Spokane police
investigators were poised to recommend Barry O’Connell be fired
Jonathan Brunt
A Spokane police officer
with a troubled work history was forced into retirement this month after he
filed a false police report.
Officer Barry O’Connell,
who has been suspended three times without pay in recent years for separate
violations of department policy, retired Feb. 3, just as investigators were
about to recommend he be fired.
O’Connell was placed on
paid administrative leave in late November after his superiors suspected he
arrested a woman without probable cause.
The woman was suspected of
violating a protection order.
The department eventually
determined she should have been arrested but that he filed a false police
report and forgot to do a background check on the suspect until he was reminded
to do so.
In an internal
investigation, O’Connell acknowledged he did poor work on the report.
“This turd is mine and I
did crappy work,” he said in a formal interview the department conducted. “It
was never meant to deceive, but I can see where people would have questions
concerning that.”
Less than a year earlier,
O’Connell forgot to conduct a background check on a man he arrested for
violating a no-contact order with his girlfriend. The man already had been
convicted twice of violating the order, according to the department’s internal
investigation. Had O’Connell checked, the man likely would have faced a felony
charge for repeated violations. Instead, he was charged with a misdemeanor and
a prosecutor later said it was too late to change the charge.
The victim in the case
later complained to city police Ombudsman Tim Burns, and O’Connell was given a
written reprimand.
In the most recent case,
O’Connell forgot to perform a background check until after he booked the woman
into jail on a misdemeanor charge. After he was reminded by a superior, he did
the background check and the charge was changed to a felony.
O’Connell has been the
focus of more than 15 internal investigations within the department. Of those,
six followed vehicle crashes, four of which were determined to be preventable.
He received a verbal warning, counseling and letter of reprimand for three of
the preventable crashes. In 2011, O’Connell earned about $75,000 a year plus
overtime.
He was suspended three
times without pay in recent years:
• In 2012, he was suspended
for three weeks after his daughter shot herself in the leg with his service
weapon. He was found in violation of department policy requiring officers to
secure their duty weapons.
• He was suspended for 40
hours in 2010 for “conduct unbecoming” of an officer. In that case, O’Connell
was found to have been involved in a minor road-rage incident in his personal
vehicle. After the incident he went back to the Public Safety Building for his
shift and instead of heading for his normal patrol, he sought out the woman in
the road-rage incident.
• The city also suspended
O’Connell without pay in 2009 for 40 hours after he was accused of sexual
harassment and “improper conduct.”
“The department will not
tolerate misconduct and is taking steps to ensure that staff follows policy and
procedure,” said Monique Cotton, Spokane Police Department spokeswoman.
Spokane Police Guild
President John Gately said the department correctly “followed due process” in
the investigation.
“Barry has retired from the
department and has moved on to the next chapter of his life,” Gately said.
“That was the resolution he chose.”
In the most recent case,
O’Connell wrote in his police report that he spoke to the victim before he
arrested the woman, a statement that was untrue. He spoke to her by phone after
the arrest while at the Spokane County Jail. Because he did not interview the
victim first, O’Connell’s superiors were concerned that he did not have
probable cause before he made the arrest.
He also wrote in the police
report that he performed a background check “while transporting” the suspect to
jail. O’Connell acknowledged that didn’t perform the check until after the
suspect was booked into jail.
“I’m very embarrassed by
this report because this is not accurate,” O’Connell said, according to
transcripts of his interview during the internal investigation. “This is not
the quality of work I’ve done for 20 years.”
