Pictured: A truck frequently parked in the employee lot at Carroll City Hall with a SYLSOS sticker, which stands for “Support Your Local Sons Of Silence.”
A City of Carroll employee’s implied connections to an FBI-designated outlaw motorcycle gang (OMG) are raising questions from some city officials and the public. Recently, a vehicle has been parked in the employee lot at Carroll City Hall sporting a SYLSOS sticker, which stands for “Support Your Local Sons of Silence.” According to the FBI’s online archive, the Sons of Silence had been previously identified as a “serious national domestic threat” alongside groups like the Hells Angels, Mongols, Bandidos, and Outlaws. Due to Iowa’s public employee privacy laws, City Manager Aaron Kooiker says he cannot provide specific information about individual employees, including names, dates of employment, departments, or other similar details.
Kooiker adds that a sticker on any employee’s vehicle would be protected under the First Amendment, limiting the city’s disciplinary options. However, Kooiker says he can explain how employees are vetted prior to their hire.
City employees who work in law enforcement undergo more extensive background checks. The City of Carroll does not have a moral turpitude clause in its policy for general employees, but he says they would look further into anything that may appear on one of those checks. Access to potentially sensitive information has been cited as a concern, but Kooiker says only staff in the law enforcement field have access to information not available to the general public.
Kooiker wants to reassure the public that all city staff are held to a high standard, both on and off the clock.
Due to those legal constraints, Kooiker says the city cannot provide any other information about the situation.
