05/15/2025
Due to accusations being made and an effort to be transparent we are releasing the findings from this case involving a mayoral candidate from last year.
On October 13th 2024 at approximately 3:10 PM the Bull Shoals Police Department took a report of some damaged campaign signs located at the corner of Hwy 178 and River Cliff. A trail camera had been placed at the location due to previous complaints. Once the report had been made an officer went to the location and pulled the SD card from the camera and it was examined at the PD. The suspect was clearly identified as Phillip Friese in the pictures and he was driving his truck with his campaign placards on the side.
Chief Brad Harper was made aware about the findings from the cameras and he reached out to the Prosecuting Attorney, Kerry Chism. Chism advised that he would have to check with some other prosecutors to make sure if it would be criminal mischief or a different tampering charge due to it being a political sign. On 10-28-2025 Chism and Harper spoke and Chism advised it would just be Criminal Mischief and to go ahead and type the affidavit. Harper asked if it would be a problem since the suspect is a mayoral candidate and it was election week. Chism advised that doesn't affect the law at all and to proceed. An affidavit was prepared and was signed by the Judge later that same day (included picture) and a "Read Only" warrant was issued.
On 11-2-2025 at around 1600 hours a Bull Shoals officer affected a traffic stop on Friese due to positive identification and Friese having an expired drivers license since May. Friese was issued a citation for the expired DL and was read the warrant, given a court date, and was released on the scene.
The sign in question is the only green political sign at the location.
The pictures provided show time stamps and the evidence that lead to the affidavit and are as follows:
16:11:28 time stamp shows Friese's truck arriving at the scene
16:12:55 time stamp shows Friese parked at the location and you can see where the green sign is located and that it is upright, not touching Friese's sign
16:29:00 time stamp shows, look close on the left side of the picture, Friese holding the green sign. You can see his red shirt and he is holding the sign.
The next picture is zoomed in on the same picture of him holding the sign and you can clearly see the sign is still in tact and that the weld on the bottom is not broken and is still straight.
16:32:05 time stamp shows Friese still on scene and the green sign is now bent and laying over, the condition it was when we arrived on scene.
The last two pictures are of the sign with the weld broken and it being bent.
We should also note that Friese just a few weeks prior to this called then Mayor Duss to a location for her to move one of her signs because he didn't like the placement of hers stating it was blocking his sign. That shows that the appropriate process for moving another candidate's sign was known by Friese and just simply wasn't followed during this incident. Friese also did not advise anyone that sign had been broken, even if it was an accident or not.
The Prosecutor and Friese's Defense Attorney both agreed that Friese broke the sign, that he should have called someone, and that he should not have touched anyone else's sign. However, Chism stated that we couldn't prove reckless intent and that is why the charge was dropped and was not tried before the Judge.
