Desert Hot Springs Police Chief placed on administrative leave
Desert Hot Springs Police Chief Dale Mondary has been placed on paid administrative leave while the city conducts an investigation into ‘confidential allegations’ according to Doria Wilms, Public Information Officer and Assistant to the City Manager for Desert Hot Springs.
This announcement comes just hours after News Channel 3 started asking questions relating to sexually suggestive communications on social media, allegedly made by Chief Mondary.
Deputy Chief Jim Henson will serve as the Interim Chief of Police while the investigation is conducted.
Mondary became the Chief of DHPSD in June 2015
“That’s what these investigations allow us to do, is to look at situations as they come through,” Wilms told News Channel 3. “He’s on paid administrative leave. That doesn’t say one way or another what the outcome of the investigation is at this point. We’re just looking at the allegations determining what is true what is false.”
There currently is no timeline for the investigation.
News Channel 3 reached out to Chief this Monday in regard to the allegations and he provided no comment.
People in the community are expressing mixed emotions.
“It is disappointing, it really is, because the city is putting their trust in you and you’re doing this,” said Larry Clark of Desert Hot Springs.
Meanwhile, some people beleive it’s the Chief’s personal matters that should be private. “I don’t think it should be anyones business.”
The Desert Hot Springs Police Chief is not the only officer in his department under investigation.
Back in December of last year, News Channel 3 learned that an officer was on leave for what the city called “inappropriate conduct with a citizen.”
That officer, who we have chosen not to name, continues to be on leave pending the outcome of that investigation.
According to a city spokesperson — Chief Mondary was not overseeing that probe.
Read the messages below:
A source close to the woman in one of the text message threads says the woman asked the person believed to be Mondary to stop messaging her and when he didn’t, she felt she had no choice but to publicly expose the conversations.
