A San Diego Police Department officer resigned after accidentally locking himself in the backseat of his patrol car with a woman for over an hour while transporting her to Las Colinas Women’s Detention Center.
Following California Law, the San Diego Police released its internal investigation into then-Officer Anthony Hair and the events of August 15, 2023. The investigation led to Hair’s resignation the following month.
On the night of August 15, 2023, Officer Hair, a two-year police veteran, was assisting in the arrest of two car theft suspects, one of whom was a woman with an outstanding bench warrant. Hair was tasked with transporting her to police headquarters and then to the Las Colinas Detention Center in Santee.
Minutes into the transport, a conversation between Hair and the woman, captured by Hair’s body camera, began to take an unusual turn:
Woman: “Are you married?”
Officer Hair: “Why are you asking that?”
Woman: “You’re not too bad. What’s it gonna hurt me if I work the system, you know what I mean? That’s the way I see s—t.”
As Hair continued driving, the conversation grew more inappropriate:
Woman: “Are you single?”
Officer Hair: “Yeah. But you’re not.”
The dialogue then turned explicitly sexual:
Woman: “I’m down to f— right now.”
Officer Hair: “Don’t say that right now… Don’t say that right now because everything is being recorded right now.”
Hair’s police cruiser slowed as they neared Las Colinas, and he turned off his body camera. GPS tracking showed his car slowed to seven miles per hour before turning down a dark residential street just blocks away from Las Colinas. At 1:34 a.m., the cruiser stopped.
Over twenty minutes later, Hair called a fellow officer asking for a master key to the patrol cars. In a subsequent interview, the unnamed officer described Hair’s panicked voice and reluctance to explain his situation.
After some back and forth, Hair admitted he was locked in the backseat with the woman. At 2:40 a.m., a supervisor arrived and freed them.
Throughout the investigation, Hair claimed he was checking on the woman when the car door accidentally shut on him. He also said he knocked his body camera off its clip while getting out of the cruiser.
Investigators interviewed the woman, who stated that nothing inappropriate happened. However, tests on Hair’s clothes found traces of semen on his belt.
Hair resigned on September 14, 2023, less than a month after the incident.