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LOGAN -- Logan's mayor is backing his new police chief as a video surfaced on YouTube showing the chief's nunchuks in action in 2007, when he was the head of the Vernal Police Department.
Gary Jensen will be sworn-in as chief later Tuesday in Logan.
The video shows a man slapping another man's behind with the nunchuks and that second man showing off the welt.
Chief Gary Jensen is then shown presenting a medal to the man with the welt and saying, "You've been ‘whupped' by Vernal police." The video also contains offensive language.
Mayor Randy Watts says the video was spliced out of context and published on YouTube by so-called Juggaloes - followers of the music group Insane Clown Posse. He says a local blogger saw it and sent the link to various people, including city leaders. Watts now says the tape has been thoroughly reviewed by the city and he stands by his man.
"If there was something there, definitely we would have jumped on this thing because we always see these things on TV," Watts says in a phone interview with KSL Newsradio.
Watts says Jensen had the nunchuks because he was trained with them and preferred using them over a nightstick.
"It'll put a welt, but it's not going to break the back of somebody's head with a nightstick," Watts says.
Jensen tells the Herald Journal in Logan, "This piece of media does not represent me as a professional, nor is it a glimpse of my character."
E-mail: aadams@ksl.com
