CLEARLAKE, Calif. – An incident last week in which Clearlake Police arrived – with guns drawn – at what they believed was a possible hostage situation only to encounter undercover narcotics agents is becoming clearer through the accounts of the officers themselves.

The incident, which occurred on the night of Thursday, May 19, at a residence on 19^th Avenue in Clearlake, resulted in several officers pointing their sidearms – and, in one officer's case, an assault rifle – at one of several sheriff's deputies who were in the house of a suspect who had been taken into custody.

Lake County News obtained police reports as well as audio recordings of the 911 calls that triggered the police response through a Public Records Act request submitted to interim Clearlake Police Chief Craig Clausen.

Sheriff Frank Rivero said last week that the Lake County Sheriff's Office did not notify Clearlake Police of the undercover operation because the situation was developing quickly and he wanted to maintain the element of surprise.

It did prove to be a surprise – at least for the officers who arrived at the scene, according to their accounts.

“It should be noted, had any of the deputies inside the home noticed the four of us approaching the home (not knowing we were police officers) and had pointed their weapons at us, we would have likely began firing our weapons at the deputies as they were not clearly identifiable and we had no notice from LCSO that they were conducting an operation in the City of Clearlake,” wrote Clearlake Sgt. Rodd Joseph in a report completed on May 20, the day after the incident.

The encounter has raised concerns about officer safety among both Clearlake Police officials and among Lake County Sheriff's deputies.

Late Monday the Lake County Deputy Sheriff's Association released a strongly worded statement that accused Rivero of “deliberately” ignoring “established state and county protocols intended to protect the safety of officers and citizens.”

The association noted, “The sheriff chose not to notify the Clearlake Police Department that Narcotics Task Force officers were conducting an undercover operation in the city limits; as a result, police officers responded to the location of the operation and held the officers at gunpoint for several minutes. The sheriff’s decision placed the lives of these officers in imminent danger of 'friendly fire,' not to mention endangering surrounding neighbors and innocent bystanders had a shooting occurred.”

Rivero responded to the statement late Monday, saying that the safety of the public and the county's officers “is and always has been my top priority.”

He had said late last week that his office would be releasing a statement on the results of the undercover operation on Monday, but Lake County News did not receive such a statement from the sheriff's department.

Rivero has denied Lake County News' previous accounts of the incident, saying that he was misquoted and that the facts were misrepresented.

Rivero also stated that no “confrontation” took place between deputies and Clearlake Police officers, although that's exactly the word that Joseph used to describe it in his report.

Joseph's report noted, “Common practice is for any agency conducting an operation in the jurisdiction of another agency to, at minimum, notify the law enforcement agency having jurisdiction, of the operation. The agency conducting the operation does not need to give any specifics on the operation other than just to notify the agency having jurisdiction.”

The Lake County Deputy Sheriff's Association also disputed Rivero's account of a less serious encounter.

“The sheriff’s decision placed the lives of these officers in imminent danger of 'friendly fire,' not to mention endangering surrounding neighbors and innocent bystanders had a shooting occurred,” the association said.

According to Joseph's report, at least one sheriff's official indicated he had tried to convince the sheriff to make the police notification.

Joseph's report said administrative Sgt. Tim Celli spoke with sheriff's Sgt. Jim Samples, the Sheriff's Narcotics Task Force supervisor, about the operation.

Samples was reportedly “apologetic about his office's failure to notify CPD about their operation,” Joseph's report explained.

Samples also reportedly told Celli that he “pleaded” with Rivero to allow him to notify Clearlake Police about the operation but that Rivero “refused to allow him to notify our department and also would not allow him to even notify his own LCSO dispatch.”

Joseph added that Celli recounted Samples telling him “that he had regrets for ever conducting the operation and made statements to him that they never should have done it without notifying us.”

After Joseph spoke with Celli, he met with his patrol team to tell them about the conversation. He said that all of the officers were upset that “Rivero had placed them and his own deputies in a very dangerous and potentially deadly situation.”

Officers believed hostage situation was taking place

Reports by Joseph, Officer Michael Ray, 911 calls, and phone calls between Clearlake Police dispatch and Joseph reveal that officers believed they were headed into a hostage situation at a home in the 16000 block of 19^th Avenue.

At 8:46 p.m. the girlfriend of 25-year-old Michael Tremell Mitchell was transferred to Clearlake Police dispatch on the 911 line.

She reported that three large males were at the 19^th Avenue home and had Mitchell in handcuffs. They had with them a dog and one man carried a walkie talkie.

Mitchell – who court records show has 11 pending criminal cases and who has been named in a wrongful death civil suit for the 2005 shooting in Clearlake of Eric Moss – had been arrested by Clearlake Police on May 12 on drug charges, as Lake County News has reported.

He had been given an enhanced bail of $250,000, which police discovered after the incident had been reduced. Why it was reduced and who reduced it to make it possible for him to be released on May 18 still isn't clear.

The girlfriend said she was told to leave, and she took her baby and left the house, going out to stand along the street and call 911.

Over the next 20 minutes police would receive several additional emergency calls reporting an incident at the house. One of the panicked calls came from Mitchell's older sister, who feared – like his girlfriend– that he was going to be hurt.

At 8:48 p.m., Joseph received a call about the situation from dispatcher Sherri Vannest. Subsequently, Joseph met with several fellow officers at St. Helena Hospital Clearlake. The other officers in the detail were Alan Collier, Michael Ray and Michael Carpenter.

The officers decided to drive to Boyles and 19^th avenues, where they would park their cars and walk to the location. Ray brought his assault rifle and Carpenter brought his K-9 partner, “Dex,” while Collier was designated as the person who would give the commands at the location, according to Joseph's report.

Both Joseph and Ray noted in their reports that they saw two empty sheriff's patrol cars sitting in an odd location near the hospital as they were leaving for Mitchell's house.

Joseph called Vannest to ask that she check with sheriff's dispatch to find if they had any deputies in the area. She told him at that point about the additional 911 calls. Within a few minutes she would be told by a sheriff's dispatcher than an operation was under way, but by that point the officers already had gone to the location.

Once they arrived at the scene and parked their cars, Joseph said the officers “formed a four person 'stack formation,'” with Collier at the head with his handgun, followed by Carpenter, armed with a handgun and accompanied by the K-9, Joseph with his handgun and Ray, at the rear, with his assault rifle.

Ray's supplemental report noted that because the officers didn't know if the men in the house were armed, the decision was made to approach the house with their weapons in the ready position.

“We slowly and quietly approached Mitchell's residence in the dark on foot,” Joseph wrote. “We did not want to give away our position or be detected in the event the hostage takers were armed.”

When they got to the house – where Joseph saw a small white car parked in the driveway – Joseph noticed that the mini blinds in the front room were partially opened, and the inside of the home was dimly lit.

“I could see the silhouette of a person standing at this window, on the west side,” Joseph wrote. “This person appeared to be a lookout. We took a position behind a small wooden fence at the front of the home. We remained still in the darkness assessing the situation.”

He continued, “We watched this person in the window for a short period of time. Our weapons were pointed at this person. The person continued looking out the window towards the front of the home and towards the street. It appeared this person had not detected us.”

Carpenter and the K-9 went toward the back of the house in case someone tried to flee, while Collier, Ray and Joseph approached from the front, Joseph said.

“While in the front of the house, I turned on my flashlight and pointed it at the person in the front window,” Joseph wrote. “Off. M. Ray and I both had our respective weapons (rifle and handgun) pointed directly at this person. As soon as the light from my flashlight illuminated this person, it appeared this person (I could now tell was a white male) moved backwards and towards the center of the home, out of view.”

He said Collier banged on the front door, calling out, “Clearlake Police Department!”

The front door then swung open and a male wearing a red shirt, identified as Deputy Steve Herdt, said, “It's the f***in' sheriff's department” and closed the door on them, after which Joseph said the officers stood down, and holstered and secured their weapons.

Joseph said in his report that a courtesy notification would have prevented such a scenario from playing out.

He said the failure or decision not to notify Clearlake Police of the operation not only put the lives of the deputies into unnecessary danger, but also placed the four police officers in grave danger as well.

While Rivero had claimed that Clearlake Police weren't notified because of the quickly developing nature of the operation, he and his staff didn't notify the police department again later on the night of May 19 as their operations in the city's jurisdiction continued.

At approximately 11:21 p.m., Collier saw two marked sheriff's patrol vehicles driving east on 18^th Avenue in the city limits, according to his supplemental report. The two cars turned south on Boyles Avenue and began illuminating houses with their spotlights.

“It appeared the deputies were conducting some sort of police investigation,” he said.

At 11:52 p.m. Collier saw two more marked sheriff's vehicles and what appeared to be two unmarked patrol vehicles parked in front of a residence on Vista Street, facing south, parked on the west side of the roadway blocking the southbound traffic lane.

At no time did the Clearlake Police Department receive a notification from the sheriff's office that it was conducting an investigation inside the Clearlake city limits, Collier stated.

Rivero had told Lake County News on Friday, “You can put protocol in front of action, but that’s just not my style.”

That's an attitude, according to the deputies' association, “that will get officers killed.”

They added, “We stand prepared to give our lives to protect the citizens of Lake County but we will not stand to lose our lives, our families and our livelihoods because our sheriff chooses to violate the rights and protocols that protect us all.”

A statement was posted on a Sunday Lake County News article from a user account registered under an e-mail address Rivero has used to communicate with this publication before.

It said: “As our investigation continues, I take great pride in the accomplishments of my narcotics task force. This is dangerous work no doubt, and I strive to minimize them, but these are dangers we choose to accept. As the chief law enforcement officer of Lake County, I take full responsibility for the events of Thursday night and stand by my decisions.”

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