up to where the two flashing bluelights were?
O
A
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A f would estimat.e probably hal-f a mile,quarter to a hal-f mile at l-east between where the sj-gnswere and the deputy sheriffs on the roadway.
O And the space between the signs, themsel-ves?A A couple hundred yards.O Couple hundred yards?A Yes, sir.O And the signs \^Iere all on the eastbound side
of traffic?A Yes, sir.O To indicate to the eastbound trave.l-ers
whatever information was on the sigrns?A Yes, sr.O Vrlhat informatj-on was on the signs?A Well-, the first sign was narcotics checkpoint
ahead.
O Okay.A The second sign was caution, K-9 working
ahead. I'm pretty sure t.hat's what it said on it.O Any documentation as to what was to be put on
those signs?A No, sir.O Is Lhere I don't understand how Lhose
signs work. Is there a keyboard or something you typeon it?
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A There is. There is a program that SergeantRyan Sandoval- coul-d tel-l you al-l- about that.
O And does that program come off of a laptopcomputer?
A No, sir.O Does it just have a keyboard in its oI^In
computer?A It has got like a handhel-d device al-most the
size of my cell- phone, probably twice as biq as that.It has got an arrow pad or arro\^// whatever you want tocal-l- it.
O So you have to l-ikeA Keypad.O You have to move it over and punch the
l-etters out?A Yes.O Okay. So but no el-ectronic record on what
\^/aS on there?A We didn't save anything. If it keeps records
j-nternalfy, Sergeant Sandoval should be abl-e to answerthat for you.
O Okay. Did y'all take a pict.ure of them topreserve it for l-at.er?
A No, sir.O That's because it is not a checkpoint?
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A Right.O Okay. This is afl a facade.A Tf you will, Yes, sir.a Okay. V{e11, I mean, either it is or it
isn't .A It is, yeah.O Okay. And so these signs are util-ized t'o do
what,r s far as traffic in general? Not in thisoperation, in general, what are the signs
A In general, they are' rne use them to advisethe general motoring public that, hey, there coul-d bean issue up ahead. There coul-d be smoke on theroadways. There could be a detour ahead. Just l-ikewe've al-l seen them on the roadways .
We've even used it. before on the Chilicook-off. we may have even had one set up that day asyou come of f the bridge onLo St.. George f sl-andadvising, you know, to slow down for pedestrians,things of that nature.
O So its intent is to affect the fl-ow oftraffic?
A Sure. Yes, sir.O Wel-l-r flo, Lf it is not.A To advise the motoring public of upcoming
issues or to ad.vise the motoring public of what they
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coul-d see ahead, I guess you coul-d say.O Now, I notice on your map there is, there are
two roadsA Uh-huh.O that stem to theA It woul-d be north. Vfe wou]d cal-l- it north'O Okay, north. The first road here?A Is going t.o be Putnal.O Is Putnal-, okay. And the second road?A Al-most positive that.'s Hinton Street right'
t.here.
O Okay. Now, the blue lights are visible fromwhen you come around the corner after the two signs?
A Yes, sir.O Okay. On Putnal* Street, would Putnal be a
way to get around having to slow down for the t.rafficcheckpoint or the fake checkPoint?
A Yes. Yes.O OkaY.AYeahrforgivemerlcan'trememberthename
of this road, but it is a back street that runs itruns the full- length of Lanark Village
O OkaY.A on the north end ofO So if John O. Citizen wants to t'ake a right
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and go down Putnal so he doesn't get caught up in thetraffic, he can do that?
A He can do that, Ys, sir.O Okay. Any special lamps or lighting on
Putnal- Street, auxliary tight.ng or anything, you know
A f rm not. sure .O you know how they have those tower lamps
they use when they work on roadwaYs?A As far as streetlights or something, I don't
know of dfy, no. I mean al-l this was occurring duringthe daylight hours.
O Yes, sir.A But I'm not sure about any streetl-ights or
anything on Putnal.O I went back and checked the times on
Mr. Byrd's case. And if I remember correctly, it wasaround 5:oo, a littl-e after 5:00 in the afternoon. Andyou've got the rePort.s.
A Yes, sir.O So I'm not trying to make somet.hing up.A Yes.O But from the information that we received, it
1aras, it would have been the time under Fl-orida Statutewhere you woul-d have to have your head lamps on.
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A Okay.O Does that. sound right or incorrect?A I don't recall- the headlights myself .
Because one thing we did, once it got dark and becamemore d.angerous for our officers to be on the roadway,we cal-led it . I didn't want' the operation to go onafter dark.
O What \^Ias the official- time of ending theoperation?
A We didn't have at say 5:00 o'clock or 6:00o'cl-ock. Just once it got to where I f elt like it wasgoing to endanger t.he officers, I saidr h"y' we aredone. We are through with the checkpoint.
O Did you radio in any check-off start times orend ti-mes, anything we can orient?
A You know there may be something on the radiofog; but for just recalling it right noh/' h.y, all-rightr w are 1O-B on the Signa1 15 or what have Yourwe would have to l-ook at the radio log. I canrt answerfor sure.
O Would you say 10-B on the Signa1 15 or wouldyou
A Say, 10-6 or something along those l-ines ' Wemay have used that. 10-6 being busy, of course, if youare famil-iar with that. But that's something we would
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have to look back on the radio fog.O So if someone decid.ed they wanted to avoid
t.he fl-ashinq btue lights and what. they believed upfront was a checkpoint, and they turned on Putnalstreet, were they al-lowed just to cont.inue on Putnal-and go around the checkPoint?
A Yes, sir.O Okay. So were there any officers -- well,
first of all, were there any officers that \^Iere ever atthis corner of Put,nal and Highway 98?
A We generally had two officers on this street;and we have, would have two officers on this street toobserve any possibl-e criminal activity that took placeonce they turned.
O Right. This street being Putnal- and theother street being?
A Hinton, ys, sir.O Okay. So really you guys had every street
covered?A Yes, sir.O All right. So there rn/as really rror no way to
avoid l-aw enforcement in this whol-e area at this t.imeheading eastbound?
A Yes, sir.O Okay. lVel-l , if that 's not correct25
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A I'm agreeing with you' They had' had theytravel-ed on 98, or if they turned north on Putnal- orHntontheywou]-dSeea]-awenforcementvehic]-e.
O They woul-d encount'er law enf orcement 'A Yes, sir.O Okay. Now, h/as the purpose of setting up the
biq signs to try to get people to turn on Putnal orthis other street and thinking they were avoiding t'hetwo big blue lights with the cones and the checkpoint?
A The purpose, prett'y close to what you aresaying. The purpose of the signs uiere to' I guess ifsomeone is committing a criminal act or if they haveactive warrants or if they are in possession of drugsor \^/eapons or anything of that nature/ qenerally that'indviduat is going to try to avoid l-aw enforcementcontact. so we left thos two roads avail-able as anout, if you wi]l.
O And when you say an out, it was there inother words, y'all \^/ere looking for people who woul-dturn off; right?
A We were looking for people who werecommit.ting traf f ic of fenses.
O True.A And if theY turned off,
would draw Your attent.ion to thatthen of course itindivdual even more.
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O Did anybody turn off Putnal- and --A Hinton.O Hinton that werenft stopped?A f can't tel-l- you that. I wasnrt on any of
these roads. f woul-d assume that oo, t.here wasn't.If there was no traf f ic infract j-on, they woul-dn't bestopped.
O And the reason I -- u/e've got a designatedactivity going on here.
A Uh-huh.O And was there any\^iay t.o determine whether or
not you were actually infringing on somebody's right togo t,o St. George Island not being impeded?
A If they wanted to drive straight throughr wdid not impede anyone. If they turned on Putnal- orHinton Street and were not, violating any traffic laws,they were not impeded.
a, So let me ask you t.his, Captain. The traffic\^/as very heavy at the time of Mr. Byrd's stop, whatevertime that was. And we wil-l rely
A Sure.O on the CAD logs. Does that sound accurat,e
or inaccurate, on Highway 98?A I must have missed your question. Try again.O That.'s okay. Please, if I ask you a quest.ion
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and it doesn't seem clear or you are unsure, stop me.We are all- tryng t,o be on the same page here.
A Sure.O First of all, did the two signs that were
placed on the roadway prior t.o Putnal and --A Hint.on.O Hinton, Irm sorry, I will get it sooner or
l-ater. Did they have an effect on slowing the traffic?A Sure. Yes.O Okay. And so t.he traf f ic at this point. in
time is already anticipated to be heavy. Was it heavyon 98 that day
A Yes, sir.a at the time? In other words, around the
time Mr. Byrd stopped, and this is I think between 5:00and 6 : 00, let I s l-ook at the report .
A Well-, Dwayne didn't note what time it waswhen he stopped, in his narrat,ive.
0 lr]e have it in the PC. St.uf f we can f ind. Ijust want to orient. you to time so we are t.alking aboutthe right time?
MS. FRAZER: All- right, just a second.What's the report time? Sorry. I am justmuttering to myself, trying to find a time. Okay.
THE WTTNESS: Yeah, that's something that's
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frustrating with our system. The report timedon't refl-ect the same time, of courser s thetraffic stop and when the officer don't, note it inhis narrative.
MS. FRAZER: At this point we would just haveto get the CAD logs' right?
THE WITNESS: YCAh.BY MR. PUMPHREY:
O All right. So the time that the stop tookplace and for purposes of thisr w are going to sayaround 5:00 in the afternoon or after.
A Yes, sir.O Whenever it is dusk, dark, whenever you have
to turn the headlights on.A Yes.O And does that sound generally about t'he time
Mr. Byrd was stopped or are you even familiar withMr. Byrd's stop?
A I was not personally involved with Mr. Byrd'sstop.
^ Wa
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O Okay. If we find the CAD report, I think thestate woul-d agree we wil-l- request that.
A Sure.O We wil-l hopefully get a better time because
they woul-d have run a 28, 29 check.A Yes, ysr sir.O And 28, 29 check is wants and warrants.A Yes, sir.O And that wil-l also tel-l- us, because we can
get the NOAA weather report and see when sunset \^as andhal-f hour before sunset, headlights and everythingel-se. You agree with that?
A Yes, sir.O That's what the stat.ute says, I think.A Yes, sir.O Okay. So the traffic, because of the
flashing blue light,s and because of the two signs, wasslowng down in this section prior to Putnal- andbacking up. Is that
A They were never really backed up, rtor sir.O Okay.A We had a conti-nuous f l-ow of traf f ic.O But was it, what's the speed fimit, at that
area betweenr o 98 wel-l-, this whol-e area that wehave, you have drawn on here, is it 45?
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A It, is 55.O Fifty-five, okay.A Yes, sir.O And the speed limit in regards or in reacLion
to the two signs, you think that sl-owed to what speedlimit ?
A I mean, just an estimation, some vehj-cleswoul-d slow to 40, 45 . Then, of course s theyapproached Putnal- or Hinton and prepared to turn, theyeven became a l-ot, sl-ower than that.
O Okay.A But never sl-ow enough that \^/e had mul-t.iple
vehicl-es backed up at any given point.O Now, you say t.hat. lr7hen you say backed up,
let t s make sure i,tre are both cl-ear on that . I don'tmean people are backed up like come to a complete stop,because you werenrt actually stopping anybody at thetwo cars.
A No, sir.O But there was obviously officer presence
here?A Yes, slr.O There is a s.l-ow down law.A Yes, sir.O The sl-ow down law requires you to go to what
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speed on a two-l-ane roadway?A You know, I dontt even know what it states'
to be honest with you.O Whatever it is, it is.A Yeah.O But you would agree that t.he motoring public,
when t.hey see bl-ue lights and they can't switch l-aneslike on I-10, they sl-ow way down?
A They slow way down, ys, sir.O When they see checkpoint ahead?A They start preparing to sl-ow down.O Sl-ow down.A Yeah.O And so it would, it woul-d seem to reason if
t.here is a heavier traffic flow on 98 and when I sayback up, not that cars came to a complete stop, but thevehicles were in some wy, shape or form slowing downbecause of what they are observing?
A Sure, ys, sir.O Okay. And when I say backed up' they are
starting to get bumper to bumper as they go throuqhhere, maybe not completely stopped, but they areslowing down at a s.Low enough rate of speed so thetraffic is building up to where there is just a line ofcars.
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A No, sir.O Okay, then tell me.A No, we never more than and it is not
documented, so I know it is just for debate. But Iwoul-d Say there never woul-d have been more than four tof ive cars that hlere bumper to bumper.
Because once they made it to the checkpoint,if you will, our checkpoint where the two patrol carshiere parked and the cones were in the road, once theygot here, the officers simply waved the individualsright on t.hrough.
Now, sure they may have sl-owed to a 15 mil-esper hour, 10 to 15 miles per hour' even thinking theyi^rere going to have their l-icense checked or what haveyou.
O So in their minds it would be quite colnmonthat they believe they u/ere going to be stopped?
A Yes, sir.O Okay. ,';A But there was never, never vehicles that h/ere
backed up more than f woul-d just estimat.e four to fivevehicles at a time. And then they were, again, just,waved right through.
O Okay. Now, how many vehicles were actuallystopped on 98 past Putnal- and Hinton?
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A frve got the number of infractions orcriminal viol-ations that \^ie deal-t. with that day. Idon't have them with me. The actual- number of vehic]esthat. were st.opped totally, I don't, I donrt know if Ican produce that for you unless it is in the CADreport, itself, where they, sy, someone had pull-ed on,turned, and officer made cont.act with them. Thereshoul-d have been either a warning citation, becausethere was a t.raf f ic of f ense.
If they turned onto Putnal-, Hinton, or ifthey \^iere stopped here on 98, there hiere vehicl-es thatwere stopped along Highway 98 because of a trafficinfraction.
O Now, when you say j-nfraction or warning, isthere a difference between those two?
A Wel-l, when I say an infraction, f f m justreferring to viol-ation of the traffic laws. When Isaid warning, f'm saying they were either given averbal- warning or they were given a written warning ora citation.
O Okay. And how long let's go through howlong it takes to issue each of t.hose. On thisparticuar day, what is the time frame it, takes toissue, first of all, a verbal warni-ng?
A Wel-l , by the time the off icer approaches the
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vehicle, asks the driver for t.heir driver's license,proof of insurance, registrati-on, advise thatind.ividual why, the reason f or the stop. Go back t.otheir vehicle is generally what our guys do, or maybewalk to the hood of their vehicl-e '
Radio dispatch, ask for 28, wants or warrantsor a d.riverts license check, make sure the drver'slj_cense are valid. It coul-d t.ake B to 10 minutes, would sy, if they, if -- verbal- warning, that may beeven a little longer. I would say maybe 6 minutes, 6to 8.
Iftheyaregoingtowriteawrj'ttenwarning,it is going to go as far as 10 to 1"2 minutes maybe.But t.hat's, al-I that's just approximate. If I go outand stop one right now, because I've not done it in solong, it may take me 15 or 20, so'
O Now, were t.here people did you documentthe people that were, that turned on Putnal that werejust tol-d theY coul-d just go on?
A If there \^IaS no traffic infraction wheret.here was a documented writt.en warning or a citation' Idon't think we have that documented, other thanpossibly on the CAD where their tag was ran or t,heirlicense was ran.
O So this was completely discretionary for each
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of f icer in these l-ocations.A Yes, sir.O OkaY. When I saY discretionarYA Yeah, I meanO If you are on the road, and PauI Byrd turns
down Putnal-, and maybe you've already got somebodystopped, and you don't initial-ly see anything' justwave hm on bY, t.hat would be okaY?
A Sure.O But that woul-d be the of f icer'sA That's that officer's discretion, Ys, sir'Ookay.Andthesamewithal]-theofficers'
theyhadcompleted"iscretiontodo,makestopsornotmake stops?
A Yes, sir.O Okay. In other words, noL every vehicle on
98, Putnaf and Hinton was stoPPed?A If, if there h/as a traffic infraction and the
officer not.ed it, they hlere advised to make that stop.a Understand.A I mean, I see the direct'ion you are going
wth it.O Well, I'rfl just t'rying to understand what the
d"j_scretion was with the officers. You know, you've hadthis situation, you only have so many officers that can
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make so many stops at a period of time.A Sure.O And so if you've got cars cont.inually coming
down, obviously you don't have officers to deal withthose cars.
A Right.O And those people may be trying to stop, too.
And so you've run into an officer safety issue nou/.A Uh-huh. Yes, sir.O Those are yeses. And so what did you guys
even document how many cars were or weren't stopped orwas t.here no set number?
A We didn't, 0or sir.O And" were there people who had safety bel-t
viol-ations that \^iere given a verbal warnlng?A None that I'm aware of.O Okay. How would you know that someone hlas
given a verbal warning?A V{e woul-d have to t,alk with each officer that
hras on scene that day.O Okay, but was t.here/ was there somebody
documenting verbal- warning here?A No, sir.O Okay. In ot.her words, sometimes you might.
see somebody you know locally and you recognize them,
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just wave them on bY?A No, sir.O Vrfell-, I'fi saying thatr You knowA Again, because I feel like I know what
drect,ion you are going, but fror sir. If there \^Ias atraffic violation, then they woul-d get some either averbal- warning t ot they would get a written citation'or a warning citation.
O Agree with you there. But what I'm saying isif somebody just turned down Putnaf and nothing isvisibly
A ]f there was no visib]-e traffic violation,they were all-owed to go through, Yes, sr' Justbecause they turned. onto Putnal- or Hinton, 1n/e didn'ttop them simply for turning onto these two streets.
O OkaY.AThey\^Ierestoppedforatrafficviolat,ion.o And so where h/ere the officers al]owed to be
outside their vehicl-es on Putnal Street?A Where were t,hey a]-lowed to be outsj.de their
vehicl-es?
O Or were they in their vehicles t'he whol-etime?
A No, they \^/ere in their vehicl-es ' Eachofficer that was stationed on Putnal- and Hint'on, each
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one had vehicl-es. Had either patrol vehicles, or likeI bel-ieve Investigator Johnson who was down there withus or maybe Johnson wasnrL t.here with us .
I know t.here \^/as a couple of unmarkedvehicles down here on Putnal- or Hinton Street, butt.here was nobody on foot,.
O Unmarked?A I didn't misl-ead you.O You are not misl-eading me. Irm just trying
t.o go by obviously, there were a l-ot of people, alarge number of vehicl-es t.hat travel- through this areabetween the signs, the first sign you set uP, thesecond sign, and the two cars with blue lights
A Yes, sir.O in this whol-e area?A Uh-huh.O ThatIs a ttyestt?
A Yes, sir, Itm sorry.O Okay. And t.here are' because of the large
vol-ume of traffic, there was al-so traffic that travel-eddown Putnal- and Hinton for whatever purpose to avoidwhat. they saw up ahead, you know, blue lights, ifnot.hing else, or maybe cars just slowing down forwhatever reason, right?
A Yes, sir.
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O What was the volume of t.raffic that travel-edd"own Putnal during the period of t.ime from l-unch to theend of your operation or your
A I can't give you a number . V{e didn't, thatwas not documented.
O That's okay. So it was comPletelYdscretionary in that area absent what you told usalready? In other words, the officer ias basically onhis ohrn.
A No, sir. Well, T mean we had offj-cers all- inthat area. Irm not, none of them h/ere on t.her o\^in atal-l-.
O Hol-d on. Let me back up a minute. I don'tmean they were on their own l-ike they didn't havebackup. I mean the officer in his own mind haddiscret.ion to do and do his job as a law enforcementofficer.
A Yes, sir.O Okay. And so he could choose to stop a car,
if he saw a viol-ation he coul-d choose not to stop a carif he didn't see any violation.
A Right.O Okay. And so but there is no documentation
as to the number of vehicles t.hat t.ravel-ed down Putnal?A No, sir.
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O No one was assigned to keep t.rack of t.hat'none of that?
A No, sir.O Okay. And the only way to avoid the check
point would be to go down Putnal or Hinton.A If they chose to avoid it, Yesr sir.O Okay. Now, in your mind in preparing this'
was there kind of a thougtht that you would focus moreon those two areas where people woul-d turn off than anyother area on 98?
A Yes, sir.O Okay. I mean, sounds like a pretty sl-ick
plan. And the ruse then was the fact that everyonedriving down the road bel-eved they were about to bestopped.
A Yes, sir.O Okay. And so everything you did on Highway
98 indicat.ed people were going to be stopped, and notonly hrere they going to be st.opped, there was going tobe a narcotics checkpoint up ahead.
A Yes, sir.O And t.wo marked units with blue light,s
flashing and cones in the center of the road \^/ereindicating al-l- intent.s/ concerns' people were going tobe stopped.
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A Yes, sir.O Was there any indication as to t'he number
that were going to be stopped or anything else?A No, sir.O Okay. And so were there officers outside
directng traffic in both directions for the twovehicl-es that are on the sides of the roadway justahead of Hinton and Put.nal- Street?
A Yes, sir. Excuse me, Ys, sir'oAnddidtheyhavetrafficvesLsoranything
el-se?
ATheywereinfu].Iuniform.I|mnotsureifat the time we had the traffic vests on' We donowadays, any officer that is out' on the roadway'
O Just a safetY issue'A Yeah. Sure.ODidtheyhave,didtheyeveruseflashlights
with what's the long orange thing?ATheorangeconeont'hemorwhathaveyou;but
ror sir, we didn't have to use those' By the time itgot that late, w called off the checkpoint '
O Okay. You stilt got to cl-ear out thecheckpoint, though?
A Yes, sir, but we never used the cones or T
mean the wands.
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OWhoweretheofficersthatwereassignedtowave traffic through and were assgned to the two carswith the bl-ue lights and responsible for removing thecones? or three officers. I don't know how manyofficers were there.
A Yeah. Other than, you know, looking here,and it is not even stated on here. So I can't answerthat.
O When you say hereA Yeah, on our oPS P1an, Irm sorrY'O Okay, soA sometime during the operation I am sure that,
you know, if this officer st.arted out on here at thecheckpoint or at the cones, he may have been rotatedsimply because, I mean, to be honest, he wanted to getin on some of the action, be invol-ved instead of justsitting there being a flag waver.
So during the checkpoint, itsel-f , I' surethose officers were rotated in and out.. Different oneswere here. Dif ferent ones were invol-ved with the
Osonobodyhadaset,assignment.Youa]]-owedthem to rotate freely, as long as they \^/ere coveringthe points.
A Yeah. But I mean it was run through me' If,and agan, it may be on the radio log. It may be to25
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have been done by cel_l_ phone, hey, Lieutenant, Newel-l- orLieutenant Hogan, h"y, why don't you rotate in wit.hthis other officer at this point. And he is going t.orelieve you at the check , oT the simul-ated checkpoint.
O Okay. !as t.here a l-ot of communication? Dideverybody who was on scene between the signs, thisentire l-ocation you have drawn a map for us
A Yes, sir.O that. hie've marked as Def ense 3, I think
that's right, did they al_l_ have cell- phones that hlereutili zed?
A I mean, Irm sure everyone of t.hem had cellphones t,here.
O A couple t.hings.A We try to l-imit any cell phone communj-cation
because it is important. to be on the radio 1og.O Right, but there is nothing wrong with using
cel-l- phonesA Sure.O in today's societY.A Yeah.O I remember when we didn't have cel-l- phones .A Right.O How long have you been j-n l-aw enforcement?A Twent.y-three years.
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O You remember itA Yes, sir.a before cel-l- phones came out..A Yes, sir.O Or when they i^Iere too expensive for officers
to have.A Uh-huh, ys, sir.O But good officer safety, sometimes more
readily accessibl-e t.han a radio if you wanted to have along discussion, so you are not tying up the radiotraffic.
A Yes, sj-r.O And from an officer safety standpoint, why is
it important, especially if you are running a bunch ofofficers who are doing drug interdictj-on activity,whch is what you guys \^iere primarily focused on here;is that right?
A Primarily focusd on?O Drug interdiction. The ruse ops plan came
from a drug narcotics convention.A rr did.O You worked j-n vice narcotics.A Yes, sir.O And alt.hough, you know, you can enforce any
l-aw violation, traffic or otherwise, there j-s a reason25
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you had a dog and everybody in this l-ocation.A Yes, sir.O And that's because you are doing narcotics
interdiction.A We are looking for any criminal- el-ement on
the roadways.O The reason I bring up narcotics is because
there is greater safety concerns when dealing withpeople invol-ved in
A Yes, sir.O narcotics?A Yes, sir.O Okay. So f mean' you've worked in vice
narcotics. Most of the people you deal with are eitherusers or deal-ers; but anytime you are around a drugsituation there is a heightened l-aw enforcementawareness.
A Yes, sir.O Okay. So how many dogs did you have at t.his
l-ocation on your map?A Vfe had two K-9 of f icers there.O Okay. Now, how often is it that two K-9
offcers are in one l-ocation within a mile radius ofeach other
A In Franklin County?
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O in Frankl-in?A Not very oft.en. We generally, I mean un-l-ess
this is a special operations, as this was, our two K-9of f icers are on completely opposit,e shif ts.
O Okay.A One is working t.oday and t.omorrow. And whil-e
he is off, the other is working the next two days.O Okay. And because of the volume of vehicl-es
and t.he purpose behind t.hisr You had two K-9s at thesame location at the same time on the same shift.
A Yes, sir.O Okay. And that doesn't. happen in Franklin
County very often.A Not very often, flor sir.O Can you ever t.hink of another time that's
happened?
A We have had them both on duty during ChiliCook-Offs. We've had them on duty at tmes during ourSeafood Festival-, which is of course is a huge eventhere in Frankl-in County. Whenever we do a drug roundup, we have our K-9 officers out and about.
they?O These K-9s aren'L bomb sniffing doqs' are
They are not, ror sir.What is the scope of t,hese particular two
A
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K-9s that. were util-ized on this d"y, FebruaryA 28.o 2BL]nt 20L4?A These two dogs are primarily for narcotics.O Okay. Now, /ere both of the dogs, had they
been util-ized for a long period of time prior to thisoperation?
A Let's see. Maybe, maybe a year prior tothis, year and a half prior to this is when we gotthese two new dogs.
O Okay. And the handl-ers that have the dogs'had t.hey had prior K-9 experience, t.o your knowledge?
A Not prior to, not prior to being issued t,hesetwo dogs. Ifm sorry' I'm pointing to the ops plan'But when they got these dogs, Jody Martina and LawrenceBrannon was the first K-9s that they had been issued bythe sheriff's office.
OReally?Thesetwou/erethefirstrtheset'wodogs ?
A Now, we've had dogs in the past'' I'm sayingthese two officers.
O Okay.AThiswast.hefirstt'imetheyhadeverhad
K-9s wit.h the sherif f 's of f ice.O Okay. So \^/ere they cal-l-ed to specif ic
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locations? Or were t.he K-9s positioned at a cert.ainlocation on your map? And if you coul-d show us wheret.he K-9s were positioned.
A They woul-d be positioned between basicallyPutnal- Street and where the checkpoint, if you wi1l,was set up. If an officer made a traffic stop whetheron Putnal- St.reet, Hinton, there were traffic stops madeon 98, wherever a traffic stop was made, and thatofficer felt it. was necessary to have a K-9 there onscene, they woul-d cal-l f or the R-9, and he woul-drespond to t.hat location.
O Do you have anyh/ay of telling how manytraffic stops were made on Highway 98?
A Ve woul-d have to qo to the CAD report.O Does the CAD report show everything?A To be honest., I would say no.o okaY
iA I mean if the officer, because we well, Iwonrt get into that.
O I want you to get int.o it.A Wel-l, this was an officer that I was going to
mention, that he've had to l-et go. But anywayO Who was that officer?A On this particular day it was if an
officer made a traffic stpp and he did not want t.o cal-l-
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n his 10_50, or traffic sLop, for the record, that \^/aSnot, he was advised' not. t.o do that' They were told'you know, it. is important. You being in l-awenforcement, prior l-aw enforcement'r You know how-mportant it is to know where you guys are at '
OButalsohavingbeenpriorlawenforcementlknow there are times
A Yes, sir.O where officers don't radio in'A Yes, sir.OAndthereisnorecordoftheactualstop?A Yes, sir.O And did you have any quality assurance that
happened on this daY?A If an officer made a traffic stop down here
on Hinton st.reet and I was not there and he didn't cal-lit in, I can't say whether he did or didn't'
O Same waY with Put.nal?A Putnal- Street', s well'O HighwaY 98?AHighwaygB,Ibe]-ievelcou]-dhaveSeen'Seen
the officer had he made a t.raffic stop. But it is verypossible with me being busy, with everything t'hat isgoing ofrr it could have been made and not be called in.
O When you say busy and" everything going ofl
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what did you mean by that?A Just this, the amount of traffic flow, the
radio traffic, ssisting other officers. Just thingsof that nature, everything that is involved wit.h theruse checkpoint.
O How many vehc1es were actually stopped onHghway 98, Putnal St.reet, and Hinton Street that hadno viol-ations whatsoever?
A That were stopped without any violations?O Uh-huh.A I would say none.O Okay.A If they had no vj-ol-ations whatsoever/ there
is no reason for a traffic stoP.O Understood. But how many were actually
physically stopped, even if it was just for a momentand t.hen they were waved on through?
A The only place that I coul-d say that \^iaspossible
O Yes, sir.A would be down oflr at the, the simul-ated
checkpoint.O Let me go through a scenario with you. You
tell me whether that coul-d have happened or nothappened. Officers are busy. You mentoned that
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right ?
viol-ations
Yes, sir.Okay. Of f icers are t.rying to ident if yof state statute, whether traffic or
otherwise.A Yes, sir.O Okay. And so an officer canrt look in two
drections at one time.A Right..O So in order to make sure he is seeing
everything in the vehicle, seatbelts, headlights, I'msure you guys had some kind of Bolos or somethingbefore you went out there on wanted people.
A Okay.O I don't know, did You?A I d.on't. recal-l- any of those t flot sir' We
didn't pass out any flYers.O Okay.A They need to be on the l-ook out f or this guy'O Okay. But. sometimes an of f icer will- just
stop somebody and sy, fior go on. Not a traffic st,op,but just a temporary step. Does t.hat. make sense?
A It does.OWiththismuchtraffic,thereasonl'masking
you that
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A Uh-huh.O is you are not able to actually see and
control_ this entire area, although you are trying to?A Right.O I bel-ieve that.A Rqht.O But it. is up to each indvidual officer, if
they feel like, wel-l-, there might be something here,l_et me stop them a minute I like to call it, what.'sthat thing that officers have, it is a sense, it isl-ike something is not right here. Might not seesomethj-ng, but something is not right. You know what Imean?
I don't know, t is al-most l-ike a sixthsense. something, the hair on the back of your neckstands up.
A Okay.O Something, you don't see anything right away'
but usually that little voice wil-l tell- you something'A Right.O Were the officers in a position where they
coul_d do that not talking about blue lightingsomebody, not talking about stoppinq them for a longperiod of time? But did t.he officers have thediscretion, just as they woutd any other time on the
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road\^rays, t.o temporarily stop somebody and check, andgo, okay, go on?
A None of our officers should stop a vehicl-ewithout probable cause or without noting a trafficviol-ation. Our guys shoul-d not stop that vehicl-e.
O Do you know how manY vehicles weretemporarily stopped and when I say stopped, in theirtravel- in the roadway because of the operat-on, t.hevehicl-e was physically stopped?
A No, sir.O Okay. Do you know for a fact. that never
happened on Highway 98, Putnaf, and Hint.on?A No, sir. I don't know for a fact that did
not happen.O Does that make conmon sense, t.hough, that
even if the vehicl-es had to stop for other vehicl-esbeng pulled over? I mean it could be a number reasonsa vehicle stopped. May have nothing to do with l-awenforcement.
A Right.O Did you guys track that or observe that at
anytime?A No, sir.O You would understand why this area that you
have delineated on Highway 98, Putnal- Street. and Hint.on25
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Street., with all- this l-aw enforcement act.ivity, hlhyjust that activity, itself, could cause somebody tostop or change their direct,ion of travel-?
A If t.hat driver for whatever reason came to astop, f mean, T don't see where it can be directedtoward l-aw enforcement causing that individual- to stop.
Just. because we had this set uPr the normal-everyday motorist, they are going to pass rightthrough. Again, you know, it is what hle not.ed in here.
O Let me ask you this, Captain.A Go ahead.O You are driving down the road. Out of
uniform, in your regular car.A Uh-huh, ys, sir.O You see blue lights flashing ahead. Whatfs
the first thingA I sl-ow down immediately.O You hit your brakes?A Take my foot off the gas.O Take your foot off the gs, hit the brakes?A Yes, sir.O What's the second t.hing you do?A r start watchj-ng, make sure to see what|s
going on ahead.O All right. I always see how fast I'm going.
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So it is human nature, right?A Yes, sir.O Okay. Had none of this stuff been on this,
that you put up here, the two cars with fl-ashinq bluelights, t.he b.l-ue (sic) cones, officers direct,ingtraffic on the eastbound and west.bound l-anes, the signthat says checkpoint, checkpoint, means what?
A That there is a checkPoint ahead.O Rght. StoP. Slow down.A Yeah.O Wel-l- o . I mean, I 'm asking you .A Wel-I, basicallyO The word checkpointA They don't say stop. It just, it is advising
the motoring public there is a checkpoint ahead.O Okay. And so you are saying here today that
none of this change, the motoring public's actions onHighway 98
A What frm saying is, it would not cause thegeneral motoring public to stop on the highway un.Lessinstructed to do so.
O Okay. But you would agree it had an affecton t.he motoring public?
A It did, ys, s j-r .O What affect did that have?
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A I would say it. caused the general motoringpublic to sl-ow down, to become more al-ert, to be moreaware of their surroundings, to pay attention to what,they were being instruct.ed to do possibly at thecheckpoint, itsel-f , ot the simulated checkpoint.
And it caused the criminal- el-ement to start.taking action to avoid l-aw enforcement, which in yourclient's case he turned onto Putnal- Street.
O Okay. Do you know whet.her or not there h/ereever any officers that \^/ere directing traffic atanytime whatsoever off of 98 onto Put.nal?
A No, sir.O And what I s the assurance you have that never
occurred?A They were not instructed to. There woul-d be
no reason for the officer to direct traffic off of 98onto Putnal- Street.
O All right. Years ago I worked in SouthFlorida, and sometimes u/e would get so busy thatofficers woul-d direct people over and have them staged,sort of . Those are my t.erms, not yours.
A Yes, sir.a And so during the period of time that
Mr. Byrd was st.opped, do you actual-ly know why heturned off of 98 onto Putnal-?25
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A No, sir.O Okay. Is it possible I know you directed
your officers, not saying that is it possibJ-e thatan individual- first, let. me st.op you here. Werethere any non-law enforcement personnel assisting onthis day?
A No, sir.O Were there any plain-clothes individuals
anywhere in this area that were l-aw enforcement?A Yes, sir.O Okay. When I say plain-clothes, whaL cl-othes
were they wearing?A Blue jeans and T-shirt possbly. It woul-d be
one of our investigators or detectives that would havebeen out about helping us. It would have been our drugguys out there helping us. Investigator Harrel-l- andDwayne Coul-ter, and again I'm pointing t.o our ops plan.
O Who was assigned to the area of Putnal Streetduring the time Mr. Byrd was stopped? Uniformed orununiformed?
A It woul-d be ununiformed because, the reason Isay that is because Sergeant Dwayne Coul-ter, who at thetj-me then and still is, is our narcotics investigator.And he is the one that noted the traffic violat.i-on,Mr. Byrd not wearing a safet.y belt..25
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O How did he make that observation? I noticethat in there. Where v\ias that observation made? OnPutnal- Street or 98?
A That If m not sure, ot.her than looking here atthe report. Just saw him t.urning onto Putnal streetand Lanark where he noted it.
O So if there are mul-tiple people that arenrteven stopped here, that never went down Putnal, neverwent down this, who indicate t.hat there were officersdirecting people off of 98 onto Putnal, I mean, frm nottalking about one person.
A Right.O What would be the explanaton for that? Was
there some civil-ianA They are giving you fal-se information. There
\^ias no one directing traffic from 98 to Putnal- or toHinton.
O If that was true I'm noL saying it hiast,rue, I wasn't there t.hat night.
A Right.O And you di-dn't see Mr. Byrd's vehicle taking
off or going from 98 t.o Putna.L, correct?A No, sir, I don't recal-l- seeing t.hat.O Okay. Well-, if you did I want. to know.A No, I didn't.
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O So how cl-ose to Highway 98 \^Iere the officerssupposed t.o be positioned?
A Just.O on Putnal-.A Just out of sight on 98.O And when you sa just out of sight, off, dL
the very corner of 98 or a hundred yards down? wherewere they parked?
A Yeah, pretty much, just wherever they parked.They were advised just sY, just be out of sight sowhenever the vehicl-e turns you coul-d see anyviol-ations.
O Okay. Now when you say when the vehicl-eturns, what u/ere they instruct.ed to do?
A If they not.ed viol-ations' they are to conducta traf f ic st.op.
O Okay. Now, do You know anYthing inparticular about this vehicle that Mr. Byrd wastraveling in?
A Other than what we've l-earned since, sincethe traffic stop, since the arrest.. I guess it was aLeon County
O I'm talking about physical appearance.That's obviously a
A No. No, sir.
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O What about tinted windows?A None that f recal-l . No, sir. I mean, I
didn't., f don't even recall- going to l-ook at. thevehicl-e even at our impound yard.
O Okay. Do you recal-l- specif ica1ly the purposeof the stop for Mr. Byrd's vehicl-e?
A Other than what's in the report.r o, sir.O' Okay. And how many officers affected the
stop on Mr. Byrdrs vehicle?A f know that, again based on the report, it
was Sergeant Dwayne Coulter who was in the narcoticsunit. And shortly after I know K-9 officers JodyMarti-na arrived on scene to conduct the K-9 snif f .
O And when they do the R-9 sniff , t.he timebetween the stop wel-l-, fj-rst of all, did they callout l-0-50 on Mr. Byrd's vehicl-e, to your knowledge?
A Not to my knowledge, o sir. I havenrt.l-ooked at the CAD report.
O What is 10-50?A Traffic stop.O Okay. lrlere the of f i-cers because you
talked about it.'s important to document on the radiohrere the officers instructed to document when theystopped a vehicl-e?
A You know, I don't reca.l-l saying that' that
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day, whil-e we r^/ere at our meet.ing going over the opsplan, hey, l-ook when you st.op a vehicl-e you need tocall 10-50 or you need to sy, f 'm invol-ved in atraffic stop.
As I've come through the ranks, it is cornmonknowledge you shoul-d call- 10-50; but again, I canf t saythat day when Sergeant Coulter stopped Mr. Byrd that hesaid 10-50 over the radio.
O Did he have any radio traffic to start? Vfhatilm doing is r'm saying t; sLart the clock.
A Right..O Obviously there is a stop.A Yes, sir.O And so there is somewhat of a delay after the
stop to do t.he next. activit.y, that hopefully is on theCAD logs, and that's the 28, 29 check for wants andwarrants.
A Yes, sir.O Was that, to your knowledge, the protocol
foll-owed in this case?A It shoul-d have been. Do I have proof of that
right here? No, sir.O Okay. And I'm not holding you to that.. The
CAD logs hopefully will show you us.A Right, ys, sir.25
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O But your concern is that possibJ-y those CADlogs don't actually indicate the stops al-l the time.
A If it is radioed in, it woul-d ref l-ect that.O I agree with that, but I'm saying it is not
always radioed in. I might have misunderstood you?A No, I agree. Like we discussed earlier,
there could be times where an officer does not cal-l- 1na traffic stop.
O Okay. And so once t.hey run the 28, 29 check,the purpose or the identifiabl-e violation has alreadybeen identified. That's only t.he purpose of the stop,right ?
A Yes.O Okay. And the officers who would have been
making t.he st.op h/ere positioned a dist.ance away fromHighway 98, out of sight . So t.he person woul-d actuallyhave to travel- down Putnal- before they woul-d be able tophysically observe anything?
A Depending on where Sergeant Coulter wasparked.
O And Captain, just so the record is cl-ear, r'mnot holding you to what you didn't see.
A I know.O ffm just holding you to what instructions
were
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A Sure.O given and not given.A Yes, sir.O Because it. sounds l-ike t.here \^Ias no
instruct.j-on to document each st.op, if Irm right.A Yes, sir.O Okay. And so you gave no instruction to
document each and every stop, so there is thepossibility there were stops that were undocumented.
A Yes, sir, T woul-d agree with that, it is verypossible.
O Okay. It. is just. human nature.A Yes, sir.O It doesn't mean anybody is trying to do
nothing wrong.A Right.O It is just what \^/e can document and what hlas
part of the idea going on here.A Yes, sir.O And so the cel-l- phones that were used, do you
know for a fact that cel-l phones l^Iere util-ized in thisparticular area in this operation?
A I have no doubt that there \^Iere phone cal-lsmade. To who, specificalJ-y, different officers callingwho, there is no \^/ay to answer that.
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O That's okay. Do each of the officers pri-or,when you had your meeting before, did you identify whatcel-l- phones woul-d or woul-dn't be used?
A No, sir. No.a Did most of the officers have
department-issued cel-1 phones?A Yes, s j-r.O Thank goodness.A Yes.O About time they started issuing cel-l p