Raunchy Posters In San Diego Police Sex Crimes Unit, 2nd Cop Accused Of Misconduct
San Diego sex crimes investigators maintained an office culture of macho raunchiness complete with sexually explicit posters on cubicle walls at the same time as an officer later convicted of sexual misconduct was victimizing women on his patrol.
Now, two years after former San Diego patrolman Anthony Arevalos was convicted of sexual battery, assault and soliciting bribes, another San Diego officer, Christopher Hays (pictured), is charged with sexual battery and false imprisonment for coercing a woman he assisted with a roadside vehicle breakdown to perform oral sex on him, as well as giving improper pat-downs to five other women.
Hays has denied all of the allegations against him.
An investigation by a local San Diego TV news station turned up a number of raunchy posters, some of them making jokes about drugging women with the date-rape drug rohyphnol. Others are attempts at humor directed at various parts of the female anatomy.
For example, one poster depicts a buxom woman displaying a large volume of cleavage in a camouflage-colored top. The caption reads, “Camouflage…nope, I can still see your t***.”
Another poster depicts a man in a t-shirt forcing a person in a Ronald McDonald costume to perform oral sex on him.
In addition to the victims who say that Arevalos and Hays harrassed or attacked them, two female detectives in the sex crimes unit also say that they were sexually harassed by San Diego cops. They are suing the San Diego Police Department.
Retired San Diego officer Francisco Torres gave a deposition in which he accused Arevalos’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Rudy Tai, of looking the other way at the officer’s offenses due to the close relationship between the two.
“They would go out and party together, go drinking, go bar hopping, go see women together,” Torres said about Arevalos and Tai. “Supervisors knew of his heavy handedness, of his way of dealing with things. They just turned the other cheek and walked away from it.”
The father-in-law of Christopher Hays is Mark Jones, deputy chief of the San Diego police department.
Hays is accused of giving a woman a ride home after coming across her as she stood next to a broken-down vehicle, then threatening to arrest her for something unspecified unless she performed oral sex on him in his car.
As for the other charges against Hays, San Diego Police Chief Williams Landsdowne says that even though the pat-downs of five women that he allegedly conducted were improper, there was no contact under the women’s clothing.
