Toll Road Scofflaw Dan Hughes

Dan Hughes’ career as police chief came to a pretty embarrassing end in November 2016.  OCDA investigator Abraham Santos opined that Hughes criminally obstructed justice when he ordered Joe Felz be driven home without an arrest after the now infamous DUI collision.  As a result, Santos is now fighting for his career, the result of him blowing the whistle on the OCDA’s refusal to press charges.

Like any politician who lacks integrity, Hughes always tried to portray himself as an upstanding citizen.  How ironic because this past July, the Fullerton Police Department learned that a toll was never paid on SR-73 all the way back in December 2015.

You guessed correctly — the vehicle involved was the unmarked City-owned sedan assigned to Dan Hughes.

I haven’t included all of the e-mails back and forth, but suffice it to say, several City employees wasted numerous hours trying to pin down whose car it was, and to ultimately reduce the toll penalties due.

Hughes has a couple of options here:

  1. Own up to his mistake.  Reimburse the City for the toll and penalties due.  Prove to his old department, his peers, current employees and Disney management that he really is a man of integrity.  If this was an error on the part of the toll roads, offer some sort of plausible explanation of what happened that day.
  2. Be a coward.  Do and say nothing.  Make the residents of Fullerton pay for yet another one of his failures.  Hide behind the half a million he rakes in annually between CalPERS and Disneyland.

This will be really interesting because I fully expect him to choose the second option.  I hope he proves me wrong.

15 Replies to “Toll Road Scofflaw Dan Hughes”

  1. Fullerton PD will have a tainted smell because of these prior leadership. I still don’t know how this new chief will work out. I did hear a rumor they are buying all new rifles for the department but that was allegedly approved by the previous pd administration.

  2. I’m for giving them new assault weapons and anti-tank missiles. Odds are they will shoot themselves or another cop with their new gun toys before they kill a few innocent people.

  3. One of the stipulations in Danny’s employment contract was that he keep that car in pristine condition, not allow others to drive it, and obey all laws of the road.

    Whether the toll road erred is a moot point, Hughes and Hughes alone owns this problem. I don’t know if Pauline or Eric called him about paying up, but at least you guys of all people put him on notice. I too expect him to play the coward. A funny thing happened when that DA investigator blew the whistle. Hughes fell off the radar. I saw him a couple times after his retirement and then he went poof. You can bet he’s still in contact with the clowns he appointed to the command staff though.

    We lost many good officers because of that monster. The department is now inundated with officers 35 and younger who DON’T CARE one bit about Fullerton. There used to be a sense of pride attached to being a FPD officer. Not anymore. For the new men and women Hughes/McKinley added to the force, this is nothing more than a paycheck.

    1. The police public repore has greatly improved on the streets, from my observation of being out there every night. There’s not many “bully cops” from the old guard left out there, who anyone observer could observe instigating trouble and provoking detainees through action and disrespect. These younger rookie cops act like the professionals that they are hired to be. The difference is night and day. Its hard to know where to start when describing the unethical lazy attitude of much of the former bully force. Keep up the great work on the streets!

      1. If that’s so then why is crime out of control in Fullerton I’ll bet these youngsters are to scared shitless or don’t have the balls to do the job. You don’t win popularity contests by taking people to jail stupid

    2. “The department is now inundated with officers 35 and younger who DON’T CARE one bit about Fullerton.”

      Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. These cops can just do their job instead of buying city council members, boosting their pensions and beating up Fullerton residents.

    3. The above 35 cops weren’t making Fullerton look too good, now were they?

      Shall I recite the list again?

      1. @Sipowicz
        Most of the loser cops on your list are probably 35, okay maybe 40 and younger, hired by Pat McKinley. They never cared about Fullerton either. I think we’re talking about some of the same people.

        @streets of fullerton
        All the cops patrolling downtown know who you are. They probably behave better seeing you around.

        Time will tell about the type of officers Hughes added to the department. His obsession with legacy and public perception is clearly reflected in the changing of the guard. We now have a bunch of followers who care primarily about serving their master (the police chief) no matter what the cost. The public be damned.

          1. It’s true that only the downtown bar owners seem to have any influence over the City Council but that doesn’t mean calling out the Fullerton cops on their perpetual Culture of Corruption ins’t worth it.

          2. If you would take your head out of your ass for just one moment you would know that One Who Knows just hit it on the head

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