Indiana’s law enforcement board wants to revoke the police certification for a former South Bend officer convicted of sexually abusing a teenager. The board also says the South Bend Police Department failed to notify it of the officer's conviction.
In 2022, Timothy Barber was convicted of molesting a 16-year-old girl in his police car while in uniform.
Barber resigned from the South Bend Police Department days after. But it isn’t until this week — more than a year and a half later — that officials are beginning the process of banning Barber from working in law enforcement.
According to Raquel Ramirez, an attorney with the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, the ILEA training board on Monday voted to begin decertification proceedings against Barber.
While local police departments handle discipline (like suspending or firing an officer), ILEA's training board has purview over police officer certification and revoking that certification means an officer can no longer work in law enforcement. Local departments can recommend to ILEA that an officer have their certification revoked, or ILEA can initiate the decertification proceedings itself.
Indiana law requires local police departments to notify the state training board within 30 days when officers commit are convicted of felonies or commit other serious misconduct, but Ramirez says South Bend failed to do so in Barber's case. She said South Bend did fill out a change of employment form and removed Barber from its list of employees in the state database. However, that form only noted Barber resigned after a criminal conviction and didn't ask for ILEA to strip his certification.
When asked whether the police department properly told the state about Barber’s conviction, South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski said only “decertification is state law.”
Barber has a right to a hearing if he wants, or he could voluntarily give up his law enforcement certification. Barber was not given any prison time in his criminal case where he pleaded guilty to grooming and pressuring a 16-year-old girl into having sex with him. Instead, St. Joseph County Judge Jeffrey Sanford gave Barber four years of probation and required him to register as a sex offender for 10 years.
At his sentencing hearing, Barber indicated he has been working in construction since he was charged with sexual abuse.
The girl Barber molested has since filed a civil lawsuit against the city, claiming mainly that Barber's fellow police officers witnessed the grooming but never reported Barber's misconduct to their superiors. WVPE reported on that lawsuit in January.
The ILEA board's move to decertify Barber comes after the Washington Post published a piece last week about his criminal case.
