JEFF HARRELL, South Bend Tribune, South Bend Tribune (Indiana), Mich Edition

SOUTH BEND – Reasoning behind the city’s firing of the police communications director flies in the face of employees’ rights stipulated in the South Bend Police Department’s duty manual.

Under Section IV titled “Employee Rights,” the Police Department’s duty manual reads:

“Employees do not have a right to privacy for assigned equipment. The Department may enter and inspect any assigned equipment.”

“It is the policy of the city not to comment on personnel matters,” Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Thursday night through the city’s director of communications, Debra Johnson.

Karen DePaepe admitted to being “devastated” last week when she was fired over tapes she uncovered “accidentally” in February last year while overseeing the Police Department’s Emergency Communications Center.

The tapes reportedly contained recorded phone conversations of police officers targeting ousted Police Chief Darryl Boykins with racial slurs.

According to the duty manual, which is issued by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, it was in DePaepe’s job description to “… check and maintain any and all equipment” in the department’s Emergency Communications Center.

“Must be familiar with the entire operation and function of the Record Bureau Operations, Information Desk Operations, Data Operations, Tape Recording Equipment,” the duty manual noted, among other duties.

Boykins was demoted to captain in light of a federal investigation into the recording of phone conversations at the department.

DePaepe, a 25-year veteran of the department who spent the past 14 years as its Emergency Communications Center director, was fired.

DePaepe said she was also “threatened” with arrest if she spoke up about the investigation.

Last week the city released a heavily redacted, one-sentence reason for DePaepe’s termination on its formal Employee Disciplinary Notice.

“Conduct unbecoming of a public employee,” the notice stated.

On Wednesday, eight days after she was fired, DePaepe and her attorney, Scott Duerring, attended her exit interview with the city’s director of human resources, who provided an addendum to DePaepe’s Employee Disciplinary Notice.

“Dates and times of incidents occurred prior to the US Department of Justice’s delivery of a federal investigative subpoena to the South Bend Police Department in January 2012,” the attachment stated.

“The investigation concerned suspected felony violations of the Federal Eavesdropping and Wiretap Statute and the city became informed of practices contrary to the policy in late March 2012.”

On Thursday, Duerring told WSBT reporter Kelli Stopczynski he was upset over waiting for the city to release DePaepe’s personnel record and discipline notice after both had requested the information in writing.

“It was absolutely ridiculous that they couldn’t give us the file they had, and they couldn’t explain why they couldn’t give us the file, and they wouldn’t direct us to anybody who could tell us why they couldn’t give us the file,” Duerring said.

The small stack of documents Duerring finally received included a notice with the attached addendum that appeared different from the copy released last week by the city’s legal department.

Reached by phone Thursday night, DePaepe declined comment.

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