Bad Leadership: One Bad Decision Leads to More Bad Decisions.

           We are all familiar with the Nate Lamar situation over the last month.  To recap, Nate Lamar was brought in as Chief of Police by Anita Werling at Kamron Yates' request to lead his department. Lamar was allowed to work three or four days in his position prior to resigning.  The mayor did nothing.  Lamar should have been fired five minutes after this became public.  After all, he lied in court. The chief works at the pleasure of the mayor.  That person can be hired and fired by the sitting mayor, in other words.  Don't let anyone tell you any different.  If a mayor tells you that they cannot fire or hire a chief of police they are either massively incompetent and don't know their job or they are a flat out liar.  Either one shows a lack of integrity.  

     After Yates appointed Lamar to continue as the chief of police some openings occurred in the department with officers leaving for whatever reason.  One couldn't take Lamar's 'leadership' style, another one was ironically fired, and others left.  This opened the door for him to bring in officers that he was familiar with to hire.  

     One of the officers is Adam R. Hobson who lives in Lafayette.  He graduated in the 231st. class of the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy.  His final day at the academy was December 15, 2023.  He was sworn in by Mayor Yates as a Delphi officer on or before May 06, 2024.  The ceremony was photographed in the city building at a Board of Works and Public Safety meeting with all three board members present according to the minutes.  Those members consist of Mayor Yates, Spencer Kingery, and Breanna Maxwell.  There was little commentary on the Facebook post, but the public was promised a biography from Hobson to be posted soon.  I've never seen one posted.  It should be noted that he was sent to the academy from the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Department.  Looking at the math, he didn't last five months at Tippecanoe County.  What happened for him to leave?  That is a very unusually small amount of time.  Sources tell me that it was something internal that made him leave, but wasn't disciplinary.  Either way, why was he the top candidate for hiring to serve and protect our city?  Especially when you couple that with him having a criminal record.  

     Now granted, that criminal record dates back to 2006 and 2008, but a criminal record nonetheless.  There are three criminal charges found with his date of birth and name.  Two in 2006 and one in 2008.  The two in 2006 were one case where he was charged with four counts of criminal mischief and the second one was transporting alcohol illegally.  The second case was dismissed after he pled guilty to one count of criminal mischief.  The other three counts were dismissed due to the plea agreement.  He served time in jail and it appears he was charged with maybe three probation violations each resulting in warrants for his arrest.  The case in 2008 in which he pled guilty, was criminal conversion.  What is conversion?  Theft, as in shoplifting.  His jail time in this case was suspended to probation.  There are two other entries under his name and date of birth.  One is an infraction and the other is him getting sued by a credit company which, to his credit, he paid off.  

     The last man to be hired was Randall M. Martin, also from the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Department.  Martin was sworn in by Mayor Yates on or about September 03, 2024 with photos and not much information on the department's Facebook page.  The ceremony was photographed in the city building at a Board of Works and Public Safety meeting.  There was little commentary on the post.  Board members present were Yates and Kingery.  Maxwell was absent.  

     Martin graduated in class #186 on December 31, 2009 from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy. I checked all of the graduating plaques from class number 131, December 16, 1997 forward and there is only one Randall N. Martin listed as a graduate through all those years.  He worked for the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Department post graduation and worked himself up to be a lieutenant in the department.  That all came to an end in 2020 when he resigned after a traffic stop on Sagamore Parkway where he not only pepper sprayed a couple but also tazed them in a McDonald's parking lot.  I'm not going to get into the facts of the confrontation because at this point it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that Lt. Martin submitted a report on the incident to his department and the prosecutor, Patrick Harrington.  Something didn't sit well with someone and they decided to review the bodycam footage.  (Sound familiar?  At least he didn't shut his off for five minutes.)  After that review, they found that the footage and the report did not match at all.  When the dust settled Martin was placed on the Brady-Giglio list in Tippecanoe County by Harrington and he was brought up on charges in his department.  Like Lamar, Martin quit just prior to his hearing and left law enforcement.  That should have been the end of his career, however, Lamar, Yates, and the Board of Works and Public Safety brought him to Delphi and hired him to be an officer here for Delphi.  There is a link down below explains what Brady-Giglio is.

     There you have the last two hires of Lamar, Yates, and the Board of Works and Public Safety.  Should they have been hired?  Not in my opinion.  Criminal records are somewhat overlooked in the hiring process anymore.  It depends on what the crime(s) were and when they were committed.  Are they crimes of danger and such or kid stuff?  Any crimes need to be looked at for an applicant and judged by those standards.  Hobson's last criminal violation was in 2008 and it appears that it didn't bother Tippecanoe County.  I just have a problem with it being overlooked here.  I don't care what Tippecanoe County does.  I care about Delphi and want us to hire the best.  Our citizens' safety should be first and foremost. We already, like it or not, have people talking about our city and county and our issues and not in a very good light.  This is why Yates should have never appointed Lamar after Werling granted Yates' request to hire him. In my opinion neither of these two officers were the best we could hire.  

     So why wasn't there a safety net to keep at least Martin and Lamar from being hired?  Hobson may be a judgment call, but the other two?  Lamar has a checkered past in the Lafayette City Police and obviously has integrity issues in my opinion.  As stated, the chief of police works at the pleasure of the mayor.  He hires and fires.  Remember, Werling fired McCain.  That is their right to do that.  So when the then new mayor Yates took over on January 01, 2024 it was his call to either keep or let Lamar go.  He kept him knowing all of Lamar's past.  Did Werling know Lamar's past?  She was called from the press and asked from the ratingsleo.com website.  She knew, but complied with Yates' request so he could properly thank him for helping him get elected.

     But does this fall entirely on Werling and Yates?  Well, it's hard to say.  When I was an officer, hirings had to be approved by the Board of Works and Public Safety.  Does that requirement still hold true?  I researched that and I can't figure it out.  The minutes, created statutorily by Clerk/Treasurer Julie Price, only indicate that Yates swore in Hobson and Martin with no mention of a vote by the board. Was there a vote?  It's hard to believe another officer, Spencer Kingery, would have at least voted on Martin.  Did he and Maxwell get the information on Martin's current standing?  Did they do any research at all, i.e. due diligence?  Were they not told about it?  Was there a vote of the whole board and it was never recorded?  Was there a meeting that didn't comply with legal standards and the vote took place in that meeting?  Was this a secret between Yates and Lamar?  Surely Yates knew, after all, this is his responsibility.  The safety of the city could be on the line.  Integrity matters.  The world is watching.  If you don't believe me, do a little research when Lamar was exposed.  It indeed went around the world due to the podcasters.  We are being laughed at yet again.  

     Our safety and culture are on the line with these hires.  So are our tax dollars.  We should have hired the best and the brightest.  After all, both mayors and the council told the citizens that all we had to do was provide additional benefits, such as take home cars among other things and we would have great candidates applying.  Or was this done to help compensate Lamar's friends to come here from Lafayette?  How many court cases have been already been dismissed that had charges from Lamar?  I'll bet several.  Wasted tax dollars and more to come because of Martin's cases coming to court, probably.  What is our leadership doing?  Why hasn't Yates stepped out and talked to the community?  Why did he remove his Facebook contact information?  Why is he hiding? I wonder if Yates and Lamar are more deeply connected then what we suspect.  There has been no public address by the mayor about this topic.  This is bad leadership and there shouldn't be any excuses.  We deserve better. 

Lamar:

https://www.wishtv.com/news/new-request-in-case-against-lafayette-2-lpd-officers/

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03342/pdf/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03342-0.pdf

https://www.leoratings.com/index.php?title=Nathan_LaMar

How We Got Here:

https://sewardforcarrollcounty.blogspot.com/2025/01/how-we-got-here.html

Brady-Giglio:

https://sewardforcarrollcounty.blogspot.com/2025/01/brady-giglio-what-you-need-to-know.html

Meetings: 

https://www.cityofdelphi.org/document-library/board-of-works-minutes/2024/1387-may-6-2024-bow-meeting/file

https://www.cityofdelphi.org/document-library/board-of-works-minutes/2024/1439-september-3-2024-bow-meeting/file

Adam Ross Hobson:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=993952586106546&set=a.879924824175990

https://public.courts.in.gov/mycase/#/vw/SearchResults/eyJ2Ijp7Ik1vZGUiOiJCeVBhcnR5IiwiQ2FzZU51bSI6bnVsbCwiQ2l0ZU51bSI6bnVsbCwiQ3Jvc3NSZWZOdW0iOm51bGwsIkZpcnN0IjoiYWRhbSIsIk1pZGRsZSI6bnVsbCwiTGFzdCI6ImhvYnNvbiIsIkJ1c2luZXNzIjpudWxsLCJEb0JTdGFydCI6IjAxLzE4LzE5ODgiLCJEb0JFbmQiOm51bGwsIk9BTnVtIjpudWxsLCJCYXJOdW0iOm51bGwsIlNvdW5kRXgiOmZhbHNlLCJDb3VydEl0ZW1JRCI6OTIsIkNhdGVnb3JpZXMiOm51bGwsIkxpbWl0cyI6bnVsbCwiQWR2YW5jZWQiOmZhbHNlLCJBY3RpdmVGbGFnIjoiQWxsIiwiRmlsZVN0YXJ0IjpudWxsLCJGaWxlRW5kIjpudWxsLCJDb3VudHlDb2RlIjpudWxsfX0=

Randall N. Martin:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=993280289507109&set=a.879924824175990

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p-94DOLA4I

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/indiana/inndce/2:2022cv00226/111880/48/

https://www.purdueexponent.org/city_state/former-deputy-sues-tippecanoe-sheriff-prosecutor/article_303098a6-18b3-11ed-abd4-8b1fde40ead6.html

https://terrehautevice.com/2023/06/13/decorated-officer-sues-tippecanoe-county-sheriff-prosecutors-and-commissioners-in-federal-court/

https://terrehautevice.com/2023/06/13/decorated-officer-sues-tippecanoe-county-sheriff-prosecutors-and-commissioners-in-federal-court/