RENEGADE 'RIDERS' OFFICERS CALLED HIGH PRODUCERS

"You familiar with a company named Enron?" Assistant District Attorney
David Hollister at one point asked after Hayter went on to describe
Mabanag, Hornung and Siapno as motivated cops who undertook "directed
patrol" missions to fight crime. Hollister suggested that the former police
sergeant was blinded by the officers' trickery, just as the public was by
Enron's executives.

Hollister asked Hayter about six incidents that took place in a three-week
span that summer, including the detention of several men who needed medical
treatment and the shooting of a pit bull terrier between the eyes in the
back yard of a suspected drug house.

Asked whether the series of events should have raised suspicions, Hayter
acknowledged that "in a short time, that could be a spike."

Hollister honed in on a night Siapno and purported Riders leader Frank
Vazquez arrested Delphine Allen.

In his testimony, Allen had said he was falsely accused of possessing crack
cocaine, then taken by Vazquez and Siapno to a freeway underpass for a beating.

Allen's mother had called police to complain her son was being drubbed by
cops. Police dispatchers notified the supervising sergeant, Hayter, who
went to check on the arrest.

Hayter described leaning into a police car and speaking privately with
Allen, who only had a bump on his forehead. Hayter said he looked around
"360 degrees" and was certain no officers were nearby to intimidate Allen
during their conversation.

Hayter said Allen backed the arrest report, which blamed the injuries on
his being tackled while trying to run away and from rapping his head
angrily against a partition dividing the front and back of the patrol car.

On the witness stand, Allen testified his written statement in the report
was false and that officers glared at him menacingly over Hayter's shoulder
to insure he didn't speak the truth.

"When he started to talk, didn't you cut him off and show him his
statement?" Hollister said.

"I believe I gave him the chance to tell me what happened," a soft-spoken
Hayter replied.

Keith Batt, the police rookie who blew the whistle on the Riders in July
2000, has echoed Allen's description of the scene with Hayter.

Hollister confronted Hayter with a report written by American Medical
Response paramedics, who treated Allen before the sergeant arrived. Allen's
right eye was swollen shut and the area around it bruised, the paramedics
indicated.

"The best I remember is some swelling on the forehead," Hayter maintained.
Hayter said he ordered officers to have photographs taken of Allen's wounds
for a "use of force report." The order was not carried out.

When Sgt. Barney Rivera complained that Hayter's officers had "burned" an
undercover van by hopping out of it and grabbing suspected drug dealers
from street corners, Hayter dismissed Rivera's complaint as jealousy.

"I thought he was jealous of the number of arrests, because my officers
were doing a more effective job," Hayter said. "Barney Rivera was upset my
guys were showing his up."

Shortly after the Riders probe was launched, rookie Officer Steve Hewison
told Hayter he had been coaxed by Mabanag into framing a suspected drug
dealer in a bogus police report.

Hayter testified he told Hewison to inform the Alameda County District
Attorney's Office.

Hewison, however, testified that Hayter advised him to confide in
prosecutors if the case went to trial, which it didn't. The falsely accused
man pleaded guilty in a deal that kept him out of jail.

"Hindsight being what it is, I wasn't specific enough," Hayter said, "I
don't believe I told him to go up that day. I probably should have."

Hayter said he alerted a captain, Ralph Lacer, about Hewison's story within
days. Lacer remembers things differently.

Hayter was stripped of his sergeant's rank as a result of the Riders
scandal. He also was booted off the Special Weapons and Tactics team.

"I don't believe it was fair," Hayter said of his punishment. "They told me
I didn't supervise properly and I was untruthful."

Hayter is appealing his demotion, and the matter is before an arbitrator.