Greg Schirmers...your POLICE CHIEF.....

The following information was all gleaned from his deposition taken February 25, 2013.  Larry Frost is the attorney asking the questions.

Frost: "How many years police--total police experience as a licensed officer do you have?"

Schirmers :
"I started with the Morrison County sheriff's office in 1992.  I worked there, I believe, until 1997.   I was a police officer in Royalton from 1994 until 1996.   And I've been a police officer with the City of Little Falls from 1996 until present."

Frost: "what do you remember about those threats?"

Schirmers: "which threats?"

Frost: "Well, the threats in general.  Tell us in general."

Schirmers: "Threats to Ms. Hensel?"

Frost: "To Ms. Hensel, yes."

Schirmers: "It's my understanding that she reported she had received some threats on the Internet."

Frost: "And you wouldn't have handled this investigation directly, of course, as Chief?"

Schirmers: "No, no. I believe Officer Nagorski handled it."

Frost: "A decision was made at someoint to stop the investigation. Is it safe--would it be correct to say that the evaluation--because the evaluation was that there was no serious threat to Ms. Hensel as a result of these Internet postings?"

Schirmers: "I'm not--No, I wouldn't say that.  You said there was no serious threat.  A threat was made, but I believe we came to the point in the investigation where it was not reasonable to pursue it any further.  We went to great lengths to try to identify this individual or individuals and make contact with them to find out what their intent was."

Frost: "Who would have made the decision that the end point in that investigation had been reached, the investigating officer or you?"

Schirmers: " The county attorney and myself." 

Frost: "So you, in conjunction with the county attorney, reached that conclusion?"

Schirmers: "Correct."

Frost: "And based on the evidence you gathered, you concludeed that Ms. Hensel's safety was not seriously at risk or not reasonably considered to be at risk, whichever.  You tell me what word we should use."

Schirmers: " I wouldn't use either.  I think the investigation itself came to an end point where we could not pursue it any further."

Frost: "Has officer Nagorski received any training in threat assessment?"

Schirmers: "I believe that's part of just basic law enforcement training.  I think we deal with that pretty much every day, threat assessment.  Formal training?  Through use of force, we do ongoing use of force training, firearms training, taser training, all those things.  That's all motivated by threat so...

Frost: "Let me be more specific.  Threat assessment training, as I'm using--threat assessment, as I am using the term, is the process of taking a person who has allegedly made a threat or taken actions that might pose a threat and assessing the likelihood that they're going to take serious action." 

Schirmers: "Formal training in that type of scenario, I don't believe so, no." 

Frost: "And do you don't have a policy, then, that that's required training for anyone in the department to take?"

Schirmers: "No."

Frost: "And how do you define threat assessment as an officer?"

Schirmers: "Um, as a police officer, it's something that is ongoing.  It's constant from the time that you put your uniform  on and go to work, you're constantly monitoring people.  You're looking for eye contact.  You're watching body language.  You even, I mean, as someone would approach you, you look for posture.  You look for those type of things to see what their intent is before they even initially make contact with you in many cases because you don't know what the individuals' intentions are."

Frost: "What about on a call for service? Are you doing threat assessment?"

Schirmers: "Constantly.  From the initial placement of the call, the dispatchers will relay information such as the nature of the call, whether weapons were mentioned, the mental status of the caller, if there are other people at the residence, other concerns that --maybe past history that we've had with an individual.  Maybe they're an individual we've had contact with many times, and -- you know--we just, because of the contact and because maybe you have a personal relationship with that individual, your threat assessment will be -- you know-- at a lower status because you know or you suspect that it's just going to be a casual interaction.  In other cases where you've had a previous contact with an individual and maybe you've had a physical altercation with that individual or they've been assaultive in  the past, obviously, you're going to respond to that differently."

Frost: "And so it's fair to say that threat assessment is just a constant in a law enforcement officer's job?"

Schirmers: "Every day."

Frost: "And that is not just for you; that's for all officers?"

Schirmers: " Correct."

Frost: "You said that you got trained in threat at Alexandria Tech, I think?"

Schirmers;"Yeah, threat assessment."

Frost: "Can you describe briefly what that training--"

Schirmers: "Use of force, use with different types of weapons.  I took some psychology and sociology as part of the course.  So I think, you know, all of those, you know, that was part of all of that."

Frost: "Did any of that involve how to construct or how to use a psychological profile of a potential threatener?"

Schirmers: "When we talk about threat assessment I think there is many parts of that.  I think, when I talk about threat assessment, I'm talking about--you know--we're talking about officer safety.  We're talking about day-to-day safety issues, not only for the officer but for the community and the public.  There are many factors that you had to play into that.  If you're talking about like a profiling, like F.B.I. profiling or those types of things, more advanced education, that's not in the normal course of police training.  There are advanced courses that you can take in that.  larger agencies probably do a lot of that type of thing.  But normally, for a small agency, the advanced profiling type courses are not generally normal training."

Frost: "If you had that kind of training, that is the  sort of training that--profiling, for example--is that the sort of thing you would apply to something like a threat?"

Schirmers:  "I would assume.  I would have go to the training to know how it applied."

Frost:  "But my question is, if you had it--profiling as a specific example--is that the sort of thing you would apply, if you had it, to something threats?"

Schirmers: "If it applied specifically to that.  That's what you take training for, to apply it to scenarios where they apply." 

stay tuned for more.....the next post will highlight why all this is important....and the REAL REASON THE INVESTIGATION OF MY THREATS ENDED.