Abuse-of-power kicked off with officer giving mayor’s son a ticket

The suspension of a Stockton cop by the town’s mayor for ticketing the mayor’s son during a traffic stop caused an uproar in the small community and across the state this year.

Cpl. Josh Rowell was motioning vehicles to stop on the side of the road to check for license, registration, proof of insurance and DUI on the evening of Oct. 20 when he got word of a white vehicle turning onto a residential street, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the checkpoint. Rowell, who was assigned to drive a squad car stationed at the south side of the checkpoint to catch such motorists, followed after the car and initiated a traffic stop.

When the male driver of the vehicle was unable to produce a driver’s license, Rowell said he issued the man — whom he had never met before — a ticket.

“The man then said, ‘I’m out looking for my dog, so I’m going to be driving around. Tell your buddies not to pull me over,’” Rowell reported back in October. “I said, ‘No, no, no. If you don’t have a driver’s license, don’t go driving around.’”

Rowell threatened to pull the man over again if he saw him out driving later without a license. Rowell then returned to the checkpoint and turned the ticket stub into the court clerk. It was then he found out that the man he had just issued the ticket to was Stockton Mayor Dan Rydalch’s son.

Not long later, Mayor Rydalch drove his truck down to the checkpoint. When Rowell went to talk to the mayor, the mayor abruptly fired him. Then, after cooling down a bit, the mayor retracted the firing and suspended Rowell instead.

Rydalch refused to comment on the situation beyond saying that it had nothing to do with the ticket but rather with the “manner in which the situation was handled.”

In a closed-door executive session between town council members and the mayor on Oct. 29, Rydalch released his first version of his reasoning behind his actions, but failed to attend a public meeting held directly after the closed session to provide that statement verbally to concerned residents or Rowell himself.

“If my son was driving without a license then he was wrong and should face the appropriate penalty,” Rydalch wrote. “This incident is not about my son. This is about an officer exceeding the proper scope of traffic checkpoints, subjecting the town to complaints for unconstitutional stops, and refusing to cooperate with his supervisor.”

The public was given the opportunity to comment at the meeting and resoundingly voiced disapproval of the mayor for not attending the meeting and for being so hasty in his actions.

“If he had a problem he should have filed it with the police chief,” said Stockton resident Nando Meli at the October meeting, adding that he believed the mayor should resign after such a spectacle.

After the public comment session was closed, the town council voted unanimously to reinstate Rowell with full back pay.

While some Stockton voters had already mailed in their ballots for the mayoral election prior to the scandal taking place, remaining voters made their wishes of wanting a new start known by electing Rydalch’s competitor Mark Whitney to head up the town by a 75 percent margin.

“I think voters did what they wanted to do and that was to see change,” Whitney said following the election. “I’d like to say people really just wanted to see me in office, but I also have to be realistic about this. I think the mayor’s recent actions helped me out.”

Jamie Belnap: jamieb@tooeletranscript.com