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August 17, 2013

CAUGHT AGAIN! EGF Police tampered with evidence and altered records

by Timothy Charles Holmseth

Timothy Charles Holmseth
320 17th Street N.W.
Unit #17
East Grand Forks, MN
56721
tholmseth@wiktel.com
www.writeintoaction.com
218.773.1299
218.230.1310 (cell)

August 17, 2013

Michael Hedlund
Chief of Police
East Grand Forks Police Department

Chief Hedlund,

Please accept this complaint against Sgt. Detective Chris Olson and all others involved in the Misconduct.

  1. In the fall of 2011 I made multiple written requests to your Department for all police reports concerning me. I needed the reports to prove my innocence in a court case scheduled in Florida.
  1. I filled out a Freedom of Information (FOI) form and handed it in person to Officer Hart.
  1. I submitted two more requests by email to Lt. Rodney Hajicek. The requests went unanswered.
  1. I made multiple telephone calls to the Secretary at the police stations and left messages.
  1. Your Department did not respond to me or fill my FOI request (in violation of City policy).
  1. On April 2, 2012 I filed a complaint to you regarding the deliberate withholding of documents.
  1. On April 10, 2012 you responded and apologized. You asked me to fill the FOI form out again, and advised me to send it directly to you, which I then did.
  1. On April 18, 2012 you printed out the documents and I received them shortly thereafter.  
  1. On December 14, 2012 four of your police officers entered my home-office with a Search Warrant and seized my hard-drive, as well as other journalism and publishing equipment.
  1. During the execution of the Warrant, Sgt. Chris Olson advised me there was an envelope at the police station with my name on it. Officer Hart was present, and added that he too had seen the envelope.
  1. I went to the police station and retrieved the white envelope with my name on it. The envelope contained police incident reports. The reports had a “print” date of October 24, 2011 at the bottom of each sheet. 
  1. As date ranges reveals, the Reports that Officer Olson advised me to pick up had been printed 14 months prior.
  1. After picking up the white envelope, I then had two copies of the Reports. (October 24, 2011 from Sgt. Olson - - - April 18, 2012 from Chief Hedlund).
  1. I will direct you to case number 11002212 – report date 07/12/2011 – generated by Officer Mike Swang.
  1. When I placed the two Reports next to each other, I saw they were not identical – although they should have been. 
    1. The October 24, 2011 version of the Report was MISSING information.
    1. The October 24, 2011 version was missing information regarding Lt. Hajicek, the person that called the police on me, and audio evidence collected by Officer Swang.
    1. The exact same Report, which I received from you in April of 2012, CONTAINED the information.
    1. Because the sentences missing from the October 24, 2011 version of the Report re-appear in the April 18, 2012 version, it means whoever printed the Reports out in October of 2011 deliberately REMOVED the sentences before printing the documents.
    1. After the individual that printed the Reports out completed the print job, they put the information back into the report.
    1. Obviously – the person that printed out the Reports in October of 2011 decided to not turn them over to me and hid them.
  1. The before mentioned facts introduce an issue regarding the integrity of your Internal Affairs investigation regarding my original complaint on the matter.
    1. When you replied to my complaint on April 10, 2012, you asked me to fill out another FOI request form and advised me to re-submit it directly to you. This clearly means you could not find my original FOI request or the documents.
    1. The white envelope containing police incident reports, which Sgt. Olson directed me to retrieve on December 12, 2012, were printed out in October of 2011.
    1. Therefore, because somebody printed out the Reports on October 24, 2012, it means the FOI form (that you could not find) I gave to Officer Swang had been RECEIVED, but subsequently disappeared along with the printed Reports.
    1. During you Internal Affairs investigation you were not able to find or access:
  • The Police Incident Reports (in the white envelope)
  • The original FOI form
    1. This also means that whatever Internal Affairs investigation you conducted surely contains false statements from the officers you questioned.

Regards,
Timothy Charles Holmseth
Investigative Author

Cc: Mayor Lynn Stauss, Polk County Attorney Greg Widseth, Polk County Sheriff Barb Erdman, EGF City Attorney Ronald Galstad, Minneapolis FBI