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This letter is in response to a report aired by a Twin Cities television station about its investigation into the Cass County Sheriff's Office. The report was misleading and the whole story was not told.

The report let it appear as if I had received inappropriate e-mails and had done nothing about them. That is not true. The Cass County MIS Department verified that of the 560 e-mails that the newscast alleged, 33 were found to be inappropriate, and the majority of those had been filtered out and were caught in the "spam" or "junk" folder for my county e-mail account. Over the past two and a half years, I have received over 33,000 emails. I had not seen the inappropriate e-mails alleged in the newscast, and had not been aware of them, until I was notified by our MIS Department. Once I was notified of them, I immediately initiated an internal investigation.

The Cass County Sheriff's Office is dedicated to the respect of all people and does not tolerate discrimination. I want the public to know that I run an ethical and moral agency and that any employee violating laws or rules will be held accountable. The timing of this is obviously politically motivated.

There is also an allegation of an illegal drug being provided to a suspect during a law enforcement operation. To set the record straight, Cass County officers were backing up another agency on this call and those on the scene felt that lives hung in the balance. The decisions being criticized were made by another law enforcement agency, not Cass County, and a situation that could have resulted in death was resolved without bloodshed. At this time, we are unable to release any further information because of an ongoing investigation.

There have also been suggestions that our Office is lax on DWI enforcement. Again, this isn't true. Upon consult with our County Attorney's Office, we have directed our officers to make sure they are scrupulously following all of the enforcement rules so everyone's rights are being upheld while we work to keep our communities safe. I expect our officers to enforce the laws fairly and with the highest regard for everyone's rights; we don't reward officers for just making "lots" of arrests without considering the fairness and quality of their work.



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