{"id":332991,"date":"2010-02-17T15:04:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T20:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a8ad9972970b"},"modified":"2010-02-17T16:24:19","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T21:24:19","slug":"former-riverside-police-chief-was-drinking-at-strip-club-before-accident-club-lawyer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/332991","title":{"rendered":"Former Riverside police chief was drinking at strip club before accident, club lawyer says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a style=\"float: right;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Leach\" border=\"0\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c630a53ef012877b063b7970c \" src=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c630a53ef012877b063b7970c-800wi\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;\" title=\"Leach\"><\/img><\/a> Just hours before crashing his city-owned vehicle into a light pole and fire hydrant last week, former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach had been drinking at a strip club in Colton, according to a lawyer for the club and surveillance video.<\/p>\n<p>\nLeach went into the topless Club 215 in Colton at 10:24 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday and drank four Scotches, ate some chicken wings and left at 1:48 a.m., said attorney Roger Jon Diamond, who represents the club.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cHe was very dignified and behaved himself,\u201d Diamond said. \u201cHe was eating and drinking by himself, but he did interact with other people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nDiamond would not say whether the other people included any strippers.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cWhen he drove off, he did not appear to be driving erratically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The club turned over the video to the California Highway Patrol, which is investigating the crash that occurred about 3 a.m. in Riverside. Police responding to the scene described Leach as confused and noted he had been drinking. They did not say whether they administered any field sobriety tests.<\/p>\n<p>\nLeach, 61, resigned last week, and the city has launched an investigation into whether the police responded appropriately.<br \/>\nThe former chief said he was on prescription pain medications and was \u201cdisoriented\u201d after the accident.<\/p>\n<p>\nAccording to Diamond, Leach paid two bar tabs. The first was $30 with a $10 tip and the second was $22 with a $20 tip.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe CHP hopes to have the investigation finished within a week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; David Kelly<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach. Credit: <\/em><em>Los Angeles Times<\/em><br \/><\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just hours before crashing his city-owned vehicle into a light pole and fire hydrant last week, former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach had been drinking at a strip club in Colton, according to a lawyer for the club and surveillance video. Leach went into the topless Club 215 in Colton at 10:24 p.m. on Super [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}