Steinert

Stephanie Steinert, a police officer for the City of Covina whose employment was terminated for misconduct, filed a petition for writ of administrative mandamus alleging that she was denied the protections of the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act (Gov. Code, § 3300 et seq. ) (the Act) while she was being interrogated by her supervisor. The trial court denied her petition, and she appeals. We affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Steinert was a police officer for the Covina Police Department. Her name arose as part of a routine informal audit performed by the California Department of Justice, which monitors use of its criminal records databases. The Covina Police Department learned from the Department of Justice that Steinert had performed a records search on an individual named Robert Tirado and had designated the search “TRNG,” signifying training. Justice Department and Covina policies precluded the use of actual records for training purposes.

The support services manager at the Covina Police Department, Rachel Leo, examined their records for the day that Steinert had run the search in question, and found that Steinert had taken a vandalism…