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This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.
Long before Curry County Sheriff John Ward lost the confidence of his county’s board of commissioners and his peers around the state, a large number of law enforcement officers in Southern Oregon had reason to believe he could not be trusted.
That’s the takeaway from an extraordinary 2000 Oregon Department of Justice criminal investigation of Ward that OJP recently obtained through a public records request.
The details of the investigation are remarkable in many ways, not the least of which is the source of the investigation—fellow law enforcement officers on the south coast: “The Oregon State Police made allegations that a Curry County deputy sheriff [John Ward] had taken a deceased person’s property during a suicide investigation,” the report of the investigation said.
On May 12, 1999, Ward, then a Curry County sheriff’s patrol deputy, responded to a call about a man who had fatally shot himself in an RV in Brookings, the county’s largest city. An Oregon state trooper who also responded to the call noticed something odd, according to the investigation report.
The trooper spotted a pair of Oakley sunglasses in the RV. Ward was responsible for gathering evidence, mentioned the sunglasses to the trooper, and put them in an evidence bag, along with the dead man’s wallet.
A little over a month later, Ward and the same OSP trooper conducted a traffic stop on Highway 101, which runs through Curry County. The trooper noticed Ward was wearing Oakleys that appeared to be identical to those found in the RV. The trooper suspected that Ward had stolen the sunglasses, and this belief was shared with a lieutenant in the sheriff’s office.
Questioned by a supervisor, Ward denied stealing the glasses. But officials apparently did not believe him because they referred the case to the Oregon Department of Justice. In an initial DOJ interview, Ward again denied stealing the glasses, but his explanation was unconvincing.
“He stated he didn’t know where he had purchased the glasses and was unable to provide a receipt,” the report said.
In January 2000, Curry County District Attorney Patrick Foley told Ward if he passed a lie detector test, the investigation would end. That didn’t happen. “Deputy Ward declined to submit to a polygraph investigation,” the report said.
The assistant chief criminal investigator for the DOJ, Bill C. Carroll, refused to let go of the case. Carroll contacted or interviewed 65 witnesses; visited Oakley retailers in Medford, Klamath Falls and North Bend; and when Ward repeatedly declined to turn over the sunglasses for examination, Carroll served a search warrant at Ward’s home, where Ward “produced the Oakley Eye Jacket sunglasses from behind a picture in a bedroom bookcase.”
Carroll queried retailers across Southern Oregon to try to determine their origin, but the shops could not match them to any sales records. Carroll then mailed the sunglasses back to Oakley; however, the company said it could not trace them without the original box. After 11 months, Carroll’s investigation reached a dead end.
“The investigation has not developed sufficient evidence to prove conclusively that Deputy Ward took the Oakley sunglasses,” he wrote in an Aug. 8, 2000, final report.
Reached by phone, Carroll recalled details of the 26-year-old investigation as if it took place yesterday. “I remember the case vividly,” Carroll said. “I just felt like it was such a heinous crime you can’t just let it go.”
A police officer for 35 years and now a private investigator, Carroll said he experienced “ridicule” from colleagues curious about why he would spend nearly a year on a pair of $90 sunglasses.
“I just thought it was wrong,” Carroll said. “I used to teach ethics out at the police academy. One of the things we always talked about is: The monetary value of an item doesn’t matter; it’s an issue of public trust.”
More than half the people Carroll contacted during his investigation were Southern Oregon law enforcement officers. “It sent a hell of a message,” says one of them, former Curry County Det. Dave Gardiner, who added: “A lot of people on that list later became subordinate to [Ward].”
“It’s my opinion and my belief that Ward never should have been a police officer to begin with,” said Jed Stone, the now-retired state trooper who first reported Ward. “At OSP, they taught us you never lie about anything. As a police officer, you have to be beyond reproach.”
While the matter of the Oakley sunglasses is long behind him, Ward, 68, who became Curry County sheriff in 2014, now faces calls to step down because of more recent behavior.
All three members of the Curry County Board of Commissioners and state Rep. Court Boice (R-Gold Beach) have called for his resignation. In addition, the board shared the results of an independent investigation with the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, seeking the revocation of Ward’s law enforcement certification.
Among the many allegations cited in the investigation’s report: gross mismanagement of Ward’s office; failure to share public records regarding his agency with the board of commissioners; conversion of public assets to personal use; and untruthfulness about ammunition Ward’s office purchased and resold to him and others for personal use.
Carroll said he’d followed recent news reports of the allegations against Ward and discussed them with former colleagues. Their conclusion? “A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”
Ward did not respond to a request for comment.
