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A southeastern Utah county commissioner was recorded threatening and berating a sheriff’s deputy over his son’s arrest after Thanksgiving.
On November 25, 2022, San Juan County Commissioner Bruce Adams was called to pick up his son’s car after Kenneth Adams was taken to jail on an outstanding warrant related to a theft charge. of 2020.
Adams, the youngest, had been pulled over at a routine traffic stop for failing to signal and come to a complete stop at a stop sign.
County Commissioner Bruce Adams sits down for an interview after his son’s arrest and his tense interaction with local sheriff’s deputies.
The van was pulled over by San Juan County Deputy Sheriff Brayden Giddings, who then informed Kenneth that he was going to jail due to the warrant.
According to police footage from the evening, Giddings and Officer Wyatt Holyoak put Kenneth in the back of the squad car and discussed turning the SUV over to Kenneth’s parents.
In the police report that followed the incident, Holyoak wrote that former county commissioner Bruce Adams was less than pleased upon arriving on the scene.
‘[Bruce Adams] he came up to me and said he wanted to see the ‘Mad f—— order right away,’ he wrote.
‘I said [Bruce] I couldn’t show you personal returns on my computer. [Bruce] he replied that he better show him the damn warrant right away.
‘I thought [Bruce] he was trying to use his influence as a county commissioner to intimidate me into showing him information that I wasn’t allowed to do.’
On the tapes of the incident, Bruce can be heard asking where his son is.
He’s in jail. They took him away,’ Holyoak said.
‘Have you already taken him to jail?’ Adams said, asking why they would have done that.
‘For an order,’ Holyoak replied.
Who do I call to find out? Adams yelled. ‘You are a police officer. Tell me who I call to find out why he’s in jail.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Holyoak asked the irate Adams.
“I want you to let go,” he said.
“I can’t drop it, Bruce,” Holyoak responded, saying that only the court has the power to do so, given the nature of the injunction.
The warrant, Adams insisted, was false and he said his son had grappled with the legal implications of the theft charge years ago.
“The warrant is not false,” Holyoak said. The order is right there.
It was then that Adams invoked what sounded like a threat.
‘You want me to sue the son of a bitch county sheriff because he arrested my son on a false warrant?’ Adams asked.
“The order is right there,” Holyoak said. It is not false.
Kenneth Adams when he is arrested and sent to jail on November 25, 2022
An irate Bruce Adams arrives to claim his son’s vehicle and question the sheriff’s deputies about the details of the warrant which he believes to be false.
Kenneth Adams calls his father as he is taken to jail on the night of November 25, 2022 following a routine traffic stop
As it turned out, the order referred to some missing documents related to the Kenneth Adams case in 2020, which were finally put together. Last week, the court returned the $150 used to pay Adams’ bail that night.
After the pictures were posted and the exchange went public, Bruce Adams sat down with a local KUTV 2 news station to issue an apology for his behavior.
Reporter Daniel Woodruff asked Adams if his behavior on the night of the incident had been appropriate.
“No,” Adams said. ‘It is shameful. I’m ashamed to act that way. I feel bad for doing that. But he was excited.
He said he sincerely believed there was a problem with the order and did not believe he was acting in his capacity as commissioner during the exchange.
“No one addressed me as Commissioner Adams at any time during the incident,” he said. “In my opinion, he was acting like a father.”
The reporter noted that as an elected official, Adams is never truly off duty and always behaves like an extension of his role.
He agreed: ‘Absolutely. Don’t disagree with that one bit.
Adams noted that he has since apologized to the sheriff’s office, though his office’s report makes no such mention, according to KUTV.
But Adams insisted: “I called the sheriff the next day and said, you know, I shouldn’t have done what I did.”