Tammy Smith thinks a decade-old dispute with Patterson's police chief prompted an obstruction of justice charge that was thrown out of court, yet remains the subject of a $6.25 million lawsuit.
She recently won round one when Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge John G. Whiteside dismissed a misdemeanor charge because two officers admitted that they initially did not consider Smith's behavior, after a night of fun at the Apricot Fiesta two years ago, to be a crime.
Smith had been accused of putting her hands on an officer as she begged him not to arrest her son, an Iraq war veteran who sometimes became belligerent with authority figures, for being drunk and disorderly.
When her case came to trial July 16, the officers admitted that they did not charge Smith with a crime until Police Chief Tyrone Spencer sent word that the case deserved a second look.
After several hours of testimony, the judge tossed the case out before 12 jurors had their chance. Whiteside said he did not approve of Smith's behavior, but didn't see a crime worthy of deliberation, either.
"The court does not believe that any reasonable jury, under the circumstances in this case, could or would convict the defendant," Whiteside said, according to a transcript provided by Smith's defense attorney.
Case dismissed ... but that was just the beginning.
Smith, a dispatcher with the Mountain View Police Department (near Palo Alto) for more than 20 years, said she wished she could have given the judge a clearer picture of the incident, but held her tongue out of respect for the court.
In a lawsuit, Smith accuses Spencer of holding a grudge against her because her husband, a police officer turned private investigator, helped exonerate a man Spencer tried to fire a decade ago.
Chief: Old conflict unrelated
Back then, Spencer suspected that Tammy Smith abused her position as a dispatcher to tap into a police database and find the address of a key witness in the termination case, according to legal papers.
Husband Johnny Smith said his client brought him to the home of a witness, a reserve officer who lived with his parents. An investigation came up empty, but Tammy Smith said she complained about Spencer at a City Council meeting and again at a town hall meeting sponsored by former Stanislaus County Sheriff Les Weidman.
Spencer said he has no idea why Smith thinks he harbors a grudge, adding that the police considered only one factor, her behavior, when they forwarded papers to the district attorney's office recommending that a criminal charge be filed.
He said the police reports -- which describe a ranting woman intervening in the officer's investigation -- tell the real story.
"The report speaks for itself, regardless of when it was written," Spencer said. "Either the incident happened or it didn't happen."
The incident after the Apricot Fiesta began in a parking lot at Mil's Bar and Grill on June 2, 2006, when an officer told Wayne Smith to get rid of a beer and he responded by chugging from a plastic cup.
Tammy Smith told the officers she would take her son home, insisting that he would not drive. The officers followed on foot as the Smiths and several friends walked away, but called for backup from a nearby patrol car after someone in the crowd screamed an obscenity.
Wayne Smith, 25, and family friend George Denton, 59, were arrested and placed in the back of the patrol car. In a report written three weeks later, an officer said he had to use a wristlock to push Tammy Smith out of the way.
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