If we want police accountability . . .

author : Drew Hendricks topic : police misconduct

by Drew Hendricks

Olympia Police Officer Mel Jetter was almost fired in November of 2002. Two of his peers, officers who were responsible for evaluating his behavior as an officer, recommended that he be terminated. Commander Steve Nelson and Chief Gary Michel decided instead to give him 15 days off without pay. The chief asked Mel to write a paper, entitled "The Role of Ethical Conduct in Law Enforcement," because (Chief's words) "ethical behavior is not learned in training." The chief gave Mel five weeks to write this paper, and let Mel choose the length of the report.

The justification for Mel Jetter's discipline was his use of a personal cell phone during duty for up to six hours on one occasion, and for over four hours on several other occasions. He also initiated two relationships with police volunteers he supervised, despite the ethical concerns raised by his decision to have sex with people with whom he worked.

More troubling was what happened in April or May of 2002, when Mel and his one-time lover Cheryl King had a meeting in the State of Washington parking lot a block north of the Police station on 8th Ave. Mel says that he did not strike Cheryl with his patrol car, but she says that he did. Her husband, Dennis, witnessed the incident, and she yelled to him at the time that he had hit her. He told her to report it. But when she returned to the private police parking lot, Mel ordered Cheryl King and her husband Dennis out of the parking lot, because Dennis was a civilian. Mel was on duty and armed at the time. That makes Mel's action a Class C felony called tampering with a witness. Cheryl King and her husband left the parking lot that day, and did not report the incident again for some weeks or months afterward. That is one reason we still don't know the exact day it occurred, even though Mel Jetter admits he ordered both Cheryl and Dennis out of the lot.

That the Chief of Police, Commander Nelson, and his supervisors missed this obvious crime is not what should surprise us. It happens every time foxes investigate crimes committed in the hen house. What should surprise us is that it took a case in a court of law to pry this sad story from the clutches of a department steeped in secrecy. When people go to court, they are willing to file almost anything to make their enemies look like villains. When those enemies are former lovers, the evidence can get a bit intimate.

Let's stop a minute, stepping aside from the mud and blood in the pages of our courthouse's files, and remember that "ethical conduct is not learned in training." Let's keep that phrase in mind when we ask for the people responsible for discipline in the Olympia Police Department to pack their bags for distant lands. And let us remember it when we begin taking up the collection to hire our own police oversight structure.

Police accountability does not grow from the barrel of a gun, and it does not grow in the garden plot scratched out by City Council subcommittees. If we want police accountability, we must take our public records back from our public servants, and sing out loud the sins of those who would enforce our laws, until their faces blush with shame and their hindquarters disappear into the glowing orb of the setting sun.