Originally Posted by Erick Gelhaus
I believe that. Most of the people I knew that were being administratively maneuvered out the door had an attorney. If they were terminated they filed a lawsuit. None of them ever won their job back because they didn't want their job to begin with. Most were looking for a settlement out of court which was paid by their employer more often than not.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
This. And not just municipal departments, but within our federal agencies as well.
I had a supervisor try to prevent my joining our SRT even though it was a part-time gig in addition to our other investigative duties. I had to go over his head to the ASAC and SAC until they approved my standing invitation to join the team. The supe just didn't get it and didn't like that he couldn't micromanage my every waking moment.
When I finally left that group, (which I was mostly bored within), so that I could join the South Florida Joint Task Group, (and later HIDTA), most everyone considered it a demotion or place to go to wither and die. I just wanted to be where the action was...and it turned out to be the best years of my career, as well as the source of my most complex investigation. Go figure.
Knowing where and how to assign personnel seems to be very low on the spectrum of administrative duties. (In fact, if you show that you want it, many of the admin knuckleheads will try to keep you from getting it, or expect patronage in return.)
There's nothing civil about this war.
That's probably a pretty good explanation of what the SRO was made of.
I have a close relative, who is one of the higher ups in the BSO, and his take on the situation is a lot different than what the news is reporting. I'm not going to take sides but will say that there were a lot of missed opportunities to stop the crime from happening, and the SRO issue isn't the only concern.
-Seconds Count. Misses Don't-
All anyone needs to know about BSO begins and e do with Ken Jenne, and subsequently his cronie Scott Israel. For a second there in between these two career politicians we had a chance in Al Lamberti but unfortunately for him Lamberti is a cop (Jenne was not a licensed or certified or whatever LEO, couldn’t even carry a gun, Florida sheriffs don’t have to be cops. I don’t know if Israel is a cop or not) and a republican and Broward is contaminated by carpetbagging libs from the NE and degenerates and so he never had a chance against Democrat politicians.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl...118-story.html
Jenne is a poster child for slippery slopes. He gobbled up the county fire and EMT service under the SO using 9/11 communication snafus in NYC as the excuse. He had been, and continued, gobbling up the smaller municipalities, offering to “sell” them protection so that they could disband their smaller city agencies at a lower cost. Cheaper to pay him to consolidate power then to maintain your own department, with its own overhead, and retirement, and lawsuits for cops behaving (or being accused of behaving) badly.
BSO is now pretty scary IMO. Lots, and lots, and lots of power effective,y being wielded by first one and then another scumbag. And now the good people in Broward will likely be stuck with Israel again because of partisanship and nothing else.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/po...6qa-story.html
The sad part is BSO has some really good guys in the department. It's a shame that these scandals give them a black eye.
-Seconds Count. Misses Don't-
I worked with them in a HIDTA group back in the late 90's and the team that was assigned to us was comprised of good men. It pains me to hear these stories. (We also had a group from Miami-Dade P.D. that liked their ration of red meat as well.)
There's nothing civil about this war.
I agree. Have known, and shot with, quite a few over the last 20 years.
SRO's are frankly a mixed bunch. Some find value and challenge in the assignment. Some need the schedule and bring whatever work ethic they had on the street to the schools. A certain percentage, however, just looks to avoid police work.
Motivating people and ensuring their skill sets can be a challenge in quieter districts. While not always practical, one option is to district stations and beats so that there are no true country clubs and no true Fort Apaches. Hopefully, troops assigned to quieter beats will have to respond or back-up units to busier areas and the station culture remains true policing.
Another option is to ensure officers have appropriate opportunities for outside training and special assignments. While it may not be fair, quieter districts may offer more opportunity for officers to be elsewhere and that might keep the rust off. That may be difficult for supervisors who will lose personnel for a while, but it's the nature of supervision. I can pretty much guarantee that the supervisor who tried to deny blues' collateral SRT assignment did not do so because he felt blues couldn't handle it.
Lastly, there is the hard work of supervision. Writing soccer moms tickets may not be action packed, but sooner or later, an officer will stop someone more nefarious than mom. Making sure the troops are paying a modicum of attention at in-service may be challenging, but better that than their default response to a critical incident be to do nothing until another department tolls in from another city.
Having seen the debrief for the Stoneman Douglas HS incident...BCSO deputies who were there needed to be fired. Plenty of video of them doing nothing while Parkland PD ran past their lazy asses.
This whole incident had a bunch of cluster fucks, from the first 911 call until the end. To this day Broward County has not fixed the communication issues because of politics.
If any of you get the chance you should attend the debrief. Pinellas County FL Sheriff Bob Gualtiere was the speaker for the debrief I saw...he was also the Commission Chair.
Here is the Commissions report: http://www.trbas.com/media/media/acr...0-12074125.pdf
Despite that experience, you have no idea. Search and siezure, use of force, Garrity, Googlio, other issues in the real world that GREATLY complicate employer-emplyee realtionships well beyond strict interpretation of union contracts. I was anti-union when I became a cop. Fair Share and other issues made me reconsider with a quickness. I have been the treasurer of my union for the last decade...
pat
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