Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We welcome home a police chief, Dodge Maater Back to
the program. Chief, Good morning, Come on Gary.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
How's everyone in the studio this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, we're a little chilly, but we got jackets. Other
than that that, we're fine. News broke yesterday that you,
after an internal department investigation, announced that you're recommending an officer,
Adam Vale, be dismissed from the force. He was the
officer who killed a man during a no knock search
(00:28):
warrant back in late August, almost a month ago. Now,
and I know this had to be a difficult decision.
What can you tell us about your findings.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, let me start out by saying it was a
difficult decision. It was a very tough three weeks for
the community, for the police department, for those that were
conducting this investigation. It's a very difficult situation. I think
it's one that we wish everybody wishes wouldn't have happened,
but it did. We have to address it, and so
(00:59):
the last three weeks we've been doing our job and
conducting an internal affairs investigation. Garrett, there's one thing that
I'm not going to be able to do, and I
have to try to talk around it is. I can't
get into the details of the internal affairs investigation. We
have personnel and contractual rules which won't allow me to
do that. And also I want to show some respect
to Adam Vale as well. What I can tell you is,
(01:22):
after the internal fairs investigation, what we were looking to
do is overlay our policies, procedures and training into what
took place to see if it conformed and it did not.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, I want to be careful here myself, because I'm
not criticizing our questioning your decision. I'd like to get
if you can to comment on what this seems like
to me as a layman, and maybe to a lot
of other people too, someone who's not in law enforcement.
It looks like an extraordinarily difficult situation if the reporting
(01:57):
at the time is accurate, that he was in a
split hair trigger's situation where somebody was rushing him and
he couldn't see his hands. So and again, I know
there are things you can't say about the specifics of it,
but but you understand how that looks from the outside
when you when you support law enforcement and you've got
(02:19):
a guy who's in a dangerous situation and he's got
to make a decision in a split second.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, absolutely, I understand how that looks. And this is
my first rodeo. I've been around for twelve years, Gary,
and there's been three or four, probably five officers that
that I have cleared from many wrongdoing involved an officer
involved shootings in which somebody was unarmed, But the circumstances
(02:46):
on those situations were different than this one. And as
we dug through the internal affairs investigation, it became it
became clear to the point where it was it was
a unanimous decision abooks my staff and I that this
can't take place. We have to have standards within the
Oma Police Department. The objective here is to not understand
(03:07):
how dangerous the situation was and then lower our standards
to adjust to that or our objective is to have
standards that are high, that conform to our policies, procedures
and training. If we don't have that, I've set a
terrible precedence for the future.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Now, I I think that's well said. Are you concerned
that this uh will complicate or make more difficult your
ability to attract people to the forest because we're already
down I don't know how many officers the last count was,
but a lot. Is this going to make it more
difficult to find people?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I worry about that. I worry about that because our profession,
you know, has taken a hit the last five years.
For sure. The reality of that particular question is that
I can't allow that to enter into my decision making,
just like I didn't allow any any noise at all
to enter into my decision making for the last three weeks,
whether it was from the community side, whether it was
(04:05):
from the OPO A side, whether it was from any
any angle at all. We tried to inoculate ourselves from
that and just do our work at hand. And that's
what you're asking of your police command staff to do
and that and that's what they did. Whether we liked
the outcome or not. That was the determination.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
On the O p O as on record, as I
suppose as their duty to support UH their officer member.
What is the what is the process now regarding the appeal?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So he will get an opportunity to appeal my decision.
That will then go to the human resources director for
what they call a lattermill heron, and that human resources
director will either affirm or not affirm my decision and
then send it back to me, and then I got
to make a final decision. You know that that could
take some time to get to get that through, and
(04:59):
that that's the employment piece. Once that's done, there's an
arbitration and every officer has an opportunity to go to
an arbitrator to review our internal affairs investigation, to review
my decision, and they will ultimately make a finding to
affirm or to deny my decision. That's the employment piece.
(05:19):
That threshold is a lower standard than what you're going
to see going through the grand jury process, which is
a criminal investigation. And I'll break it down this way
real quickly. I am overlaying policies and procedures and training
that we do within the Omah Police Department onto the situation.
The County attorney is overlaying the law onto the situation.
(05:43):
And so those are two different standards and this one
very well may fall right in the middle of those.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Indeed, and a county attorney client for those who haven't
been following the story, determined that there was no criminal
George is warranted here. What is the status of officer
bail now pending appeal?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, his status is he he will continue to get
paid and he will continue to be on administrative leave
until his Laudermill hearing. And so what I did is
recommend determination for that Laudermil. So he is on the
payroll until that occurs. And you know that's how that works.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Very good, Jeef. Thanks always appreciate the time, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Can be a very tough job sometimes, no doubt, please,
Chief Toschmater. Management is no fun. Well, anybody says they
want to be in management, it depends on the day.
Send them to a psychiatrist very quickly. Depends on the day.
Rosie eight twenty two Vital Community Intel for you every day.
Gary Sandelmeyer and Kfab's morning news
We welcome home a police chief, Dodge Maater Back to
the program. Chief, Good morning, Come on Gary.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
How's everyone in the studio this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, we're a little chilly, but we got jackets. Other
than that that, we're fine. News broke yesterday that you,
after an internal department investigation, announced that you're recommending an officer,
Adam Vale, be dismissed from the force. He was the
officer who killed a man during a no knock search
(00:28):
warrant back in late August, almost a month ago. Now,
and I know this had to be a difficult decision.
What can you tell us about your findings.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, let me start out by saying it was a
difficult decision. It was a very tough three weeks for
the community, for the police department, for those that were
conducting this investigation. It's a very difficult situation. I think
it's one that we wish everybody wishes wouldn't have happened,
but it did. We have to address it, and so
(00:59):
the last three weeks we've been doing our job and
conducting an internal affairs investigation. Garrett, there's one thing that
I'm not going to be able to do, and I
have to try to talk around it is. I can't
get into the details of the internal affairs investigation. We
have personnel and contractual rules which won't allow me to
do that. And also I want to show some respect
to Adam Vale as well. What I can tell you is,
(01:22):
after the internal fairs investigation, what we were looking to
do is overlay our policies, procedures and training into what
took place to see if it conformed and it did not.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, I want to be careful here myself, because I'm
not criticizing our questioning your decision. I'd like to get
if you can to comment on what this seems like
to me as a layman, and maybe to a lot
of other people too, someone who's not in law enforcement.
It looks like an extraordinarily difficult situation if the reporting
(01:57):
at the time is accurate, that he was in a
split hair trigger's situation where somebody was rushing him and
he couldn't see his hands. So and again, I know
there are things you can't say about the specifics of it,
but but you understand how that looks from the outside
when you when you support law enforcement and you've got
(02:19):
a guy who's in a dangerous situation and he's got
to make a decision in a split second.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, absolutely, I understand how that looks. And this is
my first rodeo. I've been around for twelve years, Gary,
and there's been three or four, probably five officers that
that I have cleared from many wrongdoing involved an officer
involved shootings in which somebody was unarmed, But the circumstances
(02:46):
on those situations were different than this one. And as
we dug through the internal affairs investigation, it became it
became clear to the point where it was it was
a unanimous decision abooks my staff and I that this
can't take place. We have to have standards within the
Oma Police Department. The objective here is to not understand
(03:07):
how dangerous the situation was and then lower our standards
to adjust to that or our objective is to have
standards that are high, that conform to our policies, procedures
and training. If we don't have that, I've set a
terrible precedence for the future.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Now, I I think that's well said. Are you concerned
that this uh will complicate or make more difficult your
ability to attract people to the forest because we're already
down I don't know how many officers the last count was,
but a lot. Is this going to make it more
difficult to find people?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I worry about that. I worry about that because our profession,
you know, has taken a hit the last five years.
For sure. The reality of that particular question is that
I can't allow that to enter into my decision making,
just like I didn't allow any any noise at all
to enter into my decision making for the last three weeks,
whether it was from the community side, whether it was
(04:05):
from the OPO A side, whether it was from any
any angle at all. We tried to inoculate ourselves from
that and just do our work at hand. And that's
what you're asking of your police command staff to do
and that and that's what they did. Whether we liked
the outcome or not. That was the determination.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
On the O p O as on record, as I
suppose as their duty to support UH their officer member.
What is the what is the process now regarding the appeal?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So he will get an opportunity to appeal my decision.
That will then go to the human resources director for
what they call a lattermill heron, and that human resources
director will either affirm or not affirm my decision and
then send it back to me, and then I got
to make a final decision. You know that that could
take some time to get to get that through, and
(04:59):
that that's the employment piece. Once that's done, there's an
arbitration and every officer has an opportunity to go to
an arbitrator to review our internal affairs investigation, to review
my decision, and they will ultimately make a finding to
affirm or to deny my decision. That's the employment piece.
(05:19):
That threshold is a lower standard than what you're going
to see going through the grand jury process, which is
a criminal investigation. And I'll break it down this way
real quickly. I am overlaying policies and procedures and training
that we do within the Omah Police Department onto the situation.
The County attorney is overlaying the law onto the situation.
(05:43):
And so those are two different standards and this one
very well may fall right in the middle of those.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Indeed, and a county attorney client for those who haven't
been following the story, determined that there was no criminal
George is warranted here. What is the status of officer
bail now pending appeal?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, his status is he he will continue to get
paid and he will continue to be on administrative leave
until his Laudermill hearing. And so what I did is
recommend determination for that Laudermil. So he is on the
payroll until that occurs. And you know that's how that works.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Very good, Jeef. Thanks always appreciate the time, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Can be a very tough job sometimes, no doubt, please,
Chief Toschmater. Management is no fun. Well, anybody says they
want to be in management, it depends on the day.
Send them to a psychiatrist very quickly. Depends on the day.
Rosie eight twenty two Vital Community Intel for you every day.
Gary Sandelmeyer and Kfab's morning news
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