Navy Cross recipient dissed by fellow cops
Mary sends us a link to an article in the Orange County Weekly about the results of an investigation into the way Scott C. Montoya was treated by his brother officers in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department after he returned from Iraq where he earned the Navy Cross. Montoya volunteered for the Marine Corps after 9-11 and was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions on April 8, 2003;
With his firearm in one hand engaging the enemy and a badly bleeding Marine in the other, he fought their way 500 yards to safety. He returned to the cross-fire again and dragged another – who’d been dazed by the concussion of a grenade blast – to a casualty collection point. In all, he rescued four injured Marines and one Iraqi civilian out of harm’s way, according to his citation.
Montoya’s “extraordinary heroism” arose out of the battle for Baghdad.
And this is how he was treated according to the OC Weekly;
Evidence compiled in the case proved that OCSD deputies and higher ranking officers repeatedly tormented Montoya by mocking his combat heroics, spreading false rumors, sabotaging his locker, doctoring documents, encouraging citizens to file complaints against him, calling him “stupid,” suggesting they would not back him up on dangerous patrol calls, hiding GPS devices on his personal vehicles, placing surveillance cameras at his home, cursing him in front of citizens and, like high school punks, displaying a large dildo, lubricant bottle and condoms with his deputy gear.
The department’s lawyer, William Haluck of Irvine, unsuccessfully lobbied jurors to view the acts as simple “jokes” or “pranks,” and repeatedly tried to slime Montoya and his Navy Cross without offering a shred of evidence that the honor wasn’t deserved.
Now, we can just sit and wait to see how the judge decides that Montoya will be compensated for the shoddy treatment he received. The case was decided by a jury, and Montoya’s attorney said that the department destroyed loads of email that would have made the case easier to decide.
Category: Real Soldiers, Shitbags
No honor among thieves.
Hmm….every single link to the OC Weekly won’t load. I guess there’s famous and then there’s “This Ain’t Hell Famous.”
Sad to say, but this is pretty much normal behavior for the OCSD. When I lived there, you did NOT want to deal with them. EVER. The behavior of the folks like Sheriff Carona (now in prison, if that tells you anything) on down is sadly not a “one-outer” type of mentality.
I read both “OC Weekly” articles connected to this and, if only a quarter of what I read is true, this department needs to be overhauled, sanitized, and reconstructed. From locker-room tomfoolery, crass behavior, sexual shenanigans, to spying, bugging, and trespassing—the reported acts by members of this department should see them all fired—including Montoya– if he were not already out, that is. It is very difficult to isolate the references to his service and his combat valor in light of the trash involved with this matter. That’s all I got.
That whole department is corrupt
Wish I was on that jury. Id banrupt that department and make every officer who participated famous. Hopefully cause every one of them to be perminantly barred from law enforcement. And issue public apologies
The dirty little secret is that there are ALOT of police agencies that are run by non-Vet career police officers that DEPISE their fellow officers and employees that serve in the Military Reserves and National Guard. Being AGR for 24 years in the CAARNG Military Police, where we have a lot of civilian cops as reservists, I saw and dealt with it all too often, having to pass along soldier complaints to the Gov’s office for action under Federal and State Law.
But, one of the worst cases I dealt with was a small town police chief who was a Marine Vietnam Vet that viewed the National Guard as a joke, so he would take it out on his officers that were in my unit.
Wow. No words for how disgusting this is.
Should they need some volunteers for explaining to this miscreants just how much they need to be in prison for their misdeeds, count me in.
@7 SGT Ted
I can back you up on that. I was the State ESGR Coordinator for a short period (the civilian guy who did it retired and I got handed the duty until the hired a replacement)
I dealt with more issues from Police and Fire Departments way out of proportion to other employers
Thank God for USERRA
Your second paragraph speaks to a different era. Unlike today, the NG was a refuge for draft-eligibles who wanted to avoid Vietnam. That didn’t work out for some 7,000 Guardsmen but it worked out for the rest. Today, it’s a different story abd one is probably as likely to see a combat theatre patch on a Guardsman’s soldier as not.
Sorry. Comment 10 was in response to comment 7.
There are also 100 National Guardsmen whose names are on the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
And decent people still live in Orange County. . . . . why?
Seriously, the entire OCSD and all its orificers who participated in these despicable actions should be sued to the point of bankruptcy. The citizens should be made VERY VERY aware of the actions of those elected and appointed to “protect and serve”, and allow them to take suitable action.
Just remember-it’ll be the taxpayers, not the individual cops, on the hook for this nonsense. Having said that though, Montoya deserves to be compensated for the harassment he suffered.
This is exactly what happens when any police department forgets that it is paid by the taxpayers. All too often, having a badge & a weapon seems to morph into an attitude of “I can do no wrong”, with the usual amount of arrogance underpinning.
There are certainly some good cops out there, but it seems like in the past 20 years or so, they have become the exception, vice the majority. Unless & until the citizens themselves stand up and say ENOUGH!, though, it will only be getting worse.
These OCSD folks seem to me to be the same sorts of people who always volunteered to be hall monitors in school. They have nothing worthwhile in their lives, so seem to have this crushing need to lord it over others.
I hope they get sued into unemployment.
It’s not just police departments, but all civil service departments, had the same while working for a fire department, but it sounds as if his was a lot more intense. But then, every now and then someone stands up and says, enough. Just not enough bosses are willing to do the necessary. It’s a shame,
Shameful the way this man was treated. On the fact he earned a Navy Cross alone, he should be treated with dignity and respect.
Sad to see a true hero treated that way. I hope he bends them over in court and gets every dime he deserves and then some. Don’t know much about the OCSD but they all sound like a bunch of pr!cks.
I can’t comment on the truth of this particular story, but I have to point out that for those unfamiliar, OC Weekly is consistently anti-military and anti-cop and tends to run to the left of Pravda. I would take anything they print with a grain of salt.
Every so often the matter of the NG during the Vietnam era comes up here. When it does, I point out that the NG was used as a safe haven by many men wanting to avoid draft placement and Jonn points out the 100 names of Guardsmen on The Wall. Were there men in the NG who were there before the draft? Yes. Were there men in the NG who wanted to serve as best they could but, under their personal circumstances, couldn’t go RA? Yes, there were. I do not suggest for an instant that these men were less than their AD counterparts BUT I do not pretend that most were motivated by a desire to serve as much as a desire to avoid the war. The group exception, as I see it, were the Air Guardsmen. I do not include them in the lot.
No matter what OC Weekly’s leaning is, there is no excuse for this kind of on-the-job harrassment.
Camp Pendleton covers a large portion of Orange County and there has always been animosity towards Marines. Particularly from non veterans. Too bad the good deputies on the department get painted with the same evil brush. It all goes to a history of piss poor command.
I have watched the antics of an alcoholic sherif in Guadalupe County, Texas, and a corrupt speed trap in Selma, Texas. All I can say that, once a police officer or depart turns bad, it seems to take forever to get things cleaned up.
Good people often will refuse to believe anything bad about law officers, until confronted with irrefutable proof.
PS. The Selma courthouse is now a HOOTERs. Those that know their local history think that this is an appropriate result.
If half of what I read about the department and Montoya are true, they deserved each other. That said, there’s no excuse for what happened after Montoya got back from his deployment, other than a department that is infested, top to bottom, with rejects from other departments, ineffectual “leaders”, and criminals.
Seriously? Planting cameras on private property without a warrant, destroying emails, falsifying fitness reports, hiring someone who can’t pass a polygraph. Tear the whole thing down, fire everyone and start over.
Speaking as an ex-cop, many times the people who are most dangerous aren’t the criminals. It’s your beat partners. Plenty of backstabbing goes on in the squad room. All those type A personalities in one place makes for some interesting times.
@20 During basic at Polk in ’63 it was not unusual for cadre to denigrate the NG and, to a lesser degree, the reserve. That attitude seemed common during the early years of my career and watching NG troops deal with anti-war protestors did nothing to improve my impression of them. Although I did serve with a couple of reservists in VN, life seemed filled with those of us that were RA and US. It wasn’t until I started working with Guard and reserve units during the force modernization of the Reagan years that I came to appreciate the value of those units and, in fact, saw some of those units again in Saudi Arabia (Log Base Echo) during DS/DS.
@19–true, but every once in a while they hit a nugget in that pile of shit. This is one of those cases.
@13–OCSD doesn’t cover all of Orange County. Most cities there have their own police departments. But yes, a lot of the towns in southern Orange County like Aliso Viejo, Laguna Nigel, Dana Point, use them, or places like Stanton.
And as bad as the OCSD is, they aren’t nearly as bad as Garden Grove PD.
Wow, that’s awesome… I guess it takes a lot of balls to guard the mean streets of the OC. It’s probably just jealousy. Those cowards know that they don’t even rate to be in the same room as him, so they pull shit like that to try to get him to leave.
@27. Yes, there is a HUGE distinction to be drawn between the NG of the last 15 or so years and the VN era. What I should add to my comment is that the men who went into the Guard during THE most unpopular war in the country’s history served, unlike those who turned tail and ran to Canada and elsewhere.
Scumbags, they should face a RICO case, every one of them
Yeah, I call this situation the bell curve of jealousy. Most individuals are complacent in their station in life and like a bell curve – they go after and make fun of those they perceive as “slower” than them and at the same time they taunt and bully the best and the brightest.
From my own experience, I am on the DoD Marrow Donor Registry and at some point I was called in to save some dying child’s life. My bone marrow was a match for that child, I donated through a painful and invasive operation (that left scars) and that kid survived the operation because I gave him some good stuff. The mother, through correspondence, was beyond gratefulI for saving her baby. I received praise, accolades, and letters of commendation; however, I had a couple individuals claim that I made it all up, I was full shit, and God was going to punish me – assholes one and all. I know God is all powerful and can intervene to save a person’s life but I really think he prefers it when one human steps in and assist another fellow human being.
It is not my intention to ruffle feathers.
@29-Yeah, that’s probably it. My guess is that they feel insecure working with a genuine hero like Montoya, so they have set out to bully him out of the department. Pretty much the same reason anyone has ever bullied anyone-feeling insecure and uncomfortable in their own skin.
Funny how police officers treat real heroes but still worship fakes like John “Bleary eyed and Barrel Bellied” Giduck as well as overstated blowhards like Dave “Never Killed Nobody” Grossman.
Law Enforcement:
“To Protect and Serve”
Give me a break. I don’t think this is a good example of law enforcement “professionals”.
Well, I can’t speak for every fire department in California or the rest of the country, but I know mine generally tries to treat vets and reservists better at all levels. There are assholes here and there of course, but they are the exception. I don’t live in Orange County and I dont know the details of this case, but the idea that a guardsman, reservist, or AD vet would be treated this way by a PD or FD anywhere is disgusting and shameful.
The sad truth is that these lesser men hate to be reminded that they cower in the shadow of a real man and Patriot!
You should read the original story in the OC about Montoya. He sounds like a dirtball, a sleeze of the first order. In fact, he sounds like the kind of fellopw who should have fit that department perfectly.
http://www.ocweekly.com/2013-07-25/news/scott-montoya-orange-county-sheriffs-department/full/
@37: The world is full of men like that. The current Administration that is busy beating our military into the dust seems to be made up exclusively by them. No one likes to be reminded of their shortcomings. Real men and adults accept that some are just better at what they do than they are and admire them for that.
@36: Small town police and fire departments seems to have much less of a problem with this than large cities who just happen to be almost exclusively run by the left. Co-incidence?
Seriously 2/17 Air Cav? The OC Weekly? The socialist free rag?
And you sound like an idiot spreading lies and false rumors;
Bet your one of the Slimeball OCSD deputies in the tory aren’t you.
Now OWB, don’t be so hard on Pjsd. He’s obviously stuck in the past or from “merry Olde England” (or both)- since he’s talking about the “tory”. He’s thus likely not exactly up to speed with today’s US events and practices.
He really should capitalize Tory, though. (smile)
Wonder which of us idiots would be the object of #41’s scorn.
Whatever.
@39 My department is actually pretty large, and we definitely have our issues. Thank God this hasn’t been one of them.
If I was to take a guess, I’d say it sounds like it’s more prevalent in departments that have a large concentration of hardcore koolade-drinking union nazis. Granted, I’m a union member myself–multiple unions in fact (membership in my department’s union automatically makes us members of CSFA, CPF, and IAFF). But I and most of my coworkers generally see our union as a collective bargaining vehicle only. When they tell us to vote for Democrats, we tend to smile, nod, and tell them to kindly fuck off. We just don’t have a “union culture.” But I’ve notice that too many other departments are populated by people who let their union run their lives without question and rabidly oppose any dissenting thought. This seems like the most common denominator.
@40. Well, jonp, that’s the source for this post, you know. And within the OC article is a link to its first article about this sleazy mess. I am not endorsing or even recommending OC. I am merely saying that one should read BOTH articles by the same reporter to get a fuller picture. That’s all.
@43 We thought of the union pretty much the same way on our department. All I really cared about was that they would defend me in court if I was ever sued or got into a shooting incident. Never found out cause thank God it never happened. Otherwise, we didn’t give a rat’s ass what the union thought or did.
I know, Air Cav. No attack on you just pointing out the source of the article. The way that rag leans should be a neon sign about anything they publish having a slant to it.
Even if this guy is shady or a dirtbag he did earn a Navy Cross and if half of what is alleged by him is true that department should be cleaned out. The fact they deleted a ton of emails should be a giant flag. I’m surprised, however, that his lawyer somehow thinks those mails are lost. We all know or should know that nothing is ever lost when using a computer.
@47. Okay. I agree–and recommended above that the department–which is ‘reportedly’ heavily staffed by Veterans (!)–be sanitized.
@46 I had a real eye-opening experience concerning union nazis a few years back when I was assigned to do a ridealong with a truck company in a large city department who I won’t name out of professional courtesy.
I’m in the back seat minding my own, and the truck captain asks if I’m voting for Obama (election year). I’m generally outspoken about my views, but I don’t know my audience here, so I try to tread lightly. I say no without elaborating. He has the rig stop in the middle of the street and demands to know what my excuse is for daring not to toe the union line. Now I’m here for training, not to get into a pissing contest, so I just say that I think Obama is wrong on too many important issues and try to leave it at that. He starts ripping my ass off, saying I’m a traitor to the working class, etc. For the rest of the day, I’m “the fucking scab,” and when he finally decides to run a drill (which is what I was sent there for in the first place) he basically has me doing the jobs of three personnel at once while he follows me around telling me what a piece of shit I am and that I should just do everybody a favor and jump off the roof. I pretty much get treated like dog shit the rest of the day. The following day my captain does the same ridealong with the same crew and is told all day that I’m a useless piece of shit, lucky for me he knows me better than that, and he figured out pretty quick that it was all union-fanatic-butthurt bullshit. Some other guys who did that ridealong on other days had the same problem.
Given the fact that most of the vets I know tend to be conservative and are unlikely to be union shills…
@ 49: That’s what small voice/video recorders are for.
I got deployed twice when I worked at X PD. Both time a top police boss tried hard to get me out of the deployments when I told him to not do it. He was doing it so they would have to pay over time to cover my shifts, not for me.
On the OIF deployment, some officers made nasty statements to others when the chief posted pics and notes I’d e-mailed. It made a few of the cops who were never in very upset, and they took it out on me when I returned. However, they didn’t understand who they were trying to fuck with and it didn’t work.