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- A Pleasant View police officer resigned amid an investigation into charges he improperly accessed driver's license information of three Weber County dispatchers.
- Sgt. Eric Larson couldn't provide police officials with a proper rationale for checking the three licenses, said Pleasant View Police Chief Stetson Talbot.
- The case has been forwarded to the Utah Department of Public Safety for review.
PLEASANT VIEW, Weber County — A Pleasant View police officer resigned last week amid an internal probe into charges he inappropriately looked up the driver's license records of three dispatchers at Weber Area Dispatch 911.
Pleasant View Police Chief Stetson Talbot said his department completed an investigation into accusations that Sgt. Eric Larson inappropriately looked up the information of the three dispatchers, and he resigned from the force last week. Now the Pleasant View probe has been forwarded to the Utah Department of Public Safety's Division of Peace Officer Standards and Training for further review.
Police officers can look up driver's license information when it pertains to an investigation or other official duties, but Larson couldn't provide a proper rationale for allegedly looking up the information related to the dispatchers. Such action is a violation of Utah Bureau of Criminal Investigation guidelines and polices.
"That's the problem. He wasn't able to provide us with a criminal justice reason for running it," Talbot said Monday. "There was no criminal history. ... He simply just ran their driver's licenses, and that was it."
Kevin Rose, director of Weber Area Dispatch 911, which handles calls for emergency service in Weber and Morgan counties, said improperly accessing such information can potentially be criminal. He forwarded the initial complaint to the Pleasant View Police Department about Larson's alleged actions, which led to the probe. One of the alleged instances of inappropriately accessing driver's license information occurred on Aug. 7, and Rose said he reported the matter to Pleasant View officials on Dec. 4.
"We didn't find anything inappropriate outside of that," Rose said. Accessing the driver's license information was "the big concern and issue."
Larson had been with the Pleasant View Police Department for around a year and has 10-plus years in law enforcement, according to Talbot. Broadly speaking, he lauded Larson's performance. "He was in good standing, great cop, did a really good job for us," Talbot said.
With Larson's resignation, Talbot doesn't envision additional action on his end and said the issue is now in the hands of state Division of Peace Officer Standards and Training officials. Officials from the agency didn't immediately respond to a query seeking comment, but Talbot suspects they'll carry out their own investigation before determining next steps, if any.
