Broken Blue Line
Long-simmering resentment in the Eureka Police Department erupts with lawsuits and sleaze
(July 2, 2009) At an April 2008 special meeting of the Eureka City Council, which was called to review Police Chief Garr Nielsen’s year-old contract, two vastly different depictions of the new chief emerged. Community members voiced support, characterizing him as a forthright and tough-minded reformer who was bringing needed change to the recalcitrant old guard.
About a dozen departmental employees, on the other hand, said the chief was actually a vindictive bully — a man who punished anyone who dared challenge his authority with demotions or reassignment. DeeDee Wilson, a 26-year employee at the department, even warned the council that she’d filed a sexual harassment and hostile workplace complaint against the chief and begged them to hold off on a decision.
The council sided with the public, unanimously approving a contract extension. The following month, Nielsen was exonerated of Wilson’s charges by an independent investigator, and it seemed that his detractors had been silenced.
They had not.
These days, the Eureka Police Department is a swirling nightmare of lawsuits and investigations, claims and counterclaims, intrigue and ill will. At least four current or former employees of the department are pursuing complaints at the federal level through the Equal Employment Opportunity Council and the Department of Fair Housing and Employment. Several sources say that the Humboldt County Grand Jury is investigating Nielsen’s alleged misuse of city funds, with a report due in the coming weeks.
How did it come to this? Is it the work of a group of old-school EPD employees who have dug in their heels to resist reform at all costs, and who don’t mind dragging down the department and the city to get their way? Or is it the result of an incompetent manager who compensates for personal shortcomings and professional misconduct by crushing subordinates who have the means to blow the whistle on him? Is Nielsen a tough-minded reformer cleaning up a messy department, or just an asshole?
Since litigation has clamped so many mouths, at this point it’s difficult to say where the truth lies. Each interpretation has its champions. It’s just possible that both are true, to one degree or another.
There’s only a few things that can be said with certainty.
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13 Comments
Comment / By pogo / July 2, 2009, 7:04 a.m.
why would you want to resuscitate malaise? Morale, maybe, but morale is always internal. Maybe you should avoid using French. And stick to short words.
Comment / By Hank Sims / July 2, 2009, 7:16 a.m.
Good point.
Comment / By Mike Goldsby / July 2, 2009, 10:48 p.m.
So this story on the Times Standard website, alleging internet harassment, attracts anonymous comments that eventually cause them all to be taken down?
Is that weird or predictable or sad? I feel like it resuscitated my malaise.
Comment / By Charles / July 3, 2009, 6:15 a.m.
Well, with removal of the last EPD chief, the city looked at bringing someone in who was not a local good ole boy to the city.
They were at war with him from day 1.
Comment / By Kate / July 3, 2009, 3:42 p.m.
Good Ole Boys in Eureka will dig in and be ferocious in order to keep their illegal and immoral activities secret. These people don’t care that poor people and middle class are getting poorer, they only care that they stay in power.
Comment / By Carol Conners / July 4, 2009, 8:08 a.m.
Having been a victim of anonymous blog comments, I find all this quite distasteful. Not your writing about it, Hank, but personal attacks on public figures regarding their private lives. Anyone with a computer can type absolute lies when they are anonymous. A friend of mine sent me a link to the Above the Law blog and I looked at it once. IMHO, it looked politically motivated. I felt like I need to take a shower after reading it. Yuk.
Comment / By Magdeline Pereira / July 4, 2009, 2:51 p.m.
EPD female officers/employees need to be treated with the utmost respect and kindness. Imbecile jokes and pranks from male chiefs, reveal unevolved lowlife exploiters, ejaculators and perpetraitors whos’ DNA need to be eradicated from the human genome.
Comment / By lol / July 5, 2009, 12:49 a.m.
When organizations change there are always people who find themselves unable to change with it. They tend to work themselves out of the organization in time.
I’m certain that this vocal group of anti-Nielson employees will be little missed when they eventually move on. Sorry folks, but if you spend the bulk of your time inciting lawsuits and creating drama within a team unit you are doing a bad job.
No matter how you feel about tactics, behavior or whatever it’s important to act in a professional manner and continue working toward your official job goals. Sabotaging the operations of the PD over petty, small-time fueds regarding a couple of people’s career stagnation is not called for.
Anyone with two brain-cells to rub together can see what’s really going on here.
Comment / By backstabbed / July 5, 2009, 10:51 p.m.
If anyone with a BRAIN had done a real background on Garr he never would have been hired. No one asks why a road deputy was shoved into a closet in a jail and left there until he found another job to go to–YOURS. Geezus, someone opened the door and this clown walked right in.
Comment / By john q public / July 6, 2009, 4:33 p.m.
To backstabbed/aka mcso: Poor baby. Still holding your little immature grudge after all this time. You need counseling bad. You apparently don’t know that it was more than 1 person with a brain who contacted the dept up there & did a background. I bet it really pissed you off when the council down here voted unanimously to give this guy a 5 yr contract because of his good work. You are probably still bringing embarassment to yourself up there. And, by the way, this paper was a little late in their investigating. A grand jury exonerated the chief from all the petty complaints that 2 folks filed, and 1 of them just quit. Get a life, you poor sap.
Comment / By Hank Sims / July 6, 2009, 4:51 p.m.
And, by the way, this paper was a little late in their investigating.
A little early, you mean.
Comment / By john q public / July 6, 2009, 8:47 p.m.
Yes, true, you’re right. NCJ just dredged up, sensationalized & exaggerated old news, did no new creditable research, certainly didn’t get all perspectives, and now they look silly in light of what the grand jury said.
Comment / By magdeline pereira / July 17, 2009, 3:10 p.m.
I nominate Lyn Soderberg for Chief of Police, Eureka, CA and may the Nacho chips fall to the Blessed Peacemakers, USA