Indianapolis—
There are new questions about what Public Safety Director Dr. Frank Straub and IMPD Chief Paul Ciesielski were doing on the day an officer plowed into three motorcyclists, killing one of them.After a Fox59 News investigation, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard (R) is now asking tough questions about what the two were doing instead of taking command of the crime scene.
Authentic internal IMPD documents show Chief Ciesielski was contacted several times by his #2 in command from the crash scene, then called away his top officers so they could attend a meeting in his office about public relations during the first crucial hours after the tragedy.
Fox59 exclusively obtained phone records from one of the demoted officers that show close contact with the Chief of Police from the crash scene.
"I heard several times from Chief Pierce about what was going on at the scene," said Chief Ciesielski during an interview Saturday with Fox59 reporter Russ McQuaid.
He heard from him eight times to be exact during the first hour of the crash investigation. Chief Ciesielski and Assistant Chief Darryl Pierce were in touch for a total of six minutes.
"I knew at that time that it was a serious incident," Ciesielski explained in the earlier interview.
As bad as the crash was and the chief seemed to realize, Assistant Chief Pierce and two other top commanders received a text message minutes later from Chief Ciesielski saying "I need you in my office at 1 p.m."
"We did not talk about the accident at all," said Ciesielski.
Indianapolis Public Safety Director Dr. Frank Straub and the chief met that morning to discuss improving Straub's public image - something the mayor did not know until Fox59 News brought it to his attention.
Just a few hours after Officer David Bisard crashed his cruiser, killing 30-year-old Eric Wells and seriously injuring two other bikers, the chief held a news conference to support Straub.
"I felt he was being unjustly crucified by the media, by the officers, by the community," said Chief Ciesielski.
The chief ended up demoting two of his top commanders, Hicks and Pierce, because he said they did not communicate well with him.
"I knew I had two members of my staff going up there so I didn't initially respond," he said.
He maintains they did not inform him how serious the crash was despite Pierce's phone records showing those eight calls totaling 16 minutes.
Chief Ciesielski admits he called his commanders away from that scene so they could attend the meeting ahead of the news conference to support Dr. Straub. The Chief said he did not initiate any conversations that afternoon or ask any follow up questions about the crash, instead only focused on the news conference.
"That is something that is going to have to be looked into. The timing of that if it is... is extremely disturbing to me and we're gonna have to take a serious look at that," said Mayor Ballard.
Reporter: "Do you still have full confidence in Frank Straub and Paul Ciesielski?"
Mayor: "We have to look at the facts as they evolve and we have to see what this is gonna turn out to be so that the whole point really."
An attorney representing former Assistant Chief Pierce and former Deputy Chief Hicks told Fox59 News he's calling on Mayor Ballard to take a second look at Chief Ciesielski and Public Safety Director Straub's decision to demote his clients for what they did the day of the crash.
"I'm going to contact the mayor's office. I'm going to send him a letter and ask him to look at this," said attorney Robert Turner.
Former Public Safety Director Robert Turner told Fox59 that his clients were unfairly punished for being called away from the scene and phone records prove Pierce was in constant communication with Chief Ciesielski.
