Quoted from 215

No idea, just wanted to get a reaction from Cicero, Bumble, Johnny......

Quoted from B GAGE

she is in charge  of the schenectadyny   forum

Quoted from 251

Seems like any 1 who identifies wrongdoing by those in govt or public service is attacked.  I would not want to be that
Reporter from the Gazette.

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COLONIE - A Schenectady police officer was charged with DWI and leaving the scene of a crash Sunday night after he allegedly rear-ended a car heading south on Route 9, police said.

     
Officer Michael R. Brown, 27, of Pattersonville, received a head injury and a passenger in the car he allegedly struck was also injured just before 10:30 p.m. when the officer's 2005 Toyota pickup hit a car stopped at the intersection of Route 9 and Osborne Road, said Detective Lt. John Van Alstyne.

The impact sent the car Brown struck into another vehicle, then Brown allegedly drove off east down Route 378 toward Menands, Van Alstyne said.

Responding officers found Brown's vehicle stopped about two-tenths of a mile down the road, but Van Alstyne said it's not clear whether he intended to pull over or whether he was stopped by the extensive damage to his truck.

Brown, who refused a breath alcohol test, was treated and released for a cut to the head, Van Alstyne said, adding that the injury to the passenger in the other vehicle was not considered life-threatening.

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Face it: Sch’dy can’t fix PD by itself

    Schenectady’s leaders have become very adept at identifying the problems with the city police department, which is now averaging one embarrassing episode a week (compared to one every two weeks previously). Heading the list is a culture that makes officers think they can do just about anything and get away with it, and a contract and compliant arbitrators that basically prove them right.
    The question is, what can be done about it? — because whatever the city has tried by itself hasn’t worked, and won’t work. It’s time for Mayor Stratton and the city council to stop talking about how disappointed, angry and frustrated they are after each incident, how impossible it is to manage the department, and seriously explore other options — from state intervention to abolishing the department and giving police responsibility to the county.
    The problems have been going on for many years, through different mayors, chiefs, public safety commissioners and officers. That shows they are institutional and systemic, rather than a question of getting the right individual for this or that job (although it is clear that in many cases, from Gregory Kaczmarek to Ronald Pedersen to John Lewis, the hires could have been better). Which is why the problems have persisted through all the city’s attempted remedies, be it calling in the U.S. Justice Department to investigate, creating the position of public safety commissioner, reducing the number of assistant chiefs, increasing the number of assistant chiefs, installing video cameras and GPS systems in cars, whatever.
    In other words, the city has pretty much tried everything a practical person would recommend and nothing has worked. What else can be done?
    How about pursuing the New York City model from the mid-1890s, when New York’s “finest” were not so fine, but ineffective, corrupt and beyond discipline? Under its emergency power the state authorized a board of commissioners, whose president was Teddy Roosevelt, that had real disciplinary power, including the power to fire. Roosevelt made a variety of reforms and the New York City PD was cleaned up. Of course New York’s cops didn’t have a union contract like Schenectady’s have, the state Taylor Law, civil service law, and all. So it might not be possible.
    Or, how about abolishing the department and having the county assume responsibility, either creating a force of its own (countywide or just for the city), expanding the sheriff’s department to do the work, or contracting with the state police? The county, although it has cooperated with the city in other areas in recent years, has been reluctant to handle a political hot potato like this.
    But the county is also desperate for money these days. If the city police department were done away with, and a new force took over with different rules and salaries, the city could save a lot of money, which could be shared with the county. The better city cops could be hired by the county, the bad ones weeded out. The city could get more policing for less.
    There are no obstacles in state law to abolishing the Schenectady PD; the city operates under a charter and can do what it wants. Nor is there any obstacle to the county accepting police responsibilities — as opposed to the countywide referendum that would be required if it tried to wrest responsibility from the city or force a merger of police departments.
    Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has started a dialogue with political leaders and various groups around the state aimed at encouraging consolidations and shared services. The goal is to create efficiencies and save taxpayer money — and given the fiscal crisis, he is getting a..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00700

Quoted from 339

Riveting rhetoric!
topical............
non self serving.........
devoid of ego.............

"Keeping all the kindergarteners under control?"

Thor smiles at silly people...........

I got some crayons over here................
They're mine and noone else can play with em.......

Come get em.....

Quoted from 339

predictible?..............hardly.
undeniable?..............frequently.

Quoted from CICERO

unstable........... absolutely.

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SCHENECTADY
‘Critical moment’ for police
Stratton warns cops to clean up their act

BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

The mayor has had enough.
After yet another embarrassment Wednesday, in which a police supervisor had his teeth cleaned while he was supposed to be working, Mayor Brian U. Stratton warned every officer that the Schenectady Police Department’s days may be numbered.
“This is a critical moment for the Schenectady Police Department,” he said at meetings with each patrol shift. “If this department is going to survive, it’s going to take the work of every officer.”
    He urged them to work their full shifts without taking unapproved breaks for dentist appointments, bowling tournaments and three-hour visits to private apartments — three of the latest incidents in the long list of police work-ethic failings.
    He also urged officers to keep their colleagues on the straight and narrow.
    “They need to know we’re at a critical moment. I asked for their help,” Stratton said after meeting with the morning and afternoon shifts at 4 p.m.
    “Sooner or later, if these things continue, it’s going to become impossible for them to do their jobs.”
    The city could abolish the department and call in state police or contract with the county sheriff’s department, as suggested in a Daily Gazette editorial Wednesday. Stratton said he was moved by the editorial, which he praised.
    He said he scheduled the police meetings after reading the editorial and then learning that daytime patrol supervisor Sgt. Eric Clifford had his teeth cleaned while on duty Wednesday. Another dental patient saw Clifford walk in just after 10 a.m. for an appointment and then use his radio to report that he was “on detail.”
    The phrase is used to indicate that the officer can’t respond to calls but is working — possibly filing paperwork or going to the bathroom. It cannot be used for personal errands, including dental work, Chief Mark Chaires said.
    The dental patient called The Daily Gazette to report the matter. A reporter then observed Clifford, who hurried to his patrol car after his cleaning. Chaires said once Clifford knew he had been observed, he reported his errand to his lieutenant. The lieutenant told Clifford that he would have to give up his lunch hour to make up the time he spent at the dentist, Dr. Kenneth Schwartz.
    The situation was particularly disturbing, Stratton said, because supervisors had been told just last week to strictly enforce rules banning all personal errands during the workday.
    That policy change came in the wake of officer Dwayne Johnson’s suspension for spending hours in an apartment each week when he was supposed to be patrolling.
    Both Stratton and Chaires said then that they suspected supervisors knew about Johnson’s absences. They began investigating the possibility of collusion among supervisors to allow routine absences. Chaires also changed several policies to force supervisors to keep track of their offi - cers and emphasized that offi cers must work their entire eight-hour shifts.
    Yet Clifford seemed to believe that he could get paid to spend 45 minutes at a dentist, Chaires said.
    “There seems to be a little confusion,” the chief said. “The purpose of a ‘detail’ is to let someone know you’re going to be tied up. There’s meal detail where we bring meals to the jail, for example. But it is absolutely not to be used for personal errands.”
    The only personal activity that can take place on detail is a bathroom break, Chaires said. He found himself writing yet another policy Wednesday to make it clear that officers can’t go to the dentist on the taxpayers’ dime.
    “We’re definitely clarifying that,” Chaires said. He also wrote a new policy listing the activities that can take place during a lunch hour. Officers have said they run personal errands, sleep and visit friends instead of eating.
    But they are only allowed to eat, or work out at the department’s in-house gym.
    “We’re going to clarify that up, as far as what’s acceptable on your lunch hour. You can’t leave the city. You can’t run errands,” Chaires said. “Even on your lunch, if something happens, you can be called out. We want to make sure whatever they do will allow them to be called out. You can’t be at the dentist. What if something happens and you’re under novocaine?”
    Stratton has not yet researched options for abolishing the police department, but his comments Wednesday are far stronger than ever before. In the past, he has refused to entertain the possibility of abolishment. On Wednesday, he said he’s down to hope.
    “If we can do a better job with supervision, I think we can survive this,” he said, emphasizing the word “think.”
    “Things are not going to change overnight, but the repeated discipline, continued scrutiny … I don’t know what the options are, but my instinct is to believe that this is a storm we can get through.”
    He paused. “I’m not ready to throw in the towel,” he said, then added, “Let’s take it day by day.”

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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
Sch’dy P.D.:
Time to get
rid of it

    So let’s see how things are going at the Schenectady Police Department following years of scandal and years of effort to clean things up.
    Well, just during the two weeks that I was away on vacation, my colleague Kathleen Moore discovered that the highest paid cop of last year, Dwayne Johnson, who raked in $168,921, blew off half of his eight-hour shift on the five consecutive Tuesdays that she observed him, by holing up in an apartment in the Woodlawn neighborhood, purpose unknown. Never mind the installation of GPS devices in the patrol cars, which was supposed to prevent that sort of thing.
    Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett, who won credibility a couple years ago by announcing that he would assume disciplinary authority himself over the police force, pursuant to a court decision, and any disciplinary hearings would be open to the public, backed down and meekly declared that the first such hearing to be held will, alas, be closed, given the uncertainty of his legal authority.
    And then, believe it or not, yet another cop was arrested for driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident.
    Just in the space of two weeks.
    Chief Mark Chaires assures me he is trying hard to impose order and root out miscreants from the department, but, he allows, “I’m frustrated … it’s going slower than we want.”
    He takes responsibility for the breakdown in controls that allowed an officer to park his car for four hours at a time and withdraw to a private apartment.
    GPS devices were supposed to show dispatchers where a car was at all times, but, “at least some of the dispatchers are uncomfortable being in a position where they’re supervising police officers,” he said, so even if they see a car not moving for four hours they don’t do anything, since they’re civilians and don’t have any authority.
    Now, Chaires says, he has changed the policy so that if a car doesn’t move for 15 minutes a dispatcher is required to notify a supervisor and the supervisor is required to find out what’s going on.
    Well, I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but this kind of gamesmanship has gone on long enough, as far as I’m concerned — cops trying to outsmart the administration, the administration devising new and more creative controls, only to have the cops figure out newer and more creative ways to cheat.
    It is really an insult to the people of Schenectady, if I may adopt a high moral tone here.
    They beat up people they arrest on the street, so you install video cameras in their cars to record their actions, and what happens? They turn off the cameras.
    You require that they taperecord all interviews pertaining to the investigation of their own misdeeds, and what happens? They write down on the required forms that the tape-recorder malfunctioned.
    They spend their working hours hanging out at bowling alleys in Scotia or at gyms in Colonie, so you install GPS devices to track their cars, and what happens? They do the same thing anyway, confi dent that no one is monitoring the GPS information and that civilian dispatchers won’t have the guts to report them if they do monitor it.
    All social life depends on a certain amount of good faith, and Schenectady cops have demonstrated over and over again that good faith is what they lack. If there is a way to cheat they will find it. And if there is a way to cover up cheating by their colleagues, they will find that too.
    They get paid upwards of $100,000 a year, many of them, what with their endless overtime, and yet who did it take to discover that one of their number was routinely not working for half of his 8-hour shift? A young reporter at this newspaper, parked in the street at 4 a.m. with a watchful eye.
    So what is the use of their Offi ce of Professional Standards if they can’t find something as elementary as that when it was right under their noses? Do you think no other cops were aware that Dwayne Johnson was skipping work?
    Is the president of their union, Bob Hamilton, embarrassed by any of this?
    Not hardly. He worked four days as a cop last year and got paid $91,600, having devoted most of his time to unspecified “union business,” at public expense.
    They are beyond shame, these guys. They’re a bunch of cheats and scam-artists, protected by a contract that pusillanimous city leaders granted them over the years and by state law written at their behest, like the state law that keeps the records of their misdeeds secret from the public.
    Speaking of which, I am greatly disappointed in Commissioner Bennett for caving in on the issue of public hearings and believe he is legally wrong to boot.
    He asserted the power to discipline officers without recourse to state arbitrators under an arcane ruling that might or might not apply to Schenectady. That will be for a court to determine. It seemed to me a bit of a reach, but more power to him for making the reach.
    But the law that he claims to be operating under clearly states, “All trials [meaning hearings for accused officers] shall be open to the public.”
    I am not licensed to practice the legal arts, but I don’t know how he can claim authority under that law to be the disciplinary officer and then violate one crucial part of it in deference to some other law, Civil Rights Law, Sec. 50-a, which doesn’t even address the matter.
    Civil Rights Law, 50-a, says personnel records shall be confidential. It doesn’t say anything about hearings or trials of accused officers being closed to the public.
    I endorse the editorial position of this newspaper. It is high time for the city of Schenectady to abolish its Police Department and cede law enforcement to a countywide agency like the Sheriff’s Department. I have watched for more than 20 years as city leaders tried fi rst one remedy and then another, and matters have only gotten worse.
    How absurd is it that you must keep contriving ever more ingenious controls to keep your law enforcement officers from stealing drugs from an evidence locker, from lying in investigation reports, from skipping work when they’re getting paid?
    In what other business or even government agency would it be accepted that employees cheat, lie and game the system and the burden is on management to outwit them?
    There was nothing Charlie Mills could do about it in the early 1990s when he was recruited from New York City to clean things up. There was nothing Dan Boyle could do about it when he was recruited from Syracuse. There was nothing Mike Geraci could do when he was recruited from Colonie. Nothing that Wayne Bennett could do when he was recruited out of retirement from the state police.
    These cops are the most brazen bunch I have ever encountered. And keep in mind this attitude has persisted even as the individuals in the department have turned over. During my tenure at this newspaper all the old members of the Police Department have retired or gone to prison and been replaced by newcomers, and yet the attitude has remained the same. They thumb their noses at the public and defy anyone to do anything about it.
    Their contract protects them, state.......................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01101