Logan Mayor weighs in on police investigation

LOGAN — There was a story this week involving former University of Utah police officer Miguel Deras who is now an employee of the Logan City Police Department.  In the report, originally from the Salt Lake Tribune, it listed possible gross misuse of evidence involving the case of murdered University of Utah student and track star Lauren McCluskey.

There are several investigations underway now, one involves POST, the Peace Officer Standards and Training committee. Also, the university is reopening a thorough investigation. There is also one that was announced by Logan City Police Chief Gary Jensen.

On KVNU’s monthly Speak to the Mayor program on Wednesday, Logan City Mayor Holly Daines said there is one thing to keep in mind when it comes to the reports.

You always have to realize there are always two sides to every story and that’s what we are trying to get to with the investigation. Actually, I think the POST investigations that you mentioned…initially we were going to do the investigation in-house. But then we got thinking, we could be seen as suspect, if it’s in-house. Is it really a thorough, unbiased investigation?” explained Mayor Daines.

So, she said that Chief Jensen actually requested that POST do the investigation.

“You’ve got an independent entity…that is their job with peace officers, to make sure they’re meeting standards and doing appropriate things. We are allowing due process to take its course, it will not be fast. We’re not going to have this back next week, they’ll take the time to do a thorough investigation. Once we get that information back then we will take whatever action is deemed appropriate.

Daines said people need time to go through that process. She indicated that Officer Deras has hired an attorney, who made some statements that he has a very different version of events. So they will try to sort that out and get to the bottom of it.

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