| Friday May 4, 2007
3:12 AM
Kangaroo Court - Bruce Tait
“The arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled” – Cicero, speaking on government.
This past Monday night, I did indeed have my second appearance before the public safety committee of the Quincy City Council. It was also my last appearance, but more on that later.
Much to my surprise, the Lyin’ King showed. Unlike him, I’m a man of my word, and for proving me wrong I will indeed pay-up the $100 bet I mentioned in the below entry. I’ll be sending a check for that amount to the Salvation Army.
What….you didn’t think I was giving it to the Lyin’ King, did you?
So anyway, the Lyin’ King showed, but of course had to bring the gold-badge posse with him. I’ll bet (figuratively….my wife will kill me if I lose another wager) they almost had to drag old LK there, because it would have looked so bad if he didn’t show. Of course, after his bizarre performance, they probably wished he HAD stayed home.
Once again, the meeting was chaired by Councilor Jay Davis, who wasted no time in making it clear the deck would be stacked heavily in the Lyin’ King’s favor. He thought nothing of having me at the podium for almost 3 hours on February 26th and for probably almost an hour Monday night, but when it came time for the Lyin’ King to get up and take the heat, guess what?
Councilor Davis restricted LK’s time at the podium to 10 minutes.
Why, you ask?
Well, let’s just say the Lyin’ King doesn’t function well under pressure. I mean, he REALLY doesn’t function well under pressure. He looked like 10 miles of busted seawall on Monday night, and his speech & reactions……just weren’t right. If you saw the meeting, you know what I’m talking about. When he first got to the podium, his blazer got stuck on the butt of his handgun, making him look very similar to the women who accidentally tuck their dresses into their pantyhose after using the bathroom.
Of course, with the city council chambers filled with police officers, I’m not really sure why the Lyin’ King felt the need to come “strapped” to the meeting, but to each his own.
Once at the podium, the Lyin’ King went into his Sergeant Schultz routine (I know NOTHINGGG!!!!). I seriously can’t remember if he knew the answer to a single question…it was either “I don’t know”, or he had to turn to his handlers to get an answer.
Of course, when Councilor Dan Raymondi started asking some tough questions, Jay Davis was there to run interference. He’s realistic enough to know that 10 minutes was the limit for the Lyin’ King, before the Scotch tape and string that was propping him up would fail after that amount of time.
The second-most absurd moment of the night came when Councilor Raymondi wanted to question me concerning an incident where someone arrested on serious felony charges had to be “unarrested” because we didn’t have enough police officers on-duty to guard the prisoner at the hospital. Councilor Raymondi had a copy of a police report of the incident, and of course Councilor Davis went ballistic about it.
You see, when it comes to police staffing levels, Davis hates the facts, because they’re devastating to his argument.
Councilors Davis & Raymondi went back & forth over the police report for what seemed like forever, and Davis seemed more concerned with how Raymondi got the report, rather than the fact we had to release a violent felony suspect because of understaffing.
It’s not hard to figure out…..there are a LOT of pissed-off police department employees (patrol officers, supervisors, and civilians), who have figured out that Dan Raymondi is someone we can rely on to get the truth out there. If Davis is looking for a list of suspects, just get the Quincy Police Department roster. And considering data security is non-existent in the QPD, good luck proving whoever delivered the report to Raymondi.
You see, we used to have a shredder in the report room so we could shred copies of police reports, but when it broke down a few years ago, it was never replaced, so copies of police reports are always scattered throughout the report room and are falling out of the trash cans.
Anyway, the Lyin’ King’s time at the podium was mostly fielding puff-ball questions from Davis, and dodging tough questions from Raymondi, whenever Davis would allow him to ask one. One tough question was when Raymondi asked LK how morale was at the Quincy Police Department. I almost fell out of my chair when he answered;
“Satisfactory”.
I haven’t yet seen the tape of the meeting, but if the camera was anywhere near me, you can probably see me throw my hands up in disgust when I heard that whopper.
I ask you….who would know better about the morale of the patrol officers in the Quincy Police Department; the police chief, who spends a grueling 4 or so hours per day in his ivory tower corner office, or the president of the patrol officers’ union, who is out in the trenches every single day? You see, the QPPOA is not large enough to have a full-time, dedicated union president like the Boston Police Patrolman’s Association or the State Police Association of Massachusetts. The heads of those unions do nothing but union business. I don’t have that luxury, so in addition to being the union president, I’m out in a black & white shagging calls every night.
I can’t state this emphatically enough…..morale at the Quincy Police Department SUCKS, and it’s due mostly to the horrendous “leadership” of our police chief.
Back on track…..during my time at the podium, I was 100% honest with the committee, as always. And I’m sure much to the Lyin’ King’s puzzlement, the only time I turned around when asked a question was when I was asked about the current “Simunition” training. It so happens that QPPOA Vice-President Terry Downing is a firearms instructor, and is thus far more qualified to answer those questions, so I turned to him and invited him to the podium to better explain that training.
When asked about the state of the cruisers, I was honest; we’re in good shape now, and as long as the current replacement schedule continues, we’ll stay in good shape. Ditto for the portable radios; the ones we have now are working 1000% better than a year or so ago.
You see, we’re not a bunch of whiners and complainers. My goal isn’t to get in front of the city council and say “woe is me”, my goal has always been to improve officer safety and working conditions. If there have been improvements, I’m more than happy to say just that.
All in all, the meeting was rather hum-drum, with the exception of the Lyin’ King’s rather surprising hostility towards Councilor Raymondi.
Well, it was hum-drum, up until the last 10 or so minutes, and then all hell broke loose.
Throughout the meeting, Councilor Davis remained calm, and was actually somewhat cordial. Ironically enough, if he had conducted the meeting of February 26th with the same demeanor he conducted the meeting of April 30th, then the fireworks of Monday night never would have happened. You see, Davis came out swinging in February, whiffed badly, and I threw some counter punches at him in this blog.
That, I figured, was that.
How wrong I was.
I would have been perfectly content to have ended the meeting on Monday on a peaceful note. As a matter of fact, I was sitting down when the Lyin’ King was at the podium, thinking I was done for the night. If I were a starting pitcher, I would have had an ice-pack on my shoulder and taken my cleats off.
However, I was called back to the podium, solely to draw me into a poorly planned ambush.
Apparently, Councilor Davis took great offense to my calling him a “rumpswab” (ass-kisser) after the February meeting, although I believe that description is wholly accurate. I have news for Councilor Davis…when you occupy an elected office, you subject yourself to public criticism and ridicule. With skin that thin, you should really reconsider involvement with politics, because it’s a contact sport, especially in Quincy.
Anyway, Davis’ demeanor changed 180 degrees, and he proceed to launch into a 3-4 minute diatribe about how great he was, wrapping himself in the American flag, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet. By the time he was done, he had portrayed himself as the greatest friend to the Quincy Police Department since coffee cup holders in police cruisers.
After Davis finished his “I love me” speech, I asked for the chance to respond.
His answer?
“NO YOU MAY NOT!!!”
Where the hell was I, North Korea?
Unfortunately for Davis and his accomplices on the council, I had a little embuscade ready of my own. When Davis sprung his ambush, I detonated my pre-positioned Claymores.
A Quincy resident (and a Jay Davis constituent) who’s a fan of this website recently e-mailed me, asking me how I was able to maintain my cool & composure while I was getting screamed at by Davis. The answer is simple;
I’ve been shot at. I’ve had people try to stab me. I’ve been in desperate fights for my life with career criminals who were trying to get my gun. I’ve been in triple-digit car chases with armed felons. I’ve pulled people out of burning buildings.
I’m not the least bit intimidated or impressed with an arrogant windbag such as Jay Davis. He’s a typical defense lawyer bully….when things don’t go his way, he’s used to shouting “objection” or stopping everything by saying “I’m done with this witness”. He can’t handle the give & take of a public hearing, where he can’t hide behind the judge and the power of objection.
So, after Davis got done with his Captain America speech, I thought it was an appropriate time to let everyone know exactly what Jay Davis does for his day job. I told him that most members of the QPPOA don’t appreciate the fact that the chairman of the public safety committee is a criminal defense lawyer who practices in Quincy District Court.
You see…..many of Attorney Davis’ clients are the very people arrested by the Quincy Police Department, including alleged drug dealers and sex offenders. After he’s done doing his best to discredit Quincy Police Officers in court, he walks down the street to city hall, to be involved in decisions that affect almost every aspect of the Quincy Police Department. Davis says this is okay with the state ethics commission.
I say it doesn’t even pass the smell test. A bunch of lawyers tell another lawyer it’s okay to defend criminals, while at the same time having a major say in the operations of the very police department that arrested said criminals.
You’ll excuse me if I’m not impressed.
After I pointed out this obvious (to us) conflict of interest, that set-off another tirade by Davis; he started yelling about swearing to uphold the same Constitution I did (apparently not the First Amendment, since he didn’t want me to be able to respond), and then stated that while I may not like lawyers (not true), I’ll be the first to call them when I or a member of my family was in trouble.
The problem with that theory is I have no problem with lawyers. I’m very good friends with both our labor and litigation lawyers, and on more than one occasion I’ve had coffee or lunch with defense lawyers.
Anyone accused of a crime should have legal representation. It just shouldn’t be from someone who is also the chairman of the public safety committee of the city council of the city’s police department who arrested that person.
So, when I or my family is ever in legal trouble, you can bet your booty I’ll call a lawyer. And if one of Councilor Davis’ clients breaks into his house, you can bet he’ll be calling us.
So, I saved the best for last, because it was the last thing of the meeting. Councilor Davis wanted everyone to think his dual positions of city councilor and defense lawyer wasn’t a conflict. I decided to highlight an instance that blows that idea to pieces.
On his day off, one of our members received a phone call from one of our court prosecutors at Quincy District Court. It seems that Councilor/Attorney Davis told this prosecutor that he was friends with this officer, and they worked-out at the same gym, so the prosecutor called the officer at home.
The officer answered the phone, was told that Attorney Davis was there, and the officer could hear Davis peppering the prosecutor with questions concerning a felony domestic case, where he was representing the defendant.
Two problems here;
1) This officer doesn’t/didn’t belong to any gym.
2) This officer had no idea who Jay Davis was, other than he was a city councilor and defense lawyer.
What happened was Davis lied to the court prosecutor to get the officer on the phone, in order to speak with him about an open criminal case. When I asked Davis about this, he started flinching, and Councilor John Keenan then jumped into the fray, attempting to save Davis from himself.
All I was trying to do was find out which hat Davis was wearing when he lied to the prosecutor in order to get him to call the officer at home;
1) His city councilor hat;
or
2) His defense lawyer hat.
It’s a fair question, but by Davis’ and Keenan’s reactions, you’d think I called their mothers an unmentionable name.
And by the way….the officer in question is more than willing to speak/testify in any sort of forum, preferably under oath, to verify exactly what I’ve said.
After those Claymores detonated, the Lyin’ King’s cheerleaders decided to cut their losses, and gaveled the meeting to a close.
As I said, that was my last appearance before the public safety committee. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a complete waste of time, because if anything has changed since my first appearance on February 26th, it’s that things have gotten worse.
On February 26th, I used a vacation day to make sure I was available to speak before the committee. On April 30th, I arranged a “swap”, meaning another patrol officer worked in my place, so I’ll have to work a shift for him down the road.
I’m done using my vacation time or arranging swaps to speak before a body that is so obviously tilted in the Lyin’ King’s favor.
We’re taking our message to the court of public opinion, in a big way.
Stay tuned.
Saturday April 28, 2007
2:28 AM
Gambling for Columbine - Bruce Tait
“Never believe anything until it has been officially denied” – Claud Cockburn
I recently responded to a call in Quincy Point, concerning suspicious people in an apartment building. This is a pretty common call, as many people (especially single women and the elderly) get nervous when they see an unfamiliar face near their homes. Usually, there’s a perfectly legitimate reason as to why the “suspicious” person is there, but we certainly don’t mind responding to these calls. If we can put the caller’s mind at ease, then we’ve done our job.
This particular call was different….I’m convinced the suspicious persons were indeed up to no good, because the caller in this case is a retired state trooper; not exactly the type to be suspicious for no reason. The people were most likely junkies who were looking for an easy score….turn some door knobs, and if the door opens, they walk-in to see if anyone is home. If so, they pretend they have the wrong apartment. If not, they help themselves to whatever isn’t nailed down. That’s a big reason why you should NEVER leave your door unlocked, even if you’re just running to the laundry room to put your things in the dryer. It only takes a minute or so to be victimized.
After I got the information I needed, the retired trooper and I got talking about the job, as is common with police officers who meet for the first time. After exchanging pleasantries for a few minutes, I went to leave; he offered his hand, as we hadn’t formally introduced ourselves yet. When I told him who I was, a big smile came across his face; it turned out he’s a huge fan of this website.
That spurred another few minutes of conversation, but now it was obvious he was speaking as a Quincy resident. He made a comment about how he read where I said that even if half of what I wrote here was true, that would be reason enough for Chief Lyin’ King to get his walking papers. He went even further, saying he thought that if even 1/3 of what was written is true, the Lyin’ King should come in the next morning to find his office locks changed, and his stuff packed in boxes in the hallway.
Well, as much anyone who reads this website might think I’ve embellished the truth or made stuff up in order to make things look worse than they are, believe me when I say this;
I don’t need to. I’m regularly supplied with more than enough ammunition that I don’t need to fabricate anything. Come to think of it, I don’t have an active enough imagination to compete with the absurdity that is Chief Lyin’ King’s Quincy Police Department. Anything I could come up with would pale in comparison.
As much as those at city hall wish it wasn’t, everything here is truth or opinion.
Well, hold onto your hats, because I’m going to lay something on you that I hope you will believe, because I’ve never lied to you, but I’m sure you’re not going to want to believe it.
Last Friday, April 20th, valid threats against specific Quincy Public Schools were received by the school department, and were of course passed on to the QPD. I don’t want to say too much, because there are ongoing investigations concerning this, but let’s just say they were most likely inspired by the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech. Needless to say, things like this can’t be taken lightly anymore, not in the current climate. The ramifications of taking something like this too lightly are simply too horrible to think about.
So, you’re Chief Lyin’ King, and you have the entire weekend to come up with a plan of action to deal with this. Is your first concern the safety of the children in Quincy Public Schools?
No.
Is your first concern the safety of your police officers, who will be the first responders to any type of incident?
No.
Faced with a situation that positively demands a huge police response, what is the Lyin’ King’s first, foremost, and always-overwhelming concern?
Saving money.
Specifically, not paying overtime to patrol officers. It’s apparently more important for the Lyin’ King to prove his “point”, whatever that may be, than it is to provide adequate police coverage when faced with a crisis. Because we’ve been beating the drum, very publicly, about the ridiculous staffing levels at the QPD, the Lyin’ King is digging in his heels, as is his usual response, which is going to come back to blow up in his face. Count on it.
What was the Lyin’ King’s brainstorm to deal with this very serious situation?
He ordered the on-duty detectives to don raid jackets, and placed them at certain public schools. Effectively, he shut down the Quincy Police Department’s Detective Bureau, in order to avoid paying overtime to patrol officers.
In case the Lyin’ King hasn’t noticed, we have some pressing matters that the detectives need to attend to. For example, I happened to be in court this week when I heard on the radio that a bank in South Quincy was robbed.
But remember…we’re the second safest city in Massachusetts. I actually do want you to remember that mantra of Mayor Failin’ and Chief Lyin’ King, because it’s going to be blown to smithereens in due time. Take that one to the bank.
Anyway, the absurdity doesn’t end there.
Thanks in large part to QPPOA Vice-President Terry Downing, the Quincy Police Department received some free surplus M16A1 rifles from the military. Such are the times we live in; the famous LAPD shootout in West Hollywood showed the law enforcement community the necessity of having weapons available that are capable of penetrating soft body armor.
Unfortunately, that type of incident can happen anywhere, at any time. Back in 1980, there was a similar situation in Riverside County California, where a very well-equipped and determined team robbed a bank in the town of Norco, which has a population of 25,000; about one-fourth the size of Quincy. The robbers managed to kill a deputy sheriff, destroy or damage 33 police vehicles, and disable a police helicopter before they were either killed or captured. Read about it here;
http://www.rcdsa.org/norcorobbery/robbery.html
One of the biggest problems law enforcement faced that fateful day was lack of high-powered weapons. Anyone who’s been in the military will tell you, whatever else they think about the M16, it doesn’t lack for power.
In what shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, Chief Lyin’ King had to be dragged kicking & screaming into accepting these FREE (which is ordinarily his favorite word) weapons. We could have had as many as we wanted…..one for each member of the department if we so chose, because the military just wanted rid of them. The M16A1 was removed from front-line service in the 1980’s, and because they’re selective-fire weapons (capable of fully automatic fire), they cannot be sold to the general public like the WWII-era M1 Garand rifles which are available through the Civilian Marksmanship Program. I’m sure it’s much cheaper to give them away to law enforcement, rather then put them into a smelter. By the way, the M16A1’s we received have been modified so they no longer have full-auto capability.
So, we ended up with a dozen or so of the free rifles, which is certainly better than nothing. Of course, they’ve been languishing in our armory for over a year, while the only people who have been “officially” certified with them have been the firearms training staff. While it certainly makes sense to “train the trainers” first, I don’t understand what the delay is in getting the patrol force, which is most likely to need the weapons the most, certified with them.
The fact that many of us have significant military experience (yours truly included), and know the M16A1 well enough to disassemble and reassemble it blindfolded, just makes the delay all the more absurd. It’s not like we’re a bunch of Birkenstock-wearing granola gang members who have never seen a weapon before.
Okay, as I’m prone to, I just went completely off-subject. Back to the matter at hand.
Somehow, someone convinced the Lyin’ King, over his usual objections, that the threat to the schools was exactly the type of situation that required more firepower than the pistols we carry. I’m amazed that LK eventually agreed to it, and I tip my hat to whoever talked some sense into him.
Now, as I mentioned, several (if not all) of the firearms training staff are officially certified on these rifles. That’s quite a broad range to choose from, but what do you suppose was the overreaching concern of the Lyin’ King?
You got it. The almighty dollar.
One of the firearms instructors certified on the patrol rifle, ironically enough Terry Downing, was scheduled for in-service training this week. He was told over the weekend to not go to in-service on Monday, he was to draw one of the rifles and patrol the North end of the city in an unmarked vehicle.
Now….of all the firearms instructors who are certified on the patrol rifle, why do you suppose Terry was called and told to cancel his in-service training?
Because he’s assigned to the day shift, and therefore wouldn’t cost any overtime. Rather than spend a few bucks to hire another patrol officer on overtime, Terry had to cancel his in-service training, which may or may not cause some problems for him down the road. Just to save a few bucks.
The other QPD person who drew a rifle and was assigned to the South end of the city is a supervisor, and therefore not a member of the QPPOA, so I don’t know what his status was. If the Lyin’ King’s track record means anything, he probably received double-secret overtime, because as someone who wears a gold badge, he’s entitled to overtime in the Lyin’ King’s mind, unlike us slugs in the patrol force who wear silver badges.
That’s because the Lyin’ King apparently hates what he never was; which would be, in spite of his shameless propaganda campaign to the contrary….a street cop.
If you’re starting to get an idea of how absurd things were on Monday, go get some fresh air or a glass of water, then come back for the final installment, because I saved the best for last.
With everything going on…..shutting down BCI so detectives could sit in schools, sending cops out with assault rifles in unmarked cars, surely you would think that at the VERY least, every patrol sector in the city would be covered on that day.
Think again.
At the day shift roll call on Monday, only 11 of the 13 sector cars were staffed.
Think about this for second. There were valid threats made against the Quincy Public School system, which were take seriously enough that the police department had a major disruption (albeit the overriding concern was saving money), but 2 sector cars were going to go unfilled that day.
Why?
Do you really need to ask?
Because with every other penny-pinching measure imaginable already exhausted, staffing those 2 sector cars would require;
(key scary organ music)
Hiring patrol officers on overtime!!!!!!
(insert blood-curdling scream)
After the day shift roll call was over, Officer Peter Curley, who is the QPPOA Treasurer, was so disgusted with the situation, he walked out of the roll call room throwing up his hands, and made several very loud observations about the insanity of not having full staffing that day. They were made loud enough that the PTB heard it.
In what could only be called an amazing coincidence (yeah right), the 2 empty sector cars were soon staffed by patrol officers, hired on overtime. I asked one of the OT officers what time he received the phone call offering the overtime, and he said about 8:20am.
Let’s see……roll call broke at about 8:05-8:10am, which gave the PTB enough time to go into full-blown panic mode (since they most likely knew I’d make a huge stink about the unfilled sector cars), then convince Chief Lyin’ King they really needed to hire overtime. Considering the Lyin’ King was heard on the police radio that day at 7am, there is absolutely, positively no way he didn’t know that the patrol force was running short that day.
If you’re the parent of a Quincy Public School student, please remember that the Quincy Police Chief puts saving money ahead of the safety of your child. I can’t sum it up any better than that.
As Peter Curley so succinctly put it, we’ve now reached the point where wise-ass comments made after roll call drive the policy of the Quincy Police Department. More appropriately, it seems like 4 patrol officers and a $900 website are now driving the policy of the Quincy Police Department. I know some of the very important (just ask them) supervisors have made comments that I don’t run the department, and my response is this;
I don’t want to.
If I did, I would have angled for a cushy job and spent my workdays studying for the next promotional exam. The fact I’ve never taken the sergeant’s exam should be prima facie evidence that I have no desire to run the department.
What I do want are safe staffing levels and safer working conditions for the members of the QPPOA, and if I have to ruffle some feathers and bruise some egos to do it, then that’s exactly what I shall do. I didn’t run for union president to make friends, I have enough friends already. As Ronald Reagan once said, “It’s nice to be liked, but I’d rather be respected”.
The problem is that there is an absolute leadership vacuum in the Quincy Police Department. Our chief doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, and most of his command staff seems to be paralyzed by fear, or they’ve been compromised with huge amounts of overtime doled out by the Lyin’ King. Either way, we’re like a rudderless ship.
If my pointing out the elephant in the living room is construed by some supervisors as me wanting to run the department, my suggestion is this;
Act like a leader.
Don’t march into the city council chambers as a show of support for someone you mock behind his back, and then sit mute while the Lyin’ King lies his ass off to the city council. Don’t tell us things are great when you haven’t shagged 911 calls in over 10 years, and when you last did that, there was full staffing+ every night. Don’t tell us things are great when you’re making more than any other group of city employees, while some of us are looking into second jobs to make ends meet. Don’t tell us things are great, when you’ve never been the target of one of the Lyin’ King’s positively ruthless, vindictive smear campaigns that have literally ruined people’s lives. Life may be great from where you’re sitting, but a true leader’s first and foremost concern should be the welfare of those subordinates placed under their command.
I like to think the current Executive Board of the QPPOA is popular with most of the membership because they realize we genuinely care about them, and all four of us place our heads on the chopping block on a regular basis, to stand-up for what’s right.
And….guess what? We’re all still employed by the Quincy Police Department!! The QPD command staff should take note of this…..you can stand-up to the Lyin’ King, and stand-up for what’s right, without losing your job. All you have to lose is your ego.
ASSORTED NOTES – The much anticipated Part III of the Quincy City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting will take place this coming Monday, April 30th at 6:30pm in the city council chambers. This could be an historic end to the dueling city council appearances that the Lyin’ King and I have made recently, as I will most definitely be there, and LK has been invited/notified. It will be very interesting to see if a couple of things transpire;
1) If the Lyin’ King even shows. Las Vegas should lay odds on this….put me down for $100 as a “NO”.
2) If the Lyin’ King brings his gold-badge posse with him. I sincerely hope he does, because if I’m asked something about LK’s foolishness and I know someone from the command staff can elaborate, I’ll turn to them and invite them to corroborate my version of things. Let’s see how far their loyalty extends….will they lie or “misspeak” in order to cover for the Lyin’ King?
So….Monday April 30th, 6:30pm in the city council chambers. As I said before, be there or be square.
Saturday April 21, 2007
2:48 PM
More Foolishness - Bruce Tait
"Talk sense to a fool, and he will call you foolish" - Euripides
Ordinarily, I like to let an entry in this space "ferment" before I make a new post. I like to give it time to have some exposure, and give it time for all our fans to digest. However, some news landed in my Inbox yesterday I thought everyone should be made aware of.
Our fearless leader, Chief Lyin' King, who never did the grunt work of a patrol officer for any length of time yet wants to proclaim himself a "hard-nosed street cop", is once again pushing the envelope of foolishness, even for Bizarro World.
For those who don't know, Chief Lyin' King has some SERIOUSLY misplaced priorities when it comes to deploying police personnel. He regularly under staffs the patrol division; that is, the same people who will (try to) answer your 911 calls while at the same time he awards obscene amounts of overtime to the supervisory ranks.
When you call 911, it’s a safe bet to assume the QPD people dispatched to your address will not be wearing gold badges, yet selected members of the supervisory ranks received a lion’s share of the overtime paid-out by the Quincy Police Department in 2006. Wait until you see the figures in the Patriot Ledger. That is, of course, if the Ledger gets permission from 1305 Hancock Street to publish their annual story on the salaries of city employees. You see, Mayor Failin' has a blog of his own, it will just cost you 75 cents to read it. Whether you like our blog or not, at least it's free.
So anyway, on Thursday (4/19) on the 4pm-Midnight shift, two Quincy Police sector cars were effectively removed from service, in order to satisfy the whims of our police chief, who doesn’t have a single clue what he’s doing.
Get this…..if you live in Wollaston Center, Wollaston Hill, North Quincy, Atlantic, and Squantum, you should ordinarily have 4 police cars assigned to your area, according to the Quincy Police Department patrol car plan. However, Chief Lyin’ King decided on 4/19 that it was more important to keep kids from playing basketball at a playground, and to shoo skateboarders from an elementary school, than it was to have a full complement of police cruisers on patrol in the “Bravo” area.
The B-1 (776), which ordinarily covers Wollaston Center and parts of North Quincy, was ordered to take calls from the Fenno Street playground for the entire shift. That officer was not to leave, unless he had a radio call.
The B-4 (779), which ordinarily covers the Squantum peninsula, was ordered to take calls from the Squantum School. Again, that officer was not to leave, except to answer a radio call.
I’m sure you’re asking yourself, especially if you’re a Quincy resident, “What the hell is going on?” The answer is, of course, is that it’s all about the Lyin’ King. You see, he has a very puzzling obsession with groups of kids who gather in public parks, playgrounds, and schoolyards. I’ve said in the past he’s obsessed with kids drinking in the woods, which is actually a misnomer. He’s obsessed with that for sure, but he’s also convinced that any gathering of more than 3 kids (or as LK likes to calls them, “f****** a-holes”) involves alcohol. It’s almost as if he just doesn’t want anyone to enjoy themselves. For example, a couple of years ago I was transporting someone whom the Lyin’ King had ordered arrested when the person said “Officer, I’m not trying to give you a hard time, but I didn’t do anything. I was just having some fun”, to which I looked at him in the rearview mirror and said;
“Exactly”.
So….in order to quell whatever voices are telling the Lyin’ King that the kids in Quincy are involved in some huge conspiracy to empty the package stores in the city, he’s again started his usual bulls*** and effectively taking 2 or more police cruisers off the street to baby-sit empty playgrounds and schoolyards. In the twisted worldview of the Lyin’ King, it’s more important to keep kids from playing basketball in the dark than it is to have proactive patrol that might deter one of the many armed robberies we’ve been having the last few years. For instance, I’m sure the guy who got a gun stuck in his face at 1071 Southern Artery the other night would be just thrilled to hear that we have police officers on static posts to deter groups of kids gathering.
And, of course, if the Lyin’ King were really concerned with groups of kids congregating, he’d staff the Wollaston Center walking beat, as that area can see huge groups of kids gathering on the weekends in nice weather. That will never happen, of course, because that would involve spending overtime money on someone who doesn’t wear a gold badge, which is anathema to the Lyin’ King.
How bad is LK’s obsession with not paying overtime to patrol officers? Try this on for size…..awhile ago, there was a vicious, brutal rape in the city, and the suspect was eventually arrested after some great investigative work by QPD patrol officers and detectives. The case was of course sent-up to Norfolk Superior Court, considering the severity of the offense. With a crime of this magnitude, you would figure that cost would be no object, right?
Oh, no.
The Lyin’ King, probably through the court prosecutor, got word to the ADA prosecuting the case that all QPD people had to be “pre-screened” (a term I never heard before in regards to court cases) to see if they were absolutely needed for court. That way, LK could cancel some of the officers involved, in order to save a few bucks.
Well, that’s probably not right. The Lyin’ King has demonstrated in the past he’s more than willing to spend money like a drunken sailor when it either benefits him, or those in the supervisory ranks. You see, it’s all about him, and trying to validate what he did. He hates patrol officers, because he knows deep-down, he can’t look any of us in the face and say he knows the slightest thing about our job.
Basically, he’s willing to sacrifice a rape case, in order to deny overtime to some patrol officers. That’s beyond disgusting, bordering on criminal. Any defense attorney worth their salt will call every officer mentioned in the incident reports, if nothing else to ask them what they know about the case. When the prosecution has to tell the court that the officers aren’t available because their appearances were cancelled, how does that look? It looks like they have something to hide.
Mayor Failin’ has made it perfectly clear he’s going to do nothing about the outrageous behavior of his police chief. I hope he realizes that he put a ticking time bomb into the corner office at 1 Sea Street, and it’s just a matter of time before it goes off. A police officer is going to be seriously hurt or killed because of the Lyin’ King’s childlike stubbornness in refusing to safely staff the patrol division, which will come back to bite both Failin’ and the Lyin’ King in the ass.
We need, at minimum, 15 more patrol officers in the Quincy Police Department. The one thing we DON’T need is more supervisors, because if we were a ship we’d capsize on launch, we’re so top-heavy. However, Mayor Failin’s solution was to recently promote three patrol officers to sergeant. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all fine officers who will make great sergeants, but the timing of this couldn’t be worse.
Several years back, a management company did a study of the Quincy Police command structure and concluded that based on our size, we need at most, three captains instead of the five we traditionally have. The city’s response couldn’t sum things up any better;
They made a sixth captain.
The mayor is apparently okay with us becoming the Swift Boat Veterans of the upcoming mayoral election, because we’re not going to stop until there is a serious overhaul of the police department, or the Lyin’ King’s portrait is up on the conference room wall. Preferably the latter.
I’m not a big fan of politics, it’s just that the idiocy of the Lyin’ King happened to come to a head in an election year.
Tough luck, Mister Mayor.
Friday April 20, 2007
3:22 AM
Mailbag - Bruce Tait
Yes friends, it’s once again time to dip into the mailbag. As always, these questions and comments came to us from readers of this website, either by direct e-mail or through the “Contact Us” form. Some are edited for clarity or to merge duplicate questions/comments.
Q: The saying “Quincy is the second safest city in Massachusetts” is quickly becoming a Phelan for Mayor campaign slogan. Is it true?
A: In my opinion, absolutely not. Mayor Failin’ is doing the citizens of Quincy an enormous disservice by peddling that line of crap. Here’s why;
1) The data used in making that assumption is three years old;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/01/16/news/news01.txt
Believe me when I tell you, a hell of a lot has changed in Quincy with regard to crime in the last three years, and not much of it for the better.
2) Crimes committed on state and MBTA property were not calculated in the data, unless the Quincy Police made the arrest or wrote the report. This is significant, because the Quincy Center MBTA Station is one of the most dangerous in the entire transit system;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/01/16/news/news01.txt
3) The FBI, who collects the data and publishes the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), on which this “second safest city” fallacy is based, specifically warns everyone to not make assumptions about safety and law enforcement effectiveness based on UCR data, which is exactly what Mayor Failin’ and Chief Lyin’ King are doing;
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/word.htm
Q: How is the problem with staffing the patrol shifts?
A: Not a thing has changed. In spite of a unanimous mandate from the Quincy City Council to fully staff all the QPD sector cars 24/7, the Lyin’ King hasn’t altered his philosophy of unsafe staffing levels at all. I guess once you blatantly lie to a legislative body with absolutely no repercussions, you can also feel free to ignore them.
Speaking of staffing levels, I recently received a third-hand threat from city hall, warning me that I was close to “crossing the line” in regards to revealing staffing levels. My response to that is;
Bring it on.
I like to think I’m not a stupid person. I do my research, and I receive top-notch legal advice from an attorney whose office is on Bromfield Street in Boston, not next to a junkie rooming house on Cottage Avenue in Quincy.
If city hall doesn’t like the fact I’m pulling back the curtain on the disgraceful staffing levels in the police department, then they should actually do something about it, rather than issue empty threats.
Of course, I have a contingency plan, should there be an attempt to silence this blogspot. Besides going for an injunction in superior court, I’ll simply explain to everyone here that I have to go on hiatus because the city is trampling my First Amendment rights, and while the matter is settled in court, I must turn-over writing duties to our attorney, who will be more than pleased to carry the torch until I can come back. As I said;
Bring it the hell on.
Don’t issue third-party threats if you think I crossed the line.
Do something about it.
Q: Why did Councilor Jay Davis verbally attack you during the recent public safety committee meeting?
A: Because he's a Mayor Failin' rumpswab. He made it obvious that night that he wants an adversarial relationship between him and the QPPOA, and trust me, we're happy to oblige him.
Q: Why won’t Chief Crowley follow the city council’s resolution in regards to staffing?
A: That’s a multi-part answer.
1) He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He NEVER served as a patrol officer for any length of time, so he has no idea what it’s like to shag 911 calls in a black and white. We might as well get the night clerk from the local Store-24 and ask him/her what the staffing levels should be, because their experience level in regards to being a street cop isn’t far from the Lyin’ King.
And for those who want to argue that point, we have official transcripts from an arbitration hearing where the Lyin’ King was asked, under oath, how long he served as a patrol officer. His answer was “Less than a year”. When our attorney tried to pin him down, the arbitrator cut-off the line of questioning, but I was happy enough with what we got.
“Less than a year” could mean anywhere from 1-364 days. Even if the actual number was 364 days, that makes him a rookie cop at best, and with apologies to rookies everywhere, a rookie doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. Ask any experienced street cop how long they need on the street to feel comfortable, and the inevitable answer will be 3-5 years.
Oh, and just to underscore this foolishness, the Lyin’ King’s “Less than a year” experience happened in 1970. I was 5 years old, playing with G.I. Joe and attending kindergarten when this “hard nosed street cop” last worked the street.
2) In my opinion, he’s trying to prove a point. What that point is, I have no idea. You see, the Lyin’ King is notoriously stubborn, and would rather dig-in his heels and be gutted fore & aft, rather than admit he’s wrong. The fact that pressure from the patrol officer’s union resulted in the full-staffing mandate from the city council guaranteed that it would never be implemented.
3) In my opinion, he hates patrol officers. Because he never did the job we do, he seems to have a deep-rooted jealousy of us, which manifests itself in ways that are dangerous both to us and the citizens of Quincy. When you get a gander at the 2006 salaries of many Quincy Police supervisors, courtesy of non-competitive overtime awarded by the Lyin’ King, you’re not going to believe it. Well, you will believe it, but you won’t want to believe it. When you do see it, keep in mind why Chief Lyin’ King won’t staff the sector car that covers your neighborhood;
“I am not spending overtime; it’s the taxpayer’s money”.
Remember that, as you want to tear the Patriot Ledger in half, knowing that the thousands and thousands of dollars of non-competitive overtime awarded to QPD supervisors by the Lyin’ King was funded by the taxpayers, also known as YOU.
In the meantime, neighborhoods in Quincy regularly go without police coverage.
Q: Why are you so insistent on having a stenographer at a meeting with the chief?
A: Have you been reading this website for any length of time? Why do we want a stenographer? Because Robert F. Crowley is a bold-faced liar, and we can’t believe a single thing that escapes his lips. This is something we learned the hard way; you’re probably tired of numbered bullet points, but here we go;
1) He blatantly lied to the Quincy City Council on December 18th, 2006. There can be no debate or discussion on that point, the evidence speaks for itself.
2) When he first became chief, we reached an agreement in regards to working details in other cities and towns. After we did a bunch of administrative legwork, he changed his mind and pulled out the rug from under us.
3) After 3 ½ hours of negotiation, the QPPOA reached an agreement with Chief Lyin’ King to modify the sick time policy of the QPD. Within 24 hours, he changed his mind, and the agreement was voided.
4) The QPPOA, representatives from city hall, and the Lyin’ King agreed to a finding in a discipline case involving three of our members, where a major part of the settlement was that no one contact the media. The Lyin’ King waited until Mayor Failin’ was on vacation, and blabbed the story to the Patriot Ledger.
Do I really need to showcase more examples why the Lyin’ King cannot be trusted? My obvious question is…..what does he have to hide? Why is he so afraid to have his words committed to an official transcript?
I’ll tell you why; he’s absolutely terrified of us being able to hold up a transcript and saying “But chief, on page 43, line 27, you said the opposite”. What does that tell you about his character, or lack thereof?
I’ll say it again here; we will meet with Chief Crowley, and whoever else he chooses to be with him, anywhere, any time, any place. The only condition we have is that there will be a stenographer present (at our expense). We’ll even agree that the transcript will stay between us (union officials), the chief’s office, and city hall. We’ll even provide free copies to both city hall and the chief’s office.
The next time I’m painted as being “unreasonable”, remember the above.
Q: PART 1 - I've been reading about the patrol coverage in Quincy, or rather lack of it. Last night I called 911 because four youths were fighting on Spear Street. It was literally within seconds of placing the call that I heard the sirens. That's an incredible response time and so I'm wondering if the pressure for the chief of police has finally put the full set of cars on the streets or if it was just coincidence that two cars were close by?
A: As you’ve probably figured out by now, that was a coincidence. For those who don’t know, Spear Street is EXTREMELY close to the police station, and I was actually working that very night. If I recall correctly, I was dispatched as the backup officer, but I was down by the shipyard when the call came in. At least one, if not both cruisers who responded to that call were leaving the police station, so it was fortunate timing more than anything else.
Oh, and that call involved a DYS “group home” which is run by an independent contractor hired by the state, and is the bane of QPD Officers assigned to that area. The inmates literally run the asylum.
Q: PART 2- My other question is whether Quincy Point is one of the neighborhoods with inadequate coverage? I very rarely see a police car in this area and with recent problems on South Street etc., it makes me wonder.
A: I’m especially qualified to answer this, since Quincy Point is my patrol sector. To answer your question, the Lyin’ King covered his tracks by insisting that the “Delta area” (which includes Quincy Point) be fully staffed after he was caught with his pants down. Before that, it was not uncommon for one of the Delta cars to go unstafffed.
To answer your second concern, it’s just a matter of call volume. The Delta area is always number one as far as calls received by area in the QPD, so we do what we can. If I’m not tied-up on a call, chances are I’m covering another call in the Delta area that isn’t my specific sector. Of course, we get our share of “Is this night over yet” shifts where nothing’s happening, but the nights of balls-to-the-wall constant radio calls are becoming more and more common. It’s very rare indeed when I have the time to “show the flag” for any sustained amount of time.
Q: You seem like a very angry person
A: I’m really not, and those who are closest to me would tell you the opposite.
Am I an angry person?
No.
Am I angry at what’s going on at the Quincy Police Department?
HELL YES!!!
Why? Because I know from my experience under Chief Mullen that it doesn’t have to be like this. After Chief Mullen retired, there was a successive parade of police chiefs who were enamored with the fact they managed to avoid real police work, hide, and successfully study for the next promotional exam.
Guess what?
I’m not impressed.
Go ask all the REAL street cops who covered the radio calls while you hid & studied what they think of you, or in the case of Chief Lyin’ King, all the real street cops who answered the calls you never had to.
While I’m on the promotion subject……to all the QPD supervisors who were the biggest complainers, whiners, and crybabies when they were patrol officers themselves, and are now tried & true “company men”, please remember this;
We have long memories.
Your support of the Lyin’ King, tacit or otherwise, has been duly noted.
Monday April 9, 2007
1:35 PM
Avon Walk for Breast Cancer - Bruce Tait
Contarary to what some might think, this website is not single-minded of purpose. Two members of the Quincy Police Department, Detective Karyn Barkas and Sergeant Jenni Tapper, are participating in a great charity event that deserves everyone's support. I'll let them tell you about it;
"On Saturday, May 19th and Sunday, May 20th, we will be joining hundreds of others in the Boston Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. It is a two day, 39.3 mile fundraising walk to benefit the work in the fight against breast cancer. In order to participate, we must raise a total of $3600 ($1800 each). Please help us reach our goal . Whatever the amount, your donation will go a long way towards providing hope for a healthier future for all women.
Please mail donations to the Quincy Police Department (Attn: Sgt. Jen Tapper or Det. Karyn Barkas) 1 Sea Street, Quincy, MA 02169. Please make checks payable to “The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer”.
Thanks,
Karyn Barkas & Jenni Tapper
Thursday March 29, 2007
2:27 AM
Word Games - Bruce Tait
"It depends what the definition of ‘is’ is” – Bill Clinton
Finally, after a long and somewhat disappointingly warm winter, spring is upon us. The telltale signs are all there; the weather is climbing into the 60’s on a fairly regular basis, and the days are longer.
The City of Quincy is seeing spikes in violent crime, the patrol division is near-criminally understaffed, and our chief made a complete jackass of himself before the recent meeting of the finance committee of the Quincy City Council. Well, those last three things are recurring things, so I guess they don’t have anything to do with spring. They’re season-neutral events.
For those who missed it, the Lyin’ King put on a dandy of a performance on Monday night. He went before the finance committee of the council in order to ask permission to transfer $46,500 from the personal services account (manpower) to another shadowy category filled with slashes, like maintenance/parts/professional services. At the meeting, Crowley elaborated on why he wanted the money, one of the reasons being to pay for expenses incurred by union grievances, which is a real hoot. The reason being, the only expenses the city would have to pay for a grievance would be when they went to arbitration, where the city would foot half the arbitrator’s fee.
Well, guess what? We’ve taken 2 grievances to arbitration, and we won both of them. We’re 2-0 so far, meaning we were in the right, yet the Lyin’ King tried to take an offhand shot at us.
We planned to file our formal protest to this request, and had written a letter to each city councilor with our reasoning, but some miscommunication resulted in Vice-President Terry Downing not being recognized during the meeting. I planned on being there myself, but I was still feeling a bit under the weather from suffering smoke inhalation after literally dragging some misguided people out of a burning house the night before. More on that later.
Anyway, Councilor Dan Raymondi was rightfully perturbed at this request, considering the shameful staffing levels the patrol division has had to work with since the Lyin’ King became chief. When other city departments need money for something, it seems like they tap into the city’s “free cash” account, which was over a half-million dollars the last I heard. Not the Lyin’ King….that would apparently, at least in his mind, tarnish the laughable myth that he’s a good administrator. Instead, he wants to take the money from the area we can afford it least….the account where overtime money could come from to safely staff the patrol division.
To put this in context, that $46,500 could fund approximately 140+ full eight-hour overtime shifts. However, the Lyin’ King wants you to believe he has altruistic intentions.
“I am not spending overtime; it’s the taxpayer’s money”.
That’s a real knee-slapper, I’ll tell you that right now. Basically what the Lyin’ King is telling you is he thinks your safety, and the safety of his police officers, should take a back seat to pleasing his enabler, Mayor Failin’, by returning unspent budget money on July 1st, money which will then go into the “general fund”, or some other place where we’ll never see it again, to pay for God knows what.
What makes the above statement by the Lyin’ King even more absurd will come to light when the Patriot Ledger publishes the list of highest-paid city employees. In 2006, the Lyin’ King went on a spending spree like you won’t believe, awarding hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of non-competitive overtime to his coatholders (or in one case, someone he’s deathly afraid of) in the superior officers ranks. We’re talking a lieutenant with over 350 hours of overtime, a captain with 150+ hours of overtime. I’ll work almost any overtime offered to me, and in comparison, I had about 70 hours of overtime last year. You see, I’m not one of the beautiful people. My overtime rate also doesn’t come anywhere close to $100 per hour.
Just wait until you see what kind of money those hours of overtime translates into for lieutenants and captains. After you push your eyes back into your head, keep in mind exactly who financed just about 100% of these obscene salaries;
The taxpayers, whose finances the Lyin’ King is only concerned with when it comes to staffing the police sector car that covers their neighborhoods.
Another Hallmark moment during this meeting came when the Lyin’ King produced a copy of a book, “Supervision of Police Personnel” by Nathan and Marvin Iannone, in order to justify his stupid decision making as chief. I can’t say this really surprised me, as the Lyin’ King never did the job of a patrol officer, so everything he thinks he knows about being a cop must come from books and TV shows. Since I’ve never had the desire to take the sergeant’s exam, I’ve never read the Iannone tome, which is soon to change. I just ordered a copy from Amazon, and even put rush shipping so I’d have it by the weekend. I’m going to analyze and dissect every word of that book, until I know it like the back of my hand. The Lyin’ King wants to fall back on a book to justify his decisions? No problem….he better know it as well as I will in a month or so.
Of course, the moment we were all waiting for came when the Lyin’ King attempted to cover his tracks about when he lied to the city council on December 18th.
Here’s some Newspeak for you…..the Lyin’ King didn’t lie, he “misspoke”;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/03/27/news/news13.txt
Well, isn’t that convenient?
Of course, I’m just a lowly, simpleton patrol officer, but I would wager that any reasonable person will tell you that when someone tells someone else something that isn’t true, when they know it to be not true, that’s not “misspeaking”, it’s lying, plain and simple.
Misspoke? I felt like I was watching Patrick Kennedy trying to blame his legal troubles on “sleepdriving”.
Of course, this is in keeping with City of Quincy tradition, holding those at the bottom strictly accountable for the most excruciating minutiae of their jobs, while giving those in charge, those who should be beyond reproach, a free pass for just about anything that doesn’t fall into the dead girl/live boy scenario. If I went before the city council and deliberately lied, I’d be strung-up by my testicles and fired in short order.
However, during his Tuesday press availability, Mayor Failin’ stated he had no problem with the chief of police “misspeaking” before the city council.
Lie to the city council? Cause an intentional tort? Press forward bogus criminal charges from your bedroom? Cost the city millions in lawsuits? Violate a confidentiality agreement while the mayor is on vacation? Mayor Failin’ thinks that’s all just fine, because the Lyin’ King is the perpetrator. To take any action whatsoever might create the impression he made a colossal mistake by appointing LK as police chief.
As if we all don’t know that already.
If you’re a peon patrol officer, you get fired for being involved in an off-duty car accident, because you’re politically meaningless, and therefore expendable.
Of course, there could be a silver lining here. The Lyin’ King is now the trailblazer of Newspeak for excusing the inexcusable, so we should be able to do the same, right? The bar has been set by our boss.
For example, let’s say I feel like leaving work at 11:30pm, a half-hour before I’m supposed to, and I take off. The next night, the sergeant pulls me aside and says;
“Bruce, did you leave early last night without permission?”
“No sarge, I stayed right until midnight on the dot”.
“I have videotape of you leaving the parking lot in your personal car at 11:30pm”.
“Oh, sorry sarge, I misspoke”.
All is forgiven, right? It’s as simple as making it up as you go along.
There’s no better example of that than when the Lyin’ King started to pontificate about the Saturday night of St. Patrick’s Day, when there were inexcusably only 11 of the 13 patrol sectors staffed on the midnight shift, resulting in near-tragedies across the city. Old LK really thought he had the smoking gun for that one, blustering that there were actually 12 cars staffed that evening, because there was also an “Impact” (6pm-2am) officer working that night.
To show you how clueless the Lyin’ King is, he obviously has never figured out that a good attorney never asks a question to which he doesn’t already know the answer. Councilor Raymondi asked LK if the Impact officer worked on the street that night.
Yes.
Raymondi pressed the issue, which should have set-off all sorts of alarm bells in the Lyin’ King’s head, but he plowed forward, insisting the Impact officer worked the street that night. After LK was completely painted into a logical corner, Captain Dougan frantically pulled him aside and whispered to him, no doubt telling him the Impact officer did NOT work the street that night, he was assigned inside the station. What did the Lyin’ King say to Councilor Raymondi after getting this good news?
He “misspoke”.
Oops, he did it again.
Perhaps the most bizarre moment of the evening came when the Lyin’ King decided to not only call one of his patrol officers a liar, but for good measure to also play defense attorney for the suspect accused of attacking said officer. Long story short, on the Saturday night of St. Patrick’s Day, a police officer who was working the detail at a Quincy Square barroom was asked to escort a drunken patron out. You can read the particulars here;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/03/21/news/news15.txt
Notice how the article quoted the police report, stating the suspect was grabbing at the officer’s duty belt, inches from his weapon, and that the officer believed the suspect was trying to disarm him. A very, very scary scenario that I’ve unfortunately been faced with more than once.
Was that good enough for the Lyin’ King? Hardly. He blustered on before the council, asking someone to show him where it said in the police report the suspect’s hands were anywhere near the officer’s weapon.
Guess what, LK? It most certainly does say that in the report, and I’ll be more than happy to show you, at the same time I show the city council at the next meeting of the public safety committee. I’ll have 10 copies of the report prepared (one for you, and one for each councilor), with each reference to the suspect grabbing near the officer’s weapon highlighted in yellow for easy reference.
Oh, and good job setting up a defense for a suspect who attacked one of your patrol officers. I can just picture the defense attorney, “Ladies and gentleman of the jury, even the CHIEF OF POLICE doesn’t believe his own officer!!!”
How do you look at yourself in the mirror? You must use an electric razor and shave by feel.
Back on subject…..please contrast the Lyin’ King’s statements to the council, discounting his own officer, to what he had to say in the above Ledger article;
“It’s totally irresponsible for Sarsfields to let patrons get that drunk inside,’’ Crowley said, adding that McCarthy was not the only patron who had to be removed for drunken behavior.
‘‘When a police officer gets assaulted as a direct result of people being over-served in the barrooms, I’m going to take action,’’ Crowley said.
Did you get that? He’s going to take action….against the establishment that wanted the suspect removed in the first place. The Lyin’ King will call his own officer a liar (which is the definition of irony) and defend the person who attacked him, but he’s going to go full speed ahead against a local business owner.
Is it starting to sink in with the PTB in the city how bad off we are???
To Mayor Failin’, the city council, and the citizens of Quincy;
WE’VE HAD IT WITH THIS FRIGGIN’ GUY!!!!!!
This isn’t some type of game we’re playing here; this is life or death for us. Only a particularly generous God has ensured that no Quincy Police Officer has been seriously hurt or killed because of understaffing, and our chief of police, who never did the job we do, thinks he knows better what shifts should be staffed with what numbers. I hate to sound like a broken record, but police coverage is like life insurance, you may never need it, but when you need it, you best have full coverage.
For example, this past Sunday night on the 4pm-Midnight shift we had full staffing, just by luck of the draw that hardly anyone requested the night off. I figured it would be a nice quiet Sunday, and how wrong I was. Four armed men burst into a house on Wollaston Hill, tied-up the family, and absconded with thousands of dollars in cash. An armed home invasion, very similar to one on Penn’s Hill a few days earlier. Needless to say, multiple units were dispatched to this incident, as there was a decent description of the suspect vehicle.
Well, while this was going on, a two-family house on Lancaster Street in Quincy Point caught fire, and I happened to be literally right around the corner when the call came in. When I got there, I could see the front porch of the second floor was completely red with flames, and I could also see the outline of a head in one of the windows. While the house was not occupied in the sense that no one was living there, it was not vacant as erroneously reported in the Patriot Ledger. The owner of the house lives nearby, so he and some of his friends were attempting to put out the fire by themselves.
Now, when we arrive at a house fire, our first and most important objective is to make sure everyone is out of the house. Once that’s achieved, we keep everyone out until the professionals arrive to put the fire out. Once the fire department arrives, we make sure no one interferes with them, and we then control traffic.
Unfortunately, these amateur firefighters didn’t want to leave. One guy was filling a mixing bowl with water and tossing it on the flames (he might as well have urinated on them), while another misguided soul was running around with a fire extinguisher that looked like it came from a Fisher-Price Fireman Sam play set. There were a total of 4 people in the burning house, and I had to literally physically remove them.
Too bad for me, they kept coming back inside. I knew then I was well and truly screwed, because so many other cruisers were tied-up with the home invasion, help was coming from far away. I was inside the burning house for way too long than I should have been, because I had to carry the same person out 3 times. I was getting ready to start handcuffing people to telephone poles to make sure they didn’t go back inside when the cavalry arrived.
So, there is what you would assume is a lazy Sunday night, that went absolutely crazy. Even with full staffing, almost every police car in the city was on assignment at one point or another.
Now let’s take a look at what happened during a “Bob Crowley Special”, where there were only 10 patrol cars staffed. On the midnight shift of 3/27, the QPD received a call of a suicidal person in North Quincy, who was holding a knife to his chest. Officers arrived, managed to talk the man out of harming himself, and convinced him to go to the hospital to be evaluated. Unfortunately, this one turned out to be a Trojan Horse.
While the ambulance was driving on Newport Avenue, the man took out a secreted blade and started slashing at the EMT, who wisely bailed-out. The man seriously slashed his own wrists, and then ran off into a neighborhood off Newport Avenue, where he was captured. The man, now the suspect, was again taken to the hospital, but this time under arrest for trying to kill the EMT, which meant he had to be guarded at the hospital.
So, that night the “Bravo” area, which encompasses Wollaston, Wollaston Center, North Quincy, Atlantic, and Squantum, started the night with 3 of the usual 4 sector cars staffed. The officer who took the arrest was tied-up in the station with a mountain of paperwork, while a second Bravo officer was guarding the suspect at the hospital for over 2 hours, before he was sent to a Boston hospital. So, for that time period, the residents of the above neighborhoods had exactly one police car to cover that huge area. If a priority call came in during that time, not only would those residents have had no police coverage, the lone remaining Bravo officer would have had his backup coming from another area of the city.
The cherry on top of this malodorous sundae came when it was decided the suspect’s wounds needed more urgent care at a Boston hospital. A prisoner that’s transported into Boston needs a minimum of two officers for security, and that was a logistical impossibility that night. As a result, the sergeant on-duty ordered the suspect summonsed instead of arrested.
Did you get that? Summonsed, instead of arrested, for trying to kill an emergency medical technician.
I want to be perfectly clear that I support this sergeant’s decision, 100%. He did the only sensible thing, considering his officers were handcuffed by understaffing.
However, the Lyin’ King can add this to the seemingly endless list of shameful incidents that have come as the result of his callous disregard of not only our safety, but the safety of Quincy’s citizens.
I said awhile ago that the gloves have come off, and indeed they have.
Now, we’re getting fitted for brass knuckles. Our lives literally depend on it.
Saturday March 24, 2007
3:10 AM
The Lone Voice in the Wilderness - Bruce Tait
“To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle” – Confucius
During last week’s city council meeting on March 19th, the council sat through an interminably long and (in my opinion) boring presentation from Verizon, concerning energy consumption. I realize things like that are necessary, but I have to seriously wonder if caffeine pills are made available to the councilors before these meetings. Whatever they get paid, it’s not enough to sit through that stuff.
The part of the meeting I was waiting for came at the end, when Councilor Dan Raymondi highlighted the concerns I brought forth on February 26th, when I supplied the public safety committee with incontrovertible proof that Chief Lyin’ King not only lied to them on December 18th, saying there are never less than 11 QPD sector cars staffed, he wasn’t even smart enough to cover his tracks. There were (and are) many instances of there being less than 11 cars staffed, AFTER he told the councilors that there were never less than 11 cars staffed.
For instance, the Midnight-8am shift last night (3/24/07) had 10 cars staffed.
I sat there, somewhat astonished, as I watched Councilor Raymondi lay it all out there. I couldn’t have done a better job myself, and I live, breathe, & eat this stuff.
What was even more astonishing to me were the reactions of the other councilors. Councilor Jay Davis, of course, slavishly defended the Lyin’ King, which comes as no surprise to us. Davis, being a Mayor Failin’ rumpswab, has made it perfectly clear he’s going to defend the Lyin’ King, no matter what he does. That makes for the perfectly absurd scenario of the chairman of the public safety committee supporting unsafe staffing levels in the police department, and attacking the president of the patrol officers’ union for advocating for safe staffing levels.
The word about town is that someone very popular and influential in Ward 4 is at least thinking about running for the city council. Based on the e-mails I’ve received from Ward 4 residents who weren’t too happy with their councilor’s performance on February 26th, that should greatly concern Councilor Davis.
Anyway, Davis’ predictable reaction aside, I was extremely disappointed in the other members of the city council.
As I was born & raised in Quincy, so too was my father. He grew up in a two-family house in Quincy Point (23 Germain Avenue), where he shared one bedroom with two brothers. His father, my grandfather, was an immigrant from Scotland who worked at (and retired from) the shipyard. My father really made something of himself, going from Quincy High School to the US Army, then to a job as a teller at the old Quincy Savings Bank in Quincy Square, next to the current Quincy Sun offices. My dad eventually worked his way up to become the President of Braintree Savings Bank, quite an accomplishment for a kid from the Point. He got there mostly through hard work, but also because of his integrity. His word is his bond, and he would rather insult or offend a million people than lie to one.
Now you know where I get it from.
My father always taught me that once someone deliberately lied to you for personal gain, they weren’t to be trusted….EVER. It’s advice that has served me well in life, and I plan on passing that wisdom down to my children when the time is right.
Unfortunately, it appears to me that many members of the Quincy City Council never received that advice, or if they did, they didn’t take it to heart.
It’s been nearly a month since I appeared before the public safety committee, so the councilors have had more than ample time to review the documentary evidence I submitted to them. A casual examination of these documents would convince even the most rabid Lyin’ King Kool-Aid drinker that he did in fact lie to the city council.
Even worse, I can VERY easily prove that the Lyin’ King has been openly defying the city council’s unanimous 9-0 mandate to fully staff all 13 QPD patrol sectors, 24 hours per day. Look no further than the Saturday night of St. Patrick’s Day. In the blog entry below, I told you of an officer who had to fight with a suspect who was trying to get his gun. Even the Patriot Ledger saw the obvious newsworthiness of this, and did a story on it;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/03/21/news/news15.txt
Notice the classic quotes by Chief Lyin’ King at the end of the article. He cares as much about the safety of a patrol officer as he cares about what I had for lunch yesterday. He just sees another chance to pontificate at a licensing board hearing in the future.
What the Lyin’ King didn’t mention in the article was how on the Saturday night of St. Patrick’s Day, there were only 11 of the 13 cars staffed, AFTER the city council voted for full staffing, which is completely and totally inexcusable. Councilor Davis can put on a skirt and wave some pom-poms all he wants to, there is positively no justification for that, whatsoever.
How outrageous is this situation? Another thing the Lyin’ King didn’t mention was how one of the police cars sent to Sarsfield’s to assist the officer in trouble was the B-777. That sector covers Wollaston, from Beale Street north to the Neponset River Bridge. Some of the landmarks for that sector are the Ocean State Job Lot and Stop & Shop on Newport Avenue. That’s how far away the officer was when he got the emergency call, and had to race across the city.
So anyway, Chief Lyin’ King lied to the city council. In spite of Councilor Davis’ best efforts of word games and tired old lawyer tricks, there is no doubt about that. Unless I forged the documentary evidence I submitted, no reasonable person can come to any other conclusion.
Keeping this in mind, it seems like just about the only city councilor who was even the least bit perturbed by this was Councilor Raymondi. As I said, he laid it out there for all to see, and the silence from the other councilors was deafening.
If I were a city councilor, and it was proven the chief of police lied to me, I’d be so mad, I’d take a page out of Nikita Khrushchev’s book, and start banging the desk with one of my shoes. I’d especially be beside myself when I found out that the chief was ignoring a unanimous 9-0 mandate to fully staff the patrol division.
I’m starting to suspect that many of these councilors voted for the full-staffing resolution as a feel-good and look-good measure. They certainly didn’t seem to care one iota about being lied to or defied by the police chief. Their silence spoke volumes.
Soooooo….on to Plan B. As the rabble rousers in the 1960’s used to say;
“We’re takin’ our message to the people, baby!!!!”
I’ve already been in contact with a direct mailing company, and we’ll soon be sending out directed mailings to the residents of those Quincy Police patrol sectors whose cars are on the “hit list”. We’re even going to include a spreadsheet, detailing exactly when and on what dates their sector cars went unstaffed, in defiance of a unanimous city council mandate.
Note to Councilors McNamee, Kelly, and (proving there is a God) Davis; you may want to tell your staff to soon be prepared for an e-mail, phone call, and letter onslaught from pissed-off constituents. You have no one else to blame for that except the Lyin’ King and yourselves.
It’s becoming apparent that Councilor Raymondi is the lone voice in the wilderness. Or more appropriately, the voice of reason in a sea of madness.
That’s okay, as we consider ourselves in good company, and we’re used to working with minimal support anyway.
Monday March 19, 2007
2:14 AM
A Bit O' the Blarney - Bruce Tait
“To alcohol!! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems” – Homer Simpson
It’s certainly no secret to anyone who lives in the greater Boston area how popular St. Patrick’s Day is around here. It’s almost as if the whole region comes to a standstill, gets decked-out in green, and celebrates all things Irish. Even the boys of summer, the Boston Red Sox, traditionally wear green caps whenever they play a spring training game of St. Patrick’s Day, and the last few years they’ve added green shirts as well.
And needless to say, there is always the famous, or infamous, depending on how you look at it, St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in South Boston, started by former Senator Billy Bulger. That event can get pretty testy (as can its Quincy doppelganger held at the Elks Lodge), but like the great majority of things on St. Patty’s day, it’s all in good fun. It’s been said that everyone is a little but Irish that day, evidenced by the African-American couple I saw Saturday night, decked head-to-toe in green, waiting patiently in line to get in one of the Irish bars in Quincy Square.
Unfortunately, there are many, many misguided people who think the day set aside to celebrate the good works of Saint Patrick is a swell excuse to get face down in the gutter, urinate-in-your pants intoxicated. As the joke goes;
Q: Why does everyone eat corned beef & cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day?
A: So they won’t puke-up a decent meal later in the night.
Some of these nitwits also think it’s a swell idea to commemorate the conversion of Ireland to Christianity by starting fights, attacking police officers, beating up their spouses, and generally acting like jackasses.
Dangerous jackasses.
Any police officer around here who has spent any time working on the street (which automatically excludes Chief Lyin’ King) will tell you that St. Patrick’s Day is one of the busiest nights of the year for police. It’s even pretty much supplanted New Years’ Eve, as it seems like most people now want to ring-in the New Year by getting Chinese food and wisely staying home.
This St. Patrick’s Day was no exception, made all the worse by the unfortunate coincidence of having the day fall on a Saturday, which is a busy day for us, anyway. I worked the 4pm-Midnight shift on Saturday, and I have to say I can’t really complain. It was quiet for a Saturday in general, never mind a St. Patrick’s Day. That’s the nature of police work, it’s like buying insurance….you may need it, but God help you if you do need it, and don’t have it.
The Midnight-8am shift was, however, a completely different story. I should have known this would happen, as I could see it in people’s eyes as I drove around the local pouring establishments. I should have said a little prayer for the boys of midnights, because they got absolutely slammed. From 12am-3am, they got blasted with 36 calls for service, or about one call every 5 minutes.
These weren’t fluff calls, either. At one point in the night, 3 different officers were calling for emergency help at the same time because they were fighting with drunken idiots alone, and one officer had to fight someone who was trying to get his gun. One midnight officer commented to me it was hard to keep track of who was where, because officers were being pulled out of their regular patrol areas to deal with the citywide chaos.
Another officer who worked inside the station told me he was booking prisoners until 5am, and by about 3am, the QPD cell block resembled a circa-1918 Influenza quarantine ward, filled to the brim with drunken prisoners who were vomiting and urinating on themselves in the cells.
I tell you, it’s a glamorous job.
With this state of drunken near-anarchy in the city, surely you’re thinking to yourself, the Quincy Police Department had adequate staffing to deal with the problems, especially after the Quincy City Council voted unanimously, 9-0, to have all the police patrol sectors fully staffed 24 hours per day?
Guess again.
As further proof that Chief Lyin’ King is now just acting out of spite, there were only 11 of the 13 police patrol sectors staffed on the midnight shift for the Saturday of St. Patrick’s Day.
That’s an absolute disgrace. The Lyin’ King and his head enabler, Mayor Failin’, should be ashamed of themselves. It’s apparently more important for the Lyin’ King to delude himself into thinking the patrol officers didn’t “win one” at the city council, and for Mayor Failin’ to not admit he made a stupendous mistake in appointing LK as chief, than it is to show the slightest bit of concern for the safety of the residents of Quincy.
Look no further than the latest edition of the Quincy Sun, where Mayor Failin’ pledges his undying loyalty to the Lyin’ King. Basically what he’s saying is that he thinks it's just fine for the chief of police to blatantly lie to the city council.
As someone very succinctly put it, their ignorance is only outstripped by their arrogance.
It’s become maddeningly obvious to us that the only people in city government who give a damn about public safety, and the safety of police officers, are some members of the Quincy City Council. The staffing levels of the Quincy Police Department have been dangerously low ever since the Lyin’ King became police chief, and we’ve done everything, the “right way”, to try to correct it.
We went to the chief of police. Twice. We got nowhere.
We went to the mayor. Twice. We got nowhere.
We went to the city council, where we finally had a receptive audience that “got it”. We left the public safety committee meeting with the assurance that we had their backing, evidenced by a unanimous motion to fully staff the police patrol sectors.
In return for airing our grievances with the voice of the people, the city council, one of the most vocal union supporters, badge #1, Bob Curtis, was unceremoniously reassigned from the detective bureau (where he served 22 years) back to patrol, within 96 hours of the committee meeting.
Note to the Lyin’ King and his minions who had a hand in that one; you best get your lies in order, because our litigation attorney is firing up the boilers, and will soon be charging down the tracks on your asses.
Anyway, even after the disgraceful Bob Curtis reassignment, we still had a major victory when the full Quincy City Council voted unanimously, 9-0, to have all police patrol sectors staffed 24/7.
At the time, we thought FINALLY!!!!
Finally, someone used their heads, saw how dangerous the situation was, and did something decisive to correct it.
However, when you’re a peon silver-badge patrol officer in the Quincy Police Department, even when you win, you lose. Our megalomaniacal police chief just ignores that overwhelming mandate, and carries on as he sees fit. After all, it’s not him out there racing to help officers in trouble due to understaffing.
For that matter, it was NEVER him doing any type of time in a patrol car. It’s beyond Bizarro World that someone can be a member of the Quincy Police Department for over 30 years, and never had to shag 911 calls as a patrol officer. It truly boggles my mind.
So, we tried to play nice. We tried to go through the proper channels in order to make things safer for our members and for the residents of Quincy, and we’ve been slapped down each time.
Fair enough. Time to ratchet it up a notch.
It just so happens, this is an election year. As such, the residents of Quincy are paying much more attention to the incumbent mayor, who is facing an extremely formidable opponent in the upcoming election. For the safety of my membership, I would never pass-up such an opportunity.
Should these disgraceful staffing levels continue, we plan to make it abundantly clear to the voters of Quincy that neither the chief of police nor the mayor gives a damn about their safety. That should not be construed as any type of political endorsement, because I would never speak for the membership on such an important issue. It should be construed as a message that we’re fed-up with the dangerous staffing levels we’re forced to work with, and we’re also fed-up with a police chief who lies to, and defies, the city council.
And, when I say we’ll make it clear, we’ll make it CLEAR!!
As wonderful a forum this website is, that’s just the beginning. We have more than adequate resources for huge, prolonged advertisements in the Patriot Ledger and Quincy Sun, detailing how dangerous the staffing levels are, how the mayor tacitly approves of the police chief lying to the city council, etc.
We also plan on doing mass-mailings to the residents of those neighborhoods whose sector cars are on the “hit list” to be not staffed on any given day or night.
Oh yes, we’re done playing around. The gloves have come off, and whatever else the people at 1305 Hancock Street may think of me, I’d like to think they know that when I say something, I mean it.
If they haven’t yet figured that out, they soon will.
Friday March 16, 2007
2:46 AM
The Poison Pill - Bruce Tait
“What is food to one, is to others a bitter poison” – Lucretius (96 BC – 55 BC)
I’m sure that the great majority of Patriots fans are as thrilled as I am about the Pats’ acquisition of wide receiver Wes Welker from the Miami Dolphins. Not only is he a multi-faceted football player, he’s a Bill Belichick, drink-the-Kool-Aid type player who will fit into the system perfectly. Needless to say, Miami didn’t want to lose a player of Welker’s caliber, so there were some high-stakes negotiations. There were rumors of Welker, as a restricted free agent, being offered a second-round tender sheet by the Patriots, which means the Dolphins could either match the offer and keep Welker, or let him walk away and get a second-round draft pick from the Patriots.
There were also rumors of something more sinister at Foxboro, that a so-called “poison pill” would be inserted into the tender sheet, something the Dolphins could not possibly match, in order to guarantee the sheet would be accepted. Something along the lines that if Welker played more than 4 games in Miami in a season, the entire contract would be guaranteed. Miami could never agree to that, because that means they would have to bench Welker for half of their home games in order to avoid the poison pill clause.
In the end, the Patriots and Dolphins ended up working out a straight-up trade to avoid tender sheets and poison pills, but you can bet the threat of the poison pill put Belchick and Scott Pioli in the driver’s seat during negotiations.
We should consider moving our office to Foxboro, because we have our own little poison pill, albeit for much more benign reasons than gaining a favorable negotiation position.
On Tuesday (3/13) I had an honest-to-goodness Lyin’ King sighting. And, I mean in the flesh. Not just one of the day officers hearing him on the radio at 10:30am, or seeing him wander in the station around 11am. I actually saw him, engaging in his duties as police chief. My big regret is that this was totally unexpected, so I didn’t have my digital camera with me to snap some pictures to put next to those of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
On 3/13, we had an arbitration hearing at city hall, concerning the Lyin’ King arbitrarily stripping away a contractual position held by a member of the QPPOA, and handing it to another bargaining unit, without so much as notifying us, never mind negotiating the move. And he wonders why we hate him so much?
At any rate, the hearing started at 10am, but unfortunately I had a criminal trial that same day in Quincy District Court (a rare enough occurrence on its own), so I was late to the hearing. I was released by the ADA at about 10:10am, so it was about 10:20am by the time I made the walk over to city hall. Never in a million years did I expect the Lyin’ King to be there, as I totally expected him to throw one of his sacrificial lambs (Captain Dougan or Lieutenant Bradlee’s) under the oncoming freight train. I can only speculate the Lyin’ King was told he better be there, as the city’s entire case was that it was a right of assignment matter.
Whatever the reason, I was a bit surprised to see old LK sitting at the end of the table, and was also amused to see the only available seat was directly to his left shoulder. I’m sure he was pleased as punch to have me sit down next to him.
At some point, LK was asked about the union (that would be us) having communication with him about this matter. He then launched into a rambling diatribe that the union never wants to have lines of communication, that his office door is always open, and it’s the big, bad union that’s refusing to talk matters through. I felt like Howie Carr sitting behind Billy Bulger during his testimony before Congress, because I couldn’t resist making faces and throwing my hands in the air. I realize it wasn’t professional, but I can only take so much.
It became all the more apparent what the city’s strategy is going to be, now that the gloves have come off concerning the police department when I happened to see the Quincy Sun in a package store today. I ordinarily don’t buy the Sun at a store, since I subscribe at home, but today’s headline jumped out at me, and Henry Bosworth soon had another 30 cents of my hard earned money.
Predictably, the headline reads “Phelan Stands Behind Crowley”. My first impression was, from a tactical standpoint that’s excellent judgment on the mayor’s part, since I’d never turn my back on the Lyin’ King. I’ve learned that lesson, the hard way.
The article goes on to say there’s “no way” Phelan is going to fire LK. Not exactly surprising; I never held any illusion that Phelan was going to fire LK, I merely put it out there to highlight and underscore the breathtaking double standards that always seem to apply to the higher-ups at the Quincy Police Department. I don’t feel like retyping them right now, just scroll down to the Titanic sinking, and read for yourself my reasoning why Robert Crowley has no business being the Quincy Police Chief.
What was a bit surprising was that the Lyin’ King actually poked his head out from his March 1945 bunker to say something other than “no comment”. He’s obviously been coached by city hall to beat the “open communication” drum, because he now says his door is always open to speak with us. Unless, of course, he’s not in the office, during which times his door is more fortified than the gold depository at Fort Knox.
What the Lyin’ King didn’t mention was the fact I have already spoken with Captain Dougan, requesting a meeting with him and my executive board. More on that in a minute.
In the article, LK goes on to resorting to double-speak concerning patrol staffing levels. He tries to say that different shifts require different staffing, as if we have 50 different shifts to cover. We have three patrol shifts; 8am-4pm, 4pm-12am, and 12am-8am. I’ve more than made the case that all of them need full staffing, 24/7. With his nose growing by the second, he went on to say that he would never jeopardize public safety.
Oh, really?
Let me ask you this, O Great Lyin’ King; do you consider one of your officers sent by himself to a felony in progress call because of understaffing a jeopardy to public safety? How about your officers going to domestics alone for the same reason? How about your officers racing across the city with lights & siren to assist another officer in an understaffed area? You don’t think all those police cars exceeding the speed limit and going through red lights (after stopping of course) jeopardizes public safety?
The doozy of them all came when the Lyin’ King said it was “irresponsible” for “anyone” (that would be me) to suggest otherwise.
You know what’s really irresponsible? For the chief of police to blatantly lie to the city council.
You know what’s even more irresponsible? For the chief of police to completely ignore a unanimous, 9-0 mandate from the city council to spend the budget they give him, and properly staff the patrol division. By the way, I can’t WAIT until the next public safety committee meeting, which should be around April 30th.
I’m positively dying to hear what the hell the Lyin’ King is going to say to the councilors he lied to, and whose mandate he ignored. By then, the councilors will have had time to review the documents I submitted to them, and will be able to draw no other conclusions. It will be one for the ages, I promise you that.
Councilor Davis, can I interest you in some paint sealant and fabric protector on that used car?
Another gem of this article was the suggestion by the mayor that this was solely an issue between the union and police management, and the public has nothing to do with it.
I beg to differ, Mister Mayor. Based on the many e-mails I’ve received from Quincy residents, they’re not too happy when their neighborhoods are left unprotected by pulling the police sector car, while the police chief returns nearly 2 million dollars in unspent budgetary money. You just say the word, and I’ll start forwarding them to you.
Anyway, back to the poison pill.
As I mentioned, I spoke to Captain Dougan, and requested a meeting with the chief. I promised the city council I would do that, and unlike the chief of police, I don’t lie to the city council. If nothing else, I’m a man of my word. However, I made it perfectly clear that there would be no meeting without a stenographer present (at our expense) to document everything that’s said. On both sides.
When the phone didn’t ring, I knew it was Captain Dougan.
Now, it’s become obvious that city hall wants to paint us as the unreasonable ones, which is a real corker. What city hall apparently doesn’t realize is that I have no problem calling anyone’s bluff.
By Monday, I will hand-deliver a letter from the QPPOA to Chief Robert Crowley, requesting an open meeting between the QPPOA executive board, him, and whoever else he chooses to be there. We have only 3 conditions, all of them totally reasonable;
1) There WILL be a stenographer present, at our expense. A full transcript will be provided to the chief’s office at no charge, and will also be made available to any QPPOA member. On this, there is no room for debate or negotiation.
2) The chief himself will be present at the meeting. We have no time or desire to exchange pleasantries with his command staff, when they have no authority to make any substantive changes. If the chief isn’t at the meeting, we’re doing an about-face and marching back out the door.
3) No bags of takeout food allowed. If the chief’s office wants to make this a lunch meeting, we’ll have it catered. At our expense.
That’s it, and you can probably guess what the poison pill is. To the Lyin’ King, the thought of a stenographer at a meeting such as that is like showing a cross to a vampire. You see, as long as there is an official transcript of everything that’s said, he can’t play his little games of “I never said that”, or “I didn’t mean it that way”, or “You took that the wrong way”.
With an official transcript, there is no room for “misunderstandings” on either side. Even though we’re going to pay for the stenographer, we’re certainly not going to tell him/her to only record management’s side. In keeping with our transparent nature, everything we say will be recorded, also.
As I intimated before, when the phone don’t ring, I’ll know it’s the Lyin’ King.
Oh, and note to the Lyin’ King; take notice of what’s happening in Methuen. The police chief there is in very hot water for improperly awarding tens of thousands of dollars in overtime, funded by Federal grants, to his superior officers.
Eerily similar to someplace we know, don’t you think?
Sunday March 11, 2007
4:27 AM
Going Down With the Ship - Bruce Tait
“Determination gone crazy is called stubbornness” – Peter McWilliams
In James Cameron’s epic movie “Titanic”, there is a very telling moment after the ship hits the iceberg. The architect of the ship, Thomas Andrews, does an inspection of the damage, and estimates the ship has about 2 hours until it sinks (it actually lasted 2 hours 40 minutes). E.J. Smith, the Titanic’s captain, is visibly stunned at the news, since he knows the mantras of the day, “women and children first” and “the captain should go down with his ship” guaranteed his death.
Captain Smith begins wandering around the ship, almost as if to say goodbye. Eventually, he locks himself in the vacant bridge to await his fate which comes when the frigid ocean water bursts the bridge’s windows.
Well, it’s now apparent that Chief Lyin’ King has locked himself in the bridge, and is going down with the ship. For good measure, he’s giving double upraised middle fingers to the Quincy City Council as his ship starts its final plunge to the ocean floor.
On February 26th 2006, the public safety committee of the council approved a motion by Ward 2 Councilor Daniel Raymondi that the full city council should pass a resolution calling for full staffing of all 13 Quincy Police patrol sectors, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. This passed the committee unanimously, and was sent to the full council. That was a mere formality, as the entire council was present at this meeting, and even the city councilors who aren’t members of the public safety committee went on record to say they were in favor of the motion.
Sure enough, on March 5th the full city council voted on the resolution, and it passed by a unanimous 9-0 vote. You would think that would be a wakeup call to the Lyin’ King, but no. After all, once you blatantly lie to the city council, why should you bother even paying attention to them?
Since March 5th, after the Quincy City Council made it perfectly clear to the Quincy Police Chief that they wanted full police staffing at all times, the Lyin’ King has shortchanged the patrol division at least 3 times;
March 8th 12am-8am shift – 10 cars staffed.
March 9th 12am-8am shift – 11 cars staffed.
March 9th 8am-4pm shift – 12 cars staffed until 12pm, then 11 cars 12pm-4pm.
To put a cherry on top of this situation, during the 12am-8am shift on March 9th, when there were only 11 cars staffed, there were 7 instances of cars being broken into and property stolen, all across the city. Here is a rundown;
133 Commander Shea Boulevard - $455 in property stolen.
925 Hancock Street - $585 in property stolen.
963 Hancock Street - $400 in property stolen.
150 Quarry Street - $520 in property stolen.
290 Quarry Street – Value of property unknown.
135 Quincy Avenue - $2,350 in property stolen.
500 Washington Street - $1,350 in property stolen.
That, ladies & gentlemen, comes to a grand total of….drum roll please…..$5,660 in property stolen from Quincy residents, while the chief of police was defying a mandate from the city council to fully staff the patrol sector cars.
So, if any Quincy City Councilor (especially Jay Davis) needs any further proof that Robert Crowley is not only a liar, but doesn’t give a damn about the city council’s opinion, doesn’t give a damn about the safety & security of Quincy’s residents, and especially doesn’t give a damn about the safety of his patrol officers, there it is. I will be more than happy to provide the council with even more documentary evidence than they already have.
And, note to Councilor Davis…..I didn’t forge these records, anymore than I forged the ones I submitted to the public safety committee on February 28th. Do you still feel like defending Chief Crowley, after he rewarded your loyalty with this absolute disgrace?
What other evidence does Mayor Phelan need? I’ve avoided mentioning the mayor at all in this space, realizing that it’s not easy to undo the massive mistake of appointing someone who’s unfit as a civil service chief of police. However, it’s gotten to the point that Mayor Phelan is being grossly negligent by allowing Robert Crowley to continue as Quincy Police Chief. We told his staff he would be making a huge mistake by appointing Crowley as police chief, and also predicted that he’d cost the city a fortune in lawsuits. We really should check out jobs at the Regina Russell Tea Room, because EVERYTHING we predicted has come true, or is coming true.
Let’s take a look at the Lyin’ King’s track record, and you decide for yourself if he’s fit to be the police chief;
While his patrol force was driving literal death traps to respond to 911 calls, Lyin’ King treats himself to a spankin-new $28,000 Ford Explorer with all the bells and whistles.
He allowed his patrol officers to work for months with a crappy, unreliable radio system and junk portable radios. Only our relentless criticism and a Federal grant solved that problem.
While allowing patrol staffing to fall to dangerous levels, he spent $25,000 for private investigators to follow off-duty officers who were injured on the job. He got positively nothing in return.
He requested, and received, the termination of Officer Tim Kaes for being involved in an off-duty motor vehicle crash. He ordered Kaes’ arrest for drunk driving from his bedroom, without ever seeing or talking to him, ignoring the opinion of everyone on-scene who didn’t think Kaes was drunk. After a clerk-magistrate threw out the criminal charges, he used-up a favor with the district attorney to get the charges reinstated. Kaes was found not guilty on all charges, won his job back through an arbitrator, and is preparing to file a multi-figure lawsuit against the city and Crowley personally. Which he will win.
He requested, and received, the termination of Officer Siobhan O’Connor, who was mistakenly charged with drunk driving. Instead of letting criminal charges play-out, O’Connor was terminated before she was found not guilty of all criminal charges. O’Connor now has a complaint before MCAD, in preparation to a lawsuit in Federal court, which she will win.
When some of his officers were accused of brutality by an Asian activist group known for being troublemakers, without doing any type of investigation himself, he called the FBI to have them investigate his officers for civil rights violations.
He has revoked or suspended the gun permits of his own officers at the drop of a hat, sometimes very publicly disarming them, on the most specious evidence possible, solely to humiliate and embarrass them. At least one other lawsuit, probably two, will result from that.
While the mayor was on vacation, Crowley completely violated a confidentiality agreement agreed to by this union and the city, concerning the discipline of three of our members. He rewarded the mayor’s unflinching loyalty by sticking a shank in his back.
He violated the law by serving on the Quincy College Board of Governors for over a year without filing a full financial disclosure. When we requested the disclosure in a public records request, he resigned immediately. He’s still in violation of the law by not filing the disclosure.
He attempted to bully and harass his patrol officers into fulfilling a totally illegal traffic ticket quota.
He has consistently and constantly understaffed the patrol division, to the point that it jeopardizes the safety of both the public and the patrol officers, while at the same time handing out unheard-of amounts of overtime to lieutenants and captains, for reasons we can’t figure out, as well as returning nearly 2 million dollars in unspent budgetary money in his two fiscal years.
On December 18th 2006, he brazenly lied to the public safety committee of the Quincy City Council on at least a half-dozen subjects of public safety importance.
After I appeared before that same public safety committee on February 26th and received raucous, thundering support when I called for Crowley’s ouster as chief, he could only wait 3 days before he removed the department’s most senior patrol officer, badge #1, Bob Curtis, who was an enthusiastic union supporter, from his assignment as a detective, where he served honorably and with distinction for 22 years. That will result in yet another multi-figure lawsuit, as well as possible investigations by the US Attorney’s Office and the National Labor Relations Board.
After the full Quincy City Council voted unanimously to staff all 13 patrol sectors at all times, Crowley ignored them, understaffing us yet again, which resulted in Quincy residents having thousands and thousands of dollars in property stolen during an understaffed shift.
Enough is enough.
I’m calling on Mayor Phelan to immediately terminate the employment of Robert Crowley as police chief. I know all too well that it takes a hell of a lot less than the above for a patrol officer to be terminated, and it stands to reason that the person in charge of us should be held to an even higher standard.
To the mayor, I say this; I know it’s not in your nature to admit you made a mistake, but I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone with a room temperature IQ that you made a colossal blunder by appointing the Lyin’ King as police chief.
To put things in perspective, Bob Crowley could very well cost you this upcoming election, because we’re not going to stop. We’re going to keep hammering away at both him, and also your refusal to do anything about his out-of-control behavior, until he’s gone. His defiance of the city council’s mandate was the last straw….whatever hope anyone had of opening “lines of communication” were given two-in-the-hat when he allowed us to work shorthanded after the city council told him to spend his budget, and cover the shifts.
This isn’t some type of game we’re playing….we play for keeps on the street, we want to go home to our families at the end of our shifts, and the police chief YOU appointed is doing everything he can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
I usually prefer Diet Pepsi, but I think I’ll have myself a Diet Coke before I hit the rack.
Thursday March 8, 2007
2:31 AM
South Street Story - Bruce Tait
“The Internet interprets censorship as damage…..and routes around it” – John Gilmore
After my apparently controversial appearance before the public safety committee of the Quincy City Council, both the chief’s office and the mayor’s office have some very uncomfortable questions to answer. In Chief Lyin’ King’s case, I’m sure the councilors will want to know why he lied to them about several very important public safety concerns. In the mayor’s case, I’m sure the public will want to know what type of discipline will be meted out to the chief of police for lying to the city council.
My vote is “none at all”.
In any event, the Lyin’ King was conspicuously absent from the February 26th meeting, even though he was invited to attend. Predictably, he had no comment on my total evisceration of his lies, and Captain Dougan told the Quincy Sun there would be no comment from old LK. Not exactly surprising.
A double “no comment” would have been a little too obvious, so the mayor’s flack dragged out the old, tired carcass of Quincy supposedly being the second safest city in the state. This fairy tale is the result of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, which gathers statistical data from law enforcement agencies from all over the country. However, take a stab at where the FBI gets the statistical data for the Quincy Police Department?
Why….from the Quincy Police Department itself, of course!
Needless to say, statistics can and have been altered in the past. For example, the MBTA Police got into hot water a few years back when their UCR numbers showed no homicides on the MBTA system, even though there was more than one very high-profile murder on T property that year. You see, by law every homicide in Massachusetts has to be investigated by the relevant district attorney’s office. What the brass at the MBTA Police were doing was changing the reporting code of murders to “assist other agency”, since it was the DA’s office who actually headed the investigation.
This isn’t really hard to do. Armed robberies can morph into simple larcenies, since an armed robbery is technically a larceny, although certainly not all larcenies are armed robberies. An assault & battery with a dangerous weapon can be changed to a disorder with a few keystrokes. Under the most liberal definition imaginable, I suppose someone cracking your head open with a baseball bat would qualify as a disorder.
So….that’s how the FBI can have the wool pulled over its eyes. How is the public lulled into a false sense of security? By simply blocking all media coverage of unflattering events, when at all possible.
For example, on March 1st at about 11:20pm, the Quincy Police Department received several 911 calls concerning a stabbing in the 200 block of South Street. Officers arriving on scene found a chaotic situation….there was a huge fight between kids from Quincy Point and Germantown, which had been brewing for months. This was a continuation of another fight from November 2006 in the parking lot of CVS on Southern Artery, involving bats and crowbars;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/11/27/news/news02.txt
The only reason The Party wasn’t able to suppress the November incident was because two of the least-armed combatants jumped into the Town River to escape their attackers. One was pulled out of the waist-deep water by firefighters, while the other one was unaccounted for until later in the night. He had escaped to the opposite shore, but since no one knew that, there was an intense search operation by Quincy Police, Quincy Fire, Massachusetts State Police (including a helicopter from the Air Wing), and the Coast Guard. Even the Crowley bumkissers on the Patriot Ledger editorial staff couldn’t put a spin on that one, as satellite trucks from every Boston media outlet were there.
Anyway….back to South Street Story. When officers arrived to the scene of this melee, they found one person lying unconscious in the street, suffering from major head trauma after being beaten almost to death by a 4-inch diameter tree branch, which was discarded nearby, covered in blood. Another person was suffering from a major laceration to his face….it looked like someone had installed a zipper in his face, and his fly was down. The suspect who allegedly stabbed/slashed the guy’s face was arrested last night, while we’re still searching for the suspect who did the fandango on the other guy’s noggin.
This was a very serious incident. The paramedics who responded weren’t even sure if head trauma guy was going to make it to the hospital, and he’s still in a coma, although he was recently upgraded from “critical” to “serious”. Most likely, there will be some sort of brain damage. Zipper face is facing extensive plastic surgery, and will probably look like the old G.I. Joe action figure for the rest of his life.
I’m sure that 99% of you are shocked to hear about this. The simple reason being, there was positively no coverage of it in the Patriot Ledger, or anywhere else that I know of.
Why?
I can only speculate. It’s apparent to anyone who reads the Ledger that they have been exceedingly kind to the Lyin’ King over the years, to the point that it borders on the type of perverse loyalty often seen in abusive domestic relationships. I’ve noticed that starting to change recently, as I suspect the PTB on Crown Colony Drive are figuring out they hitched their cart to the wrong horse.
I’m not suggesting that anyone at the Ledger is deliberately suppressing newsworthy stories. For all I know, the daily press journal reviewed by the Ledger has been fudged. But, I find it very curious indeed that within a few days of South Street Story, there was another attempted murder in Braintree, which received the appropriate coverage;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/03/05/news/news12.txt
I don’t know Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier at all, but he’s certainly not afraid to let the residents of Braintree know…..yes, Virginia, there is crime in your town. He recently requested funding for 14 additional new officers, citing the explosive drug problem taxing the resources of his department;
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/02/10/news/news08.txt
Of course, if you listen to Chief Lyin’ King, you’d have the impression that Quincy is a self-contained Biosphere, immune to the problems of other cities and towns. The fact is, the drug problem in Quincy is beyond out-of-control. The Quincy PD Drug Control Unit shattered all previous records for arrests last year, making nearly three hundred in 2006, and that’s strictly the drug unit, not counting drug arrests made by other members of the department.
Unfortunately, that’s like shoveling sand against the tide. When the police chief refuses to expand the number of detectives assigned to the drug unit, and makes them all work the same hours, what other results should one expect? The drug unit needs to be at least doubled in size to have any appreciable effect, in my opinion.
Chief Frazier gets it. Chief Lyin’ King does not.
Of course, the average Quincy resident knows nothing about this, because seeing a story in the Ledger concerning any of the great arrests made by the drug unit is about as rare as a white tiger. The Lyin’ King is so obsessed with preserving the myth that we’re the second safest city in the state, all news of significant crime is suppressed.
So, while we have incidents like South Street Story, where people are being literally beaten almost to death and carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey, Chief Lyin’ King has returned 1.8 million dollars in unspent budgetary money since he’s been police chief, and by some accounts is on pace to return 2.2 million dollars at the end of this fiscal year.
To the residents of Quincy, I say this; PLEASE don’t base your opinion of public safety in Quincy on what you read in the Patriot Ledger, and especially not on the “Hot Spots” column in the Quincy Sun, since that’s more sanitized than a surgical instrument. If you live in Quincy, tune-in to Channel 10 on your cable box to hear a live broadcast of our main dispatch channel. Listen for a week, and make note of any serious incidents you hear. Then, see if they appear anywhere in the media the next day. Don’t be shocked if they don’t.
More importantly, write the mayor and your city councilors, and express your feelings concerning the inadequate police coverage in your city;
http://ci.quincy.ma.us:80/officials.asp
The next 911 call that gets delayed service because of understaffing could be yours.
NOTE: I'll be appearing on Don Kusser's Quincy Access Television show, "The Constitution, Then & Now" on March 14th at 10:30pm. We'll be discussing the recent public safety committee meeting, as well as the general condition of the Quincy Police Department. Be sure to tune-in or set your DVR's.
Monday March 5, 2007
8:55 PM
Manna from Heaven - Bruce Tait
“Mix a little foolishness with your prudence. It’s good to be silly at the right moment” – Horace (65 BC – 8 BC)
At the right time.
For being a trash website that no one reads, we certainly have our share of fans. We have operatives literally all over the world, and I never know when one will come through for us. Today was one of those days, as I had a real gem waiting in my Inbox.
Not content with running the Quincy Police Department into the ground, it seems like Chief Lyin’ King has a lot of free time on his hands these days. I suppose that goes without saying, since he doesn’t lift a finger to help the patrol officers, which make up the majority of the department.
For example, the Lyin’ King has found the time to circulate a chain letter on behalf of the Make-A-Wish Foundation for a child dying of cancer. You can see this for yourself by clicking our Media Gallery, then “Assorted Foolishness”.
Go take a peek, I’ll wait for you.
Back already? It certainly seems like a magnanimous gesture, especially from someone who seems only concerned with himself. There’s but one big problem.
The whole thing is a total scam.
You should know better by now than to question anything written here, but I won’t take offense if you doubt me. Check the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s website for yourself;
http://www.wish.org/about/chain_letters
To make matters even worse, stuffed inside the same envelope were letters from 20 other clueless chiefs who fell for the same thing. The entire package cost the Quincy taxpayers $1.35 to mail.
Now, you may be thinking, “Oh, his heart was in the right place”. Well, I have the opinion that if you’re going to use the department’s letterhead, envelopes, and postage meter for non-departmental business, a little due diligence should be exercised. The second I saw the letter, I said “Oh, that’s the greeting/business card scam”. It’s been around for years.
For someone to be that gullible…..if I wasn’t such an honest person, I would have put a classified ad with the Lyin’ King’s e-mail address in a Nairobi newspaper, entitled “Wealthy American seeks interesting business propositions”. His bank accounts would be cleaned out and his credit cards maxed out in about 24 hours by someone posing as a member of the Kenyan Royal Family.
Of course, the real question should be…..what the hell is he doing at work? The Quincy Police Department is literally coming apart at the seams, and his plan of action seems to be lying to the city council, and forwarding fake chain letters. The only thing that’s missing is the threat that disease and pestilence will strike you down if you break the chain.
Since I know the Lyin’ King won't take the steps requested by the Make-A-Wish Foundation when you realize you’ve been scammed by this, I’ll take care of it. I’m going to contact all the departments that were included in LK’s $1.35 package, and also make a generous donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, explaining that our chief had perpetuated the Shergold/Shepard scam, how embarrassed we are by it, and the enclosed was to defray personnel costs from handling the deluge of greeting & business cards.
You may be wondering, and I know the Lyin’ King is probably flabbergasted, how we managed to come across this. That’s an excellent question.
Peter Curley, the QPPOA Treasurer, likes to say “God is on our side”. It’s things like this that make me agree with him. Of the thousands and thousands of law enforcement agencies in the United States, Chief Lyin’ King only had to forward the fake chain letter to 20 other departments. Guess which was one of them?
The Fryeburg, Maine Police Department where my brother, Ian Tait, is employed as a patrol officer.
A little divine intervention is always nice.
Saturday March 3, 2007
11:50 PM
Fragile Egos - Bruce Tait
“Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position fails, your ego goes with it” – Colin Powell
There was a movie made in 1983 called “The Lords of Discipline”, starring David Keith. It was set in the 1960’s at a southern military academy, surely modeled on The Citadel, where the academy’s first black student is set to enter the Corps of Cadets. A shadowy, cloak & dagger group who call themselves “The Ten” is determined to convince him to “resign” under torture and threat of death. David Keith’s character Will and his roommates uncover The Ten, but unfortunately couldn’t conclusively prove anything. Even more unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent The Ten have the full support of the academy’s leadership.
Shortly afterwards, Will and his roomies started collecting demerits at an alarming rate, on pace for expulsion from the academy, and for the most petty, minor reasons imaginable. They’re discussing the situation and comparing demerit counts when one of the roommates says “Well, at least we know how they’re going to do it”.
When I started my jihad against Chief Lyin’ King, I fully expected there would be consequences, and I naturally figured they would be against me. That’s why I very, very rarely take a sick day, I try to be early for roll call, never leave a minute before midnight, and conduct my personal & professional lives above reproach. I figured, if I gave them the chance, the Lyin’ King’s coatholders would write me up for not having my hat, not shining my gunbelt, or some other petty reason.
Much to my surprise, the opposite happened. It seems as though no one on the command staff wants to touch me with a bargepole, which is fine with me, but given the egos of these people are about as fragile as a Christmas tree ornament, I knew something was going to give sooner or later.
Now, it has.
When I first started with the Quincy PD in 1994, I had come from the Boston Housing Authority Police, which was another agency in turmoil at the time. I was the vice-president of their patrol officer’s union, and we had just gotten rid of the police superintendent, who was a real prize. He and the Lyin’ King would have gotten along famously. We had voted “no confidence” in both him and the chief of police, and eventually succeeded in ridding ourselves of both. Little did I know, that was a dry-run for December 2005.
Anyway, when I first got to the QPD, I was a bit surprised to see how non-confrontational the QPPOA was. I eventually figured it out; with reasonable leaders like Mayor Sheets and Chief Mullen at the helm, we simply didn’t need to be aggressive. About the only bad thing I can say about Chief Mullen is that he once forgot my name. Considering I was working that god-awful first/last shift rotation back then, and therefore rarely saw him, I have to give the chief a mulligan on that one.
One negative side effect of this attitude was that as a patrol officer, you had to tip-toe around the command staff, and if you did get screwed over, you usually had to suffer in silence because the mantra back then was to not make waves.
One of the more amusing things of my tenure as union president is how said command staff has reacted to my take-no-prisoners approach. The silver-badged proletariat simply did not act in this fashion. For years, it was assumed that once you pinned the gold, you were above petty things like being held accountable for your actions.
Now, a couple of people have suggested that I’m not being fair when I name members of the command staff here. From day one of my presidency, I’ve been consistent about thing;
Within the Quincy Police Department, the target is the Lyin’ King, and no one else. We have a very clear gun-to-target line, and I’m very proud of our accuracy.
However, if someone walks into the impact area by doing his bidding, defending him, carrying his water, or generally interfering with our operations, they shouldn’t be surprised if they end-up full of shrapnel. Someone just learned that lesson, the hard way.
At any rate, it seems like the last straw was my appearance before the public safety committee of the city council. The Lyin’ King and his servile minions know they can’t refute what I said, so they’ve decided to play a very, very dangerous game by punishing people for supporting the union.
Ladies and gentlemen: Meet soon-to-be former Detective Bob Curtis.
One misleading thing about the name of the QPPOA is that we also represent the detectives of the department. Well, it’s not actually misleading, because we don’t officially have detectives. Unlike the Boston PD where detective is a civil service rank, we have patrol officers who are assigned to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI). They serve at the pleasure of the chief.
I bet you’re starting to get an inkling of where I’m headed with this.
Bob Curtis has been, without question, one of the strongest supporters of the QPPOA since we took on Chief Lyin’ King. He also has the distinction of being badge #1, which means he’s the most senior patrol officer on the Quincy Police Department, having been appointed in 1971 when I was 6 years old, and made a detective in 1985. Bob was also one of the more enthusiastic union members at city hall on February 26th.
Now I bet you REALLY know where this story is headed.
Within about 96 hours after the city council meeting, Bob was called into the office of Captain Tony DiBona, the head of BCI, and told his presence in BCI was no longer desired. The reasons given was that he’s “too volatile”, and that no one wants to work with him.
Now, I’ve known Bob Curtis for almost 13 years, and while he can be an emotional guy, he is now the exact same Bob Curtis I met back in 1994, just with a bad hairdo (sorry Bob, I couldn’t resist).
Apparently, it’s taken the PTB twenty-two years to discover his volatility.
As for no one wanting to work with him…even if that’s true, which I highly doubt, as he can ride shotgun with me anytime, it’s a total smokescreen. There are only 3 regular BCI detectives (not SIU or the drug unit) assigned to the 4pm-Midnight shift (which is a disgrace in and of itself), which means there are only 2 detectives scheduled on any given night. There are plenty of unmarked cruisers available, so even if Bob and the other detective hated each other, they wouldn’t have to ride together.
From what I’ve heard, Captain DiBona said this decision was “the hardest” he’s ever had to make. However, he also let it slip out that Chief Lyin’ King wanted Bob out of BCI, and that’s LK’s ultimate decision to make. No one else’s.
The whole reasoning behind this should be as transparent as a paneless window. Punish badge #1 for supporting the union, and those who have badge numbers in the 130’s, 140’s and 150’s will fall in line.
The major flaw in that theory is that the 130’s, 140’s and 150’s have been among the strongest union people, and now that they’re off probation, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot the Lyin’ King can do to them. They don’t serve at the pleasure of the chief.
So…..the latest shot across our bow is the obviously retaliatory action of removing a detective with 22 years experience in BCI, when he has 2 years left until retirement. The most ironic thing of all is that they actually think that they’re punishing him. Bob has never been afraid to put on the uniform and mix it up out on the street, and it will be great having him join us in patrol.
However….shame on the command staff, once again, for doing the Lyin’ King’s bidding. It’s not something we’ll soon forget, I promise you that.
Instead of being a downer, I sincerely hope the hatchet job done to Bob Curtis becomes a rallying cry for the QPPOA. If they’ll do it to badge #1, they’ll do it to anyone. We can sit back and take it, or we can open up the football and start entering the nuclear launch codes.
I think everyone knows my preferred course of action by now.
What’s even more disturbing than Bob’s sacking are the unconfirmed reports we’ve received, concerning someone who is VERY highly placed in city government, bullying and intimidating QPPOA members because they came to city hall to support the union. This person certainly knows better, and surely knows the Federal government takes a very dim view of public employees being harassed for union activity.
I fully expect that’s the last time I’ll have to make mention of that.
Wednesday February 28, 2007
3:32 AM
Opening Lines of Communication - Bruce Tait
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said” – Peter Drucker (1909 – 2005)
Well, I finally had my time in front of the public safety committee of the city council last night. For those of you who weren’t there or didn’t see it on cable TV, you missed a real humdinger. One for the ages. Apparently, my appearance was also greatly anticipated by the councilors themselves, since four councilors who aren’t even on the public safety committee came and sat through the police section of the meeting anyway.
And, let me tell you, sitting through that marathon was an accomplishment. I know this because I was standing at the podium for almost 2 hours and 45 minutes. The meeting was chaired by the chairman of the public safety committee, Councilor Jay Davis of Ward 4, who quickly made it clear he fancied himself the mayor’s Luca Brasi.
I was somewhat amused, watching Councilor Davis trying in vain to either land a knockout blow, or bait me into losing my cool. He attempted every tired old lawyer trick in the book, as if I haven’t seen them all after nearly 20 years as a police officer. I kept expecting him to file a Writ of Mandamus, or whatever it is lawyers do when things don’t go their way.
At one point, he asked me if I had seen the city budget for 2006. Unlike Chief Lyin’ King, when asked a question, especially by a city councilor, I tell the truth. If I don’t know the answer, I say I don’t know, I don’t make something up or just outright lie. I said no, I hadn’t seen the budget. Councilor Davis then started counting backwards;
“How about 2005?”
“How about 2004?”
“How about 2003?”
That’s right out of Defense Lawyering 101; throw a bunch of B.S. out there, and hope something sticks. For example, a defense lawyer might ask a police officer in a drunk driving case, “Officer did you take pictures of the interior of my client’s car?” When the officer says no, the lawyer will turn to the jury with a look of absolute shock and horror;
“YOU DIDN’T TAKE PICTURES????”
Never mind that taking pictures of the inside of a drunk driving suspect’s car is hardly ever done, or that any pictures would show just the interior of the car….that tactic is meant to plant the seed in the minds of the jurors that the officer doesn’t know what he’s doing.
So, guess what? I haven’t seen the city’s budget for those years, for one very simple reason.
That’s not my job.
I have seen the one part of the budget that matters most to me; 1.8 MILLION dollars returned by Chief Lyin’ King in his two years as chief, while we’re frequently dangerously understaffed, and 20+ of our members are wearing used, hand-me-down Kevlar vests one full year after graduating the police academy.
I think that pretty much speaks for itself.
Anyway, one common theme among the city councilors present was that there is a serious problem within the Quincy Police Department, and there needs to be lines of communication among the patrol officers’ union, the superior officers’ union, and the chief’s office. I tried to explain to them there was no reasoning with Chief Lyin’ King, as we had tried that approach twice with him already, and got the olive branch we extended shoved up our backsides both times for our troubles.
However, I could see the councilors weren’t buying that, and for a very simple reason. They’re reasonable people, and don’t want to believe the chief of police for their city could be so unreasonable. I think it became pretty clear when one councilor suggested a “truce” between us and Chief Lyin’ King.
Before I even had the chance to respond, the city council chambers were filled with the snickers and catcalls of the almost 70 uniformed police officers sitting behind me. After hearing that, and seeing the extended standing ovation I got when I stated we needed a new police chief, I would have thought the message was clear that it would be a waste of time, but the councilors were resolute.
Fair enough. I’m a reasonable person, in spite of what some people inside 1 Sea Street seem to think. I said it during the committee meeting, knowing full well that everything was being taped by Quincy Access Television, and I’ll say it here again, for the record.
I and my executive board will meet with Chief Lyin’ King, anytime he so chooses.
However, as I said during the meeting, there will be no further meetings between us and the Lyin’ King without a stenographer present, paid for by us. We’ve learned our lesson, the hard way, that we can’t believe a word he says, and we demand a word-for-word transcript to avoid any “misunderstandings”.
One of the more humorous events of the night occurred when I said that. Councilor Davis reacted as you would act when your drunk 5’6” friend offers to fight the 6’8” guy who has muscles in his face….he had a somewhat amused, panicked tone to his voice as he told me we really didn’t need a stenographer.
My question is;
Why does a Quincy City Councilor care if we have a stenographer present at a meeting between the patrol officers’ union and the chief of police? We’re going to pay for it, and the stenographer won’t just be documenting one side….everything that I or my fellow executive board members say will also go on the official transcript.
We have nothing to hide…..why does Councilor Davis care about this so much, and what does the chief have to hide if he refuses to meet with a stenographer present?
My vote for the absurd moment of the meeting;
At one point David Murphy, the mayor’s flack, raised the point that Councilor Raymondi (our strongest supporter at the meeting) last year voted to cut $195,000 from the police department budget.
Even if the $195,000 was left intact, that would just mean that Chief Lyin’ King would have returned $1.995 MILLION dollars instead of 1.8 MILLION dollars in unspent budgetary money to the city treasury.
Does that really matter, in the grand scheme of things?
Anyway, one of the documents supplied to me last night by the committee was The Party’s official rebuttal to my blog entry concerning the shameful delay in getting new Kevlar vests for the last QPD recruit class. This rebuttal was penned by Lieutenant Charles Santoro, who is charge of the QPD Training Division. I had already seen this document….it was taped to Lieutenant Santoro’s office door, which is right next to the roll call room. It wasn’t there long….from what I’ve heard, it was soon covered in uncomplimentary graffiti, and subsequently torn down.
Ordinarily, I let these somewhat amusing rebuttals slide, as they speak for themselves, and they never leave 1 Sea Street. For example, Lieutenant Bradlee’s put out a rebuttal after I called him a “servile minion” to Chief Lyin’ King that was a keeper. He declared himself a black Irish suffragette (if you saw it, you’d understand) because of what I said on this website, and it was one of the most unintentionally funny things I’ve ever read in my life. I still have a copy, and when the mood strikes me, I shall share it with you.
However, instead of being satisfied with taping his train wreck to his office door, it seems that Lieutenant Santoro found it necessary to supply copies of his rebuttal to the public safety committee, so one good turn deserves another. In the spirit of the new lines of communication, here is The Party’s rebuttal, with my counter rebuttal;
“It has come to my attention that in-correct information pertaining to the Bulletproof Vest Program has surfaced. Due to the fact that much information has been overlooked I feel obligated to set the record straight”.
1) “In-correct” isn’t a word. It’s “incorrect”.
2) There is no such thing as a “bulletproof” vest.
3) Let’s look at the facts;
Are the officers of the last recruit class wearing used, hand-me-down Kevlar vests of unknown source or vintage?
Yes.
Have those officers been out of the police academy for a full year?
Yes.
Was there an unpaid bill of between $10,000 and $20,000 that was holding-up the new officers being supplied with new vests?
Yes.
Did Chief Lyin’ King return 1.8 MILLION dollars in unspent budgetary money in the last two fiscal years while this bill went unpaid?
Yes.
What is it about that information that is either incorrect or in-correct?
“In 2003 the Quincy Police Department conducted a Bulletproof Vest Replacement Program for all defective vests”.
That’s true, because I had one of the defective vests. For those who don’t know, there were instances of police officers being shot by calibers that should have been defeated by the vests they were wearing, but the then-new fabric that was designed to replace Kevlar, called Zylon, degraded much quicker over time than expected, so bullets went right through it.
My question is….are we supposed to be grateful to the Quincy Police Department for replacing body armor that didn’t work??
“In June 2006 the Training Division as a safety precaution wanted to make sure all officers had complied with the 2003 directive”.
Wow….that must have been high on the priority list….they decided to check after 3 years. I’m under whelmed.
“A memo was sent to all officers on June 21, 2006 and read at roll calls requesting that officers check their vests to make sure the word ULTIMA did not appear on the vest. If it did they were told to contact the Training Division because the vest was defective and needed to be changed. No one contacted the Training Division”.
Lieutenant Santoro must be taking lessons in memory retention from Chief Lyin’ King, because that simply isn’t true. Officer Joe Paccioretti contacted the Training Division, because he was serving with the military in Iraq when the defective vests were replaced. As for why no one else contacted the Training Division, how about this;
Maybe no one else still had an Ultima vest?
“In 2006 the Training Division applied for federal funding to purchase 28 vests for new police recruits. To ensure that the department purchased the safest and most effective vest, the Training Division attempted to put together a team of individuals who would work with bulletproof vest manufacturers in hopes of purchasing a top of the line vest”.
Are you serious?
Newsflash for the Training Division…..ALL soft body armor sold in the United States has to conform to the standards set by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). The only differences between different vests are the carrier system, and the protection level. The protection level shows what calibers the vest will stop, for example from lowest to highest; IIA, II, IIIA, III, and IV.
It doesn’t matter if the vest comes from Cadillac Soft Body Armor or Joe’s Fly-By-Night Vests….if the vest has a NIJ rating, the ballistic capabilities are the same. That leaves the carrier system as the only real difference. How about Lieutenant Santoro makes some phone calls;
“Hi, Boston Police? Quincy Police here. What vests do your officers wear? How do they like them?”
“Hi, Massachusetts State Police? Quincy Police here. What vests do your troopers wear? How do they like them?”
A “team of individuals?” Are you kidding me? Talk about a smokescreen.
“On January 15, 2005 a roll call memo requesting that assistance was issued and one response was received from a Patrol Officer E Board Member”.
The way I remember it, I asked my secretary, Steve O’Donoghue, to take the lead on this. I believe my statement to him was, “If we don’t get involved with this, it will never get done”.
“Soon after, manufacturing representatives were contacted and on two occasions they came to the station and demonstrated their products. Two companies agreed to let us evaluate their product in the field. It was at that time, 1 street supervisor, 1 male officer, and one female officer were selected and measured. When their vests arrive, they will wear them in the field and let us know their findings”.
During that time of fitting and field testing, if one of the officers wearing a used hand-me-down vest is killed because bullets go through the degraded Kevlar vest he’s wearing, I’m sure it will be great comfort to his family that the problem was being “worked on”.
“Only through researching and sharing knowledge can we hope to ensure that we purchase only the very best for our officers. Apparently, there are those who would rather ‘ROLL THE DICE’ and take a chance on any vest company that may come our way”.
What a load of unmitigated bullshit.
As I mentioned before, ALL soft body armor sold in the United States has the same protective capabilities as outlined by the NIJ.
You know what’s really a “ROLL OF THE DICE?”
Allowing police officers to work for over a year on the street wearing used, hand-me-down body armor, while The Party makes all sorts of excuses as to why nothing has been done.
Here’s an idea; instead of donning his white uniform shirt to get his picture in the Quincy Sun, or painting his office, or writing “Old Cops Know Stuff”, perhaps Lieutenant Santoro should concentrate on getting soft body armor for the last recruit class, like…….NOW!!!!!!!!!
“It’s unfortunate that people who don’t take the time to see what’s going on behind the scene. I urge those who would rather stir up controversy to act responsibly and lend a helping hand”.
Questions;
1) Is it not responsible for the union president to raise holy hell when his members have worked the street for a year with used, hand-me-down body armor?
2) Within three days of me highlighting this issue on the union’s “trash” website that no one supposedly reads, the unpaid bill to the vest vendor was paid. Why was I able to accomplish in three days what Lieutenant Santoro was unable to do in a full year?
Note to Lieutenant Santoro….in addition to my pesky 40+ hour a week gig shagging 911 calls in a black & white, I also have another full-time job as union president, and yet another full-time job being daddy to my pre-school twins.
I don’t have the time to do your job also. I got the bill paid to the vest vendor, which was your responsibility that you blew-off for a year. If it’s not too much trouble, could you possibly now get the new officers fitted for their vests?
Pretty please….with sugar on top?
“In closing, in the face of any unwarranted assumptions, the Training Division remains sympathetic to any equipment needs. I do however, find it disturbing that after a roll call memo dated January 25, 2007, in which I requested officers record their vest expiration date so I could order them a new vest, only 37 officers have complied”.
Here’s a thought;
Perhaps after seeing the new officers being dicked around for over a year with no action whatsoever, we decided to not bother, thinking we’ll probably be collecting our pensions by the time we actually get fitted for new vests?
Bizzaro World, anyone?
Sunday February 18, 2007
8:29 PM
Here kid, wear this...... - Bruce Tait
“As if there were safety in stupidity alone” – Henry David Thoreau
In terms of safety for police officers, the number one development over the last 30 years, hands down, has been soft body armor. This is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a “bulletproof vest”, because very few things in life are truly bulletproof. Nothing short of the armor plate on the USS Salem is going to stop every weapon that we as police officers might have to face someday on the street, but modern body armor will defeat a large number of handgun and shotgun rounds, giving the officer at least a chance to seek cover and return fire.
To give you an idea of how effective soft body armor has been, let’s look back in time a bit. In 1976, when soft body armor was in its infancy and few officers wore it, there were 105 law enforcement officers killed by gunfire in the United States. Fast forward thirty years to 2006, and the number dropped to 46 officers killed by gunfire. Of course, that’s still 46 too many, but the drop-off is somewhat remarkable, especially when you consider that as of 2006, there were 3,000 documented cases of law enforcement officers who escaped death or serious injury as the result of wearing soft body armor.
In Massachusetts, there is a program in place to supply every police officer with soft body armor. Under the program, the state pays half the cost, and the agency pays the other half. When I was appointed to the Quincy Police Department, I was immediately fitted for a new vest (they are custom tailored), and had it issued within a few weeks. I wear my vest every time I’m on-duty, even during the summer, because I’d rather sweat a little than bleed a lot.
Of course, like just about everything, soft body armor has a set shelf life. The Kevlar fabric degrades over time, and the recommended service life for a Kevlar vest is 5 years. The absolute maximum life is 10 years, but it’s strongly recommended to replace them after 5 years.
Are you starting to get a hint of where this story is headed?
The last recruit class hired by the Quincy Police Department has been out of the academy for just about a year (probation was a piece of cake, right guys?). During the police academy, recruit officers have to wear soft body armor during weapons qualifications because, let’s face it, sometimes s*** happens. These new officers weren’t yet fitted for their new vests, so they were given hand-me-down vests that were lying around the station. No one seems to know where these vests came from or who they belonged to, but I have my suspicions.
Back in 1994, when I was first appointed to the QPD, I was involved in a program called “Partners in Safety”, which shipped used vests donated by US police officers over to the United Kingdom. At that time, UK police officers were not issued any sort of body armor, and as we all know, most UK officers do not carry firearms. This program grew from an alarming number of UK officers being shot while on-duty, and the general consensus was that even a 5 year-old vest was better than nothing at all, since the UK government was adamant about not issuing vests. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details. If you really want to read about it, check out this link;
http://www.ukpolice.org/vest/
Anyway, during that time I received permission from then-Chief Francis Mullen to store used vests at the police station until I could arrange shipment out of Logan Airport. I simply didn’t have room at home, since at the time I was living in my 1-bedroom swingin’ bachelor pad apartment on Everett Street. When the Partners in Safety program shut down in 1997 after the UK government started issuing vests, I still had a bunch of used vests at the station that now had nowhere to go. Not knowing what else to do, I gave the training division permission to use them for whatever they wanted…..range demonstrations, ballistic testing, you name it.
Now, think about it….where else would the Quincy Police Department find 20+ used vests sitting around the station to give to the recruit officers? I certainly can’t prove it, but I highly suspect that those vests were left over from the Partners in Safety project. They were at least 5 years old when I received them in 1997, which made them about 15 years old when they were issued to the recruit officers. That didn’t particularly concern me, as the chances of being shot at a police training range are probably around the same odds as being hit by lightning.
Certainly, you’re thinking to yourself, once these officers graduated the police academy, they were issued new body armor?
Do I really need to dignify that with a response?
Of course not. They’ve been wearing their hand-me-down vests, which are very likely 15+ years old, and therefore unreliable. What is the reason these officers have not been issued new, reliable body armor?
Well, the approved vendor for the state program to buy vests for police officers is still owed a boatload of money by the Quincy Police Department. The actual figure depends on who you talk to, but by all accounts it’s over $10,000. You see, the QPD is much like those unscrupulous contractors you see being hounded by Mike Beaudet on Fox 25 investigative reports…the ones who take the deposit, harass the customers for the rest of the money, and then stop work on the project. In the case of the QPD, they take the goods and/or services of the vendors, and then they’ll pay them when they’re good and ready. If ever.
To give you an example of how bad this problem is, I once went to this exact vendor (it’s a police supply store) to buy some new uniform shirts. After being fitted, the clerk asked me what department I was with, so they could sew the appropriate patch on the shirts. When I said “Quincy PD”, the clerk instantly stiffened-up, and said “You don’t have a purchase order, do you”? When I said no, I was paying cash, he was visibly relieved. “We don’t take purchase orders from Quincy; they never pay us” he said.
So….because the vendor was stiffed, yet again, by the Quincy Police Department, new vests for the new officers can’t be ordered. They can’t even be fitted, and I don’t blame the vendor one bit. If you provide goods or services, you deserve to paid for them. I’m speculating here, but I believe the outstanding bill that’s owed this vendor is from the last time that vests for Quincy PD Officers were ordered. As Yogi Berra once said, it’s déjà vu all over again.
Keep in mind that while the stumbling block to getting these new vests is an unpaid bill of about $10,000 to $20,000, Chief Lyin’ King has returned 1.8 MILLION dollars to the city treasury in the last two fiscal years.
Could it be any clearer that he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about us??
Of course, we’ve been paid the usual lip service that the problem is being “worked on”. Well, you know what? That’s completely unacceptable. We have police officers coming to work wearing vests that could very well be 15+ years old, and therefore totally unreliable. Every day that goes by where officers are wearing these suspect vests is a tragedy waiting to happen.
As I’ve mentioned many times before, Quincy is not Mayberry. “Gun calls”, which were somewhat rare when I started in 1994, are not nearly so rare anymore. Just ask the poor guy on Rogers Street who got shot the other night.
God forbid, but what exactly would the official response be from the honchos if a Quincy Police Officer wearing one of these hand-me-downs was shot and killed, because the bullets went right through the degraded Kevlar fabric?
I’ll tell you what it would be…..they’d line the stairs at the church, shedding crocodile tears, and then make all sorts of public proclamations about the heroism of the officer.
You know what? Save it.
Actions speak louder than words. These officers and their families deserve better than to have to rely on vests that were likely manufactured when some of them were in grade school. They’ve been out of the academy for a freakin’ YEAR!! No more excuses!!!
Next month marks the 19th anniversary of my becoming a police officer. I’ve been to way too many police funerals in that time…..I don’t want to attend another for one of my fellow officers.
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