liberalcreek
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Registered: Oct 2008
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On April 11, 2005, McCann filed for divorce from Wooten.
That day a judge granted a Domestic Violence Protection Order (DVPO) against Wooten.
The same day, McCann's father Chuck Heath phoned police to inform them about the DVPO.
Also that day, police spoke with McCann. She said Wooten had threatened to shoot her father if he hired an attorney to help in her divorce.
McCann said that although Wooten "has never physically abused her," he "acts very intimidating."
She also accused him of using illegal testosterone supplements, drunk driving, and threatening to "take down" Palin if she got involved.
McCann said she was "scared" of what Wooten "would do when he finds out she has hired an attorney."
On March 1, 2006, Wooten was notified of the results of the Alaska State Trooper internal investigation. The probe found that Wooten violated internal policy, but not the law, in making a death threat against Heath.
Wooten denied having made the threat, but the investigation decided that he had in fact done so.
The investigation concluded that the death threat was not a crime because Wooten did not threaten the father directly; therefore, the investigator deemed the threat to be a violation of trooper policy rather than a violation of criminal law.
Although the death threat was listed as a violation of trooper policy in the Memorandum of Findings issued on October 29, 2005, it was not mentioned at all in the suspension letter sent to Wooten by Col. Grimes on March 1, 2006.
Wooten was also found to have violated department policy in using a Taser on his then 11-year old stepson in 2003.
He told investigators that he did so "in a training capacity" after the child had asked to be tased.
In a September 2008 newspaper interview, Wooten said that he set the Taser to "test" mode, meaning that it was on low power.
In a statement to police, the boy said "he wanted to be tased to show that he's not a mommy's boy in front of Bristol [his cousin, Palin's daughter].
Following being tased he went upstairs to tell his mother that he was fine."
In a statement to police, Molly McCann said "she was up stairs giving a bath to the kids … Mike was going to show Payton what it feels like and she told Mike that he better not."
According to Molly's account, she remained upstairs during the incident.
Although the Taser incident happened in 2003, it was not reported to police until on or after April 11, 2005, the day McCann filed for divorce.
On June 6, 2005, a police investigator asked Bristol why they "waited so long and brought the incident up after two years." Bristol said "because of the divorce."
Based on the internal investigation findings, Grimes announced on March 1, 2006 that she would suspend Wooten for ten days. In announcing the suspension, Grimes referred to the Taser, moose and beer incidents, and also to seven other negative actions in Wooten's personnel file, such as failing to use turn signals. She concluded that "The record clearly indicates a serious and concentrated pattern of unacceptable and at times, illegal activity occurring over a lengthy period, which establishes a course of conduct totally at odds with the ethics of our profession".
After a union protest, the suspension was reduced to five days, and Wooten was warned by Grimes that he would be fired if he committed any further misconduct.
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10-10-2008 09:57 PM
