Another week, another allegation of a “witch hunt” in Holmes Beach.
Eleven days after Commissioner Jayne Christenson accused Mayor Judy Titsworth of sparking a witch hunt over her residency, another commissioner is at odds with the city.
This time, the beef is between Commissioner Kim Rash and the Holmes Beach Police Department.
The gripe stems from an Election Day, Nov. 2, 2021, complaint to the HBPD alleging Rash urinated in public outside the city’s polling site at St. Bernard Catholic Church, 248 S. Harbor Drive.
David Zaccagnino, a former city commissioner who was present at the poll, filed the complaint, telling police he saw Rash urinate behind a dumpster and provided video showing the commissioner walking out from behind the fenced dumpster enclosure, according to an HBPD report.
Sgt. Brian Copeman wrote in the report, “Rash went on to say that he did not urinate by the dumpster, that someone else did and he did not want to give me that name.”
Police could not determine if a violation occurred and no action was taken, according to another report on the incident.
However, Rash took issue with Copeman’s report and Jan. 9 and Jan. 10 communicated with Lt. Brian Hall, requesting that HBPD revise the original report, according to a Jan. 10 memo from Hall to Chief Bill Tokajer.
“Rash had requested the report to be changed because he said he did not say ‘he did not urinate behind the dumpster,’” Hall wrote.
Hall said he directed Copeman to review video from the incident and write a supplemental report documenting what was said by Rash on the video.
“Upon checking the video, Commissioner Rash did not deny the incident. Rash stated ‘I don’t know about that.’ The entire video and audio can be heard from the recorded truck video,” Copeman wrote in the supplemental report.
Hall shared the supplemental report with Rash, who expressed dissatisfaction to Hall, according to Hall’s memo.
“I received a phone call from Rash who stated that the report was not at all what we discussed … He said we are playing games and trying to make him look bad,” Hall wrote. “I explained to him that we do not change the original reports but wrote a supplement to documents (based on) what he had requested to be reviewed and changed.”
Hall said he offered to share footage of the incident with Rash and assured him the report was accurate.
“Commissioner Rash replied with something like ‘I guess you are a crooked officer like Chief Tokajer,’” Hall wrote. “I replied, ‘No sir, I am not.’” With that, Hall ended the phone call.
Titsworth responded to Rash’s claim that Hall and Tokajer are “crooked” in a Jan. 14 text message to The Islander: “The lack of respect of police officers is not befitting of a commissioner and I hope an effort will be made in the future to choose better words,” Titsworth wrote.
Rash wrote in a Jan. 14 email to The Islander that he hadn’t seen Hall’s memo, but said it was an attack on his reputation.
“This seems to be another perpetrated attempt by Holmes Beach to conduct a witch hunt against a sitting city commissioner. The city of Holmes Beach and the Holmes Beach Police Department continue to try to tarnish the good reputation of two Holmes Beach commissioners. This is another incident of Holmes Beach ‘targeting’ certain individuals who they don’t agree with on various issues,” Rash wrote.
The transcript below contains graphic language that could be offensive to some readers.
Audio transcript
Officer Brian Copeman = C
Kim Rash = r
Officer Jason Higgins = jh
women (Jayne Christenson, Michelle ??, wife Theresa Rash, Margie Motzer, Rene Ferguson = w
C hello hello. how are you doin?
r you know Jayne, this is Michelle, this is miss motzer and this is my lovely bride. s
Sgt. Copeman identifies himself….
c can I talk to you real quick
r sure
c a complaint’s been made about you urinating behind the dumpsters.
w What?
r I don’t know about that.
c Yep. Ok. There’s pictures from one of the church members of your cart over here and you walking back and walking out from behind the dumpsters and they said you were peeing. I’m just here to….
w That’s when he was checking it out.
c I’m just trying to clarify.
w well, he wasn’t the one over there.
w there was somebody else. 15 minutes ago and we saw who that was…
w we didn’t say anything.
w He (rash) went over there to check out the workmanship because he put up the fence.
c There is none.
w especially when there’s a bathroom in the church.
w He went into the church.
w He’s a member of the church and he also went home.
c are you still running the fence company? or what’s going on with that.
r that’s her company, I just work for her.
c I haven’t seen you, you’re back and forth.
r I been cutting a lot of grass … I’m sorry about this …
c Like I said, I’m like, I gotta do my job.
r I appreciate you coming down here.
c That’s why I said, you know what, I’ll be more than happy to go over there and talk to mr. rash. You got the wrong car. (laughter)
w are you talking to anybody else down there? Because we actually saw him.
c uh, If you got any other names, like I said, the pictures are of Mr. Rash, which is personally known to me and that’s why I said I would go talk to him and so if you know somebody else who may or may not have been involved in the incident I’ll be more than (cut off)
r we built that originally. we put some new boards on there and I said I’m gonna walk down there and look at it, but somebody had wishful thinking or something. some people don’t like me and (inaudible).
c come on now. you know, after all the nice wonderful donuts your brought me throughout the years.
- who’s your buddy here?
- This is Officer Higgins. Jason.
r hey Jason, happy day to you.
r I thought we met before.
jh Yeah. How’s it going?
jh Yes.
w are you new on the department?
jh No. About 6 years, and Bradenton beach 14 or 13. whatever.
w inaudible + laughter
r I kinda take that proud … somebody seen my thing hanging down.
c no no no, no one is claiming any of that.
w compliment of your life, huh?
r that’s a pretty good compliment. maybe that’s when I shook it up in the air.
w OK that’s it.
c Alrighty, I will let you guys continue your wonderful day. Good luck everyone. Ok sir, thank you.
jh Alrighty.
* Confirmed with Officer Brian Copeman, Friday, Jan. 14.
— BonnerJoy
