Carney sex scandal has Bend PD embarrassed

Two days after Bend police revealed a bombshell about one of their own, leaders are trying to regroup.

“As an organization, this is embarrassing, and everyone in the organization feels that,” Police Chief Jeff Sale said Thursday. “This is not who we are.”

Public Information Officer Chris Carney recently quit his job after detectives say he was found to have had sexual contact while on duty with four women, three of whom were city employees, the fourth a member of the media.

As it turned out out, Carney was having sex on duty for more than a decade.

The investigating report cites notices of the incidents in his personnel file.

But a history of sexual misconduct didn’t stop Carney from getting one of the department’s most high-profile jobs just a couple of years ago.

“Some of these (sexual encounters) had occurred quite some time ago,” Sale said. “And I personally was not aware of them.”

Sale said now it’s time to apologize and move on.

“We have good people who work here, and we make good decisions,” he said. “We’ll fix our mistakes and do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

An assistant to District Attorney Patrick Flaherty said Thursday that Flaherty will be reviewing the case and is waiting for the report.

NewsChannel 21 reached out to city officials, asking if the involved city employees also were engaging in sex on the job.

City officials said they couldn’t comment on the matter.

They did, however, provide this statement on how the city is moving forward:

“The City believes that our current written policies are adequate to provide appropriate sanctions for this type of misbehavior, but we will review the policies in light of this situation to see if additional clarification is needed. We will also be reviewing how we make sure that the policies are complied with and enforced in a fair manner.”

Chief Sale said he doesn’t think the city employees will be punished. Carney resigned amid termination proceedings.

“There’s a big difference between the importance of a command-level person in the police department vs. anyone else as an employee of the city,” Sale said.

City Councilor Jodie Barram said she trusts City Manager Eric King’s judgement moving forward.

“City council wouldn’t get involved in a personnel matter,” Barram said. “If there was a policy-level decision or direction, then we would take that on.”

Sale said the department have strict policies forbidding officers from having sexual contact while on-duty and are taking measures to reinforce appropriate conduct.