Report recommends Corvallis officer be reminded of proper conduct

By Tony Lystra
Corvallis Gazette-Times

An internal affairs investigation conducted by the Corvallis Police Department has concluded that two of the agency’s officers violated the department’s regulations when they posed for photos with barely dressed women at a college party.

Police officials launched the investigation in March after three on-duty officers showed up at a Feb. 17 “theme party” to investigate a noise complaint. Many of the partiers there wore only lingerie and underwear, police said.

During the encounter, people began snapping photos of police standing with women whose clothing left little to the imagination, according to internal department documents.

Roughly a dozen of the photos appeared on the Internet a short time later.

In a report released last week, the department said that officers Jason Harvey and Ryan Thayer “did willingly participate in photographs which are likely to discredit themselves and the Corvallis Police Department.”

Their actions, the report said, violated several of the department’s policies, specifically, rules against behaving in a way that will “adversely reflect upon the city” or “bring the police department … into disrepute.”

Thayer resigned in March amid accusations that he had sex with an Oregon State University student while he was supposed to be on patrol, then lied about it to his superiors.

The officers did not break any laws and their activities at the party did not interfere with their duties, the report said.

The report recommended that officials remind Harvey of the department’s expectations for professional conduct.

Lt. Ron Noble, a department spokesman, said officials expect to take no additional action and the investigation was “just a matter of making sure that officers are conducting themselves in an appropriate manner.”

Officer Tim McCall, who also showed up at the party, was considered “a witness to the incident” because he didn’t “willingly participate” in the impromptu photo session, the report said.

McCall, according to the report, told one of his colleagues at the party that he had to “get the hell out of here” because he didn’t “want any part of this.”

McCall later told a police investigator that he appreciated officers’ efforts to build “a rapport with the college students” and not act like “hard-ass police officers.” But, he said, “having pictures taken while in uniform with a girl in pasties is ‘probably not a front-page picture we want to get out.’”

Kevin Wonnacott, 21, told the Gazette-Times that he took photos at the February party and posted them on the Web. He described the event as “a normal party minus clothes” and said such parties are popular because they don’t happen very often and “you get to see people in nothing.”

After the police showed up, he said, “somebody had the bright idea of, ‘Hey, let’s get the girls to pose with the cops.’”

“I happened to be one of the people with a camera, so I started taking pictures and laughing,” he said.

Wonnacott said the situation has been “blown up way more than I think it should have been.”

“If a girl wearing no clothes is standing next to them, cracking a smile isn’t unacceptable,” he said. “Just put yourself in their shoes.”

The report said that the officers showed up at the party, at 629 S.W. Sixth St., shortly before midnight after a neighbor complained about the noise. While there, the officers broke up the gathering, handled a few liquor violations and dealt with a partier who had tried to steal some belongings from the house.

Several of the officers stepped inside, with the residents’ permission, to make sure people were dispersing.

College-aged women in lingerie began sidling up to them and looping their arms around the officers’ shoulders. Some of the pictures show officers grinning while women flash peace signs and cup their hands over their nearly exposed breasts.

Harvey told an investigator that “he was initially unaware of it, but as a flash went off, he realized one of the young women in lingerie had her hand on his shoulder,” according to the report.

Harvey said he regretted the incident and that he “should have done something to … stop the images from being photographed.”

Thayer told an investigator that the situation at the party had been “tense” and “volatile” and that he allowed the photos to be taken because he wanted to calm people down and get them to cooperate, according to the report.

But an investigator noted that, at least from the photos, the “incident does not appear volatile,” and several other officers at the party said they did not think the situation was becoming tense.

Asked how the photos might affect the department’s reputation, Thayer, according to the report, said he hoped the public would “be able to see what we have to deal with, what type of people we deal with on a daily basis.”

“I would be more disappointed with the people dressed in that particular attire than I would be with the official,” he said.

Thayer, who has previously declined to comment on his resignation, could not be reached Saturday.