Ferndale Police officer placed on leave after allegedly contacting extremist group
A Ferndale Police Officer was placed on leave this week after he allegedly contacted a far-right extremist group roughly a month after members of the group were involved in the deadly U.S. Capitol insurrection in January.
Michael Scott Langton was placed on paid administrative leave Oct. 4 while the city and police department investigate the claims first reported by Buzzfeed News, according to Riley Sweeney, a Ferndale Police Department spokesperson.
The city has also started an internal affairs investigation into the incident, Sweeney said in emailed responses to The Bellingham Herald this week.
On Feb. 4, someone identifying themself as Scott Langton sent an email to the Oath Keepers’ Washington state email address allegedly looking for information about the group.
“To whom it may concern, I’m a current WA State Police Officer looking for information. I’m not looking to be on some Liberal hit list. Whatcom County WA.,” the email reads.
The emails were obtained by McClatchy after an anonymous hacker gathered data from the Oath Keepers and released it to the transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets, which posted much of the data publicly online.
Langton did not respond to a request for comment for this story. The Ferndale Police Guild, which represents Langton, also did not respond.
The Oath Keepers are a far-right paramilitary group consisting of former or current members of the U.S. armed forces and law enforcement. The group’s anti-government extremist beliefs and ideology encourage its members to disobey orders that they believe violate the U.S. Constitution.
Oath Keepers’ members traffic in unfounded conspiracy theories linked to white supremacist tenets, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.
More than a dozen members are facing charges in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
“The City received information that one of our police officers had allegedly sent an inquiring email to a group called the Oath Keepers. Due to the nature of this group, the City has placed the officer on administrative leave pending a full internal investigation,” a statement from the city provided by Sweeney said. “We take all complaints and accusations very seriously and a thorough investigation will be conducted into this matter. The City will not comment further on this matter until the investigation has been completed.”
Langton was hired by the Ferndale Police Department Aug. 30, 2012, according to departmental records provided to The Herald by Sweeney. Prior to that, he was employed by the Blaine Police Department.
In the last decade, Langton has been sued twice for allegedly violating people’s civil rights while doing his job, according to federal court records.
Langton was first sued in September 2013 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle for an incident that allegedly occurred in June 2011 while he was a Blaine police officer.
A Whatcom County man alleged that Langton used excessive force while arresting him without probable cause after a dispute between neighbors, court records show.
The case was dismissed and settled out of court in December 2014.
Blaine police did not respond to questions from The Herald asking how long Langton had been employed with the department, whether he was the subject of other complaints or under what terms he left the department.
Langton was also sued in Whatcom County Superior Court in August 2020 for allegedly stopping a woman for a traffic offense but with the alleged goal of investigating her for other drug crimes.
The lawsuit claims Langton purposely delayed citing the woman for a traffic offense so a police dog could search the woman’s car, the court records state.
The case was moved out of Whatcom County Superior Court and into federal court in September of 2020.
Records show the case is still pending.
“I hear over and over again that we don’t have ‘those kinds of problems’ in Ferndale. Now, reflecting on my conversations pushing for anti-racism training at the City, I’m not shocked to read that allegedly one of our own Ferndale police officers reached out to the Oath Keepers for information after the January 6th riots. But I am deeply disturbed — and further so by the civil rights violations complaints made against him. I expect nothing less than a full investigation because I have a lot of questions right now,” Kate Bishop, a Ferndale City Council member posted on her Facebook page last weekend.
Bishop is running for re-election.
It does not appear that any other Ferndale council members made public statements regarding Langton’s alleged inquiry.
This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 5:45 PM.
