Growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer. In fact, I job shadowed the Yamhill County District Attorney twice while in school. And while I am now a very unaccomplished University Of Oregon dropout, I will make no assertions that I have a legal mind. In fact, I think I’m pretty stupid for causally picking a fight with the DA’s office over, what might seem to most, unimportant and inane details.
Back on Jan 7th, I went to the DA’s office to, again, ask a few basic questions related to the 3rd Street Pizza fire that I had been getting pushback on. The first question- Does your office take impact statements from victims? The answer, according to my research and multiple people including staff from the Mac PD, is yes. But the answer I kept getting from staff at the DA’s office over a series of months was a flat out, “No.”
I knew this to be false. My question now, why is the DA’s office giving out false info? Is it incompetence? Are they just trying to be difficult? Or is it something else?
As I said before, I went in person to ask this same question again to the DA’s office. They again insisted that they don’t do that and that I leave and go to the police. Which, is funny, because while you do give statements to the police, you don’t give them an impact statement to be read in court.
So, being that I have already admitted to being stupid, I pulled an ‘Andrew’ and I also asked the other burning questions I had about their office’s purported connection to the defendant in the 3rd Street Pizza fire. And that’s when things got interesting.
The staff, again, insisted for a second time that day that they didn’t take impact statements. Which, doesn’t make any sense- They prosecuted a case based on losses inside a theater that had some of my (PNW Comedy’s) goods; they never once contacted me to understand what was lost or get a impact statement to share how the crime affected me or our operation, at the Moonlight Theater and in McMinnville, going forward.
Then, after overhearing the comotion the three of us were making in the courthouse lobby, someone named “C” (I’ve decided to not use their real name in case it might get them in trouble) stepped out of a room inside the DA’s office and said something (I’m paraphrasing it) that I knew to be truthful- “We do take impact statements for court, I’m in charging of gathering them.”
While I had an odd window to possibly get answers to questions I had been stonewalled to, I took the opportunity to ask why I had been consistently lied to by staff, both on the phone and in person, about the DA’s office not taking impact statements. There was no answer given. However, “C” did chime in about another thing I brought up multiple times with the DA’s office, dating back to Feb 2024- was there any connection to the DA’s office and the defendant in the 3rd Street Pizza fire? She confirmed, and even joked, that there was; The defendant’s sister had been a Deputy District Attorney for the Yamhill County DA’s office.
Now, you might be asking yourself, “Why does this matter?” Because, I believe this isn’t an isolated event. Because, I believe, the people in charge of justice, at times, think that they are above it; I believe those that work for these people also think, at times, they are above having to answer to the public so they make up reasons to not do their job because there is no one being a check on their actions. And, unfortunately, I believe that this is happening locally.
And because of the legal maxim: justice delayed is justice denied. Stalling, or delaying, answering or interacting with the public helps deny justice and serves as a prime example of being derilct in the duties of public official or a public employee.
And while I’m not saying the entire Yamhill County’s District Attorney’s office is a problem, if the culture of an office is to deny the public equal access to the inalienable rights that all are entitled to, then maybe it’s time to shame and call out those actions.
-Andrew Brunello