Motorcycle cop nearly hits, then tickets a woman
Seattle motorcycle officer Daniel Espinoza is living up to his reputation for getting rude and retaliatory during stops.
A Seattle motorcycle cop was suspended for giving a woman a bogus ticket after he nearly side-swiped her car last year, according to a recent disciplinary report. The woman told the Office of Police Accountability that Officer Daniel Espinoza merged into her lane without activating his lights or sirens, then stopped and ticketed her for failing to yield to him.
Last May, the woman and Espinoza were stopped next to each other at a red light. She was in the left lane, and he was in the right. Espinoza claimed that he was attempting to stop a truck in front of her that had pulled an illegal U-Turn earlier. His bodycam shows him entering her lane and coming within inches of her front bumper.
He told the OPA that she sped up and wouldn’t let him get in front of her, so he pulled her over for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. Espinoza said that his emergency lights were on when he tried to merge into her lane, but the bodycam does not show him activating his lights until he pulls the woman over.
When he walked up to the car window, he immediately began bombarding the woman with questions: “What are you doing?” “How can you not see me?”
Confused at Espinoza’s hostility, she tried to answer the questions as best as she could. Then, Epinoza asked if she was on drugs or drunk, which the woman assumed was just a means to bully her because he never made her submit to a field test.
Espinoza wrote her a ticket for failing to yield and expired tabs, though she said her new tabs were clipped to her registration. He handed her the citation without any explanation. The municipal court later dismissed the citation.
The OPA ruled that the stop was unconstitutional because Espinoza had no reasonable suspicion that the woman had broken any law when he pulled her over. Espinoza also acted unprofessionally, the OPA found, arguing that his questions about whether she had been drinking or using drugs were meant purely to insult her. He was unnecessarily hostile and abrasive, never identifying himself or explaining the basis for the stop.
Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes imposed a two-day suspension, the lowest of discipline in the recommended range. This is far from the first time Espinoza has been investigated for the same behavior.
In the last five years, he’s had four sustained complaints, including two suspensions, for unlawful stops, retaliation, and unprofessionalism. In one case, he cited a man in retaliation and stormed off after the man asked for his name and badge number. In another, Espinoza blew up when a man requested a supervisor.
He was previously suspended for doing nothing about an assault while working security off-duty and for getting arrested while trying to solicit sex from an undercover officer in Lakewood.
Espinoza makes $77.57/hr. and made $257,296 in 2024.