All Posts Tagged With: "Coquille Police Department"
After ten years, message to killer of Leah Freeman, “The law is coming and hell’s coming with her”
Great news for the family of murdered teenager, Leah Freeman, was released during a press conference at the Coquille City Hall today. After a fifteen month effort on the part of new Coquille Police Chief Mark Dannels, a joint agency task force comprised of CPD, Coos County Sheriff, Coos Bay PD and Oregon State Police is reopening the unsolved murder case. The family has been asking for outside assistance into the cold case even before it was cold but the previous chief, Mike Reaves, stood in the way.
The timing of the press conference was indicated to coincide with a new series of witness and possible suspect interviews to begin within and around the community. Since taking over as chief, Mark Dannels has indicated a personal determination to bring some closure for the family and solve the crime and once again, I will take this opportunity to say what a difference a real cop makes to a community. Congratulations, Cory, I hope the bittersweet resolution of this crime brings you peace.
Though tempted I am going resist the urge just now to poke at the city manager and the council for retaining the previous chief and save it for a separate post. Better to bask in the glory of knowing that the killer’s ten year holiday is finally coming to an end…
Coos County characters, caricatures and all round bad dudes
They are everywhere, of course, not just in Coos County but this county has more than its fair share of ‘bad dudes’. Speaking with a friend today she described a vicious attack in an editorial by an author who doesn’t know her and is, as usual, factually challenged. And, as is usual in Coos County, the author made no effort to speak with or even meet his victim before flinging his vitriol.
It is no surprise the offender referenced above is closely aligned with another irresponsible vitriol flinger, who like his brethren has no qualms about misleading his readers and listeners and feels no responsibility to vet his commentary. Annoying as it is, it is better to ignore these characters, the Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh caricatures they aspire to be, because they have no influence over people in a position of real authority. There are people in Coos County who’s opinion I care about, but they number on one hand and even they are not in a position to affect my life, my earnings, my family.
So I ignore them, refuse to engage and rely on karma to deal with their behavior. Karma works and I can’t resist sharing that the offender above was a blind supporter of the Coquille PD and heaped massive ridicule upon anyone who criticized them. Three of the worst offenders in the CPD and who deliberately went out of their way to hurt me and my family are gone, victims of karma and their own foul behavior. I speak of Randy Ulmer, Mike Reaves and the scourge of law enforcement, James Bryant. They are gone in disgrace, humiliated, proven to be incompetent and will never work in law enforcement again, and I didn’t have to do anything… karma is a bitch!
Finally, the editorial writer above staunchly supported all three of these ex officers, so as far his opinion is concerned I think it should be obvious, it isn’t worth the cyberspace it is written in.
Former Coquille PD officer James Bryant pleads not guilty
Jim Bryant and his wife Tammie apparently pleaded not guilty today to charges of providing alcohol to a minor and attempting intercourse with a minor. Trial date is set for September.
Former Coquille officer Jim Bryant and his wife to be arraigned today UPDATED
James Bryant and his wife, Tammy, both formerly of the Coquille Police Department check in at the State Courts window. They will be arraigned this morning on charges of supplying alcohol to a minor and attempting sexual intercourse with a minor in Judge Gillespie’s courtroom.
The couple must return to court June 22, 2009.
Bryants formally charged by Coos County DA
Paul Frasier, Coos County District Attorney brought formal charges against former Coquille PD officer, James Bryant and his wife Tammy, also a former employee of CPD.
Unconfirmed rumor has it the Bryants packed up and moved to Sisters, Oregon within days of Bryant’s arrest, stopping just long enough to send in a resignation. From the official DA press release -
I have reviewed the police investigation regarding the actions of former Coquille Police Officer James Bryant. After having reviewed the reports, I have filed with the Circuit Court the following criminal charges against the following individuals:
James Bryant – Three counts of Furnishing Alcohol to a Minor and one count of Attempted Contributing to the Sexual Delinquency of a Minor. The furnishing charges
allege that on March 17, 2009 that Mr. Bryant provided an alcoholic beverage to three different individuals under the age of 21. The attempted contributing charge alleges that on March 17, 2009 that Mr. Bryant attempted to engage in sexual intercourse with a female under the age of 18;Tammy Bryant – One count of Furnishing Alcohol to a Minor. The charge alleges that Mrs. Bryant provided an alcoholic beverage to one person under the age of 21.
Furnishing Alcohol to a Minor is a class A Misdemeanor which has a maximum sentence of one year in jail and/or a fine not to exceed $6,250. The Attempted Contributing to the Sexual Delinquency of a Minor charge is a class B Misdemeanor which has a maximum sentence of 6 months in the county jail and/or a fine not to exceed $2,500.
I have further asked that the Coos Bay Police Department issue citations to the persons who were in charge of the premises where the alleged drinking was taking place for the violation of Allowing Consumption by a Minor of Alcohol on Property. I have asked that those citations be given to Coos Bay residents Michael and Cynthia Wallace. As this offense is a violation, no jail time can be ordered if either Mr. or Mrs. Wallace were to be convicted. The sentence prescribed by law is a mandatory minimum fine of $350.
Mr. and Mrs. Bryant have been scheduled to appear in Coquille Circuit Court on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 9 a.m. The citations for Mr. and Mrs. Wallace will be filed at the North Bend Circuit court with an appearance time to be scheduled once the citations are actually served upon Mr. and Mrs. Wallace.
Coquille PD make arrest in rape case
Coquille PD arrested Juan Ledesma-Laguna, 33, for Rape I, Assault IV, Strangulation and Interfering with a 911 call. The victim was a 23 year old resident at 1201 Shelley Road.
Thank goodness we have a professional police chief and department at last. Thank you Dian Courtright for all your hard work!
Today I was visiting the CPD offices and noticed that the ego board had been quickly modified eliminating any images of former officers Randy Ulmer and James Bryant from the group and individual photos.
Regarding Bryant, I understand his wife Tammy Bryant and the owner of a home in Coos Bay where underage females were allegedly given alcohol and encouraged to engage in sexual misconduct have been charged also. Bryant was arrested last month and suspended from the force. Tammy Bryant had previously worked for the department and was let go last summer after commenting on this blog from City Hall and attempting to slander one of the police chief applicants.
Again, kudos to the new chief, Mark Dannels, for handling these cases honestly and professionally.
Coquille cop will not likely do any time
The Sentinel met with DA Paul Frasier today and discussed, amongst other things, the possible sentence James Bryant might receive if he is convicted of the charges he was arrested for recently. Given that the current charges are misdemeanors he will not serve any time. Should additional charges be brought he may suffer greater penalties.
Reaction is fast and furious to the arrest of Jimmy Bryant
People have been grinning ear to ear and skipping and hopping in joy all over Coquille today and if reader comments are any indication it appears that the arrest of Officer Bryant is being well received throughout Coos County.
Public appreciation for Chief Dannels handling of this event is overwhelmingly supportive and appreciative that he placed the safety of the public first and did not try to bury this event as many believe the previous chief would have done. Unfortunately, citizen outrage over the Carl Foster incident and public complaints filed with the City Council two years ago went unheeded by then Police Chief Mike Reaves, City Manager Terence O’Connor and the entire City Council. Council members even called concerned citizens hairy unwashed and malcontents.
What does it take for the citizens of Coquille to realize that they need to clean house on the council, hire a professional city manager and setup a citizen advisory board to watchdog our paid and elected officials? Thank goodness for Mark Dannels. What a breath of fresh air to a city mired in the self serving incompetence of Terence O’Connor and Mike Reaves and the city council that enables them.
Last summer, Tammy Bryant, wife of James Bryant lost her job at the City for attempting to slander a police chief candidate on this blog during work hours. The City should have pulled Jimmy out then as well, or should have pulled him out when Carl Foster’s neck was broken in a simple arrest but they disregarded the safety of the public and left what may turn out to be a pedophile, no different than Wendi Boutiette may be, enforcing the law (I use the term loosely) in Coquille.
Unconfirmed reports from sources who prefer to remain anonymous have linked Bryant with young women previous to this event and more charges and additional arrests may be pending.
Coquille PD Officer James Bryant arrested UPDATED
Yes, Officer James Bryant, the same involved in the arrest that left a Coquille man a quadriplegic has been arrested on charges of providing alcohol to a minor and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.
From the press release
On 03/18/09, the Coos Bay Police Department in cooperation with the Coquille Police Department arrested James Bryant, a 8 year veteran officer of the Coquille Police Department for the following offenses:
1. Contributing to Sexual Delinquency of a Minor-Attempted
2. Furnishing Alcohol to a Minor
On 03/18/09, at about 7:15 a.m. a citizen complaint was reported to the Coquille Police Department alleging Officer James Bryant provided alcohol to a minor and solicited another minor to engage in a sexual act sometime between the evening hours of 3/17 and the early morning hours of 3/18 at a home in Coos Bay.
Due to the nature of the allegations, Chief Mark Dannels contacted the Coos Bay Police Department and requested an outside agency conduct the investigation. Based on a subsequent investigation, James Bryant was taken into custody on the two above listed charges and transported to the Coos County Jail. The investigation is continuing and additional charges are anticipated.
The identified victims at this time include a 17 year old female Coquille resident and an 18 year old female Coos Bay resident. The incident occurred at a home in the 2500 block of Woodland Drive in Coos Bay.
Anyone with additional information is asked to contact the Coos Bay Police Department at 269-8911.
Corrupt Coquille officer gets off with 20 days
Randy Ulmer arrested for stealing over $10,000 dollars from the police evidence locker over a period of months will probably only serve 20 days and lose his ability to work as a police officer ever again.
The 33-year-old likely will never find a job as a police officer in any other state, either, since his name will be put in a national registry of officer revocations.
Ulmer was the police department’s evidence custodian. Frasier said Ulmer took an estimated $12,000 in cash from the department’s evidence locker from May through November 2008. He has since returned $8,500 and the city estimates approximately $3,500 remains missing, Frasier added.
Frasier said he doesn’t consider Ulmer a flight risk and he is not in custody. Neither Frasier nor Ulmer’s lawyer, Nick Nylander of North Bend, gave a reason why Ulmer pleaded guilty, thus waiving his right to a trial. The court dropped a second charge of first-degree official misconduct, a class-A misdemeanor, as part of the plea bargain, Frasier said.
One reason cited for the light sentence which could have been as much as five years is that Ulmer is a ‘first time offender’. Technically this is not true given that he stole money repeatedly over a period of months or years. In truth he is a first time arrestee but he is not a first time offender.
Meanwhile the Safeway robbery is also in the news. Some of these kids may be first time offenders as well and the look outs were not armed so it will be interesting to see how their sentences compare to the sentencing of corrupt ex officer Ulmer. Ulmer should have received multiple charges for repeating thefts again and again.
Then there is Sherbondy. Like Ulmer she may never have been charged before but she may have engaged in this behavior more than once. Maybe crammed jail space and budget cuts will cause the judge to go easy on them as well.
Personally, I am disgusted that Ulmer should receive such a light sentence and not only because he conveniently couldn’t remember the difference between 3′ and 17′ in court.
Coquille mom arrested for bank robbery
Gwen Sherbondy, a Coquille mother, is in the custody of the FBI in Lane County after being arrested for a Roseburg bank robbery. Robbing banks may not be her only crime.
The mother of a Coquille High School student, Sherbondy also is charged with first-degree theft in a case involving the money missing for Coquille seniors end-year-trip. Coquille Police Chief Mark Dannels said Sherbondy has been in charge of the project’s funds since September.
Coquille schools Superintendent Diann Gillaspie, said Project Graduation is an effort by senior parents and students to raise money for the senior trip. She identified Sherbondy as one of its parent leaders, although she does not know the woman personally.
The police chief said he isn’t sure how much money is missing from the project, but seniors raised more than $20,000 last year. Gillaspie said she was unaware of how much money had been earned this year.
“A majority to all of it is gone,†Dannels said.
Sherbondy may have a gambling habit according to unconfirmed reports. This would make two high profile citizens who have allowed a gambling addiction to turn them into criminals, the first being former Coquille Police officer Randy Ulmer.
Seems to me our community sorely needs some education and outreach and ought to start properly funding mental health agencies.
Hats off to Sgt Pat Smith and Chief Mark Dannels for recognizing the suspect and putting two and two together.
Coquille PD investigation leads to arrest of high school track coach
Coquille High School track coach Wendi Smith Boutiette was arrested Saturday on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor. Charges include 1) Sexual Abuse II, 2) Contributing Sexual Delinquency of a Minor 3) Sexual Misconduct.
Boutiette, 36, is married with two children, has been the head track coach at the high school for one year. She was recently named Coach of the Year.
The charges involve a teenage boy who was on the track team and has since graduated and may include other victims.
Once again having a professional police chief has been good for the community. Since taking the position last fall Chief Dannels has spent a lot of time cleaning up after the previous chief, Mike Reaves, including uncovering major thefts from within the department.
Boutiette’s charges stem from activity that occurred under Reaves’ watch as did the theft of cash and more by former officer, Randy Ulmer. Safeway is likely very pleased by the newly organized PD as well and it further validates the complaints of the citizens toward the police department that were so roundly ignored by our elected officials.
Still we sit with the same city manager who shared donuts day after day with a man who did not protect the citizens of the City. What will it take for the council to make a change? How much evidence do they need that O’Connor, who can’t even write a grant apparently, should be replaced by a city manager equal to the qualifications of our new police chief?
Anyway, it is wonderful to see the officers focusing on real crime fighting and not just dedicating themselves to traffic enforcement and seat belt violations. Good job!
Photo by Ken Duke, courtesy of The Coquille Valley Sentinel
Coos County and City of Coquille ignore resource of experience
A speaker at last week’s Board of Commissioners meeting talked about how experienced employees are an invaluable resource. The speaker, Don Beebe, expressed what a travesty it was not to tap that wealth of experience during the recent reorganization at the Road Department.
From the outside looking in, unfortunately the only perspective available to the public given the opacity of the Board’s decision, the disregard for experienced input reflects an arrogant disdain for the citizens as well as the employees and has the sharp acrid scent of hubris. How dare the Board behave as if the citizens have nothing of value to contribute on such an important topic as public safety?
Evidently the Coquille City Council has no more regard for the collective experience of the voters than the Board. Certainly we can hope that their choice of Matt Muenchrath to the Council will benefit all the citizens despite their own mediocre performance.
Still it was their choice, just six people not the electorate. These same six people have presided while a wildly unpopular and apparently incompetent police chief was allowed to run roughshod throughout the City and his department without any management or oversight from the city manager for years.
These same six people continue to allow the city manager to behave as if he were not responsible for the many police department failings. They have provided no guidance to the city manager while an unsolved murder, a critically injured member of the public, thousands of dollars stolen and the misuse of City computers happened right under his nose.
Once again I detect the scent of hubris. Arbitrary council rules enacted years ago were used to wrest control from and justify ignoring the experience of the public.
Assuming the Board of Commissioners ignores public testimony and outcry and goes through with the Road Department layoffs the already high unemployment rate in Coquille will jump even higher. The layoff will effect schools, businesses and further reduce our tax base. Will the ever vigilant and alert Coquille City Council develop a plan to deal with these inevitable changes or come up with knee jerk reactions just like the Board?
Resource depletion is not why budgets get tight or societies fail. They fail because leaders do not adapt to resource depletion. The Board has not responded or adapted to changing economic conditions, instead they have reacted, frantically, wildly in a state of panic. Reaction is not leadership it is the absence of leadership.
Instead of blaming the legislature or pleading with a large corporation to ride in like a white knight and rescue the county like a damsel in distress there are many solutions available to enable local sustainability that are much more dignified. These solutions will require adaptation and a willingness to think out of the box but they do exist.
Energy is one way to become self-sustaining and fund public services such as road maintenance, public health and education. Five megawatts of distributed generating power operating at full capacity can earn $3M annual revenue. Using a ratio of 1.4 and assuming a AAA credit rating, $3M qualifies for $2.1M in debt service and translates into $19.2M financing at 9.5% interest although a bank will limit a loan to 80% of cost.
Centralized wind farms cost about $1.5M per megawatt excluding the cost of transmission. At that cost $19M in financing would pay for more than 12MW of power generation and might provide some insight into why energy is popular on Wall Street. The net earnings $.9M after paying debt service assumes a 20-year loan but distributed generation is less expensive than centralized power allowing a much faster payoff.
Generating 5 or 10MW of power locally instead of importing power and exporting dollars to investor owned utilities is just one of many ways to adapt the resources we have to suit our changing needs. These are by no means simple deals to structure but they are done successfully in the US and Europe, all it takes is competent and adaptive leadership.
If we invite the collective experience of our citizens and the people we work with everyday rather than keeping everyone in the dark many unique solutions will have the opportunity to present themselves. Hubris is not adaptive and the very act of excluding the very people affected by a decision from the decision process is polarizing and invites mistrust. For this reason, I believe Stufflebean has impaired his own ability to lead and should resign as interim roadmaster and give up his liaison assignment to the Road Department.
Police assault 12 year old girl in her yard then charge her with resisting arrest
Where have we seen the prejudice of police officers, loaded for bear, go awry before and then cover their own actions by attacking the victim? This story of a wrongful arrest has not been picked up by the mainstream media but should be.
A girl’s family has filed a lawsuit against Galveston police for their assault on their 12-year-old daughter after mistaking her for a prostitute.
As the girl, Dymond Milburn, walked in her front yard, three men jumped out of a van and beat her about the face and throat, one of them telling her, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”
Police attacked Milburn despite the fact that she didn’t fit the racial description of their suspects: three white prostitutes and a black drug dealer.
Three weeks after Milburn was hospitalized for her injuries, police went to her school and arrested her for assaulting an officer during the incident.
More details are at Rawstory but it is interesting to note that the child’s attempt to defend herself are labeled as ‘resisting arrest’.
“I think we’ll be okay,” said Anthony Griffin, Milburn’s attorney. “I don’t think a jury will find a 12-year-old girl guilty who’s just sitting outside her house. Any 12-year-old attacked by three men and told that she’s a prostitute is going to scream and yell for Daddy and hit back and do whatever she can. She’s scared to death.”
It is really hard to see police conduct as honorable when they stoop to such lows to cover their own asses. Naturally, I can’t help but think about Carl Foster and how he has been labeled guilty without any opportunity to defend himself.
Did I just hear you say "little" Trinity? I think not ! She's half-grown !
Congratulations to you all ...
http://www.larryvanelsberg2010.com/index.html 
Thanks, Den, this is very useful 