A6 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2021
Police
kept looking worse.
Continued from A1
Case grows stronger
On Sept. 29, 2019, the boy-
friend of Halupowski’s daugh-
ter, an alleged drug dealer, told
his probation officer he’d been
living at the cop’s home.
On Nov. 6, the probation
officer visited Halupowski’s
home and found a needle ly-
ing out in plain sight, along
with baggies and other drug
paraphernalia. Halupowski
told the probation officer it
had happened before — he’d
even found a baggie of what
appeared to be heroin and
flushed it down the toilet. In-
vestigators later deemed that to
be tampering with evidence.
Halupowski told the proba-
tion officer that a Nov. 3 po-
lice stop of his daughter and
her boyfriend — who was on
probation and out after cur-
few — was “chippy,” meaning
bogus. Investigators later cited
this as evidence of questionable
judgement.
On Nov. 22, the day after a
meeting of the Police Policy
Committee, Halupowski was
placed on administrative leave,
never to return to work. He re-
quested a leave from the Police
Policy Committee.
By the time the investigation
was done, his colleagues at the
Woodburn department found
that, for years, Halupowski had
been illegally using confiden-
tial law enforcement databases.
He checked out his soon-to-
be-ex-wife, her boyfriend, his
daughter and many of her
friends. In 2019 he ran his own
name three times.
They accused Halupowski of
other violations, too. In one in-
stance, a family reported a man
of violating a restraining order,
and Halupowski declined to
arrest him — despite a statute
making that arrest mandatory.
A business owner complained
of embezzlement, and instead
of writing up a report and
starting an investigation, Ha-
lupowski reportedly told him it
was a civil matter.
Afterward, the arrested man
accused Halupowski of unnec-
essary roughness.
Halupowski’s story sheds
light on an important but ob-
scure state advisory committee
within the Oregon Department
of Public Safety Standards &
Training, which often is known
as DPSST.
Called the Police Policy
Committee, it judges whether
officers’ misconduct is bad
enough to merit stripping
them of their badges. It is com-
posed almost entirely of law
enforcement officers.
Including, for all of seven
years, Craig Halupowski.
Now, some lawmakers want
to change the makeup of the
15-member Police Policy
Committee.
Halupowski, a 30-year vet-
eran officer, resigned his po-
sition at Woodburn in 2020
and stipulated to giving up
his badge before the Wood-
burn mall arrest ever reached
his now-former colleagues on
the state committee. The state
never announced his departure
from the committee. Nor is it
mentioned in the minutes of
any of its meetings. His name
just disappeared.
Documents released under
public records law, however,
show the allegations against
Halupowski included misuse
of confidential law enforce-
ment databases for personal
reasons, unprofessional behav-
ior, untruthfulness and having
“associated with known crim-
inals.”
That “association” was a
close one, investigators con-
cluded: Some of the purported
criminals were living in Ha-
lupowski’s house, allegedly
using heroin and meth on the
premises and selling those
drugs from the residence when
he was not around.
Halupowski’s quiet depar-
ture from the Police Policy
Committee was brought to
light through data analysis and
reporting by a new nonprofit
journalism venture called The
Portland Record. The case is
relevant now because of the
light it sheds on the agency
that regulates officer behavior
for the state.
Halupowski, for his part,
told the Portland Tribune the
allegations leading to him re-
signing were overblown. The
bottom line: His family was
in trouble, and his problems
stemmed from that.
“I freely admit I screwed up”
the former cop said. But, he
added: It was worth it to keep
his daughter alive.
‘Flawed’ mindset
State Sen. Lew Frederick,
D-Portland, has been a lead-
ing figure in efforts to remake
police oversight in Salem. He’s
floating a bill that would add to
and diversify the membership
of the committee on which Ha-
lupowski sat.
Frederick said the story
shows that officers sometimes
don’t get the psychological sup-
port they need. Halupowski
recently was divorced, self-ad-
mittedly burned out on his job
and enmeshed in the stress of
caring for a daughter strug-
gling with drug addiction.
Because of the psychological
demands of the job, the state’s
police oversight apparatus
needs reforms, Frederick said,
and the public should have
more of a role, rather than the
apparatus being dominated by
police.
“I wish I could say I’m sur-
prised by this,” he said. “We
have some folks who are
flawed, and yet are in position
of power.”
Part of the problem, Freder-
ick said, is a police culture that
attracts people who look at so-
ciety in terms of criminal “bad
guys” versus other people.
Halupowski’s case shows
Phil Hawkins/PMG file
In 2018, Officer Craig Halupowski, right, and Officer Jorge Gaspar place a wreath on the memorial of Capt. Tom Tennant, who died in a Woodburn
West Coast Bank bombing. Chief Jim Ferraris looks on.
how for one cop, those lines
blurred. Not only did he fail to
bust the “bad guys,” he was giv-
ing them a place to stay.
His daughter, in her early
20s, was addicted to heroin.
Halupowski said he let some
of her friends stay with him to
keep her happy and where he
could help her.
Union post sparked
prominence
It was Halupowski’s activism
in the union representing his
fellow officers that put him on
a statewide stage.
A former military police-
man, he was hired by the
Woodburn Police Department
in 1989. In 2008, the bombing
of a bank in Woodburn shook
the town and the department
of roughly two dozen officers.
The explosion killed an Ore-
gon State Police Trooper Wil-
liam Hakim and Woodburn
Police Captain Thomas Ten-
nant, who was Halupowski’s
friend and mentor.
Two years later, the Oregon
Council of Police Associations,
an officers’ union group, nom-
inated Halupowski, who’d be-
come head of the police union
in Woodburn, to serve on the
Police Policy Committee of
DPSST for the first time. He
thus became part of the system
in which police departments
are supposed to report to the
state when an officer is fired
for misconduct or who resigns
while under investigation.
After reviewing each situ-
ation, the Police Policy Com-
mittee, balanced between
representatives of police man-
agement and unions — with
just one public member —
makes recommendations to
the full board of DPSST on
whether officers’ misconduct is
serious enough to merit strip-
ping them of their police certi-
fication.
While members of the full
DPSST board are appointed
after undergoing an Oregon
State Police background check,
members of the Police Policy
Committee undergo no such
check.
Halupowski was reap-
pointed in 2012, then in 2014
was appointed by then-Gov.
John Kitzhaber to serve on the
Governor’s Commission on
the Law Enforcement Medal of
Honor.
He stepped down from the
police committee in 2016, but
was reappointed in 2018. Min-
utes of the committee show
that he was frequently on the
side of votes arguing that offi-
cers should not be decertified
— and often in the minority.
Halupowski’s former chief,
Jim Ferraris, told the Portland
Tribune he never received a
call when Halupowski was se-
lected to rejoin the Police Pol-
icy Committee in 2018.
Ferraris said he thinks
DPSST should do full back-
ground checks before people
are appointed to the influen-
tial committee. If he had re-
ceived such a call, Ferraris said,
he’d likely have recommended
someone else from his force
due to some “challenges and is-
sues” Halupowski had faced as
a cop. Given the importance of
the committee, the chief called
DPSST to ask why he hadn’t
been consulted.
“The response was, ‘Well,
that’s not the protocol,’” Fer-
raris said.
Bombing shook town
Halupowski traces his trou-
bles to the 2008 Woodburn
bombing that took the life of
his good friend and blew off
the leg of his then-chief, Scott
Russell.
He said three doctors sup-
ported his claim for worker’s
comp benefits to get treatment
for post-traumatic stress disor-
der, but the department’s doc-
tor said his symptoms dated
to childhood and were not
work-related.
Halupowski said he stopped
being there for his wife and
two kids.
“In layman’s terms, it totally
f---- me up: I lost friends, it
cost me my marriage. And it
probably had a healthy dose
of why my kids ended up go-
ing into drugs,” he said, add-
ing that basically, he “just quit”
tending to his family life. “As
soon as I got home, I shut
down.”
The bombing, he added,
“was the worst thing in a long
line of other stuff. I’ve been on,
you know, fatal crashes, child
deaths, all that stuff. And over
time it just starts wearing on
you.”
Halupowski later told inves-
tigators his daughter became
addicted to drugs in roughly
2015.
He and his wife filed for di-
vorce in 2017, and the three-
year process was contentious.
He told his co-workers he was
angry at his ex and her new
boyfriend, and was bitter that
he was losing half of his retire-
ment benefits. He wanted to
retire, he told a clerk in the de-
partment, but needed to keep
his medical benefits, records
show.
Arresting daughter’s
friend led to downfall
The beginning of the end
for Halupowski came after his
statement — “If he resists, we
beat the s--- out of him” — in
front of the Woodburn mall
that day in 2019.
His fellow officer called him
out on the statement, and Ha-
lupowski later said he’d been
joking. Investigators concluded
the allegation of unnecessary
roughness was unfounded.
More problematic? The man
he arrested turned out to be a
friend of his daughter’s who’d
had numerous charges in the
past for meth, heroin and theft.
It turned out the man had been
hanging out at Halupowski’s
house.
Just two days before the
man’s arrest in Woodburn, he
was arrested by a Salem officer.
A search produced Halupows-
ki’s personal checks. The Salem
Police Department immedi-
ately notified the Woodburn
cop of the arrest.
Salem police also found a
text message from Halupows-
ki’s daughter in the man’s
phone. She accused him of
stealing one of her father’s
handguns.
After arresting his daughter’s
associate in Woodburn, Ha-
lupowski sent a memo to his
supervisors recusing himself
from the case, saying he didn’t
recognize the man’s name until
afterward.
The stolen gun was a World
War-II era Luger 9mm, bear-
ing a Nazi Eagle and swastika.
Halupowski told Keizer police
it was worth about $1,500, and
his daughter had between 15 to
20 friends over to his house the
week it was stolen.
Things got worse from there
On June 2, 2019, neigh-
bors of Halupowski’s home in
Keizer called in a noise com-
plaint about a car parked in
his driveway, windows open,
music blaring. The police who
responded discovered a young
woman unconscious in the
front seat, syringes sticking out
of what appeared to be a her-
oin kit next to her. Medics re-
suscitated her and police cited
her for possession of heroin
and meth.
They knocked on Ha-
lupowski’s door, but the cop
was fast asleep inside the
house.
Two days later, the depart-
ment opened up an investiga-
tion of Halupowski’s May 19
arrest of his daughter’s friend
— the man suspected of steal-
ing the cop’s checks and Na-
zi-era Luger.
On June 7, Halupowski re-
ported to Keizer Police another
gun stolen from his house, this
time a Smith and Wesson. It
turned up in August, when
Linn County sheriff’s deputies
arrested two men who were us-
ing it for target practice.
By September, the depart-
ment’s internal investigations
into Halupowski were going
strong, and Chief Jim Ferraris
asked Keizer Police Depart-
ment to launch a criminal in-
vestigation as well.
Neighbors went into detail
on what they’d first told police
in June; they suspected people
were dealing drugs from the
cop’s home.
Citing an injury, Halupowski
went on desk duty. And things
Investigator: He knew
what he was doing
The investigator didn’t find
evidence that Halupowski
used excessive force against
his daughter’s friend who he
arrested at the mall, and Ha-
lupowski said his remark about
beating the man up was joke.
But the investigator con-
cluded that Halupowski had
abused his authority to access
confidential information de-
spite knowing it was illegal and
a violation of policy.
In March 2020, in an inter-
view with investigators, Ha-
lupowski admitted that he
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