Lt. Tim West of the Gervais Police Department said he’d never had a loaded firearm pointed at his face. Until 2022.

“I didn’t think it would be by my chief,” West reportedly told a colleague.

West’s blistering allegation appeared in a 101-page investigative report on former Gervais Police Chief Mark Chase that the city commissioned in October. The document led to Chase’s firing last month and sparked an ongoing feud between his defenders and elected officials in the quiet city of 2,700 people about 15 miles northeast of Salem.