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A candidate for Deschutes County sheriff repeatedly deceived Oregon law enforcement agencies about being terminated from a California police department more than 25 years ago, court records claim.
FILE - The Deschutes County Sheriff's Office on Dec. 10, 2021. Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp, who is running for sheriff, did not disclose being terminated from a California police department more than 25 years ago, according to court documents.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Deschutes County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp is running for sheriff against his colleague Capt. William Bailey in the November election. The county’s longtime and often controversial sheriff, Shane Nelson, is retiring.
Nelson endorsed Bailey and launched an investigation into Vander Kamp’s past in March, as The Bulletin first reported.
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The exact details of Vander Kamp’s stint as a reserve officer in La Mesa, California, are now at the center of a pending lawsuit by Deschutes County against the city of La Mesa. The city is refusing to turn over records detailing an internal investigation into Vander Kamp before his termination in 1997.
Vander Kamp did not disclose working for La Mesa Police when he became a Deschutes County reserve deputy in 2004, Deschutes County Undersheriff Paul Garrison said in a declaration filed with the court.
Vander Kamp did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Redacted copies of Vander Kamp’s 2008 application to become a full-time, paid Deschutes deputy show he did mention various volunteer law enforcement positions he held, as well as his early jobs in Southern California, like working at a cookie shop and the Gap. His time in La Mesa is absent.
Since restarting his law enforcement career in Oregon, Vander Kamp periodically renews his police officer certification with the state, swearing in the paperwork that he has never been “discharged with cause from another public safety agency.”
That’s not true, according to a La Mesa police captain, who in a deposition recalled how he discussed Vander Kamp’s personnel file with Nelson over the phone earlier this year.
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“I shared with [Nelson] the exact dates that [Vander Kamp] was employed with La Mesa. And also shared with him that he had been terminated,” Capt. Matthew Nicholass said in the deposition.
But, Nicholass “was cautious not to tell [Nelson] the reason why,” he said.
That’s because La Mesa city officials have refused to release Vander Kamp’s disciplinary records. The city is leaning on an exemption in California Public Records Law to shield Vander Kamp’s 27-year-old personnel file.
Initially, the city of La Mesa told Nelson it had no records of Vander Kamp at all. When Nelson pressed with another request, the city provided one page confirming Vander Kamp was hired in 1995 and discharged in 1997. Deschutes County then sued for access to Vander Kamp’s personnel file, arguing evidence of dishonesty is important for an investigation into his credibility as a law enforcement witness.
“The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office was unaware of Sgt. Vander Kamp’s previous employment in La Mesa,” Nelson said in a statement.
This week San Diego Superior Court Judge Loren Freestone ruled he is inclined to order the city to disclose the records, but wants to see them first “to determine whether the information is relevant,” and hear more from Deschutes County about the nature of its investigation into Vander Kamp’s credibility. The next hearing is scheduled for Sept. 26.
Bailey called the revelation “incredibly troubling” in a statement, adding that Deschutes County voters deserve to know Vander Kamp’s full past employment record.
Nelson’s past and current employees, including Vander Kamp, have accused him of using internal investigations to target people who disagree with the sheriff, or who have mounted political challenges against him.
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This also isn’t the first time Vander Kamp has been accused of lying. A 2018 complaint by Wheeler County District Attorney Gretchen Ladd claimed he misrepresented the facts of a criminal case to participants at an EMT training that she also attended.
The complaint triggered a Deschutes County internal investigation into Vander Kamp, who disputed Ladd’s account. The investigator did not sustain the complaint.
