During the virtual town hall, Alden repeatedly faulted Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram’s refusal to order his staff to answer questions as the reason IOLERO’s review of the shooting remains incomplete.
“This was the most significant impediment we had to gathering the evidence we wanted to gather in this case,” Alden said. “In our written report, we go through many of the questions we would’ve liked to have asked but couldn’t.”
The investigation of the 2022 shooting was the first time IOLERO attempted to exercise expanded powers to directly interview officers involved in incidents under investigation, Alden said.
Dietrick left the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office before IOLERO’s investigation. But Deputy Anthony Powers, who deployed a taser, and the supervising Berg both refused to answer IOLERO’s questions. In response to subpoenas, the deputies showed up to the interview but invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves.
That is their right as public employees, Alden said at the public forum, but also a reason why Engram should have issued what’s known as a Lybarger warning — a notice issued to public employees during administrative investigations with a promise that anything they say will not be used against them in any criminal proceeding.
“ We had asked the sheriff to issue that order in this case to the deputies that came to us when we were trying to interview them, and he declined,” Alden said Monday. “We haven’t received a reason back that we found credible.”
The sheriff’s only publicly available response was in a lengthy Facebook post on the department’s website, which stated, “Deputies are employees of the Sheriff’s Office, not IOLERO. The Sheriff, as their employer, can only legally compel testimony for Sheriff’s Office administrative investigations.”
Engram reiterated that the Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez “concluded the deputies’ actions were reasonable and lawful. By contrast, IOLERO acknowledged it lacked key evidence and instead issued a report riddled with speculative commentary.”
In his letter to county supervisors, Murphy alleged Dill threatened and harassed those officers by insisting they show up in person, fully knowing they had refused to talk. Murphy also accused IOLERO of publicly shaming staff by posting audio recordings on the watchdog’s website under the caption: “Hear our interviews with the involved Sheriff’s Deputies, and how they would not answer our questions.”
