Exclusive: Sacramento PD documents describe secret investigation that led to cop’s arrest

It started last July with Sacramento police stopping to talk to a young Black motorist who suddenly pulled off the road near Discovery Park and into a gas station.

That routine police action just after midnight on Saturday, July 11, 2020, mushroomed over the course of the next 10 months into the suspension of at least two officers, felony charges against one of them, and an internal affairs and criminal investigation using some of the Sacramento Police Department’s most seasoned detectives.

Internal police documents obtained exclusively by The Sacramento Bee show more than two dozen officers were interviewed, search warrants were served at two officers’ homes, their phones and hard drives seized.

Six versions of the police report on the July arrest, some conflicting with the others, were found on a thumb drive taken from one of the officers, the documents say, and Chief Daniel Hahn, three deputy chiefs and other top managers were briefed on the probe.

Allegations that officers talked of concocting a legal reason for questioning the driver were investigated, as were claims that the two officers at the heart of the case “freaked out” and argued over how to write the police report on the arrest of the motorist after they found a handgun in his car, the documents say.

“There’s a lot wrong with this,” one officer told his partner as he heard details of the arrest. “I don’t know about this.”

The case spilled into the open Thursday with Sacramento police announcing the arrest of Alexa Kimberly Palubicki, 26, a three-year veteran of the department.

Palubicki faces two felony counts of filing a false police report that accuse her of lying when she reported that the motorist came to their attention because he hadn’t used his turn signal when pulling into the gas station and was suspected of driving under the influence. She is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

Some cases involving accused officer already tossed

Prosecutors are now reviewing previous police reports she filed — and comparing them to body camera and other video footage — to see if there are problems with other arrests and prosecutions.

“Cases in which her participation was material and necessary for prosecution have been dismissed,” Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert’s office said in a statement late Thursday. “In other cases where Palubicki participated in some manner but is not a necessary witness for trial, we have notified the defense of this investigation consistent with our ethical obligations.

“We are in the process of reviewing past cases in which Palubicki was involved and that have already resulted in a conviction to determine the appropriate remedy.”

Schubert’s office did not reveal which cases have been dismissed.

The police department’s announcement about Palubicki’s arrest gave virtually no details about the case, while simultaneously declaring the department “is committed to transparency and we will continue to update our community regarding this case as we are able.”

But more than 100 pages of internal police documents — including witness and suspect statements, police reports and court records obtained by The Bee — provide a rare look at the inner workings of a police department as it investigates allegations of wrongdoing by its officers.

Police were ‘looking for stops’ that night

It all began with Andre Davis.

Davis, now 27, was behind the wheel that night of a gray 2020 Nissan Altima as he headed north on Jibboom Street, a high-crime area just west of Interstate 5 dotted with motels, gas stations and homeless camps along the nearby Sacramento River.

Palubicki was riding in a patrol car driven by her partner, Officer Rowan Vining, and Palubicki “decided to do some proactivity,” she said during a Dec. 30 interview at the Hall of Justice, according to the documents.

“We were looking for stops on Jibboom St.,” Palubicki told homicide Detective Chad Coughran and Sgt. Hans Merten, who were assigned to the investigation in September. “We saw a gray Nissan driving faster than the other cars, so it caught our attention.

“Vining tried to catch up to it so I could run the license plate. I couldn’t get the plate before it turned abruptly into the Shell parking lot without using its turn signal.”

Did he use his turn signal?

The distinction of whether the driver used his turn signal later would become a major focus of the investigation.

The officers saw the driver, Andre Davis, get out of the car, lock the doors and walk away, the documents say.

The officers approached, with Palubicki noting that the Nissan was parked in a crooked fashion, taking up two spaces.

“The driver got out and started to walk away from his car,” she said in her interview with Coughran, according to the documents. “Vining and I got out and approached the driver.

“We did not use our overhead lights or siren. I told the driver, ‘You parked over the lines.’

“And when I said it, I realized it was not enforceable on private property, but I was already committed. I knew at that time that you can’t enforce parking violations on private property.”

Palubicki asked Davis for his license, but he said he didn’t have it, so she got his name and date of birth and went back to the patrol car to run a records check, the documents say.

The check revealed Davis’ license was suspended, and the officers asked for permission to search his car.

He refused, even after Vining looked through a window and said she spotted marijuana in a plastic cup in the center console, the documents say.

Vining told Davis that was the same as having an open container of alcohol in the car, the documents say.

Driver refused to consent to search of car six times

“Davis told the officers no less than six times that they could not search his vehicle,” the documents say, but Vining eventually opened the passenger side door, looked through a backpack and found a loaded, fully automatic Glock handgun, the documents say.

This was a big deal. Both officers later told others how pleased they were to have found the weapon, the documents say.

“This was a great gun arrest that I was proud of,” Vining said in an interview later with an investigator.

But problems with the arrest began to crop up almost immediately.

That same night, at 1:37 a.m., Officer Brandon Lundgren got a call on his cellphone from Palubicki, the documents say.

Lundgren was at Sac PD’s south station on Franklin Boulevard unloading his vehicle in the parking lot along with Officer Ryan Thomas, his partner that night and Palubicki’s fiancé.

Palubicki was looking to talk to Thomas, but his cellphone battery had died, so she called Lundgren to reach Thomas. She said “she had some questions regarding a gun arrest she just made,” Lundgren told detectives, according to the documents.

“I put the call on speakerphone and brought it to Ryan,” Lundgren is quoted as saying. “Officer Palubicki explained the stop to us.

“She said she and her partner, Officer Vining, were downtown when they saw a vehicle and they ran the plate. It came back to a female and they thought it was weird that a male was driving. They looked for a reason to stop the car but couldn’t find probable cause (PC).

“The car pulled into a gas station parking lot and parked over the white lines. They believed this was sufficient PC and she was like, ‘Sweet, illegal parking.’”

Lundgren said the parking lot was private property, meaning that wasn’t proper probable cause.

‘There’s a lot wrong with this,’ one officer said

“And I’m like looking at Ryan like, ‘Come on, man. You gotta tell your fiancée that we’re in bad water,’” the documents say.

“There’s a lot wrong with this,” Lundgren recalled saying. “I don’t know about this.”

Lundgren said he heard Thomas tell Palubicki they would talk later, that “we’ll come up with some creative ways to get you your PC,” according to the documents. (Thomas and Palubicki were married in October, online wedding registries indicate, as the investigation continued.)

Lundgren wasn’t having it, the documents say.

“I was like ‘Yo dude, I’m going home,’” he told Thomas. “I hang up the phone and I went home.”

Lundgren was troubled by what he feared was a “bad stop,” the documents say, and he talked to other officers before approaching his supervisors with his concerns.

Despite the internal concerns, the criminal case against Davis was moving forward.

On July 14, three days after his arrest, Davis was charged in Sacramento Superior Court with two felony counts of carrying a concealed weapon and a misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license.

The case didn’t last long.

By Aug. 6, with the police investigation of the arrest in full swing, the District Attorney’s Office asked to have the charges dismissed, citing “insufficient evidence.”

Davis did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. His father, Andre Davis Sr., said no one had told them that officers were under investigation over the arrest.

While Lundgren was expressing his concerns, rumors about the arrest were swirling elsewhere inside the police department.

Cops were ‘freaking out’ over how to report the arrest

One officer, identified in the documents as Max Bruce, later was quoted as saying he was in the report writing room where he saw Palubicki and Vining “freaking out and having a dispute over how to write the report.”

“Bruce was concerned that they were saying their initial PC for the stop was for illegal parking,” the documents say. “But now, the next day, they were saying the PC for the stop (was) for a turn signal violation.”

By July 17 — six days after Davis was arrested at the gas station — both officers were placed on administrative leave and “walked out,” the documents say.

Search warrants for Locker No. 5 — assigned to Vining — and for Locker No. 57 — Palubicki’s locker — were issued, as were warrants for their homes, cellphones and thumb drives.

In a thumb drive detectives retrieved from Vining, they found six versions of a Word document that appeared to have been used for the police report on the arrest, the documents say.

“These documents were interesting in that the turn signal violation was in the first version, which was created and written by Palubicki,” the documents say. “It appears that Vining took the first version and used it as a starting point to write her own observations.

“In version 2, edited by Vining, the turn signal is no longer in the observations. However, by version 4, the turn signal violation is back in the report, stating that it was Officer Palubicki who witnessed the violation.

“The turn signal remained in the subsequent versions and eventually in the final report.”

Detectives scoured the businesses along Jibboom Street, looking for surveillance video from the night of the arrest. Footage police obtained from the gas station showed that from the front of the car “the Altima’s turn signal is on for some amount of time prior to making the turn,” the documents say.

Police went out to Davis’ house, where his father allowed them to confirm that the turn signals in the rear of the car were working properly, the documents say.

And detectives conducted surveillance on both Palubicki’s and Vining’s homes.

‘Marijuana’ that led to search of car was tobacco

Police also double-checked the evidence seized during the arrest, which included marijuana that had been hidden in the backpack with the handgun.

But the marijuana from the cup in the center console — which Vining said prompted her to search the car — was, in fact, tobacco, the documents say.

During the probe, detectives also looked for the Racial and Identity Profiling Act form that is required to be filled out for every arrest.

“We were advised that the RIPA form for this incident was never completed,” the documents state.

Police would not say how many officers were suspended in the case or identify them.

The documents list statements taken from 23 officers as witnesses, including Vining. They list Palubicki and Thomas as “suspect #1” and “suspect #2.”

A source, who was not authorized to speak about the investigation, said Thursday that Vining remains on administrative leave.

Josh Olander, an attorney who accompanied Palubicki, Vining and Thomas for their separate interviews with investigators did not respond Thursday to a request for comment.

But Vining told investigators in a December interview that she still didn’t understand why she had been suspended.

“I honestly had no idea why I was placed on administrative leave,” she said, according to the documents. “It took me a few days to find out why.

“I don’t think we did anything wrong. Palubicki is a good officer and I’ve never seen her do anything to question her integrity.”

This story was originally published May 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.