Burden’s driver cleared in tickets issued at crash scene | News

“You’ve got your local police here, and your chief is out and they’re in disarray and they’re not taking care of business,” Wine said. “This guy needs to be monitored.”

The citations were issued on the afternoon of July 23, a Sunday, after Billow, a part-time tow truck driver for Burden’s, received a call about a car accident at the intersection of Highway 101 and Wilson River Loop Road near the creamery.

At the time, Billow was at home, north of the accident, and began driving south on Highway 101 towards Burden’s lot in downtown Tillamook to pick up a tow truck to respond to the scene

Heading south, Billow hit a snarl of traffic at the base of Juno Hill and eased into the center turn lane, turning on his emergency flashers, to pass through the jam more quickly.

As Billow approached the scene of the collision, Martinez, who was directing traffic, signaled for him to stop, which he did.

At that point, the situation quickly became heated. According to Billow, Martinez approached his truck in an aggressive manner and began speaking to him in a raised voice, demanding to know what he was doing. Billow said in court that he explained to Martinez why he was there but acknowledged that his response had been unprofessional, saying that Martinez’s behavior had drawn an emotional reaction.

Martinez’s body camera was not recording at the time of the incident, so there was no way to confirm who became agitated first, but other first responders on the scene noticed that Martinez was in a heated argument with the driver of the pickup.

An Oregon State Police (OSP) Trooper at the scene approached the truck and inserted himself in the conversation. After ascertaining who Billow was and his purpose at the scene, he told Martinez to go to his patrol car to cool down, which he did, and allowed Billow to progress.

Billow proceeded to Burden’s lot, picked up a tow truck, returned to the scene, removed the two disabled vehicles and deposited them at Burden’s lot.

Then, as he was leaving the lot to go home, Martinez, who had been parked in front of the Tillamook Farm Store, pulled him over and issued two traffic citations, one for failure to wear a safety belt and one for failure to obey a peace officer for failing to stop at the scene.

When Billow told his employers about the confrontation, they were flabbergasted. Ricky Burden, son of owner Don Burden, said that he had never seen anything like this in more than 20 years of working as a tow truck driver and his father said he hadn’t in more than 50 years.

Burden and other managers at Burden’s hoped that there was a misunderstanding that could be resolved by speaking with Martinez’s bosses, so they reached out to City Manager Nathan George and acting Police Chief Nick Troxel.

However, the Burdens were disappointed when George said that he could not do anything about the tickets and that they would need to go to court. He said that if they filed a formal complaint against Martinez, it would be investigated, so, they did.

In Justice Court on November 13, Wine took extreme issue with both Martinez’s conduct and the city’s handling of the incident. 

In his opening, Wine said that he had three main points in defense of Billow. First, on the date of the citations Billow was acting as a first responder in a contracted role with the city, helping to respond to a crash and restore traffic flow. 

Second, Martinez’s conduct was not what the public should expect from officers when handling emotional situations. Wine said that not only had Martinez acted unprofessionally on the day in question, but that it was a pattern of behavior in his law enforcement career.

Third, Wine said that the incident raised questions about whether there was a lack of proper oversight of Martinez from the Tillamook Police Department, as ticketing people responding to an accident scene in an official capacity was inappropriate.

Testifying to the court, Martinez said that Billow had not stopped immediately when he started signaling him to do so at the accident site, leading to the failure to obey citation, and that he had noticed Billow wasn’t wearing a seatbelt when he approached the vehicle.

Two members of the Tillamook Fire District who were at the scene also testified. They both said that they had worked with Burden’s during their multi-decade careers with the district and that the practice of tow truck drivers maneuvering past traffic was common.

Both were attending to people involved in the crash but said that they had nonetheless noticed the confrontation when it happened and had never seen anything like it before.

The Oregon State Police Trooper who had been at the site also appeared in court virtually. The trooper confirmed that he had noticed the confrontation happening at the roadside and stepped in once he realized who the truck’s driver was and told Martinez to return to his car.

When asked by Wine, the trooper said that he would not have cited Billow given the circumstances.

Billow took the stand in his own defense and outlined the series of events. He clarified that he had stopped as soon as he saw Martinez and had been preparing to exit his truck to inspect the crash site to determine which equipment to bring when Martinez approached, at which point he had already taken off his seatbelt and begun opening the door.

After hearing all the testimony, Justice of the Peace Pro Tem Dustin Johnson found Billow not guilty on both counts.

During the hearing, Wine tried to introduce Martinez’s past performance, specifically his dismissal from the OSP, into the record but Johnson sustained an objection by Martinez preventing it.

However, an online search of Martinez’s name returned a memo detailing an investigation into Martinez’s 2022 termination from the OSP on the Department of Public Safety and Standard’s website.

The memo revealed that Martinez had been terminated after acting unprofessionally during a confrontation with his neighbors, which the memo said followed “multiple previous unprofessional sustained complaints against him, which provided a pattern of poor decision-making similar to the incident with his neighbors.”

In the incident with his neighbors, Martinez confronted a group loading donated furniture onto a truck in a no-parking zone in the cul-de-sac where he lived. Multiple people at the scene said that Martinez’s manner had been aggressive as he screamed at them to shut up or receive a citation.

The neighbors also showed Oregon State Police investigators looking into the situation photos of Martinez’s patrol vehicle parked in the same no-parking zone he had cited them for being in.

The report said that the incident did not warrant the revocation of Martinez’s certifications because he had not gained an advantage under the color of office, but that “it could be perceived” that Martinez had attempted to use his position for personal gain.

After the hearing, the Headlight Herald reached out to City Manager Nathan George for comment on the incident.

George defended Martinez’s handling of the incident, saying that an investigation into Martinez’s conduct by Troxel had shown the citations were not illegally issued.

“What happened in court yesterday was pretty sad from what I understand,” George said.

George said that complaints about Martinez came because “people don’t like the fact that he’s giving them tickets,” and said that Martinez had the right to issue citations to anyone breaking the law.

A letter from George to a Burden’s employee that was shared with the Headlight Herald said that Martinez had been found in violation of two policies in the incident, but George said that was not accurate. He said that there had been two areas of unprofessional behavior in the incident that had been addressed but declined to share more details about the behavior or steps taken to address it.

George said that the investigation had found that the citations had been properly issued and pushed back on the notion that Burden’s was a first responder, noting that Billow had been in an unmarked car on the day of the incident.

When asked if it was department policy to ticket tow truck drivers en route to an accident scene, George would not give a yes or no answer. He said that “I don’t instruct him (Martinez) on who he does and doesn’t ticket” and reiterated he believed the citations had been issued correctly.

He also pointed to Billow’s behavior as a factor in the ticketing, at first saying, “if someone is respectful and does what they should, they’re not going to get a ticket,” before clarifying in response to a follow-up question that he had meant to say, “if someone is doing something unlawful, they can be ticketed.”

On the issue of Martinez’s dismissal from OSP, George defended the city’s hiring processes, saying that applicants for the police went through an extensive screening process and the city had been aware of the dismissal when it hired him.

“I had no problem hiring him, he’s done a great job,” George said.