EXCLUSIVE: US park rangers in Marin County make mistakes during RV chase that leads to accident in tunnel

MARIN COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) — A chase involving an old RV in the Marin Headlands ended in an accident and a surprising court ruling. A judge dismissed most of the charges against the driver and questioned whether U.S. park rangers are actually peacekeepers.

There are numerous questions about the behavior of the park rangers that night and how their actions escalated what was supposed to be a minor traffic stop.

Pichino Casey told the ABC7 I-Team, “I started seeing double in Napa.”

The 40-year-old tells us he began feeling the effects of COVID-19 while driving home to San Francisco with his wife and 1-year-old daughter in their RV, so he stopped at Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands.

“I stopped there because I couldn't go any further and didn't want to risk an accident,” Casey said. “So I knew the national park was a place I could go and park for a few hours and rest.”

Shortly after 9 p.m. on a Wednesday evening in January 2022, a US park ranger knocks on the back of the RV and then again 30 seconds later. Both times he did not identify himself. The ranger's bodycam video shows Casey driving away.

PICHINO CASE: “When I heard that (knocking), I thought: it's dark, I'm already feeling sick, I didn't see anything. I just jumped up and said: you know what? Just let me get up, we're in a national park. I got up, started the trailer and drove away.”

DAN NOYES: “Did you know at that point that it was a ranger?”

CASEY PICHINO: “NO.”

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The I-Team shared video from that night with Travis Norton, a retired police lieutenant and SWAT team leader who now teaches for the National Tactical Officers Association and testifies in court as an expert on police procedures.

Norton told me that the US park rangers made several mistakes that night. First, the ranger failed to identify himself immediately. And after Casey stopped, the ranger told his colleagues that he had has identified himself.

“I knocked on the door and said, 'Hey police, come out.' He started the trailer and drove off,” the park ranger said.

Norton says this caused the other rangers to see Casey in a different, more suspicious light.

“If you came to me and said, 'Hey, I identified myself. And then the guy took off.' OK, it looks like he's running from us,” Norton said.

A park ranger arrives and speaks to dispatch and learns that Casey has a $7,500 warrant out of Pacifica.

The dispatcher radios “148.9 Alpha and PC 148 Alpha 1”… Passing on false information to the police and resisting arrest – both are misdemeanors and not violent crimes.

But mistake number two: The sergeant mixes up the penal code numbers and concludes that Casey was arrested for making a bomb threat.

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PARK RANGER SERGEANT: “It was also 148.1 Alpha? I thought they said 148.1 too.”

RANGER: “Yes, that must have been it, yes.”

PARK RANGER SERGEANT: “This is a bomb threat.”

And this misinformation spreads from one ranger to another.

RANGER1: “Wrong tags?”

RANGER2: “No, false bomb threat.”

RANGER1: “Oh, bomb threat.”

Norton tells us that the situation is getting worse: “It gives you a little bit more of a feeling that maybe there is some danger here.”

Mistake number three – when the sergeant tries to talk to Casey. Things get heated because of this simple offense.

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PARK RANGER SERGEANT: “So, that's the state of things. You have an arrest warrant.”

CASEY PICHINO: “No, I don't, we don't. We've been through this before.”

MITISHA YORK, CASEY’S WIFE: “I had to pay for it. I had to pay the bail, so I know we've been through that.”

“There's a lot going on here,” Travis Norton tells us. “It might just be, 'Hey, guys, have a good night. Just clear up the warrant for us. Thanks.' But then it turns into something that I don't think was necessary.”

CASEY PICHINO: “I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing.”

Rangers grab the door handle. Casey starts the engine and drives off.

PARK RANGER SERGEANT: “Don't take off. Don't take off.”

At this point, Casey admits he made a mistake.

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CASEY PICHINO: “And I know I don't have a warrant and I have papers in the car. And we were in the middle of arguing and he pulled on the door and that scared me. And I just panicked.”

DAN NOYES: “And you ran away.”

CASEY PICHINO: “Yes.”

DAN NOYES: “Looking back, do you regret running away?”

CASEY PICHINO: “Yes.”

Casey drives away in the RV and – mistake number four – the rangers in their SUVs give chase.

“We don't prosecute people for misdemeanors,” Norton said. “The risk-reward analysis simply doesn't exist. What do we gain and what do we risk?”

The rangers further escalate the situation by pointing their long guns at the RV as it approaches the one-way tunnel with the five-minute red light.

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Mistake number five…

RANGER: “Just throw the thing away and leave?”

… they do not lay out the nail strips correctly.

Travis Norton said: “The use of the spike barriers was not good. He puts them in the wrong place and doesn't pull them back – so you would have to put them in the offender's lane. That doesn't happen. And then when the vehicle passes, you pull the spike barriers back so that your vehicle's tires don't go flat.”

And that's exactly what happens. The RV passes without hitting the spike barriers, but a ranger's SUV drives right over them, blowing a tire.

RANGER: “I think this vehicle will be back up and running in a few minutes.”

Mistake number six: The rangers try to block the tunnel by parking an SUV diagonally in it.

“We don't block anything because that's dangerous,” Norton said. “They can cause crashes, and in fact they do in these circumstances.”

“When I came into the corner, the car was in there,” Pichino Casey said. “I hit the brakes, but it just wouldn't stop, you know?”

He hits the ranger's SUV and gets stuck in the tunnel with a car full of tourists. No one is injured, except for Casey's daughter, who has a few minor scratches.

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Mistake number seven – a ranger shouts: “This car is moving, you are being shot at. Put your hands down, you are being shot at.”

Norton responded: “You have an officer pointing his weapon directly at the front of the vehicle. When we compress time and space like that, it increases the danger level for everyone.”

Norton says the ranger is exaggerating the encounter for no reason.

“'Hey, can you put your hands up for me? Just put your hands up.' Something like that will be much more effective,” Norton said. “Everyone's blood pressure is elevated at this point. But we don't have to do that. You're the professional.”

Rangers took Casey into custody and charged him with fleeing from a police officer by reckless driving, endangering a child, vandalism, hit and run, driving without a valid license, and resisting a police officer.

Casey's attorney, Charles Dresow, told the I-Team, “Everyone involved made some pretty bad decisions. My client and the Rangers.”

Dresow successfully argued that U.S. national park rangers were not peace officers under California law and should not have been involved in enforcing a state court warrant.

“These rangers do not have the proper training to work as peace officers,” Dresow said. “And the legislature has specifically excluded them from peace officer status. The law is really clear on this.”

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The judge dismissed most of the charges. A jury later convicted Casey of child endangerment and driving without a license. He is on probation after spending a year and a half in the Marin County Jail. Pichino Casey thanks his wife for hanging in there and finding a lawyer who could help.

“She didn't leave me in there. She didn't leave me alone. She knows I protected her and she protected me,” he said.

The National Park Service, which oversees the rangers, declined my request for an interview and did not respond to a detailed list of questions.

One final mistake – the rangers seized Casey's RV and confiscated it as evidence, but the tow truck accidentally destroyed the RV. Casey wanted it back.

Check out more stories from the ABC7 News I-Team.