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Sheriff sorry, charge gone in cap arrest
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE © St. Petersburg Times, published November 13, 1998 And now, he might even get his cap back. Neidrich, arrested last month for wearing a baseball cap with the initials of the Los Angeles Police Department, was to have been arraigned today on a misdemeanor charge with a penalty of up to a year in jail. But after reading about Neidrich's case in the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday, Rice called the cap arrest inappropriate and asked prosecutors to dismiss the charge, which they did. "I'm definitely relieved," said Neidrich, 25, of Palm Harbor. "I should never have been arrested. Right now, I've kind of got a headache from all the calls I've been getting over this. It's overwhelming." Rice said: "The thing that upsets me most about this is: I didn't know about it until I picked up my newspaper this morning. If I had known about this when it happened, it would never have gotten to court. He would have had his hat back the next day with an apology." It is a misdemeanor under state law for anyone to wear anything that could fool a "reasonable" person into thinking a non-officer is actually a member of law enforcement. The law provides examples: police badges, uniforms, identification cards. Baseball caps are not specifically mentioned. Rice said he would consider some form of counseling or retraining for the arresting officer, Richard Wright, who has been a Pinellas deputy for three years. Wright could not be reached for comment. "It's very unfortunate this occurred," Rice said. "It fell through the cracks. I'm the one to blame for that." The cap, a gift from a friend, was seized as evidence after the arrest and remains in sheriff's custody, but Neidrich hopes to get it back soon. * * *Neidrich, who graduated from a Hillsborough police academy just weeks before the arrest, originally told the Times that he had applied for a job as a deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. On Thursday, though, he said he had simply filled out an application. Sheriff's Office policy bars job candidates from actually submitting an application before passing a state certification exam, which Neidrich takes next week. Rice said publicity from the arrest will not hamper Neidrich's chances of becoming a Pinellas deputy. "It won't hurt his chances at all," the sheriff said. "He will be treated like any other job candidate." Neidrich was walking into a Largo convenience store on Oct. 25 when Wright saw him and asked him if he was an LAPD officer. When Neidrich said he wasn't, Wright told him to take the hat off or face arrest. Neidrich complied. He then drove to another store and put the cap back on as he left his car to make a call on a pay phone. Wright saw him again and arrested him. Neidrich said he spent nearly two hours sitting handcuffed in a sheriff's cruiser before a deputy finally issued him a notice to appear in court, averting a trip to the jail. Assistant State Attorney Bill Tyson said the state never could have proved the case to a jury. Said Tyson, "Nobody's going to buy that."
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ARGO -- The day began for Chris Neidrich on Thursday with an apology from Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice and news he no longer faced a criminal charge.
