By Beacon Staff
According to the command staff of the Des Moines County Sheriff’s office, nobody wanted to fire deputy Al Waterman.
During the second and final day of a Civil Service Commission hearing regarding Waterman’s April 8 termination, fellow officers Kevin Glendening, Sgt. Brad Siegfried and Chief Deputy Brett Grimshaw testified on Thursday to that fact.
“We talked numerous times, how can we retain Al? But there were some serious trust issues among the command staff, and we’re in a small office. If we can’t trust someone in our own office, the public won’t trust us,” Siegfried said.
Waterman was the school resource officer for Mediapolis School District until his termination. He testified his termination stemmed from a text message he sent to sheriff's deputy Cory Whitaker — the school resource officer for the Danville Community School District.
In the text message sent Feb. 12, Waterman told Whitaker that three anonymous sources claimed he had run three temporary stop signs at the Mediapolis school.
Waterman, who has been a deputy for almost 18 years, said the students did not want to self-identify, so he kept their identities anonymous. He testified Wednesday that he didn’t want to betray that trust, so he declined to provide additional information to his supervisor.
Video Evidence of Infraction No Longer Exists
A school surveillance video of Whitaker at one of the school stop signs was shown in court both days of the hearing. The low frame-rate, equaling one image per second, made it impossible to determine if Whitaker ran a stop sign.
However, since the video is from Feb. 12, it has no bearing on the hearing. Waterman initially indicated the infraction happened Feb. 12. He later said the violations took place two or three weeks prior.
By the time the investigation began and Lt. Clint Williams had the proper timeline, the video was recorded over with new footage since those recordings are reset every two weeks.
Lt. Chad McCune, Waterman's supervisor, said his story changed from Whitaker running three stop signs to two stop signs and claims Waterman told him he witnessed Whitaker roll past one of the stop signs. Waterman testified he only saw the traffic infraction on the school video.
Attorney Raises Conflict Of Interest Concerns
Curt Dial, the attorney representing Waterman, had some pointed questions for Glendening.
Like Waterman, Glendening is running for Des Moines County sheriff. The current sheriff, Mike Johnstone, is retiring at the end of the year. Glendening also wrote a letter recommending the firing of Waterman, even though he wasn’t one of the internal investigators.
Dial asked Glendening if he thought the competing campaigns were a conflict of interest.
"No, I don’t think so," Glendening said.
Dial also noted that Waterman’s supervisor and the first officer to investigate the matter, McCune, publicly supports Glendening’s run for sheriff.
Johnstone said Thursday the names of the witnesses, which he doesn’t believe exist, aren’t important.
“He didn’t want to admit he lied,” Johnstone said, explaining how the situation spiraled out of control.
Johnstone asked the commission to affirm his decision to fire Waterman.
Grimshaw said recommending the firing of Waterman was perhaps the hardest decision he’s made in his 30 years of law enforcement.
“Al is a friend of mine,” Grimshaw said.
The commission will review the evidence and issue a written opinion on the matter.