Posted on 06/10/2008 4:42:30 AM PDT by Fundamentally Fair
OCEANSIDE: Woman shot by cop charged with child endangerment
Investigation into officer is continuing
Rachel Leann Silva was charged Monday with felony child endangerment and misdemeanor drunken driving in an alleged road rage dispute with an off-duty policeman, who shot the woman and her 8-year-old son.
Silva's "erratic and aggressive" driving and actions during the March 15 confrontation put her son in danger, according to a declaration seeking a warrant for Silva's arrest that was filed by the attorney general's office in Superior Court on Monday.
Witnesses reportedly said she tailgated and pursued the off-duty officer during the clash, revving her engine and finally blocking his car, clipping the sideview mirror and then striking the back end of his car.
Silva "escalated" the confrontation and put off-duty San Diego police Officer Frank White in fear for his safety and that of his wife's, who was in the car with him, leading to the shooting, according to the declaration.
Rachel Silva was struck twice in her right arm. Johnny Silva, who was in the passenger's seat of his mother's car, was hit once in his left leg.
It remains to be seen whether the San Diego policeman will face charges for pulling the trigger as he sat in the driver's seat of his personal car. The investigation into his actions is continuing.
Under a deal struck in recent weeks, the state attorney general's office is handling Silva's case, while the San Diego district attorney's office is probing White's role in the shooting for criminal culpability.
Officials said the two agencies separated the cases to assure no conflicts of interest.
The child endangerment charge Silva faces is a felony, and brings a potential prison sentence of up to six years.
Silva also faces five misdemeanor counts: two counts of allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol, two counts of allegedly driving with a suspended license and one count of allegedly driving while in possession of marijuana.
There was "insufficient evidence" to charge Silva with anything related to striking White's car with her own, the attorney general's office said Monday. Using a vehicle to deliberately hit another can be considered an assault with a deadly weapon.
Silva's attorney, Michael Pancer, said he is reserving comment until he sees the evidence gathered thus far against his client. He said he expects to have it in hand within a week.
The 27-year-old Silva, who lived in Oceanside at the time of the incident, has agreed to surrender to authorities when she is arraigned in a San Diego courtroom on July 9, said Supervising Deputy Attorney General James Dutton.
Aside from the criminal case, the shooting has spawned at least one civil suit. Silva's son is suing, through his father, a number of defendants, including White and the San Diego Police Department.
And Silva also has filed a claim against the city of San Diego, often seen as a precursor to a lawsuit. As of Monday afternoon, court records did not show that she has followed that claim by filing a civil suit.
Official information about what happened in the moments before and during the clash has come out piecemeal.
However, the court documents released Monday include a detailed narrative of who allegedly did and said what to whom.
The declaration for Silva's arrest warrant, signed by Special Agent Stephen Duncan, a state Department of Justice investigator, contain witnesses' versions of events, including what the officer has said happened.
Silva has continued to exercise her rights and has not spoken to investigators.
Duncan's declaration lays out what allegedly happened. According to that narrative, Silva had just picked up her son from a Saturday play date and had stopped at a McDonald's moments before the 9:15 p.m. confrontation.
Witness Priscella Betherum was driving south on Old Grove Road when she spotted Silva's car leaving a parking lot and rolling ---- without stopping ---- as Silva turned right onto Old Grove Road, according to Duncan's narrative.
Betherum watched in her review mirror as White ---- driving in the car behind Betherum ---- had to swerve his car to another lane to avoiding colliding with Silva's car as it turned onto Old Grove Road.
According to the declaration, White then got back in front of Silva and turned right into a shopping center parking lot.
Silva's car was headed toward the left-turn lane but then cut across three lanes of traffic and made a right, following White into the parking lot of a Lowe's home improvement store.
Once in the parking lot, White and his wife have said, Silva began tailgating them so closely that White's wife could not see Silva's headlights. Silva also reportedly was revving her engine, the declaration states.
The officer told his wife to call 911.
White eventually stopped his car in the parking lot. Silva pulled up along side him ---- too close to White's door for him to get out of the car.
He pointed his five-shot Smith & Wesson .38-caliber handgun at Silva, the declaration states, and then yelled, "Police, you need to stop! Police, stop!"
Silva also called 911, and reported, "There's a guy who's pointing a gun at me."
She put her car into reverse, striking White's car.
"Frank White stated that he feared his life was in danger," according to Duncan's narrative.
The officer, who was inside his car with the window rolled up, fired one bullet, apparently the one that hit Johnny in the leg, Duncan stated.
As Silva continued to reverse, White fired four more shots through the front window of Silva's car. Two of those bullets hit her right arm.
The gunshots were heard on Silva's 911 call.
And, Duncan wrote, Silva told the 911 operator the shooter was "some guy, a policeman."
Silva reportedly had a blood-alcohol level of .15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit for driving in California, and had marijuana in her system at the time of the shooting, according to search warrant documents unsealed earlier this month.
Silva has two previous convictions for drunken driving, both in 2007. In one incident, officers found her slumped over her steering wheel in Temecula. She reportedly had an open bottle of alcohol and her 1-year-old child was in the back seat.
Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 740-5442 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.
1. Silva was driving drunk with her kid in the car. She was driving on a suspended license and was driving erratically. She should be charged.
2. Officer White is back on the job (desk duty) while the investigation “continues.” Interesting, since this article says that, “There was ‘insufficient evidence’ to charge Silva with anything related to striking White's car with her own…” Officer White’s claim is that he had to shot to protect himself because Silva rammed him.
for later
bull-dyke with guns alert.
Too bad he missed.
Sounds like Silva and the cop should be serving a bunch of jail time — all over a dispute over a little piece of road.
If a “regular citizen” sat in his own car with the windows rolled up and fired a handgun into another occupied vehicle for ANY reason, particularly if one of his rounds hit an 8 year old child, he/she would almost certainly be arrested, charged with a crime or crimes, and then spend a good deal of time in jail or prison.
The police, the judge and the “press” would lecture that “regular citizen” about how shooting is NEVER the answer, and that he/she should NOT have stopped and confronted the aggressive driver in a parking lot, but instead should have driven to the nearest police station while calling 911 on his/her cell phone.
I wonder why this same advice is not valid for an off-duty cop.
There are obviously two “classes” of citizens/firearms-owners in this country. Cops (whether ON duty or not), who are apparently allowed to protect themselves as they deem necessary, and “the rest of us”, who are not.
PS - Ms. Silva was driving drunk with her kid in the car. She should go to prison.
Well, the shooting started after a good part of the alleged erratic driving. However, some reports have said that Silva panicked and hit Officer White’s POV after he waved his gun at her.
bull-dyke with guns alert.
I must have missed something.
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!! Well said. One set of rules for them, one for us.
CA: Off-duty SDPD officer identified in alleged road rage shooting
More...
Too bad he missed? ahh I see you are a Judge Dredd fan. Judge, Jury, and Executioner.
Judge Dredd: I am the law! Put down your weapons and prepare to be judged.
I am now sick. Destroy the witness. The cops are really pushing this one.
I hope the little boy is OK. The woman should face charges for driving recklessly with her child in the car, but I don’t know what that policeman was thinking to just start shooting into the car. I would have hoped a police officer would be LESS likely to panic and start shooting randomly into places with innocent children in them than other people, not more.
Clearly the woman is crazy and put her son in danger.
However, the officer did not exactly comport himself very well procedurally and as a result an innocent child was severely wounded.
He could have done a much better job.
If accurately reported, obviously Ms. Silva is no saint, but Officer White is toast! Nothing that occurred justified the use of deadly force, and by no stretch of the imagination will he be able to convince a review board otherwise.
Why did he wave a gun at her? Isn’t that a crime for the rest of us.
‘However, the officer did not exactly comport himself very well procedurally and as a result an innocent child was severely wounded.”
Huh? You talk as if he made a mistake on an accident report. He shot TWO people, one of which was a child. he should go to jail for attempted murder or at least assault with a deadly weapon.
“He could have done a much better job.”
how so, perhaps killed the both of em?
Seems to me they both need to go to jail here, and both need to be slapped with child endangerment as one of the charges.
Maybe “wideawake” has recently read my latest book: “Understatement for Bloggers”.
“Seems to me they both need to go to jail here, and both need to be slapped with child endangerment as one of the charges.”
Agreed they should both go to jail. How is displaying a firearm and shooting two people without cause “endangerment”? What she did is endangerment. What he did is aggravated assault involving a firarm.
Yes it is.
But “waving a gun” and even “firing a gun at unarmed people” and even “killing unarmed people” is PERFECTLY OKAY as long as you are an “off-duty police officer”.
It’s also “the Law” in most states AND the District of Columbia... I haven’t been able to actually FIND it, but “they” tell me it’s in there, so it’s probably somewhere in the back or something...
is there any doubt this bozo will walk free? At worst he will lose his job but most likely he will be quietly restored to full duty.
Simply amazing.
Oh, I dunno. He’s probably looking at a massive Civil suit headed his way regardless of how his department handles this. At the very least he’s gonna’ lose his a$$ in attorney fees and court costs, while his life turns into a daily nightmare over the next few years. That’s the cost associated with shooting somebody. Even for those who carry a badge. Justified or not, when the hammer drops, it takes your checking account balance with it. Better keep a good lawyer handy.
Yes it is.
It reminds me of the two Prince George’s County, Maryland undercover officers who, a few years back, followed a “suspect” out of Maryland, through DC and into Virginia, where they gunned him down after cornering him in a cul-de-sac. They did it because they were “in mortal danger” when he “tried to ram them” in order to escape.
It turned out the “suspect” was a perfectly innocent college student who, not having a guilty conscience had NO REASON to think that the police would be following him across two state lines. He almost CERTAINLY believed HIS life was in danger (turns out it WAS) because suspicious characters had followed him every where he went for more than 45 minutes. It is a shame he did not have a gun of his own because he would have been able to defend himself.
In any cae, these two “great cops” ended up not being charged with ANYTHING, and ultimately returned to the PG County, MD police force; all because a gutless DA in Virginia (who NEVER prosecuted a police brutality case in his more than 20 years in office) ruled the shooting “justified”. HE was a true believer that there ARE two sets of rules.
These cops, who are really nothing more than murderous thugs, hunted down and killed an innocent man outside their jurisdiction and as far as I know (although I hope I am wrong) they are still police officers some where.
The jurisdiction in which he is a police officer will cover his legal fees.
AND pay any settlement.
This guy is going to be off the hook.
She was driving drunk. She’s driven drunk in the past. She was attacking someone with her car.
Like I said, too bad he missed.
The world would be better without her.
As I point out in my post, he severely wounded a child.
The mother was a clear threat and needed shooting - the child was another matter entirely.
he should go to jail for attempted murder or at least assault with a deadly weapon.
You'd need to make a pretty creative argument for the first charge. Perhaps you might be able to argue for the second charge - but only as regards the child.
how so, perhaps killed the both of em?
Had the mother died, she certainly would have been asking for it. After all, she almost killed herself and her child while she was trying to kill the officer and his wife.
Bizarrely, you seem to perceive Silva as some sort of victim.
‘The mother was a clear threat and needed shooting - the child was another matter entirely.’
The mother was a threat? She didnt need shooting any more than you do.
“Perhaps you might be able to argue for the second charge - but only as regards the child.”
he was in his car, she was in his car. How was she a threat? Drunk driving is stupid but the last I heard they didn’t shoot drunks for failing a breath test. At this point he didnt even know she was drunk, just that she was erratic.
‘After all, she almost killed herself and her child while she was trying to kill the officer and his wife.”
How did she try to kill him?
“Bizarrely, you seem to perceive Silva as some sort of victim.’
Perhaps thats because she was shot without cause by an off duty thug.
The lengths some people will go to excuse criminal behavior among police never ceases to amaze.
IMO crooked cops should be the ones shot.
“She was attacking someone with her car.”
Hah you are funny. For cops thats creative writing to get convictions, for the rest of us its a lie.
“Like I said, too bad he missed.’
too bad he didn’t shoot himself.
“The world would be better without her.”
The world would be better without people who excuse anything a government official does no matter the cost to citizens.
Okay, everyone, I've solved the entire case. Suger and fat laden food from McDonald's caused this. We can all go home now. I'll draw up the lawsuit papers.
Crooked cops are WORSE than “regular” criminals because they have willfully violated one of THE MOST sacred trusts a civilized society can give - that of a Law Enforcement Officer.
When the COPS go bad, there IS no civilization.
Violation of that sacred trust is (or at any rate SHOULD be) a SERIOUS crime in and of itself, and should result in truly draconian punishment for those who are guilty of it.
Wrong! Maybe in New York the police are not allowed to defend themselves but here in San Diego, they are. The woman was driving under the influence of marijuana and had a .15 alcohol level. I’d much rather the officer shoot her in the arm than for her to kill me and her child with her drunk driving!
I need to find another place to hang out......
She used a weapon (her car) to try to kill people. She was still possession of this deadly weapon when the officer approached her.
Since I am not in the habit of trying to murder people with my car, and she is, she clearly needs shooting far more than I do. In my opinion.
he was in his car, she was in his car. How was she a threat?
She was not in his car.
She was a threat because she was still in possession of a car which she had used to try to kill the officer moments before. Nothing was stopping her from trying to ram him again, injuring or killing him and his wife.
Drunk driving is stupid but the last I heard they didn’t shoot drunks for failing a breath test. At this point he didnt even know she was drunk, just that she was erratic.
If someone tailgated you, sideswiped you and then rammed you with their car, my guess is that you would not merely describe her as "erratic." You try to kill someone with a deadly weapon - a rifle, a car, a sledgehammer - you are basically begging to get shot.
How did she try to kill him?
As the article relates in detail, she rammed his car. You are aware - I hope - that people die in traffic collisions?
Perhaps thats because she was shot without cause by an off duty thug.
She was shot for a very good reason, and richly deserved the bullets she took.
The victims here are her son, the officer and his wife.
She used a deadly weapon to try to injure or kill this officer and his wife. She took her own child in her car while she was driving drunk - deliberately endangering her own child and everyone around her.
Might I suggest: EHow
Of course, Ms. Silva needs to be punished, but by real authority, not some tinhorn clymer who needs to have his pistol shoved up where the Sun don't shine. Can't wait to see how much Ms. Silva collects after her suspended sentence.
The cop panicked and should lose his job, at least.
However, if you read the article, Silva not only recklessly endangered everyone on the highway that night, but CHASED the cop across three lanes of traffic, pursued him, assualted him (legal definition) , and then committed battery on him with her car after being told to stop.
Silva is a first rate dirt bag and she, and other fools like her, can rest assured that when you go looking for trouble, no amount of affirmative action and bleeding hearts will prevent you from finding it. This time she put her child in the equation for good measure, because, you see, nothing matters to people like this except their own personal, and immediate entitlement.
But hey, blame the cop if it gets you off.
Aggrevated assault works for me too. Some states will charge you with both if it involves a child.
Mother: Send her to jail for drunk driving.
Worst case this POS OFF-DUTY cop should have called a marked unit considering all of the crazy cop impersonators, home invasions and everything else unmarked 'cop' impersonators have done.
No cop hating.
Just DEMANDING that they properly perform their job, and ONLY their job.
Hey, that’s a good one.
Kudos to yopu!
...or maybe even YOU!
...or maybe even YOU!
Gosh, typos AND a double post. I am just having some PROBLEMS this morning.
I think I’ll blame it on computer error.
It can’t possibly be MY fault. ;^)
So we disagree. That’s ok. This is not a big issue. My take on it is the woman is a POS. Maybe the shooter over-reacted, I don’t know. I’m not taking his side. I’m not saying he did the right thing. I’m just saying the world would be better without that POS woman driving around drunk and belligerent. Her kid (in the long run) would be better off without her too.
Just my opinion. No matter how much you rant, rave, or parse back my words to me, it will remain my opinion.
Officer White is being investigated by the San Diego District Attorney - Check
"Under a deal struck in recent weeks, the state attorney general's office is handling Silva's case, while the San Diego district attorney's office is probing White's role in the shooting for criminal culpability.
Officials said the two agencies separated the cases to assure no conflicts of interest."
San Diego cop, San Diego DA, yep no conflicts of interest here, move along. /sarc
They should have finished the investigation on Deputy Andy first, charged him, and then announce charges against the Mom. This is a PR faux pas.
Do you work for the Texas CPS?????
No. Do you?
You would have no problem with this woman driving around drunk and whacko in your neighborhood?
I guess you don’t have kids.
Or I guess you never let them outside to play.
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