Grantsville officer being investigated in Oregon officer's 'racist' bodycam video

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A Grantsville police officer is under investigation for a call with ex-Eugene, Oregon police officer.
• The call involved Martin Siller using racist language caught on body camera video.
• Siller resigned from Eugene police; an independent investigation into his actions continues.

GRANTSVILLE — A Grantsville police officer is under investigation after it was discovered that he was on the phone with an officer from the Eugene, Oregon Police Department when that officer was recorded on his own body camera making alleged racist comments.

"Within the last 24 hours, the Grantsville Police Department has confirmed that a current officer with our department was involved in a conversation with former Eugene police officer Martin Siller. Following this confirmation, an internal investigation has been opened into the matter," the department said Tuesday.

That conversation resulted in Siller resigning from the Eugene Police Department, where he had worked for seven years. Before that, he worked for the West Valley City Police Department for 20 years. He went to work in Oregon after retiring from West Valley City.

Over the weekend, a video recorded by Siller's body camera was posted on social media showing Siller sitting in his patrol car and talking to someone on the phone. During the call, Siller uses racist language and talks about domestic violence incidents among other officers.

Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner says he was made aware of the video on Saturday. His office determined that Siller was on the phone with a former colleague in Utah when he made the call.

The video came to light because of a case that day in which arrests were made during protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Eugene federal building. As part of sharing evidence with defense attorneys, all body-camera video from the officers at the facility was handed over. The racist language appears to have been discovered by counsel reviewing the video.

"What was said in that video is unacceptable. It was wrong, disrespectful, and completely inconsistent with the values of the Eugene Police Department. There is no excuse for racist remarks from anyone who wears this badge," the chief said.

Skinner called it "dialogue of such deep, really hateful, racial and biased content" that he was "deeply, deeply concerned" upon seeing the video.

But before any action could be taken against Siller, "the officer came in, essentially put his gun, badge and (card) on the desk and walked out of the organization before we could really fully understand the depth of what we were dealing with. He self-selected out," the chief said.

Because of that video, the department reviewed additional body-camera footage from Siller from that day and found that earlier that day, while he was alone in his patrol car and listening to a podcast, he made additional concerning comments to himself.

"Clearly (he) holds deep-seated bias," Skinner said. "Officer Siller managed not only to offend a big portion of our community that day, but he also offended a big portion of this organization, too."

Although Eugene police will no longer be able to interview Siller because of his resignation, they say an independent investigation into his alleged actions will continue. During a press conference in Eugene, the police department said Siller would likely have been fired at the conclusion of their investigation.

Skinner said he is "pleased" that Siller is no longer with his organization.

"(My) focus right now is to make sure this guy is never a police officer again," the chief said. "With what I know now about the character of this individual, I don't want him wearing a uniform, and I don't care what state it's for."

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Pat Reavy

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Pat Reavy interned with KSL in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL or Deseret News since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.