Sunday March 12, 2006 3:16 AM

Mailbag - Bruce Tait

Well, it seems like this column has created some pretty strong opinions across the city. Let’s open the mailbag, and I’ll answer some of the questions all of you have sent via the “Contact Us” feature of the website. Since we’ve received many duplicate questions, I’ll paraphrase some of them;

Q: Is your chief really that crazy?

A: I never said he was crazy. If you think he’s crazy, that’s your inference, not mine.

Q: Is your chief really that out-of-touch?

A: On November 15, 2005, an individual walked into the Citizen’s Bank at 1200 Hancock Street, and passed a note demanding all the money, telling the teller he had a bomb in the bag he was carrying. After getting a quantity of money, this person left the bag, which everyone believed contained a bomb, on a chair in the bank and walked out.

Needless to say, this created quite a problem. The bank had to be evacuated, and a large section of Quincy Center shut-down. This whole incident started around 3pm, so a big chunk of Quincy Center near the MBTA station was blocked-off during rush hour. You can imagine how chaotic this was. When I reported to work at 4pm, I didn’t even make it to roll call, the desk sergeant told me to find a spare cruiser (quite a task, as you can imagine) and get up to Quincy Center.

So….now traffic around Quincy Center is complete gridlock, the Boston Police Bomb Squad is on-scene to remove the “bomb”, the state police air wing has a helicopter orbiting the Citizen’s Bank, and every news organization in greater Boston is swarming the general area. I can’t put into words how chaotic the scene was. Here is the Patriot Ledger’s take on it;

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2005/11/16/news/news05.txt

Around 4:45pm or so, I was with another officer and a sergeant, discussing possible ways to better divert traffic from the closed-off area, when something came over the radio that I couldn’t believe. “Sierra-9” (Chief Robert Crowley) called-in an illegally parked vehicle on Cottage Avenue, which is smack-dab in the middle of Quincy Center. I looked at the other officer in disbelief; he shrugged his shoulders and said, “That about sums it up, doesn’t it”?

As chief of police….there is possibly a bomb inside a bank in your city, the main business area of your city is in complete chaos, there are news reporters everywhere, and you think that the real problem is an illegally parked car?

Is he out-of-touch? You tell me.

Q: Is that junk cruiser in the photo gallery (Sea Street Junkyard) still in-service?

A: Yes. It received four brand-new tires (I wonder why?), as well as four brand-new, shiny hubcaps, which gives new meaning to the term “Trying to put a shine on a sneaker”. The last I saw, it was parked in the second-to-last row before the front door to the station. The plate number is Police 338B, and the unit designation is “Patrol 3”. Feel free to visit and take a look at it, since the parking lot of the Quincy Police Department is a public area.

Q: I think Chief Crowley is doing an excellent job, and you people should leave him alone.

A: Thanks for checking-in with us, chief.

Q: What did Chief Crowley spend $25,000 on that’s going to shock me?

A: You’ll see, soon. And, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Q: Please tell me that a judge in Quincy District Court didn’t actually let someone plead guilty to 18 felonies and 10 misdemeanors, and then not sentence him to any jail time?

A: Okay, I won’t tell you, but that’s exactly what happened. As a point of information, that person now has multiple warrants outstanding for his arrest. I'm not exactly shocked.

Now…..I’ve saved the best for last. When I got home from work tonight, there was an unmarked envelope addressed to me. I opened it, and the first thing I saw was a cut-out picture from the Patriot Ledger, showing Chief Crowley reading to some grade-school kids. The chief was wearing a white dress-shirt, and what appeared to be a silver or other light-colored tie. However, on top of that, he was wearing his winter uniform jacket, complete with enough gold to make him look like a Spanish Admiral. I would have included a scan of this picture, but I don’t want to violate any copyright laws.

So…out-of-uniform? I guess when you make the rules, you can make them up as you go along. But, I guarantee that if any patrol officer appeared in public wearing his/her uniform jacket on top of civilian attire, there would be a suspension, or some other type of discipline in that patrol officer’s near future. The title of this picture was “Chief Reader”.

Chief Reader, or Chief Hypocrite?

Anyway, this unknown person attached a poem to the picture, which I will now share with you. As much as I’d like to take credit for this, I can’t.

CHIEF’S POEM

I am the chief of police, I am, I am,
Let me read you a bedtime story, put on your pajams.

I know how to read, I learned it in police school,
And all my friends think I was a fool.

I’ll read you the words & then turn the page,
I’ll buy an SUV and put the QPD into a rage.

My other car is not as good, even though it’s a Crown Vic,
I need these 2 cars, so please don’t call me a d***

You complain about the cruisers that you have to drive,
It is those broken springs in the seat that keeps your a** alive.

You keep complaining about driving on bald tires,
It is me – Chief Crowley - that you should bow for and admire.

Check out my uniform, see the stars on my shoulders,
Don’t mess with me; instead of rocks in my pants I have boulders (uhhhh..no).

So put on your jammies and I will read you a book,
An Explorer and a Crown Vic…Oh yes, I’m a crook.

As I comb through my hair and jump into my new SUV,
I’ll smile for the cameras, because I’m the King of Quinzee!

***End of Chief’s Poem***

That’s it for now. Keep the questions coming, we’ll do our best to answer them.

Friday March 10, 2006 3:01 AM

Christine - QPD Style - Bruce Tait

There is a fantastic novel by Stephen King, later made into a movie, called “Christine”. In a nutshell, it’s the story of a teenager, Arnie Cunningham, who falls in love with a decrepit 1958 Plymouth Fury, named Christine. Arnie spends all his free time and money restoring the car to its former glory, but there is something sinister at work. The car is actually possessed, and forms an evil bond with Arnie, eventually taking over his personality. Anyone who attempts to come between Arnie & Christine is killed, with Christine being somehow involved. Arnie’s best friend, Dennis Guilder, tries to stop what’s going on, but is almost killed by Christine for his efforts. It’s a great movie, and an even better book. I highly recommend both.

Well, we at the Quincy Police Department have our own Christine. It’s the 774 cruiser, with 774 being the assigned BAPERN (Boston Area Police Emergency Radio Network) number. For those who don’t know, the Quincy Police Department has the numbers 751-810 assigned by BAPERN, and the numbers 773-788 are the patrol division cruisers, the ones who answer 911 calls and work the street. Naturally, 751 was historically the number used by the chief of police. Until Chief Crowley, that is. For reasons known only to himself, the chief has decided to use “Sierra-9” as his call sign. From what I understand, that was the call sign of the chief back in the 1950’s-1960’s, before the advent of BAPERN. Ordinarily, I couldn’t care less what the chief calls himself on the radio. However, a special order was generated, ordering us to use the BAPERN numbers of our cruisers. For good measure, there was a chart attached, explaining what units have what BAPERN numbers. Not surprisingly, the only unit to have something other than the numbers 751-810 was…..drum roll please……Chief Crowley! He was listed as “751/Sierra-9”.

Is “hypocrite” spelled with one “p”, or two?

Anyway, back to Christine. This particular cruiser had its engine flooded-out when the officer driving it went through a deep puddle during a torrential rainstorm, while responding to a “child having trouble breathing” call. The engine, with less than 10,000 miles on it, was a total loss. Did the Quincy Police Department replace the engine with a new one? Are you kidding me? The replacement engine came from a cruiser that was totaled in an accident, which had 45,000+ miles on it. From the moment I heard this engine, I knew something was wrong. Whenever I hear the 774 cruiser running, I get a vague, uncomfortable feeling, almost like hearing fingernails down a blackboard. I’m no mechanic, but I knew there was something wrong. The really ironic thing is that this cruiser is assigned to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Quincy (the area of Governor’s Road/Gardiner Road), so even one tax bill from almost any home in that area could have purchased a new engine.

So….much like a human body will sometimes reject a new heart; Christine has not taken to its new engine willingly. Not long after Christine was returned to service, the Quincy Police Drug Control Unit was conducting surveillance in West Quincy, and requested the assistance of marked units. A DCU Detective was almost run-down by a drug dealer, who was driving a Chrysler mini-van. The officer driving Christine then engaged the mini-van in a pursuit that went onto Route 3 South, towards Cape Cod. At some point, Christine decided she didn’t want to chase anyone anymore, and the officer driving her heard a loud “bang”, followed by a dramatic drop in power. I remember hearing the officer saying “I can’t get this cruiser over 40 (miles per hour) anymore”. Needless to say, the drug-dealer/attempted cop killer got away. When a Chrysler mini-van can outrun a Ford Police Interceptor, there is a serious problem.

Fast-forward to tonight. The officer driving Christine approached an intersection on Stedman Street, and applied the brakes as he approached a stop sign. Without warning, Christine suddenly went to full-throttle, and rocketed through the stop sign. The officer driving was pushing down on the brake as hard as he could, but Christine still went forward. Finally, the officer threw Christine into “Park”, which stopped it. If someone was coming the other way, I could be writing about a tragedy right now. From what I understand, the women who were near the intersection were absolutely horrified, but got quite a show. Business as usual at the QPD, ladies.

If you ever find yourself at an intersection, and see a Quincy black & white with "774" on the rear quarter-panel, be afraid. Very afraid. I strongly suggest you give it a wide berth, rather than be Christine's latest victim.

I’m starting to get the feeling that Chief Crowley is Arnie Cunningham, while I and the rest of the patrol officers are a collective Dennis Guilder.