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.
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