Bella Byers

Introduction

Bella Byers is a recruit officer with the Astoria Police Department in Oregon who was indicted on Thursday, 5 November 2026, by a Clatsop County grand jury on charges of telephonic harassment and tampering with a witness. The charges stem from what her department describes as an off-duty incident in Clatsop County that did not involve the use of police authority, but they arrived while Byers was in training to become a full officer — she was attending the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training’s Basic Police Academy at the time of the indictment. She has been on paid administrative leave since 28 September and is presumed innocent.

Background Information

Byers joined the Astoria Police Department as a recruit and, until the indictment, was following the standard Oregon pathway into policing: the state requires all new officers to complete the 16-week, full-time Basic Police Academy run by the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in Salem. Police Chief Stacy Kelly said he first learned of the incident underlying the charges on 17 August — six weeks into what had been, publicly, an unblemished training period. In light of the potential criminal exposure, Kelly requested that the Oregon State Police take over the investigation rather than have his own department examine the conduct of one of its own recruits.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Indicted; on paid leave; presumption of innocence.

The Oregon State Police investigation into the 17 August incident ran through mid-October, and on 5 November 2026 a Clatsop County grand jury found cause to support charges of telephonic harassment and tampering with a witness. The Astoria Police Department’s press release announcing the indictment was explicit about the boundaries of the case: the charges stem from an “off duty” incident in Clatsop County and did not involve the use of police authority — the conduct alleged is not an abuse of the badge but an alleged witness-tampering effort tied to some underlying off-duty matter the department has not described.

Byers has been on paid administrative leave since 28 September — placed there before any indictment issued, after the department learned of the potential charges but while the state’s investigation was still running. The paid-leave status means she remains an employee of the department through the criminal case, distinct from the unpaid relief other agencies impose after indictment.

Clatsop County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dawn Buzzard said Byers will be arraigned on the two charges in the coming weeks. Buzzard told The Astorian it is likely Byers will be conditionally released given her lack of criminal history — a standard outcome for a first indictment carrying misdemeanor-class harassment and tampering counts.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The case was covered in Astoria’s paper of record, The Astorian, which obtained the department’s release and the district attorney’s office’s arraignment timeline. The department’s handling drew no separate controversy in the covered window: the chief’s decision to hand the investigation to the Oregon State Police, and the months-long wait between the August incident and the November indictment, were presented in the release as procedural propriety rather than scandal. No community group or councilmember statement was reported.

The practical consequence is already fixed: a recruit who was weeks into the state’s police academy is now an indicted defendant, and Oregon’s certification pathway — DPSST graduation as a precondition of sworn work — is interrupted by the criminal case regardless of its outcome.

Current Status

Byers is indicted on telephonic harassment and witness tampering, expected to be arraigned in Clatsop County in the coming weeks, and likely to be conditionally released per the district attorney’s assessment of her lack of criminal history. She remains on paid administrative leave from the Astoria Police Department. The underlying off-duty incident has not been described publicly by the department or prosecutors, no plea has been entered, and no statement from Byers or an attorney has been reported.

Impact on Their Career/Life

For a recruit, the indictment lands at the single most consequential moment of a policing career: before certification, before sworn status, with the entire trajectory still ahead. Even a full acquittal would leave the department deciding whether the 16-week academy pathway resumes; a conviction would foreclose it. The case also marks Astoria’s department with the harder question of how an off-duty incident by a trainee escalated to witness tampering — an allegation that implicates the integrity of a proceeding the state has not named.

Sources

• The Astorian, “Astoria Police Recruit indicted for witness tampering.” source