SPOKANE -- Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich had no input on the decision to allow a deputy to go on vacation after he was involved in a fatal shooting August 25, Detective Dave Skogen, president of the Spokane Deputy Sheriffs Association, confirmed Tuesday morning.

“Actually he had nothing to do with it all. The decision to have this deputy go on his pre-schedule vacation was between the deputy and the investigators the night of the incident," Skogen said.

As the labor group's president Skogen was called to the Plant Farm about a half hour after the shooting and witnessed the conversation about the timing of the vacation. Skogen says Deputy Brian Hirzel, the deputy who fired the fatal shot, told investigators at the scene he wanted to be interviewed but asked that questioning be delayed.

"Our guy was never ever not willing to talk,” Skogen said. “He was never not willing to give a statement. The decision was made jointly by the investigators and the deputy. The sheriff had nothing to do with it at all.”

The family of shooting victim Scott Creach and members of the community have been extremely critical of Sheriff Knezovich for allowing Hirzel to go on his vacation however Knezovich, who was in Philadelphia at the time of the shooting, says he was not told of the arrangement until the day after the shooting.

Knezovich says even then he was under the impression that Hirzel was going to visit with his mother in Montana and be back in Spokane in time to complete the interview within the 72-hour time frame established by departmental protocol.

Skogen says at that point the sheriff was not in a position to order Hirzel to cancel his remaining vacation or run the risk of compelling the deputy's statements.

"Had the sheriff done that, [Hirzel] would have gone in and made the same statement he made a week later, but it would have not been able to be used against him. Had that deputy said something that made him criminally liable that statement would not be admissible. It's really that simple," Skogen said.

Click here to see our archive of past stories and videos in the Scott Creach shooting investigation