David Golliday is perhaps best known for drunkenly assaulting the fiancée of another cop at a Halloween party. Golliday “grabbed her breasts and reached under her skirt, and later sent cops to her home to pressure her not to complain. He was accused of grabbing at other women, too, as well as swearing at a female district attorney. Police reports also show an unusual level of smack-talk: One cop said, ‘Golliday was bragging about how he had killed a man with his bare hands in Detroit,’” according to an article in the Willamette Week.
One evening in 1994 Golliday responded to a family disturbance at a Northeast Portland house. Golliday and a partner reportedly dragged a 22 year-old male off of his porch and arrested him forcefully with mace. Golliday wrote in his report, “None of this would have happened if he had talked to us with some respect.” Accused of resisting arrest, the 22 year-old beat the charge, claiming Golliday took him to a dark, deserted corner of Lloyd Center’s parking garage to rough him up before taking him to jail. In court, Golliday said he took Dean to the garage merely to search him. Golliday denied the claim that he had said, “That’s how we take care of things in Chicago,” and that he was forced to leave his previous job because he “kicked too many little motherfuckers’ assholes like you.” According to the Willamette Week, Golliday’s former boss, retired Pontiac Chief Don Schlosser, confirmed that concern among fellow cops led to Golliday’s departure. Said Schlosser, “His methods were not something we wanted to perpetuate in our community.”
David Golliday was also the “Acting Lieutenant and Incident Commander” at the August 2007 shooting of an unarmed black man in the back of the head while he was negotiating on the phone with Golliday.
“Officers, Not Gentlemen: Four Portland cops who worry us,”
The Willamette Week online, June 29, 2005.
