Tuesday August 28, 2007 3:12 AM

The So-Called Drug "Issue" - Bruce Tait

“Drugs have taught an entire generation the metric system” – P.J. O’Rourke

First off, thanks to the many people who welcomed me back from vacation via e-mail. I’m totally refreshed & reenergized from my time off, and it made me realize how burned out and stressed I had become. You see, thanks to the Cowardly Lyin’ King and his minions, I and the other patrol officers in the patrol division can’t take a night off for 4 months out of the year. We work the most stressful job in the department, the job our chief never did and his lackeys haven’t done in many years, and we have to use a sick day or personal day to take time off, even if there are excess officers working. And if we use our earned sick time, we may very well get suspended for 5 days. More on that in my next entry.

By the way, the vacation fight isn’t over by a long shot. The city still hasn’t produced their vacation plan from our lawsuit in Norfolk Superior Court, so we’re filing a motion to reconsider. As such, we have the right to depose any member of the command staff, which is exactly what we’re going to do. First up is the author of the vacation time manifesto, Captain Paul Keenan. He’s been served his subpoena, and was scheduled to be deposed this Thursday. However, the city labor counsel asked for a postponement which we of course granted. We may well need a postponement on something ourselves one day, so it pays to earn and maintain good will among our lawyers.

However, the city labor counsel also notified us he’s filing a motion to enjoin (block) the deposition. Now, why do you suppose he’s doing that? Captain Keenan told our treasurer, Peter Curley, that "I stand behind every word of that affidavit”, yet he now apparently doesn’t want to answer questions about it.

Why is that?

Well, he’s going to have to answer questions about that and a whole lot of other things pertaining to the management of the Quincy Police Department. Very tough questions about harassing patrol officers because their labor union filed a legitimate grievance, questions about interfering with union activities, a whole lot of questions. He better hope he has a whole lot of answers.

Next up is Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King, and ditto for him. A whole lot of tough questions. I’m not sure if the depositions will become public record, although I suspect they will since they will also become court documents. If they are public record, you can guess where you’ll be able to read them with the click of a mouse.

Who's after that? That's TBD....to be determined. We can depose nearly anyone who wears a QPD gold badge, but we have a pretty good grasp of who our friends & enemies are in the supervisory ranks. We will probably depose some gold badges who have given a "dad speech" to our members, urging them to oust the current union leadership. The Federal government takes a very dim view of that, in case they don't know.

Anyway, I’m just getting caught up with my mail and newspapers that accumulated over my vacation, and something jumped out at me from the pages of Pravda (Patriot Ledger). The candidates for the upcoming mayoral election, Mayor Bill Phelan and Tom Koch, outlined their views and strategies for the drug problem in Quincy;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/08/09/news/news09.txt

Predictably, the mayor continues to view the issue through rose-colored glasses, calling what’s an absolute pandemic as “an issue”. He also thinks the Quincy PD Drug Unit is adequately staffed with 5 officers and one lieutenant, pointing to their record number of arrests in the last year.

Now, being a sworn member of the Quincy Police Department and working in one of the worst areas of the city for drug abuse (Quincy Point), I like to think I know a bit more about the drug problem than the mayor. Our drug unit does a fantastic job, but they are woefully understaffed. They’re making record numbers of arrests because that’s how completely out-of-control the drug problem is in Quincy. If they had twice as many people in the unit, making twice as many arrests would be the result. They’re trying to shovel sand against the tide, using a teaspoon.

What the mayor apparently doesn’t realize is that drugs are at the heart of the majority of the incidents we deal with. Just tonight, I took a report of a past B&E on South Street, where a young married couple had their apartment ransacked while they were at work. I felt bad….I could tell they were really nice people, and they were obviously traumatized by being victimized. I’ll bet my life savings that the perpetrator is a junkie, looking for a quick turnaround on the stolen property for drug money.

I’d wager that upwards of 90% of the house breaks we have are ultimately related to drugs. Ditto for shoplifting, fraudulent checks, car breaks, and damned near every other call we go to.

How bad is the drug problem in Quincy? When we have a much higher overdose rate than Brockton, I think that speaks for itself. Here’s a recent incident that I believe can’t sum it up any better;

A few weeks ago, two QPD Patrol Officers were dispatched to a house in West Quincy (not that far from City Councilor Jay Davis’ house) to check on the well being of the resident. Someone called 911 from a pay phone on Copeland Street, saying that the police needed to get to this address right away. The responding officers found a woman down on the floor, with the needle still in her arm. After the paramedics arrived and took over treatment of the woman, the officers conducted a sweep of the house to see if anyone else needed assistance.

Upstairs they found another junkie, a male, who was dead as a doornail and crumpled around the toilet in the bathroom. This guy was so obviously dead (cold to the touch) the officers didn’t bother with any type of rescue attempt. The guy had been dead for hours, but there was a bowl of ice cubes on the bathroom counter, still mostly frozen, while the house was sweltering hot.

You see, many junkies have this very odd belief that if someone overdoses on heroin, they can be revived by rubbing them with ice, or ideally putting them in a cold water bath and adding ice. In reality, the best case for that is it makes the junkie wet and cold. Worst case, it kills them quicker because immersion in cold water slows down respirations, which is exactly what the heroin is doing. The only way to revive an overdose is through the administering of Narcan, which is an opiate antidote.

You really have to see this stuff in action to believe it. About three recruit classes ago, I was the field training officer for a new officer just out of the academy. We went to a heroin overdose down on Grafton Street, and the guy was basically dead when we got there. When the Fallon Paramedics arrived, they started an IV line, and prepared the Narcan. I turned to the new officer and said “Watch this, that guy is going to be sitting upright and talking in about 30 seconds”. The new officer looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears, but sure enough the guy arose from the dead and began yelling at everyone, mad because his high was gone.

Yes….that’s how far gone junkies are. They get mad at the people who saved their life, because the Narcan kills the effects of their heroin fix. Some paramedics have learned through experience exactly how much to give OD’s to bring them back from the dead, but keep them in la-la land. If you give too much, it makes them vomit, which is always a pleasant experience. I think some of the medics know they’re giving too much, and get a chuckle out of making them puke. It is pretty funny, I must admit, and I wouldn’t blame them a bit if that’s what they’re doing. I think sometimes they have a harder job than us, and should have “BFI” on the sides of their ambulances, since they deal with so much human refuse.

Of course, it figures that medical researchers have found a way to bring junkies back to life, but cancer is still killing millions of people worldwide. It makes you wonder about the fairness of life in general.

Anway, let’s get back to house in West Quincy. We have one junkie on death’s doorstep (she did survive), another junkie upstairs who had been dead for hours, a bowl of still-frozen ice next to the dead junkie, and an anonymous 911 call from Copeland Street.

We’ll probably never know for sure exactly what happened, but here’s my “overdose reconstruction”; male junkie gets an extremely potent batch of heroin, takes it home, shoots-up in the bathroom while home alone, and dies crumpled around the toilet.

It’s a really glamorous drug, isn’t it?

A few hours later, female junkie arrives home to find her male companion dead in the bathroom. She gets the bowl of ice and tries to revive him, to no avail.

Now….what would the reaction of a normal person be in this situation? Call 911 perhaps?

Oh no…..female junkie probably found the unused bags of heroin in the vicinity of her dead companion, and decided to shoot-up herself. My opinion is that a third person came calling shortly thereafter, saw the woman down on the floor, screwed over to Copeland Street, and called 911. I don’t think he was in the house, since the needle was still in the arm of the female junkie.

You see, there is no honor among junkies. If one dies, the others will turn on him/her like a pack of sharks on a wounded, bleeding shark. I went to a fatal overdose in a rooming house on Spear Street; the victim was dead, with his pockets turned inside out, and in the middle of the hallway. What most likely happened is that he was dead for awhile before anyone noticed. When they did, he was stripped of money and drugs, dragged out into the hallway, and left for us to clean up the mess.

By the way, I’m sure I’ll get some angry e-mails from people for using the term “junkie” or “human refuse”. The reality is that “junkie” is a lot easier to type than “opiate addict”, and junkies are human refuse. They are soulless ghouls who will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING for that next fix. There are only two eventual options for a junkie…..get clean, or die. I much prefer they get clean, but unfortunately many do not.

Getting back to the Ledger article…..oh, by the way, don’t bother looking for any mention of the above incident in the Patriot Ledger. It was probably perceived as a threat to the myth that Quincy is the second safest city, blah, blah, blah.

The Ledger article stated that Tom Koch wants to immediately double the size of our drug unit, which would be a good start and is something I’ve been beating the drum about for some time. That would raise the staffing from 5 to 10 officers, although I think 15 officers would eventually be an ideal number. And to publicly answer a question someone asked me via e-mail…..no, I have no interest in being appointed to the drug unit, so I’m not trying to “feather my own nest”. I did drug work back when I was in my 20’s, and I simply don’t have the desire to do it again. The drug unit would be much better served with some young hard-chargers than by yours truly, trust me.

One thing neither Mayor Phelan nor Tom Koch mentioned in regards to the drug issue is the use of drug-trained police dogs. In general, not even in just drug work, trained police dogs are an invaluable asset to have. The sense of smell on a dog is so incredible and fine-tuned, I think the human mind can barely comprehend it. QPPOA Treasurer Peter Curley was a dog handler in the US Air Force Security Police, and has every dog handling certification known to man. He explained to me how incredible a drug-trained dog can be….they can sniff out a minute amount of drugs underneath layers of air fresheners, inside bags of coffee grounds….you name it.

This is extremely helpful to the police, since many drug dealers and runners use sophisticated “hides” inside vehicles. These devices are like a Rube Goldberg invention…..if you put on the left directional while clicking the high beams and turning on the radio, a secret door inside the car will open. You practically need an engineering degree to locate these things and get them open, but if there are drugs inside, a trained K-9 will find it in a matter of seconds.

This is a rhetorical question, but how many drug-trained police dogs do you suppose the Quincy Police Department has?

That would be ZERO.

We only have one police dog overall, and he isn’t trained for drugs. He’s also pushing 9 years old, which are the golden years for a German Shepherd. If that dog was retired tomorrow, that would be the end of the Quincy Police K-9 program, which is an absolute disgrace.

Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King thinks police dogs are “a waste of money”, even though he has no idea what he’s talking about, having never been a patrol officer for any length of time. You see, it’s all about what HE wants, and screw what his patrol officers NEED.

When we need a K-9, we have to call surrounding police departments and rely on their good will. Some of these departments are 1/2 or even 1/3 of our size, but we’re asking them for help. It’s simply embarrassing.

The US Department of Homeland Security has offered to give the Quincy Police Department 5 free police dogs, free vehicles for the handlers, and free training for the handlers. These dogs could easily be cross-trained for drug work.

So….where are the dogs? Homeland Security made that offer well over a year ago, so where are the dogs? Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King is apparently doing everything in his power to torpedo this idea, simply because he acts like a petulant child when he doesn’t get his way. He doesn’t think police dogs are worth the cost (even if there is no cost), so therefore we’re not going to get them. It’s the adult version of taking your ball and going home.

I could go on and on for many more pages about how crazy the drug problem is in Quincy, but I leave you with this; when I was working drugs, I was a Boston Housing cop in Roxbury at a time (late 80’s-early 90’s) when it was like the Wild West. I can say with absolute certainty that the heroin problem in Quincy in 2007 is just as bad, if not worse, as the heroin problem was in Roxbury in 1989.

I make this offer to both Mayor Phelan and Tom Koch; provided CLK will approve it, I invite you both to do a ride along with me some night. Unlike the graduates of the citizen’s police academy, who do their ride alongs with so-called “Academy” cars that do not answer calls or get involved in dangerous situations, come ride with me in the sector car that’s among the busiest in the city. Let me point out the people who are practically wearing signs saying “I’m waiting for my drug dealer”. Let me show you the teenagers with miosis, what we call “hedgehog eyes”….extremely constricted pupils resulting from opiate use. The chances are pretty good that we’ll have an overdose call, and you can see Narcan in action for yourselves.

Of course, you’ll have to sign a release waiver, stating that you won’t sue the city if you’re injured, or your family won’t sue if you’re killed. You’ll also probably have to wear a Kevlar vest, which is something I do every night.

Of course….is all that really necessary in the “second safest city”?

ASSORTED NOTES – Never let it be said we don’t give the people what they want. We received many requests to put this blog onto multiple pages, and now we have done exactly that. Also, I received many e-mails from active & retired QPD personnel, as well as general citizens, upset that I changed Lieutenant Bradlee’s nickname to Secret Squirrel. I’ll be the first to admit when I make a mistake, and I made one.

Welcome back, Lieutenant Bradlee’s.

Monday August 20, 2007 2:26 AM

Top Secret - Bruce Tait

“It is honorable to be accused by those who deserve to be accused” – Latin Proverb

Any police officer who has worked the street for a good length of time (which automatically excludes our police chief) will tell you one immutable fact about being a cop; if you do your job, you’re more than likely going to be the subject of more than one citizen’s complaint in your career. Also known in police circles as a “tab”, a citizen’s complaint kick-starts the dreaded “internal affairs” process, where the officer becomes the subject of an investigation by police department personnel.

Now, most cops will probably rail on and on about internal affairs people being “rats” who are out to screw the little guy for any infraction, real or perceived. In reality, just about every cop knows deep-down there has to be such a mechanism in place. As much as we hate to publicly admit it, there are some police officers who somehow skirt the scrutiny of the hiring process; the background investigation, the extensive & exhaustive psychological screening, the drug testing, etc.

It certainly isn’t often, but once in awhile a bad apple slips past the goalie, and someone who doesn’t deserve to wear the badge makes it onto a police department. The internal affairs process is a key component of discovering and rooting out the bad apples, and it also keeps the good cops honest. I’ve been the target of several citizen’s complaints in my police career, and I’m proud to say that every single one was found as “Not Sustained” or “Exonerated”. I realize it’s the price of doing business…..I’ve been a proactive cop for most of my career, so once in awhile some person I arrested or otherwise offended is going to file a complaint against me. Nothing personal.

Very often, the internal affairs process is manipulated by people to make life difficult for a police officer. For example, one citizen’s complaint filed against me was for an incident at the now (thankfully) long-gone Golden Bowl Chinese Restaurant. I and several other police officers responded to a fight in the lounge, and some drunk idiot apparently didn’t like how we handled the incident, even though he had nothing to do with it.

You may be asking yourself….if the person had nothing to do with it, how do I know he was drunk?

Because after 9pm, everyone in the Golden Bowl lounge except the bartender was always drunk. Trust me on that one.

Anyway, I was investigated for this complaint, but it wasn’t a very lengthy investigation, because the complainant gave a fake address and the number to a pay phone. As I said, just looking to make like difficult for us.

As much as the internal affairs process is beneficial to the public, there also needs to be safeguards in place so that accused police officers have the chance to defend themselves against any allegations. In his infinite wisdom, former Chief Francis Mullen recognized this when he issued Quincy Police Department General Order # 91-52, a section of the department Rules & Regulations, which delineates the internal affairs process for the Quincy Police Department. That order is still in effect as of right now. Allow me to share some tidbits of this order with you;

Section 5.1 defines a “Complaint” as: “An allegation of misconduct made against an Officer of the Department”.

Fair enough.

Section 6.0 covers “Rules” - “The following rules will be adhered to by all Officers of the Quincy Police Department”.

Let’s skip down a bit to Section 6.4, shall we?

6.4 - “Officers who have become the subject of complaint are issued a written statement of the allegations and the employee’s rights and responsibilities relative to the investigation”.

Pretty straightforward, don’t you think?

I’m certainly no lawyer, but I like to think I can at least read for comprehension. If a complaint (written or verbal) is made against a member of the Quincy Police Department, that member will receive a written statement of the allegations, and also their rights and responsibilities.

Not that tough to understand.

Or, so it would seem.

Like so many other things in his professional life, Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King has decided to completely disregard the law, rules, or anything else he decides he doesn’t want to follow. In doing so, he has quite the eager partner in Lieutenant Bradlee’s.

You see, Lieutenant Bradlee’s is the designated internal affairs investigator in the chief’s office. As such, one would think he would be intimately familiar with department rules and regulations.

One would think. And then you would be wrong.

Lieutenant Bradlee’s has adopted an extremely disconcerting habit of conducting internal affairs investigations of QPPOA members without notifying them as required by department rules and regulations. This isn’t something new or a one-time thing; it’s been done, and is being done, on a repeated and consistent basis, AFTER we’ve caught them doing it, and have warned them to knock it off.

For example, the last two times I’ve had an internal affairs complaints against me, I found out about it from second or third-hand sources. The first one involved an incident at Father Bill’s Homeless Shelter, where a sympathetic supervisor gave me the heads-up that I was being investigated. When I questioned Captain Dougan about this, the tap-dancing started that they were “just gathering evidence”.

The very next day, I was provided with a copy of the citizen’s complaint, AFTER I caught them violating department rules and regulations. I told Captain Dougan then that this was not acceptable, and that we had to be notified of complaints against us.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago; an employee of Stop & Shop on Southern Artery gave us a heads-up that Lieutenant Bradlee’s was skulking around the store, asking a lot of questions about an incident I responded to concerning a drunk customer threatening people with a knife.

Once again, I grabbed Captain Dougan and asked him if I was the target of a citizen’s complaint. Again, I got the “gathering evidence” tap dance. Again, I got a copy of the complaint the very next day, AFTER I caught them violating department rules and regulations.

Trust me….this isn’t limited to just me. Several officers found out they were being investigated without their knowledge, and just to put an exclamation point on the absurdity, one patrol officer was recently notified he was “Exonerated” for a citizen’s complaint. Unfortunately, he had no idea what the complaint was about. How in the hell can someone investigate an allegation of misconduct by a police officer without even asking the police officer what happened??

After being caught red-handed more times than a pervert in a Dateline NBC expose, you would think that Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King and Lieutenant Bradlee’s would have learned their lesson, but no. Their breathtaking arrogance supersedes department rules & regulations, fair play, and common sense.

Speaking of Lieutenant Bradlee’s, I think it’s time to change his nickname. After all, as far as I can prove, he only went shopping on-duty once, although methinks it’s probably more like a drunk driver….they do it 100+ times before they’re caught. Since he loves to skulk around and conduct top-secret investigations on QPPOA members in violation of department rules and regulations, he shall henceforth be known in this space as Secret Squirrel.

So anyway, last week I got a call from another union official, telling me that Secret Squirrel was at it again. Another sympathetic supervisor had given a heads-up to a QPPOA member that he was being investigated by internal affairs. Apparently, Secret Squirrel was in such a frenzy trying to gather “evidence” against this patrol officer, it made several people take notice.

Now….stop me if you’ve heard this before; I questioned Captain Dougan if there was an internal affairs investigation on this officer. After much doublespeak and Newspeak, I flatly asked him;

“Was there a complaint, written or verbal, filed against Officer ______”?

Response: “Yes”

My question: “Then why wasn’t he notified”?

Care to guess what the response was?

Let’s all say it together: “We’re just gathering evidence”.

Bullshit.

You see, when Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King, and apparently Lieutenant Secret Squirrel wants to stick it to one of us, secrecy is paramount. After all, if we’re aware we’re being investigated, we might actually have time to prepare a defense, locate witnesses, and take other steps to make sure we don’t get railroaded. In other words, take the steps that Section 6.4 of General Order # 91-52 wanted to preserve.

Of course, when CLK and his merry crew actually do stick it to us, then there is everything but a ticker-tape parade down Hancock Street to announce it. Do a Patriot Ledger archive search from 7/04 until present with “Robert Crowley” as the search terms, and you’ll see what I mean.

On the other hand, when inconvenient or embarrassing information is uncovered about CLK and his command staff, that information must be suppressed at all costs. For example, veteran readers of this spot know about the wildly inconsistent attendance that CLK has displayed in the last year-plus. Because that was exposed here, they had to come-up with a quick fix.

Within the last month, the computer system of the Quincy Police Department was modified so that patrol officers (such as yours truly) no longer have access to the daily department roster.

Well, isn’t that a convenient coincidence? Right after we highlight the fact we have a part-time police chief at full-time wages, we’re prohibited from accessing the attendance records.

Looks like they solved CLK’s attendance problems, doesn’t it?

Well….not quite.

The same as some members of the command staff like to brag they have some rat patrol officers in their pocket who report on all our activities, so do we have sympathetic people who wear gold badges. Quite a few of them. If I want access to the attendance roster, I’ll get it. Trust me on that one.

So….where do we go from here? I’ve reached my absolute boiling point in regards to QPPOA members being investigated without them being notified. I’m filing a grievance on this issue, based on the part of our contract dealing with management rights & responsibilities…..they have to follow the rules, the same as we do.

Because I know a grievance is a kangaroo court leading to a dead-end (until arbitration), I’m also filing at city hall a formal complaint of workplace harassment against the Cowardly Lyin’ King and Secret Squirrel. You see, a grievance at both the chief’s office and city hall can be dismissed with a simple “denied”.

However a complaint of workplace harassment, and secretly investigating QPPOA members without their knowledge certainly qualifies IMO, requires a full investigation and a written result. I want to see the explanation of Secret Squirrel as to why he continues to repeatedly violate department rules and regulations by investigating us without our knowledge. I simply CAN'T WAIT to see that explanation.

I’m so pissed-off about this, I’m going to discuss with our legal counsel the possibility of a lawsuit against CLK, Secret Squirrel, and the City of Quincy. They’ve had numerous chances to make this right, and have given us the upraised middle finger in response.

So ends my first post-vacation blog entry. Trust me; I have a lot more to say about a lot of things, to be covered in the upcoming days.

Now…..who shall be Morocco Mole?

Friday August 17, 2007 3:06 PM

Pan Mass Challenge - 2007 - Bruce Tait

I don't think there is a person reading this who hasn't had their family affected by the terrible disease of cancer. In spite of huge medical advances in recent years, there is still much to be done, which requires considerable resources.

This year, Quincy Police Officer Chris McDermott rode in his 14th Pan Mass Challenge, a grueling bicycle marathon to raise money for cancer research. Chris was inspired to ride after tragically losing his mother to cancer when he was a teenager. You can read Chris' story here;

http://www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=CM0014

Needless to say, the QPPOA fully supports Chris in his efforts, and we encourage all who can to donate to this worthy cause. If you'd like to donate, you can send checks made out to "PMC/The Jimmy Fund" to the following address;

Officer Chris McDermott
Quincy Police Department
1 Sea Street
Quincy, MA 02169

If you'd like to contact Chris directly, his e-mail is;

cmcdermott@qppoa.com

Monday August 6, 2007 5:46 PM

Gone Fishin' - Bruce Tait

"Vacation is what you take when you can't take what you've been taking any longer" - Unknown

I've received some e-mails and phone calls from people who are concerned this spot hasn't been updated in awhile. Truth be told, I'm on what I believe is a well-deserved vacation, and the silence here should not be construed as anything else.

You see, the Cowardly Lyin' King and his minions have temporarily and unlawfully stolen 4 months out of the year from me and every other patrol officer in the patrol division, so when I have the chance to take time off, I'm taking it. I used to only use one week of my two-week summer vacation period, but because of the dictatorial conditions under which we're being forced to work, I'm taking every day to which I'm entitled, and I know many other patrol officers are doing the same. Of course, this means that overtime costs will most likely skyrocket, so the stated goal of the vacation policy is accomplishing the exact opposite, and making it even more obvious that it has nothing to do with saving money or staffing cars, and everything to do with breaking the union.

Well, a recent union meeting showed strong support for the union leadership, so the fight continues. Rest assured, I'll have a whole lot to say once my vacation is over, but in the meantime, I'm spending time with my family and putting the Quincy PD out of my mind.

Before I get back to doing nothing, I should answer a question I've received from quite a few people. Awhile back, I stated that we had a nasty surprise in store for the Cowardly Lyin' King this summer, and now that it's been sprung, the time is right to let everyone know about it.

A few months ago, I got an e-mail from a young man who is a Quincy resident and a student at a college in Boston. He wanted to start a summer neighborhood basketball league at the Fenno Street playground, and he wanted to do it right; referees, timekeepers, etc. I thought it was a fantastic idea, because I really believe that many young kids (and old kids) get in trouble because there isn't anything for them to do. The Devil does indeed find work for idle hands, and the Fenno Street location has been a thorn in our sides for years.

This young man told me that players/teams would be charged a fee, but he needed money for the referees and timekeepers, and asked if the QPPOA would be willing to donate towards this. I asked what the total cost would be, and when I heard the very reasonable amount, I told him to not call anyone else, that the QPPOA would sponsor the entire league.

So.....a few weeks ago, the Quincy Neighborhood Basketball League had its opening night, and from what I've heard, it's been a great success.

On opening night, Chief Cowardly Lyin' King showed-up, and walked into a living nightmare. There were dozens and dozens of young kids, playing/watching basketball, having a great time.

And.....they were all wearing t-shirts with "QPPOA.COM" emblazoned on the back.

From what I heard, CLK took one look at the scene, jumped into his Explorer, drove-off like his pants were on fire, then got on the radio and complained about kids hanging around Wollaston Center.

More kids wearing "QPPOA.COM" t-shirts.

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!

Catch you on the flip side.

Wednesday July 18, 2007 5:35 PM

Welcome to the second safest.....oops, never mind - Bruce Tait

“Delusions of grandeur make me feel a lot better about myself” – Jane Wagner

Last month was the annual Quincy Police Memorial at the Mount Wollaston Cemetery, conducted by the Quincy Police Mutual Aid Association (QPMAA). Luckily, the weather held out long enough to get through the entire ceremony, although the dark, dreary weather may have actually been appropriate as we reflected on those we have lost over the years.

I had the honor of being on the rifle salute squad, which fired the 21-gun salute after the wreath-laying, and just before “Taps”, which meant we (rifle squad) didn’t march in the procession; we drew our rifles from the armory and went directly to the cemetery for a few dry-runs before the other officers arrived. We are all veterans of the Army, Air Force, or Marines, so it didn’t take long until we felt comfortable with the sequence of orders, and had some “down time”.

During this time, I and another member of the squad got into a spirited argument as to whether Mayor Failin’ would take the opportunity of his bringing the greetings of the city to make some sort of political statement. Specifically, this other officer firmly believed that hizzoner simply wouldn’t be able to help himself, and would have to somehow work in his campaign mantra….the myth that Quincy is the second-safest city in Massachusetts.

I disagreed….I really thought that not even he would have the chutzpah to say this, barely a week after someone was shot in Marina Bay. Our disagreement quickly morphed into a gentleman’s bet just as we heard the marching procession approaching, so we hurried to get into position.

After QPMAA President Paul Murphy welcomed everyone, he soon called on Mayor Failin’ to bring the greetings of the city. As hizzoner walked to the podium, I stole a glance down the line, and saw my betting partner glancing at me, smirking. The mayor started his speech, and suddenly began dancing around the subject of public safety in Quincy.

I felt like I was in the group in the movie “Caddyshack” who were betting on whether Spaulding Smails would pick his nose, then eat it.

Me – “Don’t do it…..don’t do it….you’ll look like a fool!!!”

Other officer – “C’mon…say it. You know you believe it…say it!!!!

Sure enough, I suddenly heard “Second safest city in Massachusetts” come out of the PA speakers. I let out a groan, and heard a stifled laugh down the line.

After all was said and done, I really got to thinking. Does Mayor Failin’, Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King, and most of the city council actually believe their own propaganda? Are so they so absorbed with their own titles and niches of power they truly can’t see the elephant in the living room? It must be nice to go through life wearing rose-colored glasses, but I have the feeling the rose isn’t so bright right now.

You see, within about 8 hours of Mayor Failin’ once again perpetuating the myth that Quincy is the second-safest city in Massachusetts, a drug lab exploded at 20 Holmes Street in North Quincy, catching the apartment on fire, seriously burning the resident/chemist, forcing the evacuation of the area, and requiring the DEA clandestine lab experts to respond. The resident/chemist was taken to the Mass General Hospital Burns Unit with serious burns.

Nothing like a drug lab explosion to put yet another torpedo into the “second safest city” sinking hulk, eh? I’m surprised that Mayor Failin’ hasn’t tried to put a positive spin on this yet….something like; “Private industry has returned to Quincy, starting with one good-paying manufacturing job!!”

Of course, once it became apparent what exactly was going on at 20 Holmes Street, the Cowardly Lyin’ King ordered an information lockdown, ordering all communications concerning the incident be conducted over the phone. There was such censorship of information, even I didn’t know what was going on for quite awhile, and I was working that night.

Why the information lockdown?

I think it’s pretty obvious….keep the incident under wraps, to help preserve the second-safest city myth. Of course, the Cowardly Lyin’ King has nothing to fear from the Patriot Ledger; if CLK told them it was a baby-milk manufacturing operation, they would have probably printed it without question.

Unfortunately for CLK, someone called several major news outlets (I can’t imagine who would do something like that), which were soon on the scene, so the cat was out of the bag at that point, and the Ledger had no choice but to fully report the story;

http://www.patriotledger.com/articles/2007/06/04/news/news01.txt

And just to make it completely obvious, the one sector that will continue to go unstaffed is the one we’re constantly complaining about, which is the B-778 sector.

Now….care to take 3 guesses as to what police sector 20 Holmes Street, the site of the drug lab explosion, is in? That would be none other than the B-778 sector, which was once again not staffed the night of the explosion.

The city councilor for the B-778 sector is Ward 6 Councilor Brian McNamee, who is apparently perfectly content to let one of the police sectors in his ward go unstaffed on a regular basis, as evidenced by his actions, or I should say inactions, at the public safety committee meeting of April 30th.

Councilor McNamee not only is content to let one of the police sectors go unstaffed, he actually verbally attacked a resident of the B-778 sector for expressing concern over his and his family’s safety.

Not long after the shooting in Marina Bay, a resident of Glover Avenue (in the B-778 sector) e-mailed me and gave his phone number, asking me to call him about something very important. I called him back immediately after I got the e-mail. He told me a story that was so incredible, I almost didn’t believe it. I certainly didn’t want to believe it.

What I heard was so outrageous, I was almost tempted to label the guy a crank, and just ignore the whole thing, but he gave me the names of some people I know and trust implicitly who would vouch for him, and they did.

This resident of Ward 6 called his city councilor (McNamee) to express his disappointment and concern over his police sector car not being staffed, especially in light of the shooting in Marina Bay.

Councilor McNamee’s response?

“What have you ever done for me”?

Can you believe that? That’s as outrageous as if I were approached while in my police cruiser by someone whose home was being burglarized, and I asked them what they ever did for me.

It got worse.

As soon as this Ward 6 resident told his councilor that he was especially concerned about the direction of the police department because he reads this website, the profanity started. Every other word out of McNamee’s mouth was the F-Bomb, especially directed at me and Councilor Dan Raymondi. This Ward 6 resident told me he had never been treated more disrespectfully in his entire life, never mind by one of his elected officials.

The conversation ended with McNamee screaming “F-Tait, F-Raymondi, and F-you too”!!!! at which point he slammed the phone down in his constituent’s ear.

Basically….how dare this constituent question his city councilor about his and his family’s safety, immediately after a shooting in the same ward. This resident was so upset when I was talking with him, his voice was shaking. He’d rather his name not be used, but if someone wants to make the accusation that the conversation never took place, he’ll be more than happy to come forward.

So, my questions to Councilor McNamee are….now that there’s been a shooting and a drug lab explosion in Ward 6, in addition to one of the police sector cars in your ward regularly going unstaffed, do you care now?

Are you going to start showing some concern for your constituents, or are you still more concerned with protecting your fragile ego and being a toady for Jay Davis? Are you ever going to question the chief of police why a police sector in your ward is continually not staffed as a matter of policy in the police department?

I told the public safety committee that shootings were coming. I told them that our “gun calls” had skyrocketed, but they didn’t want to hear it. Councilor Jay Davis asked me where I lived, and when I told him, he said “The same things are happening in Weymouth”.

Really? I’ve lived in Weymouth for a few years and have several friends on the Weymouth PD, but for the life of me, I can’t recall the last shooting or drug lab explosion in Weymouth.

Let’s forget Ward 6, and look at the whole city. Besides the shooting and drug lab explosion, there has been a flurry of serious criminal activity in Quincy, much of it not reported by the media.

For instance, a Federal grand jury recently indicted 25 members of a Boston street gang, the “Lucerne Street Dogzz”, for drug and firearms offenses that occurred in Boston and…….QUINCY!!!!

One of the major players in this gang lived on Presidential Drive in Quincy, and was indicted for distributing cocaine. Of course, I have known about this individual for several months, but declined to mention it, since it was an ongoing investigation. It doesn’t get anymore public information than a dual press release from the US Attorney’s Office and Suffolk County DA’s Office, so….

YO dOgg….cHeCk diS oUt!!!!!

http://www.bpdnews.com/2007/05/twentyfive_lucerne_street_dogg.html

That kinda flies in the face of Mayor Failin’s assertion that no one comes to Quincy to buy drugs, doesn’t it? Yes Virginia, the Boston street gangs are now in Quincy.

A LOT of them.

And if it makes you feel any better, we do have Quincy boys dealing drugs, also;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/06/02/news/news04.txt

Feel like some ice cream for you and the kiddies? Better to get a gallon the next time you’re at the supermarket. Thanks to the junkies, you can’t even take your kids out for ice cream anymore. My wife used to take my kids here for ice cream, now I won’t let her, unless I’m with them or meet them there while I’m working;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/07/11/news/news20.txt

You want some Internet sex predators? We have those, also;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/07/11/news/news11.txt

In the above incident, it was a fantastic piece of police work by Quincy PD Patrol Officer Danny Church that led to this dangerous pervert and convicted sex offender being taken off the street.

Cop killers? Allow me serve one up on a silver platter;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/07/17/news/news02.txt

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that shootings, while definitely on the rise in Quincy, are relatively not common in the overall scheme of things. What should shock and disturb Quincy residents is the fact that Wollaston and North Quincy are currently, as in right now, being absolutely RAPED by B&E’s (breaking & entering). A lot of these incidents aren’t daytime opportunists who go through an unlocked door at noontime while the occupants are at work. These are hardcore criminals who are breaking into people’s homes while they sleep.

Imagine being a sleepy father, holding your newborn baby while you warm a bottle at 4am, and some junkie walks into your living room. That’s exactly what happened recently, and I don’t care how tough someone is….when you’re holding a baby, that’s as defenseless as it gets.

How bad is the problem? Last year, between 1/1/06 and 7/15/06, Quincy had 193 B&E’s to homes. For the same time period in 2007, the figure has jumped to 250 B&E’s. In June of 2006, we had 32 B&E’s. For June of 2007, we’ve had 60 B&E’s…..almost double.

I need to stress that does not include breaks into vehicles, these are people’s homes and businesses. As far as motor vehicle breaks, we had 254 for the time period of 1/1/06 to 7/15/06. This year, the number has jumped to 284.

So, you’re probably asking yourself, what’s being done about this very dangerous crime wave?

Of course, the Quincy PD Detectives are doing their usual good job working the cases, and have developed some solid leads. However, the nature of detective work is that it comes after the fact.

What’s being done as far as preventing these B&E’s and catching the crooks in the act?

Let me spell it out for you;

N-O-T-H-I-N-G

As in…..not a damn thing. The great majority of these house breaks are happening during the Midnight-8am shift, in Wollaston and North Quincy. Those areas of the city are in what we call the “Bravo” patrol area, which on paper has 4 distinct sectors within, each theoretically staffed with a patrol officer. However, because of Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King’s child-like stubbornness, the B-778 sector is routinely not staffed if it would result in overtime hiring.

So…..while Wollaston and North Quincy are being ravaged by criminals, the officers working those very areas of the city are already trying to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, because they’re perpetually short-handed.

When I was first appointed to the Quincy PD, if there was a rash of nighttime house breaks, there would be overtime hiring on the midnight shift, including officers in plainclothes and unmarked cars to flood the area. If we didn’t catch the criminals, they sure as hell moved on to greener pastures outside the city.

Now? We just soldier on as if nothing is happening, because it’s more important to the chief of police to not admit we’re right, and to maintain the second-safest city myth than anything else.

What do the city councilors who represent Wollaston and North Quincy have to say about their constituents being victimized on an almost nightly basis?

Is that the sound of crickets I hear?

The great majority of the Quincy City Council has made it abundantly clear they value their own egos and political alliances far more than their constituent’s safety. They would rather have junkies breaking into Quincy homes than to admit there are serious problems with the leadership of the police department.

How pathetic and political have things become? The only person who seems to be willing to acknowledge this serious problem doesn’t even hold elected office;

http://kochforquincy.com/?p=33

I want to be clear that the QPPOA has not endorsed any political candidate, but when I see someone who “gets it”, it truly makes me feel like there’s hope for the future. Take a look at this;

http://kochforquincy.com/?p=28

That’s someone who gets it. The drug problem in Quincy has gone WAY WAY beyond the “issue” that the mayor likes to describe it. It’s a full-blown pandemic, and it’s getting worse each day. When Quincy has a higher overdose rate than Brockton, that should serve as a serious wake-up call.

We’re losing entire generations of kids to drugs, while Mayor Failin’ and Chief Cowardly Lyin’ King are whistling past the graveyard. Just recently, I was at a heroin overdose call in Quincy Point. I looked on as Fallon EMS Paramedics feverishly worked to administer Narcan (opiate antidote) to the 17 year-old who was basically dead when we got there. She was a pretty girl, actually quite striking, but I could see she had already started the “junkie slide”. Her eyes were a bit sunken, a little bit hollow looking, so any experienced street cop would look at her and think “junkie”.

After the medics brought her back from the dead like Lazarus, I learned she got hooked on OC’s (Oxycontin) at age 14, and had “graduated” to heroin last year. You see, OC’s are quite expensive, usually going for $1 per milligram on the street, and the more people use, the higher their tolerance, so the habit can easily and quickly reach $100 per day. Heroin, on the other hand, is around $5 per bag and therefore much more economical. The usual progression is snorting OC’s, snorting heroin, then injecting heroin.

Another young lad hooked on heroin whom I’m very familiar with in Quincy Point is into his parents for over $20,000 in stolen property and forged checks, just to feed his drug habit. He’s also prostituted himself, performing oral sex on other men for money.

Touching, isn’t it?

As I said, the drug problem is out of control. Once again, you’re probably asking yourself, what’s being done?

The Quincy PD Drug Unit does a fantastic job, but given the small size of the unit (5 patrol officers & 1 supervisor), it’s like shoveling sand against the tide. In order to have any appreciable effect, the drug unit should be AT LEAST doubled in size, if not more, and spread around all three shifts. Of course, this would further drain the patrol force, but something needs to be done.

We simply need more police officers in Quincy….the staffing levels of 10 years ago are simply not cutting it anymore. At the very least, the QPD needs to hire 15 more patrol officers, although 20 would be better. The very last thing in the world we need is more supervisors, yet rumors abound that more promotions are coming. We’re so top heavy right now, if we were a ship we’d be doing barrel rolls.

Consider this….right now, we have one supervisor for every three patrol officers. That’s a ridiculous ratio, especially considering how short-handed the patrol division is.

Another question you’re probably asking yourself is, what the hell is the chief of police doing about the serious problems within the police department?

You really want to know?

He’s busy concerning himself with freakin’ dead turtles.

You should know better than to ever doubt me by now, so go to the “Media Gallery” section of this website, then “Audio Files”. Click on “Priorities Part II – Totally Turtle”.

While we’re going to dangerous calls alone, while the residents of Wollaston and North Quincy are barricading their doors and their police service area isn’t fully staffed, while Quincy’s kids are being destroyed by drugs, our fearless leader is more worried about a dead turtle in someone’s trash than anything else.

Would you all please stop e-mailing me with comments like “It can’t be as bad as you make it sound”?

IT IS THAT BAD!!!!!!!!

Totally turtle, dude.

ASSORTED NOTES - Thank you to everyone who e-mailed with their prayers and concerns for the officers involved in the recent incident on Grandview Avenue. They’re all back to work, and are doing well.

In the interests of fairness, I’d also like to mention the Patriot Ledger did contact me, offering me editorial space to comment on that incident, but so many people forwarded me their letters to the editor, I thought it best that it come from someone outside the police department. It turns out that the space was given to DA William Keating, which I thought most appropriate, considering it was he who was the most unfairly criticized by the Ledger. DA Keating’s editorial is here;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/07/17/opinion/opin02.txt

Monday July 9, 2007 2:58 AM

Time to Break Out the Hip Waders - Bruce Tait

“For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is no news” – Gloria Borger

As most of you are probably aware, Quincy Police Officers were recently forced into a situation where they had to employ deadly force. Unfortunately, the suspect died as a result. For those of you not from the area, here is a pretty fair news account of the incident;






http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/07/04/news/news01.txt

This incident happened early in the morning, and I was still asleep when my phone started ringing off the hook, having been up late the previous night working on some union business. It was one hell of a wakeup call, I can tell you that right now.

I obviously wasn’t at the scene of the incident, but as soon as I was made aware of the situation I went to Quincy Medical Center, where the officers involved were taken as a precaution. Before I left for the hospital, I called our litigation attorney, Richard Bardi, and made him aware of what happened. I knew the officers involved would have to be interviewed by investigators from the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, so I wanted to make sure they had legal counsel available to them. This is standard practice for an officer-involved shooting.

I personally spoke to each officer at the hospital who was directly involved in the incident, and then was involved with Attorney Bardi in a debriefing of all QPPOA members who were present at the scene, so I heard the accounts of over 15 police officers who were present at the scene of the incident.

I was quoted in the Patriot Ledger as saying the responding officers showed incredible restraint in dealing with this delusional, suicidal and homicidal person, but that doesn’t really do it justice. The first responding officer, who walked into this scene alone, was actually chased around a swimming pool by the suspect who was wielding a huge butcher knife that was covered in his own blood from repeatedly cutting himself, while he demanded the officer shoot him. This officer kept retreating while calling for emergency backup, thereby putting himself in serious danger because he didn’t want to use deadly force, even though it was clearly justified at this point. The officer kept retreating, and waited for the cavalry to arrive.

The suspect apparently grew tired of chasing the officer, and ran into a pool cabana, where he sat down and continued to cut himself. Now there were numerous officers on-scene, and they deployed EVERY non-lethal means of force made available to us. The suspect was doused with pepper spray from outside the cabana, which had absolutely no effect whatsoever. Now, I’ve been hit with pepper spray, and if you don’t have any reaction to it at all, there is something seriously wrong.

In addition to the pepper spray, several officers deployed ballistic shields, which look similar to riot shields but have ballistic capabilities to defeat small-arms fire, and are also effective against edged weapons. Other officers deployed their collapsible batons. The hastily assembled plan was to partially disable the suspect with pepper spray (so he couldn’t see), then move-in with the shields and knock the knife out of his hand with baton strikes. An excellent plan, if everything went according to the plan, but like so many other things, something went wrong.

As I mentioned, the pepper spray had no effect on the suspect at all, and in fact affected the officers more than anyone, since there was such a large amount sprayed. Things went from bad to worse when the suspect suddenly charged out of the cabana with the knife raised, repeatedly demanding the officers kill him. Two of the officers, who were formed into a semi-circle around the cabana entrance, lost their footing while trying to retreat and fell to the ground. The suspect was literally standing over one of the fallen, helpless officers with the knife raised when the other officers opened fire. It was as clear-cut a case of using deadly force to protect someone else as I’ve ever seen in my nearly 20 years as a police officer.

Needless to say, the officers involved in this incident were quite shaken by it, as anyone would be. However, they all retained their composure, knowing deep-down they did the right thing. As I listened to the 15+ police officers during the debriefing, there were some minor details differing, but the stories were all pretty much the same, and everyone agreed there was no choice but to employ deadly force in the situation.

One of the things I told the officers involved was that sooner or later, some ignorant armchair quarterback was going to get on TV or write to the Ledger, saying something stupid like we should have shot the knife out his hand. I told these officers to consider the source…..any police officer in the entire United States would wholeheartedly support their decision once they knew the circumstances, or would at least have the good sense to keep their mouth shut until they had all the details. Little did I know that the entire editorial staff at the Patriot Ledger would be the collective ignorant armchair quarterback;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/07/07/opinion/opin01.txt

I want to make it clear that there are very rarely winners when the police have to use deadly force, especially when someone dies as a result. I can also understand why the family of the suspect would be upset….they’ve lost a member of their family in a very public, very embarrassing manner. When they make statements like we should have shot him in the arm or leg, I understand they’re speaking from emotion, and I don’t give it much credence.

However, when the editorial staff of the Patriot Ledger makes such an asinine statement, it begs for a rebuttal and a correction. The Patriot Ledger wants to know why we didn’t shoot the suspect in the arm or leg.

I’m going to tell them why.

It’s because we’re not circus performers, and our reality isn’t a Chuck Norris movie. We don’t toss quarters into the air and shoot them out of the sky, we don’t catch bullets in our teeth, we don’t shoot knives and/or guns out of people’s hands, and unlike what the Ledger editors have apparently seen on television, we don’t wing someone with a shot to the arm or leg when faced with an armed attack.

Police officers are trained to shoot for center mass (largest size) of the available target area. If the available target area is a human standing upright, center mass would be the middle of their chest. If the available target area is someone looking from behind cover, center mass would be the middle of their face.

The reasoning is quite simple; if you have to shoot at someone, you want to hit them, and the greatest chance of hitting them comes from aiming at the largest area of them available to you. The goal is to stop the threat, and shooting center mass gives you the greatest odds of doing that. When the police use firearms, it’s almost always a quick, violent encounter that’s over in a matter of seconds.

Under perfect conditions with no stress, it’s very difficult for even a proficient pistol shot to draw from a holster, instantly fire, and hit a target as small as an arm or leg. I’m an excellent pistol shot, and the times I’ve tried it on the pistol range on a human silhouette target, I’ve had a success rate of about 50-60%. Again, that’s on a range under no stress whatsoever. If the editorial staff at the Ledger doesn’t believe me, I’ll be more than happy to arrange some range time for them so they can try it themselves.

Take those same circumstances (drawing and instantly firing), and add-in as stressful a situation imaginable….a suicidal/homicidal suspect covered in his own blood, about to sink a butcher knife into a police officer down on the ground.

Shoot him in the arm or leg? Are you freakin’ kidding me? If the situation weren’t so serious, it would be positively laughable.

Apparently, the Ledger prefers that a police officer be stabbed and possibly killed, while other officers attempt circus tricks with their pistols. Their cavalier attitude towards our safety is simply disgusting.

The Ledger then went from the disgusting to the absurd when they accused District Attorney William Keating of being irresponsible when he stated the officers were justified in using deadly force. They even implied there is some type of conspiracy between the Quincy Police and the DA’s Office, and that DA Keating has to “maintain a relationship” with us.

What total, unmitigated bullshit.

Exactly what “relationship” is DA Keating attempting to maintain? I’m president of the patrol officers union, I’ve spoken on the phone with him once and met him in-person twice. The only relationship we generally have with him is babysitting dead bodies until investigators from his office arrive.

I could barely believe my eyes when the Ledger stated the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office should be called in to investigate not only the Quincy Police, but the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.

I now know what I can get the Ledger editorial staff for Christmas…..some airline tickets so they can visit Area 51 with all the other conspiracy whack jobs. I’ll throw-in some free Birkenstocks for them, as the Ledger seems to be morphing into the print version of NPR before my eyes.

Note to the Patriot Ledger…..did it ever occur to you that DA Keating stated the officers were justified because it was so damn obvious they WERE justified? Sometimes, things are indeed exactly as they seem. I commend DA Keating, and hold on to your socks, because I also commend Chief Crowley, for their very public defense of the officers involved. It was so obvious what happened, that any delay in clearing the officers would have sent a terrible message to the entire police department.

What infuriated me the most was when the Ledger tried to justify their conspiracy theory by stating an “independent investigation” is necessary so the officers involved can return to work with a “clear conscience”.

I have news for the Patriot Ledger….the officers involved already have clear consciences because they know they did everything in their power to defuse the situation, and they most definitely know they were justified in using deadly force. If anyone should have a clouded conscience, it should be the entire editorial staff at the Patriot Ledger.

I’ve e-mailed them, and requested equal space in their editorial section for a rebuttal to their ignorant garbage.

When my phone don’t ring, I’ll know it’s my buddies from Crown Colony Drive.

Thursday June 28, 2007 2:20 AM

Justice Delayed Can Still be Justice - Bruce Tait

“Sometimes in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls” – Howie Carr

As anyone who has been one of his targets will tell you, Howie Carr is extremely funny, as long as he’s not talking about you (then again, the same has been said about me). Anyway, I used to be a firm believer in the above quote, having seen more deals cut in the hallways of courthouses in Quincy and Boston than having to actually go to trial.

I’m admittedly cynical to the core, having once been described by an old girlfriend as not seeing the glass half-empty, but half-full…..of poison (although I believe any cop who’s worked the street for many years has probably the same attitude). However, my faith in the justice system has been at least partially restored by the events of last week.

For those who don’t know, the trial of the four Asians arrested by the Quincy Police on April 30th 2006 finally started last week. To say it was a spectacle would be a major, major understatement. One of the people arrested was an “organizer” for an organization called “The Chinese Progressive Association” (CPA), which has questionable motives, to say the least. Take a gander at their website, and you decide for yourself;

http://www.cpaboston.org

This was as straightforward an incident as any police officer is likely to be involved with. Two drunk idiots (one of whom was so drunk he was puking into the gutter) got a serious case of “beer balls” and decided to challenge uniformed police officers to a fight.

Bad idea.

Two other people decided to interfere with their arrest, and all four ended up being hit with pepper spray. Three of them were charged with Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Arrest, while the fourth was just charged with Disorderly Conduct.

Now, notice the charges. Both very minor misdemeanors, and Disorderly Conduct is basically a tool for the police to remove people from the public who are making asses of themselves and bothering others. There was no attempt to “tack on” charges like Assault & Battery on a Police Officer, even though two of the people arrested did in fact assault uniformed police officers.

It’s about as garden variety as there is, but the CPA wasn’t about to let the miscreants take their lumps. They decided to take a page out of Al Sharpton’s book, and turn the entire affair into a three-ring circus.

First off was the old tried and true march to city hall. It’s very interesting to note that during the recent Quincy teacher’s strike, several teachers who were not union officials tried to get a meeting with the mayor. As I said, these weren’t big shots from the Mass Teacher’s Association, or even from the local teacher’s union. Just regular teachers who wanted to appeal to the mayor to break the deadlock.

They were escorted out of city hall.

However, when a bunch of protestors carrying signs that said “Quincy Police = Racists” arrived at city hall in July 2006, they were invited right into the mayor’s office for a sit-down meeting. Don’t believe me? A picture is worth a thousand words;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/07/27/news/news01.txt

What did our fearless leader, the Cowardly Lyin’ King, do about these ridiculous allegations? Did he call the Patriot Ledger to say he was behind his officers until proven otherwise?

You gotta be kidding me.

He called the FBI to investigate the officers, as is his style. He probably figured that was his best chance to get the officers in legal hot water, even though he most likely knew they did nothing wrong. That’s who the “outside agency” was;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/06/09/news/news08.txt

Anyway…back to the trial. All four of the defendants were offered slaps on the wrist in a plea-bargain proposal, but they were having none of it. After all, they had quite a bit of time and energy invested in this case. Take a little zoomo at these gems;

http://www.quincy4.com

http://www.myspace.com/thequincy4

As I’ve said from the beginning, the most infuriating thing about this entire affair is that the Quincy Police Department has worked for many years to forge an excellent relationship with our Asian community, many of whom at first have an inherent distrust of the police from their experiences with the brutal Communist dictatorship of mainland China. It’s not overnight that you can create trust, and we’ve worked long and hard to get to the point where the Asian community can trust the police.

Yet, these rabble-rousers did EVERYTHING in their power to destroy that relationship, just because they couldn’t bring themselves to admit they were in the wrong. I’d love to ask these people what they think would have happened if they conducted themselves with the Beijing Police the same way they did with the Quincy Police that night.

Their grandparents would probably tell them….there sure as hell wouldn’t have been a trial.

Instead of just admitting they made mistakes on April 30th last year (as we’ve all done in life), you would think this was the Lindbergh kidnapping trial. I’ve literally been involved in murder cases that took less time than this disgrace…..jury selection took all day Monday, plus part of Tuesday, and the verdicts weren’t read until LATE Friday afternoon.

One of the defendants actually went out and hired Attorney Robert Sheketoff (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Al Franken), who probably hasn’t seen the inside of a district court in over 20 years, and whose bill for this will probably be more than I’ll make this year.

Once the testimony started, it really got ridiculous. If you were to believe the defense’s case, this group of defendants were having a very calm conversation with a state trooper by the side of the road, when a Quincy Police cruiser suddenly arrived, and right in front of another police officer from a different agency, a Quincy Police Officer started pepper-spraying people for no reason. It doesn’t even pass the smell test. One of the defense witnesses tried to say that an officer asking her where she was from was “racist”.

Say what?

The most infuriating, but also most entertaining part of the trial were the closing arguments. Another defense attorney whose name escapes me, whom I referred to as Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (the Phil Hartman character on Saturday Night Live) since it looked like his last haircut and shower came sometime during the Clinton Administration, kicked things off. I actually expected him to start his closing by raising his hands and saying “Your world frightens and confuses me”.

Blame the Police was the name of this game, and it was during closing arguments I realized the CPA’s strategy of “packing the court” was going to backfire. After Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer finished his closing argument, one spectator actually started applauding, a HUGE no-no in court. Another group of young females in front of me were constantly giggling. One of the defendant’s cell phones went-off not once, but twice. All in all, the defendants and many of the spectators treated the entire affair like one big joke, just a precursor to the huge civil lawsuits they no doubt were dreaming about.

Well, keep dreaming.

Thankfully, the jury saw through the race-card smokescreen, and convicted three of the four defendants of at least one of the charges against them. The lone female defendant was convicted of Resisting Arrest, while the two main troublemakers were convicted of both Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Arrest.

Here’s where I was completely caught off-guard.

I admit I haven’t been a huge fan of Quincy District Court in the past, but Judge Mary Orfanello, who presided over this case, is now forever okay in my book. She dropped the hammer of justice on the now convicted defendants, and in a big way. The female received 18 months of probation, but the sentences meted out to the convicted males just blew me away.

They were sentenced to 6 months in the house of correction, with 10 days committed time. They were both removed from the courtroom in handcuffs;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/06/23/news/news11.txt

You gotta love the Patriot Ledger headline; “RACISM ALLEGED – 2 get jail for disorderly”.

How about, “Arrested activists proven liars – convicted and jailed”?

Anyway, to say I was blown away by this doesn’t do it justice. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic…..if more drunks who fight with the police got sentenced to jail for a few days, we’d most likely have less drunks fighting with the police. It’s just that this was the first time in my entire career I saw someone with no prior criminal record do time for a Disorderly and Resisting charge.

As I mentioned before, the CPA wanted to play the race card, and turn the proceedings into a circus. They gambled big, and lost big. Better luck next time.

Not suprisingly, Attorney Sheketoff proved to be a sore loser. He was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying; “It means that if you’re Asian, don’t come to Quincy”.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/06/guilty_verdict .html

Now, I ask you good people to use the common sense you’ve acquired through your life experience…..Quincy has one of the largest Asian populations outside of Boston, and was one of the first areas outside Boston to attract Asians.

If the Quincy Police Department were truly racist and anti-Asian, don’t you think that would have reared its head a lot sooner than April 30th 2006? Or maybe another incident would have happened since then?

Truth be told, I’d wager we have the least negative interactions with Asians than any other ethnic group, but there are bad apples everywhere, as evidenced by this incident. One reporter asked me if this has damaged our relationship with the Asian community in Quincy, and my answer (not published) was “Of course not”.

We realize, as I believe most of the mainstream Asian community does, that these defendants were troublemakers with chips on their shoulders. We hold the Asian community no more responsible for their actions than they should hold the actions of bad cops against us.

Is this the end of the line for this incident? Apparently not, since a “strategy meeting” of the CPA was recently held to decide their next course of action.

Next course of action? It’s over…..they lost. What is there to strategize about? What’s next on their agenda, a renegotiation of the Versailles Treaty?

At their next strategy session, I invite the members of the CPA to consider this;

Is it completely out of the realm of possibility that the defendants did exactly what the police said they did? That someone who was so drunk he was vomiting would start a fight with a police officer? That someone who interfered with an arrest got hit by pepper spray unintentionally?

Is that not plausible in the least?

In closing, I’d like to thank the Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted this case, Jason Mohan (sorry if I misspelled the last name). He did a fantastic job, and I firmly believe he has a very bright future in either the DA’s Office or private practice, wherever his career takes him. Of course, spanking one of the premier defense lawyers in the state during a jury trial looks good on any young lawyer’s resume.

I’d also like to thank Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer for providing the comic relief for the week. A word of advice, buddy…..time for some new suits. Tello’s and Chess King went out of business years ago.

Finally, thanks out to every member of the Quincy Police command staff that made an appearance last week as a show of support for their patrol officers.

That number would be “ZERO”.

The support from the rank-and-file officers was awesome, and while Lieutenant John McDonough (who knows a thing or two about being in an uncomfortable spot in a courthouse) was there every day to support everyone, there was an otherwise mostly conspicuous absence of gold badges in Quincy District Court last week, save for some sergeants.

My question is….when will the Cowardly Lyin’ King be calling the FBI back, to tell them it was obviously a big misunderstanding?

Don’t hold your breath.

Friday June 22, 2007 1:41 AM

Caught in the Act - Bruce Tait

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I apologize for the lengthy delay in updating this space, I had an important family situation to attend to, plus I’ve been battling a vicious cold for the last few days. I made it through the winter just fine, but on the first day of summer I’m knocked out by a head cold……go figure, right? I haven’t had the energy to do much of anything this week, especially going to work and answering people’s emergency calls for help, yet I’m forced to do just that.

Why?

Veteran readers of this column know exactly why….because my hypocritical police chief, the Cowardly Lyin’ King, imposes arbitrary policies concerning the way we can use the vacation, sick, and personal time we EARNED through collective bargaining and seniority rights. Of course, he doesn’t have to concern himself with any type of attendance policies, because he’s moved from simple hypocrisy to outright thievery in that regard. More on that in a bit.

Those of you who read the Patriot Ledger know that we had a minor setback on Monday in our attempts to reign-in the Cowardly Lyin’ King’s outrageous and unlawful behavior. You can read about it here;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/06/19/news/news12.txt

By the way, the reason I couldn’t be reached for comment was because I dragged myself out of my sickbed to go to Quincy District Court as a show of support for QPPOA members currently involved in the three-ring circus that the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) case has become. Of course, if the Cowardly Lyin’ King knew Thing One about leadership, he would have made at least a token appearance to support his officers. But, that’s not CLK’s style…when his officers are accused of the most ridiculous charges imaginable, he doesn’t support them, he calls the FBI to investigate them.

What really gave me a chuckle about that article was the Cowardly Lyin’ King’s assertion that his orders were about public safety. Allow me to incinerate that ridiculous statement instantly;

From the time of issuing the vacation day order and the court hearing, there were a dozen shifts of the Quincy Police Department that were NOT fully staffed, and six more after the court hearing as of this writing, making a total of eighteen shifts not fully staffed since he issued (ooops….since Captain Dougan issued) the vacation day order. One of those shifts was the one I just completed, the 4pm-Midnight shift on Thursday night.

We were understaffed on this shift, YET AGAIN, even though any moron with half a brain would know it would be busy, since this was the last day of school for Quincy underclassmen. Sure enough, we were running all over the city like crazy people, and if you were listening to the scanner you heard the words “I have no cruisers available” more than once from the dispatchers.

At about 9:30pm, the 911 switchboard lit-up like a Christmas tree with frantic Quincy Point residents reporting a large fight at the Marshall School involving knives and bats. I was the first officer on-scene, and sure enough, there was a huge brawl in the parking lot off Southern Artery. I was arresting a felony suspect by myself, who attempted to cave-in someone’s head with a 40-pound boulder, while at the same time trying to keep a hostile crowd from killing the suspect. I was alone for a good 3-4 minutes, which I promise you is like an eternity in that situation, because the closest backup unit was dealing with another fight on Germain Avenue, and the other backup units were coming from West Quincy and Wollaston. One of the cruisers NOT staffed last night was the C-782, which is a main backup cruiser for Quincy Point…..when it’s staffed.

So, like so many other things in life, CLK is just plain lying, yet again, when he tries to wave the public safety banner. It’s all about not spending overtime on the patrol division, and positively nothing else.

As I said, this court hearing was but a minor setback, a speed bump if you will. The only thing the city accomplished on Monday was to delay the inevitable.

The bottom line is that on the personal day issue, the judge in this case for some reason bought the city’s argument that July 3rd and July 4th were somehow public safety emergencies, due to two anticipated events. Let’s just say the sacrificial lamb du jour who supplied this argument in the form of a sworn affidavit, Captain Paul Keenan, probably should have at least read it before he just signed it on the urging of the city’s attorney, because there are several things in there that WILL come back to bite him on the behind.

Speaking of the city’s attorney, for some reason the city decided to hire outside counsel to defend this court action, Attorney William Sullivan of the Quincy law firm Sullivan and Sweeney;

http://www.sullivanandsweeney.com

Now, when I went to the above website, I was truly puzzled as to why the city would hire an attorney who clearly specializes in criminal defense and personal injury to argue a clear-cut labor case. As I explored the website, the answer hit me like sledgehammer. Go there, and look under “Attorney Profiles”. Guess who is listed as “of counsel” for this law firm?

That would be none other than…….drum roll please……Thomas J. Largey, the “Director of Operations” for the City of Quincy, better known as Mayor Failin’s right hand man.

Funny how that worked out, isn’t it? If you’re going to trample a union’s rights, you might as well give a lucrative no-bid contract to one of your buddies, right?

Exactly how lucrative is it? We’ll know within about 30 days, and then so shall you. Thanks to Operation Jelly Doughnut, we and you will be finding out a lot of interesting things in the coming weeks, trust me.

So anyway, Captain Keenan’s affidavit, to put it nicely, contains more holes that a piece of Swiss cheese. But no matter for the moment, because the judge bought it. Once again, the command staff of the police department and city hall have gambled an awful lot, just to get a little immediate gratification. And, from the way the command staff were acting up until late Tuesday morning, you’d think they won World War II.

I assure you gentlemen…..you may have won this battle, but I promise you, we will win the war.

Our next course of action on the vacation time issue is to demand expedited arbitration, so we’ll hopefully have a hearing within 2-3 weeks. How much will this cost the city? Figure between $1500 and $2000 for the arbitrator’s fee, plus the attorney’s fees for the mayor’s buddy.

On the personal day issue, the Cowardly Lyin’ King really screwed-up. Forget taking a shotgun to his own foot, he traveled down to Fall River to place both feet in front of the USS Massachusetts’ 16-inch main battery. In issuing his p-day edict, he completely violated an arbitrator’s ruling in the matter, so we’re going to win that case as well. As a matter of fact, I’ll offer to resign as QPPOA President if we lose both these cases at arbitration, as long as CLK agrees to resign as police chief if he loses both. That’s how certain I am that we’re in the right here.

Because CLK is violating the law by issuing his p-day order, we’re seeking monetary damages, both attorney’s fees and compensatory damages. You see, every patrol officer who puts in to use a personal day on July 3rd and/or July 4th who is denied, and I imagine that will be most of us, will be entitled to be compensated for those days. Theoretically, that could cost the city somewhere in the vicinity of $50-60,000 or so, plus the $1500-2000 for the arbitrator, and of course the attorney’s fees for the mayor’s buddy. Solely because Mayor Failin’ will not admit he made a mistake.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen. Once we get the final tally, you’ll be duly informed.

Of course the compensatory damages are not a sure thing, but we believe, and we’ll stress this to the arbitrator, there obviously needs to be sanctions against the city in order to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Otherwise, CLK will declare every day a public safety emergency, because that’s exactly the type of despicable hypocrite that “man” is.

How despicable?

I mentioned before that CLK has moved on from hypocrisy to outright thievery. Yes, that’s correct….you can add “thief” to his list of descriptors, along with coward and liar.

You see, on Wednesday at about 10am of this week, CLK’s head handler, Captain Dougan, called QPPOA Treasurer Peter Curley in an absolute panic, wanting to get the executive board together for an emergency meeting with CLK. I would wager good money this resulted from our lawyer faxing over some discovery requests that will absolutely blow Captain Keenan’s SWORN affidavit right out of the water. Sworn…...meaning under the pains and penalties of PERJURY.

After Peter called me, I called Captain Dougan myself, even though I felt like 10 miles of bad road. We had a meeting scheduled with our lawyer at 2pm that day anyway, and perhaps it was a moment of weakness due to my being sick as a dog, but I agreed to have a meeting with CLK to give him one more chance. I even agreed to no stenographer, which is something I wasn’t willing to budge on before. In spite of what some people might try to tell you, I’m really not an unreasonable person.

Well, it turns out the meeting never took place. Captain Dougan told me, and these are his exact words, because I wrote them down;

“The chief took the day off, and I can’t get a hold of him”.

Fair enough. I certainly know what it feels like to need time away from 1 Sea Street, although for the moment I’ve been prohibited from taking any time off until August.

Well, the darndest thing happened when I went to work that night. I checked the daily attendance records, and guess what?

Even though the Cowardly Lyin’ King took the day off, he put himself in as working a full day. Plain as day, Chief Robert Crowley is listed as working 8am-4pm.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Quincy Police Chief did not come to work on Wednesday but didn’t use any type of vacation, personal, or sick time, he simply listed himself as working that day. And before the tap-dancing starts, ANY time someone works outside their assigned hours, be it a swap or anything else, it’s noted on the daily attendance roster. There is no such notation for CLK on Wednesday.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is outright theft. Patrol officers, who work the most stressful and dangerous job in the department have, for the moment, had 4 months from the year stolen from them, while the police chief just plain steals from the city and doesn’t come to work

Let me add another guarantee…..if any patrol officer pulled a stunt like this and got caught; just didn’t come to work yet was credited as working, they would be terminated. And, we (QPPOA) really wouldn’t have too great a shot of saving their job.

Yet, our boss, who should be held to the highest standards of all, isn’t held to any. He just steals from the city, and gets away with it.

Why is he doing this?

Allow me to explain; when a member of the police department retires, they can “sell back” their unused time to the city, essentially getting compensated for unused vacation, sick, and personal time. Sick time is paid back at the rate of $50 per day (just raised from $30), but vacation and personal time is paid back at the full rate.

In spite of his public proclamations, I believe that the Cowardly Lyin’ King isn’t long for the chief’s job, especially considering Quincy just had a police chief’s exam last month.

So, according to my admittedly amateurish calculations, if CLK can carry over the same amount of time as the other supervisors (105 days), plus 4 personal days, that comes to roughly (don’t hold me to the exact figure) $75,000 that CLK will get to soak the city for when he finally leaves. That doesn’t even count his sick time, which probably numbers in the hundreds of days. A VERY conservative estimate would be another $10-15,000 for his unused sick time.

As you can see, he has a vested interest in not using any time off. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t taken a day off, at least on the books, in over a year as far as we can tell. Yet, many times he just doesn’t come to work, or if he does, it’s for a token appearance. I know CLK like a book, and in addition to the financial windfall, I guarantee a lot of this stems from his favorite saying;

“I’m the chief. I don’t have to come to work or use time like those peons”.

Well, we caught him this time. I’m sending Mayor Failin’ a certified letter, explaining that his police chief has stolen from the city, and demanding an investigation. Any patrol officer accused of this would be up on charges in the blink of an eye, so the police chief needs to be held to the same standards.

How absolutely hypocritical is this? Once again, I will hoist the Cowardly Lyin’ King on his own petard by gutting him with his own words. When he was appointed as police chief in 2004, he made this proclamation, which is pure comedy in retrospect;

“Crowley said he also hopes to develop a good relationship with both the patrolmen's union and the superior officers' union but suggested that setting firm expectations isn't a leadership flaw. The math, Crowley said, is simple: ‘”Eight hours' work for eight hours' pay”.

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2004/07/29/news/news05.txt

Of course, we now know that philosophy only applies to others, particularly patrol officers. When it comes to himself, the Cowardly Lyin’ King has this philosophy;

“No hours work for eight hours pay”.

Being a realist, I don’t expect the mayor to do anything, that letter will simply be a courtesy he doesn’t even really deserve. He’s more than displayed in the past he will back CLK no matter what, but the stakes have now been considerably raised.

More certified letters will be going out tomorrow, addressed to people who will probably care very much about the Quincy Police Chief putting himself in for hours he did not work. That’s called public corruption, my friends, which is a term that will grab these people’s attention, you can bet on that.

Now, on a personal level, I ordinarily wouldn’t care one iota what the Cowardly Lyin’ King does, provided he left us alone. He could sit in his office and smoke crack for all I care, but this latest hypocrisy is just too much to take.

It hasn’t even been a year since a QPPOA member was accused of taking time to which he was not entitled. That officer was brought into the chief’s office, disarmed, suspended and completely humiliated, just based on accusations.

What’s going to happen to the Cowardly Lyin’ King, now that he has essentially done the same thing?

Wednesday June 13, 2007 2:05 AM

Chief Pyle - Bruce Tait

“So, from now on, whenever Private Pyle f**** up, I will not punish him, I will punish all of you! And the way I see it, ladies, you owe me for one jelly doughnut! Now, get on your faces!” – Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in “Full Metal Jacket”

Before I get started, I’d like to send out a message of support to President Paul Phillips and the members of the Quincy Education Association (teacher’s union). It takes a lot of guts to stand-up for what you believe is right, especially in the face of such political pressure. Regardless if you return to work or not, keep fighting the good fight ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway….let’s get down to business.

It’s become apparent that the Cowardly Lyin’ King is feeling some serious heat from city hall to reign-in this union, as if the teachers haven’t made life uncomfortable enough for them lately. In the below entry, I made mention that CLK had fired the last bullet in his gun, and it was a dud. Apparently, that didn’t sit too well with CLK and probably city hall, because instead of just letting things fade away quietly, CLK just pulled-out a shotgun loaded with 3-inch Magnum buckshot, and proceeded to take careful aim at his own foot before squeezing the trigger.

Even I didn’t think he was this stupid and arrogant, but he continues to both surprise me and prove me wrong in that regard. Having no legitimate ammunition left in his arsenal, he’s now resorting to outright illegalities to get his “point” across, whatever that may be.

Back in December 2006, the QPPOA won an arbitration decision (for the second time) concerning the use of “family days”, which we refer to as “personal days”, or “p-days” for short. To make a long story short, these p-days were always treated as vacation days on steroids…..with the right to use them at any time, regardless of what the chief’s office thought. That’s the way it was for many years until former Chief Bill Falco decided by dictatorial fiat that they were to be treated as regular vacation days. We filed a grievance after many months of trying to resolve the issue, and it went to arbitration. It was a total victory for us, with the arbitrator expressly saying that while having to use overtime to cover someone using a p-day may not be palatable, it does not constitute an emergency situation.

Of course, this matters not to the Cowardly Lyin’ King. He just decreed the other day…..oh wait, he didn’t actually sign it himself, being the gutless coward he is. He had Captain Dougan actually issue the order, as if we don’t know who’s really pulling the strings.

Anyway…CLK, through his ghostwriter Captain Dougan, just ordered that all p-days for July 3rd and 4th are to be cancelled. No explanation, they’re just cancelled.

The Cowardly Lyin’ King must have realized he has a loser on his hands with his vacation time edict, and in desperation pulled this one out of his rear-end. Oh, and would you care to guess the only segment of the Quincy Police Department this applies to?

You guessed it….the patrol officers in the patrol division. Those of us who do the job that the Cowardly Lyin’ King NEVER did, nor could he do it.

Now, as I mentioned, I really didn’t think he was this stupid and arrogant, but here we are. In a way, I’m sure unintentionally, he did us a favor by issuing this latest foolishness right on the heels of the last foolishness, because now we can wrap-up everything into one package. Our attorney has filed the necessary grievances with a demand for expedited arbitration, and we expect to be in Superior Court by Friday to file a stay/injunction. Mayor Failin’ better tell the solicitor’s office to get warmed-up, because they’re going to be busy, once again, covering for the Cowardly Lyin’ King’s screw-ups. With a rock-solid arbitrator’s decision in our corner, this one is an even bigger loser than the first.

In the opening quote of this entry, I made reference to the movie “Full Metal Jacket”, the scene where Private Pyle (the company screw-up) gets in trouble so often, the drill instructor decides to use a little peer pressure by punishing everyone except Pyle when he screws-up. Anyone who’s been in the military will tell you how effective a strategy that is.

It’s so effective, we’re going to take that page out of Drill Sergeanting 101 and employ it ourselves. In addition to filing for a Superior Court stay/injunction, the QPPOA will soon be filing an unfair labor practice charge against the city and the police department with the state Labor Relations Commission for numerous 150E violations.

This is NOT a minor thing. As a matter of fact, it’s never been done in the 39 year history of the QPBA/QPPOA as far as I’ve been able to tell. You can only file such a complaint when you can show repeated, sustained violations of 150E, and we’re at the point now that proving that will be a walk in the park. Should we prevail at the LRC (and I have no reason to believe we won’t), they will issue a “cease and desist” order against the city and the department. They’ll also place huge stickers on the doors of city hall and the police department, notifying everyone that they’ve engaged in prohibited labor practices.

Yes, I will be there for the “stickering” with my digital camera, loaded with fresh batteries. This is just the type of publicity a mayor running for re-election wants, I’m sure.

Unfortunately for the Failin’ camp, it doesn’t end there. I’ve been extremely busy the last couple of days, preparing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for city hall, probably more than a half-dozen of them for starters. I’ve been saving some of these in my back pocket for an opportune time, and some I’ve only recently been made aware of. In any case, now is the time to launch those particular missiles, because Mayor Failin’ needs to realize how serious we are about wanting this police chief gone. I like to think I’m reasonably intelligent, but for the life of me, I can’t understand how a mayor in the election fight of his life allows his police chief to run wild like this, and even more puzzling is why he so fiercely defends him in the face of so much compelling evidence that he should have dumped him long ago.

I highly suspect that much of the information we’re going to glean from these FOIA requests will be extremely embarrassing to the mayor’s office, and of course we will share all of it with you, once we get it. Consider it a public service announcement from the QPPOA.

For example…….ummmm….nahhhh…..I don’t want to ruin the surprises.

When these latest missiles start detonating, Mayor Failin’ really needs to take another look at his police chief with the jelly doughnut hanging out of his mouth.

Saturday June 9, 2007 2:51 AM

Take THAT!!!! Ooops........ - Bruce Tait

“The beatings will continue until morale improves” – Contemporary saying

Whenever I encounter police officers from other agencies, invariably the subject of the Quincy Police union website is raised. Sometimes, I’ll go on and on about what a jerk the union president is, watching the uncomfortable reactions until I let the cat out of the bag about who I am.

One of the most frequent questions I get is, “Doesn’t the chief ever retaliate against you?”

Well, not really. You have to understand, the Lyin’ King is the consummate bully, and when you stand-up to a bully, they’ll fold every time. Of course, once in awhile he’ll try to pull some second or third-hand crap, usually lashing-out at us in response to us either challenging him, or scoring a victory. More on that in a little bit.

It seems like this website has gotten under the skin of not only the police command staff, but also the highest levels of city government. I’m not shy about criticizing the mayor or anyone else in city hall, because we went to them in good faith, numerous times, in order to try to fix things at the police department, and if anything has changed, it’s that things have gotten worse. A lot worse.

Apparently, city hall wanted to send a shot across our bow this week, because they decided to not pay us.

Yes, you read that correctly. Those of us who have direct deposit (which is probably 90%+ of us) have our weekly paychecks credited just after Midnight on Wednesday morning, but the most curious thing happened this past Wednesday.

I was on the way to CVS to pick-up a prescription for my daughter, when I decided to check my account balance. Like many people, I only keep enough money in my checking account to cover whatever checks I write or the amount I use on my debit card, and transfer the rest. This was late Wednesday morning, so I hadn’t yet done anything to my accounts, reasonably expecting my entire paycheck to be there.

Imagine my surprise when I heard that computer voice tell me “Your current balance is ten dollars and thirty-two cents”.

Not long after, my cell phone started ringing non-stop with calls from rightfully furious union members. Some people have automatic bill pay set-up to pay their bills on Wednesday morning, when their paychecks are supposed to be deposited.

Fortunately for me, it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience in the end. However, I was equally fortunate that this little convenient coincidence didn’t happen on the first of the month. I have money taken out each week for my mortgage, which is put into a “holding account” until the first of the month. It’s then automatically transferred to my checking account, where the bank which holds my mortgage takes it from.

The excuse given for this snafu is the new payroll system employed by city hall, which has proven to be nothing but a giant headache for everyone. We were eventually paid a day late, and it was all blamed on the payroll system.

Well, I’ve heard from more than one reliable source that this payroll system was possibly a no-bid bag-job awarded to a friend of the mayor, which is something we’ll be looking into very closely, very soon. My and other officer’s credit could have taken a hit because of this, so I think we really need to examine how we came to be saddled with this boondoggle.

So, there you have a little tickle from city hall. I saved the best for last, which is….of course….the product of the Lyin’ King.

On late Friday morning, there was a special order issued by the chief’s office. Of course and as usual, it wasn’t signed by the Lyin’ King. Being the completely gutless coward that he is, he’ll never put his name to something that’s the slightest bit controversial, or just plain wrong. He’ll either have Captain Dougan put out the order as his ghost writer (as he did in this case), or Captain Dougan will sign the Lyin’ King’s name, then add his initials in the margin, indicating he actually signed it.

Now, I’ve been expecting this for some time. When I mentioned awhile ago that there was only one other thing the Lyin’ King could do to further ruin morale, I added the caveat that I wasn’t going to elaborate on it, for fear of giving him any ideas.

Well, that day has come.

According to this memo, effective immediately, all officers will be banned from taking vacation time, unless it falls during our chosen summer vacation period, which are two-week blocks of time chosen by seniority. So, except for that two-week block of time we’ve chosen to take summer vacation, we can no longer use vacation time. The obvious question that immediately sprang to my mind was that I earn four weeks of vacation per year….what exactly am I supposed to do with the remaining two?

If I thought my cell phone got a workout on the no-pay payday, that paled in comparison to what happened on Friday afternoon. I seriously thought my phone was going to start smoking and burst into flames, it rang so often.

I called Captain Dougan to confirm this insanity for myself, even though I probably should have taken some time to calm down first. Sure enough, it was not only as bad as I had heard, it was even worse. Predictably, the excuse was that “this is what you (me) wanted”, as if it were somehow my decision to cancel everyone’s vacation time.

That lame-o reasoning quickly crumpled when I gave the following scenario; “So, if absolutely no one takes a shift off, and there are excess officers on the shift, above & beyond full staffing, we still can’t take a vacation day unless it’s during our vacation period?”

The answer?

“That’s correct”.

So much for wanting to guarantee full staffing, it’s just yet another way to screw with us, and further ruin morale.

The real kicker came when I asked, “So this applies to the entire department, correct? Community policing, detectives, special operations, supervisors?”

What do you suppose the answer was?

It only applies to the Lyin’ King’s sworn enemies….the patrol officers in the black & whites. Those of us who do the job he never did.

So, the end result of this, at least what the Lyin’ King is fervently hoping for, is that I now have to explain to my 5 year-old daughter that I can’t go to her upcoming dance recital, because it doesn’t fall during daddy’s vacation period. What I’m actually going to tell her is that there are some truly evil people in the world, and daddy’s boss is one of them.

Not only evil, but a yellow-bellied coward to boot. From here on out, I will no longer refer to Chief Robert Crowley as the Lyin’ King.

Henceforth, he will be known in this spot as the Cowardly Lyin’ King, because don’t think for a second that the timing of this special order wasn’t carefully planned.

1) The afternoon….not the morning, because at least one union official works the day shift, and therefore was at the morning roll call when the order would have been read.

2) Friday….need I say more? Completely keeping with the Cowardly Lyin’ King’s Modus Operandi, he tosses the grenade, then runs and hides from the explosion like the coward he is. Needless to say, he was long gone by the time I pulled into the police station parking lot at 3:50pm on Friday afternoon.

Of course, this won’t affect the Cowardly Lyin’ King in the least, and wouldn’t affect him even if it applied to the entire police department. He’ll continue to make a token appearance at the police station around 10:30am, leave around 2:30-3pm, and put himself in for a full workday, as always. He should really wear a mask when he cashes his paycheck.

The bad news for the Cowardly Lyin’ King is that he doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to this special order. I’ve consulted our labor counsel, and I’m in agreement with him that CLK simply can’t do this according to our collective bargaining agreement.

So….on Monday morning, the QPPOA will be filing for expedited arbitration on this, which is essentially emergency arbitration, since time is of the essence. By the time a regular grievance made it to arbitration, this entire summer and probably most of next summer would be gone.

If the city refuses to engage in expedited arbitration (which they will, since they invariably take the ostrich approach to problem-solving), we’ll be filing an action in Superior Court to get a stay/injunction on the special order until it can be heard by an arbitrator.

So……YET AGAIN…..the City of Quincy is going to be dragged into another legal proceeding and be forced to defend itself, solely because of another stupid decision by the Cowardly Lyin’ King.

It’s almost come to the point that I can’t even get mad at CLK anymore. He’s become such a pathetic figure, I almost (ALMOST) have pity for him. He’s universally hated within the patrol force (and if there were any holdouts, there aren’t anymore), and he allows himself to be propped-up by a bunch of gold badge-wearing sycophants, most of whom would turn into Brutus to his Julius Caesar if they thought it would give them the slightest edge to be the next police chief.

In the meantime, considering the lucrative retirement that awaits him, he’s working for less than minimum wage…probably something like 20 cents on the dollar. The only pleasure he seems to have in life is making life miserable for the patrol force, because since he never did our job, and couldn’t do it, he’s going to “show us”.

The Cowardly Lyin’ King has fired the last bullet in his gun, and it misfired. It’s like a dud mortar round that goes about 20 feet in the air, then tumbles end-over-end to the ground while the mortar crew runs for cover. It’s then up to EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) to dispose of the still very dangerous mortar round.

Well, CLK and his minions are the mortar crew, while Mayor Failin’ and the city solicitor’s office are the EOD crew, because they’re going to have to defend the indefensible in court.

The time has come to shift blame to where it really belongs….the mayor’s office. The Cowardly Lyin’ King has displayed time after time after time after time after time that he’s clearly not suited to be police chief. My five year-old son regularly displays more maturity and better decision making than CLK, and we’ve been beating that drum with the mayor for over a year. He steadfastly refuses to admit he made the mistake of his life when he appointed CLK as police chief, even though we told him ahead of time what a colossal blunder it would be.

At what point is the mayor going to realize his police chief is completely out-of-control and needs to go? He’s apparently okay with the scenario of him getting swept out of office, partly due to the public’s concerns over public safety, as long as he can say to himself “I didn’t give-in to those lowly patrol officers”.

So be it.

As I’ve told the members of this union, this latest foolishness has left no doubt as to exactly what our police chief thinks of us. Whatever sliver of hope there was to repair the relationship between the chief’s office and the patrol officers is now officially gone, irrevocably broken. I wouldn’t care if there were 10 stenographers in the room and the meeting was held on national television….he’s displayed his utter contempt for us for the last time. The only time I care to see that “man” is when he’s walking out of his office with all his crap packed into U-Haul boxes.

As one officer said to me in an e-mail, “I didn’t think morale could get any lower, but it just has. One more reason to hate going to work, and despise the third floor corner office”.

Everyone knows that a cornered, wounded animal is the most dangerous of all, and that’s exactly what we are. We now officially have positively nothing more to lose, so now is the time for all-out nuclear war against the Cowardly Lyin’ King, Mayor Failin’, and the gutless wonders on the city council who support them.

I mentioned before that we would be the Swift Boat Veterans of this election. Apparently Mayor Failin’ thinks I’m kidding, but soon enough he won’t be laughing.

I promise you that.

Friday June 1, 2007 8:06 PM

Quincy Police Memorial - Bruce Tait

On this coming Sunday June 3rd, the Quincy Police Mutual Aid Association will conduct the annual Quincy Police Memorial. QPD personnel will march from the Quincy District Court at 0900 hours to the Mount Wollaston Cemetery (across from the police station), where there will be a short memorial service. The guest speaker this year is Maria Cochrane, widow of deceased Quincy Police Officer Jamie Cochrane, who was taken from us far too early last year.

All the names of Quincy Police personnel who have passed-away in the last 5 years will be read, followed by a wreath-laying at the memorial and a rifle salute. There is a collation afterwards at the Quincy High School cafeteria. The public is cordially invited to both the ceremony and the collation.

Thursday May 31, 2007 5:03 PM

The Dog & Pony Show - Bruce Tait

“When the politicians complain that TV turns their proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained” – Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)

Substitute “the QPPOA Website” for “TV” in that quote, and you’ll start to have a general idea of what we’re up against these days.

One of the more amusing, or depending how you look at it, pathetic things about the mantra of Quincy being the second-safest city in Massachusetts are the absurd lengths that both the city and the police department will go to in order to perpetuate the myth.

For example, the guy who got his ear bitten-off last night at 1200 Hancock Street probably wouldn’t agree with the Lyin’ King’s hypothesis in that regard. Likewise, the guy who was stabbed in Quincy Point earlier in the week. What….surprised those news items weren’t front-page of the Patriot Ledger??

The person who would probably object to that statement the most, assuming he survives, is the gentleman (and I use the term loosely) who was filled with more lead than a #2 pencil on Saturday night/Sunday morning out at Marina Bay.

Ladieeeeeees and Gentlemen: In the center ring, it’s my distinct pleasure to introduce the Quincy Police Department’s world-famous dog and pony show!!!

(key ridiculous circus organ music)

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/05/30/news/news02.txt

Be sure to copy & paste that into your browser to read the article if you haven’t already, because it’s chock-full of absolute gems.

The first is the Lyin’ King’s assertion is that the shooting was not random. Of course, it’s completely irresponsible to make such a statement in public, before the investigation is concluded. That’s totally keeping in the Lyin’ King’s shoot-from-the-hip, open your mouth before you think style.

And even if that were true…..if a bullet crashes through a window and kills someone, is the family of the dead victim supposed to be somehow comforted that the shooter knew his intended target?

Of course, this shooting puts even more torpedoes into the already sinking myth that we’re the second safest city in the state, so the Lyin’ King has started to lay a smokescreen so thick, even the Batmobile couldn’t replicate it. From the article;

“Starting last night, a police cruiser will be assigned to the upscale neighborhood from 12:30 to 1:45 a.m. to deal with closing-time traffic and crowds from the area’s bars and nightclubs”.

In reality, what that means is that effective immediately after the shooting, all of the “Bravo area” cruisers will be fully staffed after midnight, something we’ve been beating the drum about for well over a year. Exactly as I predicted, it took an incident where someone was seriously injured in order for the PTB to wake the hell up about police staffing levels. The big problem is that this will probably just involve even more reshuffling of the sector cars, so the B-778 is filled at the expense of another sector car.

“Crowley said the changes are not directly in response to the shooting, which he called a ‘‘crime of opportunity’’ that could have happened anywhere”

If you seriously believe that, I’ve got some great Nigerian investments for you. Do people seriously wonder why we refuse to meet with this liar without a stenographer?

Even Mayor Failin’ is on-board with the idea of using overtime to ensure safe staffing levels;

‘‘Even if it’s a matter of paying overtime, I think it’s well worth it, said Mayor William Phelan”.

I wonder if hizzoner knows exactly how obsessed his police chief is about not spending money on overtime for patrol officers, or more appropriately, not admitting we were right all along in regards to patrol staffing levels.

What the reality is that now the B-778 sector (North Quincy/Atlantic) will be covered after midnight. Will there be overtime used to make sure this happens?

I seriously doubt it. More likely, another neighborhood will suffer because of this smokescreen.

So, the B-778 will be staffed.

Until 1:45am. At that point, the B-778 car gets stripped, yet again.

Wow….a whopping 1 hour and 45 minutes. I’m sure the people in North Quincy and Atlantic are sleeping more soundly now.

And, being a member of the Clown Police, I would have been extremely disappointed if our ringmaster, the Lyin’ King, didn’t include some aspect that was completely and utterly foolish, as well as totally embarrassing to us on a personal level. As usual, he didn’t disappoint.

After the midnight roll call, the officer assigned the B-779 (Squantum) sector is now reporting to Marina Bay, and drives around with the blue lights flashing, until 1:45am, at which time the B-778 has to go out of service, lest it turn into a pumpkin.

I’m sure that when you’ve gone to the South Shore Plaza or any other large shopping mall, you’ve seen the mall security driving around the parking lots with their amber lights flashing. Well, that’s what we’ve been reduced to.

Having never been a street cop, the Lyin’ King doesn’t realize the reason why mall security drives around with their lights flashing. It’s because their job is to prevent and deter crime from happening, not actually catch people in the act and arrest them. That’s the job of the police, at least now everywhere but Quincy.

Of course, this is just a diversion, a dog & pony show of the highest order, just to draw attention away from the real problem; our police chief refuses to adequately staff the police sector cars, while the majority of the city council thinks that voting for a meaningless resolution, and not even attempting to hold the police chief to it, has somehow satisfied their responsibility to their constituent’s safety.

Another preposterous idea of the Lyin’ King;

“Police Chief Robert Crowley said he will also assign an officer to act as a part-time liquor inspector at Marina Bay this summer, checking in on establishments during the busy weekend nights”.

Oh wow, that will make me feel a lot better.

Translated, that means the Lyin’ King will most likely reward one of his sycophants in the supervisory ranks with yet another cushy job. Let’s face it….driving around Marina Bay in an unmarked car, checking on nightclubs, wouldn’t be such a bad gig.

Should the above happen, don’t be surprised if the mayor suddenly decides we immediately need yet another sergeant, when in fact that’s the last thing we need.

Of course, the Lyin’ King could surprise us and appoint a patrol officer as this part-time liquor inspector. That would be even more nonsensical….strip yet another officer out of patrol, while we’re on life-support as it is.

Then again, he’s certainly not above just saying the community police officer already assigned to Marina Bay is now the part-time liquor inspector. That way, he gets the multiplier effect, where the residents of Marina Bay are tricked into thinking they have more police coverage, when in fact it’s just semantics. I wouldn’t put anything past the Lyin’ King.

The big question remains….if this shooting wasn’t random, and didn’t have any involvement with any of the Marina Bay nightclubs, why is there a sudden need for an extra liquor inspector to check Marina Bay nightclubs?

An even bigger question…..is Marina Bay receiving favorable treatment from the city and the police department? Of course they shouldn’t receive less favorable treatment, but should they receive more favorable treatment?

The last fatal shooting we had was in January 2006, at 145 Willard Street in West Quincy;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/01/10/news/news03.txt

In that case, the victim was killed. Do you recall such a flood of police officers, albeit a total smokescreen, or any orders for a police cruiser to drive around West Quincy with the blue lights flashing, after this murder?

If you don’t, it’s not because you have a bad memory, it’s because it didn’t happen.

So why all the hullabaloo now, for a non-fatal shooting?

I can sometimes be a cynical pessimist (I’m sure that shocks you), but here are some thoughts;

1) West Quincy, especially 145 Willard Street is, to put it kindly, not nearly as affluent as Marina Bay.

2) I’d be interested to see the ratio of coffee hours and fundraisers held for the mayor in Marina Bay, versus West Quincy.

3) It wasn’t an election year in 2006.

So to recap, here is Chief Robert Crowley’s idea of how to handle a high-profile shooting;

1) Make wild, irresponsible statements about motive, barely after the investigation has started.

2) Reshuffle the sector cars to make sure the B-778 is staffed, yet don’t authorize overtime to do so….just strip one of the other sector cars to do it. That’s just enough to make it look like something is being done, but not enough to give the appearance that the patrol officer’s union is correct about staffing levels, because it’s more important for him to thumb his nose at us, than it is to ensure safe staffing levels.

3) Have a police officer drive aimlessly around Marina Bay after midnight with the blue lights flashing like a Simon’s Mall Security Guard, even on weekdays when Marina Bay is a ghost town after midnight.

4) Even though you’ve already publicly stated you believe the shooting was not random, and didn’t directly involve any of the nightclubs at the marina, appoint a part-time liquor inspector while the patrol shifts of the police department are perpetually short-handed.

Welcome to the Big Top, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t trip on the dogs or ponies on your way out, and watch out for the smokescreen in the parking lot.

Monday May 28, 2007 1:48 PM

The Clown Police - Bruce Tait

What do you think of my proposed new patch for the Quincy Police Department?

Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for the design, but it couldn’t be more perfect if I designed it myself. As a matter of fact, I’m seriously considering changing the design of this website by replacing “Guardians of the City” with the more appropriate motto of “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up”, because when it comes to the Quincy PD, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

While the mayor and the majority of the Quincy City Council have no doubt been busy massaging each others egos, this holiday weekend has been an absolute frenzy of criminal activity and outright foolishness in the City of Presidents.

I’ve said more than once that the Quincy Police Department was coming apart at the seams, but this weekend, the seams finally burst. We’ve officially been demoted to AAA, and have become a laughingstock of law enforcement professionals from across the nation. When I get e-mails from places like Texas and Nevada, telling me I should be a stand-up comedian for telling true stories about the Quincy Police Department, I can come to no other conclusion.

And, that was BEFORE the train wreck that this Memorial Day weekend is shaping up to be.

To kick-off the weekend, our sorry excuse for a police chief, the Lyin’ King himself, decided on Friday to show-off to his pretend friends out at Marina Bay by “exercising his authority”. On the 4-Midnight shift, the Lyin’ King ordered the ONLY street supervisor to “walk the boardwalk” at Marina Bay, on a night when we were racing all over the city, trying to answer calls while understaffed.

In order to realize how stupid this decision was, keep in mind this was the SOLE street supervisor. The only person in the Quincy Police Department outside the station with any type of supervisory authority that night. To kick-up the absurdity a notch, keep in mind that all of Marina Bay is private property. Once you turn off East Squantum Street into Marina Bay, you’re on private property.

The obvious question is…..why did the Quincy Police Chief order the only street supervisor on a shift that was crazy-busy, to basically guard private property? Those of us who know the Lyin’ King best know the answer…..old LK has a personal relationship with one of the Marina Bay business owners, plus he’s been known to regularly frequent Marina Bay watering holes in the summer.

By the way, this is public information, so if you don’t believe me, request a FOIA for Quincy Police case # 07024771.

Just to take this foolishness to another level, our moles tell us that the Lyin’ King was indeed present at Marina Bay on Friday night. He was allegedly seen sucking back several “Appletinis” during the time the sergeant was ordered to walk the boardwalk.

Would you like some quiche with those drinks, chief?

My theory on this was that the Lyin’ King was drinking with some of his pretend friends, and decided to show-off how important he was by ordering the sergeant to do his bidding.

Now….by making an operational decision, I submit to you that the chief was on-duty when he made that phone call. Would it really be appropriate for a police chief to make decisions while consuming alcoholic beverages?

Patrol officers have been fired, simply because the Lyin’ King convinced himself, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that they were under the influence of alcohol, yet this despicable hypocrite thinks nothing of interfering with our patrol operations while he might have been tipping back a few.

Anyway, that was Friday. I would have been thoroughly disappointed in the Lyin’ King if he didn’t pull some foolish crap on Saturday night, and he didn’t disappoint.

On the Saturday night into Sunday morning midnight shift (those officers come to roll call on Saturday night, just before midnight), the patrol division was, of course, understaffed. Only 11 of the 13 cars were filled that night, and as anyone with half a brain could have predicted, the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend was absolutely insane. The Lyin’ King refused to authorize overtime to fully staff the shift. This has become Standard Operating Procedure for the Quincy Police Department, so you may be asking what’s so uniquely foolish about this.

I’ll tell you…..about 8 hours before the understaffed shift hit the street, the Lyin’ King authorized overtime for a patrol officer to sit at the Merrymount Playground.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Lyin’ King refused overtime to staff the cruisers which answer the emergency calls from Quincy residents, but he willingly spent money on overtime for a patrol officer to babysit a playground. You see, in the twisted view of the Lyin’ King, it’s more important to prevent groups of kids from congregating at a playground than it is for cops on the street to have readily available assistance. There are two reasons for this;

1) The Lyin’ King NEVER worked as a patrol officer for any length of time, so he has absolutely no idea what it’s like to work the street, especially shorthanded. In spite of the fawning articles in the Patriot Ledger that describe the Lyin’ King as “a hard nosed street cop”, he’s an absolute paper tiger in that regard, and we can easily prove it.

2) Kids that congregate at a playground might……GASP……have FUN!!! That’s not allowed under the Bob Crowley regime. He’s much like the Burgermeister Meisterburger in “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, in that children are not allowed to gather in groups to enjoy themselves. Some have suggested this is “payback” for when the Lyin’ King wasn’t invited “down to the park” when he was a kid, an assessment I don’t necessarily disagree with.

By the way…when it comes to kids having fun, we have a very nasty surprise in store for the Lyin’ King this summer. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but trust me; it will be worth the wait.

Onward and upward to Sunday night. This was my first night back from “days off”, and I can’t say I was especially surprised that the shift was not fully staffed. The Sunday before Memorial Day is always an absolute nightmare, because many people view that as a license to get drunk and act like total a-holes. In years past, every sector car would be filled, because past police chiefs had at least an inkling of what it’s like to work the street. Not so for the Lyin’ King.

To no one’s surprise except the Lyin’ King, the 4-Midnight shift was absolutely crazy. For a period of almost two hours, I was the only available cruiser in the “Delta” area, which covers Quincy Center, South Quincy, and Quincy Point, the busiest area of the city. I had to answer a domestic call on River Street by myself, because my backup was coming from Germantown. I had handled the call and was about to go clear when the Germantown officer arrived. He came as fast as he could, but you can’t override the speed and handling capabilities of a Ford Police Interceptor, it just takes a damn long time to drive from Taffrail Road to River Street, even if you’re driving the Space Shuttle.

By the time I turned-in the cruiser at midnight and went home, I had had enough. My t-shirt underneath my Kevlar vest was completely soaked with sweat, and I just wanted to go home. As I walked to my car, I passed some midnight officers who were coming in, and I wished them a good night.

Little did I know at the time, I may have jinxed them.

Of course and as always, the midnight shift last night was not fully staffed. Only 11 of the 13 sectors were staffed, and guess which sectors didn’t have police coverage last night?

The B-778 (North Quincy/Atlantic) and the C-782 (Adams Shore).

One of the nice things about speaking the truth is that you’ll eventually be proven correct. That was never truer than last night.

The Memorial Day weekend is when the Marina Bay outdoor nightclub “Waterworks” opens for the season. That and Labor Day (when it closes) are the two busiest weekends for the club, which has a capacity of nearly 2,000 people. Waterworks always hires numerous detail officers, and there were 4 on-duty last night, but do the math;

Four versus two thousand isn’t great odds.

Things got a bit out-of-hand at Marina Bay last night, which necessitated every cruiser in the North end of the city, with one exception, to respond there, along with the single, only street supervisor.

As bad as that sounds, it got worse.

Very shortly, EVERY cruiser in the city was at Marina Bay, because two wanna-be “gangstas” decided to stage their own version of the shootout at the OK Corral in a Marina Bay parking lot. One “thug” was shot three times, while the other possibly wounded combatant made a clean escape.

Did I not predict this? We now have people being shot, while the patrol division of the Quincy Police Department remains understaffed.

I was working on my computer after work last night, crunching some numbers for our upcoming mass mailing, when one of the midnight officers called me to let me know of the shooting. Of course, my first concern was if any police officers were hurt, and thankfully none were. As I always tell members of this union….if my cell phone is turned on, I’m awake, available, and you’re not bothering me.

This officer’s assigned sector is absolutely, positively nowhere near Marina Bay, but he was calling me from…….Marina Bay. Things were so chaotic, we had to put out an assistance call to other agencies, and the state police responded. We didn’t have full-staffing because our chief doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, but we had to call for help from other police agencies.

By the way, would you care to guess which city councilor “represents” Marina Bay and Squantum?

That would be none other than the two-faced wonder, Brian McNamee.

I almost asked the midnight officer if Councilor McNamee had been advised of the shooting in his ward, but I thought better of it. He was probably over Councilor Jay Davis’ house, massaging Davis’ feet while he prepared a motion to get a criminal arrested by the Quincy Police off, scot-free, on a legal technicality.

So….now we’re having shootouts in Quincy, and the police chief still refuses to fully staff the patrol division. In doing so, he has the full and enthusiastic support of the mayor, the chairman of the public safety committee of the city council, and every city councilor except Dan Raymondi. It’s positively disgusting.

This city desperately needs a total enema in November.

Friday May 25, 2007 6:02 PM

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You - Bruce Tait

“Revenge is a dish best served cold” – French proverb

Back in my undergraduate college days, I was searching for a liberal arts course to fit into my “open electives”, which in truth are usually garbage courses you’re not really interested in, but you need the credits to plug the holes in your degree plan. I was running my finger down the course list when it suddenly jumped-out at me;

“Introduction to Philosophy”.

I thought….piece of cake!!! Go there, listen to the guy who’s wearing a tweed jacket and sucking on an unlit pipe, talk about trees falling in the forest, and I’d be home free. As with many other things in life, I was dead wrong.

I took this course at Quincy College in the summer session, which I figured would work even more in my favor. The “regular” teachers would be on vacation, so I could bamboozle some part-time adjunct by furrowing my eyebrows while I made it up as I went along.

Guess again.

The teacher turned out to be a tenured Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Boston College who was raised in Quincy, and apparently wanted to give something back to the community.

He gave it to us, alright.

In retrospect, I really enjoyed that course, although it wasn’t too pleasant at the time, since the professor sometimes forgot we were on Saville Avenue in Quincy, not in Chestnut Heights.

One of the more fascinating assignments he gave us was to develop a personal philosophy on life. Something we believed so strongly in, we were willing to let it define our entire thought process about the human existence.

Being a daytime summer course, the class was filled with a lot of “traditional age” college students looking to earn some credits over the summer, so some of these “philosophies” were predictably immature, ranging from “Have a good time, all the time”, to the classic “Party till you puke”.

After much thought, this is what I came-up with;

“The world is a round place. What goes around, comes around”.

In other words, if you live your life as a bad person, it’s eventually going to come back on you. If you victimize other people, pretend to be their friend and then stab them in the back, or are generally two-faced, you’re eventually going to be repaid in spades. It may take years, but it WILL happen. I’ve seen it happen too many times to ever think otherwise.

Over the years, I’ve whittled that philosophy down to this;

“Karma is truly the nightstick of justice”.

Faithful readers of this space know the recent disgrace that happened in the city council chambers, but let me give the newbies a quick synopsis;

December 18th 2006 - Chief Lyin’ King appeared before the public safety committee of the Quincy City Council. He blatantly lied about a half-dozen or so matters of public safety, especially staffing levels in the patrol division.

February 28th 2007 – I appear in front of the same committee, sans Lyin’ King, and distribute absolute, incontrovertible evidence that the Lyin’ King lied to the public safety committee. Councilor Jay Davis does his level best to discredit me and prop-up the Lyin’ King. The committee unanimously recommends a resolution be passed that all Quincy Police patrol sectors be staffed, 24/7, a resolution that was later passed unanimously by the full city council.

April 30th – Both I and the Lyin’ King appear before the public safety committee. Even though the Lyin’ King has given the city council the equivalent of an upraised middle finger by refusing to abide by their resolution to fully staff the patrol division, not a single city councilor (except Dan Raymondi) even attempts to ask the Lyin’ King a tough question. To make things completely obvious, Councilor Jay Davis, the chairman of the public safety committee, limits the Lyin’ King’s time at the podium to 10 minutes, most likely knowing anything more than that risks an epic meltdown. At the end of the meeting, Jay Davis’ designated toady, Brian McNamee, calls me back to the podium, purely to draw me into a ham-handed ambush. Jay Davis proceeds to make an ass of himself, then Councilor John Keenan makes an even bigger ass of himself trying to save Davis from himself.

How absurd have things become?

I’m starting to believe I could show the Quincy City Council a videotape of Bob Crowley knocking-over a liquor store at gunpoint, and the only councilor who would say anything besides Dan Raymondi would be Jay Davis, but all he would care about is how I got the videotape. After I left the council chambers, Brian McNamee would say “Good job Jay, they show us no respect”. The rest of the council would sit there mute, with completely guilty looks on their faces.

Strike that….Councilor John Keenan would probably ask me for a painfully detailed explanation of what “knocking over a liquor store” means, while he pretended he thought it means someone lifts a liquor store off its foundation, flipping it over onto its side.

Oh….note to Councilor Davis…..the preceding was hyperbole. I want to make that clear, so you won’t in the future try to accuse me of saying Chief Crowley actually robbed a liquor store.

How pathetic is it that I actually had to include that disclaimer?

Anyway….so it’s become completely obvious that the “resolution” passed by the city council was a totally meaningless gesture…something the gutless wonders on the city council can try to point to as they attempt to tout their record on public safety.

Unfortunately for 8 of the 9 councilors (Raymondi excluded), we’re not going to make it that easy for them.

This past Saturday night, the Midnight-8am shift (technically Sunday morning 5/20) was, of course, understaffed. As usual, the first sector car to be pulled was the B-778, which covers North Quincy and Atlantic. I should mention here that for years, if a sector car had to be pulled (and it was always for an unforeseen emergency), the first one would be the B-779 which covers Squantum.

Why is it now the B-778 instead of the B-779? Perhaps because the Lyin’ King now lives in Squantum?

Anyway, the B-778 officer was reassigned to a West Quincy car, so the residents of North Quincy and Atlantic had no dedicated police coverage that night.

While the residents of the B-778 sector slept soundly in their beds, the criminal element had an absolute field day at their expense. Here’s a rundown of the vehicle breaks that happened in the B-778 sector that night, while there was no police coverage;

105 Alstead Street - $1000 loss

29 Hancock Street - $400 property loss

90 Quincy Shore Drive - $750 property loss

677 Quincy Shore Drive (Part I) - $750 property loss

677 Quincy Shore Drive (Part II) - $600 property loss

That, ladies and gentlemen, comes to a grand total of…..drum roll please……$3500 in property loss, while that area had no dedicated police coverage. It would have cost about 1/10th of that to hire a patrol officer on overtime to cover the sector.

I really need to mention that a few days after these incidents, a group of teenagers from Boston was arrested for several vehicle breaks by Officer Dan Parisi at 4am on Crown Colony Drive, and a lot of stolen property was recovered. A truly fantastic piece of police work, but remember that Officer Parisi had at least one thing going for him;

The sector where he made the arrest had its police cruiser staffed, because he WAS the sector car.

This isn’t rocket science, people…..if there is a dedicated police cruiser in a certain area, the chances of deterrence/arrest skyrocket. If the B-778 car was staffed last Saturday night/Sunday morning, would those vehicle breaks have been prevented?

We’ll never know, but we do know this;

By NOT staffing the police sector car, it was almost guaranteed they wouldn’t be prevented.

So….let’s get back to karma. Would you care to guess which city councilor represents the B-778 area?

Why….that would be none other than Brian McNamee!!

The same Brian McNamee who with one face applauded the QPD patrol force and voted for the full staffing resolution, while with his other face, made disparaging remarks about us when he thought his microphone was turned off, then for good measure called us “pigs at the trough” during a recent budget committee meeting.

If I were a resident of the B-778 area, I would be absolutely livid that my city councilor is more concerned with sucking-up to Jay Davis than he is about my police sector car being first on the “hit list” to go unstaffed. I’d be especially furious if my personal car was one of the ones broken into during the latest crime spree in the designated Bob Crowley “police-free zone”, otherwise known as North Quincy.

For an even more recent example, let’s examine what happened just this morning (Friday) on the Midnight-8am shift. In spite of the Lyin’ King’s bold-faced lie uttered on December 18th that we never have less than 11 patrol sectors staffed, there were only 10 cars staffed. Things were so busy at one point, there were only TWO available police cars for the entire City of Quincy. We were so badly understaffed, the midnight officers were told to contact either the Milton or Braintree Police Departments (departments about 1/4 and 1/3 the size of the QPD, respectively) to confirm warrants, because the communications division was almost completely stripped.

I’ve completely had it. We went through the “proper” channels, and have gotten absolutely nowhere.

It’s only a matter of time before a Quincy Police Officer is seriously hurt or killed, probably on the midnight shift, simply because the Powers That Be in Quincy don’t give a crap about us. WHEN (not if) that does happen, Mayor Phelan, Chief Crowley, and 8 of the 9 Quincy City Councilors will have that officer’s blood on their hands. And believe me when I tell you, they better not show their faces at the hospital, because I will tell them in no uncertain terms they are not welcome.

Let’s get real for a second…..I know I’m most likely universally despised and reviled in the chief’s office, by most of the city council, and in the mayor’s office, because I can’t be bought-off, and I point out the elephant in the living room on a regular basis.

I honestly don’t care.

Considering the shenanigans that occur daily in all three of those offices, I’ll wear their condemnation of me like a badge of honor. When all is said and done, I can look my children in the face, and tell them I always tried to do the right thing. Should my son ever follow in my footsteps to become a police officer (and I sincerely hope he doesn’t), I don’t have to worry about the stories he’ll hear about his father, at least from anyone who’s even remotely qualified to judge me as a police officer and as a man.

Whatever anyone else thinks of me, they must admit I’m a man of my word. When I say I’m going to do something, you can damn well be sure I’m going to do it. We’re going forward with our mass-mailing campaign, and take a guess at to what neighborhoods we’re going to target first?

If you guessed the B-778 area, you win the kewpie doll!!

The residents of that area will soon receive a package from us, detailing exactly on what dates and what shifts their police sector car went unstaffed, a short summary of the crimes committed while the sector car was unstaffed, and also a nice letter signed by me, with my assessment of what the mayor, the police chief, and their city councilor have done to address the problem.

In all cases……ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!

In the case of Councilor McNamee, he’s working AGAINST our efforts to get full staffing IN AN AREA OF THE CITY HE REPRESENTS!!!!!

Bizarro World anyone????

Once we’re done with the B-778 sector, it’s on to #2 on the hit list, which is the C-782 sector (Adams Shore). After that, we march forward to the A-774 sector (Grove Street/Governor’s Road area). The residents of Quincy, who pay exorbitant property taxes, have a right to know they’re getting short-changed when it comes to police services, and we’re more than happy to let them know.

The majority of the Quincy City Council has made it clear they don’t care one iota about our safety, beyond casting a vote for a meaningless resolution. When the rubber met the road, when it came time to confront the person (Lyin’ King) who routinely defies their resolution, they either enthusiastically supported him, or just sat on their hands.

As I mentioned before, I can deal with that. After I got “pinned” (had my badge pinned-on) at the police academy, the academy director gathered the entire class for what I thought would be a pep-talk. What he said shocked me at the time, but has been proven absolutely true over the almost 20 years since;

“Congratulations gentlemen, you are now the pariahs of civilized society”.

When Councilor Raymondi stated during the last public safety committee meeting that the patrol officers felt “undervalued”, I don’t think he realized the full wisdom of his words at the time.

We get it now….we don’t matter to the city council. I’ve added them to the list.

Let’s see if they feel the same way about their constituent’s opinions.

Karma, baby.

Thursday May 17, 2007 1:06 PM

Mailbag - Bruce Tait

The usual disclaimers about clarity and duplicity apply here.

Let’s get to it;

Q: I missed seeing the broadcast of the last meeting of the public safety committee. Can I get a copy of the recording?

A: Quincy Access Television holds the rights to those shows, and while they do sell DVD copies of the meetings, I’ve only dealt with them in-person. I have no idea if they do mail orders, but it’s certainly worth a try;

Quincy Access Television
88 Washington Street
Quincy, MA 02169
617-376-1440

Here are the dates you might be interested in;

December 18th – The Lyin’ King blatantly lies to the public safety committee about police staffing levels.

February 28th – I conclusively prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the Lyin’ King did indeed lie to the committee on 12/18.

April 30th – The Lyin’ King treats Councilor Raymondi with utter contempt and disrespect. Jay Davis and his lackey Brian McNamee attempt an ambush at the end of the meeting, only to have it blow-up in their faces.

Pure entertainment.

Come to think of it, it’s very important that as many Quincy residents as possible see the April 30th meeting, because it peels back the curtain on a lot of city councilors. If you’re a verifiable Quincy resident who has NOT seen the meeting, we’ll send a free copy of the DVD to the first 10 Quincy residents who e-mail me.

And, to squash any concerns about copyright infringement, we’re going to pay QATV for the copies, then mail them to the lucky 10 at our expense. Just put “DVD Request” in the subject line of the e-mail.

Q: Why didn’t any of the city councilors ask the chief why he wasn’t abiding by their resolution to staff all 13 cars on all shifts?

A: That’s an excellent question, but unfortunately I don’t have an answer for you. With the notable exception of Councilor Dan Raymondi, every city councilor who was present on April 30th should be positively ashamed of themselves. They made it perfectly clear that night they really don’t care about the safety of Quincy Police Patrol Officers.

Well, I can deal with that. “Police officer” isn’t exactly the most popular occupation with many people, and I learned many years ago to have thick skin when it comes to people not liking me.

But…..my God, you’d think they would at least care about the safety of their constituents if nothing else, but they clearly don’t. Every city councilor voted to have full staffing in the patrol division at all times, but we now know that for 8 of the councilors (Raymondi excluded), that was a hollow, feel-good gesture.

The man who ignored their unanimous mandate was in front of them on April 30th, and how many city councilors, besides Dan Raymondi, even attempted to ask the Lyin’ King a single tough question?

ZERO.

Many of their constituents regularly go without police coverage because of understaffing, but they were more concerned with the fact one of their colleagues (Jay Davis) was the target of biting political satire. That’s simply pathetic, and I hope their constituents remember that, come November.

Trust me….even those who have no idea this website exists will be made aware of it. We’re going to make sure of that.

Q: What was Jay Davis trying to prove with his rant at the end of the last public safety committee meeting?

A: Other than ego gratification, I have no idea.

It was as ridiculously absurd as if President Bush decided to end a press conference by whining and complaining that a reporter called him a bad name. Picture that in your head, and that’s how bad it was. You really have to see it to believe it.

Q: Is it really necessary or productive to call a city councilor a bad name?

A: Necessary? No.

Productive? Well, we certainly got their attention, didn’t we?

A fan of this website (thanks R.L.) recently reminded me that name-calling is not exactly new to the Quincy political scene. Back in the 1970’s, former Mayor Joe LaRaia wrote a book called “A City Under the Influence”, which is a fascinating look into the underbelly of Quincy politics. The Crane Library has copies, and you can catch one on EBay once in awhile, but definitely read it if you get the chance.

Technically fiction (yeah, right), this book is a story of the “City of Quarry”, which is a thinly-veiled Quincy. All the political players of the era are given unkind nicknames; for example, former Mayor Walter Hannon became “Waldo Reecap”, a shot at the Hannon family tire business, while former Mayor James McIntyre was “Jeremiah Tubbs”, a reference to his generous girth.

So…..as much as I’d like to call myself a trailblazer, I’m certainly not the first one to engage in name-calling of Quincy politicians.

And the present-day councilors need to recognize something…..we have a hell of a lot more to lose in this game than a bruised ego. People like Jay Davis are trying to score political points at the expense of my safety, and the safety of my brother and sister officers. If he wants to continue to carry the Lyin’ King’s water and work against the safety of the members of this union, I’ll be calling him a lot worse names than “rumpswab”, trust me.

Q: Why did you say you’d never go in front of the city council again?

A: I actually said I’d never again go before the public safety committee, but the answer is this;

What’s the point?

Why should I waste 2-4 hours of my life, laying out facts and evidence to a bunch of people who don’t want to see it? I hate to sound like a broken record, but Councilor Dan Raymondi is the only councilor we have any faith in….the rest will do whatever is politically expedient at the moment, no matter what I say to them.

While I’m on the subject of the city council, here’s some free advice to Councilor Brian McNamee;

If you’re going to kiss-up to Jay Davis and make disparaging remarks about the QPPOA at the end of the public safety committee meeting, you should probably make sure your microphone is turned off, because we heard every word of it.

Your true colors were revealed on April 30th, and we won’t EVER forget it.

Not a bad observation for a “pig at the trough”, eh?

Q: You leveled a very serious charge when you said Councilor Davis lied to the court prosecutor. Can you prove that?

A: The officer in question documented the entire conversation in his “Daily Journal”, which is issued by the QPD. He documented the time, date, and substance of the phone call.

Let’s get Councilor Davis and the officer in question under oath, and then see what their answers are.

Would that be proof enough?

Q: Have the staffing levels improved?

A: Hardly.

Just this past Monday (I believe), the 4-Midnight shift started with 9 sectors staffed, out of 13. Two of these sectors (A-775 Brewer’s Corner and D-784 Quincy Point) are always in the top three sectors for call volume, and they went unstaffed until 6pm, when the “Impact” officers came on-duty.

However, the Impact officer assigned to A-775 was sent to Quincy Medical Center to guard two prisoners by himself (yes, two….talk about a tragedy waiting to happen), and at 10pm, the D-784 and B-778 (North Quincy/Atlantic) officers were pulled off the street to take a juvenile prisoner to the DYS facility in New Bedford, which is something like a 100-mile round trip journey. I’m not done trying to decipher the CAD entries with the roster, but I’m pretty sure there were only 6-7 free cruisers to cover the entire City of Quincy from 10pm-Midnight, which is exactly when many of our disaster calls come in.

However, the Lyin’ King, the mayor, and 8 out of 9 city councilors are apparently content to whistle past the graveyard and let these things happen. When the city is hit with yet another bazillion dollar lawsuit because a cop got hurt or killed because of understaffing, it will be very interesting to see what type of spin the politicos try to put on it.

Speaking of lawsuits;

Q: The officer recently ordered to be rehired, has he suffered any retaliation?

A: Directly? No.

Indirectly? Of course!!

You see, even when we win, we lose. Since my involvement with the QPPOA in a leadership capacity, I can only think of one instance where one of our victories didn’t result in some sort of off-handed retaliation. And no, I’m not revealing what it is, because I’m sure it flew under the radar.

Example I’ve used before…when the QPPOA won a grievance concerning a monetary stipend for members of the Special Operations Unit (SOU), then-Chief Bill Falco simply eliminated the SOU, at least on paper, until all the people who would have benefited from the grievance had transferred out, then the SOU magically reappeared.

So in the case of the recently rehired officer, the arbitration award specified he be rehired, with full compensation for lost wages. It’s standard that lost wages include averaged overtime and details, as it wouldn’t be fair for an aggrieved officer to lose out on a benefit (OT and details) he would have taken advantage of, had he not been wrongfully terminated.

In typical City of Quincy fashion, they’ve dug-in their heels on not paying the full amount owed to the officer, so this past Friday, the QPPOA filed suit in Superior Court against the city, in order to get the arbitration award enforced.

In addition to the arbitration award, we’re seeking interest and legal fees, so starting this past Friday, the clock started ticking on interest, which is a standardized 12%. Go figure 12% of roughly $150-200K, and that’s what’s ticking away daily, simply because the city will not fully admit to their huge mistake. I suck at math, but going with the 150K figure that's about $50 per day, according to my calculations.

By the time all the lawsuits involving QPPOA members are settled, the total amount of the civil judgments will probably rival the GNP of several third-world nations.

It’s due solely to the actions of one man……Chief Lyin’ King.

Robert F. Crowley is going to cost the City of Quincy millions of dollars because of his piss-poor decision making. Can someone please tell me exactly what it is he brings to the table that inspires such fierce loyalty among his command staff, the mayor’s office, and the city council?

Q: What’s going on with the female officer who was fired?

A: Her attorney has filed suit in federal court, seeking reinstatement, lost wages, and attorney fees. As sure as I’m sitting here typing these words, she’s going to get her job back. I’m as sure of that as anything I’ve ever been sure of in my entire life.

Should this actually go to trial, it’s going to be the Mother of All Black Eyes to the City of Quincy. For those who don’t know, the Quincy Police Department doesn’t exactly have a great track record with how they treat female employees. As a matter of fact, it’s piss-poor. Some people have suggested that I air too much “dirty laundry” in this blog.

Trust me….if this case goes to trial, there will be enough dirty laundry of the City of Quincy aired to clothe the entire city.

We (QPPOA) have approached the city (either the mayor himself or his representatives) numerous times, trying to get this settled, and we’ve been rebuffed each time. I’ve practically begged the mayor to settle this, but no dice.

The city apparently prefers a lengthy, embarrassing trial, followed by a 7-figure civil judgment, rather than to just admit they made a mistake.

Q: You keep mentioning that the Patriot Ledger is going to publish the salaries of Quincy Police supervisors, but they haven’t. When will we see this?

A: Probably never.

You see, the Patriot Ledger is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the City of Quincy, and have probably received their marching orders from 1305 Hancock Street to not publish the salaries, because it would be completely embarrassing, and also prove my point.

When a patrol officer who works a bazillion hours of details and overtime cracks the $100K barrier, that’s worthy of front-page coverage.

When supervisors make a salary that would cause your jaw to drop, that must be suppressed, because it would prove me right, yet again. Assuming the Ledger doesn’t publish the salaries, that would mark the first time since I’ve been a Quincy Police Officer (13 years) that they haven’t done so. They were always published by March, at the latest.

Could they make it any more obvious?

When I asked the question what it was about the Lyin’ King that inspired such fierce loyalty among his command staff, trust me, it was a rhetorical question. Men of weak will and strong self interest don’t challenge the printing press that supplies them with dead presidents.