Riverside wants to fire three cops for claiming they are disabled, attorney says

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The city of Riverside is trying to fire three of its police officers because they’re using license plates for disabled veterans on their personal vehicles despite having no apparent problems performing their jobs, the officers’ attorney has claimed.The department’s logic for firing the officers, their attorney Matthew McNicholas said, was that they must have lied to the California Department of Motor Vehicles in order to obtain the specialized plates, which exempt drivers from paying registration fees and allow them to use disabled parking spots and park in metered spots for free.That logic is broken, McNicholas said, because under federal law, to get a 100% disability rating — which each of the officers obtained — a veteran doesn’t have to be fully disabled.

A veteran can get that disability status through a combination of partial disabilities, such as partial hearing loss, post-traumatic stress disorder or a back injury.To obtain plates for veterans rated as 100% disabled, a person must submit a certificate from a medical professional or a county, state or federal veterans’ agency confirming their disability.“The department said it’s a bad look” for the officers to come to work in their personal cars carrying plates for veterans with a 100% disability rating, McNicholas said in an interview Tuesday.The Riverside Police Department declined to comment on the case or the officers’ status with the agency, citing employee confidentiality.

But McNicholas said that the department is acting out of concern about public perception and to punish the officers for refusing to remove the plates when asked to do so by their superiors.Officers Timothy Popplewell, Richard Cranford and Raymond Olivares were put on administrative leave and informed of an internal investigation into their use of veteran plates on May 21.They sued the agency about two months later, claiming...