STUART MILLER INTERVIEW

Growing up in the valley you would always see the Stuart Miller Christmas tree lots at Christmas time, and at Halloween you could always find a Stuart Miller pumpkin patch. Mr. Miller was a well none Business man in the Valley and here is what he had to say about his chance meeting with Officer Brodowy.

It was in 1986 and I don’t remember the exact date. I was driving about 10:30, 11:30 sometime getting close to twelve o’clock. I was driving from my office on Devonshire Street, and I was driving west towards Balboa Boulevard.

I stopped and made a right turn and got onto Balboa heading north, I was in the right lane. There are four lanes, two going each direction, I was heading north, and in the center divider was a patrol car and it appeared as if they were turning into the car wash. They weren’t turning; they were parked right in the center divider, headed north. It looked like they were going to turn, and I thought it was Quite peculiar.

They were just sitting there not doing nothing. I kept on going and I watched in my rear-view mirror. After I got about a quarter of a mile, they pulled into Balboa heading the same direction I was going. I passed through Chatsworth, and they turned there lights on and pulled me over.

I turned of the key, and before I could even get out of the car, the driver, Officer Brodowy was already standing at my door. He pulled me out and shoved me against the side of the car. He whirled me around and through my arms onto the top of the car and started searching me without saying a word.

I said I would like to no what you are doing, and he said there was an armed robbery down the street, and you’re a suspect. Are you carrying a weapon? This is ridiculous I said. He got down frisking me and said were is you’re driver license? I don’t have my driver’s license, I left it at home.

He starts searching my car; by the way, I was in a 1979 Brewster green Rolls Royce, also I had on a tweed jacket and Levi’s. It is quite unlikely that I would have been in a robbery.

I said what are you doing? I’m searching your car for a weapon. I am driving home from work. This is bullshit. I pointed at him and I read his name on his badge, I said Officer Brodowy, your ass is going to be in trouble if you don’t stop fucking with me. I said I have done nothing wrong, and I looked over at his partner, you’re going to stand there and let this guy search my car, berate me and let him do everything he is doing.

The minute I said that, Brodowy came back, swung me around, shoved my head over the trunk of my car and handcuffed me. Them he put me into there car, and there I sat,

I told his partner I not leaving this spot until you call a back-up officer immediately. So by this time another police car came up on the west side of the car and they rolled there windows down, there were two officers. Brodowy says, “I got this genuine asshole in the back, I think he was in a robbery.”

Finally the sergeant came, the sergeant recognized me right away and he says “what’s going on Miller.” I told him I said this guy is nuts. There is something wrong with this guy, He’s a bad apple.

I can tell you right now I want file a complaint. He says, you come down to the office tomorrow and file a complaint.

I will tell you right now, unequivocally, that had I, had I even said another word prior to him handcuffing me, he would have pulled out his gun and shot me. I’ll guarantee it. He was looking, begging, borrowing for some reason to waste somebody.

I asked him, by the way, why did you stop me? He said you ran a red light. I said, you’re joking me. You think I ran a red light with you right behind me. You stopped behind me on Chatsworth. You think I ran a red light? He says, you ran the red light. I took it to court and naturally beat it. The judge knew that the cop wasn’t telling the truth.

I carried out the complaint and then spoke with a friend of mine that was an attorney and he was an eight year officer with the LAPD. He went on to tell me Stu he says, there are some bad apples on the police force, and it takes a citizen willing to spend some money to get them off of the force and it is long road and one I am not going to go down.

I hired another attorney in van-nuys, he did nothing but fight claims like this, and he said it would cost three or four thousand dollars to get into his files. By the time we got done fighting it could be ten thousand dollars. I was not doing this for my self I was doing it to prevent this guy from doing anything to anyone else. Since I was not harmed fisacally there was not much I could do so I had to let it go and did not pursue it any further.

Although what I did pursue were from other high up police officers and friends that I knew personally and they revealed some startling, unbelievable information about this guy.

One of them I spoke with who was in charge of public affairs at the hospital, and he had access to the files. He did a report on Brodowy for me. He came back and said, “If I were you, I would leave this guy alone, let this matter drop.

This Brodowy is bad, bad son of a bitch.” I said, what are you talking about? He has been involved in five shootings, all of which the suspects died, prior to any other police officers arriving.

One was an off duty shooting, of which he killed the man as well. Also he was relieved of his gun one time for psychiatric evaluation and confined to the front desk I believe it was for a six month period, and he was also relieved of his gun a second time.

Another official that worked in the court building and rented my plane from time to time to go to Mexico, a Sergeant, very qualified, wanted to be kept completely in the dark on this. When I asked him about Brodowy he said yes the name sounds familiar.

He came back and to me, he said, you won’t believe this. He said I walked into the West Valley Division, one time and there were a bunch of police officers standing around Officer Brodowy, and he had in his hand some spots of blood on his hand and three or four teeth.

As the story goes, he stopped this car. There were two men in it. The driver got out of the car. Brodowy walked around to the other side of the car, the passenger was already getting in the clove compartment to get the drivers information on the car. Brodowy told him not to reach into the glove compartment. The guy was already in the process of doing it and Brodowy hit him with the baton and knocked all of his front teeth out.

The people that gave me this information, one of them was a Sergeant in San Fernando who wanted to be kept completely in the dark. They were afraid of Brodowy.

I did not get hurt physically, but I will tell you that mentally, I was shocked and am still very, very precarious of, uh, police officers. Not that I don’t think that ninety eight percent of them are perfect individuals. In fact I know a bunch of them. My dad is retired battalion chief of L.A. Fire Department. My brother was on the fire Department.