By: JUSTIN
JOUVENAL | The Washington Post
Published: June 09, 2012
Published: June 09, 2012
A Culpeper
police officer charged with killing a Sunday school teacher was hired despite
the objections of superiors who said his excessive drinking and attitude made
him a poor choice, prosecution filings show.
Daniel
Harmon-Wright, 32, also had been disciplined as an officer, including once for
forcing his way into a home and brandishing his weapon without probable cause
or a warrant, according to a prosecution motion in opposition to his request
for bond.
The details
emerged Friday as the Gainesville resident was granted a $100,000 bond by a
Culpeper judge. He is facing a murder charge and three other charges in the
shooting of Patricia Cook, 54, of Culpeper, while responding to a
suspicious-person call in February.
“Two
officials after a full background [check] recommended that Mr. Harmon-Wright
not be hired as a police officer,” special prosecutor James Fisher told
reporters after the hearing. “That was, of course, overturned.”
Harmon-Wright
says he shot the woman in self-defense, opening fire after she trapped his
fingers in the window of her Jeep Wrangler and began driving erratically across
the parking lot of a Catholic school in Culpeper, according to his motion for
bond.
Harmon-Wright
claims he fired more shots into the back of the Wrangler after it made a left
turn because a sun screen blocked Cook’s front windshield and she posed a
danger to pedestrians.
“She
couldn’t see where she was going, and she was accelerating on a residential
street,” said Daniel L. Hawes, Harmon-Wright’s attorney.
A photograph
included in the prosecution’s motion shows three bullet holes in the driver’s
seat of Cook’s Wrangler, including one in the headrest.
Harmon-Wright,
a five-year veteran of the force, was hired in 2006. During a background check,
Harmon-Wright told police officials that he had been disciplined for excessive
drinking in the Marine Crops and had driven under the influence of alcohol
three months before his interview, according to prosecution filings. It’s not
clear why Harmon-Wright was hired despite the objections of two police
officials.
Bethany
Sullivan, Harmon-Wright’s mother and an administrative assistant to the former
Culpeper police chief, has been charged with forging Harmon-Wright’s entrance
exam for the town of Culpeper and one of his annual reviews.
Harmon-Wright
was disciplined in connection with a 2011 incident in which he chased a
15-year-old boy after a suspicious-person report, prosecution filings show. The
officer started banging on the door of a home after receiving a tip that the
boy lived there.
When a woman
answered, Harmon-Wright demanded that she leave, prosecutors said in the
filing. Harmon-Wright entered the house and brandished his gun in the face of
the woman’s 18-year-old son, according to the filing.
It turned
out that the boy he was chasing was not in the home and had not committed a
crime, but was on his way to school, according to the filings.
Post staff
writer Tom Jackman contributed to this story.