Original Article 2 dead people plus $4.7 million equals 1 justifiably fired cop Apr. 30, 2005 12:00 AM Assuming that the city of Chandler is not run by an absolute nutball, I suspect ex-Officer Dan Lovelace might want to start reading the want ads. The guy was a police officer for six years. In that time, he killed one person, played a big role in the death of a second and cost Chandler taxpayers $4.7 million. Not exactly a record that's likely to make you employee of the month. So it wasn't surprising this week when the city's Merit Board voted unanimously to deny Lovelace's request to have his gun and his badge back. Lovelace has been appealing his firing since July when a jury found him innocent of murder charges in the 2002 death of an Ahwatukee woman. I'm not sure why he wants his old job back, other than for some sort of vindication that he will never get, or ammunition in his $1 million lawsuit against the city. Clearly, he's angry with his former fellow officers, the ones who took umbrage at the fact that he shot a woman through the heart in a moving car as her son sat in the back seat. "I lost my faith in the Chandler Police Department," a defiant Lovelace told the Merit Board on Wednesday. "We're supposed to be a team. We're supposed to be a brotherhood. They betrayed my trust." Never mind about the public's trust. Which, I must point out, has been a tad shaken since details of this guy's on-the-job performance came out. In March 2000, he chased a stolen truck through city streets at speeds of up to 100 mph, despite a supervisor's order: "Don't push it." The truck blew through a stop sign and two red lights before striking a Camaro broadside at a third red light. The innocent driver, Bradley Downing III, died instantly. That one cost taxpayers $2.8 million. Two and a half years later, Lovelace met up with Dawn Rae Nelson in the drive-through lane of a Walgreens pharmacy, where she was attempting to use a phony prescription to get a muscle relaxant. Before it was done, Nelson was dead and Lovelace was left to explain how he feared for his life as her car came at him. This, even though she was shot from behind. That one cost taxpayers $1.9 million. The jury in his criminal trial believed Lovelace's story. Who knows? Maybe he really did fear for his life in the 3.9 seconds it took for the tragedy to unfold that October afternoon. But he has had 2 1/2 years to think about the events of that day, 2 1/2 years to think about what went wrong and why. Two and a half years to think about whether he should have taken her keys if he thought she might run. Whether he should have chased after her car if he knew where she lived. Whether he should have drawn his gun. Taken aim. Fired. And his response? "I did nothing wrong," he told the Merit Board on Wednesday. "I stood tall that day not only for my wife, my family or myself but for law enforcement." It'll be up to Chandler City Manager Mark Pentz to decide whether Lovelace will again "stand tall" as one of Chandler's finest. I can't imagine it'll take long, unless he hails from the Barney Fife school of law enforcement. Chandler is $4.7 million and two deaths into Dan Lovelace's mistakes. Maybe he really did feel he would die that day when he shot and killed the fleeing Dawn Rae Nelson. But a series of bad decisions led him to that unhappy circumstance. And yet he stands there, 2 1/2 years later, the persecuted victim who did absolutely nothing wrong. It's just that his misdemeanor suspect was shot through the heart. Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8635.