Raydarius Surry and Destiney Thompson

Introduction

Raydarius Surry, 29, and Destiney Thompson, 30 — San Jose police officers who are romantically involved and share a home in Gilroy, California — were arrested on October 28, 2026, and charged with evidence tampering and filing a false police report over an alleged scheme to replace a bag of drug evidence that vanished under Surry’s watch. According to the San Jose Police Department, Surry, an eight-year veteran, allegedly seized lookalike narcotics from an unrelated pedestrian during a staged stop and booked them into evidence under a May case number, while Thompson, a six-year officer, allegedly pulled body-camera footage of the original arrest to help him plan the swap. Both were removed from duty, and the department has referred them for decertification review.

Background Information

Surry had served on the San Jose force for eight years and Thompson for six at the time of their arrests, and both live in Gilroy, according to the department and Bay Area reporting. The trouble traces to a May 3, 2026, arrest Surry made, in which a very small baggie of suspected narcotics listed in his police report was scheduled to go to the county crime lab but never reached the evidence system. Surry was placed on paid administrative leave on September 2, 2026, and Thompson — who the department says is in a relationship with him — followed on September 18 while the internal investigation was underway. KQED also reported that Surry was arrested by his own department in July 2022 on suspicion of misdemeanor DUI after an off-duty collision near downtown San Jose, an arrest that drew a no-tolerance statement from then-Chief Anthony Mata.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Charged, not convicted. Surry and Thompson each face one felony count of tampering with evidence and one count of filing a false police report, filed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office on October 28, 2026. The account comes from the police department’s own internal investigation and charging documents, not a trial verdict. Neither officer has publicly responded to the charges; both are presumed innocent, and the allegations have not been proven.

Per the department’s account, the trouble began when the bag of suspected narcotics Surry documented in his May 3, 2026, arrest report disappeared before it could be booked into evidence, despite being slated for testing by the county crime lab. San Jose’s Criminal Investigations Detail opened an investigation in August 2026 and notified Surry that the evidence was missing. On August 12 — after being told the bag was gone — Surry allegedly stopped a pedestrian who had no connection to the May case, found a similar baggie of suspected narcotics on the person, seized it, and took no further enforcement action against them. He then allegedly booked that replacement bag into evidence under the May 3 case number without documenting the August stop or the seizure at all.

Thompson’s alleged role was to work the paper and video trail: investigators say she accessed and viewed body-worn camera footage of the May 3 arrest to help Surry plan the replacement of the missing evidence — a detail the NY Post attributed to KTVU. The department said a thorough review of both officers’ cases, arrests and evidence bookings surfaced no other discrepancies. Surry and Thompson surrendered late Wednesday evening, October 28, were booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail, and had posted bail and been released by the following evening, according to KQED and NBC Bay Area.

Chief Paul Joseph said the department “moved swiftly to remove both officers from duty and pursue criminal accountability,” adding that “falsifying evidence or police reports is a crime” and that the allegations, “if proven to be true, constitute a failure to live up to the standards our community has a right to expect.” SJPD referred the case to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) for temporary decertification review while the criminal and administrative investigations are pending, and its Criminal Investigations Detail referred the criminal case to the District Attorney’s Office, which filed charges Wednesday afternoon.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The arrests landed hard in a department already bruised by the story. The San Jose Police Officers’ Association said it was “deeply disappointed” and announced it “will not fund their legal defense,” writing that the alleged conduct “run[s] counter to the level of honesty and integrity necessary to wear our uniform.” Legal analyst and former prosecutor Steven Clark told NBC Bay Area that the alleged leap from a careless mistake to a coordinated cover-up was what made it criminal: “When you take that careless mistake and you conspire to cover it up and plant evidence and create a false police report, now you’re talking about a felony and tremendous erosion of public trust in the department.” Raj Jayadev of the police-accountability group Silicon Valley De-Bug said the case “is affirming to those that have said that police are not infallible and that they do lie and that they do make up evidence, they plant evidence.”

Current Status

As of October 30, 2026, both former-partner officers are out of custody on bail, formally charged with one count each of tampering with evidence and filing a false police report, and remain off the job on paid administrative leave. The criminal case is pending in Santa Clara County; no arraignment outcome or trial date has been reported, and the allegations are unadjudicated. POST’s temporary decertification review and the department’s administrative investigation are both ongoing, and neither officer has issued a public statement or entered a plea through counsel. The department has said its review found no other discrepancies in either officer’s casework.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Two mid-career policing careers — fourteen combined years at SJPD — now hang on the criminal charges and a decertification review that could bar both from California law enforcement regardless of the outcome. Surry, already carrying a 2022 off-duty DUI arrest from the same department, and Thompson, six years in, are facing the union they paid into refusing to pay for their defense — an unusually public abandonment that Bay Area outlets read as a measure of how toxic an evidence-tampering allegation is inside a badge-and-uniform culture. For San Jose, the case has become a fresh talking point for accountability campaigners who argue the department’s own investigators had to catch what the court system was set up to miss.

Sources

NY Post, “San Jose officer couple arrested in ‘drug evidence switcheroo’ cover-up,” Oct 30, 2026 — source
KQED (Joseph Geha), “2 San José Cops Arrested for Drug Evidence Tampering, False Reports,” Oct 29, 2026 — source
NBC Bay Area, “2 San Jose police officers arrested, charged,” Oct 30, 2026 — source