By Tony Brockmeyer
The First Capitol News has learned City Administrator Alan Williams intends to bring forward Keith Rippy as his choice for St. Charles Police Chief. Sources at the police department have told us Rippy, a former chief in Peoria, Illinois has already been in St. Charles and has met with the command staff at the police department. It is believed Rippy has already taken a psychological test. We believe he was scheduled to be interviewed by City Council members Thursday evening. We were unable to determine prior to press time if the interview was conducted.
Keith Rippy served as Chief of Police in Peoria, Illinois for about 3 years. He also served as Chief of Police in the country of Haiti. He is currently working with a company in St. Charles, Illinois that is involved in police computer systems.
On November 26, 1990, Rippy was hired as the Chief of Police of Peoria, Illinois. On August 19, 1993 Rippy resigned, two days after the Peoria City Council privately pressured the City Manager to make drastic changes in Rippy’s role or remove the beleaguered police chief.
Rippy’s reign as Police Chief of Peoria was filled with conflict.
Chief Rippy, along with the Mayor and City Manager, was accused of using police officers to conduct a secret investigation and surveillance of a City Council member (Peoria Journal Star June 23, 1995 by Phil Luciano); planning to use a prostitute to set up a City Council Member (Peoria Journal Star, June 23, 1995 by Phil Luciano, October 11, 1995 by Bob Bouyea, October 13, 1995 by Bob Bouyea); hiring an assistant Police Chief with questionable credentials (Peoria Journal Star, June 28, 1995 by Pam Adams; January 30, 1998 by Omar Sofradzija), attempting to force high ranking members of the department to retire (Peoria Journal Star, April 13, 1993 by Stephen Witmer) and firing a Police Lieutenant for allegedly leaking news to the media (Peoria Journal Star, January 29, 1993 by Sarah Okeson).
In 1992 the Council had an independent study made of the Peoria Police Department. In an editorial in the Peoria Journal Star dated March 9, 1992 it was reported the study turned up unexpectedly serious operational and safety problems. According to the editorial, supervision is weak, particularly at the lieutenant and sergeant level, in part because the positions seem to be out of the command loop. Mid-level managers spend too much time in the station shuffling paper and not enough time on the street talking to their officers and the public. Overtime is twice what it should be for a department this size, growing 107 percent in the last five years. Much of the overtime went to supervisors who schedule their own working hours or to patrol officers who built overtime into their regular schedules. Little consideration was given to whether the overtime was necessary; instead it was looked upon as a prerequisite. The police department is so rife with internal conflict that individual officers don’t trust or cooperate with each other. Routine daily patrols proceed without coordination between officers and supervisors. The department has no management development or training program so young cops can learn what it takes to become a supervisor. Officers don’t regularly follow up citizen complaints, inquiries or concerns, when they involve serious crimes. Crime victims for example, aren’t kept abreast of the investigation and, when an arrest is made, frequently don’t know the status of the case in court. Moreover, Police Chief Keith Rippy would like victims; witnesses and complainants referred to counseling, if they need it, or advised on how to avoid further problems. Because people fail to get their questions addressed, they believe the police department has little interest in them or their problems.
Peoria Journal Star, June 23, 1995
By Phil Luciana; Terry Bibo
RIPPY MADE SANDBERG TARGET OF PROBE
POLICE ALLEGEDLY LAUNCHED INTERNAL AFFAIRS INVESTIGATION AFTER TRAFFIC STOP
Peoria – Former Peoria Police chief Keith Rippy ordered his internal affairs department to investigate activities of City Councilman Gary Sandberg in 1993 – a rare departure from policy covering those investigators, sources tell the Journal star.
Rippy, through Assistant Chief Paul Bazzano, ordered the internal affairs division to investigate Sandberg after a traffic stop near Morton Square Park in May 1993 found a known prostitute was a passenger with Sandberg.
Police higher-ups “seized on it like a bloody piece of meat in the ocean. The sharks went after it,” one source said. Another source said internal affairs investigators were told to “target” Sandberg. Sandberg admits he was giving a ride to a woman he later learned was Kay Wright, a convicted prostitute. “I had no reason to believe she was a prostitute he says. He has always maintained he does not patronize prostitutes.
An anonymous letter about that incident was widely distributed to city and county officials, news organizations, neighborhood groups and churches earlier this week. That may have prompted four different sources within and outside the police department, speaking only on condition of anonymity, to reveal what happened next.
The first red flags were raised because Peoria police usually do not launch follow-up investigations regarding suspected misdemeanors such as prostitution. Further, internal affairs, which reports to the police chief and Assistant chief Bazzano, usually confines its investigations to intro-departmental matters. Using internal affairs to investigate possible misdemeanors by a non-police employee is thus extremely rare.
‘That’s kind of J. Edgar Hoover stuff,” says one source. “There’s nothing to justify . . . we don’t follow guys we catch 10 times,” for such offenses.
The incident was handled oddly from the beginning. The rookie officer who stopped Sandberg’s car after he made two right turns without a signal did not recognize him as a City Council member but did recognize the prostitute. The officer gave Sandberg a warning but issued no ticket. Later, the officer was advised to write a memo titled “Special Report,” dated May 20, 1993, and addressed to then Assistant Chief Jeanne Miller and Lt. Russell Buck. A second “Special Report” was made by Sgts. David Millard and Steve Eakle on June 2, 1993, after they interrogated Kay Wright.
Sources say police officials also took Sandberg’s photograph to other prostitutes, asking if they recognized him.
Another source said, “It proved he (Sandberg) was right. They had nothing.”
Twice questioned under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act in 1993, the city refused to release reports of that investigation or discuss the findings. (The internal documents, or a portion of them, were later leaked to the Journal Star.) Sandberg has not been charged with any prostitution-related offenses. Officially, the city still won’t confirm an investigation took place.
“The police department would not investigate any elected public official without cause or upon their own volition initiate one,” says City Manager Peter Korn. “To my knowledge.’
Asked if the investigation was closed, Korn said, “I can’t comment on that, even if there was an investigation, if there was.”
Bazzano told the Journal Star on Thursday that, because the matter was the subject of an internal investigation, he would not comment on its specific or if Rippy ordered the probe. Rippy quit under City Council pressure in August 1993, with Sandberg as one of his chief political foes.
However, Bazzano did say, “Something of that magnitude (politically) certainly has to be the decision of the chief executive of the organization.”
Rippy reportedly is out of the country and could not be reached for comment. His successor, Arthur Kelly, declined to comment about the matter Thursday.
Sandberg commented only briefly, but raised even more questions.
“My basic concern is, if government abuses it’s focus and powers, it’s not a government I want to be a part of,” he says. “I have some reason to believe this is not just focused on me, but anyone who disagrees with the ‘power team.’ “ Asked who he meant by the “power team,” he replied, “I don’t want to make any assertions until I can pin them down.”
According to the Peoria Journal Star Rippy also had officers stake out Sandberg’s home and Morton Square Park in hopes of catching Sandberg patronizing prostitutes.
The Peoria Journal Star also reported that Rippy put out qualifications for the job of assistant police chief. He required a Masters degree as part of the educational qualifications. Local officers suspected they weren’t considered merely because they were insiders. City manager Peter Korn explained, feebly, why they couldn’t find any qualified minority candidates.
Paul Bazzano was hired as assistant Chief. The Peoria Benevolent association, several years after Bazzano’s hiring, discovered that his bachelor’s degree was from an unaccredited correspondence school. Bazzano, when hired, wasn’t working on his master’s and he didn’t lie about his qualifications. He simply didn’t mention the name of the college he graduated from on his resume. It’s not clear whether anyone asked. The police officers union called for Bazzano’s ouster and an independent investigation of their bosses.
Peoria Journal star, January 29, 1993
By Sarah Okeson
A Peoria police officer accused of leaking information to the news media was fired Thursday, eight months after he was placed on paid leave while the department investigated the allegations.
Lt. Paul Hibser said he was fired from his $55,000-a-year post Thursday, effective immediately, after allegations that he had leaked information to reporters and tried to intimidate a clerical worker who saw him with a letter written by the leaker.
Hibser denied the charges and said Police Chief Keith Rippy is trying to get back at him for complaining that Rippy was pressuring him to back off investigating a 23-year-old murder case and another possible murder.
“Mr. Rippy and his staff have gone out of their way to harass me into early retirement,” said Hibser, who had won numerous awards during his 28 years as a Peoria police officer. “Because I wouldn’t retire they finally fired me.”
Rippy declined to comment on Hibser’s charges.
Hibser is a graduate of the FBI academy and has received more than 40 letters of appreciation and commendations from citizens and officials. He has received the Peoria department’s Distinguished Police Duty Award., Combat Valor Award, Life Saving Award, and in 1989 he received the Illinois Police Associations Distinguished Law Enforcement Award.
After leaving Peoria Rippy wrote a blistering letter to City Manager Peter Korn. In his letter Rippy wrote, “Most importantly, you sir are a liar, a coward, and totally lacking in ethics. I am incapable of understanding how someone can sell himself out for something as insignificant as a job.”
Should Rippy be selected as the Chief of Police of St. Charles, Missouri it will be necessary that he attend academy training before he can become a sworn officer. Until that time he would not have the power of arrest or be allowed to carry a firearm.
We attempted to contact several members of the City Council prior to press time for comment, but they were unavailable. A city hall source told us Rippy attended the FBI Academy with Dave King, former St. Charles Police Chief. King is in St. Charles to assist City Administrator Williams with his search for a police chief.
St. Charles has been without a permanent police chief since September of 2003.
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