Civilian driving Mesa police car leaves man in lurch

May 6—When most people see a marked police car, they assume help is near if needed.

But in Mesa, it might not be a sworn officer behind the wheel.

And it might not stop when help is needed.

Dog trainer Eric Martinez and his wife Christine learned that the hard way while driving to Home Depot near Southern Avenue and Crismon Road to buy plants last month.

The Apache Junction couple had their Great Dane, Buddha, in the back seat as they were running the errand. Martinez trains this breed of dog to work as service animals for veterans.

But a pleasant afternoon in Mesa quickly soured as they found themselves in a road rage situation, a phenomenon all too common on Arizona roads that frequently turns deadly.

The incident left the veteran, who suffers from PTSD, shaken. Now, he wants the Mesa Police Department to revisit its policies for civilian employees driving police vehicles.

Martinez said the trouble started when they encountered a Jeep Cherokee driving erratically and weaving through traffic. Martinez told police that at one point, the Jeep passed an RV by pulling into the oncoming lane of traffic.

The Jeep ended up next to them at a stop light, and there was a verbal interaction.

That escalated as Martinez told police he saw the driver gripping a Hi-Point handgun. When traffic started moving again, he told police he saw that gun pointed at him through the back window.

Martinez's wife, who was driving, had a handgun in her purse.

When traffic stopped another time, Martinez said he saw a police car and hoped to diffuse the situation by flagging it down.

What happened next continues to haunt Martinez.

He says he got out of his vehicle and got the attention of the person driving the police car.

The driver looked at him, threw his hands up and drove on.

"I'm thinking 'great, the cops are right here,' and then they just drove off. I felt my heart sink," he said.

Martinez estimated it was 5 to 10 minutes after the marked police car drove away before the real police responded. He said it's difficult to judge because of the adrenaline.

"That 10 minutes is an eternity when you're trying not to kill someone," he said.

During the interval, Martinez at one point exited his stopped vehicle and showed his wife's gun to the other driver. Miraculously, no one fired, and he got back in his vehicle as traffic started moving again.

He told police the other driver forced them to turn into the parking lot of Mountain Vista Medical Center, where the driver circled the lot aggressively and pointed his gun.

A witness leaving the Culver's restaurant told police he saw the other driver point a gun at an unarmed Martinez.

Martinez thought he might die that day, but it's the image of the police car driving off that lingers.

"I just felt a huge disappointment," Martinez said of his failed attempt to flag down the marked car. "In my mind, I did what I was supposed to do. ... If someone's doing this or someone's doing that, find a police officer, right?"

The person driving the first police car turned out to be a Police Service Officer, a civilian employee of the Mesa Police Department who performs routine police work, like dusting for fingerprints, investigating traffic accidents and writing reports.

The civilian support staff wear a gray polo shirt that commanders say marks them as department employees while distinguishing them from sworn officers,

Currently, they go about their business in marked police vehicles.

Mesa PD has been expanding its use of PSOs in recent years. The department currently has 14 police service officers with plans to add four more next fiscal year. It also has nine Civilian Investigation Specialists, a similar type of civilian support staff.

Assistant Chief Dan Butler recently told the city council the department is interested in growing its use of civilians to offload tasks from sworn officers.

"I want my police officers to respond to those priority 1 and 2 calls where I need an individual with arresting authority, a ballistic vest and a gun," Butler said.

The civilians can free up sworn officers to respond to violent crimes in progress, as well as community liaison work, proactive policing and traffic stops.

The PSO that passed Martinez during the road rage incident was on his way to remove boxes from the roadway.

In the police report, the PSO said he did not see the gun nor the Jeep that Martinez was yelling at him about.

But whether the civilian employee saw a gun or not probably wouldn't have mattered; Mesa PD spokeswoman Det. Brandi Myers told the Tribune that the PSO did what he was trained to do in this situation, which was to radio for help without stopping his call.

Martinez thinks that having civilians driving marked cars create a hazard.

"It makes it dangerous for people who try to wave them down and are left with an armed man," he said.

Had he never seen the civilian PSO, Martinez said "my wife would have kept on driving. The only reason we stopped is we saw a marked police car."

And he wonders, what if the other driver was emboldened by seeing the police car drive off?

Myers said the department has been having "conversations" recently about the use of marked vehicles by non-sworn employees.

"But several facts remain as to why we still allow non-sworn members to continue to drive these vehicles," Myers said.

One reason is that civilian employees respond to vehicle collisions and use the marked vehicles to help block traffic.

Butler told the council recently that a committee has been formed to design a vehicle for civilian use that meets the needs of PSOs and may reduce confusion.

"While (PSOs) do need red and blue lights for collision investigations," Butler said, "we can put red and blue lights on a vehicle that is very identifiable as a Mesa Police Department vehicle, but not a police officer vehicle."

As for Martinez, he is still waiting to find out what the aftermath of the incident holds for him.

Police cuffed him and the other driver while they investigated the incident. Police seized both guns.

Officers ended up submitting "long form" charges for both men to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, which will ultimately decide whether to prosecute.

Both men were charged with disorderly conduct and weapons violations. The other driver received an additional charge of disorderly conduct — reckless display of a deadly weapon.

If MCAO decides to move forward, "a judge signs off on the complaint, a summons is issued, and most times sent by certified mail to the suspect," Myers said.

Martinez, who says that his actions were in self-defense, has not heard anything from MCAO as of press time.