June 13--Why did former Culpeper Police Chief Dan Boring reject the recommendation of his command staff in the summer of 2006 and hire the police officer now charged with murder in the Feb. 9 shooting of Patricia Ann Cook?
The Star-Exponent asked Boring, now a Culpeper Town Councilman, if he could address that question in a brief phone conservation Tuesday.
"I can, but am not going to," said Boring, a former U.S. Marine elected to town council in 2010, three years after his retirement from police work. "You are asking me to remember things that happened five or six years ago." In addition, he said he could not address matters related to personnel, and promptly hung up the phone.
The personnel record of the accused officer, Daniel Harmon-Wright, formerly Daniel Sullivan, an Iraq War veteran, became public Friday during his bond hearing in Culpeper County Circuit Court. In opposing bond, special prosecutor Jim Fisher, Fauquier County Commonwealth's Attorney, referenced the defendant's character, past conduct and history related to substance abuse as why Harmon-Wright should not be let out of jail.
On Aug. 30, 2006, a Culpeper Police lieutenant approved and concurred with the recommendation of a sergeant that Harmon-Wright, then Sullivan, not be hired as a police officer, according to Fisher's motion.
"The two officials concluded that due to Harmon-Wright's dress, demeanor, attitude, and most importantly his admission of severe alcohol abuse, that Harmon-Wright was not an appropriate candidate for police officer," the motion said.
During the background investigation, the applicant admitted to numerous cases of abusing alcohol during his time in the Marine Corps and to having driven under the influence as recently as three months prior to the interview at the PD, where his mother, Bethany Sullivan, of Orange, worked as secretary to Chief Boring.
"Applicant's use of alcohol has clearly affected his judgment in the past and appears to presently be a problem," the interviewing officers wrote on the background investigation report for Daniel Sullivan, who changed his adopted name in 2010 to Harmon-Wright to reflect the names of his biological parents.
A source close to the case identified the officers who recommended back in 2006 that Harmon-Wright not be hired as Chris Jenkins, current Culpeper Police Chief, and Capt. Ricky Pinksaw, another long-time member of the Culpeper PD.
"Both of the (officers) would state that Harmon-Wright was hired despite their recommendation and that this was the first and only time either could recall having such a recommendation reversed," Fisher wrote in his motion opposing bail.
A licensed professional counselor, who was part of the hiring process, further mentioned Harmon-Wright's apparent abuse of alcohol as "one note of caution standing between Mr. Sullivan and an unconditional recommendation for hire."
Again, why did Boring overrule Jenkins and Pinksaw in bringing Harmon-Wright on the force?
Though the retired police chief is not saying, a source close to the case thinks he or she knows why.
"I think Dan is a good guy. I think he was trying to do a favor for his secretary" Bethany Sullivan, Harmon-Wright's mom, said the source. "The guy was a war vet back from the Middle East. He's a Marine, Dan's a Marine. He tried to do a favor -- now it's backfired on him. He reached out -- the problem is the guy had issues."
The Culpeper Police Department suspended Harmon-Wright from the force without pay May 29, the day he was indicted on numerous felony charges in Mrs. Cook's death, including murder. He bonded out of Fauquier County Jail Friday night after the judge set his bail at $100,000. A condition of his release included not consuming or possessing alcohol or guns.
Harmon-Wright currently lives in Gainesville with his wife and baby, but indicated in court Friday that they were in the process of moving in with family in Warrenton.
His wife's family is from California, where they met during his service in the U.S. Marines.
In court Friday, Harmon-Wright revealed details about his background including his birthplace (Atlanta, Ga.) and where he grew up (Vienna, Va.). He said he attended James Madison High School before joining the military, and that all of his family lives in this area. He spent five years in the Marines, including a stint in Iraq where he operated anti-tank missile systems in the heat of battle.
Harmon-Wright admitted to getting into fights during his time in the military when he and fellow Marines were out on the town drinking, but said he cut back on his alcohol consumption considerably after he got married and started a family.
"I am a social drinker," Harmon-Wright said. "I have a drink or two at a party."
He admitted to getting drunk since that fateful day Feb. 9 when he shot 54-year-old Pat Cook, of Culpeper, on a residential street.
The defense contends Harmon-Wright was defending himself when he fired his gun seven times, and that Mrs. Cook was trying to kill or hurt him with her vehicle after she trapped his hand in the driver's side window of her 2007 Jeep, engaging in an alternating stop and go pattern designed to do him harm.
The prosecution contends Harmon-Wright had freed himself when the fatal shots were fired.
It remains unknown what Mrs. Cook, a retired cosmetologist originally from Illinois, was doing in the parking lot of the private school where the deadly incident initiated. According to new details revealed in court Friday, an expandable sunscreen was covering her windshield when Harmon-Wright responded to the scene on a report of a suspicious person, and was still in place when she pulled out of the parking lot with him shooting behind her.
A month prior to the shooting, Harmon-Wright was officially reprimanded for use of excessive force in a 2011 incident during which he forced his way into a residence on Garr Avenue without a warrant or probable cause, his gun drawn, and brandished the weapon at two occupants of the home, according to Fisher.
Former Culpeper Police Chief Dan Boring was also the one who hired Harmon-Wright's mother Bethany Sullivan.
She was also indicted last month on six felony charges related to forgery and uttering of public documents. Sullivan allegedly purged negative information from her son's personnel file, including his Culpeper Police Department Entrance Exam, according to court documents.
She is free on a $30,000 bond pending an arraignment Aug. 28 at 9:30 a.m. Her attorney could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Neither Sullivan nor Harmon-Wright has any prior criminal record.
Bethany Sullivan resigned from the department in 2010, a few months after she allegedly forged her son's entrance exam. She went to work at the James Madison Museum in Orange.
The Star-Exponent has reached out to Councilman Boring numerous times in recent weeks for a meeting, but he has refused.
Copyright 2012 - Culpeper Star-Exponent, Va.
