Ronan chief presents reserve officer plan, council reluctant
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RONAN – On June 22 Police Chief Ken Weaver laid out a new plan to bring back the city’s reserve officer program, but council members were apprehensive two years after problems with a former police chief and the reserve program caused the town’s police department to fall into shambles and resulted in a major ongoing class action lawsuit.
Weaver has been in office nine months, and council members said they support him completely, but that they are a bit reluctant to jump in after previous headaches.
“I have concerns,” Councilmember Ellen Kaphammer said. “This whole reserve thing, is the state crystal clear on what’s required?”
The council is facing a class action lawsuit that alleges former Ronan Reserve Police Officer Trevor Wadsworth and other off-duty reserves illegally arrested a man in summer 2013, after the Montana Public Safety Officer Standards and Training Council explicitly directed Wadsworth’s father and former longtime police chief Daniel Wadsworth that Trevor could not serve until he received proper training. Wadsworth was later stripped of his law enforcement certification for letting uncertified reserve officers act as regular police officers.
The lawsuit calls into question whether or not the reserve program allowed people to be arrested illegally. The program was suspended in September 2013, mostly because council members and legal staff couldn’t come up with a standard set of uniform guidelines about what state law requires of reserves. Current staff in the state attorney general’s office, former staff in the state attorney general’s office, the Montana Public Safety Officer and Training Council, and numerous attorneys all had a different interpretation of how much training was required of the officers, how much control they had to be under, and if the reserves could be paid.
“There was a whole bunch of grey area,” Councilmember Chris Adler said. “When the reserves were going before, we were led to believe that we were doing things right. Nobody here wanted to do anything wrong.”
But Weaver said Montana Public Safety Officer Standards and Training Council recently released guidelines that define a specific Helena College training course reserve officers must undergo, and clarifies other parts of the rules that were murky before.
His proposed reserve program would be a volunteer-only force where the officers had to purchase their own uniform and would be under direct control of an on-duty officer. The reserves would not be used in lieu of regular officers. Weaver said he used all of the past mishaps as the basis for writing the policy. Weaver said the idea of having a reserve program is favorable to him, but that ultimately the decision is up to the city council.
“I want dialogue,” Weaver said. “If you say you don’t want it, I don’t have a problem with it.”
Councilmembers said they would mull over Weaver’s proposal and table it until a later meeting.
Adler reiterated that the council has faith in Weaver.
“I trust what you are doing, and what you are pursuing, but we have trusted before,” Adler said.
