On August 10, the evening before the city’s tax hearing, Daniel Sroka sat down in the mayor’s office in American Fork’s administration building with Mayor Bradley Frost and Chief Cameron Paul, ten cases in hand, and recorded it. The chief concedes that two statements in the department’s May video are wrong: “I’m not quite sure how to correct that.” The video is the only one on the department’s channel, and it is still up. The mayor tells Sroka he is the first resident to sit down with him about any of it, then reads him the email, “probably as many as 800,” and says where he believes it comes from. Published October 14 with Sroka’s permission, the morning the federal complaint quoted it. The whole 45 minutes follows.
PRIMARY SOURCEThe recording of the August 10, 2026 meeting in the mayor’s office in American Fork’s administration building, 45 minutes, made by Daniel Sroka and published with his permission on October 14 by the AFPD Accountability Project; the file here is the same file.
CONFIRMEDThe three voices are Daniel Sroka, Mayor Bradley Frost and Chief Cameron Paul. Sroka names “Police Chief Paul” in his first minute; the chief addresses “Daniel” and the mayor “Danny”; the mayor speaks of “me as the mayor and elected official” and of “who’s elected me.”
REFUTEDTwo statements in the department’s May 29 video, that the car was stopped for “failing to stop completely at that stop sign” and that the court said the papers “had already been served,” by the department’s own dash camera and its own March 10 report; the chief conceded both on August 10: “two instances in that video where I misspoke.”
CONFIRMEDTen of the twelve things the Norcross complaint quotes from this meeting are on the recording in the complaint’s words. One has “custody” in brackets where the chief said “handcuffs.” One, the name of the officer the Airbnb host called, is the opposite of what the chief said.
CONFIRMEDThe May 29 video the chief discusses, “Bricks and Minifigs/Benjamin Schneider Media Release,” is still posted as of October 16. It is the only video the American Fork Police Department has ever published on its channel.
There’s two instances in that video where I misspoke. And I realized that after. One of them was a mistake in fact and the other one was I just said it wrong. And, you know, I think beat myself up since day one and recognize that those were statements that I misspoke on. But how do I go back and fix those, right? I’m not a perfect person.
So one of them was stating that a stop was made as a result of not stopping at the stop sign, when that was supposed to be not stopping before the stop sign. Totally different, right? And then the other one had something to do with calling the Marion County courts and realizing that a suit had been served, or sorry, had been filed, had not been served. I misspoke and said had been served when I didn’t need to say that. So there’s two things right off the bat where I look back and I say, that’s not what I meant to say. I said it and I’m not quite sure how to correct that.
May 29: “failing to stop completely at that stop sign.” August 10: “not stopping before the stop sign, totally different, right?” The video is still up.
The mayor’s office, American Fork administration building, the evening of August 10, 2026. The recording begins at 5:05 p.m. MDT and runs 45 minutes. The time on each line is the time on the recording.
So what my main question is, is what, so you’ve heard me talk in the city halls. Do you have any questions or about the concerns that I have?
Well, you know what, it’s two minutes here and two minutes there. So maybe you just expand on those two minutes and maybe just more detail so I can see. So
what my biggest concern is is with the Constitution and everyone, all the leadership in the government following the law. And I know you swore an oath to the Constitution. The same thing with Chief Paul. He swore an oath and all of his officers have sworn an oath. And there’s just been a series of events. I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 10 separate events with 10 separate people back dating from 2019, which I know Police Chief Paul wasn’t the chief of police at that time. But that’s just a pattern and a history of concern. And I’m wondering what the city is going to do or what the city plans to do about it and what ideas that you might have. Okay, good
question. I would say I’m not sure what those 10 events all of them are probably having a pretty good idea of at least half of them because they’re just they’ve kind of been the recent activity and it’s brought other things up this is not to say that one’s above the other but in between those 10 are of things that are of concern to some people, you being one right here. There’s probably 45,000 that have done that there are no concerns. I’m gonna let Chief go into, I mean, this is, being a police officer in the course of a day.
It is, there’s a lot of judgment calls. And sometimes I’ve noticed lately that we can view certain situations and we can isolate them and then who is interpreting anything that’s gone wrong who is the who’s that authority to say something was the line was crossed
so we do we have multiple forms of reviews and I’m happy to even hear some of the things on your list I would venture to say that on several of those, those officers probably don’t even work for our agency anymore.
And some of them do, I’m sure. Some of the ones that don’t, that’s been a result of actions that we’ve taken. So I understand that the general perception among certain populations are that we don’t, you know, we protect our own, we don’t take things seriously, or we don’t really look into concerns and address them. But that they couldn’t be further from the truth. We don’t want bad officers working in our department or really our profession because for every step forward we take and something good we’ve done, an officer’s actions, if they go against policy and if they’re unlawful, can cause us to go three, four steps back. So I’m happy to go through some of those incidents if you want. or
let’s go through I kind of want to do this as a practice of when also when the city learned of these incidents because I know most of these the city should have learned of but it’s just I’m curious of what the delay was because there’s going to be certain areas especially like when a lawsuit happens that the city learn about it when a lawsuit was filed or did the city learn about it beforehand and what happened so in 2019 we have locked an American and Fork PD and that’s going to be with all these versus Michael Roy. Are you guys familiar with that one?
So that was before, that was before my time, but I would imagine that our city, generally the funnel of information goes to the city manager, the city administrator, and then obviously the city administrator doesn’t pass every single piece of information on to elected officials. There’s definitely some parsing and some trying to figure out what’s going up and what’s not. So I don’t have an answer for you on how the city found out or when they would have found out. Okay.
So Michael Roy, he was an informant for the police department for Detective Lott. And they wanted to get someone who also was named Michael. I can’t remember his last name from the lawsuit. And they ended up pulling over a car that ended up being the informant instead of who they were targeting. They then pulled Michael Roy, who was the informant, who Detective Lott was familiar with, and then beat him up, roughed him up. And then he later sued. He sued Spanish Fork and American Fork, and his lawsuit ended up being, from what I saw, about a little under $100,000.
Yeah, that was major crimes. A deputy from the Sheriff’s Office had struck him with the butt of his gun and caused injuries.
There were some changes to our agreement as a result of that case specifically, actually, as far as information sharing in our agency. So although Sergeant, he’s now Sergeant of Law, was in that, he was not the one that did what was done to that individual, which was not okay.
But he was there, and I would have to watch the body cam, which I don’t have to be able to come up with my own opinion. if he should have spoken up or if he had absolutely no chance to, when would have been appropriate, which I don’t have that information to make those calls. But we do know that he was there and he knew who the individual was. Now, I don’t know when he made that known. It might have been at the very end, which would have been very bad. It might have been near the beginning, which would have been better. But still, that’s an issue that that happened.
Yeah, I do know that was investigated by the county attorney’s office. and so, but I don’t have a ton of information right in front of me on that case.
The next one that I have noted here is in 2020, and that is going to be Cody Greenland case, which involved Officer Cannon, Kinnaman, Blackburn, and Quinn Adamson. Two of those officers are no longer with us, which is Cannon and Blackburn. Two of those officers have since received raises.
Yeah. So the primary officer that, and again, this was under a different chief, but in my opinion, that did not follow policy and didn’t do what he should have done was Derek Cannon. He no longer works for our agency. He was basically given the option as a result of this case and others to essentially resign or we were going to let go. So he no longer works for our agency.
So this event happened in 2020. If I recall, and I might be very fuzzy on this, Officer Cannon left the agency around 2024, or was it 2022?
It would have been before that. Again, had I been prepared with this, I could have gotten you more information. I don’t have exact dates on when it was that he
He is, yeah. Yeah. With Cannon, I don’t remember, but I feel I’m pretty sure Cannon left before I took over, which would have been in around October of 2021. So I don’t have an exact date of when it was he left, but I just
Okay. When did the city learn about this incident? it. A lawsuit was filed 2022, so I’m going to assume the city definitely knew then, but did they know about it beforehand?
No, not in the details, but yeah, I remember this one being discussed, and typically it’s going to be when somebody files a lawsuit or rises to the level of something that it will come to my office. So I don’t have exact details, But I’m pretty familiar with the incident and what happened. Dates, I’m not so much.
So one of the things that I’m most concerned about is why would it have to wait for a lawsuit to happen before the city becomes aware of it? And why not have it happen beforehand? Such as whenever any source of situation is used where force is used, why won’t the city just automatically review it? Does that question make sense?
Yeah. Yeah, I would say that we would probably just, if there’s something that we need to be made aware of as elected officials, we would wait for our chief or somebody that was there that understood it to say, this happened. And then, but we typically aren’t prepped on everything that the police do. There’s a few incidents that go here or there, and if they’re questionable, we would rely on our department heads to let us know that they’re what they are and what could be of them.
And generally the the practice now is we have a use of force and pursuit review board and they review a lot of they review you know pursuits uses of force and traffic collisions things like that. So generally now if there’s something that we find that was outside of policy or that has the the potential to you know guard media attention or whatever it may be then generally that will be the point at which we’ll come and we’ll talk to our city administrator about it. So again, I can’t fully speak to what mechanisms were in place at that point in time, but that’s kind of the process that we would follow
It’s within the police department. So it’s comprised of several individuals, several ranks within the police department. They get together and then they review uses of force and they ultimately their their role is to determine whether it was done within the policies of the police department. If they are then signed off, if not then they bring adverse findings to me and then I will dive into it a little bit more from there and determine what discipline needs to be
imposed. And this is a little bit of my concern because you’re you’re a police chief and I’m sure you you love your officers and you want to have the best attentions for them. And that contradicts with some of these reviews that need to happen because you need to have somebody who is, in my opinion, outside of the purview of the police department looking through these so that they don’t have alternative attentions. And I’m not saying Police Chief Paul is sitting there scheming, saying, how can I get my officers out of trouble? But it’s going to be harder for him to come down with a hammer than it would be for for you or
I don’t necessarily agree with that and I think as you look at existing literature with regard to civilian review boards they tend to be actually less harsh on officers than internal review boards are and so I I respect what you’re saying but I also do disagree with that that if a hammer needs to come down, we will make it come down because the trust of the public is more important than allowing an officer’s actions to be somewhat disregarded. Okay.
I’ll keep going down the list for now. Then we have Christensen versus Canary Gardens. No use of force was used on this one.
Oh, that’s the demo of this house where that apartment complex is. I just know that was Canary Gardens. But that was more of, from what I can remember, it was more of a suit of discrimination.
Yeah, and I think that went back even further than these, but I noted the lawsuit was in 2020 when it was filed. Okay. So the city was aware of that in 2020?
Yes. Yes. And you can grab my request copies of the reports, but in my opinion we did everything right in that case. We did not discriminate against everybody. There was a lot of investigation and surveillance that went into that and we looked at that independently and we did not find any wrongdoing in that case.
In that case, so in the police officers and in lots affidavits there’s a frequent term use which was his opinion that every if not most Asian massage parlors are criminal organizations I personally have issue with that just that phrase within itself and I find it very discriminatory okay
I don’t have the affidavit in front of me I don’t know exactly what he put in his report so I’m not at least gonna provide an opinion on it without having exactly what was written in front of me. So I understand, again, your concern, and I totally respect it, but I don’t have any of those records in front of me.
And then other concerns that I have with that one in particular was that the gentleman that was arrested and everyone who was arrested, all charges were dropped. And when I hear all charges were dropped, in my mind I go, the police department either bungled it up and did something wrong so that the evidence couldn’t be used, or there wasn’t enough evidence to begin with to bring those charges, or mercy. Those would be the three terms.
I can go ahead. There’s a lot on this one, Andy. And I tell you what, this one, I think it’s good to have a thought process. And I think you’re in here for clarification. but the reason that one was dropped is because the people that were involved fled the country. They could have never have come and been a part of a process of prosecution and therefore it was better that we were able to shut the establishment down. There was human trafficking. Homeland Security was involved and it was better to just, The wind was ridding that from our city.
Additionally, the county attorney at the time did not want to pay for the translation costs that were going to be incurred for them. So have you read those reports?
So what I’m going to invite you to do on that one specifically is grammar request a copy of those police reports, not articles from someone else that’s writing them. I think it’s important for you to look at those cases and to see the investigation that went into it and all of the probable cause we were able to establish that there was a human trafficking case going on. And so where, again, in some of these other ones, we definitely, there’s been wrongdoing. I do not believe that we did anything wrong in that
case. I’ll ask for those reports then. In 2021, we have Thorpe versus Blackburn and Craig. Yes.
Yeah. So that was one that Officer Craig, who, again, doesn’t work for us any longer, he went into a residence. Do
Office. And I’m wondering, too, is there anything that we might say? Because that was still ongoing.
So that one, you’re right, is still pending some litigation. But I know it was one that was also looked at by the Department of Justice, FBI Department of Justice. But yeah, whereas that’s a pending litigation, we probably can’t go into much detail on that.
What’s been reported to me by three different people and in different ways is that there was a group of kids who got together and made a Purple Barney Gang. They were mostly in middle school. The police department heard about this and then sent out a review and searched several of their homes and took some of them to juvenile detention. The search warrants, from what I understand, I haven’t seen the police reports on these, was for purple clothing. And hearing about this, it’s just a group of kids that got together. There was one kid that they did actually put charges through with graffiti. which i mean if you did the crime you you put the charge to which i’m fine with but all other charges were dropped to my understanding so you haven’t read these police reports not on this one this one is just from resident reports to me so
this is just an observation i think a lot of the the points of determination that you appear to be coming to are not a direct result of what you’ve read from police reports and actual data and information It’s come from articles or from videos that you’ve seen or from other people who have commented on it that may or may not have a good understanding of what happened. So again, I would invite you to grant my request copies of those reports and see exactly what it is that we did, why we got search warrants, what it was we were searching for. Because I think you’re arriving at a lot of conclusions without, you’re obviously very, very intelligent. You’re arriving at a lot of conclusions without, I think, having the full story behind them. So I don’t have a lot of information on that one, but whereas you haven’t even read the police reports, I think that would be wise for you
to do. How long would it take for me to get a GRAMA report through right now or GRAMA request? I know that they’re backed up.
We are a little bit delayed. I don’t have a great time frame for you. That’s something our GRAMA specialists, our government records specialists can give you a little bit better of an idea on. but I know we are a little bit delayed because there’s a lot that are coming through right now.
Okay. Then in 2025, we have the rounded case, which was Richardson, Kitchen, and Jensen that were involved. When did the city learn about that one?
I don’t know, and I think that there is some, we have a, there’s some pending litigation on that one as well.
Yeah, it’s heading down that road. It appears to be going there. So I don’t want to speak a lot to it, certainly not on tape. But maybe off the record, I could be a little bit different in some of the things that I know. I’m directly involved in that one. Not for the entire 12 years that Mr. Roundy’s been involved with his neighbors and the mail and everything, but certainly the last three years.
reports. Well, okay, and there’s a lot outside of that body camera. 500 pages of emails, things like that. So that one definitely needs to, there’s a big understanding to have of that with the context of one body camera.
But even then, there’s still a huge Fourth Amendment violation and concern with pounding on somebody’s door demanding that they answer when you have the right to plead the fifth. and when you tell the police to leave, they are essentially trespassed unless they have a warrant, but they still stayed.
Well, again, there’s more to it, and like the mayor said, there is some pending litigation there, so that might be one we need to wait until after to talk about and give a little bit more information on that. Mm-hmm.
In 2026, we have the Kitchen Booker complaint, Aaron Booker’s complaint against Kitchen. when did the city learn about this one probably
so you’re familiar with it or yeah okay then in 2024 i have greg hazard and officer goodell complaint with him Did the city become aware of that one? Yeah. Okay. When did the city become aware of that one?
Boy, once a year. We, yeah, somewhere, I don’t feel like there was a big lag time on that one.
Because I know the incident happened in 2024 of April, if I recall, and then it took him about a year to file the complaint about both incidents because he was afraid of backlash. Who was afraid? Greg Hazard.
And I think, you know, a question to Daniel that we’d have is referencing Bronson Kitchen and Mr. Booker, and then even Mr. Goodale and Mr. Hazard. You know, things like that happen in police departments. What would you hope to see out of that?
I would hope to see an outside third-party review, even if the police department is doing their own review. just to make sure that there is accountability. And with those cases, you correct that there’s a lot of areas that I don’t have the full details on. I don’t have all the police reports. And I’m not too familiar with that process, nor are most citizens, but we still have our rights. And our rights, to me, are at least very important. I would hope that they would be important to everyone in this room. And one of the things that I’m showing is that, so the mayor is the leader of this government, including all of the parties, all of the branches of it. And in no offense to the police department, the party most likely to infringe on our constitutional rights is going to be the police department in any city. And so I would hope that a mayor would take a closer look or have a tighter hand on that department just to make sure that he is keeping his oath to the Constitution while he is in office. Does that concern make sense?
Yeah, yeah, I think so. But I think that it’s kind of subjective as what is that tire control? Okay, again, you’ve reached in 10 cases. The mayor and the council are very involved in a lot of things. And so that’s an opinion, that’s an optic. I think it’s worthy of me as a mayor and a constituent to say, we can do better. We always can. but um a little myopic if you if you’re taking 10 things and drawing a big big conclusion that there is no oversight or feeling or lack of responsibility to us to our citizens for our police force for our public works whatever it might be uh because we we it’s really serious to us so i i would have to drill down as to how you form that opinion and figure out okay where where can i do better because i can tell you i can’t but i don’t know how you could draw that conclusion just from a few cases or what you’re hearing now but do you really know my involvement and if not then it’s more of a question and i think
that’s what the question was to see when the city learned of incidents, especially incidents that involved our constitutional rights. Because if you aren’t hearing about these incidents in a timely manner, how can you be aware and able to involve yourself in our constitutional rights when they are being infringed upon?
Ultimately, they’re all going to hit us. It’s a matter of timing. Is that what you’re saying?
It’s not that it’s immediately. It’s not that it needs to be immediately or ultimately they’re all going to hit us. But there are several incidences I’ve heard of from citizens where they’ve been pulled over and detained longer than necessary for a drug dog to show up on scene. And so there’s several of those that I’ve heard about, and I don’t have the exact evidence names, but I’ve heard of at least three, four of those. And that is just as much of an infringement as all of these, although I don’t have the names and the exact details behind them. But the fact that that might be a practice of our police department as a concern, no?
I think, Daniel, what I would say, though, is you’re using the words possible and might. I would say that, again, it’s, I mean, are you even aware of the case law that dictates when we can call a canine and how long we can set a scope?
You are. Yes, I’m fair. I’m much more, I’m not legal to that point, but I’m very, very familiar about it.
We do a lot of training there. And I think the other thing going back to what the mayor said is you also use the word accountability. You want to ensure that there’s accountability. In several of these cases that you’ve brought up, there have been sustained findings of policy violations and discipline that’s come that has ranged anywhere from something riding all the way up to termination, including in the instances of Mr. Kitchen and Mr. Goodale with Greg Hazard rights. So that accountability is happening. Those findings are there, and discipline is being needed out. We certainly just don’t let our officers violate policy or do things they shouldn’t do, and then just be able to not have anything happen
to them. Well, then there’s the case that I’m most familiar with, which has the most video, which is the Ben Reckless case of 2026, which happened in March. I’ve read every police department. I have watched every body cam, and there are things that I’ve seen in there that have concerned me, even with the reports that the police chief, you have put out, where there are contradictions between what you have said and what are in the reports. And to me, that brings up the highest concern of the highest point, the person who makes the final decision in these, the person who makes the final review, is defending his officers and making points that are our faults
so there’s two instances in that video where I misspoke and and I realized that after um one of them was a mistake in fact and the other one was I just said it wrong and you know I’ve I’ve I think beat myself up since day one and recognize that those were statements that I misspoke on, but how do I go back and fix those, right? I’m not a perfect person. And so one of them was stating that a stop was made as a result of not stopping at the stop sign when that was supposed to be, not stopping before the stop sign, totally different, right? And then the other one had something to do with calling the Marion County Courts and realizing that a suit had been served or sorry had been filed had not been served I misspoke and said had been served when I didn’t need to say that so there’s there’s two things right off the bat where I look back and I say that’s not what I meant to say I said it and I’m not quite sure how to correct that but it certainly was not my trying to deceive or or really doing anything wrong whatsoever. I just don’t know how to go back and correct that.
And then there was also when you said that while on scene, Officer Richardson was contacted by the Airbnb owner when that also wasn’t the case.
Okay. He was indirectly, right? So that Airbnb owner reached out to an officer at the police department who then reached out to Richardson eventually. So may not been direct contact.
you’re asking. So the officer that was reached out to who lived near the Airbnb owner who reported that to Richardson? Was
not Officer Gonzalez. Okay. Yeah. It was a different officer within the police department.
Okay, because it just the police report just says that they were neighbors with the Airbnb host.
Yes, and the Airbnb host reached out to that officer who then routed it to Richardson.
There’s something that I kind of want to put to bed because I’ve heard so many theories. What is hydro? What
In the officer’s police camera, you have Quinn Adamson calling over an officer and saying, remember when we did Hydro with that guy with the Desert Eagle?
There’s a Hydra training, which is a high, it’s basically a drug interdiction training. So that could have been what he was talking about was a Hydra training. It’s drug interdiction. um so but again i i don’t want to give you an absolute that’s when
you’re not familiar with it is that something that three of your officers have been involved with
there are at least three officers that have gone through hydro training with um homeland security investigations okay
well i’m glad to put that to bed at least because that one was it’s concerning of what it could have meant okay i don’t
yeah yeah i’m sorry but um i don’t know what hydro other than hydrocodone hydro I don’t I don’t know
it’s either a drug term it could be a term for putting a finishing design on a gun it could also be a term for hydro training okay
yeah I’m happy to get more information for you and let you know I’m totally good with that if that would be helpful for you
so since I have you here right this is a good question why why did we arrest all the individuals in the Airbnb when nothing of illicit origin was found?
Yeah, so there’s a difference between detention and arrest. So detaining individuals inside of a home that we’re serving a search warrant on is almost always the norm, just because we don’t know who they are, we don’t know, we don’t have criminal histories, we don’t have any background, we’re not quite sure about weapons, so we will almost always put somebody in handcuffs to detain them, search them, make sure they don’t have any weapons on them and then keep them detained while we’re executing the search warrant. So that’s an officer safety thing but it’s definitely different. Arrest and detention are two
different things. But when you then take those individuals and take them to the department for holding it then crosses the detention and goes into the arrest.
And that’s okay because some of the civil lawyers I’ve watched would agree, right? They were detained. They were detained and transported to the police department, but we never proceeded or intended to charge the majority of them except for one. And that’s why they were released. And so that’s fine that they are disagreeing.
That’s going to be probably because there is a lawsuit coming out about that point in particular. And then there was also another individual who was arrested for locking his phone or attempting to lock his phone. And so why would we arrest someone trying to lock their phone?
Well, we detained him for stalking issues. It wasn’t just that he was trying to lock his phone. We have a ton of Supreme Court precedent that allows us to take action when we feel like it’s possible that evidence is going to be destroyed. Now I’ve seen the video. I don’t know necessarily what I would have done in that instance. It’s really easy and you know in a fraction of amount of time to see one thing and as we slow it down to see another. But those officers believed that he was manipulating his phone somehow and their worry was that he was going to be here.
So would you have snatched the phone and then tried to have the phone remain unlocked after the individual said that he was trying to lock it and request that you lock it?
your question, I’m sorry. So when they snatched that phone from Sheldon Norcross, he said he was attempting to lock it and then requested for the officer to lock it. The officer then did not lock it and attempted to have the phone remain unlocked until it could be turned over to a different detective. Okay. Is that something that would be appropriate, do you think?
Once we seize a device, we’re not going to go in and manipulate it until it’s processed.
By the officers. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, I don’t, again, I would need to go back and look at that specifically, and I can get you a better answer. So I just don’t have a better answer
for you right now. It did end up eventually locking itself out so he could no longer remain unlocked, but he was attempting to keep it open and turn it over to the detective unlocked. Okay. One of the arrest things that was used in that case was for residential picketing. Do you know what the code, what the definition for picketing is under that code?
It is stationing one or more individuals with or without signs, and then there’s some more to imprise the public of what’s going on. Would a single sign fit that description?
know what, Danny, we’re going to run out of time. Of course. Do you mind if I, I’ve just been thinking about that question, oversight, and I’ll even just say as recent as since, you know, the recent happenings and the communication. The communications that we’ve been receiving, general residents, if they have concerns, you know, I meet with a lot of different individuals about a lot of different things that are very important to them. and it can be anything you can think of it could be a road it could be water it could be something of their neighbors or you know much like you’re expressing concern and accountability it’s all the time so I’m hoping and I’m willing to do that to just be a little bit more opening and inviting for people to come out of all no matter what you’re concerned you’re the first one that has expressed any concern to me as a resident to meet on this so you know you are the first okay uh and um but i want you to understand what’s happening that you might not see that’s that’s happening around me as the mayor and elected official nobody may be more than the chief and I’m trying to understand what is real in all of this. What is real data? Understanding, because people are, people really watch 21 hours body cam. I can easily tell if somebody, I have a nephew in Texas who’s been watching this and he’s been quite intrigued. and he doesn’t understand in his mind why I’ll ask you Danny why does American Fork City Police Department City not have the Legos and how come we’re not giving them back
right and probably 80% of the people throwing judgment believe that is part of it so
Okay. Okay. Let’s, let’s stay on this right now. Okay. Because, but they believe that. And then, and then the emails that are coming and I’m trying to, in my mind, I’m trying to think, are birds of a feather thinking together? Because I’m going to tell you some raw emails that I’m going to say, and I’m going to have to, you’re going to have to excuse me. I’m going to read them go for it and this is this is one of many probably as many as 800 and then um do you know how many civil rights attorneys are going to eat you alive um you are so did your god moron i tell you to spread your ass cheeks i am praying you end up in prison cells screaming out every night at 50 years the mormon god just me and i loved it Make babies that you can release from the sky. Again, I won’t say the last one. F you. And that is just one of so many. Make a public statement defending your cult, you spineless tax sucker. Or are you only man to show your true colors to concerned citizens over the Internet, you fucking pussy? Whether the leadership your citizens keep asking, do you all even actually have court in your cult-ass town? People can’t even get legally served you effing up. I can’t say that word anymore. People love seeing your police floor get controlled by a private citizen’s cult. How many times has the owner of BAM who controls the police effed your wife? How many of those kids are yours, you spineless
cuck? And I can easily denounce all of that. I can say all those statements being sent to you are incorrect. but at the same time they have their First Amendment right to make those opinions known even though I disagree with them.
Yeah you’re right and here’s the thing and I’m happy to take input from you Danny. How do I understand and know what is what do I listen to what I don’t because that is primarily what I get and I know that they don’t even live here and so I’m going to just keep an open door policy to listen and to understand like we’re doing here today and take people one-on-one because I can’t I’m becoming a little cynical and I don’t like it because I certainly can’t put you in with the other camp that is around you so I can pull you out of that because easily after being in this long enough I’m thinking I’m getting a little cynical because this is what’s shooting at us. And it’s hard to take anything credible until I can actually have a communication with people one-on-one. So this is very helpful for me to see that there’s real human beings that care. And I can see that you have a heart in this. You want what’s right for your city, but I have to pull out all the other communications I get because you are not like them. Okay, you can denounce them, but they’re, it’s 800 to 1 right now, and you’re the one.
Okay, that are my citizens, that live in American Fork, do business in American Fork, because that’s who’s elected me. Okay, because these people are drowning you out around you. And this is very helpful for me to actually understand that there’s something different because this is the face I see driving us.
And although I disagree with them, they’re coming out out of anger and rage because they’re enraged. They’re enraged due to what they saw.
I don’t, I condone it. I condone that attitude and activity and the words that they’re using. But the spirit that they’re coming out with it, being enraged, is something, the reason you’re getting 800 is because there’s a lot of people mad about it. And they don’t know the best way to communicate.
I can tell you right now from what I’m seeing, they’re mad at the governor over data centers. Same kind of people. The federal government is involved in this. They are, we believe they’re from China and things like that. So this is quite an event and we’re learning. And here’s what we’re learning. not everything’s true and so it’s up to all of us to understand good information because not everything we hear not everything we’re seeing on our phones is true my my good nephew in texas is bent that we’re not giving back with the legos most people think that and they just need to take deep dives and understand it have an opinion but make sure it comes from a place of truth and understanding and so
appreciate i appreciate coming in for that purpose it’s giving me renewed hope that there are there’s at least one out of the 800 plus that i actually will sit down with me and i can actually see that they you know we can And I’ll learn more, you and I, and Chief, all of us included. But this is what’s all around us. There’s no way in my mind that this is productive to come at anybody like this. I agree. And have a good, honest conversation and ask questions.
And I know we’re running out of time, but I’m also available. You know, we don’t have to agree on everything, but this has been really great. It’s been really respectful, trying to understand where you’re coming from, maybe giving me an opportunity even to explain some of this. So my door is open as well. If you want to meet with me at any point in time, there’s nothing for you to be scared of. I’m happy to meet with you. And I assume you probably have more that you want to get into, and we’re happy to do that. But just know that I’m also happy to meet with you. My door is open. You can just call and talk to my assistant, schedule an appointment. And I’m more than happy to get you back in. and we can go through whatever else you
The chief answers a resident who has read the files and watched the body cameras.
CONTRADICTED“Officer Richardson received information from an American Fork resident” (May 29), by the chief’s own August 10 account: the Airbnb host spoke to another officer, who passed it to Richardson. “He was indirectly, right?”
Sroka comes to the March raid last, at 28:14: “I’ve read every police department. I have watched every body cam,” and the department’s own reports contradict what the chief has said in public, which worries him most because “the person who makes the final review, is defending his officers.” The chief does not argue. He names two statements in the department’s May 29 video as wrong before Sroka can name them.
The first is the traffic stop that began the four days. The video gives two reasons for it: Officer Richardson stopped the car “for failing to stop before the stop line at a stop sign and failing to stop completely at that stop sign” (2:53). On August 10 the chief withdraws the second reason and keeps the first: the video described “not stopping at the stop sign when that was supposed to be, not stopping before the stop sign, totally different, right?” The dash camera had already shown the car stop for two seconds, at a corner with no stop line painted (July 17); by September 16, after an outside review, the chief was telling Sroka “it was clearly not a stop sign violation” (graded).
The second is the Oregon lawsuit the group had come to serve. The video says the court confirmed “that papers had already been served and no hearing date had yet been scheduled” (13:08). The complaint says the court told Officer Sumbot that day that the case “had been filed, and that Mr. Johnson still needed to be served” (¶ 73), which is what the department’s own March 10 report records (graded). That report sat in the department’s file for eleven weeks before the chief recorded the video that says the opposite. On August 10 he says he “misspoke and said had been served.”
Then the sentence that lands hardest. “I said it and I’m not quite sure how to correct that,” and, a breath later, “I just don’t know how to go back and correct that” (30:05). He frames both as innocent: “it certainly was not my trying to deceive.” Nothing on the recording contradicts that. The man who “beat myself up since day one” is also the man who decides what the department publishes. In the sixty-seven days since, the video has not been corrected or taken down, and nothing has been posted beside it: the department’s channel holds one video, and this is it.
Sroka presses a third statement, that Officer Richardson was “contacted by the Airbnb owner.” The video has Richardson receiving it from the resident (20:45). The chief: “He was indirectly, right? So that Airbnb owner reached out to an officer at the police department who then reached out to Richardson eventually” (30:20). Sroka asks whether that officer was David Gonzalez. The answer on the recording is “not Officer Gonzalez,” “a different officer within the police department,” the host’s neighbor, and the chief confirms the route: “Yes, and the Airbnb host reached out to that officer who then routed it to Richardson.” The complaint filed on October 14 reads the exchange the other way, and says Gonzalez was then put on the entry team (¶ 152). The recording does not support the name. It does support everything else the complaint takes from the meeting.
| Where | What the complaint quotes | Time | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¶ 148 | “detaining individuals inside of a home that we’re serving a search warrant on is almost always the norm” | 32:51 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 148 | “we will almost always [put] somebody [in] custody, [de]tain them, search them” | 32:51 | MISMATCH |
| ¶ 149 | “It does not. It’s still a detention” | 33:33 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 149 | “never proceeded or intended to charge the majority of them except for one and that’s why they were released” | 33:40 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 150 | “we detained him for stalking issues. It wasn’t just that he was trying to lock his phone” | 34:19 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 150 | “Now I’ve seen the video, I don’t know necessarily what I would have done in that instance” | 34:19 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 151 | “the Oregon suit ‘had been served’” | 28:55 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 152 | “reached out to an officer at the police department” | 30:21 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 152 | “identified at the meeting as Officer Gonzalez” | 30:56 | CONTRADICTED |
| ¶ 152 | “who then reached out to Richardson” | 30:21 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 153 | “typically aren’t prepped on everything that the police do” | 09:03 | CONFIRMED |
| ¶ 153 | “a board ‘within the police department’” | 10:20 | CONFIRMED |
The mayor’s account of what he is hearing, and what his council’s minutes record.
ASSERTED“The federal government is involved in this. They are, we believe they’re from China,” Mayor Frost on August 10: his stated belief; nothing on the recording or in the public record supports or tests it.
With nine minutes left the mayor takes the floor (36:33). He tells Sroka “you’re the first one that has expressed any concern to me as a resident to meet on this so you know you are the first.” He is “trying to understand what is real in all of this. What is real data?” He has a nephew in Texas who cannot understand why the city does not give the Legos back. And he has email, “probably as many as 800,” which he reads aloud for more than a minute, the slurs included; they are in the transcript at 39:24 as he read them. He describes the senders as the same people “mad at the governor over data centers,” and adds: “The federal government is involved in this. They are, we believe they’re from China and things like that” (43:12). That is his stated belief; nothing on the recording supports or tests it.
Then the count: “it’s 800 to 1 right now, and you’re the one.” Sroka: “There’s more than just me.” He was the first to ask for the room, and the council’s own minutes show he was not alone in the concern. He had spoken at the council on July 28, “his fourth Council meeting,” and said then that “he had not received a city response regarding concerns he previously raised.” The next night, August 11, at the tax hearing, seven people stood up about the police department, Sroka among them: Aaron Booker, Heidi Barben, John Mulholland, who “has asked for a citizens review board,” Julie Rodriguez, who “wondered what it would take to get an interview with the mayor,” Greg Hazard, who said he had raised his case “two months ago and only Council Member Hunter reached out to him,” and Steve Goodwin (the minutes; the hearing). Sroka’s line that night: “Why do the residents have to pay for the lawsuits?” On August 25 he was back, asking for “a resident review board.” The minutes record the mayor’s answer to Rodriguez: he “asked her to provide her information to the city recorder.”
“It’s 800 to 1 right now, and you’re the one.” “There’s more than just me.”
The five people handcuffed and driven to the station; the phone; the picketing code.
CONTRADICTED“It does not. It’s still a detention” (Chief Paul, August 10), by the chief himself on September 16, when he told Sroka that to detain and transport “does turn into a de facto arrest.”
The exchange the complaint leans on hardest is at 32:39. Sroka asks why everyone in the Airbnb was arrested when nothing was found. The chief: detaining everyone inside a home under a search warrant “is almost always the norm,” handcuffs, a search for weapons, held “while we’re executing the search warrant.” Sroka: taking them to the station “crosses the detention and goes into the arrest.” The chief: “It does not. It’s still a detention.” In the next breath he says why they were let go: “we never proceeded or intended to charge the majority of them except for one. And that’s why they were released.” Four of the five people cuffed at the door and driven to the station were never going to be charged, by the chief’s own account. Five weeks later, after an outside review, he told Sroka the transport was an arrest after all; that reversal is graded on the chief, then and now.
On Sheldon Norcross and the phone, the chief reaches for the law: “We have a ton of Supreme Court precedent that allows us to take action when we feel like it’s possible that evidence is going to be destroyed,” then, “Now I’ve seen the video. I don’t know necessarily what I would have done in that instance” (34:20). The officer who took the phone wrote a shorter reason in his own report: “He stated he was not willing therefore I felt the best course of action was to seize his phone” (the report). Sroka says the officers then kept the seized phone awake for the detective; the chief: “Once we seize a device, we’re not going to go in and manipulate it until it’s processed,” and, told they did, “I would need to go back and look at that specifically.” Then the picketing ordinance, the second charge his department booked Schneider on in March. Asked what it says: “I would have to look it up” (36:00).
Who reviews force in American Fork, and when the mayor hears about it.
CONFIRMEDThe force review board sits “within the police department,” its adverse findings go to the chief, and the mayor’s office hears of an incident “when somebody files a lawsuit”: the mechanism as Chief Paul and Mayor Frost each described it on August 10.
Early in the meeting the chief addresses the perception that the department protects its own: it “couldn’t be further from the truth” (02:35). Eight minutes later he describes the mechanism. Sroka’s method is a question asked ten times: when did the city learn? The mayor answers for the Greenland case and, in doing so, for the rest: “typically it’s going to be when somebody files a lawsuit or rises to the level of something that it will come to my office” (08:19). Elected officials “typically aren’t prepped on everything that the police do” and “would rely on our department heads to let us know.”
The chief describes the mechanism. A use-of-force and pursuit review board looks at pursuits, uses of force and crashes. Sroka asks whether it sits outside the department. “It’s within the police department,” several ranks of it; if a use of force is within policy “then signed off, if not then they bring adverse findings to me and then I will dive into it a little bit more from there and determine what discipline needs to be imposed” (10:20). The chief is the reviewer of last resort for his own officers, and says so. Asked for an outside review, he declines on the literature: civilian review boards “tend to be actually less harsh on officers than internal review boards are,” and “if a hammer needs to come down, we will make it come down” (11:23).
Fifteen minutes later he states the result of that process for the cases on Sroka’s list: “sustained findings of policy violations and discipline that’s come that has ranged anywhere from something riding all the way up to termination” (27:25). The complaint’s ¶ 147, filed two months later, says that, so far as the plaintiffs are aware, none of the thirteen officers it names has been disciplined for the four days in March.
What the chief and the mayor confirmed, case by case, in their own words.
CONFIRMEDSix of the ten answers confirm a fact in the officials’ own names; four are their account of a case, unverified here, and stand as stated.
| Year | The case | What the mayor and the chief said | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Lott; Michael Roy | A sheriff’s deputy “had struck him with the butt of his gun and caused injuries” (the mayor); the case changed the interagency agreement; the officer now a sergeant “was not the one that did what was done to that individual, which was not okay” (the chief). | CONFIRMED |
| 2020 | Cody Greenland; Cannon, Kinnaman, Blackburn, Adamson | “Derek Cannon. He no longer works for our agency. He was basically given the option as a result of this case and others to essentially resign or we were going to let go.” Blackburn “is now in jail in Idaho” (Sroka): “He is, yeah.” | CONFIRMED |
| 2020 | Christensen; Canary Gardens | Code enforcement, “a suit of discrimination” (the mayor). The city knew in 2020: “Probably, yeah.” | AS STATED |
| 2021 | Lott; Joseph Ferreri | “In my opinion we did everything right in that case.” Charges dropped because the people “fled the country” and the county attorney “did not want to pay for the translation costs.” | AS STATED |
| 2021 | Thorpe; Blackburn and Craig | Craig “doesn’t work for us any longer”; now with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office, which “has a contract with Eagle Mountain”; the case “was also looked at by the Department of Justice.” | AS STATED |
| 2022 | The Purple Barney Gang | The chief: “I’m not remembering this.” The mayor: “I think I would remember that.” | CONFIRMED |
| 2025 | Eric Roundy; Richardson, Kitchen, Jensen | The mayor: “I don’t want to speak a lot to it, certainly not on tape. But maybe off the record”; “I’m directly involved in that one … certainly the last three years.” | CONFIRMED |
| 2026 | Aaron Booker; Kitchen | When the city learned: “probably about real time,” and “that one hit hard.” | CONFIRMED |
| 2024 | Greg Hazard; Goodale | “Real close to when it happened.” Sustained findings “all the way up to termination, including in the instances of Mr. Kitchen and Mr. Goodale” (the chief). | AS STATED |
| 2026 | The March raid | Two misstatements conceded; detention, the phone, the picketing code, the Airbnb tip, below. | CONFIRMED |
Two answers are worth keeping as they fell. On the Ferreri case the chief tells Sroka, twice, to stop reading articles and request the reports: “see exactly what it is that we did, why we got search warrants, what it was we were searching for” (18:21). Sroka asks how long a records request takes. “We are a little bit delayed. I don’t have a great time frame for you,” because “there’s a lot that are coming through right now” (19:23). And one word that has run through the body-camera footage since June is put to bed: “hydro,” which an officer mentions on the raid day, is a Homeland Security Investigations drug-interdiction course, and “at least three officers” have taken it (31:39).
The fair reading, and its limit. The chief named his own two errors, called them innocent, and nothing on the recording says otherwise; a mistake of fact and a slip of the tongue are what they sound like. The mayor read the email as context, not as an answer, and it is as vile as he says. Both men sat for 45 minutes with a resident, offered open doors, and the chief offered more meetings. His account of the review board and of discipline up to termination is his account; no file on it is public. Nothing on the recording is a finding against any officer, and every allegation in the Norcross complaint is untested. What the fair reading does not reach: a video the chief knew on August 10 to contain two false statements is, on October 16, still the department’s only public account of the four days.
Sources. The recording of the August 10, 2026 meeting, first published by the AFPD Accountability Project on October 14 with Daniel Sroka’s permission; the complaint in Norcross v. City of American Fork; the American Fork City Council’s minutes for July 28, August 11 and August 25, 2026; the American Fork Police Department’s May 29, 2026 video and its March 2026 reports.
Correction, October 17, 2026. An earlier version of this page placed the August 10 meeting at American Fork city hall. Daniel Sroka, who recorded it, says it took place in the mayor’s office in the city’s administration building. The three mentions above are corrected; nothing else on the page changed.