Joseph Krejsa, Obstruction of Justice, Indiana 2023

A former Muncie Police Department supervisor, Joseph Krejsa, 52, has pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for writing a false report to cover up excessive force by other officers under his command.

According to court documents and statements made during the change of plea hearing, on or about August 9, 2018, Krejsa responded to the scene of an arrest involving a civilian with the initials L.G. Before he arrived on the scene, other MPD officers under his supervision – including Officer Chase Winkle, the son of the then-Chief of Police – had used excessive force against L.G., resulting in serious injury to L.G.'s face.

The day after the arrest, Krejsa conducted a supervisory review of the incident, during which he noted that he had watched the videos of the incident and falsely deemed those uses of force 'justified.'

Several days later, on or about August 13 and August 14, 2018, the captain of MPD's patrol division tasked Krejsa with conducting a more in-depth review of the officers' uses of force during L.G.'s arrest, which was separate from the typical shift sergeant review. In response to this request, Krejsa watched the involved-officers' body worn camera videos, which revealed what had happened during the arrest.

Krejsa knowingly authored a lengthy memorandum for MPD's official records that contained several false statements. Specifically, Krejsa falsely implied that any force used against L.G. was justified to ensure officer safety; falsely asserted that officers used only low levels of force near the start of the incident, and escalated to higher levels of force only after lower levels of force were ineffective; falsely stated that Winkle 'kneeled on [L.G.]'s left shoulder and upper body,' when in fact he knew that Winkle had used his knee to strike L.G.'s head and neck area; and falsely implied that Winkle's uses of force against L.G. caused only cuts to L.G.'s face, when he knew that the use of force against L.G. caused serious bodily injury to L.G.

Krejsa is the fourth Muncie Police Department official to plead guilty in connection with this investigation. He was one of four MPD officers who were indicted in April 2021 in a 17-count superseding indictment for their roles in using excessive force against arrestees and/or attempting to cover up the misconduct.

On May 13, 2022, Gibson also pleaded guilty to civil rights and obstruction charges for assaulting a different arrestee and writing a false report about the incident. On December 5, 2022, a fifth Muncie police officer, Dalton Kurtz, previously entered a pre-indictment guilty plea on August 4, 2021, to one count of misprision of felony for concealing and failing to report inappropriate use of force by Winkle during a separate incident.

Krejsa will be sentenced at a later date.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdin/pr/former-muncie-police-department-supervisor-pleads-guilty-obstruction-justice-writing