Dax Shane, the Democratic challenger for Summit County sheriff, acknowledged this week that he was fired as a Salt Lake City Police Department cadet about eight years ago after he cheated on several quizzes he needed to pass in order to become a regular officer.
The extraordinary admission comes amid a highly contentious campaign between Shane and Dave Edmunds, the Republican who is seeking re-election for a third term as sheriff. Shane’s acknowledgment, coming a month before Election Day, will almost certainly turn into one of the top-tier issues in the remaining weeks of the campaign, which thus far has focused on topics like the operations of the Sheriff’s Office rather than the character of the two candidates.
Shane was quickly rehired by the Salt Lake City Police Department. But during the scandal he said his supervisors determined that he and other recruits had improperly taken quizzes together at the in-house police academy.
“There were daily quizzes that were given and during those daily quizzes our instructors were in the classes with us. It came to a point that we started asking the instructors questions, and they would answer those questions. Somebody got upset and accused us all of cheating,” Shane said in a telephone interview. “So there were five of us out of the whole class who said, yeah, we went in and we did cheat. We did ask instructors questions, they did give us the answers and we did talk amongst ourselves in the quizzes. But we thought that was OK.”
Shane said investigators apparently found enough troubling evidence that he was eventually fired.
“The captain ended up terminating us. He said, ‘OK, That’s it. You guys are all fired for cheating,'” Shane explained. “I was cheating in the in-house academy was what they said.”
Shane serves today as an officer in the Salt Lake City Police Department. The date of his original hiring was Aug. 22, 2002.
“They basically said the whole class was doing it,” Shane said. “They realized that the staff or the instructors were allowing it to go on. The instructors allowed me to do that.”
Shane said he could not recall how many times he had cheated on quizzes at the academy.
“It wasn’t very many. It was probably maybe four or five,” Shane said. “I’m not sure to be honest with you.”
He said the quizzes tested them about the policies used by the Salt Lake City government.
Salt Lake City Police Department brass does not tolerate cheating at the police academy, said Detective Rick Wall, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City Police Department.
“Police officers are held to a much higher standard than the people in regular civilian life or corporate America. I think they have to be because we’re trusted with public safety and all the responsibilities that we have,” Wall said in a telephone interview. “With the situations that we run up against, we could be faced with a myriad of things and if a person is dishonest, one thing leads to another.”
Describing the Salt Lake City police academy, Wall said “it’s probably one of the most stressful things that you’ll do in our department.”
“Just because it’s new, it’s different, it’s getting your foot in the law-enforcement door and it’s extremely important,” Wall said. “You need to pass [the quizzes] or you’re not here anymore.”
The admission comes as Shane campaigns aggressively to unseat Edmunds. Shane said he expected voters to find out about his cheating before the election next month.
“It was not the best thing to do It’s not something I’m proud of,” Shane said. “I’m not hiding anything. I’m not perfect and I have made mistakes in the past. I have also paid my dues for it and moved on.”
Shane said cheating on the quizzes has “never prevented me from testifying as a witness on the stand.”
“I have never lied in any situation. I have always been completely honest,” he said.
Still, Edmunds said some officers whose credibility is questioned cannot function effectively on the job. The sheriff said he learned about the Shane situation when contacted by a reporter this week.
“In this profession your testimony can lead to a conviction and I have been in court numerous times when just simply the testimony given by a peace officer was able to obtain a conviction on someone suspected of a criminal act,” Edmunds said in a telephone interview Thursday. “It’s critical that we function above reproach and that we maintain our morals and standards to a level that would be commensurate with the responsibilities that we have been given.”
According to Edmunds, “veracity issues for a peace officer are certainly germane to a sheriff election.”
“That’s the nature of this business. You really only have one opportunity to represent yourself as someone above reproach,” Edmunds said. “It will be up to the voters how much weight they want to put into something like this.”