FARGO, ND – The Cass County Sheriff is speaking out after it was revealed Wednesday that Fargo Police were not notified of a serious assault until sometime on Tuesday.
The assault took place in the 300 block of Broadway during the early morning hours of Sunday, near the same time that two people were shot and killed as a part of two other separate incidents. Authorities said Wednesday that the two shootings and the assault were not connected to each other.
Cass County Sheriff’s Office Captain Tim Briggeman participated in a press conference Wednesday in place of Sheriff Jesse Jahner, who was on a family vacation.
He said his department had two officers respond to the call about the assault, assisting fire and EMS with the victim, who had become uncooperative during the course of the incident.
“We’re always going to respond because we want to make sure that our first responders are safe, that the victim is safe and that anyone in that area is safe,” Jahner said Wednesday night in a phone interview with Flag Family News.
Investigation into breakdown of communication
Jahner said that he arrived back from the vacation early to look into the incident.
He met with his leadership team and reviewed video footage from the body-worn cameras, along with reviewing dispatch communications, all to ‘get a full scope of what happened.’
He said he has reached conclusions about the breakdown in communication.
“Number one, this was a chaotic night with a lot of calls for service,” Jahner said.
He said there appears to have been ‘some communication issues’ on calls for service that had ‘maybe been responded to prior to the incident occurring.’
“There seemed to be some confusion from our deputies on whether Fargo had initially responded this case or not,” Jahner said. “But that’s no excuse for anything. We always want to make sure that we’re thorough and following up on things.”
Moving forward
Jahner said that the breakdown in communication ‘is a situation that we can learn from and get better.’
He said the next step is meeting with Fargo Police Chief David Zibolski and West Fargo Police Chief Pete Nielsen ‘to make sure they’re on the same page’ regarding any changes and how best to move forward.
Jahner says it’s the goal of his office is to learn from these types of situations and ‘then move to get better.’
“We’re constantly conducting evaluations to make sure that we can serve our community to the best of our ability,” he said. “So we’ll continue to do that.”
Jahner provides update on conversation with victim’s family
Jahner said he spoke with the victim’s brother on Wednesday evening.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the brother, as hopefully he can make a recovery from this incident and that we can get justice for him through the investigative process,” he said.
The sheriff says the victim’s brother expressed some frustration.
“Rightfully so. What if it was my brother,” Jahner said. “So we don’t want that to happen in the future to anyone.”
