Police Chief Veitch’s Deposition Exposes Faults In Handling Of Mount Case

During the last several days I have been reading the deposition of Police Chief Greg Veitch as part of the Darryl Mount suit.  Brian Breedlove, the plaintiff’s attorney, grills Chief Veitch in a document both disturbing and revealing. In the documents I include in this post  “Q’s” are along the left-hand side for Breedlove’s question and “A’s” for Veitch’s answers.  There are also entries for John D. Aspland who is the attorney representing the city and Veitch.

In this deposition Veitch  admits that there was only an “ investigation of criminal misconduct allegedly by Mr. Mount”.  There was no other investigation. This contradicts the narrative Veitch presented to the City Council.  It also raises serious questions about Dr. Chris Mathiesen’s statements.

Here Veitch tries to educate Breedlove about the difference between misleading a newspaper reporter and lying to a newspaper reporter.

Here Breedlove probes the mishandling of the investigation.

More on the fact that there was a criminal investigation but no investigation into the injury of Mount.

Here Breedlove probes to show the mess of how this was handled.  If this was a criminal investigation why did they do things that were outside of a normal criminal investigation.  Note that in the end, Mount was charged with a misdemeanor.

Breedlove questions Chief Veitch about if and when he got a complaint about police misconduct.  This is important because a complaint would require following General Order #25 which would be an internal investigation.  Chief Veitch has to struggle to handle the contradictions of getting a complaint but not initiating an investigation.

Breedlove questions him about making up his mind that there was no misconduct by his officers without the benefit of an investigation.

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Breedlove question him about any previous racism issues associated with the police involved with the Mount affair.  There is some confusions because documents appear to be missing.