This story was originally published by The Oregonian/OregonLive and is reprinted with permission.
The two deputy directors of the state’s police certification agency and a third supervisor have been placed on leave pending personnel investigations after the arrest of another department employee.
Officials from the state Department of Public Safety Standards and Training declined Tuesday to release any details of the investigations.
It’s unclear if the arrest of a subordinate employee on a harassment charge is related.
Placed on paid administrative leave are: Brian Henson, deputy director of operations; Staci Yutzie, deputy director of the training division; and defensive tactics coordinator Richard Daniel.
Daniel’s leave began May 17. Henson’s and Yutzie’s leaves began May 28.
Gov. Tina Kotek is aware of the investigations and paid leaves but had no comment, according to her press secretary.
The chair of the department’s board was alerted to the investigations, but no other board members were told, an agency spokesman said.
The Department of Public Safety Standards and Training certifies police officers, corrections officers, probation officers and private investigators in the state and runs basic and supervisory training academies for police officers at its 237-acre public safety academy campus.
Henson served as operations deputy director, overseeing human resources, budget and procurement, facilities, payroll and accounting and student services, after serving as acting director. He’s worked at the agency since March 2014 .
Yutzie became deputy director overseeing the training division in August 2023, after working as training academy dean. She has been with the agency since 2013.
Both Henson and Yutzie declined comment. Daniel couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Their leaves followed the arrest in late April of another department employee, David Babcock, who worked for the agency for 16 years, most recently as a training safety coordinator.
Babcock, 56, is charged with harassment, a misdemeanor, in Marion County Circuit Court.
He is accused of subjecting a Marion County sheriff’s deputy, Jorge Ramirez, to “offensive physical contact” when Ramirez responded to Babcock’s home on a domestic disturbance call about 10:14 a.m. on April 27, according to the sheriff’s office.
Babcock was “threatening to kill deputies,” was “very aggressive,” and “highly intoxicated, according to the sheriff’s office probable cause statement.
His wife told deputies that he was outside the house drunk and she could not exit the home, the statement said. Ramirez found Babcock seated outside the house. When he went inside to talk to Babcock’s wife, he could hear Babcock threatening to kill a sergeant and another deputy who were outside, the statement said. At one point, Babcock got up, went back inside the home and slammed the door on the deputies’ faces and locked it, with his wife inside. Ramirez, who was outside by then, walked around to a back door, where Babcock “used both hands and pushed” him in the chest, knocking him backwards, the statement said. Ramirez was able to grab the door to avoid falling, the statement said.
Babcock was arrested at his home that day on allegations of harassment and assault on a public safety officer, according to a probable cause statement that was signed by a judge and released by the sheriff’s office. Yet only the harassment allegation is filed in court records. He wasn’t charged with domestic violence in the case.
Babcock was placed on paid leave from his public safety training job three days after his arrest, according to state records. He has been ordered not to have contact with Ramirez and to remain at home as he awaits trial, set for Dec. 6, according to court records.
Babcock’s lawyer, Tiffany L. Humphrey, declined comment on the arrest or his status at the public safety agency.
Ramirez is a new deputy with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. He completed his field training in mid-March and attained solo status to patrol alone at that time, according to the sheriff’s office.
Phil Castle, director of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, declined to directly respond to questions about the investigations of the three leaders or Babcock’s arrest.
He directed questions to the agency’s spokesperson, Sam Tenney, who said by email: “DPSST does not comment on open personnel investigations.”
The Department of Administrative Services’ chief human resources office is investigating the two deputy directors, and the others are under investigation by the public safety department’s human resources office, according to Tenney.
Hood River County Sheriff Matt English, who chairs the public safety agency’s board, said the board “doesn’t get into personnel matters because that’s the director’s job.”
He said he was aware of the investigation, “but that’s really all I know.
“We’re just going to let the process play out and anticipate some report back to the board” once the inquiry is done, English said. He added that he has full confidence in the department’s director.
The two deputy directors and the third supervisor have been ordered to have no contact with any other employee and communicate only with the director if they have questions, according to state records.
Others have filled Henson’s and Yutzie’s roles.
The latest turmoil follows the abrupt resignation in April 2022 by Director Jerry Granderson, who had been placed on paid leave pending an investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice.
The state declined to release the investigation in response to a public records request but Granderson sent a 21-page scathing letter to state lawmakers a month after his resignation blasting an “entrenched faction” at the agency that he said fought his efforts to hold people accountable and to diversify the staff.
In 2021, the state public safety board revoked the police certification of a former Deschutes County sheriff’s recruit stemming from his role in the serious injury of a fellow student during roughhousing in a dorm at the state police training academy. That same year, a former West Linn police lieutenant investigated for his role in the Michael Fesser wrongful arrest case agreed to resign as principal police training manager for the state’s public safety academy.
Kotek hired Castle as director in February 2023. He previously worked as a deputy commissioner for Washington state’s Employment Security Department, diversity manager in Washington state’s Health Care Authority and spent 21 years in the U.S. Army. He has a master’s degree in education, with a specialty in adult education and training.
At the department’s regular board meeting last week, an interim deputy director of operations, Bill Steele, was introduced but no mention was made of the reason for his appointment or the pending investigation of two of the department’s executive-level leaders.
“The Director will update the board if and when any leadership changes become permanent,” Tenney said.
At the meeting, Castle said he was pleased that the department reduced the backlog for police agencies to find training spots for their new recruits by adding additional and larger classes, and briefed the board members about a $132 million request he intends to make to the Legislature for the 2025-2027 biennium.
The additional money will be to support a digital remote access system for training; three new buildings at the state academy to provide more dormitory and classroom space; a covered, open training area large enough to accommodate police cars or fire ladder trucks; a new maintenance facilities building; more regional police trainers; two wildfire trainers; and more administrative support positions.
Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, [email protected], follow her on X @maxoregonian, or on LinkedIn.
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