An off-duty Los Angeles police officer was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated following a crash in Glendale on Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
Ramon Muniz, 44, was involved in a minor collision near the corner of Sinclair Avenue and East Chevy Chase Drive around 1:45 p.m., said Tahnee Lightfoot, a public information officer for the Glendale Police Department.
Neither Muniz nor the occupant or occupants of the second vehicle involved were injured, Lightfoot said.
Police did not respond to the crash until officers were called while the two parties were exchanging information. Once there, authorities began investigating the incident as a DUI collision and arrested Muniz, according to Lightfoot.
He is not the first LAPD official to be accused of driving under the influence in recent months.
In late April, two supervisors — Sgt. James Kelly and Cmdr. Nicole Mehringer — were involved in another suspected DUI crash in Glendale. Mehringer was detained, while Kelly was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.
And on June 20, Officer Edgar Verduzco pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from an alleged DUI crash in the Whittier area that resulted in the death of a Riverside couple and their teenage son.
Other officers are also the subject of criminal investigations. Perhaps the most serious involves Officer Kenneth Collard, 51, who was charged with sexually assaulting the 13-year-old daughter of another LAPD officer.
A former officer named Robert Cain has been accused of having sex with a 15-year-old cadet. The allegations came to light last year after it was revealed that he was helping cadets take LAPD patrol cars on joy rides — after the agency was involved in a pursuit of its own vehicles.
Cain has pleaded not guilty to sex assault charges, but was sentenced to two years in jail in a separate case after a search of his home turned up more than 100 firearms, several of which were illegal in California.
Another officer, Mambasse Koulabalo Patara, is facing charges after allegedly transporting two men in the U.S. illegally near the Mexico border.
The department had previously said it launched personnel complaint investigations into the cases, but it had not commented on Muniz’s arrest as of Thursday night.
Muniz was released from custody around 7:20 p.m. after being held on $15,000 bail, inmate records show.
He was scheduled to appear in court in Glendale on Monday, July 16.
KTLA’s Matt Phillips contributed to this report.
