Kelch Officially Takes Reins as Whitefish’s Top Cop
After serving as chief of police on an interim basis since last summer, Bridger Kelch joins the city’s executive leadership team
By Tristan Scott
Having served as Whitefish’s interim police chief for the past six months, city leaders last week determined that it’s time Bridger Kelch, the former assistant police chief, officially assumes the role as top cop.
“I want to congratulate Bridger Kelch as our new chief of police,” City Manager Dana Smith told members of the Whitefish City Council on Feb. 22, in a long-awaited announcement that was met with applause by council members and those in the audience.
“Bridger did a fantastic job today as we held interviews with our school district leaders and the city staff, and he received unanimous support from our police commission when considering his application,” Smith continued. “We are thrilled to have him officially join the executive team here at the city. He is a community asset and this hire was a no-brainer. We are very thrilled.”
As the former assistant police chief, Kelch stepped into the Whitefish Police Department’s top position on Aug. 4 following the abrupt departure of former police chief Bill Dial, who resigned amid allegations of misconduct leveled by the state Justice Department’s watchdog bureau, the Public Safety Officer Standards and Training (POST) Council. POST, which is responsible for overseeing law enforcement training and certification in Montana, opened a separate investigation into whether Kelch was implicit in the misconduct charges against Dial, but it later dropped the investigation after its case status committee determined there wasn’t enough evidence to either prove or disprove the allegations.
“We don’t have any documentation to support that he had knowledge” of the alleged misconduct that occurred, according to POST Executive Director Eric Gilbertson, who at a recent status committee hearing said the investigation into Dial is ongoing.
Whitefish city leaders conducted their own independent investigation at the behest of POST and found there was no cause for disciplinary action.
The allegations against Dial were detailed last August in a 12-page complaint by POST, which based its findings on hundreds of text messages exchanged between Dial and Matthew A. Marshall, the one-time head of a Whitefish-based security firm who has since been convicted of federal crimes of wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
Marshall pleaded guilty to the charges last November and is scheduled for a sentencing hearing in Missoula on March 3. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 35 years in prison and more than a half-million dollars in fines.