In a brief news conference Monday, Naindeep Singh, a Fresno City Council candidate, insisted on what he believes will be his eventual “full exoneration” from two citations he received during a traffic stop over the weekend.
Singh, a nonprofit executive and a board member for the Central Unified School District, was arrested on suspicion of a DUI on Saturday.
According to Singh, the police officer arrested him for driving with expired registration tags. Singh said he told the officer that his tags were ripped off from his vehicle, and that he showed him documents to prove his registration was up-to-date. The officer then ran a field sobriety and breathalyzer test, to investigate whether Singh was sober or under the influence of alcohol. After he passed those tests, Singh said, they took him to Community Regional Medical Center downtown, where he had his blood drawn to test for drugs in a toxicology report.
Singh says he was not booked by police, but let go with two citations — one for driving with unregistered tags on his car and the other for allegedly driving under the influence of drugs.
However, at Monday’s news conference, Singh shared an independent toxicology report that was taken at the hospital at the recommendation of his wife, a health professional, who was with him at the time. Those results showed no drugs in his system at the time following the arrest, and at the time the police would have taken their own exam.
After news broke of Singh’s arrest on Sunday, questions surrounding the timing and nature of his arrest quickly sprouted among residents. With a little over a week until Election Day, ardent supporters of Singh believed this could be a dirty tactic executed by his detractors at the eleventh hour of one of the most competitive races on the citywide ballot.
Singh acknowledged the timing of his arrest, but said that he believes the truth will come out through the release of official documents from the city police, which he said he hopes come out in an “expedited manner.”
“These are serious allegations,” Singh said. “I don’t want to speculate on anybody’s motives.”
The Fresno Police Department declined to comment on Monday on Singh’s arrest beyond confirming that it happened.
The police department, as of Monday afternoon, has also not submitted a police report or charges to review to the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, according to Taylor Long, a spokesperson for the DA. A filing would likely come after the police department’s toxicology report is finished, which could take weeks.
“Blood tests can take a while for results to return if sent to a forensic laboratory, especially if no one cares to expedite them,” Kevin Little, a local civil rights attorney, told Fresnoland. He added that it would be up to the police to rush the results.
It is not common for arrests like Singh’s, meaning those that don’t result in a booking by the police, to easily make the headlines. Arrests like that do not show up on publicly available arrests lists, according to Little.
News broke of Singh’s arrest on Sunday night through a social media post from David Taub on his Substack page. Taub, an independent journalist who has worked for local outlets like GV Wire and most recently the Fresno Bee, wrote that he had sourced his information from Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz.
Janz did not respond to questions from Fresnoland seeking to better understand his office’s role, if any, in the DUI investigation, how they were notified about the incident, and what role the city attorney typically plays in similar investigations from the Fresno Police Department.
Councilmember Miguel Arias told GVWire that he will call for an investigation by the City Council, who oversees Janz, into his disclosure on a matter that is outside of the city attorney’s immediate jurisdiction.
Singh said he and his attorney would be reviewing the police report and results from the police’s toxicology exam when they come, but stopped short of saying he was contemplating a lawsuit against the city. His account of the traffic stop does not immediately indicate what the probable cause was for the arrest.
According to Little, who has filed lawsuits against the City of Fresno in the past, Singh could have a case against the city if there was nothing indicating at the time that the council candidate could have been driving under the influence of alcohol or substances.
“I would be very concerned if I were a City or Police Department official,” Little told Fresnoland on Monday. “If the traffic stop that preceded the DUI investigation was not legally valid, or if the body camera footage and or test results show that no objective signs of intoxication were present, this opens up potential civil rights liability.”
It is also not clear how much news of the arrest will affect Singh’s chances of winning his race for the District 1 Fresno City Council seat. He finished first in the June primary race for the seat, but did not have enough votes to win the seat outright.
Singh’s opponent, Rob Fuentes, initially called for him to drop out of the race early Monday morning, through a mass campaign text. He later told ABC30 that he’s stopping short of that request until the toxicology results come back.
Monday’s news conference quickly evolved into a campaign rally, as more than 100 residents, elected officials, political candidates and community organizers came to show support for Singh. At times, Singh struggled to explain his side of the story at the news conference as chants broke out from the crowd.
Danielle Bergstrom contributed to this story.
