West Linn police Sgt. James A. Doolittle lived up to his name.

The city’s sole K-9 handler took his dog Viggo to one police call in all of 2012 and 2013.

Those were the two years before he was allowed to quietly resign.

He claimed he was out of town training with his police dog twice a month over those two years. But he rarely went to training and told an investigator so many different stories it’s not clear how he spent each of those 10-hour shifts.

He also let his police dog’s annual certification lapse in that time.

All the while, Doolittle pocketed more than $8,000 in premium pay over those two years for supposedly developing the expertise as a dog handler.

He also continued to enjoy the use of a take-home police car, with West Linn paying for his gas, insurance and car maintenance as well as the care of the Belgian Malinois.

Doolittle’s misconduct, including repeated lying that would have warranted his firing in any other police department, resulted in a 30-day unpaid suspension.

The city then allowed Doolittle to resign in 2014, letting him keep Viggo and paying him $2,000 to support the dog’s supplies and vet bills.

In what may be the most inexplicable decision of all, the city hid everything about Doolittle’s extensive abuses.

It agreed to deny any public records request regarding the police sergeant’s employment with the city and wouldn’t release any material unless ordered by the county district attorney or the state attorney general.

The city further agreed not to voluntarily disclose any information about Doolittle to the state agency that certifies police officers. Instead, the city said it would tell Doolittle’s lawyer if the state Department of Public Safety Standards & Training asked for any job information and give his lawyer 10 days to object.

If a prospective employer came to West Linn asking about Doolittle, the city wouldn’t say anything negative.

The circumstances of Doolittle’s sudden departure from West Linn are now coming to light after The Oregonian/OregonLive made a public records request this month upon learning of Doolittle’s unusual settlement with the city. The documents came not from West Linn but from the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards & Training.

Doolittle’s misdeeds are the latest to be revealed in a string of transgressions by West Linn officers that has spurred discrimination and civil rights investigations by federal and state authorities.

Doolittle did not respond to messages for comment, and his lawyer, Robert Bletko, declined comment.

‘Lack of police activity’

Fellow officers said when they tried to call Doolittle to respond to a scene with his dog, Doolittle often told them he was too busy doing administrative work and told them to call another police department for a dog handler, according to a private investigator the city hired to finally figure out what was going on.

A rejected June 26, 2013, call was a stark example.

Then-West Linn Sgt. Mike Stradley reached Doolitte by phone and asked him to bring the dog to help arrest a fugitive spotted in apartments near the police station.

Doolittle’s log showed he was attending dog training that night out of town. But when Stradley reached Doolittle early in his shift, it appeared that Doolittle was at home, Stradley said.

Doolittle’s speech was slurred, Stradley later told the investigator, noting Doolittle “sounded like a man that’d been drinking whiskey for hours.’’ But Stradley acknowledged that he didn’t report his suspicions at the time to a supervisor.

But by early 2014, Stradley reported his concerns and those of other officers to then-Police Chief Terry Timeus. Timeus ordered a full inquiry and the city hired former Salem police Detective D. Craig Stoelk of Stoelk Investigations & Consultation to conduct it.

Stoelk produced an substantive report. He found Doolittle lied over and over, failed to accurately account for his training hours, failed to maintain his dog’s annual certification and that his actions rose to official misconduct.

“Sgt. Doolittle has changed his statement at every opportunity to compensate for discovered discrepancies,’’ Stoelk wrote.

The investigator found Doolittle rarely signed in on his mobile police computer at the start of his shifts and that two police notebooks reflecting his on-duty work in 2012 and 2013 showed a “general lack of police activity.’’

“Sgt. Doolittle has failed to prepare and maintain even the most rudimentary form of an adequate police patrol notebook to account for his time and actions,’’ the investigator wrote.

But what Doolittle did record apparently was a fiction.

He said he was attending police K-9 training out of West Linn twice a month during his usual graveyard shifts. State guidelines call for police dog handlers to undergo a minimum monthly training of 16 hours.

First, Doolittle claimed he was attending Gresham police K-9 training sessions. But other Gresham cops barely remembered Doolittle present, according to the investigative report.

Then he told the investigator that he exclusively trained with a Multnomah County sheriff’s dog handler. But the deputy said that wasn’t true and that he rarely saw Doolittle during those years. The deputy also didn’t appreciate being used as the West Linn sergeant’s apparent “alibi,’’ Stoelk wrote.

Next Doolittle maintained that he trained with his dog on his own but couldn’t provide details.

“Sgt. Doolittle told me he had no idea where he trained or with who and what hour he would have trained,’’ Stoelk wrote.

PowerPoint presentations that Doolittle helped prepare stressed the importance of getting police dogs recertified once a year, particularly to help protect their police agency from excessive force civil lawsuits.

Yet Doolittle failed to get certification for Viggo in 2012 and 2013, in violation of West Linn police policy and standards set by the Oregon Police Canine Handlers Association. He also didn’t tell West Linn police of his failure to certify his dog.

All the while, though, Doolittle collected a monthly premium as West Linn’s sole dog handler, accruing a total of $8,105.85, or 5 percent, above his base pay over those two years. The money was to cover off-duty grooming, feeding and care of the dog.

Records from the investigation also show Doolittle used a city credit card for some of his personal grocery and alcohol purchases.

When asked if he felt he had any obligation to keep his police dog certified to defend his employer from possible lawsuits, Doolittle said “the thought had never crossed his mind,’’ the report says.

With his dog’s lapsed certification and little to no training, Doolittle essentially “became a well-paid handler of a department mascot or pet,’’ Stoelk wrote.

Resigned under settlement

Doolittle’s punishment?

Then-City Manager Chris Jordan suspended him without pay for 30 days.

In his disciplinary memo, Jordan cited Doolittle only for failing to have his dog recertified annually. He didn’t mention the sergeant’s inaccurate accounting of training hours or obvious lies and attempted cover-up.

Instead, Jordan wrote that in making his decision: “I have taken into consideration the lack of any other prior disciplinary action against you during your service with the West Linn Police Department.’’

The city allowed Doolittle, after 11 years with West Linn police, to resign at the end of his suspension.

“I want to thank the City of West Linn for the opportunities it has given me during my time here and if there is anything I can do to make this transition easier, please let me now,’’ Doolittle, then 49, wrote to the police chief in summer 2014.

Timeus sent a one-page personnel action form to the state Department of Public Safety Standards & Training. He checked a box, noting that Doolittle resigned under a settlement agreement on July 20, 2014. He didn’t check any of the other boxes: resignation during investigation; resignation in lieu of termination; or other.

The next month, the state certification agency sent Timeus and West Linn’s human resources manager a letter, requesting any investigation or other reports that led up to Doolittle’s resignation.

The city alerted Doolittle and his lawyer.

In an Aug. 22, 2014, letter to the state agency, Doolittle’s lawyer, Bletko, a former Washington County prosecutor, objected to the request for “the underlying investigation that led to the officer’s resignation.’’

“Mr. Doolittle resigned for reasons other than an investigation; I am not at liberty to disclose the reasons for this resignation,’’ Bletko wrote. “The only investigation ever conducted regarding Mr. Doolittle’s performance at the West Linn Police Department was resolved prior to his resignation.’’

Doolittle’s attorney argued that the formal “personnel action report’’ that Timeus submitted to the state agency indicated Doolittle wasn’t discharged for cause and didn’t resign in lieu of termination or during an investigation.

But the Department of Public Safety Standards & Training persisted, citing state law that gives it authority to seek personnel records.

“Since Mr. Doolittle entered into a Settlement Agreement subsequent to an internal investigation, then it is highly likely there is a nexus between the two events, and it is our obligation to learn the nature of the conduct that led to that internal investigation and resignation,’’ Leon Colas, an investigator for the state agency, wrote on Sept. 10, 2014.

West Linn’s human resources manager Elissa Preston turned over Stoelk’s investigative report on Doolittle five days later.

The state agency’s professional standards staff found evidence that Doolittle was dishonest, engaged in gross misconduct and abused his authority, records show.

By Nov. 19, 2014, Colas notified Doolittle that the certification agency’s Police Policy Committee would review whether he still met the minimum standards to maintain his police certification.

But the state agency offered Doolittle a way to escape public scrutiny.

“The police policy committee meetings and the subsequent Board meeting are public meetings, and all of the information in your case file is available to the public at that time,’’ Colas wrote. “If you wish to avoid that, you can sign a Stipulated Order, which I have provided, to relinquish your certifications. This will end all of this and keep your case from going to the Committee and Board. You will notice that the reason for your resignation is not mentioned in the Stipulated Order.’’

On Dec. 3, 2014, Doolittle and Eriks Gabliks, the director of the Department of Public Safety Standards & Training, signed the agreement. It said simply that Doolittle wished to voluntarily give up his police basic and supervisory certifications.

No reason was given.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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