Crime & Safety

Santee Sheriff's Detective Charged With Drunk Driving and Hit-and-Run

Officially charged in two traffic accidents in Riverside County, the detective faces three felonies and four misdemeanors.

A San Diego County Sheriff's Department detective was charged Tuesday with drunken driving and hit-and-run in connection with two traffic accidents in Riverside County.

Barbara Jean Crozier, 47, faces one count of injury hit-and-run and two counts of injury DUI -- all felonies -- and four misdemeanor counts of DUI and hit-and-run property damage.

The charges were filed by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, and Crozier is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday at Larson Justice Center in Indio.

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Witnesses told investigators a vehicle with a woman behind the wheel collided with several parked cars and ran over a pedestrian's foot in an apartment complex parking lot at Fred Waring Drive and Town Center Way in Palm Desert on Aug. 30. The witness gave investigators a description of the vehicle and its license-plate number, sheriff's Sgt. Joe Borja said.

Later that night, deputies received a call that a vehicle had crashed into a water fountain at the entrance of the Marrakesh Country Club at 47000 Marrakesh Drive in Palm Desert. The license plate of the vehicle matched the one from the hit-and-run, Borja said.

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Crozier was arrested and booked at the Indio jail on suspicion of hit- and-run and driving while intoxicated, Borja said. She posted a $50,000 bond on Sept. 6.

The detective worked out of a Santee substation, a representative from the San Diego County sheriff's personnel department confirmed in September. Officials declined to disclose Crozier's current employment status.

"San Diego Sheriff's Department policy is that when an employee is arrested, an internal affairs investigation is initiated," sheriff's spokeswoman Melissa Aquino told City News Service via email. "Personnel records of peace officers are confidential under Penal Code 832.7, and as such the sheriff's department cannot comment on internal investigations relating to peace officers."

-City News Service


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