Cedar Rapids police chief responds to summer incidents

Saying he welcomes the criticism, Cedar Rapids Police Chief Greg Graham addressed a summer that, at times, cast his department in a bad light.

Three major incidents, starting in May, put the police department in a position where people in town were chattering about more than arrests and investigations.

• In early May, a photograph surfaced at Eastern Iowa media outlets, including KCRG-TV9 and The Gazette, showing a police officer asleep in a squad car.  After days of relative silence from police, department leaders admitted the photo was authentic and the officer was being disciplined.
• In late June, Cedar Rapids police said veteran officer Wayne Handeland had left the department after 21 years.  An investigation centered on how Handeland's squad car ended up at the VIP Lounge in Marion on May 5.
• In late July, Officer Robyn Obadal, 36, was arrested on suspicion of third-degree burglary, on accusations of taking two dogs from a vacant house in the Time Check neighborhood.

"It's been embarrassing, clearly," Graham said. "We make mistakes. I make mistakes. I don't expect anything different from the officers I expect from my kids."

On holding officers to the standard: "If I've got somebody doing something wrong, I've got to hold them accountable and see if they want to be police officers."

On the level of the incidents: "They shouldn't happen but (our officers) are not brutalizing people, no false arrests and not planting evidence."

On the public eye: "We tell them all the time, in the daily meetings with officers before they go out that they are certainly now in the public eye. I live by this.  I live like I've got a video camera on me 24 hours a day.  I try not to say anything I wouldn't say to my mom."

On public perception: "I welcome the criticism.  The thing I would hope is people would give me the opportunity to straighten what's going on before it gets blown out of proportion."