Former Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with murder was hired despite objections

Former Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with murder was hired despite objections
By Justin Jouvenal
June 8, 2012

A former Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with killing a Sunday school teacher was hired despite the objections of superiors who said his excessive drinking and attitude made him a poor choice, prosecution filings show.

Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, had also been disciplined as an officer, including once for forcing his way into a home and brandishing his weapon without probable cause or a warrant, according to a prosecution motion in opposition to his request for bond.

The details emerged Friday as the Gainesville resident was granted a $100,000 bond by a Culpeper judge. He is facing a murder charge and three other charges in the shooting of Patricia Cook, 54, of Culpeper while responding to a suspicious-person call in February.

“Two officials after a full background [check] recommended that Mr. Harmon-Wright not be hired as a police officer,” special prosecutor James Fisher told reporters after the hearing. “That was, of course, overturned.”

Harmon-Wright says he shot the woman in self-defense, opening fire after she trapped his fingers in the window of her Jeep Wrangler and began driving erratically across the parking lot of a Catholic school in Culpeper, according to his motion for bond.

Harmon-Wright claims he fired more shots into the back of the Wrangler after it made a left turn because a sunscreen blocked Cook’s front windshield and she posed a danger to pedestrians.

“She couldn’t see where she was going, and she was accelerating on a residential street,” said Daniel L. Hawes, Harmon-Wright’s attorney.

A photograph included in the prosecution’s motion shows three bullet holes in the driver’s seat of Cook’s Wrangler, including one in the headrest.

Harmon-Wright, a five-year veteran of the force, was hired in 2006. During a background check, Harmon-Wright told police officials that he had been disciplined for excessive drinking in the Marine Crops and had driven under the influence of alcohol three months before his interview, according to prosecution filings. It’s not clear why Harmon-Wright was hired despite the objections of two police officials.

Bethany Sullivan, Harmon-Wright’s mother and an administrative assistant to the former Culpeper police chief, has been charged with forging Harmon-Wright’s entrance exam for the Town of Culpeper and one of his annual reviews.

Harmon-Wright was disciplined in connection with a 2011 incident in which he chased a 15-year-old boy after a suspicious-person report, prosecution filings show. The officer started banging on the door of a home after receiving a tip that the boy lived there.

When a woman answered, Harmon-Wright demanded that she leave, prosecutors said in the filing. Harmon-Wright entered the house and brandished his gun in the face of the woman’s 18-year-old son, according to the filing.

It turned out that the boy he was chasing was not in the home and had not committed a crime, but was on his way to school, according to the filings.