By Tracey Bruce
For the Leader
At least two members of the Byrnes Mill Police Department, Lt. Roger Ide and Officer Kevin Schroeder, have been placed on leave without pay in the wake of an investigation into the department.
City officials would not give names of suspended officers or say how many had been put on leave, but the two men told the Leader they had been suspended.
Ide was the subject of a vote of no confidence Byrnes Mill Police took in August, and after that vote, a letter signed by eight Byrnes Mill Police officers was forwarded to the Board of Aldermen detailing numerous complaints against Ide.
In the letter, the officers said Ide had “fostered an atmosphere of hostility” and damaged the Police Department’s morale and reputation. The officers also alleged that Ide had conducted illegal search and seizures and mismanaged grant funds.
“We have lost all trust, faith and confidence in Lt. Roger Ide’s ability to lead, direct or supervise this Department,” the letter said. “We therefore respectfully refuse to follow all directives and/or orders issued by Lt. Ide. We respectfully request that you support our vote of no confidence and relieve Lt. Ide of his duties and responsibilities.”
Ide denies all the allegations.
“I did absolutely nothing wrong,” he said Oct. 5. “I’ve done nothing but good things for any of those guys. If anything, I’ve been too nice to them. I’ve worked their days, filled in when they were sick.”
Ide said he is being attacked because Schroeder wanted to run the department, “and the only two things in his way were me and Gary (Dougherty, the Byrnes Mill Police chief).”
“The rest of them (the other seven officers who signed the letter) were just gullible enough to go along with it,” Ide said.
Schroeder acknowledged that he wrote the letter, but he said it included complaints from other officers in the department as well.
He said he allowed the other officers to make changes to the letter and review it before they signed it.
Schroeder also said he went to Ide and Dougherty with complaints before writing the letter.
“If I wanted to be chief, I wouldn’t have gone to Roger with my concerns. I wouldn’t have gone to the chief. I wouldn’t have had a meeting with City Administrator Debbie (LaVenture) for two hours,” he said. “At that point, any chance I had of becoming chief was gone.”
The other members of the Byrnes Mill Police Department who signed the letter were Cpl. James Iken and officers Jamie Mayberry, Mike Stivers, Justin Robinson, Chris Hancock, Jason Holt and Bradley Tritch.
After receiving the letter, which said it was written “on behalf of the full-time patrol force,” the Byrnes Mill Board of Aldermen called on the Arnold Police Department to investigate the allegations. Arnold Police did not charge the city for the investigation and completed it on Sept. 28.
Byrnes Mill city officials released a report summarizing the findings on Oct. 4, but not the full report. The Board of Aldermen voted unanimously Oct. 3 to have city attorney Bob Sweeney seek a declaratory judgment from the Jefferson County Circuit Court to determine what portions of the full report may be kept confidential to protect the privacy of personnel and private citizens who may be named in it.
The court decision probably will take a month, Byrnes Mill Mayor Rob Kiczenski said. He did not respond to a question asking what the city’s next step will be.
In the meantime, the city has released the report summary, with a link to it on the city’s website.
“Because of the interest from the public, we are releasing a synopsis of all allegations (and the findings of the Arnold Police),” Sweeney said.
In the report, the Arnold Police Department said it could not corroborate most of the allegations in the letter.
For example, Arnold Police said it found no evidence that Ide or other officers had conducted illegal searches and seizures.
“The city maintains dash (cameras) and is implementing body (cameras) to ensure proper procedure and a record of police/public interaction,” the report said.
“I did everything by the book,” Ide said. “We worked to make courteous, legal traffic stops. I, with the help of Gary (Dougherty) turned this place around.”
Float trip
However, in their letter to the Byrnes Mill Board of Aldermen, officers said Ide made some poor decisions, including one to leave town while he was left in command.
The Arnold Police investigation report said that allegation was substantiated.
According to the report, Ide took part in an out-of-town float trip in August, leaving the Byrnes Mill Police Department without a commanding officer since he had been left in charge while Dougherty was attending a conference.
Ide and a woman rode together to the float trip and were drinking during the day, the letter alleged. Later, the woman crashed a vehicle on Hwy. W and Meadow Lane in Franklin County, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol ticketed her for allegedly driving while intoxicated, the patrol reported.
Several hours after the crash, Ide reportedly called 911 and asked for Robinson, one of the officers who signed the letter, to call him, and when Robinson returned the call, Ide allegedly asked him to pick him up in Stanton, leaving the Police Department with just one officer on duty, according to the letter.
Ide said he did go on the float trip and was drinking that day, but said it was his day off. “We had 12 beers between us all day,” he said.
Ide said he didn’t want to drive home with the woman because she had been drinking and he tried to convince her to wait.
“She thought she was fine to drive. I got out. I left and sat in the park,” he said.
Ide said he had left his phone in the car and he called 911 because it was one of the few numbers he knew.
He said he told Robinson he “needed somebody to pick him up,” and Robinson drove to Stanton to get him.
Ide said he did not know about the crash until the next day.
Grant funds
In its report, the Arnold Police Department said the allegation in the letter about Ide mismanaging grant funds raised enough concern that investigators forwarded the information to the Missouri Department of Transportation to look into.
Jon Nelson, a Missouri Department of Transportation spokesman, said Oct. 5 that the agency is awaiting the results of the Arnold Police Department’s report and is reviewing the grants that have been issued to the Byrnes Mill Police Department.
“They will not find anything,” Ide said.
He said the grants provide funds to pay officers time and a half to make traffic stops on state highways, allowing the Byrnes Mill Police Department to have a second patrol officer on duty on weekends.
Ide said he typically worked 100 hours every two weeks but only claimed 84 hours, unless grants were used to pay for the additional hours.
He said those grants were used properly and records for those patrol hours are correct.
Ide said no one from Byrnes Mill or from the Arnold Police Department has spoken to him about the allegations. He said an appointment he had with Arnold Police was canceled and never rescheduled and he has not been allowed to talk to the Byrnes Mill Board of Aldermen.
The allegations have “destroyed my career,” Ide added. “Everybody believes this stuff.
“I’m so hurt by what the city did. I gave my heart and soul to the city for nine years.”
Mayor Kiczenski said the allegations and the investigation findings have been hard to accept.
“It’s very difficult. It’s disappointing,” he said. “We believe everything is going well with the Police Department and clearly it wasn’t.
“We need to have a Police Department everybody can trust and have confidence in. And some very good officers are still here.”
Byrnes Mill Police has commissioned three Arnold Police officers to fill in while the department is shorthanded, Kiczenski said.
Since the letter was made public, Iken, another one of the officers who signed the letter, has resigned, LaVenture said.
She would not comment on whether the resignation was related to the investigation into the Police Department.
Another employee, Tracy McAfee, who was deputy clerk, resigned sometime before the investigation got underway, and Kiczenski said he did not know why.