Four Portland assistant police chiefs, the internal affairs captain and the Police Bureau's spokesman are under gag orders as the city investigates who knew what about Chief Larry O'Dea's off-duty shooting of a friend.

The Independent Police Review Division, an arm of the city auditor's office, also wants to know why no one in the bureau or the mayor's office made sure an internal investigation of O'Dea was started, and why it took nearly a month for the chief to publicly disclose the shooting.

The division placed the formal communication restriction on the police leaders. The orders usually are given to officers who may have information as witnesses or those involved.

Four days after O'Dea shot his friend April 21 while camping and hunting squirrels in the Catlow Valley area of Harney County, he told his boss, Mayor Charlie Hales, about the shooting. Around the same time, O'Dea also told the police captain of internal affairs and his four assistant chiefs, sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

But no one alerted the police review division, which conducts all internal investigations of high-ranking police bureau members, including those who hold a captain's rank or higher.

"Everyone associated with this thing from the chief's office has been gagged," Assistant Chief Bob Day said Tuesday. "We can't comment on any of that right now.'' The other assistant chiefs are Donna Henderson, now acting police chief; Kevin Modica and Mike Crebs.

Constantin Severe, director of the police review division, learned about the shooting after reading news reports. Someone from the Police Bureau or the Mayor's Office should have told him immediately upon learning of the shooting, he said.

The lack of notice amounts to a "systematic failure," he said.

Severe said the division's administrative investigation will examine who knew about the chief's off-duty shooting, when they found out and what did they do, he said. It will also delve into exactly what O'Dea told his assistant chiefs and the internal affairs captain.

Of those issued gag orders, police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson is the only one who had no earlier knowledge of O'Dea's shooting until a reporter asked him about it on May 20.

Severe said he will release the investigation's findings "given the nature of this case involving the chief of police and the public's right to know how this happened, how this significant gap in initiating an investigation happened." He gave no timeline, but said he'll make it public once any discipline is decided.

Oregon State Police and the Oregon Department of Justice are conducting a separate criminal investigation into the shooting. O'Dea was placed on paid administrative leave on May 24, a day after Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward told The Oregonian/OregonLive that O'Dea had misled his deputy.

O'Dea provided conflicting accounts of what occurred on his camping trip, telling a Harney County sheriff's deputy shortly afterward that it appeared his friend may have accidentally shot himself while trying to return his pistol to his shoulder holster. O'Dea didn't identify himself at the time as Portland's police chief or even a police officer and the deputy noted that O'Dea smelled of alcohol.

But when he talked to the mayor on April 25, O'Dea said he accidentally shot his friend with his .22-caliber rifle, the mayor has confirmed in a statement.

At some point after the shooting, O'Dea also called his friend, 54-year-old Robert Dempsey, to apologize for wounding him, Dempsey later told the Harney County deputy investigating the case.

But O'Dea never told the Harney County Sheriff's Office that he was responsible for the shooting, Sheriff Dave Ward said.

Dempsey was shot in the lower left back and airlifted to a trauma hospital in Boise.

O'Dea was camping with six others, including two retired Portland police supervisors who had served with him on the bureau's Special Emergency Reactions Team. They were sitting on lawn chairs, firing at ground squirrels while drinking beer. Retired Portland police Lt. Steve Buchtel, a former head of firearms training at the bureau and now a sergeant at OHSU Hospital's public safety department, called 911. OHSU is waiting until the state police investigation is done before conducting an internal investigation of Buchtel, OHSU spokeswoman Tamara Hargens-Bradley said.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian