POLICE UNION
<<Brian Hunzeker, the one-time president of the Portland Police Association who resigned over a false leak concerning then-Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, was placed on leave Saturday by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, two days after resigning from PPB.
Hunzeker was fired by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler over the false leak that linked Hardesty as a suspect in a minor hit-and-run crash in March 2022. At the time of the leak Hunzeker was the president of the police union.
Wheeler said Hunzeker “accessed a confidential record, reproduced the information using his mobile phone and sent it to a news media outlet without authorization. This reproduction and release of information to the media was a violation of policy.”
But in February 2023, Hunzeker was reinstated to the PPB by an arbitrator appointed by the State Labor Board.
On Friday, Willamette Week first reported they notified the Portland City Attorney’s Office that Hunzeker was also a Clark County deputy.
In a statement to KOIN 6 News on Saturday, Chief Deputy City Attorney Heidi Brown said, “The City just learned of his employment with Clark County. Brian Hunzeker resigned from his position at the City of Portland and made it effective Thursday.”
Hunzeker was earning a nearly six-figure salary in Clark County as a sheriff’s deputy since being hired last August, Willamette Week said.
Now, though, he is on administrative leave “pending an internal investigation,” Clark County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Christopher Skidmore told KOIN 6 News.
Skidmore said Hunzeker began working for the sheriff’s office “sometime last year.”
Online data reviewed by KOIN 6 News shows Hunzeker was hired by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in August 2022.
KOIN 6 News asked the sheriff’s office if they were aware he was also working with PPB. But officials at the sheriff’s office said they will have no further comment “until the investigation is complete.”>>
https://www.koin.com/news/civic-affairs/hunzeker-resigns-from-ppb-put-on-leave-by-clark-county/
NEGLIGENT INVESTIGATIONS
<<New allegations surfaced Friday in a federal lawsuit against Umatilla police officials over their handling of child sexual abuse reports.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit was 13 years old in 2018, when she says a former Umatilla detective failed to investigate after a 34-year-old man video recorded himself raping her, then threatened and harassed her family with the footage for years.
This week, the victim’s lawyer argued in amended court filings that the same police officer ignored another teenager’s sexual assault report in 2022.
Former Det. Sgt. Bill Wright has since left the department under unclear circumstances.
The complaint against him and other city officials states that in April 2022 a second minor female in Umatilla was sexually assaulted by an 18-year-old male, while they were both on a school-sanctioned trip to Houston.
When Wright was assigned to investigate the girl’s complaint, he put off meeting with her for two weeks, failed to interview witnesses, and misled the family about the investigation, the complaint states.
The lawsuit seeks more than $25 million in damages, and a jury trial over claims that Umatilla officials acted negligently and violated constitutional rights for equal protection and due process.>>