Governor Jim Justice held a press briefing shortly after 1 today with regard to the notification of the resignation of the Colonel of the West Virginia State Police following actions by Troopers for which the Governor called “Despicable.” The Governor said that at 11:30 p.m. last night, March 19th, Captain Drew Pendleton informed him on the phone that Colonel Jan Cahill needed to talk to him very badly. He then had Jan come to his house early this morning where the two sat in the driveway and talked.
The Governor told Cahill that there was no pathway for him to remain as Colonel of the WV State Police, but he offered to listen to what he had to say. The Colonel went through many situations to which the Governor stated that there was surely issues that he didn’t agree with, but the Colonel had served in the current position for 6 years, for the WV State Police for 11 years, and prior to that he was a Sheriff in Greenbriar County and a former Marine. He was a proud man, but what happened was bad judgement and bad judgment leads to bad things. The Governor emphasized that the State Police in general, even though they had bad actors that needed addressed, he would stand behind our police – until it goes beyond what is right.
After listening to the Colonel, the Governor was informed by Cahill that he had resigned.
With that resignation accepted, Jack Chambers has been appointed as interim Administrator for the WVSP. Chambers has served for 26 years as the Deputy for the Capitol Police and the West Virginia Police. Governor Justice said that “Chambers is a man of honor and he’ll do the right things. He’ll clean up whatever it may be. But it has to go further than that.” Saying “There are many areas of allegations. The very biggest is that we have violated women’s rights. I don’t know how it could be much worse than that. A women’s locker room ought to be a safe place, but in 2014-16 our State police did stuff that was really bad. They put a video camera in the women’s locker room and this is not to be tolerated in any way. But it get’s even worse,” he continued. “There were three troopers viewing the thumb drive of videos. The trooper who created the video had a massive heart attack and died at an earlier time, but one, if not all three troopers, when discovering what was on the thumb drive, threw it in the floor and stomped it.” The Governor said that he had instructed Jack Chambers to launch a full investigation into the event.
Another item under investigation occurred at the casino in Cross Lanes. There was a man who had been playing one of the video machines with a trooper near by. When the man dropped an envelope, the Trooper was caught on video picking up the envelope of money, and stole it. Even though the matter was known, there was not a quick investigation and the Governor has also instructed Chambers to open another investigation and make sure it is handled properly.
A third incident involved a loss of life on Interstate 81. Little was said except there is a video that is concerning, the Governor said, and they now have an ongoing investigation to get to the bottom of what happened. That information cannot be released due to the investigation.
“But let’s be fair,” Governor Justice said, “The Troopers do a lot of great work and we call upon them when we’re in the worst need. They’re the first ones we call. The dumbest thing in America was when people said to defund the police. We need to support the police, but we need to clean up our own house when we have a problem. It was a bad day, the more we dug, the worse it stunk, we’re going to clean it up and make it a place of honor. But don’t forget the goodness that continues to go on in our State every day. I’ve directed Chambers, to work to restore trust and integrity beyond belief in the WV State Police.
Following the Governors statements several reporters asked questions regarding the Governor’s handling of the matter. Governor Justice responded to every question or referred it to nearby staff directly involved. He told the reporters that “all of it needs to be looked at. No one wants to tolerate what has been going on. This (the WVSP) needs to be the most sparkling and proudest of the proud. Just think how a Trooper feels tonight on a Domestic Violence call. Who has their back? Uncertainty can crawl into a trooper who’s trying to help us. We need better appointments and training. Too much doubt will adversely effect our Troopers performance.”
The investigation into all matters have not only been requested to have full in-house investigations but have been turned over to the federal government to investigate as well.
The Governor promised that the “Feds” were already looking at stuff and I don’t think we should run from that but we should welcome whomever it is that’s doing the investigation. We have to make sure there is no doubt, turn over every rock, but still trusting and supporting those who protect us. We don’t need to be on a witch hunt. But we don’t need to push anyone back out of the playhouse to do what’s good for us.”
Another reporter requested to know if the tapes used in the investigation would be made public, to which the Governor said, “It would be fine and dandy to disclose the tapes, I want it 1000% transparent. We have the casino tape and the i81 incident. I have no qualm of giving it over. But the i81 incident is still a very active investigation. It’s not good enough for me to say we don’t have the tape on the locker room incident. But we can dig and try to find out anything we can.
The Governor has no qualm with giving out the tapes if it’s legal. “I can tell you just this, it’s not good enough for me to say we don’t have a tape on the women’s locker room incident. I don’t know what we can do, but we can dig and try to find out anything we can. The women of the world need us to do that. Our police destroyed evidence and we need to get to the bottom of that. The Governor’s parting words were ‘This does nothing but have others say, “Yeah, that’s the WV we know. The only way we can fix it is to say we’re not going to tolerate it and no matter what it takes we’re going to get it right. Don’t forget the good done by the people you call first. We have problems and we’re trying to address it.”
Perhaps Calhoun’s leaders could take a page from the Governor’s play book on investigations of their own messes.
