D’Oh and Who Leads the Code Team
Holy Turducken folks! Things must be getting a tad bit warm around the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. Over the weekend we received some information from our sources that a Facebook user by the name of Tom Thompson (real? fake? Who knows) appears to be very upset with captain Bill Bailey and posted as much on Bailey’s Facebook page. Thompson basically accused the good captain of leaking some sensitive law enforcement Information. Uh oh!
So what’s the scoop? According to our sources it goes something like this:
A Facebook user by the name of Carlos Esparza recently started posting comments on DCSO Follies’ Facebook page. Mr. Esparza was none too happy with us and during rants against horrible, mean, despicable DCSO Follies, he blurted out the whereabouts of the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement (CODE) team’s office. Not the exact address, but a little too close for comfort.
This is what is called “law enforcement sensitive information” because agents from all kinds of law enforcement agencies work at the CODE offices, and it is important their location be kept secret.
You see, these good folk track down and arrest some very bad people. Like folks who traffic tens of thousands of fentanyl pills into the County and who are none too pleased when they are caught. Outing a location anywhere near the office’s actual location allows the bad guys to potentially start setting up counter-surveillance in the area to identify and track CODE operatives. As the very unpleasant folks in the drug cartels would say: “no bueno!”
It appears that Carlos Esparza was a fake Facebook account created by one of captain Bailey’s friends, we will call him “Derek Smith” to protect his identity. The problem is Derek Smith made a few mistakes, such as having Mr. Esparza’s Facebook “likes” include a small company in Bend, and accidentally posting a comment under his own Facebook account beneath Mr Esparza’s comments and then deleting this comment. These mistakes and others were picked up by folks following the comments section and resulted in Derek Smith being exposed. Oopsie poopsie!
Carlos Esparza’s Facebook page has since been deleted. Poof!
Now the most likely way Derek Smith would know about the CODE team and the whereabouts of its office location is if someone with the knowledge told him about it. We think it’s fair to say the odds are overwhelming that this someone was in law enforcement. We wonder who that could be? Mr Tom Thompson clearly believes it was captain Bailey. While intriguing, we at this time think the evidence is circumstantial.
So why did Esparza pick on the CODE team? Most likely because sergeant Vander Kamp works there and is running as a candidate in the upcoming Sheriff’s Office election against captain Bailey. Being Bailey’s friend, Smith may have wanted to draw attention to Vander Kamp. Was this at Bailey’s direction or on his own initiative? Who knows. The fact remains that Smith was in possession of and published sensitive information to which he shouldn’t have had access.
We wonder what spin DJ Spinmeister and Public “Information” Officer Jason Wall will come up with to explain away this whole mess. He does seem to have become quite the spin doctor lately — As they say: “Practice makes perfect”. On the other hand, and more likely, the folks at the Sheriff’s Office may simply hunker down and just hope this whole mess doesn’t go public… It just did.
Whatever the case, we think such an egregious and potentially harmful “leak” absolutely merits an investigation. Will there be one? What do you think?
But the story of Carlos Esparza doesn’t end there. Something else jumped out from Esparza’s Facebook comments. This was his claim that a lieutenant leads the CODE team and not sergeant Vander Kamp whom, Esparza said, had claimed to be the team leader.
This seemed worth looking into and so we did. What we found were contradictory claims.
Most recently on his campaign website Vander Kamp writes: “Kent currently leads the field operations of Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team, a multi-agency and multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement task force, as a Detective Sergeant. [emphasis in original, underline added “
This is where it gets interesting. We did a little research and using web.archive.org found as of November 3, 2023 (the latest results available at this time) Vander Kamp had written on his campaign website: “Kent currently leads the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team (CODE), a multi-agency and multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement task force [all emphasis added]”
In addition, in several press articles published on October 25, 2023 was written that Vander Kamp was CODE team leader. We don’t know if this was gathered from information on Vander Kamp’s website or if Vander Kamp’s campaign told the press as much:
- In a Bend Bulletin article “Sheriff’s sergeant Vander Kamp running for Deschutes County Sheriff” states; “A longtime employee of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office and leader of a regional drug enforcement team [emphasis added] is running for sheriff. “
- In an article posted by KTVZ titled “Deschutes County sheriff’s Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp announces run for sheriff, will face Capt. William Bailey”, it states: “Kent currently leads the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team as a Detective Sergeant, [emphasis added] a multi-agency and multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement task force headquartered in Bend, serving Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook Counties.”
- In The Central Oregon Daily News article “Central Oregon Drug Enforcement detective running for Deschutes Co. Sheriff” states: “Vander Kamp currently leads the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement team as a detective [emphasis added] .”
So we are left asking the question: which is it?
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