Off-duty CHP officer accused of threatening neighbor with gun faces 3 felony charges

New details emerged at a preliminary hearing Wednesday about an off-duty CHP officer who prosecutors say was drunk when he threatened his neighbor at gunpoint in August before resisting Santa Rosa police officers responding to 911 calls in the neighborhood near Trione- Annadel State Park.

Jeremy Finnerty, 48, is facing three felony charges: making criminal threats, the unlawful drawing or exhibition of a firearm in the presence of a person in a motor vehicle and vandalism. After hearing testimony from witnesses including neighbors and the Santa Rosa police officers who arrested Finnerty, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Bradford DeMeo found probable cause for the case to go to a jury trial next year.

The incident occurred the night of Aug. 16. Just before 10 p.m., married couple Kevin and Loretta Adamson heard a loud explosion from inside their home on Parktrail Drive. Loretta Adamson’s car was parked on the street, so her husband went outside to move it into the garage to keep it safe from the commotion. When he started the car, though, he heard yelling and saw a person down the street holding a handgun.

Adamson, 62, said it was too dark for him to recognize the person, but that the figure started running “erratically” toward him, pointing the gun in his direction and screaming, “I’m going to f---ing kill you!”

“I was stunned, so I froze at first,” Adamson testified. “I thought I was going to die.”

The man stumbled a few feet away from the car and as he leveled the gun at the driver’s window, Adamson stepped on the gas and drove down the street. He stopped about a block away, worried about his wife, who was now home alone. When he turned around in his seat, he saw the man was chasing him.

As he drove around the block, Loretta Adamson, hearing the commotion, looked out the window and saw the man holding a gun walking toward her driveway. Loretta Adamson, 58, said the man was yelling, “Kevin, I’m going to kill you!”

Fearing for her safety, she locked the door leading from the house to the garage and a glass door at the back of the house. She ducked down on the floor to call 911 as she heard the man banging on the garage door, yelling.

When she heard the man breaking through the back door, she grabbed her dog and ran out of the front of the house.

“I was terrified,” she said. “I had never been so scared.”

Her husband had pulled back into their driveway to pick her up. They drove a few blocks down as they called 911.

Soon after, Santa Rosa police officers arrived in the neighborhood after receiving reports of a burglary at the house with an armed suspect. Officer Andrew Castro, who has been on the force for four years, testified Wednesday that when he arrived, he saw Finnerty standing in the middle of the street.

Finnerty, who was on leave from his job because of an injury, told Castro he was a CHP officer and was armed. He cooperated with officers as Castro removed the loaded 9 mm handgun clipped to his belt.

Castro recalled that Finnerty told officers that something bad was going on inside the house and started running toward the house. When officers repeatedly told Finnerty to stay back, he became aggressive and yelled at them, using expletives. Castro called the incident “chaotic” because officers still weren’t sure if anyone else was inside the house or what exactly was going on.

At some point, Finnerty admitted to officers that he had been drinking, Officer Jeffrey Badger testified at the hearing.

As Castro and Badger, who also has been on the force for four years, attempted to get Finnerty into the back of a patrol car, they noticed blood on his hands. Suspecting that Finnerty might be involved in the incident, Castro placed him in handcuffs.

Still, Finnerty resisted officers’ efforts to get him into the back of the patrol car, yelling, “I’m going to go 148 on you motherf---ers,” which is a police code for obstructing or interfering with a peace officer, Castro recalled.

Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Bertz played Castro’s body-worn camera footage from the night of the incident, which showed Finnerty struggling with officers as they tried to put him in the back of a patrol car.

“Get in the house!” Finnerty yells in the video. “Something is not right, I promise you!”

As Finnerty put his feet up on the car to resist officers, he pushed himself off the door and fell to the ground. Castro and Badger were attempting to lift him up when Sgt. Michael Clark arrived, the officers testified.

Clark, who has been with the Santa Rosa Police Department for 21 years, attempted to subdue Finnerty by putting him in a carotid restraint - a hold that involves putting one’s arm around a suspect’s neck in a V shape and applying pressure to make them lose consciousness. Clark testified that he has received extensive training to apply the restraint properly.

“Basically, (his behavior) was putting us in danger if there was somebody else in the house,” Clark said.

Clark said at the hearing that he didn’t apply the full pressure to Finnerty’s neck so he could communicate. When Finnerty agreed to cooperate, Clark released him and officers maneuvered Finnerty into Castro’s patrol car.

Finnerty later told Castro that he had heard a loud explosion earlier that night. When he went outside to find out what was going on, he saw a car speeding off and thought it was suspicious, so he approached the Adamsons’ house to check up on them. He admitted to Castro that he may have accidentally broken the glass on the back door, which Castro believed led to Finnerty’s bloodied hands.

To Castro’s knowledge, officers haven’t found out what caused the loud explosion that the Adamsons and Finnerty reported.

Finnerty’s lawyer, Jane Gaskell, argued that his intent that night was to help the Adamsons, whom he believed were in danger. She added that he even called 911 to report the incident.

The only time Finnerty physically resisted officers that night was when they tried to place him in the patrol car, Gaskell argued.

“While Mr. Finnerty deeply regrets that his conduct caused Mr. and Mrs. Adamson to be fearful, the evidence is abundantly clear that his actions that night . . . stemmed from a sincere belief that his neighbors were in grave danger and that he needed to either defend or rescue them,” Gaskell said in a statement she emailed after the hearing Wednesday.

Finnerty is expected to return to court Jan. 2.

The CHP is also conducting an internal affairs investigation into Finnerty’s actions on Aug. 16, though the details of that investigation were not available Wednesday night.