The chief of the Victoria Police Department is apologizing for inappropriate private messages on Twitter to the wife of a subordinate officer.
“I sincerely…take full responsibility. I’m really sorry. It was really stupid, and I wish I could take it back,” said Frank Elsner.
“I had been part of some inappropriate direct messages tweets that were of a personal nature, that I sincerely regret that now. It was a momentarily lapse of judgment, and it’ll never happen again.”
Elsner, who has been Chief Constable of the Victoria Police Department since 2014, had his conduct reviewed by the Police Board in an internal investigation overseen by an outside lawyer.
Police Board co-chair Barb Desjardins said that while the report confirmed “there was inappropriate use of social media”, Elsner was cleared last week.
“There are two families that are very affected by this, and obviously very beaten up. I think we need to be able to deal with this and move on,” she said.
Elsner said the direct messages on Twitter were exchanged earlier this year with the woman, who is also an officer in a nearby jurisdiction, but emphasized there had been no physical relationship.
“I was the one that stopped this before there was any allegation,” he said.
“I did this on my own, I brought this to my wife’s attention. This was a personal matter, and it was not one that affected my employment.”
Desjardins couldn’t say what prompted the investigation, and was disappointed that it had become public.
“This is a very difficult time for the force. This is a confidential matter, and the fact it is not confidential is disappointing. The chief is the chief, and I’m sure we’ll try to pull together in the coming weeks.”
Global News first became aware of allegations that Elsner had engaged in inappropriate conduct on December 3. But the next day – hours after the investigation had concluded – Desjardins evaded questions about the investigation.
“There is no complaint, so again, we have iterated to you we are very confident in our chief,” she said.
“There is no investigation at this time…we have complete confidence in our chief, we are appreciative of the work being done, and we look forward to continuing that work.”
Forty-eight hours later, Desjardins explained her previous comments by clarifying that no formal complaint had been made.
“In all sincerity, we felt that the concern that was brought forward, the response that we made, the report that we received, and the action we took, and the response of the board ultimately all of that, should have been enough,” she said.
“I’m hopeful the community can understand the confidential nature of things, and recognize that it has been dealt with.”
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