officers - The Black Vault

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Stacy Picascia was chief of police
in Seal Beach when he took a stress
retirement in 1987 after developing
high-l;llood pressure. Although his
desk job never called on him to
chase criminals through city
streets, he found the work of
appeasing the City Council and
various community factions-and
his own police officers-stressful
nonetheless.
"My fingers were numb,'' 'he
said. "I'd get headaches across the
forehead. I was eating and drinking
bottles of Maalox I kept in my desk.
I had rolls of Rolaids in my car.
"Sometimes I had numbness in
my arm. I felt pains across my
chest. It's scary. ,Jou don't really
know what is happening to you."
Similar stories are heard by the
Los Angeles pension board, which
by far handles the most stress
pension applications for police officers
in this region. In fiscal year
1990, the board granted 56 disability
pensions, 14 of which were
stress-related. The 1990 figures
reflect an increase in stress pensions
since the mid-1980s, when a
. large number of psychiatric-related
petitions prompted city officials
to tighten the niles.
Lt. Ken Staggs, who serves. as
the LAPD's representative on the
board, said the panel seldom has
any choice but to grant a pension
when the Police Department states
it no longer has a position available
for an officer. ·
If a 'state worker's compensation
judge has already ruled in favor of
an applicant, the pension board
almost always follows suit and
grants a pension for the work-related
injury, Staggs said. And, he
-pointed out, an applicant can always
find one or more psychiatrists
to conclude ·that he is no
longer :·capable of being a police
officer.· · .
Should the board be tougher?
"That's a difficult question,"
Staggs said. •"That's really difficult
to answer. But if an L.A. police
officer in a blue uniform comes
before this board and tells me he's
been out in that patrol car and has
never had a break for 20 years, and
tells me he's stressed out, .I
wouldn't even. question him."
When a police officer receives
. a stress pension, any pending
administrative discipline is immediately
dropped because heretires.
At the sa!ne time, many
officers seek stress pensions after
being disciplined or demoted be­
~ause they are concerned that their
careers are in jeopard)'.
Each time they appear before
the board, they tell their stories in
hopes of winning a tax-free pension.
• Officer Jon Pearce shot and
seriously wounded an elderly man
ihe spotted waving ~ shotgun on his
.front porch in Southwest Los Angeles.
But it turned out the man
was. actually trying to scare drug
·dealers awa;y. .
In 1989, a jury ordered the city to
pay $2.2 million in what was hailed
by attorneys as the largest police
brutality and false arrest judgment
in Los Angeles history. ·
"I just feel very hostile,'' Pearce
told the pension board in Novem- .
ber, ending his seven-year police
career. "I don't feel interested in
having any kind of sociai inter.:
course with anybody. Just the
problems I have around the house
seem to be enough without adding
tothem." · .
Pearce was awarded 70% of his
salary, or $2,553.12 a month.
• Unlike Pearce, Sgt. Antonio
Garcia broke down after he was
unable to pull the trigger. He froze
at the very moment he drew a bead
on a suspect running through the
s~reets armed with a machine gun.
"I endangered everybody," Garcia
said, weeping uncontrollably
during a board hearing in December.
Asked to explain why he crumbled
emotionally after 18 years of
duty, Garcia groped for words.
"Sir, I don't know," he said. "I
really don't know because that's
when I had my . . . I had a serious
nervous disorder. I had a complete
breakdown. And I don't know what
happened."
Garcia was awarded 50% of his
salary, or $2,381.42 a month.
'·