Who’s Guilty Too?
Portland, Ore., Police Chief Larry O’Dea, 53, was put on paid administrative leave by the mayor after O’Dea allegedly misled investigators at a shooting. O’Dea was hunting with friends in Harney County when Robert Dempsey, 54, was shot in the back. O’Dea, says Harney Sheriff Dave Ward, led investigators to think his friend had accidentally shot himself — and noted O’Dea never identified himself as a police officer. O’Dea later confessed to the Mayor that he had accidentally shot Dempsey himself. Both the Oregon State Police and the Oregon Department of Justice have opened criminal investigations. Portland’s Independent Police Review Division, which does Internal Affairs investigations related to command officers, says it was never notified of the incident, and learned about it from the news. “We should have been” notified, said division director Constantin Severe. A spokesman for the mayor said informing the IPR Division was ...the chief’s job. (RC/Portland Oregonian) ...Do you know what else is the chief’s job that he hasn’t done yet? Resigning.Story Update: Sure enough, 8 days after I wrote this story, O’dea did resign — by retiring. Four months later he was indicted by a Grand Jury for “negligently wounding another person,” a misdemeanor. After a judge denied a defense motion to dismiss on the basis of the charge being “unconstitutionally vague,” Dempsey told the court that he “did not, and do not desire to criminally prosecute my friend” because he considered it to be an accident. The charge was apparently then dropped.
In July 2018, the Board of Public Safety Standards and Training voted to ban O’dea’s certification as a peace officer for 10 years, citing his dishonesty around the incident. O’dea did not contest the decision.
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 22.
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