POLICE DEPARTMENT WANTS TO FIRE OFFICER

OAKLAND - An Oakland police officer at the center of the department's
search warrant imbroglio has been notified that the department plans
to fire her pending an administrative hearing.

Officer Karla Rush, an eight-year member of the force, was notified
late last week of the department's decision, sources said. She can
now fight the decision by presenting mitigating factors, a process
that can take several months.

Rush, who was placed on paid administrative leave last month, is
responsible for writing more than 30 faulty sworn affidavits that
were used to convince judges that search warrants were needed to raid
the homes of suspected small-time drug dealers.

While the district attorney's office has begun to fight to salvage
some of the warrants in question, any warrant issued based on
affidavits written by Rush have been dropped without question.

Two such cases were dropped Tuesday morning as two men, who were
serving state prison sentences on criminal drug charges, had their
cases dismissed and were ordered to be set free, said Ray Keller, an
assistant public defender.

In the affidavits, Rush wrote that substances purchased on the street
during undercover operations or through informants were tested,
though no test was conducted.

The affidavits were submitted to Alameda County judges who, based on
what was stated, issued search warrants for mostly East Oakland homes
of suspected small-time drug dealers.

The police department disclosed the existence of faulty affidavits in
late September, prompting the district attorney's office to drop some
cases against defendants who were arrested as a result of a
questionable search warrant.

Police department officials have maintained that the faulty
affidavits were a result of "misstatements" and not a result of
officers purposely lying in hopes of securing a search warrant.

Since the department disclosed the errors, eight criminal cases have
been dropped and probation revocations against two defendants were
overturned. The Police Department has also been named in two federal
civil rights lawsuits, both of which name Rush as a defendant.

The revelation also sparked a department internal affairs
investigation and led to the placement of eight officers on paid
administrative leave.

"I assume the department found, as to Officer Rush, what we had
suspected since the beginning, that she had willfully misrepresented
facts on sworn affidavits to a judge," Keller said. "In short, she
lied." Mary Sansen, Rush's attorney, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Top police officials refused comment citing department policy not to
speak about personnel matters.

John Burris, an attorney who filed one of the civil rights lawsuits,
said he was not surprised Rush is on a path toward termination but
cautioned that she should not be used as the police department's scapegoat.

"Karla Rush obviously has been the focal point of this but she is not
the only one so she should not be the only fall person in this," he
said. "You want to root out the problem but you don't want to have a
sacrificial lamb; you want to make sure that everyone involved in the
conduct receives equal punishment."

While Rush was the first officer named in the department's dilemma,
and the author of a majority of the faulty affidavits, she was not
the only one writing "misstatements" in sworn documents.

In fact, another officer, Francisco Martinez, admitted to a judge two
weeks ago that in addition to making an error about testing
substances bought on the street, he also "made a mistake" in writing
on a sworn affidavit that a secret informant was reliable because the
informant helped police locate a firearm in an unrelated case.

Martinez told Alameda County Superior Court Judge Sandra Bean that
the informant never helped police locate a firearm.

In total, almost 20 officers have been involved in the search warrant
problem but many of them have been cleared of wrongdoing and are
again working the streets.

Burris said he hopes the department's decision on Rush serves as a
cautionary tale for others in the department and wondered if criminal
charges against the officer should follow.

"This is about deterrence," he said. "The real question is, should
she be prosecuted for perjury?"