The Astonishing Tale of Kevin Dahlgren

We intended on publishing this article at a later date; however Mr Dahlgren was just indicted by a grand jury hearing sworn testimony from 8 witnesses on a total of 19 counts, including seven allegations of first-degree theft against the city of Gresham, five counts of first-degree official misconduct, two counts of aggravated identity theft and five counts of identity theft (source) forcing us to move up publication

Mr. Kevin Dahlgren is a homelessness and addiction expert based in Portland. He has received national attention by arguing that cities and social service agencies are enabling homelessness and fostering dependency among the people they say they’re trying to help. On his website he claims he has over two decades of experience working in social services at all kinds of organizations.

On 8/23/2023 an article appeared in the Bend Bulletin titled, “Deschutes County sheriff hired Portland homelessness consultant, Kevin Dahlgren, in July”.

According to the article Dahlgren and Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson signed a contract with Dahlgren in July, 2023. The contract was worth more than $18,000 and included paying Dahlgren’s travel expenses, including lodging and food, as well as expenses associated with his outreach such as fuel, car parts, food, clothing and cash he gave to the homeless people he encountered.

The article goes on to say the contract with the Sheriff’s Office was signed without the knowledge of some local leaders and the public — Including existing local organizations working with the homeless. In fact, County Commissioner Phil Chang didn’t know about Dahlgren’s contract until weeks after it was signed stating, “In terms of procurement for needed services with an intended purpose, this is an incredibly shoddy public procurement”. It should be noted that commissioners Adair and DeBone saw none of the same issues Chang did.

The Bulletin continues by saying Dahlgren produced an interim report detailing his time in Deschutes County. That report drew criticism and concern from some local social welfare service providers, advocates for the homeless community and elected leaders. They said Dahlgren and the sheriff’s office were at risk of undoing several years of hard work. They also said Dahlgren’s report was inaccurate.

This is where the story starts becoming interesting.

DCSO Follies has learned it was not Shane Nelson who hired Kevin Dahlgren but it was in fact Captain William Bailey commander of the patrol division who did so. Apparently, Bailey was also directly responsible for liaising with Dahlgren.

A day after the Bend Bulletin article was published, the Sheriff’s Office was contacted by Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and the Gresham Police Department.

During the call, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office was advised by the other law enforcement agencies on the call that those agencies had probable cause for the arrest of Kevin Dahlgren for theft and official misconduct arising during Dahlgren’s time of employment with the Gresham Police.

The call ultimately resulted in the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office attempting to arrange a meeting with Dahlgren at the Sheriff’s Office main office. Unknown to Dahlgren the meeting was also to be attended by officials from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. The objective of the meeting was to lure Dahlgren to the Sheriff’s Office where he would be arrested.

Dahlgren never showed up for the meeting.

After the phone call with Multnomah County and Gresham, all out panic and pandemonium broke out at the topmost leadership ranks at the Deschutes County Sheriff’s office.

You see, the problem was that no one had bothered running any employment checks or a background check on Dahlgren. In fact they only a single reference was called and that reference was not the Gresham Police Department who Dahlgren had most recently been working with. Had they bothered calling Gresham PD, they would have likely learned that Mr. Dahlgren was on administrative leave and that he was under investigation.

We also understand that the Sheriff’s Office legal team and others had in strong terms advised Bailey and Nelson to not hire Dahlgren without full employment and background checks; however, Bailey and Nelson refused this advice in a rush to hire Dahlgren.

This is shocking because, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office typically conducts extensive and rigorous background checks on employees and contractors. That obviously makes a lot of sense given the sensitive nature of the business a law enforcement agency conducts, and equally importantly the public image of integrity that such an agency must maintain with the public if it is to remain respected and thus effective.

We find ourself utterly incredulous that supposedly experienced and high ranking managers at, of all places a law enforcement agency, would demonstrate such an astonishing level of gross negligence and failure to perform the most basic of requirements prior to hiring an employee.

Furthermore, you would think that before dropping a homeless advocate into the county, Bailey and Nelson would have demonstrated the common sense to reach out to existing homeless support and advocacy organizations, some having over a decade of experience working with the county’s homeless population, to at least make them aware of their intentions, to get feedback from and to even coordinate with them. Let’s also not forget that Bailey and Nelson proudly declare they are experienced, seasoned and competent managers. We argue their actions here paint a very different picture.

However, none of the above occurred. Instead what ensued was a week long series of “all hands on deck” meetings at the highest levels of the Sheriff’s Office in order work on damage control and to manage the optics of this disastrous hire. The focus of this damage control appears to have been to protect captain Bailey. In fact, Bailey was told to make it seem as if he was disconnected from the whole situation despite his being responsible for hiring and managing Dahlgren. Think about it for a minute: You have a weeklong series of meetings called to work on damage control and to protect a certain captain. How appropriate is that?

In the interim the leadership at the Sheriff’s Office has been hunkering down and hoping and praying the press don’t get wind of this. Thus far they have been incredibly fortunate.

So why the rush to hire Dahlgren in the first place, and why keep it quiet?.

One plausible theory is that captain Bailey wanted to hurry up and burnish his image as a “homeless advocate” to the voters. Homelessness is one his campaign’s major planks and a “win” featuring a “celebrity” like Dahlgren could be quite valuable. We emphasize we are simply theorizing; however, we believe it is certainly not implausible. Unfortunately due to a complete and utterly staggering failure to follow the most basic of hiring practices despite the prudent advice of others, Bailey and Nelson are now faced with a disaster all of their own making. However, and fortunately for him, we have been told Sheriff Shane Nelson is willing to stand in front of this story to protect Bailey. We have to ask, “Why?”

We are absolutely astonished and appalled by this story on so many levels. In fact, at first we simply could not believe it was true. Surely nobody in a senior management role at a public law enforcement agency could be so reckless and incompetent.

A few days ago we posted a brief article titled “Corruption and The Law Enforcement Code of Ethics” . After completing this article, we encourage folks to take a minute to read that one and to draw their own conclusions

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