Former officer accuses Quincy chief of cover-up, retaliation

QUINCY — A former Quincy police officer called for a third-party investigation of the Quincy police chief during a city council meeting Tuesday.

Darren Smith worked for the department from late winter 2007 until late April 2008, and now serves as a reserve Grant County sheriff’s deputy.

He accused Chief William Gonzales of avoiding investigating an assault, reportedly committed by one of his officers, and halting a K-9 program in retaliation against people who reported the assault.

Smith said he heard through other staff members Sgt. Scott Jones allegedly put a “choke hold” on his 16-year-old stepson. The assault reportedly took place at the police station after Jones arrived following his stepson’s arrest for being a minor in possession of alcohol on June 20, 2008.

Smith claims to have heard the initial emergency radio dispatch for an assault taking place at the Quincy police station, while being at the Multi Agency Communications Center (MACC) near Moses Lake. The rest of his information came from other police members and staff, he said.

Jones was charged with the gross misdemeanor of assault in the fourth degree-domestic violence in Grant County District Court. The case remains in progress with pretrial set for March 25, according to court records.

One of two witnesses to the reported assault, was the soon to be K-9 officer. The K-9 program was halted one week after the they approached Gonzales about the occurrence. Smith said the program was ended, while Gonzales, maintained in an interview with the Columbia Basin Herald, it was suspended.

“It was clear to all involved that the K-9 program was about to be implemented, and just after the selected K-9 officer and another officer came forward to report the actions of the sergeant (sic) alleged to have assaulted the boy, Chief Gonzales cancels the K-9 program, that the future K-9 officer was instrumental in creating,” Smith said, reading from a

prepared statement during the city council meeting.

Gonzales said he didn’t cancel the program. He suspended it because they decided to change the type of dog they wanted. The Internet company Yahoo! invested $10,000 to help the city set up a K-9 program and Gonzales wanted to make sure the money was spent on the correct type of dog.

“We originally wanted a tracking, drug, aggressive dog, more of a street dog,” he said. “The more I looked into it, it seemed that wasn’t the direction we wanted to go … We decided to go with a passive drug dog.”

Once the change was made, he decided to open the program to other officers because the original call for applications only drew two people. Officers with families didn’t feel comfortable having an aggressive dog around their children, the chief said.

“With this type of dog, you want to make sure it’s part of the family,” Gonzales said.

Smith also accused Gonzales of trying to avoid investigating the charges against Jones. He claims Gonzales didn’t start investigating until he was threatened by people saying they would complain to the state attorney general’s office.

Smith was not working at the Quincy Police Department at the time, but he said the events were relayed to him by other employees.

“It was just at that time that I was told two of the records clerks had enough and they confronted the chief about it,” Smith said, during an interview. “He said, he wasn’t going to do anything about it.”

Gonzales said the situation wasn’t reported to him initially, but when it was reported a week after the incident, he said he referred it to the city’s attorneys to provide a recommendation. When the attorneys reported back there was a problem, he referred the situation to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

“Did it take longer than normal? Yes,” he said. “In cases like these, you want to make sure that you don’t jeopardize anyone’s reputation. You want to be careful with things like that. You don’t want to rush into things.”

Grant County Undersheriff John Turley confirmed Gonzales’ request.

“The sheriff’s office was asked to conduct the investigation, independent of the police department,” Turley said. “It was turned over to the Grant County Prosecutor’s Office, who requested assistance from the (state) attorney general.”

Washington state Assistant Attorney General Justin Ericksen agreed Quincy’s investigation into the case did start a week after the incident.

Smith also accused Gonzales’ administration of retaliating against him for bringing up concerns about how the next sergeant was selected by making him change a report to state a “violently, mentally-deranged felon” was “passive.”

“When I declined to do this and pointed out that he ordered me to commit perjury, the sergeant began yelling at the top of his lungs, threatening me with termination by saying, ‘Well you must not like working here,’” he read during the meeting.

Gonzales said the difference was minor and involved the actions in the report.

“We were trying to fit the situation,” he said. “It was one of those things that continued into a bigger scope than what it was.”

There are 12 officers in the Quincy Police Department and Gonzales said some of them might think his decisions were in retribution to their actions, but he didn’t feel like he took retribution.

“I have an open-door policy,” he said. “We hire officers that make snap decisions that are intelligent, when you have people like that you’re going to have differences.”

Smith said he wanted an open and independent report, so there wouldn’t be any feelings by the public that the city tried to hide anything.

Gonzales said any further investigation would cause more harm than it would do good.

“I feel it isn’t warranted or needed,” he said. “It can have ramifications both ways. There’s a lot of good things going on here … It’s upsetting that we get the bad views out there. If something like that was suggested, I would have to be very critical of what they’re looking at.”

The city council listened to Smith without discussion.

Mayor Jim Hemberry told the Columbia Basin Herald neither he nor the council could not discuss the topic due to city attorney instructions.

Gonzales attended the meeting, but did not comment.