The Officer Humiliated a Black Man by Pushing Him Into the Mud, Unaware the Man Was in Charge of His Department

All three settled quietly. Taxpayer money. Sealed under non-disclosure agreements so tight the plaintiffs couldn’t even say his name in public. The department didn’t just fail to stop Swanson. They protected him.

They funded his settlements. They cleared his complaints. They looked the other way for 18 years and let him do whatever he wanted on roads like Route 12. And somebody had to sign off on all of that. Sheriff Glenn Adler was subpoenaed on a Wednesday.

He arrived at the federal courthouse in a navy suit looking like a man heading to his own funeral. His lawyer sat beside him. The lawyer looked worse. Under oath, Adler tried to distance himself, called Swanson autonomous, called the complaints personnel matters handled at the supervisory level. Said he trusted his chain of command to manage day-to-day discipline.

Then the prosecutors produced the emails. 46 emails over 12 years. Emails where Adler personally reviewed Swanson’s complaint files. Emails where he approved the language used to dismiss those complaints. Emails where he signed off on the non-disclosure agreements.

Emails where he authorized the settlement payments, $340,000 in total, all from county funds. He knew. He always knew. And now there was a paper trail that proved it. Adler resigned the following Friday.

No press conference, no statement. One paragraph letter delivered to the county board at 7:00 a. M. Effective immediately. By noon, the governor had appointed an interim sheriff, a retired state police commander with no ties to the department.

Three other deputies were suspended pending their own investigations. Officers who had ridden with Swanson. Officers who witnessed similar stops and said nothing. Officers who filed reports that matched Swanson’s lies word for word. The county board held an emergency session.

The vote was unanimous. Ridgemont County would accept a federal consent decree placing the entire department under federal oversight for a minimum of 5 years. And the body overseeing that compliance? The National Commission on Law Enforcement Oversight chaired by General Isaac Harper. The man whose face Swanson shoved into the mud was now the man his department answered to.

The irony wasn’t poetic. It was surgical. 4 months later, the trial began. Swanson was indicted on federal civil rights charges under 18 U. S.