John Dale Smith’s home is a shrine to the life of a proud police officer. Smith beams with pride as he shows mementos from his former police days: the Medal of Valor he received from San Francisco, the photos of him shaking hands with esteemed mayors and police chiefs, and the numerous awards, newspaper clippings and photos that line the walls of his home.
Although the former San Francisco law enforcement official has been retired for more than a year, Smith is still immersed in the police life. Almost every room of his modest home is filled with crime-fighting memorabilia. In his living room, a pristine glass cabinet, which in most homes would hold fine china or knick-knacks, instead displays shiny police gear, pistols and semiautomatic firearms. Out in front of his home, a sleek black Crown Victoria is parked — his old patrol car.
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But recent events have thrown the 63-year-old’s law enforcement history into question, with allegations from Half Moon Bay Police that Smith has been impersonating an officer — a felony crime.
Last October, city police, armed with a search warrant, raided Smith’s home and confiscated a number of knives, clubs, badges and Xeroxed police IDs.
Smith vehemently denies doing anything wrong, saying the police had no right to take his gear — collected over 33 years of working as a San Francisco Special Patrol Officer. Smith says he intends to fight the city police in court next week and win his old equipment back.
This dispute stems from a traffic citation Smith received last year for allegedly trying to pass an accident on Highway 1 by driving on the shoulder of the road. According to the police report, when a city police officer stopped Smith and asked for his license, registration and insurance, Smith showed him a copy of a police ID card, saying he was a San Francisco Police officer on disability.
“He was lying to the officers,” said Steve Wagstaffe, chief deputy District Attorney for San Mateo County. “He’s not an officer with the San Francisco Police Department and never has been.”
Police say Smith tried to prove he was a cop to get out of a traffic ticket; but Smith says the officer saw the ID in his wallet and asked about it without being prompted.
The officer confiscated the ID card, suspecting it was fake. One week later, city police acquired a warrant and raided Smith’s Half Moon Bay home to search for evidence indicating that the retired officer was counterfeiting police IDs.
“They woke me and my wife up early in the morning, and we went outside while they tore up our house and my car,” Smith said, “They were overzealous.”
The police seized his old crime-fighting gear and a box of photocopied police IDs, along with about $45,000 in cash. The money, Smith’s retirement fund, was returned within a couple months.
Although the police originally charged Smith with four felonies, the district attorney’s office eventually decided to prosecute Smith for five lesser misdemeanor charges for possessing illegal weapons and government documents. If found guilty, Smith faces as much as a year in prison and $5,000 in fines.
But Smith says that he has done nothing wrong, but only retained his old gear and collectibles after retiring from the Special Patrol. He believes the problem stems from confusion about the role of the Special Patrol Police — a unique San Francisco union of independent officers who perform contract law enforcement services for districts in the city.
The Special Patrol Officers are recognized within San Francisco limits as a sort-of public security firm, and able to carry a gun, baton and badge. Officers in the Special Patrol are proud to point out that their role in San Francisco dates back to the Gold Rush era and is written into the city charter.
But most law officials in San Mateo County, or any area outside of San Francisco, are completely unaware of the Special Patrol Officers and their legal status.
“Prior to this, I had never heard of them before, and that’s after 33 years of working at the San Mateo District Attorney’s Office” Wagstaffe said. “We have nothing similar in San Mateo County.”
“No department outside of San Francisco knows what the Special Patrol Officers are,” Smith said. “It got so tiring explaining it to friends, to police, to everybody, that I’d just show them a newspaper clipping instead.”
Without a strong chain of command for dozens of officers, the Special Patrol union is not rigidly organized, a fact that has amplified the confusion with other agencies. Smith blames the shoestring operations at the Special Patrol for the problems surrounding his photocopied police ID card. He says he waited for a long time to get a replacement ID from the Special Patrol Police, so he instead decided to do it himself. Going to a local Coastside copy shop, he says he purchased a full box of photocopied IDs because that was the minimum number the store would print for him.
The district attorney’s office says these IDs were counterfeited with a forged signature in an attempt to make Smith look like a regular San Francisco Police Department officer.
“His ID had Heather Fong’s name on it — the Chief of the San Francisco Police,” Wagstaffe said. “She never signed any such document.”
Wagstaffe says Smith may have falsified these documents as a way to continue living as a police officer after his retirement.
“We’ve seen other cases like this over the years,” Wagstaffe said. “He feels he needs to be somebody important. Being a police officer gives him a sense of satisfaction that he does not have in the rest of his life.”
Smith says his ID was a Special Patrol Officer’s ID, which is often scrutinized by police departments outside of San Francisco. Other Special Patrol Officers who were stopped in Oakland or the South Bay have also been accused of having a fake police ID, according to Smith.
Smith’s pretrial conference is set for Aug. 13. If he chooses to plead not guilty, his case will be brought to trial in September.
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