As presented to the Banks City Council in February by Deputy Ryan Pope with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. The Banks Post does not write, edit, or alter the contents of the police log.
Good Evening, Mayor Kirk and Counselors,
January was a shocking month for the city of Banks. The call that has taken over our city is a true tragedy to our community. On January 8th in the morning, it was reported that one of our High School teachers, Wymon Smith, with a long tenure in Banks was accused inappropriate conduct with a student in his classroom.
This was investigated by me and detectives and the complaint was credible and Smith was arrested for charges related to the reported incident.
I would like to thank the Banks High School Principal and Superintendent who quickly brought police to the school after this matter was revealed to them. There was no hesitation and there were no attempts to minimize the incident to be anything other than what it was reported to be. Inappropriate and unlawful.
The Washington County detectives working this case have since interviewed more than 20 people reporting incidents going back as much as 25 years of unreported inappropriate and unlawful conduct by Smith as a teacher at ours and other schools. January 31st, witnesses testified in front of a Grand Jury and Wymon Smith was indicted on additional and more serios charges.
With this report are the WCSO Press Releases involving Smith (Editor’s note: these press release have been omitted, but are covered in full in the earlier links).
Also, in January we had an driver on Main Street who hit a parked car causing enough damage to require his vehicle be towed. The cause of the crash was determined to be one of the two dogs in his car jumping in his lap causing his vehicle to veer into the parked car.
Additionally, January has brought severe weather to our area and the ice and snow in our two passes has caused the Banks Deputies to provide more than normal amount of Mutual Aid to the County and State Police and even Tillamook County for injury traffic collisions due to the severe weather in our area.
This concludes the Banks Police monthly report.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
