‘That’s It for Me,’ Acquitted Police Officer Says : Law enforcement: Two partners express bitterness and hurt that they were accused of victimizing illegal aliens in a trial that raised questions about practice of transporting transients out of downtown.

Richard P. Schaaf never wants to be a cop again.

After nine years in a police uniform, after working the streets of San Diego for the last three years, after weathering the last nine months in which he spent a night in jail, stood trial for two weeks and finally was found not guilty on felony kidnaping and robbery charges, he is more than happy to put police work behind him.

“I’ve had it,” he said Wednesday afternoon, his words loud and harsh, his face not betraying even the slightest hint of doubt. “That’s it for me.”

His longtime partner, Lloyd J. Hoff Jr., is perhaps less bitter. But he is hurt just the same that his four-year police career is still in jeopardy, despite his and Schaaf’s acquittal on the charges of victimizing a group of illegal aliens.

“This just makes me want to go back to work and show I’m not a bad cop,” Hoff said.

Schaaf, 30, and Hoff, 27, unburdened their feelings during an hourlong interview at their attorneys’ offices shortly after the not-guilty verdicts were announced in court.

Drinking champagne and hugging their wives, the officers spoke frankly about their nine-month ordeal since they were arrested, slept overnight in jail and then faced the public in a courtroom the next morning, wearing jail clothes and a cloak of indignity.

“There are very few things that can degrade you when you are a cop,” Hoff said. “Standing there in jail clothes is one of them. It was against everything we’d worked for.”

Schaaf said: “I’m still outraged about that. I was disgraced. I was dishonored. My wife was at home with our two children, one who was only 4 months old, and I was in jail.”

They talked about how they felt being ostracized at first by fellow officers, but then finding support from their colleagues when the scope of the police Internal Affairs investigation into their conduct became known.

They said their friends in the department encouraged them to hang tough at trial, particularly since the Internal Affairs unit and the county district attorney’s office were basing their case on testimony of illegal aliens with lengthy criminal records on drug charges and other offenses.

Hoff and Schaaf said they felt betrayed by police supervisors, even though they were simply following an ages-old police practice of cleaning the streets of transients when the illegal aliens alleged they were kidnaped.

“In a four-day work week, I’ve probably done that a dozen times,” Schaaf said. “Probably more than a dozen.”

Hoff, like a series of other officers, testified at the trial that downtown patrol officers are under pressure to rid the downtown of undesirables. Schaaf, who did not take the stand at trial, said the roundup policy has not only been practiced in San Diego but at two East Coast departments where he has worked.

“If the San Diego Police Department doesn’t do it here,” he said, “they’ll be overwhelmed by street victims. If this transportation policy stopped, and the Police Department said, ‘No more,’ then this downtown would go down the tubes.”

Schaaf also sharply criticized comments from Cmdr. Larry Gore, who announced after the verdicts that police officers do not routinely remove transients from the streets without having a reason to believe that they have committed a crime.

“He’s covering the department’s ass,” Schaaf said. “He’s covering their fannies, their behinds, whatever you want to call it.”

Hoff declined to take issue with any specific police supervisors. But he was perplexed that police management on the seventh floor of police headquarters did not drop the case for lack of merit, instead of handing it to the district attorney and ultimately a jury.

“It’s the seventh floor that wanted a jury to handle this, rather than making the decision themselves,” he said.

The officers said that, when the case landed at the San Diego County district attorney’s office, prosecutors had no choice but to file the criminal complaint. Schaaf even suggested that Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller pursued the case for political reasons this election year.

“The whole system was willing to throw two cops to the lions,” Schaaf said. “That’s what it came down to.”

However, Miller is running unopposed for reelection, and Craig Rooten, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, insisted in a separate interview that there was no hidden agenda in his office’s bringing the charges.

Hoff and Schaaf also said that, although they have been partners for more than two years, they have now grown even closer. Although Hoff was portrayed as the lead villain in the kidnaping and robbery case, Schaaf said he never lost confidence in his friend.

“There wasn’t a time in this whole incident that I wouldn’t stand up and say Officer Hoff never illegally transported anybody, never robbed anybody, never beat anybody,” he said.

But soon they will part ways.

Schaaf, who with another friend has bought a truck, is starting a new career as a subcontractor hauling dirt and gravel.

“I have no desire to go back to being a cop,” he said. “I can’t continue. This has done a lot of waking up for me. And I don’t know how they can ever make it up, but somebody owes me nine months of my life.”

Hoff still clings to the hope of returning to his police job after the administrative review is completed at police headquarters.

“I like the work,” he said. “That’s what I went to college for.

“But what still hurts is what’s been done to my reputation, and to my family.”