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BRACE YOURSELF for the MOST SHOCKING POLICY OMISSION in modern history: Salem city councilors have OFFICIALLY REAPPOINTED a convicted KILLER to the city’s Community Police Review Board, IGNORING every WARNING from law enforcement and setting a BLOODSTAINING precedent that CRIMES public safety itself.
That’s RIGHT — 47-year-old Kyle Hedquist, convicted of MURDERING a 19-year-old girl in a calculated execution-style killing, is back in a position of oversight over law enforcement after a narrow 5–4 council vote on Dec. 8. This is the SAME man whose early release from a 27-year sentence was condemned by Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin as “shocking and irresponsible” in 2022. And YET, Councilor Mai Vang pressed for his reappointment, flipping a formal committee recommendation to leave the seat VACANT and dismissing the city’s own criminal-history vetting standards.
WHAT does it take to be DISQUALIFIED from policing the police? Metropolitan killing? No. Background checks skipped? YES. This reappointment isn’t just oversight—IT’S A REVOLVING DOOR for convicted killers into seats of power.
Vang defended the move by calling Hedquist “one voice among nine,” adding that “he brings a perspective most of us don’t have.” BUT law enforcement officials BLASTED BACK: former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s clemency grant was called “calculated, cold-blooded” by Sheriff Hanlin, who warned this decision “rejects and diminishes the justice delivered in the name of Ms. Thrasher, her family and friends.”
Councilor Shane Matthews issued a SCISSING condemnation, asking: “If one of the most egregious acts of aggravated homicide doesn’t disqualify someone from being in this role, WHAT DOES?”
Yet the councilors VOTED. They APPROVED. They effectively ANNOUNCED that a man who shot a teenager in the head and dumped her body roadside now helps decide how sworn officers police the city.
THE MESSAGE is clear: Salem’s council values “diversity of perspective” over PUBLIC SAFETY. The system’s background checks were MISSING; upgrades are “expected next year.” But the damage is DONE: community trust is now HELD by a repeat offender with a violent past, installing a culture where convictions are just a footnote.
THIS isn’t reform—IT’S RULKING. It’s handing oversight keys to those who needed them taken away. And it begs the HARSHEST question possible: When a convicted killer is back policing the law, WHO is actually protecting the public?
Author: Kayitsi.com
