The Law only applies to some here in Stockton.
Cpl. Joshua Rowell, a new guy to the five-man police force for the small town of Stockton, Utah saw car try to avoid a DUI stop that was set up. Rowell did his job, thinking nothing of it and pulled the suspicious car over. Inside the vehicle was 29-year-old Jared Rydalch. He claimed to be out looking for his dog and asked that none of the other officers pull him over again. “I told him, ‘No. If I see you driving around again, I’m going to pull you over again,’” Rowell said. “He didn’t have a driver’s license, so I issued him a citation for that,” Rowell further explained.
Following standard protocol, Rowell didn’t think anything of the stop and turned the ticket in to the court clerk. “She looked at it and said, ‘Hey, you know you just gave the mayor’s son a ticket?’ And I said, ‘Oh, crap,’” Rowell said.
When about 20 minutes later Rowell saw the chief of police in the mayor’s truck locked in a heated discussion, he knew there was going to be some trouble.
Then he said the mayor, Dan Rydalch, rolled down the window and demanded he get in his truck. When Rowell refused to do so, Rydalch abruptly fired him on the spot.
“He told me, ‘All right, I want your badge in the morning,’” Rowell said. “I tried to defend myself and say, ‘First of all, look, he was breaking the law. Second of all, I didn’t know he was your son.’”
This however fell on deaf ears as shortly later Rowell was told he was suspended without pay, indefinitely.
Obviously Rowell was shocked, the rest of the small Stockton town is with him. “The mayor, I think, was wrong,” said Stockton City Council member David Durtschi.
According to Durtschi, not only was Mayor Rydalch very much out of line, the council stands behind Cpl. Rowell. Much of the town is so upset with the mayor’s actions, many of the citizens are trying to change their write-in ballots for the upcoming election.
Another Stockton city council member, Kendall Thomas, has said that the mayor is conducting the investigation into any wrongdoing in the incident and has not consulted any of the council members. A special council meeting is scheduled for tonight, the 29th night to discuss the incident.
Video Courtesy of KSL.com
[Source: KSL]