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Medford police sergeant suspended by state board Saturday Jan 27, 2018 at 10:21 AM Jan 27, 2018 at 6:55 PM By Carli Brosseau and Rebecca Woolington The Oregonian The showdown came Thursday for Marion County Sheriff Jason Myers. Oregon's police oversight board, which Myers chairs, had to decide whether former Medford Sgt. Thomas Ianieri should get to keep working as a cop. Regulators found Ianieri had behaved inappropriately with female subordinate employees, manipulating them and pitting them against each other. Some board members thought the state should take no action. Myers wanted to end Ianieri's career. "The behavior was egregious," Myers said. "He knew what he was doing." After a long and testy debate, Myers got a big chunk of what he wanted. Members of the Board on Public Safety Standards and Training voted to suspend Ianieri's police certification for three years. It was the first time in at least a decade that the board overrode a recommendation from its Police Policy Committee, which conducts the first public review of misconduct cases. The committee is largely made up of sheriffs, police chiefs and union representatives. The full board includes members of other public safety professions. Ianieri could not be reached for comment, but he earlier told the committee, during a verbal mitigation statement, that he'd never been in trouble before and took responsibility for his mistake. Thursday's meeting was the crescendo in a long-simmering fight over the former police supervisor's fate. It played out amid growing national outrage over men's treatment of women in a wide array of workplaces. A written state summary of Ianieri's case is short on detail but mentions inappropriate comments in text messages. Committee members also have described allegations of inappropriate photos and of inappropriate comments about a female officer's body. The Police Policy Committee recommended in May that Ianieri keep his state endorsement. The board, at Myers' urging, rejected that proposal in July and sent it back for the committee to reconsider. But members stuck to their conclusion that Ianieri should stay certified. So, the case was back to the board Thursday for a final decision. Myers started Thursday's discussion by saying he didn't believe Ianieri met the state's moral fitness standards to work as a police officer. The sheriff said he'd read the 1,200 pages of Medford's internal investigation and worried how Ianieri would behave in the community. But others disagreed. Some members of the committee that recommended no action also sit on the board. They said they gave Ianieri a pass because the Medford Police Department hadn't disciplined him properly or intervened early enough. Ray Byrd, who represents private security officers on the board, said Ianieri should have known better. Byrd said the state's training academy taught that such behavior was unacceptable even back in 1992, when he attended. He said Medford's longstanding failure to address the misconduct should not excuse Ianieri. "There have been a lot of things that police departments are responsible for, but police officers are also responsible for their own personal behavior," Byrd said. Oregon State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton said he still had concerns about whether Ianieri was given due process. Hampton, who is on both the advisory committee and the full board, said that although Ianieri's behavior was "egregious," he couldn't get over the fact that Ianieri was investigated by officers who had earlier tolerated his behavior. "Twenty plus individuals were interviewed at this police department," Hampton said. "Almost to the employee, this conduct was known for many years." The chairman of the advisory committee echoed Hampton's concerns. Jeff Hering, a Tigard detective, said that the committee thoroughly reviewed the case before concluding Ianieri shouldn't lose his badge. "It was not a case that we took lightly," Hering said. "By no means." At that point, the two sides were at an impasse. There weren't enough votes to reverse the recommendation that Ianieri keep his state credentials. The options for moving forward seemed limited. Myers told board members that they could vote to send the case back for a third review at the Police Policy Committee. Or, he said, they could vote to confirm the committee's recommendation to allow Ianieri to continue in the police profession and move on. Patricia Patrick-Joling, the board's only public member and an advocate for ousting Ianieri from law enforcement, suggested the board do the latter in an apparent effort to keep the meeting moving. But not long after, she backed away from that suggestion, saying she didn't feel good about it. She said she really thought Ianieri's police career needed to end. Mike Myers, chief of the Portland Fire Bureau, took a new approach. "I think we need to take action, regardless of the fact that some employer did not use the discipline process," Myers said. At a time when explosive cases of sexual misconduct are making headlines daily, Myers asked: "Why doesn't the policy committee get it?" Hampton, the superintendent of state police, took offense, characterizing himself as a "hardliner" on the committee. He said he would entertain changing his vote if the board would consider suspending Ianieri's certification, rather than taking it away altogether. The board's chairman, Jason Myers, jumped on the offer. He asked Hampton if he wanted to move forward on that idea. The superintendent said yes. Each member around the table said his or her vote. When it came Hering's turn, he sighed and threw his pen down at the table. He said "aye" in support of overruling the committee he chairs. The board then decided Ianieri's penalty. Their answer: A suspension for three years. "It's a healthy discussion," Eriks Gabliks, the director of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, said after the meeting. "That's what the board is for."