OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A family trip to the West Coast was meant to be a relaxing respite from a cold Wisconsin winter. But it quickly turned chilling when police pulled their guns on them, demanding the husband and wife to get out of their vehicle.
“Your mind is going 100 miles per hour,” Cole Burie said.
“You just can’t move at all,” Sheena Burie said. “You feel like you could die.”
The family made the trip in early 2023 to San Diego. Sheena works as a provincial nurse, taking care of retired priests and brothers. The trip to San Diego was to meet with several other nurses in the area for business. The Buries wanted to extend the trip for them and their daughter.
“We just dropped off my daughter and her best friend,” Sheena said. “Like five or 10 minutes before.”
At least a half dozen police vehicles stopped their rental car. This was far from a normal traffic stop, Cole said.
“They looked at us funny when we were at the intersection and then they pulled over and got behind us,” Cole said. “I thought that was a little weird and then all of a sudden, another one popped up and another one. Pretty soon, there are three or four of them behind us. Your first reaction is, they’re probably going to blow right by me. So you pull over and like, I don’t know, it must be a taillight. Then, it all changed after that.”
Officers got over a loudspeaker and pulled their guns out. They shouted directions to the couple.
“They had the loudspeaker out and they said they believed we were armed and dangerous and to put our hands in the air and not to move,” Sheena said. “And to throw the weapons out the window.”
Sheena was the first out of the car. Police body camera video shows the entire interaction.
“They had me circle and spin around three or four times with my sweatshirt up, trying to expose everything,” Sheena said. “Then they led me backward towards the cops with guns and immediately told me to get my hands behind my back.”
Without any idea what was going on, Sheena was put in handcuffs. It wasn’t until she was in the back of a squad car around the corner that she learned the vehicle was reported stolen. She had no idea what was happening with her husband. Her first thought, her daughter
“I’m thousands of miles away from home, what is happening here?” Sheena said. “How are we going to get these kids safe? It was really my biggest concern.”
At this point, Sheena started to parse together what was going on. When the family first landed, they had gotten their rental car but quickly noticed there was an issue. Sheena says the car was rattling uncontrollably while driving so she called to get a replacement. Someone from the rental company drove a new one out. That vehicle, according to police, was reported stolen.
“That van is reported stolen,” The officer told Sheena.
“It’s from Payless Rental,” she responded.
“I’m just letting you know, that’s why all this is happening.”
Cameras on streetlights in the city flagged the vehicle’s license plate and alerted police, Sheena says. In the body camera video, one officer says the vehicle was reported stolen a month before. Another officer explains to Sheena that a possible clerical error is to blame.
“If you rent a vehicle and never bring it back, it’s reported stolen,” The Oceanside Officer said. “I’m not saying you did, but because it’s a rental car, the last person may have done that. Eventually, they brought it back after they already reported it stolen and they never took it out of the system.”
According to NBC 7 in San Diego, the company, Payless Car Rental, provided a statement:
“Payless and its independent franchises each have safeguards in place to prevent unnecessary notifications to retrieve rental vehicles. Unfortunately, these protocols in this isolated incident failed. Our franchisee has apologized to Mr. and Mrs. Burie and refunded them for the rental.”
The Buries’ had to file a lawsuit to get the body camera video, providing it to the media to show the issues they feel need to be changed. They are suing the car rental company as well.
NBC 7 also received a statement from the car rental’s attorney, saying it’s “disappointing that Ms. Burie and her attorney have attempted to pressure Payless into paying large sums of money by threatening to paint Payless in a poor light to the media.” They also call this “an unintentional and unfortunate isolated incident.”
“They’re going to say what they’re going to say,” Sheena Burie said. “At the end of the day, I have proof in writing of how they did not apologize. I’m not going to let it bother me.”
Ultimately, Burie says she wants something to change with the systems to ensure no family has to go through what they did. It was roughly an hour or so from start to finish, but it’s had lasting impacts. Sheena says she has been largely sleepless for the last year, frequently waking up in a panic thinking about what could have happened.
“It was multiple guns from multiple angles,” Sheena said. “Then, you’re walking towards them with the guns, you’re backwards and I mean, come on. It’s horrible. I don’t want this to happen to people.”
Cole Burie doesn't blame police for how they handled the situation. He says they can only work with the information they are given. But he did have concerns for his and his wife's safety.
“What if somebody had already went through a whole lifetime of getting pulled over and picked on by police?” Cole said. “And this one was the final straw. Even though they didn’t do anything, they’re just like, no. I’m just going to walk away and then, all of a sudden, six warning shots right in your back. I was making a joke or two, hoping they would lighten up a bit to see that, oh maybe this guy didn’t really do anything wrong or whatever. I just had to go with the flow. What could you do?”
Sheena is upset with how the whole situation was handled by both Payless and the Oceanside Police Department. Through their lawsuit, the Buries want systemic changes to ensure no family has to go through this type of anguish.
“There are glitches and systems and so many buttons to push,” Cole Burie said. “That’s what happens, mistakes happen.
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