On the record: Nederhiser says he’s wary of some local media after The Oregonian ran a 2005 story based on a leaked confidential letter from his discipline file. Chief Rosie Sizer denied leaking that letter in sworn testimony, but she also said under oath she may have inappropriately discussed the case within the bureau. IMAGE: Jarod Opperman

When a Portland police SWAT team with backup went into the downtown Vintage Plaza Hotel to nab an attempted murder suspect, they knew he’d sworn never to be captured alive.

Instead, 26-year-old Russel Stoneking burst out of his room and barreled through the sixth-floor hallway, unfazed by beanbag rounds pounding his groin. Taser cycles arced through him, visible like copper lightning around his body.

Fearing for his own safety and that of his fellow officers, 17-year Portland police veteran Bert Nederhiser fired off three rounds from his .45-caliber pistol. The shots missed Stoneking, who then hopped a railing and fell six stories to the lobby floor.

His limbs and pelvis shattered, Stoneking miraculously survived the Oct. 26, 2002, encounter. Whether the same can be said for Nederhiser’s career remains an open question.

The shooting became one of the most controversial in recent memory—not from public outcry, but because Nederhiser’s shots barely missed his fellow officers.

Police Chief Rosie Sizer, who at the time was Nederhiser’s commander at Central Precinct, requested an internal investigation that ended with Nederhiser being demoted from sergeant to officer.

Nederhiser says the stress from the shooting and the investigation was so great he couldn’t work afterward. After more than six years on paid medical leave at half his $80,155-a-year salary, he now wants to return to working with some of the same officers who were near his line of fire.

Nederhiser, 46, is seeking to go back on patrol, perhaps as early as this summer. And at a time when the police are struggling to fill vacant posts, union president Sgt. Scott Westerman says he’ll ensure Nederhiser gets fair treatment from management.

“Individual officers can say what they want about whether he should come back to work,” Westerman says. “It’s the union’s job to make sure that the city uses a fair process.”

Nederhiser is convinced cops will welcome him back once they understand the investigation against him was tainted. He lays the blame on Capt. Todd Wyatt, now one of Sizer’s most trusted officers as head of strategic services.

When Sizer requested an investigation of Nederhiser in 2003, Wyatt was an ambitious 34-year-old sergeant whose bare-knuckle tactics made him the No. 1 officer in the bureau for tort claims (see “Good Cop, Bad Cop,” WW, Feb. 23, 2005).

By several accounts, Wyatt took on the investigation with gusto. But due to administrative delays, more than a year had passed before officers at the scene were asked to recall what happened. Seasoned police union attorney Will Aitchison said Wyatt’s mind by then was already made up.

“This is a case where, perhaps as much as any disciplinary case that I have ever seen in the bureau, you have prejudgments that were made long before the relevant evidence is gathered,” Aitchison said at a 2005 hearing.

Nederhiser goes further, accusing Wyatt of repeatedly falsifying records by altering and deleting testimony favorable to Nederhiser. He’s spent years compiling an inch-thick stack of evidence in an attempt to prove Wyatt violated bureau policy and state law by lying under oath and tampering with public records.

Retired Sgt. Suzanne Whisler, formerly assigned to internal affairs and hired by Nederhiser to review the investigation, testified that Wyatt deleted information favorable to Nederhiser and may have “prejudged” the case.

“I believe it was a search for the truth,” Wyatt says now of the investigation, “and I believe it was accurate.”

Nederhiser has spent years shopping his theory around, Wyatt notes. So far he’s been shot down at every turn.

He fired off official complaints about Wyatt to police commanders, the district attorney’s office and former Mayor Tom Potter, himself a former police chief. They declined to investigate. A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit Nederhiser filed against the city, and the state Department of Public Safety Standards and Training also declined to act.

With City Commissioner Dan Saltzman newly installed as police commissioner, Nederhiser hopes for an investigation finally to get under way. Saltzman’s chief of staff, Brendan Finn, says Saltzman does not intend to follow up.

Nederhiser’s complaints merit a look, says North Precinct Sgt. Ron Berry, a 28-year veteran. He says the Police Bureau, especially under the Sizer administration, is too prone to secrecy.

“If they can keep a lid on it, they can do whatever the hell they want because nobody knows what happened,” Berry says. “Especially in this administration, if they can keep it in the bureau, they’re happy with that.”

After the city threatened late last year to take away Nederhiser’s job because he’s been away so long, he offered to return to work, saying the time is right now that Saltzman is in charge. If he passes a psychological test, he’ll be back in uniform by year’s end.

He says he’s ready to put the past behind him.

“I would rather face someone like Stoneking,” he says, “unarmed, out of uniform, all by myself, than relive the last 6 1/2 years.”