ARLINGTON – Former Arlington police officer Jason Rhodes was reprimanded in 2010 for not following proper procedures after a minor accident involving his patrol car.

In 2016, he was fired for the same infraction. He would like to know why.

Rhodes backed into a cable box on July 31, 2010. The only witness, other than Rhodes, Jason Leathers, who lives nearby, said the cable box the officer hit was already damaged; it had been backed into many times.

That witness was never contacted in the official internal affairs investigation done by Sgt. Josh McClure of the Edmonds Police Department.

Seeing that the damage was minor, Rhodes didn’t report it to his supervisor. He said that is because he wasn’t sure if that incident had caused the damage because he shared the car with officer Mike Sargent, who was on vacation.

When Sargent returned, he noticed the damage and contacted Rhodes. Realizing he did cause the damage, Rhodes reported it to his supervisor. Sargent was told to take pictures of the damage.

Sargent put the photos in Rhodes’ mailbox. When Rhodes saw the photos he threw them away because they were not of the damage he had caused. They were of the side of the vehicle, not the back bumper. So he took photos of the damage he had done.

“I looked at ’em, they weren’t accurate… I felt like OK, I’m not gonna get hemmed up on other people’s damage. I want to be accountable for mine,” he said.

Rhodes said when he found the pictures in his mailbox, he didn’t consider them evidence. He emphasized he did not throw photos out of the case file, only his mail slot.

Rhodes was reprimanded for tossing the photos. Administration feared he was trying to cover up the incident because he had been admonished twice before for similar accidents.

6 years later

Move ahead six years. Rhodes has now been with the department for 15 years.

He was riding with Sargent in February when they almost got into a collision. Rhodes asked Sargent if he had ever been in a wreck while in his patrol car. Sargent said there was the time that Rhodes tried to pin an accident on him. Sargent said Rhodes allegedly told him he tossed the pictures to avoid getting in trouble, something that hadn’t come up previously.

Sargent reported him, and Rhodes ended up going on paid leave Feb. 9 for 75 days.

Bad feelings

Rhodes said he doesn’t want to go back to the department because of too many bad feelings, but he would like to work as an officer again.

“I just want my story heard,” he said. “They paint me out to be a bad cop. I want to clear my name.”

Rhodes asked if this incident was so bad, why wasn’t he terminated six years ago?

“They pushed me out, and I don’t know why,” he said. “It’s taken a huge toll on me.”

Rhodes said he was honest about what he had done.

“I knew what I did was wrong. But I didn’t do anything criminal. It shouldn’t ruin my career,” he said. “It wakes me up in the middle of the night.”

One thing that really hurt was his fellow union officers not supporting him. He couldn’t file a grievance without their support.

“I broke down,” he said.

Other reasons

Along with that incident, a secondary reason for the firing by Mayor Barbara Tolbert had to do with Rhodes’ personal issues. He was getting a divorce and dating a woman whose brother was wanted on a warrant. He also had an off-duty assault charge in 2012 and was gambling.

“I had a problem,” he admitted, adding but no one talked to him about it.

The department’s rule says an officer cannot engage in conduct that brings discredit to the profession.

As a detective and investigator himself, Rhodes said he knows his case was mishandled. Not only were key witnesses not contacted, but some testimony was changed.

Tolbert and others would not comment about Rhodes’ firing because of a city policy regarding personnel issues.

Case file evidence

But in the case file:

•Sgt. Daniel Cone said very minor incidents sometimes aren’t reported. “If there was a scuff mark on the bumper it wouldn’t be documented, other than a memo,” he said.

•Sgt. Kay Schander apparently thought the damage was so minor that Sargent was told to buff out the marks and tape up the cracks to prevent further damage. Sargent later told Rhodes’ attorney, Pat Emmal, that he did not follow through on that. Rhodes passed a lie detector test saying he did not do it. So who did remains a mystery.

•Officer Lisa Teter, who is now a school resource officer in Marysville, said Arlington’s vehicle policy is stricter than other departments, including days off without pay. The concern was if Rhodes was deemed at fault of destroying the cable box, and therefore the damage being more than $750, then there would be harsh consequences.

Teter said in 2011 she was texting a friend while driving, her patrol car drifted to the right, and she hit a mailbox post, ripping off the passenger mirror. She said she reported it to her supervisor, even though she knew she would get in trouble.

•Sgt. Mark Pennington said with multiple officers using a car trying to track down who is responsible for damage is difficult, so some kind of notification is critical. He went on to say that Rhodes didn’t tell him until nine days after it happened. His reason was he wasn’t sure he was responsible for it.

“He expressed regret in not reporting the incident to me in a timely manner,” Pennington says in a counseling report.

The sergeant went on to say if such an incident occurred in the future he was confident Rhodes would follow proper procedures, and if he did not disciplinary procedures would occur. Pennington also recommended that a collision review board would not be required.

He also said a county deputy, Lucas Robinson, was there that night, and that he should be interviewed by McClure. He was not.

•Officer Michael McQuoid remembered Sargent taking photos after the fact.

“I remember voicing my frustrations… cause I knew it wasn’t done within policy,” he said. “I remember getting pretty worked up over it cause it just wasn’t adding up on my end, and I was pissed that so many weeks had gone by by the time it came to me.”

McQuoid added he felt a lot of pressure to figure it out.

He said later that he was frustrated that damage from the car had been removed and that photos from the original scene were not present.

“Some people definitely at minimum dropped the ball, and maybe there’s a little more to it,” he said.

He also said: “This is a no brainer. You goofed up, do what you gotta do to report it.”

McQuoid added at many agencies: “This is a minor deal. I don’t know why anybody would make something out of it when it’s such a minor…”