10-30-06 The Associated Press

Salt Lake City, Utah -- Utah police officers most frequently lose their certification or are suspended from their jobs after sexual misconduct offenses.

Officers from agencies small and large commit sex offenses more often than any other offense, including excessive force, falsifying reports or driving under the influence, according to data from the state's Peace Officers Standards and Training Council (POST).

Among the offenses: rape, attempted sodomy; child sex abuse; and having sex with inmates, parolees or people on probation.

An analysis of records by The Salt Lake Tribune showed that of 94 officers whose certifications were revoked between 2000 and 2005, 42 were accused of sexual offenses. Over the same five year period, another 22 officers were suspended for the same reason.

In another 1,000 disciplinary cases reviewed by the POST Council between 1991 and 2003, 212 cases -- or 21 percent -- included sexual offenses. Only 12 complaints of excessive force were investigated during the same 12-year period, records show.

This year alone, POST has decertified corrections officers in Davis, Millard and Washington counties, and a South Salt Lake police officers for sexual offenses.

"It has ballooned in the last couple of years, and it's alarming to us. We're very concerned about the trends," said POST Director Rich Townsend.

But not all the cases result in criminal prosecution. As Townsend explains, the offenses may be ethical violation, but they don't always fit into criminal offenses defined by the state.

And some violations never make it as far as POST. Some police chiefs and sheriff fail to report misconduct, Townsend said.

"Law enforcement needs to be concerned," Townsend said. "Law enforcement administrators better wake up and be concerned because, again, so much hope is placed in the integrity of the profession."

Retrieved October 31, 2006 from http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/198302/

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 05:19 PM | Permalink

The Warren Reporter, 10/13/06

Mansfield, New Jersey -- Detective Michael Reilly of the Mansfield Police Department washonored by the mayor and township committeelast monthfor his investigative work which lead to the solving of twocasesfrom June and July.

Reilly, who has been with the Mansfield Township Police Departmentabout 10 years, was first commended for recovering a suspect who stole a Ford F-350 truck and various auto parts from Port Murray Auto Salvage on June 21.

Reilly used the auto salvage videotape system to obtain a picture of the suspectas hedrove the truck out of the salvage yard and crashed through the gate.The suspect was at the yard at an earlier date and was interested in buying a truck.

Reilly tracked the suspect to New Brunswick, but did not find him at home, and advised neighbors that a vehicle had been stolen. The suspect was arrested soon after without incident andhas since been incarcerated in the Warren County Jail.

In July, Reilly arrested a suspect who hadexposed himself to two young children in the Mansfield Township Wal-Mart.Though the suspect left the store and drove away after theincident, the children and their parents were able to obtain a partial license plate number on the mini-van he drove away in.

Reilly then used the Wal-Mart security video system, obtaining a better picture of the vehicle and suspect with 10 hours of reviewing the video and using video enhancement equipment of the New Jersey State Police. Reilly also obtained assistance from a local car dealer and eventually identified asuspect vehiclein Ocean County, which led to the arrest of the suspect, who was a registered sex offender.

At a Sept. 27 Mansfield Township Committee meeting, Reilly was honored for his exemplary and exceptional efforts and investigative techniques andwas awarded theExceptional Service Medal on behalf of the citizens of the Township of Mansfield.

"He's done an excellent job. He really deserved it," said Mansfield Township Police Chief Doug Ort.

Retrieved October 30, 2006 from http://www.nj.com/news/warrenreporter/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1160712722100220.xml&coll=15

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 04:00 PM | Permalink

Delta Democrat Times, October 30, 2006, By Eloria Newell James / elorianewelljames@ddtonline.com
 
Greenville, Mississippi - Local law enforcement officials say the recent rash of arrests and guilty pleas of Mississippi law enforcement officers have not affected their departments. However, they all acknowledged that the recent events have questioned law enforcement's integrity.

Ruleville Police Chief Ronald Durelle Robinson pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal charge in U.S. District Court in Oxford. Robinson and Ruleville Assistant Police Chief Larry Mitchell were scheduled to stand trial on federal charges in January on drug and extortion charges. Thursday, Robinson admitted that while employed as chief the Ruleville Police Department, he obtained a cash payoff of $3,000 to which he was not entitled, in exchange for not pursuing drug and gambling related charges against an individual and for providing protection for an individual that he believed to be distributing crack cocaine.

A week ago, Yazoo City Police Chief Ceasar Felton turned himself in after being indicted on five counts of embezzlement and one count of obtaining property by false pretense for allegedly persuading a woman to sign a 10-year-old Hyundai over to him to settle apparently fictitious impound fees.

The following day, Tupelo Police Capt. Robert Hall was arrested on obstruction of justice and accessory-after-the fact charges for allegedly mishandling an accident that left a young boy seriously injured.

Local officials said these incidents do not represent the overall law enforcement profession. “I've always felt that if you have law enforcement officials, judges and people in places of integrity, and something happens, it affects us all in some way,” Leland Police Chief Eddie Johnson said. “It's a black eye for the whole profession of law enforcement.”
 
Greenville Police Chief Lester Carter said integrity is needed in all positions. “You have to have good integrity when you are put in these positions of authority,” he said. Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston said it's important for officials to uphold their oath and responsibilities. “We all take an oath. So, we just need to do what we are supposed to do,” Gaston said. “We need to be out here to do a job. We don't need to get caught up in any illegal activity. We need to uphold our responsibilities.” Carter said he believes the community must look at the individual situations. “I think they should look at the person and not the whole profession,” he said. “We are not responsible for other people's actions.” Johnson agreed. “Each community should judge its law enforcement agency on its own merit,” the top Leland cop said. “Things like this attack the trustworthiness of law enforcement. At all times, we have to work on our image and do what we are supposed to as law enforcement officers.” Gaston said it's important for officials to realize why they are in office. “We need to be out here to do a job,” he said. “Our job is to serve and protect the people.”

Retrieved October 30, 2006 from http://www.ddtonline.com/articles/2006/10/29/news/news6.txt

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:57 PM | Permalink

By Ralph Vartabedian, Richard A. Serrano and Richard Marosi
The Baltimore Sun, October 29, 2006

El Paso, Texas -- Bribery of federal and local officials by Mexican smugglers is rising sharply, and with it the fear that a culture of corruption is taking hold along the 2,000-mile border from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego.

At least 200 public employees have been charged with helping to move narcotics or illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexican border since 2004, at least double the illicit activity documented in prior years, a Los Angeles Times examination of public records has found. Thousands more are under investigation.

Criminal charges have been brought against Border Patrol agents, local police, a county sheriff, motor vehicle clerks, an FBI supervisor, immigration examiners, prison guards, school district officials and uniformed personnel of every branch of the U.S. military, among others. The vast majority have pleaded guilty or been convicted.

Officials in Washington and along the border worry about what lies below the surface. "It is the tip of the iceberg," said James "Chip" Burrus, assistant director of the criminal investigation division of the FBI. "There is a lot more down there. The problem is, you don't know what you don't know."

What is known - from court cases, other public records and dozens of interviews - is alarming enough. Some schemes have displayed considerable sophistication among Mexican drug lords, and their success shows a discouraging willingness by public employees to take tainted money.

Though America's southern border may evoke images of a poor backwater, it is alive with vast amounts of ill-gotten wealth, shadowy organizations that ply the waters of the Rio Grande, and brazen schemes that seem borrowed out of Cold War espionage.

Perhaps the most revealing example of smugglers' savvy was their cultivation of the highest-ranking FBI official in El Paso, Special Agent in Charge Hardrick Crawford.

FBI agents thought they had turned alleged drug kingpin Jose Maria Guardia into an informant, but Guardia was working as a double agent for the Mexican drug lords. He drew Crawford into a personal friendship, and provided a job for Crawford's wife, a country club membership for the couple and family trips to Las Vegas.

In August, after the chummy relationship became public, Crawford was convicted on federal charges of trying to conceal his friendship with Guardia. He could be sentenced to up to five years in prison and fined a half-million dollars.

Drug rings once planted a mole in a federal agency, and officials worry others are lurking. The rings have entangled U.S. agents in sexual relationships. And they have amassed files on individual U.S. agents, with details about their finances, families and habits - even the kind of bicycles their kids ride.

"They hire guys to watch the narcotics agents," says Lee Morgan II, who retired as the head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Douglas, Ariz., this year. "They know what time we get up in the morning. When we go to work. What kind of car your wife drives.

"We had an informant tell us he saw a film of us as we exited our office that was being shown in Mexico. They had our license plate numbers." The Mexican criminal networks can afford lavish payoffs. Bribery payments have topped $1 million.

Paul K. Charlton, U.S. attorney for Arizona since 2001, is convinced border corruption is worsening - and jeopardizing the trust that U.S. communities place in their government. "The concern for me is that we can very quickly develop a culture that would be more accepting of that kind of misconduct," Charlton said. "You only have to look south of the border to see what happens when a certain level of corruption is accepted."

Officials warn that the risk of public corruption will grow as Congress and the Bush administration respond to public demands to improve border security. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, wants to add 10,000 employees to its work force of 42,000, most of whom are already stationed along the Mexican border. "If you increase the number of people on the border, you are going to get more corruption," Burrus said. Stepped-up border security also makes corruption all the more necessary to smugglers.

"As we tighten up on the border, it will make it harder for the traffickers to get across," said Johnny Sutton, U.S. attorney for Texas' Western District. "You have to be creative about getting your poison into the U.S. Obviously, corrupting the officials is a part of it."

Critics blame sloppy hiring practices, inadequate training and weak internal controls. Agents are vulnerable because morale is "pathetic," stemming in part from illegal immigrants' phony allegations that have unfairly ruined careers, said T.J. Bonner, head of the union for Border Patrol agents.

Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar rejects those claims, saying morale is good because there is more staffing and better equipment. Wages for public employees in the poor border economies are respectable; Border Patrol agents start at about $35,000 a year and can exceed $65,000 with overtime. Aguilar said the Border Patrol had increased ethics training at its academy and set up anti- corruption programs in the field, and he said it conducted new background checks on its agents every five years. "We are doing everything we can to root out these agents, these criminals, within our organization," Aguilar said. But such efforts sometimes stand little chance against the greed of weak agents and the power of smugglers with money to spread around. "They are going to try to find ways to breach our enforcement efforts," Aguilar said. "They will try to flank us, tunnel us, fly over and to corrupt our efforts." While corruption is growing, the number of internal investigators overseeing a vastly expanding work force is stagnant or even shrinking. Aguilar, who must rely on other agencies to investigate the Border Patrol, has demanded more prompt and thorough investigations. Others complain that infighting within the Department of Homeland Security has hobbled enforcement.

Michael Maxwell resigned this year as head of internal affairs for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services after clashing repeatedly with Homeland Security over a shortage of resources. When he left, 3,000 allegations of misconduct, including 100 reports of bribery, were uninvestigated, he said. "Nobody is seriously addressing corruption," Maxwell said. "The corruption is pervasive." The narcotics networks sometimes receive direct help from local Mexican governments. Last year, federal prosecutors in Arizona charged Police Chief Ramon Robles-Cota of Sonoyta, Mexico, a small town near the Lukeville border crossing, with drug trafficking and bribery. His swings into Arizona were chauffeured by one of his officers, Julio Cesar Lozano-Lopez, who admitted in federal court that he drove his chief into Arizona twice in 2005 to meet with Border Patrol agents and spread bribe money around. The chief is in federal custody in Arizona, awaiting trial.

In a 2005 wake-up call about the scope of border corruption, a major FBI-led sting in Arizona netted 71 guilty pleas by National Guard members, state prison guards and a federal inspector. Known as Operation Lively Green, the sting demonstrated that large numbers of government employees at the border were willing to take a bribe. But nobody in government has measured all the criminal cases across every jurisdiction, agency and state.

The Times examined case files, public announcements and other public records dating to 2004 and interviewed officials in every U.S. attorney's district along the border as well as local and federal law enforcement agents and key county prosecutors.

In the past, border corruption was mainly associated with narcotics. But increasingly, immigrant smugglers - who command huge fees from people trying to cross illegally into the U.S. - are also making payoffs. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks called attention the risks posed by human smuggling: Though no terrorists are known to have slipped across the Mexican border yet, many law enforcement officials are deeply worried that corrupt inspectors might let it happen.

"Who's to say a potential terrorist can't get in that way?" asks Jack W. Hook, a special agent in charge of the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office in San Diego.

The escalating corruption among federal employees has drawn charges that Homeland Security's screening and training of new employees is sloppy.

Even the most ambitious review of job applicants won't necessarily ferret out all of the problems. Many convicted agents have said financial pressures and other personal dilemmas drove them to cross the line. Smugglers often know how to push the right button.

Agent Aldo Erives told a judge last year that the drug dealers knew that he hitchhiked to his classes at a local college. "Come on," he said they told him, "you can buy a car if you pass a load through the checkpoint."

Ralph Vartabedian, Richard A. Serrano and Richard Marosi write for the Los Angeles Times.
The Baltimore Sun

Retrieved October 30, 2006 from http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.border29oct29,0,5631777.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
 

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:48 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:

1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
     a. Why did you choose that typology?

2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?
     a.Why did you choose that decision making process?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

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Albany, New York -  Ethics Commission says Comptroller Violated State Law

By Mark Johnson - The New York Sun, Associated Press, October 23, 2006

Albany, New York - Comptroller Alan Hevesi violated state law by failing to pay the state nearly $83,000 for the use of a staffer to drive for his ailing wife despite a 2003 advisory from the state Ethics Commission that he should, the commission ruled Monday.

"The Commission concludes that there is reasonable cause to believe that Mr. Hevesi knowingly and intentionally used his position as New York state comptroller to secure unwarranted privileges for himself and his wife, and in doing so, pursued a course of conduct that raises suspicion among the public that he likely engaged in acts that violated the public trust."

Mr. Hevesi, a former Assemblyman seeking a second four-year term as the state's chief financial officer, acknowledged last month that he had not paid the state back for the cost of having his ailing wife driven around by a state employee since 2003. Hevesi later apologized publicly and repaid the state $82,688 for the worker's service.

The Queens Democrat paid up earlier this month only after Republican challenger J. Christopher Callaghan went public with the issue.

Mr. Hevesi subsequently sent a letter to the ethics commission for a review of his actions. After Monday's ruling, he could face a fine, suspension or removal from office. Commission spokesman Walter Ayres said the legislature, where Mr. Hevesi served for 22 years, will determine the penalty.

He also faces a criminal probe by Albany County District Attorney David Soares. Mr. Hevesi had no immediate comment Monday.

The same employee who was driving Carol Hevesi around did the same duty for Hevesi when he was New York City comptroller. Hevesi would end up paying the city back about $6,000.

A WNBC/Marist College poll released Friday showed Hevesi leading Callaghan 62 percent to 22 percent among likely voters. Another 16 percent were undecided.

Still, 51 percent of those surveyed said Mr. Hevesi acted unethically in failing to pay the state for the driver's service. Another 37 percent believed he did something illegal. Only 7 percent of likely voters thought he did nothing wrong.

Retrieved October 25, 2006 from http://www.nysun.com/article/42090

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:33 PM | Permalink

10-22-06

A hero cop risked her life diving into the sea to save a distressed woman. Constable Faith Cooper leapt into the outer harbour at Castletown in a desperate bid to rescue the suicidal woman.

The 33-year-old said it was all in a day's work, but her bravery has earned her a nomination for a commendation from Chief Constable Mike Culverhouse. Deputy Chief Constable Mike Langdon said Faith had put her life at risk, but acted without fear for her personal safety.

Night had fallen when the call came in from a member of the public that a woman was threatening to throw herself in the harbour. Faith was dispatched from Castletown police station, and found the distressed woman at the end of the breakwater.

'She had already been in the water, and was on the steps into the harbour when I arrived,' said Faith. 'I was trying to talk to her, but she made it clear she was going to go back into the water.

'She went back down the steps, so I ran down after her and followed her into the water. 'She was struggling. I thought at one point she would pull me right under, but I managed to get her to the water's edge.'

The man who had raised the alarm and Faith's colleague Constable Adrian Brooks, who had arrived from Port Erin, helped lift the woman from the water. The woman was uninjured and able to receive the help she needed. Modest Faith, who has been based in the south for three years, played down her heroics. 'It is just part of my job,' she said. 'You don't think twice about it. 'I think it has to be part of the job, but it is also just human instinct as well. We are here to preserve life. 'I am just glad I was in the area and close by. Also, if it hadn't been for the gentleman who phoned it in, it may have turned out differently.'

It isn't the first time Faith's heroics have drawn accolades, she was commended after risking her life to rescue a woman from a house fire while working in South Wales, before she transferred here in 2000. Mr Langdon said: 'Without fear for her personal safety she entered the water at Castletown harbour to help a vulnerable female.

'She had to go down a set of slimy steps, entered the sea and ended up struggling with this woman. She put her life at risk trying to restrain and rescue the woman, but managed to pull her out of the water, with the assistance of another police officer and a member of the public.

'We are enormously proud of our officers, that they take this sort of incident as an every day occurrence, their duty and something which is expected of them.'

Retrieved October 24, 2006 from http://www.iomonline.co.im/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=870&ArticleID=1837227

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 06:40 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: The following story alleging retaliation against Whistleblowers, a.k.a. lamplighters, from the Long Beach, California Police Department is interesting. For more information about Whistleblowing see my page: http://www.kardasz.org/Whistle_Blowing.html

----------------------------------------------------------------

Beyond `Lobstergate'
Police: Officers say their lawsuit speaks to deeper issues of leadership in LBPD. 
By Tracy Manzer, Staff writer, Long Beach Press Telegram 
10/21/2006
 
Long Beach, California - For the officers who blew the whistle on fellow Long Beach cops allegedly caught diving for lobsters while patrolling the Port of Long Beach, the problem runs much deeper than unauthorized fishing trips.

For Sgt. David Gage and Officer Warren Harris, the mention of "Lobstergate" - and all the jokes and snickers that accompany it - trivializes what they feel is a deeper, darker problem.

"This isn't about Lobstergate, this is far more serious," Gage said. "This has shown me that the leadership within the Long Beach Police Department failed to fulfill its duty when it was presented with a problem, that there is no honesty, integrity or respect in this administration."

Now Gage, Harris and Officer Craig Patterson are embroiled in a legal battle for their careers and reputations. The three - all veterans of the force - have sued the city, claiming they suffered retaliation and personal threats for calling attention to the illegal actions of fellow officers.

In their suit, the officers said that in 2004 they were working for the Police Department's Port Security Unit - a team assembled in the aftermath of 9/11 and funded partially through government grants - when they reported a group of fellow officers in the unit had used a police boat to dive for lobsters in the Port of Long Beach.

"You've just scratched the surface," Harris said in a recent interview. "There is so much more going on here than some unauthorized dives."

Police Chief Anthony Batts, who is attending a national police chief's conference in Boston, could not be reached for comment. Deputy Police Chief Tim Jackman said Thursday he could not discuss the allegations because they involved personnel matters and pending litigation. "We will litigate this case through the courts, not through the newspaper," Jackman said.

All three officers involved in the lawsuit said they were told by superiors not to discuss the case because of an ongoing investigation by the Police Department and because of their pending litigation. But two of the three spoke briefly about their experience in trying to get police and city officials to deal with the problem, as well as their concerns that the police chief and his command staff conspired to cover up the wrongdoing of the other officers to save the department and city from embarrassment.

"I can't discuss (specifics of) the case, but I will tell you that every time I tried to get someone to deal with the problem, they chose to cover it up," Harris said. "This started out as such a simple problem, but it's so much more now."

The unpermitted scuba dives, which occurred in the fall of 2003, resulted in transfers and letters of reprimand for at least four Long Beach police officers. An internal investigation was completed in January 2005. Initially, three officers and a sergeant were suspended, but those suspensions were reduced to letters of reprimand. The attorney who represented the accused officers said the shift in punishment was due to the allegations being blown out of proportion.

But in a four-page letter Gage sent to newly elected Mayor Bob Foster on Sept. 13, the sergeant alleged blackmail by one of the accused officers.

"The most alarming thing in this entire case was the fact that one of the accused officers made a statement to fellow accused officers, that nothing was going to happen to anyone because he had taken a crime report listing a high-ranking police official as a suspect and if he was embarrassed by this investigation, he would embarrass the Police Department and the City of Long Beach," Gage wrote.

Despite his efforts and conversations with city and police officials - including Deputy City Prosecutor Sharon Panian, Deputy City Attorney Christina Checel, City Prosecutor Tom Reeves and Deputy Chief Ted Hulsey (now retired) - he said little was done to address the illegal actions of the accused cops and nothing was done to stop the threats and retaliation suffered by Gage, Harris and Patterson, who testified against the accused officers in an Internal Affairs investigation. Panian and Hulsey declined to comment on the case, and Checel and Reeves could not be reached for comment.

Although they had been considered among the department's best and brightest when they were chosen to serve in the newly formed port unit, the three officers became the subject of negative reviews and were passed over for transfers and promotions, they claim in court papers.

Patterson currently serves in the Management of Criminal Investigations Unit in the Detective Division. Officers familiar with the MCI unit say it's the closest thing to Siberia that can be found in the department. One officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, compared the work to that of a file clerk.

"They can't do any investigations themselves, they only take all the other detectives' work and put it all together to hand off to the DA," he said. "If there's a black hole, MCI is it."

Gage was placed on medical leave due to knee problems, and several members of the Police Department said he will retire once his leave is up. "That was news to me," Gage said Thursday. "I never said I was retiring."

Harris said Thursday that he put in for a dozen transfers after the case blew up and life in the unit became unbearable. He was passed over for every one, he said, and ended up taking a job in patrol in the South Division. The last four years of his career, he said, will be spent in a patrol car working nights despite extensive experience in investigations.

Among his professional accomplishments, Harris said, was his work to write the arrest warrants in the murder case of Officer Daryle Black. Harris was also among a team of officers who were part of a task force with LAPD designed to crackdown on the Asian Boyz Gang. The task force, he said, resulted in 16 high-ranking gang members going to prison.

Harris said police and city officials chose to ignore the retaliation he and his colleagues suffered. At one point, he said, he was asked by Lt. John Lembi, in Internal Affairs, what it would take to solve the problem. "I asked for three simple things that wouldn't cost the city a dime," Harris said.

He told the administrative lieutenant he wanted a letter of apology from the department for his colleagues and himself. He wanted the city to adopt a policy that would protect not just police officers, but all city employees, against retaliation if they report unethical or illegal acts by fellow employees.

And he wanted Chief Batts to read the new policy on the city's TV station, to publicly take a stand against such behavior. Harrison said he was told, "It will never happen."

"I told Lembi that they forced us to sue, that the only way they deal with anything is if it hits them in the pocketbook," Harris added. "He said, `It ain't my pocketbook, I don't care what you do."'

Asked to comment on the allegation, Lembi said he could not discuss the case because the conversation took place during an Internal Affairs investigation, and that information is confidential.

For his part, Gage said he was ordered by Jackman not to discuss the allegations made to city and police officials in person and to the mayor in his letter.

The letter, he added, was sent via certified mail to Foster. He does not know how it got passed on to the Press-Telegram. "You have the letter, it's all spelled out there," he said.

"I am embarrassed. I regret getting Officer Patterson and Officer Harris involved in this," the sergeant said. "If you thought they were getting the cold shoulder before, if you thought it was bad before, it's going to be like frost-bite now."

Tracy Manzer can be reached at tracy.manzer@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1261.  

Retrieved October 23, 2006 from http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_4531354

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:28 AM | Permalink

Heavily armed gunman felled with two shots

By Kristina Davis, Union-Tribune Staff Writer, October 14, 2006

It is a modern-day gunbattle destined to be retold by cops for years to come. A lone sergeant miraculously dodges 30 rounds from a fully automatic AK-47 and single-handedly takes down the gunman with two well-placed shots from his rifle. One year later, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Kirk Van Orsdel still has moments of disbelief when he recalls how he was able to walk away from the firefight of his life. “It was a whole lot of luck and someone watching over me,” is the only explanation he can give.

The shootout, which unfolded on a Riverside County freeway July 21, 2005, has thrust the soft-spoken sergeant into the national spotlight with recognitions for his heroism. On Sunday, he will be honored in Parade magazine's “Officer of the Year” issue as one of 10 honorable mentions for the prestigious award, given by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He will fly to Boston on Tuesday for the award ceremony. Van Orsdel won the national “Trooper of the Year” award given by the association this year. “I was very surprised I was a finalist,” said Van Orsdel, 43, who now oversees administrative operations at the CHP station in Oceanside. “We don't get recognized very often for doing the right thing.”

The morning of July 21 started out quietly enough in the desert near Cabazon, where Van Orsdel had begun his shift as a field supervisor. At 7:43 a.m., a woman called 911 to report she was being chased and shot at by a man driving a gray Lincoln. Van Orsdel spotted the cars immediately as they exited the freeway, and the driver of the Lincoln sped away after seeing an officer behind him. The sergeant followed him going the wrong way on the freeway, then into an intersection, where the man abruptly stopped. The first shot rang out, just missing Van Orsdel's head. “I never saw the gun, but I heard the shot, saw the hole in the windshield and was sprayed with glass,” he recalled.

The chase continued, followed by more exchanges of gunfire. At that moment, the gunman glanced over at a gas station and spotted his former girlfriend, the woman he had been chasing on the freeway. He opened fire on her as she ran inside, and then turned his gun back on Van Orsdel in another spray of bullets. Van Orsdel picked up the chase again, following him to the entrance of the Morongo Indian Reservation, where the driver stopped near the guard shack. Van Orsdel knew he had only seven rounds in his handgun, but he had readied his .22-caliber rifle. Suddenly, the gunman peeked over the roof of his car, giving Van Orsdel his first glimpse of the weapon he was up against. “I recognized right away it was an AK-47 and got a pretty sick feeling,” Van Orsdel said. “There was 45 feet between us. He opened up on me and he was on full automatic. The first burst hit the windshield. He sprayed gunfire and the rounds barely missed me.

I started firing blindly toward his car, and he stopped.” At one point, the gunman raised his rifle toward the unarmed guard ducking nearby. Van Orsdel finally got the gunman in the open and hit him with two rounds. “He bent over, and I realized I was empty. I reloaded my rifle, and he came up again to fire, but he was either empty or had a malfunction,” Van Orsdel said. “At that point he throws the rifle down, does a spread eagle belly flop, and gives up.” The incident lasted only about four minutes, Van Orsdel said, but it seemed like forever. “For a split second, I thought he had me. I had a bad headache, blood running into my eye and down my face. I started checking myself and realized that I didn't get shot.” Van Orsdel had been peppered with glass shards and bullet fragments, but was otherwise uninjured. The gunman, later identified as Gustavo Sanchez, survived his wounds and was found guilty of all charges. He faces seven years to life in prison and is set to be sentenced Friday .

Looking back, Van Orsdel says 19 years of training and the right mindset helped keep him alive. “Afterward, everything sinks in, and I think, 'I almost got killed and orphaned my kids,' ” said the sergeant, who had lost his wife to cancer just three months earlier. “You just don't give up. You never give up.”

Kristina Davis: (760) 476-8233; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com Retrieved October 14, 2006 from http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20061014-9999-2m14chp.html

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:29 AM | Permalink

A Dennis, Massachusetts police officer was honored Friday for helping pull a woman from water in 2005. Ofc. Nick Patsavos received the George L. Hanna Meritorious Conduct Award for his heroic actions in saving the life of a woman from the Bass River.

Officer Patsavos was nominated for the actions he took when he had responded to the Bass River in the area of the Highbank Bridge for a report of a woman who had jumped into the river from the bridge. On arrival, Officer Patsavos entered the river, swam out to the woman and successfully brought her back to shore, all the while disregarding his own safety in the frigid, swiftly flowing water.

The Hanna Awards recognize officers throughout Massachusetts for outstanding acts of bravery and courage and are the State’s highest awards for bravery. The awards are given in honor of George L. Hanna, a Massachusetts State Police Trooper who was killed in the line of duty on February 26, 1983.

Posted on 10/14 at 8:00 AM.
Retrieved October 14, 2006 from http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/CWN/2006/10/14/dennis_police_officer_honored

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:20 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz:

It seem that there is never a dull moment in the world of big-city police department politics. Here is an intersting "he-said, she-said" story accusing a top police official of manipulating the disciplinary system. It is interesting to me that the "whistleblower" in this case was also suspended from duty and is also now being investigated.

For more information about whistleblowing, also known as lamplighting, see http://www.kardasz.org/Whistle_Blowing.html

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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Mayor places top police officials on leave - Regan, police commander will be paid while inquiry is conducted

October 13, 2006, By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Saying that staff interference in police discipline "will not be tolerated," Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl yesterday put Director of Operations Dennis Regan on paid leave while city lawyers conduct "a thorough investigation" of recent allegations by a police commander.

He also put the Zone 1 commander who leveled the accusations on paid leave, saying that "will enable us to have the investigation independent of any continuing operations by Mr. Regan or Cmdr. [Catherine] McNeilly."

Could they return after the investigation? "That could certainly happen," the mayor said. "It could certainly go the other way as well."

The move was an effort to get beyond a controversy that started Oct. 2, when the mayor nominated Mr. Regan to the post of public safety director.

That pick drew criticism from the start. It became political kryptonite when Cmdr. McNeilly strongly suggested that Mr. Regan had intervened to quash discipline against police Detective Francis M. Rende, who repeatedly took sick time to work side jobs.

Detective Rende is the brother of Mr. Regan's housemate, city Senior Secretary Marlene Cassidy.

After a 1999 sex act with a woman who had summoned police to address a domestic problem, Detective Rende was warned that any future violation of rules would result in termination.

In the days after Cmdr. McNeilly's accusation became public, city officials said she would be investigated by the Police Bureau, the Office of Municipal Investigations and the Law Department to determine whether she improperly released personnel records.

Yesterday, though, the focus was on the accusation against Mr. Regan.

"Any activity like this will not be tolerated, and we will act accordingly in these cases," the mayor said. "I felt that was a message that needed to be sent, because the residents of the City of Pittsburgh deserve that.

"There can't be any doubt in this city or in my administration about the public safety of our residents, or more importantly the integrity of the police department or the integrity of my administration. Any activity that's not focused on the duty of serving the residents of the City of Pittsburgh will not be tolerated in my administration, and I will act accordingly when the investigation is completed."

Neither Mr. Regan nor Cmdr. McNeilly, wife of former Police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr., could be reached for comment.

The move "sends a strong signal to the rest of the work force that Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is in charge and he will act decisively when he needs to," said Council President Doug Shields.

"I think it shows that whenever there's a problem, that Luke's going to look at all sides," said Councilman Jim Motznik.

To some outside of city government, though, the moves gave the impression of continued disarray in the halls of power. In just 11 weeks, the chief of staff, solicitor and finance director have been fired; a mayor has died and a 26-year-old was sworn in to replace him; a police chief has resigned; and now a top aide and a commander have been sent home.

"It sounds to me like it's rather chaotic and it's gotten out of control," said longtime political analyst and consultant William J. Green. "We'll know what kind of a leader [the mayor] is as we see how he recoups."

On Wednesday, Mr. Ravenstahl said he had not reviewed the accusations in detail. By mid-afternoon yesterday, he had, and he deemed them serious enough to warrant an investigation "that should leave no stone unturned," he said.

He told Chief of Staff Yarone Zober to inform Mr. Regan and Cmdr. McNeilly of his decision.

"I wouldn't classify it as an escort, but they left their city facilities," the mayor said. He did not know whether they cleaned out their desks.

He said Acting Solicitor George Specter will decide who will staff the investigation and work on it "on a daily basis."

"I am giving them the authority to look at anything and everything they feel they need to," the mayor said.

Until that's done, Mr. Regan, 53, will get his $89,900 salary, and Cmdr. McNeilly, 48, her $77,927 pay.

The move worsens understaffing in the administration that has persisted since July, and Mr. Ravenstahl said he would announce several new hires, including a police chief, in the next few weeks.

Mr. Regan was a controversial pick almost since the late Mayor Bob O'Connor made his longtime friend and relative by marriage director of intergovernmental relations in January. Mr. Regan previously had run a home improvement company that went bankrupt and had a decade-long problem paying his property taxes.

Mr. Regan was a prime mover behind the firing of Chief of Staff B.J. Leber, Solicitor Susan Malie and Finance Director Paul Leger in July, and was viewed as a bureaucratic foe of Police Chief Dominic J. Costa, who retired two weeks ago.

After Mr. O'Connor's Sept. 1 death, Mr. Ravenstahl elevated Mr. Regan to operations director, but it was the effort to give him power over public safety discipline that proved too much.

Council members -- especially likely mayoral candidate William Peduto -- questioned his qualifications, noting he had no public safety experience. Cmdr. McNeilly's e-mail to council, suggesting interference in favor of Detective Rende, helped prompt the mayor to withdraw the nomination and led to yesterday's announcement.

After Mr. O'Connor's two-month bout with brain cancer, Mr. Ravenstahl inherited an administration that had only been in place for eight months.

"Anybody in this situation would have a very difficult time in this transition, because of how quickly it went down," said state Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side, an early ally of Mr. Ravenstahl.

"From Luke's point of view, it's important that he's decisive and builds his own administration."
(Staff writer Tracie Mauriello contributed. Rich Lord can be reached at rlord@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542. )
Back

Retrieved October 13, 2006 from http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06286/729699-53.stm

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 01:58 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:

1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
     a. Why did you choose that typology?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?
     a.Why did you choose that decision making process?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

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Ex-Police Lieutenant Gets Prison Term in Drug Money Case

The New York Times, October 13, 2006, By William K. Rashbaum

A retired police lieutenant who admitted to stealing more than $110,000 in drug cash over three years, all while he supervised 40 narcotics detectives in Upper Manhattan, was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison yesterday for conspiring to launder the money.

The retired lieutenant, John T. Maguire, supervised two detectives who stole money with him and who were later captured on videotape in 2003 robbing a drug courier of $169,000, a crime that led to a sweeping police corruption investigation and the department’s biggest scandal in a decade.

The investigation ultimately implicated as many as 10 current or retired detectives, but only Mr. Maguire, the two men caught on videotape and a third detective were charged with crimes. Another detective has been fired. The department is seeking to fire two others.

Mr. Maguire, who earned a degree from Columbia University, where he studied political science on a basketball scholarship, faced nearly four years in prison. But the prosecutor in the case wrote a letter that cited his cooperation with the investigation and enabled the judge in the case, Carol B. Amon of United States District Court in Brooklyn, to hand down a lighter sentence.

In agonized and remorseful remarks, Mr. Maguire, wearing a blue pin-striped suit and a red tie, apologized for the humiliation, dishonor and pain he had brought upon the Police Department and his wife and three young daughters. The girls and their mother, along with other family members and friends, filled the courtroom gallery’s first two rows.

“I’m ashamed of myself and I live in shame every single day,” he said.

“I knew I did wrong and I confessed to God my sins,” he added, pausing as his voice choked with emotion. “I asked his forgiveness.”

His lawyer, Eric W. Siegle, called the crimes “despicable and horrible.” But he sought to distinguish the 51-year-old Mr. Maguire from the two men caught on the video, Thomas Rachko and Julio C. Vasquez. They robbed people, sometimes at gunpoint, and resold drugs, he argued, while Mr. Maguire just stole drug money from apartments, and in one case $96,000 packed in cereal boxes stashed in a parked car.

Mr. Siegle requested a sentence of probation for his client. But the judge said that while she found Mr. Maguire to be genuinely remorseful, the crimes he committed while in a position of power and authority warranted a prison term.

“He was their commander,” she said early in the proceeding, speaking of Mr. Maguire’s relationship with Mr. Rachko and Mr. Vasquez. “He knew what they were up to. He had the power to stop all this.”

When Judge Amon handed down the 14-month prison term, all three of Mr. Maguire’s daughters began to weep, and the oldest dropped her head into her mother’s lap, shaking with sobs.

Mr. Maguire, who retired in July 2001 after 20 years on the force, worked in a narcotics unit when the three men stole together. Earlier, he had served as a Harlem precinct’s Integrity Control Officer. He forfeited $110,000 as part of his plea.

Last week, Mr. Vasquez was sentenced to six years in prison.

Today, Mr. Rachko faces up to life in prison.

Retrieved October 13, 2006 from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/nyregion/13cops.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 01:47 AM | Permalink

From The New York Post, October 8, 2006
Excerpt from the book: Circle of Six, by Randy Jurgensen and Robert Cea

BETRAYAL OF A POLICE HERO

October 8, 2006 -In 1972, a young cop was shot inside Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam mosque in Harlem. Fearing racial riots, city and police leaders put the brakes on an investigation to appease the people in the streets. Detective Randy Jurgensen refused to give up his quest for justice, arresting one Muslim after a painstaking probe. After that man was acquitted, Jurgensen retired. But he has never given up his belief that light must be shed on the killing and the coverup.

In his new book, "Circle of Six: The True Story of New York's Most Notorious Cop-Killer and The Cop Who Risked Everything to Catch Him," Jurgensen, with co-author Robert Cea, tells his story. WE, the rank and file, were sandbagged by our own - the hierarchy of the NYPD. One of our brother cops, Phil Cardillo, was murdered and subsequently bastardized, then hurried into the ground in a cloak of mystery and dishonor, all in an effort to cover up a purposeful negligence of duty so blatant it defies belief.

In short, we were betrayed by our fathers, the police commissioner, and his deputies. It was the collusion of our own Mayor John Lindsay, Police Commissioner Patrick V. Murphy, Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Ward, Chief of the Department Michael Codd and Rep. Charles Rangel, with Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam - six in total - the Circle of Six. To understand the back-stabbing fully, we have to go back in time, back to one of the most brutal periods in New York history. Back to a time when 10 cops a year were systematically executed in cold and calculated hits, back to one of the most traumatic eras in the storied New York City Police Department's past.

The place: Harlem, New York. The time: April 14, 1972.

11:42 a.m. I was staking out suspected cop-killer Twyman Meyers, of the Black Liberation Army, when my police radio rang out with the most dreaded of calls, a 10-13 signaling a cop in trouble. The first to respond were five-year police veterans, Phil Cardillo, and his partner of four years, Vito Navarra. Neither thought twice that the door to 102 W. 116th St. - which turned out to be the famous Mosque No. 7 - was left unattended and wide open.

When a second car carrying Victor Padilla and Ivan Negron showed up, all four officers walked through those open doors, passed an empty reception desk and ran up toward the second floor.  Halfway up they were met by 20 Muslims, most of them the paramilitary Fruit of Islam (FOI) soldiers or building security. Two sets of metal double doors were shut behind them and dead-bolted.

The cops were trapped, surrounded, and becoming increasingly confused as one of the FOI men screamed, "Allahu Akbar!"  Navarra was kicked down the stairs, and Cardillo was dragged down feet-first. Nearly unconscious, he had the wherewithal to hold on to his weapon as a swarm of hands tried to pull it from its holster-locked position. On the first floor, the beating continued.

11:44 a.m. Patrolman Rudy Andre ran to the front doors where he heard a gunshot. He pulled his service revolver and was jolted by what he witnessed through a window: FOI men stomping on three bloody cops inside. He snatched his radio and screamed, "10-13, 102 West 116th Street!"

Andre tried to open the door as a pool of blood started to form around Cardillo. Andre pulled his gun and fired through the chicken-wired glass portals of the doors. He reached in, slicing his wrist on a jagged edge, and fired three times at the mosque ceiling. The FOI men ran downstairs. Andre led the charge and found Cardillo heading toward death. He didn't realize Cardillo had taken a bullet. The shot that Andre heard from behind the locked doors had come from Cardillo's own gun. One of the FOI men had ripped it from his holster and fired one round into his sternum.

11:47 a.m. I stared at the four bloodied cops being dragged and carried into an ambulance. When the crowd of onlookers saw the battered cops, they burst into a great cheer. I felt an incredible surge of anger pack into my neck. Someone would have to pay for this. I knew the only way was to complete a thorough investigation. I rounded up the cops injured in the mosque from St. Luke's Hospital and headed back to 116th Street.

But the brass had beaten me to it and allowed Farrakhan's army to take control. Navarra stepped into the mosque basement. Several of the FOI men receded further into the rear of the lounge-type area. Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman and the rest of the detectives immediately noticed this. So did Farrakhan.

He stepped forward and in an overly loud and preachy voice he exclaimed: "I cannot guarantee your well-being if you remain inside the house of worship . . ." Rangel suddenly appeared in the basement to deliver a message. He said, Ward wants all police presence out of the building . . . now.

Seedman turned slightly, hesitated for the briefest of moments. "You, right now, are impeding an assault and attempted-homicide investigation. Leave." Rangel lowered his voice and repeated his words. Seedman got face-to-face with Rangel. "Go upstairs and tell Commissioner Ward that the chief of detectives is conducting a show-up."

Rangel fired back: "All due respect, Chief, something's gotta be done. Upstairs is going to be turned into a parking lot if a riot ensues. Lots of people are going to get hurt, including cops. Now, we worked out a deal that all of the detained men will be brought into the 24 Precinct later today for questioning, but right now our priority is the well-being of the cops and the people of Harlem upstairs.

"We worked out a deal. Who's we?" asked Seedman. Rangel grinned, "You know, myself, Commissioner Ward, Minister Farrakhan, and . . ." "And?" asked Seedman. "Well, there aren't too many people above the rank of deputy commissioner, Chief."

As Seedman reached the lobby, he saw 20 FOI men cleansing the hallway, situating the table and chairs, mopping up the blood - Cardillo's, Negron's, Padilla's, Navarra's and Andre's. The crime scene was being erased with every stroke of the mop. Seedman turned to the detective and said, "This case will never be solved."  I pushed my way to the middle of the block. Bricks were still being lobbed off the roof. When I reached Inspector Jack Haugh, he screamed over the crowd, "Randy, someone's going to get killed."

Myself and four other cops charged the roof, barreling out onto tar and asphalt. I lifted my shotgun in the air and screamed, "Everybody off the f- - -ing roof. As the teens split, a high-ranking superior officer, one uniform cop and a local rabble-rouser known as Kenyatta 35X demanded our guns. We were f-ed. All of the NYPD was f-ed. And things were only going to get worse.

The semicircle of people closed ranks and formed a wall in front of the door, which was the one way down. We dropped our heads like fullbacks, squared our shoulders and surged forward. They started to punch, kick and claw at us. I felt a horrific sting below my shoulder. Someone had bitten a chunk of skin out of my back.

We made it to the police car, slamming the doors and locking them. They keys weren't in the car. BOOM! The windshield exploded, covering us in a million fine pieces of glass. If that wasn't enough, burning rags soaked in gasoline were tossed in. BOOM! Another explosion, then another gunshot, then blackness draped over me. I heard myself talk, though it was slurred and incoherent, "I'm shot . . . I'm shot . . ."

On the fifth day, after being treated at St. Luke's, I was made aware Cardillo was going to die. I went to his room and I said my farewell and signed myself out of the hospital. That Monday was Cardillo's funeral. It was, by far, the largest turnout of police personnel I had ever witnessed . . .

It was an amazing show of support - except Lindsay and Murphy weren't there. For the next five years - in spite of my bosses efforts to rein me in - I pursued the case 16 hours a day and made enemies of the brass, the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan.

After interviewing scores of cops, making a replica of the mosque, sifting through hours of video tape of that day and using the FBI to identify members of the Nation of Islam, I finally caught a break when a man called Foster 2X Thomas was arrested for a petty credit-card crime.

I leaned in close, not to intimidate him or anything, just to show I needed answers. "Did you shoot the policeman?"  "Well then, who did? I know you know, and you want to tell me, yes?"  "Lewis shot the policeman."  I had a name. And Foster 2X Thomas had a face to go with the name. "Lewis who?"  "Lewis 17X Dupree; he's the dean of boys."

Our star witness was a devout Muslim from the mosque, who I spent years protecting from the militants who threatened to kill us.  As we approached trial, Farrakhan, never one to miss an opportunity presented by the press, staged peaceful marches by Muslims around the DA's offices. This wasn't going to stop me, and it sure as hell wasn't going to slow DA Jim Harmon down either. Dupree landed a hung jury in his first trial and was acquitted in the second on March 27, 1977. Yes, led by Harmon, we went after Dupree with as much fervor as we had the first time, but the truth of the matter was simple - been there and done that - the public no longer cared. They had all heard of the first hung jury. Why would and should this be any different?

When Foster 2X Thomas was brought in, he gave his testimony as he had the first time. But I could tell in the jurors' faces, their body language, they weren't ready to believe him . . . They came back with a verdict of not guilty. I don't know if it was luck, or complete misfortune, because that was the only day during both trials that Cardillo's widow, Joy, wasn't present.

I looked at him, Dupree. He did it. He got away with murder. And at that moment, as harsh a reality as this is to admit, I wanted to murder him.  After being on trial myself, five months later, I retired on Aug. 17, 1977.

I found myself moving toward the wall of heroes in the lobby of headquarters. I was there to hand over my guns, and officially turn in my retirement papers. I saw the various plaques of the downed officers: Piagentini, Jones, Foster, Laurie, among so many others.

Then I saw Cardillo's plaque on the wall. I remember feeling the irony and duplicity of it all . . .A cop looked up at me and said, "Listen, guy, before you retire, you've got two unpaid parking tickets that have to be paid."

I laughed, asking the cop if I could use his phone. I called my wife, Lynn. She picked up on the first ring. She could barely talk. I told her I'd just heard about Elvis, who had just died. "Are you OK, Lynn?"

"I'm fine Randy. It's OK. When are you coming home?" she asked.  Right now, Lynn, my work is done here."

Retrieved October 12, 2006 from http://www.nypost.com/seven/10082006/news/regionalnews/betrayal_of_a_police_hero_regionalnews_.htm?page=0

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 05:52 PM | Permalink

Officer honored for aiding woman - Elderly lady was choking
 
The Union staff, TheUnion.com, Western Nevada County, California

October 10, 2006

The Grass Valley California Police Department's traffic officer was commended by the City Council for saving an elderly woman's life as she choked on food at a local restaurant.

Brian Hooper, the city's motorcycle traffic officer, was investigating an abandoned vehicle Aug. 1 in the parking lot at McDonald's Restaurant on Nevada City Highway when he noticed a commotion inside.

He found an elderly woman on the floor choking and struggling for air, so he called for an ambulance. Then the woman stopped breathing and her face started to turn blue.

According to a report by Grass Valley Police Capt. Greg Hart, Hooper and the woman's son administered CPR until the woman began to breath on her own.

"Officer Hooper's quick thinking and swift response saved this woman's life," Hooper wrote. "Officer Hooper is an asset to the Grass Valley Police Department and an outstanding representative to the community."

Retrieved October 12, 2006 from http://www.theunion.com/article/20061010/NEWS/110100162

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 05:48 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz:

The following editorial by a Nigeria journalist provides interesting insight into corruption there.

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Corruption, Anti-Corruption And Pro-Corruption

October 8, 2006 from www.allafrica.com

By Simon Kolawole

Lagos, Nigeria

Never has the corruption discourse hung so loosely and dangerously above our heads as the case is today. We know corruption is not a new entry into the lexicon, but its dominance of public discourse in recent times has elevated it to such a height that no one can miss. A few guesses may explain this. One, we are in a democracy where the laws of the land allow us to debate. Under military regimes, the citizens were not empowered to ask questions. Dirty things were done to public coffers and the mess was neatly covered up. We all could smell the stench but were unable to point a finger at the mess. Two , Nigeria has been swimming in a flood of petro-dollars for seven years now. A natural consequence is the outbreak of squandermania, given our way of life in Nigeria . Three, the Obasanjo administration has dramatically mouthed its stance against corruption. It is one sweet song everybody wants to hear and this government has actually turned it into a full concert. We have all become experts on corruption.

Almost everybody traces the roots of Nigerian problems to corruption. Our development is stunted because of the selfishness of public officers who would rather cater for their bellies rather than common interest. If we all so expertly know the problem, why don't we know and apply the solution then? Various methods have been adopted in the fight against corruption. One is the instruments of law, as we can see in ICPC, EFCC and Code of Conduct Tribunal. The most prominent is EFCC. The strategy is to bring to book anyone found fiddling with public funds. We have different opinions on EFCC. While some think EFCC is doing a marvelous job, others would rather see it as a formidable political handcuff in the hands of the president. Nothing has divided the opinions of Nigerians as much as EFCC in recent times. But that is not the focus of this article. Rather, I think that the EFCC, no matter how well intentioned, cannot tackle corruption effectively. There are 774 council chairmen, over 8,000 councillors, 36 state governors, hundreds of commissioners, a thousand of state legislators, hundreds of federal legislators and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civil servants and bureaucrats. Let's face it: even if EFCC is not a rifle in Obasanjo's hand, public service is too broad and populated to be adequately scrutinised and cleansed by the anti-graft body.

Scapegoating is one option I have often favoured: deal brutally with a corrupt official and others will be scared to death. This may achieve temporary results, but it is subject to abuse. It is also more of a short-term solution to a monumental problem. And if scapegoating works very well, how come more and more looters are emerging everyday? Another strategy is to increase salaries and benefits so that corruption would be less tempting to public officers. It is being suggested, for instance, that if police officers earn good salaries, they would stop the N20 business at checkpoints. Salaries can be increased, sure, but this may still not achieve the desired results. A former Police chief was said to have amassed N17 billion while in office. How much would you pay him that would have taken his attention away from bribery? A police officer who takes home N10,000 per day from checkpoints will need to earn at least N10,000 a day, or N300,000 a month, to match that. A former governor who allegedly forfeited N50 billion would have needed to earn the entire state allocation to shun corruption. When the circumference of your stomach has been over-enlarged, it is very difficult to fill it up with normal content. You will keep craving for more.

I was discussing the issue of corruption with a friend last week and he drove home a point that is very critical. The quest for accountability, he said, should be a two-sided equation: demand and supply. Initiatives like ICPC and EFCC are on the supply side, employing the instruments of law to fight corruption. This has been going on for sometime now, but significant progress and sustainability are a different ball game. However, there is a demand side that is inactive. The people must demand accountability. The people must not celebrate corruption in any guise. The people must make the community very uncomfortable, even discomfiting, for corrupt public officers. How do I mean? I am a journalist. I live in a rented house. I drive an official car. Now, let's say I am given a political appointment today. The first thing is that I will open the newspapers tomorrow and see my face in full-page congratulatory adverts sponsored by my former "classmates". Why? They are rejoicing with me for getting a "plum job". They are very proud of me that I have been called up to serve my fatherland. They are positioning themselves to "partake" in my "patriotic service" to fatherland. They want contacts and contracts.

Let's also say in one year, I have bought houses in Abuja and built mansions in Lekki. Nobody will ask me questions. Let's say I have acquired a convoy of cars. Nobody will say, Come, is this not the same Kolawole who didn't have a personal car? How much is he earning now that he can afford all these? No. Instead, people will be thronging my house to slice their own share of my loot. Youth organisations, women groups and town unions will all be paying solidarity visits to me. They will present me with a life-size portrait in the full glare of the media. Pastors will become my spiritual consultants, uttering more flattery than I can imagine. Fuji and juju artistes will start to sing my praise: "Kolawole o, baba l'oje!" They will release a whole album with one side dedicated to "Simon", the other side to "Kolawole". They will even address me as "Chief Kolawole", even though I may not have a traditional title. O, that is not a problem. I can easily organise a chieftaincy for myself. With a few millions, kings-who are supposed to be custodians of traditional values-will be falling over each other to give me titles for my "contributions to humanity", even if I have not contributed anything to humanity. Universities will give me honorary doctorate degrees as a "role model" in exchange for donations. I will be featured in all these all-colour, all-gloss magazines under the headline, "The Amazing Riches of Simon Kolawole", decorated with pictures of my state-of-the-art mansions and computerised cars. My child's naming ceremony will be live on TV, with the help of a few wads. Nobody will ask: is this not the same Simon? Rather, everybody wants a share of the loot.

The society expects, encourages, promotes and nurtures corruption. The society condones it. The society budgets for it. If you go into public office and don't come out rich, you are a failure. Your immediate and extended families will curse you. Your community will alienate you. "You're stupid," they will say. "Opportunities come but once. You missed your chance. Look at what the minister from the other community accumulated during his time in office. You must be a fool!" So, we keep dragging the country down, down, down. We keep envying developed countries, wondering why our own country is not making progress, wondering why schools don't have laboratories and libraries.

This pro-corruption attitude of the people, says Professor Jerry Gana, is a major hindrance to the anti-corruption war. The PDP presidential aspirant, in a chat I had with him, believes the society tolerates corruption too much. "The best way to fight corruption is to be intolerant of it. The whole society, not just the government, must hate corruption. There must be no consolation or support for corruption anywhere. Right now, we tolerate it in the community. If it is your daughter or your son, you don't ask questions as long as they are 'reporting back' nicely. We must eschew it. We must react to it. Religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian, political leaders, social leaders, we must all take a stand against it. There must be leadership by example, a transparent way by which our public and private lives are ordered."

He suggests a multi-faceted approach including decisive punishment. "People must know we have tremendous respect for things being done properly-due process, integrity, honesty. Then there must be punishment. Those caught must be punished firmly and very decisively. It is very important. There should be no favouritism. Justice must be prompt and conclusive. Fear of punishment is a major deterrent, even in developed countries. If you break the law, there is no question of begging, unlike Nigeria where your community will come begging for you. The press also has a role to play. The biggest rebuke is public disgrace. People fear being disgraced publicly. Everybody wants to be respected. The press must help out. There must be a sense of shame. It's a powerful way to restrain people. People must begin to resign from office when they are indicted. Once we get to a level of consciousness, that will be a deterrent."

Many will quarrel with him over his proposed role for journalists. We are perceived as very corrupt. We are seen as blackmailers and dishonest people who will do anything for money. The perception is that all it takes to turn a journalist into a praise-singer is a few thousand naira. It will be very hypocritical of me if I say we journalists are above board. We are part of the problem and we are as guilty as charged, although we still have a few decent ones out there. But then, the entire society is thoroughly rotten and we are all products of the society. We have willfully damaged the values that are very African: sense of community (not selfishness), honesty and integrity. Journalists, police officers, customs officers, mortuary attendants, messengers, all of us are products of devalued communal ethics. Something has gone wrong fundamentally. That is why things are the way they are.

Like Professor Gana suggested, the anti-corruption fight must be multi-faceted. Yes, let's have EFCC and ICPC. Yes, let's have the courts. Yes, let's have the rule of law. But the most effective weapon, in my opinion, is for the society to drain itself of its pro-corruption mentality. For as long as public office is seen as the most desirable way of making money, no EFCC can rescue us from corruption. Supply and demand must meet somewhere. The people must demand accountability. The people must hate corruption with perfect hatred because, as the saying goes, "with corruption, everybody pays."

Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

Retrieved October 12, 2006 from http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200610100162.html

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 04:50 PM | Permalink

Are Web Sex Predator Watchdogs the Good Guys or Grandstanders?
Some law enforcement agencies work with the Internet volunteers, but others are leery of legal complications.

By Susannah Rosenblatt, Times Staff Writer

October 7, 2006

Michael Seibert had been through this before. The 26-year-old was arrested in January for allegedly trying to rendezvous with a teenager for sex in Riverside County — a girl he met online. This September, it happened again.

Just like last time, the girl online said she was 13, and agreed to meet him, police said. "r u a cop," the Anaheim man allegedly typed to "Kiera" on the night of Sept. 3. "I do not want to get cought."

Just like last time, the "girl" was actually an adult volunteer with Perverted-Justice.com, a website of self-styled watchdogs who masquerade as bait on the Internet to expose what they say are would-be child molesters.

Seibert, a grocery store worker, was arrested Sept. 9 in Long Beach on suspicion of an attempted lewd act with a child under 14 — the same charge he faces in Riverside County. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

Once an obscure Internet way station for so-called vigilantes, the Portland, Ore.-based Perverted Justice has become a powerful machine for targeting adults whom website volunteers call potential pedophiles, and exposing them to shame and arrest. But its taste for media attention and role of ad hoc police force has brought criticism.

Website volunteers have teamed up with police nationwide to set up clandestine Internet chat-room stings, which are often orchestrated for television cameras, including one in Riverside County for NBC's "Dateline" in January.

Yet many prosecutors and law enforcement officials refuse to associate with Perverted Justice, concerned about the civilian group's lack of professional training and knack for attracting the spotlight.

"Do you really want citizen groups running around imposing their own form of justice?" asked Brad Russ at the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a federally funded national network with more than 1,200 affiliated law enforcement agencies fighting predators online.

The founder of Perverted Justice, Xavier Von Erck, boasts of the website's aggressive tactics and results: volunteers have helped nab scores of Internet prowlers in California alone, with major busts in Riverside County, Long Beach, Petaluma and Laguna Beach.

"There's no feeling like it when you find a guy who's molested a kid in North Dakota and then he gets arrested for it," Von Erck said. "You can't really compare it to anything else."

That feeling of empowerment frightens attorney Steve Harmon, who is representing Seibert and four other defendants arrested in the Perverted Justice sting in Riverside.

"When Perverted Justice is out there trolling or fishing for people who may not have had the intention to get into this trouble but are led into it, then I think that's very disturbing," said Harmon, who said Seibert has "very severe mental issues," resulting from a brain injury sustained when he was baby.

"Dateline" used Perverted Justice volunteers in stings — such as the Long Beach operation in September that netted 38 arrests — that lured men to houses, where they allegedly expected to meet a teen. Instead, they were greeted by "Dateline" cameras and local police.

"Dateline" correspondent Chris Hansen, host of the popular series, said that since the episodes aired in 2004, he has seen a "shift in attitude" of local authorities toward the organization.

"They've gone from being considered a vigilante group to being a watchdog group," said Hansen, who added that Perverted Justice volunteers are paid consultants to the show, similar to military analysts often used by TV networks.

Internet crimes against children have emerged in recent years as a growing threat. FBI cases opened against online child pornographers and those using the Internet have increased 2000% in the last decade, according to agency statistics. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's cyber tip line fields as many as 140 leads a week concerning enticement of children online.

"We know we've got a growing problem, [with] more than enough cases being generated than law enforcement" can handle, said John Shehan, the tip line program manager.

Von Erck, who manages the Perverted Justice site full time, said he started searching for potential molesters about five years ago, after watching men talk up teenagers online in regional forums. The website now claims to have helped convict 87 attempted sex offenders.

Von Erck himself is somewhat of a mystery. A 27-year-old college dropout from Portland, Ore., he said he has changed his name because he associated it with his estranged father. He would not reveal what his name was changed from, or confirm published news reports that he was born Philip John Eide.

Von Erck's personal page on the website MySpace.com mentions his admiration of abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass, but his distaste for Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. The president fought the Civil War to preserve his legacy, and both he and King had shameful personal lives, Von Erck said. A Libertarian, he also describes most males as "morons and not worthy of dry spittle."

In the early years of Perverted Justice, the website posted a slew of details about men whom volunteers suspected of trying to lure children online, including the names and phone numbers of neighbors and employers — all part of a campaign of shame. Von Erck said such posts are no longer commonplace, and in most cases are removed.

Still, shame is Perverted Justice's most controversial weapon.

The website includes Web-cam pictures of men masturbating as they allegedly chat with Perverted Justice volunteers posing as adolescents.

About 65 volunteers, screened internally with background checks and oversight by senior site members, pretend to be teenagers in Internet chat rooms, using fictional profiles, slang and misspelled words to portray an adolescent convincingly. Volunteers across the country chat from home; the group's virtual office allows site administrators to monitor chats on a centralized server.

As conversations progress, volunteers with young-sounding voices take calls from adults wanting to meet a minor in person.

Some of the volunteers are victims of abuse, Von Erck said, determined to prevent others from experiencing the same trauma. Others are retired or former law enforcement officials, or concerned citizens.

The group's first conviction was in June 2004, the result of a Detroit media sting that year. These days, transcripts of the chats aren't posted on the website until sentences are handed down.

Critics of the site have complained that many of the website's reported online "busts" don't lead anywhere, simply exposing the individual to public ridicule rather than prosecution, or, as some claim, harassment at the hands of Perverted Justice volunteers.

Minnesota kindergarten teacher Julie Cison accused Perverted Justice volunteers of waging an unrelenting attack on her son. According to police reports, her 24-year-old son asked a Perverted Justice volunteer posing as a 13-year-old girl if she liked thong underwear, and then tried to rendezvous with her at the Mall of America. He was never charged or convicted of wrongdoing.

"They're dirty and they're underhanded," Cison said. She has assisted an anti-Perverted Justice website to attack Von Erck's credibility, because Perverted-Justice.com "is judge and jury over these people's lives."

Von Erck disputes Cison's claims and says the site now works almost exclusively with law enforcement.

Although legal and law enforcement officials agree that eradicating Internet predators is tough, many remain leery of joining forces with the Perverted Justice crew. Because the website's volunteers are not law enforcement officials, some prosecutors fear that the evidence they collect may be inadmissible in court.

"Why engage in something and devote our extraordinarily limited resources when there may be a problem down the road?" said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. "Why prosecute a case halfway, only to have it dismissed on some legal basis?"

One Perverted Justice target, Philip A. Fay, 31, of Winsted, Conn., was placed on a year's probation for disorderly conduct after prosecutors determined his 2005 online chat with a "minor" was too vague to prove enticement, said Andrew Wittstein, supervisory assistant state's attorney in Connecticut.

Perverted Justice volunteers repeatedly tried to persuade Fay to agree to a face-to-face meeting, but Fay never complied — "a weakness in the case," Wittstein said.

Fay declined to comment on the incident.

Von Erck confirmed that the group took on a "consultant" role for "Dateline," drawing their first real income for the online work and hiring an agent. Before then Von Erck survived on a part-time tech support job and modest donations to the site. Perverted Justice is in the process of seeking nonprofit status, Von Erck said.

Riverside County sheriff's deputies contacted Perverted Justice after watching a "Dateline" sting in early 2004 and organized eight small-scale arrest operations in 2005. In January, the online group and local deputies collaborated to entice scores of men to a house rented by "Dateline" in Mira Loma for liaisons with underage boys or girls, authorities said. The sting led to 51 arrests.

"Nobody can remember anything this big," said Lt. Chad Bianco, with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, of the massive bust. "They were doing all of the grunt work that is very, very manpower intensive."

Parry Aftab, an Internet privacy lawyer and an expert on Internet safety for families, said she was skeptical of Perverted Justice's go-it-alone approach and pursuit of the media spotlight.

"The only good thing that's come out of [the site] is the fact that parents are a lot more aware now that the Internet boogeyman lives next door," she said.

susannah.rosenblatt@latimes.com

Retrieved October 10, 2006 from http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sting7oct07,0,7493138,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:36 PM | Permalink

If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito.
- Betty Reese

Reputation is character minus what you`ve been caught doing.
- Michael Iapoce, speechwriter, comedy writer

Not all religion is to be found in the church, any more than all knowledge is found in the classroom.
- Anonymous

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 04:09 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz:

There are many sad but interesting sub-plots in the following saga.

Consider the ethical dilemmas of:
1. The pressure of "political-correctness" to promote candidates from protected-classes.
2. Civil service rules that prohibit the selection of candidates from other than an approved list.
3. Law enforcement officers allegedly using the services of prostitutes - contrary to their sworn code of ethics.
4. The "cover-up" of significant information from interviews conducted during internal personnel investigations.
5. The veracity of Informant information from a source with a questionable background.

My 27 years in law enforcement give me the sense that the situations described below are not particuar to the SAPD. These situations can, and do, occur elsewhere. They are seldomly reported as succinctly as in the following report.

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New headache for SAPD leadership

San Antonio, Texas. 10/08/2006

Lomi Kriel, Vianna Davila and Brian Chasnoff - Express-News Staff Writers

San Antonio, Texas - A month after the hasty departure of a scandalized top cop and amid pressure to replace him with another minority, Police Chief William McManus appointed a man with a past marred by allegations of sexual impropriety.

On Sept. 22, in his biggest administrative shake-up yet, McManus — limited by union rules to a pool of five candidates — promoted Deputy Chief Rudy Gonzales, a 33-year San Antonio Police Department veteran, to the department's second-highest-ranking office of assistant chief.

The promotion of Gonzales also came as McManus' boss, City Manager Sheryl Sculley, faced criticism from some current and former City Council members for her record of minority hires and promotions.

Gonzales was investigated in 2001 after a prostitute claimed he paid her for sex, according to former high-level police sources.

When asked recently about the investigation, McManus issued only a brief statement: "The allegations against (Assistant Chief) Gonzales are unfounded, vicious and mean-spirited. The allegations were investigated in 2001, and completed in 2002. (Assistant Chief) Gonzales was cleared of any administrative or criminal wrongdoing."

Rudy Gonzales (left) was appointed assistant police chief by Chief William McManus on Sept. 22. The chief called allegations of sexual impropriety against Gonzales 'unfounded, vicious and mean-spirited.'

Sources familiar with the investigation said Gonzales, in an internal police interview, was asked whether he and the woman — who told investigators she was a prostitute — had a sexual relationship.

Gonzales, sources said, answered "yes."

The sources, who did not want to be identified because they fear retaliation from the Police Department, said the woman told investigators in a sworn statement that Gonzales "knew I was a prostitute. The whole reason I was there was to have sex and get paid for it."

Sources said Gonzales claimed in his interview that he met the woman at a Christmas party and didn't know she worked with an escort service.

Gonzales never was disciplined.

His recent promotion came after the sudden exit in August of former Assistant Chief Jerry Pittman, a 32-year veteran and decorated police hero.

Police said Pittman had consensual sex with a woman who was not his wife at a Northeast Side motel room. Alarmed hotel staffers, who discovered bloody sheets and towels in the room the next day, called police, fearing a crime had been committed.

Five days later, Pittman announced his retirement.

Many on the force credited McManus — widely regarded as recruited by Sculley to clean house in the department — as the man behind Pittman's decision to retire, and they hailed the chief as an agent of change.

Within days of the motel room incident, McManus opened an internal affairs inquiry into it to determine if any wrongdoing had occurred. The investigation was dropped when Pittman retired.

At the time, the chief said he did "not like to see this kind of publicity impact the Police Department."

Depending on the incident, a police spokesman said then, officers could face termination if they violate the code of ethics or the department's rules, which bar "unbecoming conduct."

Their code of ethics also reads, in part, "I will keep my private life unsullied as an example to all."

The allegations
McManus, when confronted with the allegations against Gonzales, declined answering specific questions, including when he became aware of them.

Sculley also declined, saying through a spokeswoman that she was deferring to McManus to "speak on behalf of the city."

For his part, Gonzales briefly spoke to reporters over the phone and said the case involving the prostitute "was investigated, that case is over ... nothing came out of that. You know, the complaint was dropped. It was dropped by her."

He later declined to meet with the San Antonio Express-News for a scheduled face-to-face interview, "(electing) not to discuss" the matter, a police spokeswoman said.

But interviews with the woman and police sources familiar with her sworn statements paint a picture of a sexual relationship between her and Gonzales that lasted several months, in which she said she was paid by others and at least once by Gonzales.

The woman said the case was dropped after she declined a lie detector test, fearing for her safety and to protect certain officers involved.

The Express-News is not identifying the woman because, over the course of several interviews, she expressed in