County wanted to fire Sean Andrews, but settled his case instead.
Onondaga County sheriff’s Deputy Sean Andrews is back on patrol, a year after being suspended for using his Taser on a Salina woman at a traffic stop.
Sheriff Kevin Walsh’s attempt to fire Andrews over the January 2009 incident ended in recent months with a resolution of the departmental charges, according to Walsh.
Andrews was allowed back in a patrol car about two weeks ago for the first time since Walsh suspended him in August 2009 over the Taser incident.
Andrews must ride with another deputy who’s retraining him, Walsh said. That will continue until the department decides Andrews is ready to be on the road alone again, Walsh said.
Under the settlement between the county and Andrews, he will not get back the $4,091 he lost when he was suspended without pay last year, Walsh said.
Andrews has been retrained over the past few months in the use of a Taser, the use of force and the use of defensive tactics, Walsh said. All of the training has been one-on-one with an instructor, he said.
“He’s requalified in all areas that we felt were necessary,” Walsh said. “He’s being given a second opportunity.”
The county agreed to drop its attempt to fire Andrews, because it’s difficult to get that result when a case goes to an arbitrator, Walsh said. The case was settled just before arbitration was to begin.
Andrews, a deputy for five years, could not be reached for comment.
The president of the union that represents Andrews, Deputy Brian Crowley, declined to comment, saying the settlement came with a promise of confidentiality.
Andrews pulled over Audra Harmon, in Salina, on Jan. 31, 2009. The traffic stop was recorded by a camera on Andrews’ dashboard.
Andrews told her he saw her talking on her cell phone, but when she offered to let him see the phone to prove she hadn’t used it, he told her she was going 50 in a 45-mph zone, she said.
As Andrews headed back to his car, Harmon got out of her van and told him she wanted to see proof that she was speeding. She had in the van her two children, ages 15 and 5. Andrews ordered her back in the van and, when she refused, he pulled out his Taser, the video shows. She then got in the van and Andrews ordered her out. When she refused, he pulled her out and jolted her with the Taser, and she fell to the ground.
Harmon was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and speeding. The charges were dropped.
Andrews said in an e-mail to his family that he did nothing wrong. He pointed out that his supervisor, who was at the scene, wrote an e-mail saying Andrews followed department policy and was in line with his training.
Andrews was allowed to remain on the job for eight months, until a week after The Post-Standard wrote about the incident and showed the video on the Internet. Andrews was then suspended without pay for 30 days. After that, he returned to work but was only allowed to sit in a room and read the duty manual.
Audra Harmon of Salina (center) and her attorney, Terrance Hoffmann (left), appeared on NBC's "Today" show Aug. 14, 2009 to talk to Meredith Vieira (right) about Harmon being tasered twice by Onondaga County Sheriff's deputy Sean Andrews.Harmon sued the county and settled for $75,000. She could not be reached for comment.
Detective Ed Bragg, Andrews’ Taser instructor, said Andrews used the Taser properly but improperly applied use-of-force techniques before that. Andrews should have continued using verbal commands with Harmon instead of putting his hands on her, Bragg said.
Bragg is challenging Walsh for the Republican nomination for sheriff. They run in a primary against each other next month.
Bragg and the two Democrats running for sheriff, Sgt. Toby Shelley and Deputy Joe Price, criticized Walsh’s handling of the case. If he believed Andrews should have been fired, Walsh should not have waited eight months to suspend him, they said.
“If he had an issue, why wasn’t it addressed swiftly and why wasn’t it done fairly?” Bragg asked.
“He (Andrews) didn’t get suspended until after the newspaper article came out,” Shelley said. “You should investigate and, wherever the truth falls, you handle it right away.”
Walsh admits the publicity brought to his attention the fact that disciplinary charges had not been filed. But he denies caving in to public pressure, as Andrews has contended.
“I wish the delay hadn’t happened,” Walsh said. “If something fell through the cracks, we have since patched those cracks and changed the procedure for how the notifications are made once internal affairs finishes their initial report.”
After the story ran in the newspaper, Harmon and her lawyer appeared on NBC’s “Today” show. Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” featured the incident in a roundup of stun-gun cases.
--Contact John O’Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.