Battle Ground police Sgt. Richard Kelly died from a drug overdose on the job, likely from intentional use, the police department reported on Oct. 26, 2023.
Courtesy of Battle Ground Police Department
Months before a Battle Ground Police Department sergeant fatally overdosed on fentanyl and methamphetamine while on-duty, his supervisors heard claims he abused alcohol and pills and was “able to hide his intoxication well.”
The claims came from Sgt. Richard Kelly’s wife who, last November, alleged he punched her and fractured her nose. A Clark County Sheriff’s Office detective interviewed her at the hospital the day after Thanksgiving.
“She insinuated that everything occurred because she saw him drinking bourbon, which he never does, and taking pills which caused things to escalate,” wrote Detective Tanya Johnson.
Clark County Sheriff’s Office opened and closed a criminal probe. Then, in January, Battle Ground police internally investigated the claims.
Neither investigation found the domestic violence claims credible. Kelly’s wife, whose full name OPB is not disclosing, walked back her claims shortly after returning home.
However, the allegations resurfaced after Kelly overdosed Aug. 10 at the Battle Ground Police Department. The 54-year-old was in the middle of his shift when he appears to have snorted drugs at his desk, records show.
Investigators said they aren’t certain exactly how Kelly got his hands on the drugs. Records show Kelly had been tasked earlier in the day with destroying drugs seized by another police officer that morning.
When Kelly’s wife made her allegations, she described their marriage as “codependent.” She said after three decades together, she could tell when he was under the influence. She told detectives that he was intoxicated on Thanksgiving.
In the bathroom, she alleged, Kelly grew frustrated that his wife had gotten drunk and needed help into the bathroom. She said he punched her in the nose, causing her head to hit the tank of the toilet.
“She remembers standing up, with her pants still down and shoving him,” Johnson wrote in her report.
Still, Kelly’s wife refused to sign a written statement. She said her husband wouldn’t “like that,” Johnson wrote.
Detectives went on to interview other family members who recalled finding Kelly’s wife drunk and injured. When detectives interviewed the sergeant, Johnson noted, he didn’t appear intoxicated and his hands didn’t appear sore or red.
Kelly’s wife later tempered her allegations. After leaving the hospital, she reached back out to detectives and said she wasn’t “sure what I know or what I don’t know,” Johnson wrote.
Detectives ultimately closed the case without probable cause to press charges.
After the criminal case closed, the Battle Ground Police Department undertook its own internal investigation in January. An officer interviewed Kelly’s wife again, who said she made up the allegations but couldn’t explain why. She said she still didn’t know how she fractured her nose.
Posthumous investigations
Kelly’s death is prompting some internal reflection at the Battle Ground Police Department.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office recently finished a review of the agency’s evidence handling procedures in the wake of Kelly’s overdose and the credible allegations that he may have swiped the drugs from evidence.
Alisha Smith, a Battle Ground spokesperson, said that Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office also plans to comb through the circumstances of Kelly’s death. That review hasn’t started.
Similarly, police brass had to review Kelly’s death. Records show that, weeks after he died, Battle Ground Police Chief Mike Fort relayed two internal affairs investigations to Washington’s police oversight body.
State law requires that any time an officer’s employment ends, the employer must notify the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission of any alleged misconduct.
One of those notices was the nearly 30-page investigation into the domestic violence allegations. Fort noted to state officials that the criminal probe went nowhere, and that a similar internal review deemed the allegations “unfounded.”
“No further investigation occurred,” Fort wrote to police oversight officials. “FYI the officer is now deceased.”
A second internal affairs investigation was prompted by an inmate at Stafford Creek Correctional Facility. The inmate, who was convicted of an August 2015 murder, accused Kelly of lying and inserting fabricated quotes into his police report.
Fort told state officials that he only learned of the complaint Aug. 14 — four days after Kelly died. Records show the inmate wrote to Clark County Sheriff John Horch on Aug. 2, who then forwarded the letter to Fort.
Fort wrote back to the inmate telling him to take his allegations to the courtroom.
“Please be advised that this is a matter for your attorney and or the courts to adjudicate any appeals to your case,” Fort wrote Sept. 15. “This will not be received as a personnel complaint.”
Fort reopened the complaint Oct. 4, however. He told state officials he assigned it to the department’s new internal affairs leader, who is new to the department. That officer echoed Fort’s perspective that the allegations should be taken up in court.
Megan Saunders, a spokesperson for the Washington state oversight body, said the group reviewed both complaints and isn’t planning to take any action.
“Sergeant Kelly was already deceased at the time we received the agency notification, therefore we administratively closed the two files,” Saunders said.
The Clark County Prosecutor’s Office, on the other hand, placed Kelly on its so-called Brady list. The list names officers and others who have whose misconduct has damaged their credibility as a witness.