RIVERSIDE, California — The Riverside Police Department is moving to fire three patrol officers after the department discovered the officers were using disabled military veteran license plates on their personal vehicles, Police Chief Larry V. Gonzalez said last week.
At the center of the dispute is a collision of paperwork and perception. The officers were rated 100% disabled by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which is what makes them eligible for the DMV-issued disabled veteran plates, according to a lawsuit filed on the officers’ behalf in July 2025.
The department’s position is that the plates violate internal rules, specifically a policy that restricts disabled-veteran plates to official vehicles used for disability-related duties, not personal cars.
The department’s move to seek termination escalates what began as an internal investigation in 2025 after the plates were noticed, and it has quickly become a public test of where a department’s administrative authority ends and a veteran’s legally recognized disability status begins.
The officers are represented by attorney Matthew McNicholas, who has said the plates have “no relevance” to their ability to do the job and that the officers “have done nothing wrong.”
McNicholas has framed the department’s action as an inappropriate leap, from a state-issued designation on a privately owned car to an implied judgment about fitness for duty, raising the question of whether an employer should be scrutinizing a veteran’s disability status when the employee is otherwise performing patrol duties.
