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What Happened To Fouad Kaady: Officer William Bergin: Killer, Liar, Perpetrator, Convicted Criminal

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Officer William Bergin: Killer, Liar, Perpetrator, Convicted Criminal


from Portland IndyMedia
On March 8th, 2007, a year and a half after he gunned down Fouad Kaady in the streets of Sandy, officer William Bergin had another kind of showdown, in another kind of town... A town where police officers are not so quick on the trigger, and not so shy on the truth.

Bergin, a violent and angry man, showed up at the home of his former girlfriend, in the wee hours of the morning, around 3am. He was drunk, he was frightening, and he was despicable. His ex girlfriend was terrified. With a shaking voice, she called the Sherwood police in tears, requesting assistance. When the police arrived at her home, they found the drunk and belligerent Bergin, and arrested him. He was charged with DUI, and taken downtown. So far as I know, despite the presence of intoxicants in his system, and despite his bizarre behavior, no one tasered him, and no one shot him. Apparently, Sherwood is a more enlightened town than Sandy.

According to the police report detailing this disturbing event, Bergin initially refused to take a breath test to determine the alcohol content in his bloodstream. He was belligerent and non-cooperative with the Sherwood police, at one point demanding that they just let him go, just drop him off at detox. He told them that he has done that for other officers in his situation many times. (An interesting revelation, to be sure.) He also made it clear to them that, in Sandy, cops do not treat cops so shabbily, due to the "old boys" network that we've all suspected but never heard from the horses' mouth before. To their credit, the Sherwood officers informed him that, as this is not Sandy, they would be expected to actually do their jobs here.

Mr. Bergin demanded that he be allowed to call his attorney. He was given access to privacy and a telephone to make his one phone call, but he elected not to call an attorney. Instead, he called, of all people, his ex girlfriend. Yes, the very one whose home he was arrested in front of earlier in the night. He left a voice mail, thankfully, so that there is a record of the entire call. He told the woman that he hoped she was happy with herself, and that "I'm done." He said that this incident would mean the end of his career, that he would be fired, and again, "I'm done." (One would have thought so. But that's not how they do things out in Sandy. Not when you're a good ol' boy.) He then told her that, as soon as he gets out of jail, and as soon as he could get a gun in his hand, he intended to "put a bullet in my head."

But he did not lose his job, and he did not kill himself. Instead, Bergin's miraculously bullet-free head can still be seen, these days, propping up his police hat in the streets of Sandy. Because, despite his violent behavior, despite his inability to follow the laws he is supposed to be upholding, and despite Bergin's admission that he readily skirts the law according to who the perpetrator is, chief Harold Skelton thinks he's "the right stuff" for the Sandy PD. It cannot be argued that Skelton did not know about this incident. Because, while they were still holding Bergin in their jail, the Sherwood police department contacted the Sandy police department to let Sandy know that they had one of their "good ol' boys" in their pen. And it was Chief Skelton himself who returned the call. He actually had the nerve to ask for leniency for Bergin. He told them that Bergin was simply "going through a rough patch." He then told them, in order to plead his case, that Bergin had been having severe emotional difficulties ever since... a shooting incident.

In other words, for a year and a half after Bergin brutally tortured and then killed an unarmed, bleeding accident victim, he has been having "emotional problems." And Skelton, the chief of the Sandy police, knew of Bergin's mental health problems all that time. ...and he kept him armed and out on the streets of Sandy anyway.

Bergin's arrest happened just shy of a year ago. The Kaady killing was nearly two and a half years ago. And yet, Bergin has kept his job as a police officer. What can they be thinking out there? Is there nothing that the citizens of Sandy can do to protect themselves from such a violent and unstable man?

As I reported yesterday, domestic violence is an enormous problem among police officers. Sometimes, this epidemic of violence makes the news, as when Tacoma police chief David Brame shot his estranged wife and himself in front of their two small children in 2003. Usually, however, this abuse is shrouded in secrecy. As Bergin's abuse has been, until now.

Police officers who abuse their spouses and partners are an especially dangerous subset of the population, because they have the means to stalk, harass, and oppress their victims more than ordinary citizens. They have access to all the tools of law enforcement to intrude upon their victim's private lives, they have weapons, and they have friends who can help them evade responsibility for their actions. They have first-name relationships with judges, prosecutors, and fellow officers, and are often not held accountable for their abuse. It's been very difficult to get police officers to recognize domestic violence as a criminal matter at all. When the abuse involves a fellow officer, they are even less likely to consider the incident to be a crime, no matter how serious.

It's a very serious breach of the public trust when an officer who has been a perpetrator of domestic violence is allowed to continue to work in a position of authority, carrying a badge and a gun. How are we to expect him to react when he is expected to respond to a domestic violence call? Will he take the crime seriously? Or will he identify with the perpetrator?

It is also a serious breach of the public trust for an officer to treat defendants differently according to who they are, and who they know. Justice itself depends upon all people being treated equally in the eyes of the law. Bergin, in his drunken stupor, let it slip from his mouth that, in Sandy anyway, this is not how things work. One would hope that a revelation such as this one would lead to some house cleaning out there. (It's high time that Chief Skelton, and all his good ol' boys, be swept out of Dodge. If anyone is awake over at the Sandy city hall, one would think that some kind of action would be taken once this information reaches the public.)

But these revelations call into question more than just the character and judgment of officer Bergin or chief Skelton. They also call into question everything that Bergin said in his statement regarding the killing of Fouad Kaady. As damning as his own words were in that statement, it is clear that there is much more to that story than he was willing to tell. It's also pretty clear that, by his own admission, he is not above bending the law to protect fellow officers, and he expects his fellow officers to do the same for him. So the places where officer Bergin's and Deputy Willard's statements regarding the Kaady killing differ from the statements of the many witnesses to that event become even more suspect.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you have a link to Kaady's toxicology report or the story of his all day long strange behavior? I read that one once but I now can not find it. The part where he was driving around on the grass at the Community college in the early morning hours and if I recall went into a store wearing a suit jacket with nothing underneath after having missed a job interview? My memory is fuzzy. Not that I defend that loser cop, but all of this happened before the "accident" that allegedly started the whole sad day. There must have been a toxicology test, no? I would love to see that too. Just curious.

Anonymous said...

The above comment demonstrates what happens when the corporate media do propaganda for the police bureau. Yes, there were lots of early reports about Kaady's "strange behavior." Including the fact that he (gasp!) paid for cigarettes "with a large jar of change," and that he was
wearing "only a jacket and pants" but no shirt.

In fact, it was very hot that day, so many people were wearing no shirts. Nothing odd there. And lots of people pay for things with change in convenience stores. The cops were reaching for straws to try to explain themselves, and the corporate media helped them.

And yes, the toxicology report showed that Kaady was clean: NO drugs in his system. They already knew that before the repugnant Kyle Iboshi went on the air, repeating his mantra for that ordeal: "Only one question remains. Was Fouad Kaady on drugs?"

This was reprehensible. Not only does it dismiss all of the many, MANY questions we should have about this incident other than what Kaady's condition was, but it also implied that Kaady might have been "on drugs" when it was already known that he was not.

Anonymous said...

I am rather disappointed in general with the world. Obviously what this officer did was wrong but how is it only targeting officers who do things wrong, many other people walk away free and clear from many many other crimes. Plus, the whole Kaady thing is blown out of proportion and who can say much both officers were cleared in the shooting. And from what I recall thats not such a simple task especially wiht multiple witnesses. Leave it to the justice system to decide. The amount of time it took to research and make up the nonsense on these blogs is obsurd, do people not have anything better to do.

Unknown said...

I had my own run in with Bergin. I was scared for my life when he arrested me in Lincoln City, Oregon in 2004. I would not let him put hand cuffs in me and wanted to run but I know he would have shit me. I sure he would have taken me into the woods and had his way with me or worse. It was one of the most scary moments in my life. I hope he is not a officer anymore.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make, but I'm staggered by your comment that "the whole Kaady thing was blown out of proportion" and by the fact that you offered, as evidence, that the 2 officers were cleared of wrongdoing after this killing.

Your remark is callous and thoughtless. I am the journalist who wrote the original^ article. I am also the person who shot and edited the documentary, 28 Seconds, about this killing. I have met Fouad Kaady's loving, tight- knit family. I have seen the absolute devastation this killing did to every one of them. How dare you dismiss their unfathomable suffering. How dare you dismiss the meaning of Fouad Kaady's life like that.

"Blown out of proportion "?! The police, by their own admission, responded to an accident scene by setting upon the horrendously injured, semi conscious accident victim while he sat in the road, in shock, and very obviously unarmed. They screamed and yelled at him to lie down for no reason you can name. When he was too stunned to move, they started tasering his burned, injured body, and when he tried to comply with their order they shot him to death.

Then these thundering thugs showed up at his parent's house, dumped the news onto his poor father who was there alone, and while his father sat at the table and cried, they rifled through Fouad's bedroom! Why??? Desperately looking for evidence that they might be able to use to smear his character so that people like you wouldn't mind that they brutally murdered an innocent, unarmed, accident victim.

In your case it worked. You should think on what that says about your soul. "Blown out of proportion" indeed. Is that what you'd have thought if it had been you, or someone you love, who was blasted away one morning by cowardly idiots who were afraid to get blood on themselves? I doubt it.

Anonymous said...

PS the fact that these two bozos were protected by the entire system, despite what they did, despite all that evidence... is horrifying. It is an indictment of the US "justice" system; it is not an exoneration of the cops and it certainly isn't an indication that people who care what happened just "blew it out of proportion."