Captain Mark Kruger, the Portland cop who confessed to curating a shrine to Nazi-era German soldiers, is very effective at making a statement. A big, bold, intimidating statement.
The Oregonian just reported that Kruger, who works in East Precinct, is under investigation for publicly posting a city letter that cleared him of harassing a former underling and—this is important—writing the otherwise anonymous complainant’s last name on the letter in big red marker lettering despite an admonition to not retaliate.
Posting the letter and outing the employee so publicly could very well be seen as intimidation—and qualify, for real this time, as harassment. The O got hold of photos that reportedly were passed around by concerned workers a couple of weeks ago and made their way into the hands of the chief’s office and the employee outed, former Lieutenant Kristy Galvan.
It’s just the latest swirl in a soap opera that’s been bubbling for months while raising questions about sexism and favoritism while reminding everyone that the upper echelons of the police bureau can be a weird, and weirdly political, place to work.
Galvan, who filed a tort claim notice with the city this year, has already announced plans to sue Kruger, complaining that he was sexist in his treatment of her when he was her boss. Galvan, who was a probationary lieutenant, is on sick leave and has since been demoted by Chief Mike Reese back down to a sergeant, as the O has reported.
The drama first came to light after it claimed the job of Mike Kuykendall, Reese’s right-hand man and bureau’s civilian director of financial services. Kuykendall resigned after he was caught exchanging joky text messages with Galvan that called Kruger a Nazi and tried to console her about her issues with Kruger. The text messages were never meant for Kruger’s eyes, but he was the one who made them public—his lawyer included them in a tort claim notice warning the bureau he’d sue for slander.
Oh, and how did Kruger’s lawyer get those text messages? That’s a good question. Attorney Sean Riddell says he obtained them from the Portland Police Commanding Officers Association. But Galvan’s lawyer, Charese Rohny, told me she gave them to internal affairs investigators. Did IA give them to the union? Or did the union have another source?
More drama. And none of it good for Reese or the PPCOA, which the mayor is trying to get rid of.
A defendant has the right to confront their accuser. Charges made in public are rightfully to be answered in public. Orders for him to shut the fuck up are harassment and intimidation. I have no love of NAZIS or pigs, but that doesn’t make it okay to violate his rights. If he disobeys an order from his employer, he might be subject to termination or other discipline, but if the employer is arbitrary and abusive, the employer may be subject to legal action.
The slander was made in the original text messages between Kuykendall and Galvan, and made public when they those messages were first provided to a third party, irrespective of who or what that third party is. Kruger is the injured party and ought to be the one to be filing law suits, if not counter suits. In fact criminal charges could be brought against Galvan for harassment, threatening to sue, rather than just doing it. Galvan is the one who doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up.
Why are the cops trying so hard to defend a guy who is AT LEAST a Nazi sympathizer, and very possibly an actual Nazi?
Any union contract that doesn’t allow someone like Kruger to be fired is a bad contract, and offensive to the public.
The fact that forces deep within the police force have been leaking documents in order to help this guy is completely insane, and shows the Portland Police are rotten to the core.
Kruger pulled this latest stunt because he knows he’s safe. The powers that be are on his side. Which means the department itself holds Nazi sympathies.
Bust their fucking union. They deserve worse.
Just so it’s clear, Kruger’s a piece of human garbage who should be fired for any number of reasons, not least the shitty judgment and score-settling impulse shown here.
1. @hippo, There is no law that an employer can’t act arbitrarily. Nearly the opposite is true: employers can’t deliberately treat members of protected classes differently.
2. @Denis, I don’t think Kruger posting a letter clearing him of harassment becomes itself harassment, nor does it rise to harassment just because Kruger wrote Galvan’s name on it. He wasn’t ordered to keep this secret, and her name has been public record for a long time – Galvan was certainly known as the complainant inside PPB.
That maybe changes if he’d e-mailed the letter to the entire Bureau, or did some larger-scale thing, but this is a pretty understated action for a guy who, in his spare time, builds Nazi shrines on public property.
The bottom line is that Kruger’s a dick, but unfortunately in this case (and many others), it’s not against the law to be a dick.
CC summed it up well.
And of course that “defendant (having) the right to confront their accuser” thing has nothing to do with this actual story, but thanks for that.
More like “guy who has the entirety of the legal system on his side intimidates someone who tried to call him on his shit,” which is a different area of law, I believe.
CC: Appreciate the well-stated point you make: Galvan’s only been anonymous in terms of the harassment complaint that cleared Kruger—and not exactly in the public sphere.