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Gig Harbor family files suit claiming police harassment
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
By JACK HOPKINS
TACOMA -- A Pierce County family has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the city of Gig Harbor and several of its police officers, claiming a patrolman and several of his law enforcement buddies subjected the Fox Island area residents to three years of harassment following a traffic accident.
"This whole thing has been devastating. We just want them to leave our family alone," Gary Eitel, a former combat pilot in Vietnam, said yesterday.
Eitel and his two sons, Jason and Jeramie Eitel, contend in their civil suit that the harassment started when they complained to Gig Harbor Police Chief Mitch Barker about the way Patrolman Bradley Carpenter handled the accident investigation in 1997.
Carpenter wrongly placed the blame for the January accident on Jason Eitel because the officer wanted to do a favor for the other vehicle's driver, who was a police informant, the Eitels contend in their suit filed late Friday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
They said Barker did nothing about their complaint, and Carpenter's response was to launch a vendetta against the Eitel family.
Barker couldn't be reached for comment yesterday. He is on leave, attending the FBI Academy.
Carpenter said he couldn't comment on the specifics, but denied the allegations of wrongdoing spelled out in the suit.
"There is pretty much no truth to any of it," he said yesterday.
Gig Harbor Mayor Gretchen Wilbert said she couldn't comment on the suit because she hasn't seen a copy of the legal paperwork.
"But I have great faith in my police," she said yesterday.
Gig Harbor City Attorney Carol Morris also was unavailable for comment on the lawsuit which named the city, Barker, Carpenter, several other police officers and two city prosecutors as defendants.
The Eitel family moved from Silverdale to a home near Fox Island, about eight miles southwest of Gig Harbor in October 1996.
Gary Eitel said the accident that triggered the alleged harassment happened in Gig Harbor three months later while his son, Jason, was a 17-year-old Tacoma Community College student.
Gary Eitel lodged a complaint against Carpenter following the accident. And, he says, that resulted in an ongoing effort by the officer to "intimidate, harass, demean and oppress" the Eitel family.
Police have tapped his home telephone line, and filed false charges against his sons -- including theft and trespassing charges, according to the lawsuit.
Gary Eitel, 56, claims his complaints to Barker and a complaint filed with the U.S. Attorney's Office about the alleged harassment have brought no relief.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages for "humiliation, embarrassment, extreme mental strain and anguish" for Eitel and both of his sons.
Gary Eitel played a role several years ago in a federal investigation that looked into allegations some U.S. Forest Service planes were illegally put in the hands of private contractors who used them to fly covert missions for the CIA.
Eitel told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1993 that the Forest Service had an arrangement with the CIA dating from the early days of the Cold War to provide cover for certain covert operations.
Eitel described himself as a former CIA pilot when he testified before a congressional committee looking into those allegations.
In 1995, the General Services Administration ordered confiscation of 35 planes that had been traded by the Forest Service to private contractors who allowed the planes to be used by CIA operatives.
It said the Forest Service should have never given up control of the aircraft.
P-I reporter Jack Hopkins can be reached at 206-870-7851 or jackhopkins@seattle-pi.com
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