Spokane Police Chief suspends anti-crime team

All 10 officers on the team were transferred to patrol duty due to the actions of two Spokane police officers.

SPOKANE, Wash. – Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl suspended and reassigned the department’s anti-crime team after a federal judge dismissed a drug trafficking for inaccurate testimony from arrested officers.

The Spokane Police Patrol Anti-Crime Team (PACT) was formed in 2011 to “target new crime trends and productive criminals”. Now all 10 officers of the team have been transferred to patrol duty due to the actions of two officers.

Senior District Court judge Rosanna Peterson dismissed the trial of Jody Wallette, who was accused of drug trafficking, on December 16 after granting a motion to suppress evidence, according to federal court documents. Wallette was arrested on March 3, 2021 and charged with distributing Fentanyl and “Mexi-Blues”.

Court documents indicate that Peterson decided to suppress the evidence gathered by Spokane police officers Scott Lesser and Winston Brooks after the defense argued that the affidavits for several search warrants in the case “contained false or misleading statements”.

Spokane Police made the following statement following the judge’s decision:

“The SPD is aware of the concerns of a federal judge regarding an investigation of PACT members. We take these concerns very seriously and have opened an internal investigation. This court decision serves us to pause and take a closer look at what we are doing.” want our proactive policing to look like this. The nature of policing has changed and is constantly changing, and this move of reassigning PACT members gives the SPD the opportunity to assess the role of the police anti-crime team. “

According to court documents, Lesser used a confidential informant previously arrested for possession of heroin and meth to buy fentanyl from a house in northeast Spokane in late February 2021. Lesser had the informant make several controlled drug purchases that eventually helped his efforts get Wallette search warrants, the documents say.

Documents say Lesser gave the informant a number he believed belonged to Wallette to make a purchase, but Lesser later said he had not verified the subscriber information for the phone number.

Officer Brooks testified that he identified Wallette at the drug buying scene, although handwritten notes from officers did not confirm Wallette was at the scene and it was dark outside.

Documents also state that receipts and cell phone data show Wallette in Bellevue at the time of purchase.

Wallette was arrested 10 days after the drug deal, documents say. Judge Peterson ruled the arrest was for no probable cause. The judge decided to suppress Lesser and Brooks’ evidence on December 6, dismissing Wallette’s case 10 days later.

Spokane police spokeswoman Julie Humphreys said the department has opened an investigation into the internal affairs of the arrest following the judge’s verdict.

Lesser was also investigated by the department in February 2019 for a controversial arrest. He was named in a lawsuit brought by Lucas Ellerman, the subject of the arrest, alleging that he and his counterpart Daniel Lesser Ellerman’s car were found in a vehicle chase. All three officers involved in his arrest did not violate the department’s policy on the use of force.

This is not the first time the PACT has been accused of discrepancies between handwritten notes and official records.

Court documents show that former Spokane Police Detective Lonnie Tofsrud filed a lawsuit in October 2019 alleging he was looking for discrepancies between an official report and the records of PACT members Corporal Jeffrey McCollough and Sgt. Kurt Vigessa for arrest of a confidential informant in 2017. According to the lawsuit, Tofsrud called McCollough and asked him to address the inconsistencies as it could cause problems for prosecutors due to its impact on the Brady List. A brady list is a list of prosecution officials whose behavior means their credibility as witnesses in criminal cases could be questioned.

Tofsrud told McCollough he would turn to prosecutors the next day for advice, which ultimately resulted in the case against the informant being dropped, court documents say.

Tofsrud was later reprimanded in June 2018 for leaving the chain of command for not dealing with internal affairs first. Then court documents allege that an internal affairs investigation against Tofsrud found that he knowingly made false statements to damage another department member’s reputation. Tofsrud was then placed on the Brady List, unable to testify in court, and was posted to desk duty.

In 2019, Tofsrud filed a lawsuit for damages in federal court over retaliation claims. A judge later dismissed the case.