Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Chief Geraci, let me count the failings Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
So, Mike Geraci, chief of the Schenectady Police Department, has submitted his resignation — six months after a public safety commissioner was hired to supersede him. “This department needs a higher level of leadership,” Mayor Brian Stratton had said when he announced the hiring of Wayne Bennett, former head of the state police, to be Geraci’s superior, and now, finally, Geraci has gotten the message. True, just a few months earlier Stratton had said Schenectady was “blessed to be led by such an outstanding individual as Chief Geraci,” but we now know he was already looking at that time for someone to come and in be commissioner above the chief. The reason for the search: After five years of Geraci’s leadership, the Schenectady Police Department was once again bogged down in scandal, this time because drugs had been discovered missing from the department’s evidence safe, drugs which we later learned had been pilfered by a cop who was himself both a crackhead and a member of the Vice Squad, assigned to tracking down drug dealers and drug users. It was “almost unfathomable,” Stratton said, having in mind that Geraci had been hired precisely to straighten out a department that was wallowing in scandal. The feeling was, Oh, no, here we go again. For me it was not the worst of Geraci’s failings, though it was bad enough, that he was presiding over a system so lax as to allow a crackhead to be a vice officer with access to drug evidence and not being able to detect him. The worst was being cozy with the PBA, the police officers’ labor union, which has a long history of running the department at least as much as the chief runs it. Far from standing up to the PBA, Geraci became virtually a spokesman for it, defending the rank and file officers who are its members at every step. Even at the press conference where the arrest of the crackhead cop was announced, Geraci went out of his way to praise the other officers who were at that very moment out on the streets putting their lives on the line, and so forth, and also to plead for understanding for the officer’s family and to lament the power of addiction, something he had never been heard to do in the case of other drug users. I especially have in mind his reaction to a raid by the department’s SWAT team on a family in a poor neighborhood in which black-masked officers broke down a door, rousted children from their beds, pointed guns at them, peppersprayed one, and shot and killed the family’s dog as it cowered in a bathtub, all because an 18-yearold there was suspected of dealing small amounts of marijuana. Geraci expressed no concerns about that family and evinced no sympathy for what drugs can do. Nor did he question the overwhelming, terrorizing use of force. On the contrary, without doing any investigation, he defended the operation down to the finest detail and asserted it was justified because marijuana often leads to more serious offenses and because there had previously been violence on that street. “Our officers are doing a more than admirable job,” he said later when asked about it. “I could not be prouder to be a member of this department and serve alongside them every single day.” That the head of the department’s SWAT team was the very crackhead officer who was later caught stealing drugs from the evidence safe added another layer of irony that may or may not have made an impression on Chief Geraci. Probably not. His reaction, always, was to praise the wonderful men and women of the department. If the president of the PBA brazenly worked only 10 days a year and spent the rest of his time on alleged union business, even though there were practically no union grievances to deal with, and if he collected $83,000 in city pay for those efforts, that was fi ne with Geraci. He had nothing to say about it. If the department’s investigations of complaints against its own offi - cers were so farcical that they took 18 months to complete, allowed for collusion by officers, and almost invariably ended in dismissal of the complaints, he had nothing to say about that either. When the City Council wondered why there were so many gripes about slow police response to calls for help, Geraci came back with a mind-numbing two-hour dog-and-pony show that did everything but answer the question but which did elicit hearty applause from the PBA rank and file in attendance. To me these were failings that in the end made him a pathetic fi gure — a traffic cop from Colonie who, up against the big, bad PBA of Schenectady, became a patsy. Now he’s got himself a traffic job in Washington, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which might suit him better. I won’t miss him. He would never deign to speak to me or return my calls, and when I challenged him on it once he said it was because he was “not in the entertainment business.” Which would have been OK, except I doubted he was in the police administration business either. I don’t know what business he was in. Maybe the patsy business.
SCHENECTADY City store owner shoots alleged burglar Intruder flown to hospital for treatment BY MICHAEL GOOT AND JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporters
A would-be robber is in the hospital recuperating after being shot while attempting to flee Funn Electronics early Sunday morning, Schenectady police said. The incident happened at about 5:50 a.m. Store owner Donald Khemraj’s son, Roger Khemraj, who lives in an apartment above the store at 881 Albany St, said he woke up to hear banging. He said he and his father ran downstairs and saw a man breaking the glass window from the inside. The man then headed to the back of the store and smashed the glass in a separate area where money orders are handled in what Khemraj said was a futile effort to escape to what he thought was a back entrance. Then, he confronted the Khemraj family. “He came back with a pipe wrench and said he’ll bash me in the head,” Roger Khemraj said. The suspect also stated that he had a gun, Khemraj said. Khemraj shouted to his mother to get him his cellphone to call police. Police said that after the man left the building, Donald Khemraj shot him in the upper torso. Police identified the man as John P. Sayers of 319 Victory Ave., Schenectady. When police arrived, they found Sayers outside the store. Police arrested him and he collapsed while being escorted to a patrol vehicle. Sayers was flown to Albany Medical Center for treatment, where a report on his condition was not available. Roger Khemraj said about $125 to $150 worth of T-Mobile and Nextel cellular phones, as well as some “dummy” display models, were taken. In addition, there was about $1,500 worth of glass damage. Khemraj said he recognized the alleged burglar. “He’s a young guy. He usually buys phones from me or minutes,” he said. His mother, Rose Khemraj, said this is the seventh robbery attempt in the three years the family has owned the store. They have had to replace the glass several times. The last time, she said, the glass contractor said it “seems as if we were only here yesterday.” She said this was the first time Khemraj had to shoot somebody. She believes her husband told Sayers he had a gun. “Hopefully, it will send a message,” added Roger Khemraj. Sayers has been charged with third-degree burglary and thirddegree criminal mischief, both felonies. Lt. Brian Kilcullen said the store owners haven’t been charged in the case, but said an investigation into the incident is ongoing. He said Sayers sustained shotgun wounds to his upper torso. “We’re still looking at several different aspects of the crime,” he said. He confirmed the store was burglarized several previous times. Kevin Hawkins, who operates a small shop next to the electronics business, said cameras were installed in his shop in response to the rash of break-ins, But the added security didn’t stop vandals from trying to get into the shop. Hawkins said someone tried to force their way through the side window of his store about three months ago, only to be thwarted by a piece of plywood nailed over it as reinforcement. “They still have been trying,” he said. “It’s been an ongoing battle with these guys.” Khemraj said he plans to tighten security at the store, including installing a roll-up metal gate out front, even though city officials told him he could not do that because it would hurt the neighborhood aesthetics. “It’s gotten to a point where enough is enough,” he said. “Somebody got shot. What, is somebody going to have to die?” Sayers lives with his great-grandmother Ann Bagley, according to his grandmother Kathy Sayers. His mother died from AIDS about seven or eight years ago, she said. She said she did not know her grandson’s condition but said he had to undergo emergency surgery. Sayers said her grandson has had some scrapes with the law including an arrest for a stolen bicycle, but nothing like this. “He wasn’t even armed and the guy from the store shoots him,” she said. She added that the family is upset because she says police did not contact Bagley until 2:30 p.m. Sunday. “They won’t even let her see him or talk to him because he’s under arrest,” she said.
MEREDITH L. KAISER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Rose Khemraj, owner of Funn Electronics on Albany Street in Schenectady, talks in the store Sunday about a break-in that occurred earlier that morning.
CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls Lt. Gen. Russel Honore a "John Wayne dude" who can "get some stuff done."
"He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving," Nagin said in an interview Thursday night with a local radio station. (See the Nagin video where he demands feds 'get off their asses' -- 12:09 )
The three-star general directed the deployment of an estimated 1,000 National Guard troops from a New Orleans street corner Friday, making it clear that it was a humanitarian relief operation. (Watch the convoy slog through floodwaters -- 3:33)
Getting food and water to the people at the city's convention center was a difficult process, Honore said.
"If you ever have 20,000 people come to supper, you know what I'm talking about. If it's easy, it would have been done already."
Honore recognizes that storm victims have waited days for relief, and his troops are trying to get them out of the city and into a more comfortable environment.
"Our number one task is to deal with the concentration of people in New Orleans, as well as those that are isolated. And we're going to get after it," he said. (Watch the exclusive video report of the general sent to the rescue -- 10:02)
The general acknowledged that frustration, and in some cases lawlessness, is building.
"By-and-large, these are families that are just waiting to get out of here. They are frustrated; I would be, too. I get frustrated at the cash register counter when the paper runs out."
Hundreds of National Guard and active duty troops are carrying weapons in the city. But the way they carried those guns was a concern to the general.
He ordered all he encountered to point their weapons down, said CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr, who was with the general. Honore repeatedly went up to military vehicles, National Guardsmen standing sentry and even to New Orleans police officers, telling them to please point their weapons down and reminding them that they were not in Iraq.
Honore commands the 1st Army, based at Fort Gillem in Forest Park, Georgia, outside Atlanta.
The general is a native of Lakeland, Louisiana, which is northwest of Baton Rouge. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in vocational agriculture from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge in 1971. Honore was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the infantry upon graduation. He also has a master's degree in human resources from Troy State University.
He has served in a number of infantry command positions and at the Pentagon. Before taking command of the 1st Army, Honore commanded the Standing Joint Force Headquarters-Homeland Security, U.S. Northern Command.
Honore's daughter and other relatives live in New Orleans, but he has not seen them since he arrived in town.
"The priority is on this mission, getting these people out of here," he said.
The general came to rescue of one young mother trying to carry her twin babies down the street in the terrible heat and humidity of New Orleans, Starr reported. The mother was so exhausted the children were almost falling out of her arms.
The general went up to the woman and took both of her babies, handing them off to soldiers to carry, as he promised the mother that they were going to get her some help. The troops helped the three hurricane victims to a Coast Guard ship, where they were treated for exhaustion and dehydration.
Honore said he wants his troops' profile in New Orleans to be that of humanitarian relief operations, leaving the law enforcement role to the local police.
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Exiting chief fights for his officers As council honors Geraci, he emphasizes staff shortages plaguing the department
By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer First published: Tuesday, October 23, 2007
SCHENECTADY -- When the City Council gave outgoing Police Chief Michael Geraci a proclamation Monday to honor his five years of service, he and Public Safety Commissioner William Bennett used the occasion to voice the frustration many officers feel about depleted staff and an increasing call volume. Geraci, who will leave next week to take a position with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said the recognition was a great honor and that the department will remain in good hands. But he also was very open about its struggles -- specifically, being down 17 officers.
Bennett said the force has 158 officers in its ranks, but nine of those officers are still in the academy. Full strength is 166 officers, he said.
"Our biggest challenge is to get to the staffing levels we need," Geraci said.
Bennett said officers are asked to respond to about 90,000 calls a year. "Divide that by 365 days and that's a pretty healthy number. (Officers) take pride in what they do, they just get frustrated," he said.
In other business:
The council approved a graffiti law that will require merchants to either lock up or police areas where spray paint is sold.
There was little comment from the community during a public hearing on the proposed $72.8 million budget that carries a 1.2 percent tax cut for 2008. The council has until Nov. 1 to approve the spending plan.
City Councilman Joe Allen cast the lone vote against approving a $5 million paving contract with Carver Construction Inc. He said he learned from another contractor that Carver might not be honoring affirmative action policies put in place by the city, county and state. The question will be forwarded to the county's affirmative action office.
Police contract at issue Schenectady mayor seeks new work rules; arbitration possible
By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer First published: Wednesday, October 31, 2007
SCHENECTADY -- Mayor Brian U. Stratton said he wants to take away compensatory and union leave time from city police officers and have them work 12-hour shifts as part of their next contract, a two-year battle that will likely go to arbitration soon.
City officials previously said they wouldn't comment on the current contract negotiations. But Stratton made the comments while meeting with the Times Union's editorial board Tuesday. The meeting was held to determine endorsements for next Tuesday's election.
The police union's president, however, responded that Stratton is only attacking police in order to curry favor with voters, and that Stratton doesn't know many of the details behind the negotiations.
Stratton, a Democrat, said that compensatory time, or comp time, and union leave can take away an average of six officers from the department daily. Police officers can either take paid overtime or comp time to make up for extra hours. Members of the union also get paid while doing union duties.
Stratton also said he wants to put officers on 12-hour shifts - a tactic to get more police on the streets - but said the Schenectady Police Benevolent Association wants too much in exchange for it. The police's last contract expired at the end of 2005.
"I'm not willing to roll over and settle something so we don't go to arbitration," Stratton said. "We need to make it clear we don't stop pushing for what we need."
Schenectady Police Benevolent Association President Lt. Robert Hamilton said the union suggested working 12-hour shifts as part of the negotiation, but that the city didn't want to continue negotiations on it.
Hamilton also said it wouldn't cost the city as much money to cover comp time if the department wasn't down 17 officers.
Police Chief Michael Geraci, who is leaving his post this week for a federal job, talked publicly about the frustration surrounding the staffing shortage when he was honored by City Council last week.
Stratton said the city's past financial problems limited the previous hiring of staff for the 166-officer department. Nine candidates are currently in the academy, and about six more are expected to be trained next year as part of a grant.
"(Stratton) should attend a negotiating meeting so he can be better educated at what passes back and forth at the bargaining table," Hamilton said. "The things he's going around saying are completely untrue."
Stratton mayoral challenger Republican Mike Cuevas said 12-hour shifts could be good for the department. But he said the new shift would also impact how sick time and other leave is calculated. Cuevas also said it is cheaper to pay overtime than let compensatory time accrue.
The state Public Employment Relations Board said Tuesday that no petition for interest arbitration has been filed on behalf of the Schenectady PBA. But Hamilton has said the union will be doing so shortly. If granted, an arbitrator listens to both sides and makes a ruling on the contract.
Lauren Stanforth can be reached at 454-5697 or by e-mail at lstanforth@timesunion.com.
Stratton, a Democrat, said that compensatory time, or comp time, and union leave can take away an average of six officers from the department daily. Police officers can either take paid overtime or comp time to make up for extra hours. Members of the union also get paid while doing union duties.
I want to get paid to go to conventions and dinners too.....what exactly are 'union duties'....and why the hell doesn't the union compensate the person who is charged with these duties---SHOW ME THE $$ TRAIL......wouldn't that make the 'brotherhood' more accountable to eachother and watch who is spending their pension etc.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
SCHENECTADY Workers’ comp suit from cops dismissed Attorney will sue disabled officers’ prior legal firm BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter
Two disabled Schenectady police officers lost their last lawsuit to force the city to pay them $400 per week for life. But their attorney hopes to get them the money by suing their prior legal fi rm. Acting State Supreme Court Judge Polly A. Hoye dismissed the lawsuit brought by officers Anthony M. Ezzo and Ronald J. Walsh on Oct. 12. Hoye said the officers failed to prove they had a written agreement with the city promising them the weekly payments for life. “No memorandum of the agreement for either plaintiff has been found. Neither does there appear to be an act on the part of the city that ratifies the agreements other than the 16 months of payments to each officer,” Hoye wrote. “These are ambiguous acts that are not otherwise explained or interpreted by the city government.” The two officers sued the city Aug. 16 of this year, alleging fraud and unjust enrichment. They claimed the city reneged on a promise to pay them $400 per week for life as workers’ compensation benefits if they retired and withdrew their disability claims. However, the Workers’ Compensation Board did not record the agreement, Hoye said. The officers began receiving payments from the city in 1999; the city gave them an amount equal to the difference between their active-duty pay and their retirement pay, or $400. They already were receiving disability pay of about $200 per week each. The city stopped making the $400 payments 16 months later, saying they were a mistake, and reduced the amount they received to their existing disability benefits of $200 per week. Ezzo and Walsh then began a series of efforts to reclaim the city payments, culminating in Hoye’s recent decision. Ezzo was with the police department for 19 years when he was injured while wrestling with a shoplifting suspect in 1997. Walsh, with 21 years on the force, hurt his back when he fell down a flight of stairs in 1995, their attorney, Louis-Jack Pozner, said. MALPRACTICE SUIT Following Hoye’s decision, Pozner decided on a different approach. He said Hoye dismissed the case “due to a technicality.” He said the now-defunct Albany-based law firm of Grasso and Grasso, which represented Ezzo and Walsh in the initial discussions with the city in 1999, “did not properly settle their workers’ compensation claim.” Pozner said “we have no document from the city to the police officers, from the city to the Worker’s Compensation Board, and to the officers’ attorneys.” Pozner sued Grasso for malpractice in Albany State Supreme Court. He is seeking a summary judgment that would compensate the officers for the lost revenue, estimated at more than $200,000. If he is successful, the court would award judgment under the firm’s malpractice insurance, he said.
SHENECTADY — Police are searching for a man who they say robbed a Stewart’s store on Saturday night and threatened the clerk with an ax. Lt. Brian Kilcullen said an alarm went off at the Nott Street store around 9:33 p.m. Saturday. He said a man appearing to be in his 60s came into the store holding an ax and demanding money. Kilcullen said the robber made off on foot with an undisclosed amount of money. He was last spotted heading west on Nott Street. The man is described as wearing a brown jacket with a black, hooded shirt. Kilcullen said no one was injured in the incident and an investigation is continuing.
Chief leaves department improved Michael Geraci, who left for post at U.S. agency, sought to build for future
By PAUL NELSON, Staff writer First published: Tuesday, November 13, 2007
SCHENECTADY -- Only a few months into his tenure as police chief, Michael Geraci hit the streets voluntarily because of a depleted force besieged by nagging complaints of crooked cops and poor response times. He and then-Public Safety Commissioner Daniel Boyle also visited neighborhood groups and engaged community activists as part of the healing process in 2002.
On Monday, the veteran lawman ended his career as chief. He'll soon be off to the nation's capital to start a federal job, leaving behind a department he says is "on the path to respectability," but still faces similar problems from the past.
Geraci will earn $130,000 working for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a pay increase of about $25,000 over what he made as Electric City's top cop.
"I think he had the ability, but I don't think he had the personality," said City Councilman Joseph Allen when asked to assess Geraci's five years. "He was just a nice guy and needed to be tougher."
Still, Allen credits Geraci for restoring credibility and professionalism, and making inroads with the city's dismayed minorities on the heels of an FBI inquiry that sent four officers to prison on misconduct charges.
During a recent interview, Geraci, 58, shrugged off the criticism that he conceded comes with the job.
Hired in September 2002, Geraci said he focused on training, hiring and technology deficits while getting out and listening to residents' concerns.
Securing money for items from new computers to police vehicles became a top priority.
"We tried to build a department for the future that would benefit chiefs of police long after me and the chief that comes after me," he said, expressing confidence that he has accomplished that goal for the 158-member department.
Current Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett will oversee the search for a new chief.
In the spring, Mayor Brian Stratton brought in Bennett to lead the department amid its latest scandal. Veteran vice squad Detective Jeffrey Curtis went to prison for stealing drugs from the police evidence locker.
Geraci said he didn't view Bennett's appointment as a no-confidence vote, pointing out the city already had a public safety commissioner when he was appointed chief.
"I'm not threatened by that system and, at the time, I welcomed it," he said.
He said he accepts responsibility for the Curtis incident, citing what he called breakdowns in personnel and securing the evidence lockers.
"I am very angry that it happened, felt betrayed by it, frustrated by it," he said. "I wish it never happened, all of us feel those emotions, but for someone to suggest it's status quo, it's anything but the status quo."
Better response times will come with the new recruits set to graduate from the academy in January, Geraci noted. A second class of up to 16 recruits will follow them.
"There are times when it's less than where we would want it to be, times when it's immediate, and clearly we need more police officers and we're getting them," Geraci added.
The outgoing chief also was accused during his tenure of allowing the unions to push him around and not doing enough to combat violence in Hamilton Hill.
Geraci insists he was a disciplinarian when needed and that crime is down in Hamilton Hill.
He said he will most miss the personal and professional friendships he made but is happy to put aside the long hours and night and weekend demands of the job. He said his only regret is he won't be around to see the department get accredited and some of the ongoing building improvements completed.
Geraci listed Operation Impact and putting in surveillance cameras throughout the city as two accomplishments that had big impacts on crime in Schenectady.
Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney called Geraci "a very decent man who was a great partner for me in a whole range of collaborative initiatives."
The married father of four said he will return home on most weekends and plans to eventually retire to his place in the Adirondacks.
Paul Nelson can be reached at 454-5347 or by e-mail at pnelson@timesunion.com
SCHENECTADY Accused drug dealer pleads guilty District attorney says Finney sold to detective BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Steven Cook at 395-3122 or scook@dailygazette.net.
The man accused of being the drug dealer for disgraced city police Det. Jeffrey Curtis admitted Tuesday to drug possession, authorities said. George Finney, 58, formerly of Hodgson Street, pleaded guilty in Schenectady County Court to one count of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a felony. He accepted a plea deal that is to result in a sentence of five years in state prison, according to the Schenectady County District Attorney’s office. Finney was represented by attorney Michael Braccini. Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney characterized Finney as a dealer who sold to Curtis and others and used others to sell for him. Curtis admitted in June to stealing drugs from the department’s evidence locker for personal use. He is suspected of taking drugs from more than a dozen cases. He retired in March, just days after his arrest. Curtis was sentenced in September to four years in state prison. One-time Finney co-defendant Heather Martin, 36, pleaded guilty in August to the same charge and was to cooperate against Finney. She was to receive drug treatment. Authorities have said Curtis — then with the vice squad — effectively protected Finney and Martin from police by not reporting their activities. Curtis, authorities said, regularly purchased crack cocaine from the home in the months leading up to his arrest. The drug scandal placed a cloud over the vice squad and over the police department. Each member of the squad submitted to multiple drug tests after the scandal broke in January. Curtis’ test came back positive for a high level of drug use, authorities said previously. The scandal resulted in tighter controls over evidence and reductions in the number of officers who have access to it. The scandal also helped usher in a return of a public safety commissioner for the city. Wayne Bennett was appointed to the post in April, responsible for overseeing the police and fi re departments. A grand jury report on the circumstances of the scandal is due out soon.
Isn't it ironic that they waited until Geraci resigned before they came out with this. And where is the PBA's leader? Shouldn't he be defending his precious cops? And of course this will be a plus for us taxpayers while schenectady is negotiating the police contract.
Updated: Grand jury blames poor leadership for Schenectady police scandals
By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer Click byline for more stories by writer. Last updated: 3:55 p.m., Monday, November 19, 2007
SCHENECTADY -- The Schenectady Police Department's vice squad operated under limited supervision for decades - creating an environment that made it possible for former officer Jeffrey Curtis to steal and use crack cocaine evidence, according to a Schenectady County grand jury report released today.
The 31-page report outlines multiple lapses in police supervision from not making officers sign time cards to having evidence drop boxes that were so crammed with drugs they sometimes had to be pushed down with ice scrapers.
"I hope the public realizes that we're shedding light on the problem in ways that we haven't before," District Attorney Robert M. Carney said.
The report blames nearly two decades of Police Department scandals on lax oversight of vice cases. The grand jury cited the 1988 disappearance of $10,000 from the vice squad, the federal convictions of four officers of drug charges in 2002, an officer's 2004 conviction for giving a gun to a drug dealer, and the 2006 conviction of a vice squad officer who tipped off a friend about a gambling investigation.
The grand jury investigation was originally launched in response to the theft of cocaine from the vice squad, but the panel broadened its focus to examine decades of issues in the troubled department and it's vice squad.
"From this history it can be concluded that the Curtis case is part of a dysfunctional continuum where the secrecy necessary for the proper conduct of Vice operations has become a cloak for allowing detectives to operate without supervision and oversight," the grand jury wrote.
Grand jurors further charged that the vice squad was operated with a primary focus on creating overtime for investigators.
"An environment has been created where results matter more than process and duties are performed in a manner calculated to increase compensation rather than combat illegal activity and solve crime," the panel wrote.
Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett, hired by the city in wake of the missing evidence scandal, said he'll write a report responding to the grand jury within the next two months.
Carney revealed the content of the report during a morning news conference.
It details never-before revealed information about how Curtis obtained his drugs and efforts he made to beat department drug testing.
Curtis admitted he used his informants to buy drugs for his personal use, allowing the informants to believe they were purchasing the narcotics as part of drug investigations.
He also admitted he confiscated narcotics from his informants, but used them instead of turning them over the the Police Department.
The report also revealed that during the two weeks the State Police had Curtis under investigation, he repeatedly when home for the day after working only two hours. He only worked a full shift - to attend a class at the State Police academy - on one day during the period, but noted on timesheets that he worked full shifts on each day. Earlier this year, Curtis admitted he stole crack cocaine from the evidence locker to fuel a drug habit. He pleaded guilty in June to charges of drug possession and evidence tampering. The 47-year-old, now-retired cop is serving a four-year sentence at the Oneida Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison Rome.
The investigation started last winter when prosecutors couldn't find crack cocaine needed as evidence for a drug trial. A quick survey of the vice squad's storage operation revealed that cocaine was missing from drugs stored for other cases.
The State Police took over the investigation and drugs, mostly crack cocaine, were eventually found missing in 16 cases.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Nice job by DA Carney's office. It appears as though it is very late in coming, but can hopefully be cleared up now. It's too bad for the Police Department in general as I'm sure the majority of city police officers truly want to serve and protect. I anxiously await the report from Commissioner Bennett and I would hope the Union does not try to defend this injustice to the residents of the city.
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