IDOT INVESTIGATES TRAFFIC STOP, RV SEARCH

IOWA DOT has launched an investigation into the complaint we brought against one of their officers Darrell Wiegand, who pulled us over in a highly unusual traffic stop on March 27.

The two officials who came down to talk with us on Monday April 6 were polite and courteous and allowed us to vent our frustrations, for which I did indeed at one point apologize as I felt I had become a bit heated. Because of the unconscionable way we believe we were treated in the traffic stop, our emotions are quite chaotic at the moment and we are both under a lot of stress. We do appreciate being allowed to have our say and explain to IDOT what happened with as much adherence to facts as we possibly can.

However we do have a few concerns at the moment which I will outline below.

First, we had a number of requests of Major Ned Lewis and Colonel David Lorenzen which they were unsure they could fulfill for us, and we are at a loss as to why that might be.

The requests we made of them were:

1)Since the information we were able to find on the IDOT website didn’t seem to give us the flexibility we would like for e-mail contact (it provides only an online form, no email address) or a direct phone number to certain officials, we asked that we be sent all direct contact information for Jon McQuoid, Mark Lowe, and Nancy Richardson. David Lorenzen wasn’t sure he could send this information to us.

2)Since the traffic stop we were subjected to was anything but routine (we hope) we asked if we could be sent the agency’s written procedure for a traffic stop which we are confident (again we hope) exists. Again we were told David Lorenzen wasn’t sure he could send us this information.

3)Since we are concerned that Officer Wiegand’s behavior far exceeded the parameters of his job, we asked if we might see the job description for an officer of his rank and if that could be sent to us. We were told we could find this information on the IDOT website.

4)Since we are the ones who brought the complaint against Darrell Wiegand, we asked if we might be told what is his current status on the force. We were told that is a confidential personnel matter. It seems we cannot even be informed whether or not Mr. Wiegand has been placed on any kind of leave. We are under the impression that since we were involved we must be told this information. Perhaps we are wrong…..

The day following our meeting with Major Lewis and Colonel Lorenzen, I e-mailed Major Lewis to clarify whether or not he had actually spoken to a particular individual who has complained about Wiegand. In part of that e-mail exchange I again requested contact information on IDOT officials. To date I have received no reply from Major Lewis as to whether he will give us the information, nor have I received the contact information itself….I can’t help but feel this speaks to an apparent lack of transparency on the part of IDOT, that the agency does not make it simple and easy to effect direct contact with the director and other officials on such a serious matter.

Second, in addition to our I believe reasonable requests to Major Lewis and Colonel Lorenzen, we also brought up with them a couple of serious issues we have with IDOT.

The first issue is that the agency does not seem to take anonymous complaints seriously.

I explained to Major Lewis and Colonel Lorenzen that what we are finding is how afraid drivers are of reprisal by DOT.They say that when they stick up for themselves, contest a citation, or make waves of any nature that there are a few IDOT officers who then start pulling them over just –for example– to check paperwork. Even if everything is in order and they do not receive a citation, they can be stuck by the side of the road for hours.This puts them behind schedule and they lose money. If they are cited for a minor violation (and there are an astounding number of laws) and want to contest the citation, most do not have the time to travel hundreds of miles and wait hours in court and so they “just let it go.” So no, most truckers are not interested in making waves with IDOT.

Because of this, I feel very strongly that IDOT needs to take every single complaint against one of their officers very seriously, even if it is an anonymous complaint. It is my opinion that IDOT officials are using the excuse of “anonymous complaint” to ignore problems that are occurring out on the road. It seems to me that when they receive enough complaints of a certain nature, particularly when they concern the same individual, that IDOT should investigate.

On Monday, I made a simple analogy for Lewis and Lorenzen: If you have a child and you receive repeated anonymous phone calls that the child has behaved badly or broken the law, would you ignore the calls you were getting just because they wwere ANONYMOUS? Or would you confront the child and ask what was going on? I pointed out to these IDOT officials that they are not only responsible but also liable for the behavior of their employees. It is the job of IDOT officials to keep their people in line using whatever tools at their disposal. If anonymous tips are one of those tools, so be it, they are going to have to use whatever they can get to keep their agency clean.

There is no excuse for IDOT officials not to do everything to ensure that the behavior of IDOT officers remains above reproach. This is what the taxpayers want and I am sure it is also the desire of what I assume is the majority of IDOT officers who are professional and courteous.

My second biggest issue with IDOT is that the agency does not seem to be keeping reports of complaints even when they are NOT anonymous. In the last few days I’ve received firsthand reports of several complaints called in to IDOT where the callers identified themselves. One involved a UPS driver who told me he had been harassed by an IDOT officer and even on one occasion wrongfully cited, something which he actually brought to the attention of a prosecutor, a fact to which the prosecutor agreed!. I described a couple of these situations to Major Lewis over the phone. I believe he told me it would be easy to check out at least the UPS driver’s story,even though I didn’t know his name, because IDOT would have a record of the problems. But when Lewis was down here Monday he told me he couldn’t unearth a single bit of information about this UPS driver in IDOT’s documents, nor did he seem to have documentation of other complaints I’d heard about.

So we have a few choices here: the UPS driver(and others) is(are) fabricating stories for my benefit and in fact never complained; Major Lewis doesn’t know where to go to find the information (or in any event has not been able to find it yet in the “system”); or lastly, formally lodged complaints and citation anamolies have vanished into thin air at IDOT. Take your pick.

And by the way, I have been in contact with several more people who have lodged complaints against other officers and against Wiegand, and in the case of Wiegand, it seems Lewis had no knowledge of any previous complaints, or at least that is what he seems to be indicating. (This although reporters working on the Wiegand story now have received countless calls about Wiegand and other officers, our own phone has been ringing continually for more than week now, and our answering machine even received messages during the time Major Lewis and Colonel Lorenzen paid us a visit!)

I don’t think I need to point out in so many words that Something is NOT right here. Or at least there is something I am having trouble understanding.

For now we are going to watch and wait and see where the investigation leads. But we cannot help but be troubled by some of the issues I have outlined above. Although IDOT seems willing and eager to placate us, if events continue to unfold in the present manner, we aren’t confident that the investigation will be thorough, competent, or effective.

UPDATE: A few hours after I wrote this,I received a conference call from Major Lewis and Colonel Lorenzen saying they would send us e-mail information on two out of three IDOT officials I requested. It seems these officials’ phone numbers are at the idot.gov website but I had been unable to find them previously. I seem to rememeber that at one point I gave up on the website and tried a main number, in any event I think I overlooked information that was actually there. Major Lewis helpfully supplied me with the proper links, for which I am grateful.

The other information I received from the call is that Darrell Wiegand has been placed on administrative leave. I was not told exactly when that leave began.