By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
THREE RIVERS — A St. Joseph County corrections deputy arrested earlier this month is now facing charges stemming from a crash that occurred Aug. 4 in Three Rivers.
According to court records and a police report obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Brandy Galarza was arraigned Thursday and is charged with one count of operating while intoxicated and one count of leaving the scene of an accident in relation to the crash.
According to the report, the hit-and-run crash occurred at around 12:17 p.m. near the intersection of South Main Street and River Street in Three Rivers. The driver of a blue Chevrolet pickup was reportedly waiting for traffic to clear before turning left from South Main Street to River Street when it was rear-ended by a red Kia reportedly driven by Galarza. The Chevrolet completed the turn while the Kia drove south on Main Street, and according to the driver of the Chevy, they saw someone get out of the Kia, look at the damage to their vehicle, then continue southbound past the Shell gas station.
The police report stated the responding TRPD officer later received a phone call from a sergeant at the St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Office, who said one of their subordinates had told them that an “off-duty correctional deputy” told them they were involved in a crash, with that officer’s name revealed to be Galarza’s. The TRPD officer then spoke with Galarza over the phone, who reportedly told the officer that she had gotten into a crash on South Main, and that “the other driver waved her by,” and she left.
The officer reportedly then asked if Galarza could drive to TRPD to give information, and she said she couldn’t because “she had a few drinks when she got home.” She provided the officer with her address, and later got a call from a chief deputy at the Sheriff’s Office that they found a car matching the description of the one that left the scene at the same address as Galarza.
Police then reportedly met up with Galarza at her home, who reportedly told them she had went to pick up a prescription from a local pharmacy, but was told they weren’t going to be ready for another hour. She said she then drove to a liquor store and bought “three bottles of 99 proof liquor shooters, consumed them in the parking lot, drove to get her prescriptions, took her prescriptions, and got into a crash.”
“Galarza advised that the medications were not ready, so she drank 2 shots, and then she drove and crashed,” the report states. Galarza, according to the report, also made a statement that “she has been trying to keep it together.” When asked by police if she had any more to drink when she got home, she said she did not. During their conversation, police say they could “smell the odor of intoxicants coming from her person,” and had “slurred speech” when she spoke.
She then consented to a sobriety test, where she reportedly lost her balance multiple times during the different tests. After the tests, a preliminary breath test showed her blood alcohol content to be at .294, more than three times the legal .08 limit. She was then arrested and eventually lodged at the Kalamazoo County Jail.
Galarza is currently on paid administrative leave from the Sheriff’s Office, per department policy.
Galarza was due to be arraigned Tuesday, however according to St. Joseph County 3B court records, the event was “entered or completed,” and no action was taken by St. Joseph County 3B District Court, as all judges in St. Joseph County have disqualified themselves from the case. Her case will be heard by the 10th District Court in Calhoun County, who performed the formal arraignment Thursday.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
The FOIA reference is mostly about how the reporter obtained the detailed police report, not necessarily an indication that authorities were trying to keep the case secret.
In Michigan, police reports are government records, but they generally aren’t automatically published online or handed out to the media. A reporter who wants the actual incident report—officer narratives, statements, breath-test results, etc.—often submits a Freedom of Information Act request. So “police report obtained via FOIA request” is routine journalism.
The court records were presumably publicly accessible through the court system. The police report was obtained separately through FOIA.
FOIA may have been particularly useful here because the report contains details that wouldn’t ordinarily appear in a basic court docket: what Galarza allegedly told officers about drinking the shooters, taking her prescriptions, her explanation for leaving the crash, observations about her speech and balance, and the .294 preliminary breath-test result.
The fact that she’s a St. Joseph County corrections deputy also creates a wrinkle. Because local officials know/work with her, the St. Joseph County judges all recused themselves and the case was transferred to Calhoun County. That makes independent access to the underlying police records especially worthwhile for a reporter, but it doesn’t by itself mean FOIA was necessary because anyone was concealing information.
Read the phrasing as: “We got the police report through the normal legal mechanism reporters use to obtain government records.” Not: “We had to fight the government to uncover this.”
Why does it take a FOIA request to get what should be public information?