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SLO police chief accused of dispersing misinformation

July 29, 2019

Skeeter Mangan

By KAREN VELIE

Attempts by San Luis Obispo city administrators to limit and manipulate information about the police chief’s failure to retain her firearm has led the family of the man who found the gun in a bathroom stall to accuse city officials of attempting to mislead the public. [Cal Coast Times]

At about noon on July 10, Chief Deanna Cantrell left her pistol in the bathroom of an El Pollo Loco restaurant. A short time later, Skeeter Mangan walked into the bathroom and discovered the loaded and unattended firearm.

Mangan put the gun in his pocket, left the restaurant, rode his moped scooter home, and put the firearm in a dresser drawer.

After spotting Mangan on the news on July 11, as the person suspected of having the chief’s gun, Mangan’s brother-in-law, Sean Greenwood, drove to Los Osos to ask Mangan about the firearm.

Mangan is painfully shy and often nonverbal, family members said. He does not own a cell phone, a computer or a car. At 30 years old, Mangan lives at his father’s home in Los Osos.

“My dear brother-in-law not only found a loaded and chambered Glock (a pistol with only one safety, on the trigger) in a public restroom, he removed it moments before a 10-year-old boy entered the room,” Greenwood said. “I asked my brother-in-law about what had happened, he explained to me he didn’t know what to do with the gun so he placed it in a drawer and contemplated how to find the owner.”

Greenwood then removed the bullets from the gun and drove Mangan to the sheriff’s substation on 10th Street in Los Osos to return the gun; but the station was unattended, Greenwood said. Greenwood then called the SLO Police Department and spoke with a dispatcher who sent officers to the substation to collect the firearm.

The officers collected the gun, thanked Greenwood and Mangan, and said they did not plan to charge Mangan based on Penal Code 485, Greenwood said.

According to Penal Code 485, a person is guilty of theft if they find property, and appropriate the property for their own use, “without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to the owner.”

Shortly after Mangan returned the firearm, the city issued a press release that said he was a suspect in the theft of the chief’s firearm.

It was only after reading a Tribune article that claimed Greenwood turned his brother-in-law in, that Mangan’s family discovered the police department had asked the SLO County District Attorney’s Office to consider charging Mangan with possession of a stolen firearm.

“Little did Skeeter know, he would be ridiculed and labeled by media and some, to me, quite broken souls commenting about his appearance. When really, if you stop and think about it, he quite possibly saved a child’s life by removing the firearm,” Greenwood said.

In response to questions about the incident, both Cantrell and city attorney Christine Dietrick refused to answer any questions from reporters about the investigation into the lost gun.

“As noted in the press release regarding the incident involving the Chief’s gun, the City does not intend to issue any further statements regarding that matter,” Dietrick wrote in an email. “As it relates to any other matter that may be the subject of your request for comment below, the City will not discuss the details of any ongoing criminal investigation and cannot discuss any details of any matter involving minor children.”

However, after CalCoastNews reported allegations that the chief had failed to promptly inform area law enforcement about the lost gun, that the chief asked police department employee Christine Steeb to call her back on a non-recorded line, and that officers arrested a man misidentified as the person who took the gun, the chief sent a statement and a timeline to KSBY and KCOY.

In KSBY’s timeline, the news station falsely reported that detectives arrested Mangan, but later took the statement off their website.

“At the end of the day, someone whom we trust and allow to legally carry a firearm, negligently left one on top of a toilet paper dispenser, at a child’s eye level, in a public bathroom,” Greenwood said. “Now I truly feel sorry for this woman. I can not begin to imagine the feelings she must be going through. But can we maybe just work on these desperate, attention grabbing headlines, please!”


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Amazing how such a simple incident turned into a wild goose chase of who done it. Make a fine board game.IMHO, Not to defend any of them as I know none of them personally, but Cantrell and the rest are highly trained in their profession. Problem is the city manager who’s not capable of managing a McDonald’s let alone a P/D,P/W, emergency service’s and the rest of the departments withing a city of 50,000.


16

Chief Cantrell blames the reports on a disgruntled ex-officer. Once again she misspoke, she meant soon to be ex-officer(s). This is where the City’s investigation will be focused. SLO City is corrupt beyond belief, theft of city property, drug-smuggling and elder abuse by police officers, and no focus of city government other than degrading the residents’ quality of of life to create more city jobs and fund pensions.


34

After reading the attached comments and the many comments on earlier versions of this story, it totally surprises me that anyone would believe that what was done by the SLOPD and the city was anything other than what they do best. CYA, CYA, then more CYA – you do not get a cushy, over-paid job in city or county government without knowing how to do this smoothly and repeatedly.


58

Dear Chief Cantrell,


DO THE RIGHT THING


Make sure no charges are brought against Mangan.


Make sure that the children are returned and no charges brought against the O’Connor Way family.


You caused this and we all know you know the right people to….


DO THE RIGHT THING


70

Do the right thing, RESIGN.


30

“…But can we maybe just work on these desperate, attention grabbing headlines, please!”


So.. Calcoastnews.com, are you going to pay attention to the last words of your article and not make attention seeking headlines?


Also he was not once ridiculed by the media. He is still guilty of a felony and is lucky to have gotten off with nothing. You don’t just walk away with a firearm. If he would of gotten pulled over by a cop and they found that he would of had his face in the gravel and handcuffed. He sat on it for a day.


No he didn’t quite possibly save a child’s life. He is going off hearsay from the guy who knows he is in deep doo-doo. He’s already getting off without a couple felonies. Why can’t the family leave things alone?


They want people to stop attention seeking headlines yet he goes to calcoastnews which is less reliable and more sensational than the New Times. That is the exact opposite of not wanting attention. He keeps dragging this out his brother in law is going to find himself in jail for theft of a firearm. You find anything, anything, in the bathroom of a restaurant you turn it into the manager. You walk out of the front door it’s theft. The manager would of called the police.


Instead of being a learning moment for the guy which probably didn’t know any bettet, his family is beating the tamtams of idiocy by keeping this in the public when everyone besides the family and calcoastnews are fine with letting it go because it sort of makes sense with the guy and there’s no need to use a disability for other people’s gain


-93

Dude, the manager isn’t allowed to accept any bill larger than a $20. Do you think he’s going to accept a loaded Glock with a chambered round?


43

“He is still guilty of a felony”, exactly what felony would that be? Care to give the code he violated? I don’t think finding a gun is a crime, and perhaps he was using the same time frame that Chief Cantrell used when submitting the BOLO, 8 plus hours and only after the Sheriffs department refused to assist her until it was filed.


50

Desdecardo,

How in the hell do you know that HE didn’t go to KSBY, Trib or Old Times?

Please go beat your ‘tamtams’ somewhere else.


41

I think a developmentally disabled person putting the loaded gun with no safety (yeah I know the argument about Glock’s “Safe Action”, not a safety) in a drawer and contemplating how to notify the owner is better than a curious 10 year old figuring out how the thing works.


16

I think you are missing the point, i will put it in an way that you may understand, i hope, THE SLOPD CHIEF LEFT A LOADED GUN IN A BATHROOM AT A RESTAURANT WHERE A MENTALLY CHALLENGED MAN PICKED IT UP BEFORE A 10 YEAR OLD CHILD DID , tell me who should be charged with a felony, a high paid professional that now claims to be the “victim”, or an innocent mentally challenged man that, by the grace of god, thought to keep the loaded weapon safe until he could find the owner.

to say nothing all of the other real victims that have been affected by this fiasco. to make matters worse, the SLOPD Chief, has released the names of the parents of the children directly affected by her actions, how hard will it be to protect those childrens identity now,

Yeah, your defense of SLOPD chief, leaves a lot to be desired, she just keeps on being the “victim” does’nt she, no matter who she throws under the bus, even children.


7

In the Tribune article Cantrell refers to herself as the victim.

“At that point, I was not involved (with the case) because I was technically the victim”…I can’t believe she would even use that word. In my opinion the more she says, the worse she looks. I am baffled (but not really, sadly) at how she can still have a job.


64

You can understand now why the city attorney doesn’t want Chief Cantrell to say anything more.


44

When I originally read that quote, I felt like I was going to puke. Cantrell really must think we’re all a bunch of gullible hayseeds…


46

Neither person arrested seems to be on probation in SLO County. If there is a probation grant, I would like to know what jurisdiction created it. Someone should also verify that a term of probation was consent to search and seizure – many bench probation grants do not have that condition.


34

In Cali’ you give up your rights on search and seizure on felony probation, BUT, that search has to be instigated and conducted by the probation officer with law enforcement there as back-up only with no active participation. Jurisdiction is in but not limited to the county of commitment.


17

The press release for KSBY said, “One of the individuals arrested is on searchable bench probation …” Bench probation is another term for informal probation and is only available in misdemeanors. Many grants of bench probation do not have a requirement to submit to search and seizure. (For instance, very few first DUI probation grants would have search terms.) It is possible that one of the arrestees was on misdemeanor probation from another county, but I have yet to see anything to support that assertion. Without search terms, it’s hard to imagine a house so messy that a 30 minute delay to obtain a warrant from a judge telephonically would result in a serious threat to life or health. “Among those exceptions is the emergency doctrine. But the exception must not be permitted to swallow the rule: in the absence of a showing of true necessity — that is, an imminent and substantial threat to life, health, or property — the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy must prevail.” (People v. Smith (1972) 7 Cal.3d 282, 286.)


34

Here’s something else to consider; there is nothing to indicate from the article that the person on probation they speak of was a resident of Mr. Mangan’s home. So, no matter the level of probation this other person was on, if he or she wasn’t a resident of that home that search was illegal. If he or she was a resident the search would still be questionable as he or she would have to have some connection to the crime.

The use of “on sight” is troubling as well don’t you think? If he or she was resident shouldn’t it say “at home” rather than “on sight”? Also, if he or she did live there and they are using that person as justification for the search it would be restricted to areas he or she had direct control over, like a bedroom, and not common areas.

From years of experience I can tell you with certain knowledge that more times than not these “probation and or parole searches” are instigated by the police, and not the probation/parole officer as the law states it should, and you’ll never hear of a probation/parole office complain, as they all belong to a certain “protected class” of peoples and follow the same general rule of not telling on their own.


13

Dietrick, Cantrell, and Johnson are being paid north of a combined 750K a year. Is this the kind of behavior you expect to get for 3/4 of a million dollars. Don’t the good people of SLO deserve better than this? Its time for the City Council to do what they were elected to do.


71

I think it is closer to 900k, and after this event I’m sure the raises the three of them get will push them over the million mark.


26

Mangan did what he thought was right at the time. If Chief Cantrell didn’t leave her gun in the bathroom in the first place Mangan would not have been able to find it and walk away with it. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Again Mangan thought he was doing what he thought was the right thing to do.


71
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