ormer Wahoo Police Chief Bruce Ferrell abruptly resigned in November after he was caught having sex with a Wahoo resident, two law enforcement officials say.
The way he was caught, according to the sources? His bodycam was recording.
Ferrell
Now Ferrell, who became Wahoo’s police chief after retiring from the Omaha Police Department, is under investigation by the Nebraska State Patrol, the sources said.
Asked a series of questions Friday — including why he resigned and whether he attempted to have the body camera footage deleted — Ferrell said: “I’m not gonna comment.” He gave the same response when asked if he had an attorney.
Ferrell abruptly resigned Nov. 11 without giving notice. In an interview less than a week later, he told the Lincoln Journal Star that it was “just time.”
“Nothing nefarious,” Ferrell told the Lincoln paper. “No smoke, no mirrors — nothing at all.”
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Turns out, there was a mirror, of sorts.
The bodycam footage showed Ferrell, partially clothed in his Wahoo police uniform, having sex with the woman who had called police about an estranged boyfriend, the sources told The World-Herald.
The patrol investigation is looking into whether the woman consented to the sexual activity or felt that she had the choice of whether she could consent. One of the sources said the woman has suggested that the sex with Ferrell was consensual.
Nebraska State Patrol spokesman Cody Thomas confirmed that an investigation of Ferrell is “ongoing” but declined to specify the nature of the investigation. He said results will be forwarded to Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson’s office to determine whether charges will be filed.
Other states have laws that make it illegal for an officer to have sex with a person while on duty, regardless of consent. The closest thing Nebraska has to such a law is a statute that makes it a felony for a jailer or prison guard to have sex with an inmate.
That prison ban and the other states’ bans on officers having sex while on duty operate under a simple principle: that a person may not think they have a choice of whether they can consent to an officer wearing a badge and/or a gun.
Nebraska prosecutors have charged officers before under normal first-degree sexual assault statutes. In a 2005 case, an Omaha police officer was convicted of first-degree sexual assault after he made a prostitute perform oral sex on him in his cruiser.
Absent a sexual assault charge in this case, Ferrell could face a felony charge of tampering with evidence, one of the sources said. A source alleged Ferrell deleted or attempted to delete the bodycam footage.
Authorities were able to preserve it. Under state law, any agency that has bodycams is required to keep the footage for at least 90 days.
Ferrell also is being investigated over his activity following up on the Wahoo woman’s claims that she was abused. A source said he hounded the man accused of the abuse.
Wahoo City Administrator Melissa Harrell declined to answer questions about the investigation into Ferrell, referring queries to the State Patrol. At the time of his resignation, she told the Journal Star that officials didn’t have any indication Ferrell planned to resign before he did so, effective the same day, Nov. 11. In fact, she said, the city didn’t receive his letter of resignation until the day after his departure due to the Veterans Day holiday.
The investigation into Ferrell is the second in a year involving a member of the Wahoo Police Department’s upper brass. Wahoo, a city of about 4,800 people 40 miles west of Omaha, has a police force of about half a dozen officers.
Last year, Sean Vilmont, 51, was charged with two felony counts of sexual assault by touching and one felony count of unlawful intrusion after allegations were made of ongoing abuse of a preteen girl. Vilmont has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a hearing.
Ferrell had promoted Vilmont to lieutenant in summer 2019.
Before Ferrell became police chief in Wahoo in February 2018, he worked for 23 years as an Omaha police officer. On the Omaha police force, he was one of the leading gang unit investigators and headed up national and regional coalitions of gang detectives. He later served as an investigator for Bellevue police and as a part-time officer in Valley.
Wahoo suspended its use of bodycams in January 2017 because then-Police Chief Ken Jackson said it was too expensive to meet the state’s requirements for storing the footage.
In May 2019, Ferrell went to the Wahoo City Council and “discussed re-implementing the use of body cameras by the department,” according to minutes of the meeting.
In turn, City Council members unanimously reinstated bodycams for Ferrell and each of his officers.
Wahoo police chief resigned after bodycam showed him having sex, sources say
Former Wahoo Police Chief Bruce Ferrell abruptly resigned in November after he was caught having sex with a Wahoo resident, two law enforcement officials say.
