On June 11, someone sent an email to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office newsletter email list. The message contained a reference to an incident at the jail in 2018, along with a video clip. At the bottom of the email is a message saying, “Washington County Sheriff’s Office” LOL, right, ok, like u actually believe it. Any actual cop would never speak truth to power like this. This is obviously a parody.”

The officer involved in the depicted incident, Rian Alden, has since been charged with felony assault, and the county settled out of court with Albert Molina, the man who was assaulted. 

The email hack is currently under investigation, so very little information is available. At a recent advisory committee meeting, the Sheriff reported that its communication platform, Constant Contact, confirmed that no email addresses were stolen in the hack. Evidently the hackers accessed the addresses through a blind process in which they could email out en masse, but had no ability to access individual email addresses.

No word on the identity of the hackers except a link to a Twitter account that has been closed, and the “reply-to” email “racistcopspdx@gmail.com.” Sheriff Pat Garrett has published a statement on the home page of the department addressing recent events and the WCSO commitment to improve.

Visit the News page of the WCSO site to sign up for the real version of the newsletter!