On Monday, May 15, Jeffrey Keniston was sworn in as an officer with the Aumsville Police Department.
“He is a lateral officer that comes with 24 years of law enforcement experience,” a Facebook post shared by the agency says. “Welcome aboard Officer Keniston. We are almost fully staffed again …”
Misconduct allegations
In December 2022, the Salem Police Department terminated Keniston, who was a sergeant at the time. He’d been with the agency for more than 18 years.
Keniston, the Salem Police Department, and Oregon’s Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST), which certifies law enforcement officers and investigates alleged misconduct, have not said why Keniston was fired.
On March 1, Rebecca Hannon, a file maintenance specialist for the DPSST, sent me an “F4s” document confirming Keniston’s termination. It was not announced publicly. I emailed Hannon about it after receiving an anonymous tip.
In the document Salem Police Department Sgt. Jeff Wiedemann indicates that Keniston’s separation was the result of, even in part, an active or pending investigation into misconduct allegations. Wiedemann also notes that the separation was not the result of a settlement agreement.
Keniston Personnel Action S… by jmdglss
Professional standards review
After Keniston was terminated in December, the DPSST launched a professional standards review, also known as a professional standards case.
Hannon described it as “an internal process to DPSST, where we look at the alleged conduct that led to the separation, to determine if the officer has fallen below the minimum standards to hold certification.”
That review is still underway.
After I asked Hannon about the process and Keniston’s hiring by the Aumsville Police Department, she sent me a statement from a colleague in her agency’s criminal justice program which says in part:
When DPSST has an open professional standards case, no action has been taken against certification until a final order has been issued. If they are certified, their certification will remain in good standing during DPSST’s review. …
If we have a deferred professional standards case for an officer that is no longer employed and did not complete all the steps to obtain certification, the only way for DPSST to review the case is for the officer to regain employment in a certified role – otherwise it remains deferred indefinitely. When the officer is rehired, the professional standards case will be reactivated, and we will review the information that was gathered at the time it was deferred.
Agencies can hire officers who have open professional standards case with the Department, some agencies may have policies that prevent them from doing this. This also applies to their ability to preform the full duties of an officer while under review. Because no action has been taken against certification by the Department, certification remains in good standing. Agencies may have different policies that prevent officers from preforming the full duties while under review by the Department. Any such restrictions on hiring an officer with an open professional standards case or restrictions on preforming the full duties of an officer would be standards set by individual agencies and are not ones required by DPSST. Agencies can have higher standards than those set by DPSST. DPSST’s are considered the minimum.
Statement sent by DPSST on May 30
Hannon later told me Keniston’s case was re-prioritized when he was hired by the Aumsville Police Department but she said the DPSST cannot move forward with it until the Salem Police Department provides records that investigators requested for the review.
After I emailed and called Aumsville’s police chief on Tuesday, he referred me to Ron Harding, the city administrator.
“We cannot comment on personnel matters; however, all our officers must maintain their DPSST certification,” Harding told me.
Keniston did not immediately respond to two emails and a social media message I sent Tuesday seeking comment. He has also not responded to numerous previous messages.
Angela Hedrick, a spokesperson for the Salem Police Department, acknowledged Keniston’s termination but regarding why it happened, his certifications, and his new position said, “We cannot comment further as the case is currently under review. We do not have a comment on the hiring of personnel by other agencies.”
Communications with Proud Boys supporter
Salem police and Keniston still haven’t explained a 2021 phone call and text messages between him and Magen Marie Stevens, a Proud Boys supporter with a violent criminal record.
Since May 2021 the police department has charged me nearly $900 for multiple public records requests seeking all communication records between certain officers and far-right activists.
The agency released seven months of records after a legal challenge. Still, it declined to use Verizon’s Privacy Dashboard, a service that allows clients to request a year’s worth of call records at no additional charge.
In October 2021, Amy Queen, who was at the time a prosecutor for the Marion County District Attorney’s Office, denied an informal petition I filed to compel the police department to release records it said were exempt from public records law.
Queen, who is now a circuit court judge, failed to disclose that she’s married to a Salem police officer. Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson also did not reveal that her husband was a Salem officer before he left for another job earlier in 2021.
After numerous delays, the last fee the city charged me was $261.90 to review “possibly responsive records,” which I paid on Dec. 2, 2021.
I have not received any records since.
In July of last year, I published an article regarding my findings and efforts to obtain information. More than three weeks later, the city sent me a message about my outstanding requests saying in part:
To the extent there are public records responsive to your request, they are exempt from disclosure pursuant to ORS 192.345 (3) Investigatory information compiled for criminal law purposes, ORS 192.355 (2)(a) Information of a personal nature such as but not limited to that kept in a personal, medical or similar file and ORS 192.355 (4) Information submitted to a public body in confidence and not otherwise required by law to be submitted.Message city of Salem sent on Aug. 2, 2022
Keniston started his career as an officer at the Stayton Police Department in 1998. He then became a Salem officer in 2004.
On April 1, 2022, Hannon told me, “I didn’t see any indication of past or current professional standards matters involving Keniston in his file.”
I could find no criminal records for Keniston in Oregon.
For more on this story, which I’ve covered extensively, click here.
