Troy's new officers under microscope

A state board in charge of certifying law-enforcement officers has been asked to look into the Troy Police Department’s two recent hires – an officer suspended from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office reserve program in 2007 and an officer who was fired from the sheriff’s office last year.

Troy mayor Don Banning and chief of police Bob McLeod maintain that they and the city council determined that Nick Whiteman and John Thrasher were the best choices out of 20 applicants.

Wayne Ternes, executive director of the Montana Public Officers Standards and Training Council, said that the council may look into circumstances surrounding Thrasher’s firing earlier last year, as well as look into Whiteman’s criminal background. The POST Council has the authority to suspend or revoke officer certifications.

Thrasher was fired as the Troy resident deputy for lying to his superiors concerning an unintentional open microphone broadcast during his shift that sounded sexual in nature. Whiteman admitted to the TPD hiring committee of a history of bar fighting, which has included assault charges.

McLeod contacted Ternes before hiring Thrasher to confirm that the POST Council had no open investigations on Thrasher, Ternes said. At the time of Thrasher’s firing, the council had decided not to pursue an ethics investigation, Ternes said, because Thrasher had already been fired and, because of a newspaper article, probably embarrassed.

“Now that he’s going to be re-hired,” Ternes said, “I’m going to bring it up to the council and see what they want to do with it.”

Lincoln County sheriff Daryl Anderson said Thrasher lied to superiors when questioned about the open microphone incident.

“He got three opportunities to tell me the truth and he didn’t do that,” Anderson recalled.

The infraction can, according to Ternes, be a liability. An officer’s past is up for grabs as a witness in trial.

“If it was ever documented that an officer was caught lying,” Ternes said, “prosecutors have a really hard time because of their credibility on stand.”

Banning acknowledged that weakness, but added that Thrasher was the best candidate with more than 15 years of law-enforcement experience all within Lincoln County. He has already been through the Law Enforcement Academy and will be ready to hit the ground running.

“John is a qualified applicant,” Banning said. “He knows Montana law and he knows the people in this area. He doesn’t have to learn the town. We’re just that much ahead.”

McLeod said that the one incident doesn’t invalidate his years of service.

“For someone who’s been in law enforcement for 17 years, he’s got an exemplary record,” McLeod said. “He has one thing that happened to him – I think we can overcome that.”

Whiteman’s hire has also produced phone calls to the POST Council. Whiteman had served as a reserve deputy for two years, but was suspended from the program, according to Anderson, because he turned to drinking and needed to “clean up his act.”

Whiteman’s suspension came after he incurred charges related to an alleged bar fight in April 2007 in Libby. The charges were later dismissed.

“He was partying and got carried away,” Anderson said. “He got in trouble and was arrested and the city attorney dismissed it.”

Banning said Tuesday that he was unaware of Whiteman’s suspension.

“He (Whiteman) did not tell us that and Daryl (Anderson) never told us that either,” Banning said. “I’ve been in constant communication with Daryl and he hasn’t told me anything like that.”

Whiteman has a history of misdemeanor charges out of Idaho County, Idaho, where he resided before moving to Libby – an assault conviction in 1997 that resulted in six months probation, two convictions of disturbing the peace from incidents in 2002 and 2004, as well as dismissed cases of assault, malicious injury to property and disturbing the peace spanning from 1998 to 2002.

The initial criminal background report that the hiring committee received did not include most or all of the Idaho information, although Whiteman admitted to past bar fights in Idaho, according to McLeod.

McLeod said Whiteman gave the committee explanations that were accepted.

Banning said on Tuesday that he was unaware of any convictions Whiteman had on his record.

“I haven’t seen anything that he’s been convicted of,” Banning said. “According to the information he’s given us and we’ve got, he’s got explanations for the (dismissed 2007 charges) and he’s fine.”

McLeod said Wednesday that since learning about the other charges, he had completed a deeper search.

“All we’ve ever done in the past is use an NCIC (National Crime Information Center) search,” McLeod said. “When it was brought to our attention, we found more stuff, but still nothing that would not allow him to be a police officer.”

Three misdemeanor convictions would not disqualify Whiteman from being an officer, but a history of assault – documented or undocumented – can be a liability, according to Ternes.

“Assault behavior always concerns me for an officer,” Ternes said. “I even tell students (at Law Enforcement Academy), the hardest thing for a new law-enforcement officer to do in the field is to keep their cool under pressure. They’ve got to be able to do that.”

The resignation of two of the department’s three officers within a small window of time meant the city had to hire right away. Though flimsy, according to Ternes, the city used a law that allowed the mayor to employ up to two people temporarily as officers for up to 30 days, circumventing standard hiring procedures like waiting for the results of criminal investigations.

The POST Council will be waiting for the City of Troy to follow all legal obligations related to hiring a new officer by the end of the 30 days, which for Whiteman, will be Feb. 4. State statutes require new officers to be fingerprinted to disclose any criminal record, have a “thorough background investigation,” be examined by a doctor to be found physically and mentally sound, and be of “good moral character.” The city’s appointed police commission must also sign off that all requirements have been met.

As of Wednesday afternoon, over a week since Whiteman was officially hired, the commission had not heard from Banning or McLeod about the two hires.

“We couldn’t wait for the commission to meet,” Banning said Tuesday. “We were in a place where we needed some police officers in this town.”

If Banning doesn’t gain commission approval on time, he won’t have officers, Ternes said.

“If they intend on keeping them they better get all their ducks in a row,” Ternes said. “If the law isn’t followed and the officer isn’t in compliance then the officer doesn’t have jurisdiction.”

Banning and McLeod said they just want what is best for Troy. Thrasher was one of the three applicants that had already undergone training at the academy, McLeod said. The remaining two weren’t considered for other reasons, Banning said.

“We hired what we thought was the best fit for this town,” Banning said. “There were people that were way overqualified, waiting to be called for the border patrol. We needed somebody that wanted to be here and work.”

Banning said some applications were automatically not considered because they weren’t signed and that other applicants were “too aggressive for our desires in this town.”