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Politicians using police contract to hide from blame
BY BOB HAMILTON For The Sunday Gazette

   After watching the politicians, Mayor Brian Stratton and District Attorney Robert Carney, at the recent press conference regarding the grand jury report on the [former Detective Jeffrey] Curtis matter, I wanted an opportunity to respond to some of their criticisms of the police contract.
   It has now become commonplace for the politicians to use the police contract as a shield to hide their own shortcomings. The city’s response to the grand jury report was no exception. Rather than take responsibility for inept management, the politicians waived the police contract in front of the press and the public to defl ect blame.
   The mayor has asked the public to read the grand jury report and I join him in that request. The report is a detailed 31-page document which does not even mention the police contract until page 29. The bulk of the report is comprised of Findings of Fact and Recommendations regarding:
   Improvements in the handling of evidence;
   Changes in the implementation of drug testing;
   Stricter policies for dealing with confidential informants;
   Improvement to case management; and
   Recommended changes in management and supervision.
   It is important to note that the contract in no way prevented the city from previously addressing these issues. In fact, over the last couple of years the PBA has requested improvements and changes to the drugtesting procedure and increased supervision in the vice unit. The city’s administration responded by denying our requests on both of these matters.
   Specifically, the city abolished the vice lieutenant position in the vice unit despite vocal requests from the PBA not to do so. The vice lieutenant was the person in charge of the vice unit and was in the process of working on more effective and effi - cient evidence handling procedures when the assistant chief of the bureau, along with the chief and mayor, decided to abolish his position over the PBA’s objection.
   Lo and behold, the grand jury report reveals the gravity of that misguided decision. We can only guess what problems with evidence handling would have been avoided if the city had not abolished that position.
CITY IGNORES PBA
   The PBA also requested changes to the drug/alcohol policy in an attempt to improve the effectiveness of the policy. Once again, the city ignored the PBA.
   The PBA had no other avenue to fight either decision once the city refused both requests. Perhaps District Attorney Carney and Mayor Stratton would like to explain how the police contract is to blame for this.
   At the recent press conference, District Attorney Carney and Mayor Stratton both incorrectly stated that promotions are made by seniority. The mayor continued to state at Monday’s City Council meeting, “The city should demand a change in the contract so that officers can be promoted by merit instead of seniority. That needs to change. We need a promotion system that gets the best people into supervisory positions.”
   This is an example of the mayor either demonstrating his lack of knowledge on how promotions are made within the Police Department, or once again using the contract to deflect criticism for promotions which are ultimately his responsibility.
   The New York State Civil Service Law, not the contract, governs how promotions are made. Promotions are made based upon merit-based examinations. The city selects from among the top three candidates on the civil service list. This is the same system used by all state and local governments for promotions. The contract has nothing to do with promotions within the Schenectady Police Department.
   Finally, I would like to state publicly how job assignments, as opposed to promotions, are filled within the department. Under our seniority system, every officer is given the same opportunity to bid for an assignment, with seniority being a “major factor” in obtaining an assignment. Regardless of seniority, the contract requires that the police officer be qualified to perform the duties either before or after receiving on-the-job training. The “vaunted” seniority provision of the contract is not as draconian as the Mayor has led the public to believe and is as follows:
   The city is in accord with the principle that seniority should be the major factor in filling work assignments by superior officers, unless the senior employee is not qualified to perform the duties required. Provided that, if he so requests, the senior offi cer shall be given an on-the-job training course in said duties and, if he fails to qualify for the job within a reasonable period, he may then be passed over. The determination of qualifi cation after the training period shall be made by the Mayor or his designee. However, it is recognized that the public safety must not be jeopardized through artificial constraints resulting from the application of the principle of strict seniority.
MERIT-BASED SYSTEM?
   The mayor is calling for a meritbased system to fill all job assignments. In another words, the mayor wants to hand-pick who he thinks will do the best job. His proposed system allows politics to invade the police department under the guise of “merit”.
   This is not the solution. As I have stated in many media interviews, I do not believe that seniority is a perfect system. It is, however, a fair and equal system when combined with the other provisions of the police contract.
   The time has come for the city to stop hiding behind the contract, and instead acknowledge its own faults. It is only then that progress can be made.  

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City Council will analyze police report
Union president Hamilton to give presentation on grand jury findings
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

   The Schenectady City Council will spend the next two months analyzing a recent grand jury report, in hopes of developing legislation to improve the Police Department, Councilman and Public Safety Committee Chairman Gary McCarthy said.
   Tonight, the committee will discuss the report with police union President Robert Hamilton. The Police Benevolent Association president will give the council a presentation, McCarthy said.
   At the next committee meeting, on Dec. 17, Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett will explain what he’s done to improve supervision, secure drug evidence and make other changes recommended in the grand jury report. He will also offer a plan for future changes.
   At the first committee meeting in January, expected to be on Jan. 7, residents will be invited to make comments and offer criticism, Mc-Carthy said.
   Finally, at the fourth committee meeting — likely to be Jan. 21 – the council will draft any needed laws and budget amendments to address police issues.
   All four meetings will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Room 110 at City Hall.
   McCarthy outlined the unusual schedule in response to criticism that the council had not spoken publicly about the grand jury report, released Nov. 19. The grand jury had formed to consider the issues surrounding disgraced Detective Jeffrey Curtis, who pleaded guilty to stealing and smoking crack cocaine, much of it taken from his own vice squad’s drug evidence safe.
   The jury report explained how Curtis was able to get away with the crime for so long. But the report made it clear that it wasn’t just Curtis who was at fault.
   Jurors cited a “secret society” and said Curtis was “part of a dysfunctional continuum” that dated back decades. The report strongly suggested that better supervision and promotion by merit, rather than seniority, are needed to deal with the ongoing problems at the department.
   Among the shocking discoveries in the report: even after an FBI investigation in 2002 sent four officers to prison for “running rogue operations with confidential infor- mants,” the department still didn’t create policies on how to properly handle informants, District Attorney Robert Carney said.
   The report also said police brass gave in to complaints from the vice squad and didn’t support the first lieutenant who tried to implement drug evidence inventory and auditing procedures. After two years of struggle, Lt. Brian Barnes transferred out of the supervisory role in 2005.
   It wasn’t until an audit was organized by the state police this year that officials discovered Curtis had taken crack cocaine evidence from 16 separate drug cases.
   The grand jury said upper management should have backed Barnes despite the vice squad’s complaints.
   “The Grand Jury finds that such undermining of supervisor efforts is extremely debilitating to the overall functioning of the Police Department,” the report stated. “Nothing in this record indicates that this supervisor failed in his duties, only that he made people uncomfortable by doing his job.”

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SCHENECTADY
Police union files for arbitration
‘We’re being ignored,’ PBA president says
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

Once again, arbitrators will decide the police contract for Schenectady. The police union has filed for arbitration, saying negotiations are at an impasse. But President Robert Hamilton said Monday that he doesn’t want to go through with it.
   “It’s not the avenue. It just puts us back six months,” he told the Schenectady City Council at Monday’s committees meeting. “We’re being ignored. We’re being pushed to arbitration.”
   Mayor Brian U. Stratton, who did not attend Monday’s meeting, said the union wasn’t willing to agree to reforms proposed by the city.
   The police and the city will now be stuck with whatever decision is made by the arbitrators. The panel of three makes a final determination that cannot be rejected by either side. However, the new contract can only stay in effect for two years.
   Hamilton made an effort to get the council on his side Monday, saying the city administration had left the council “out of the loop.”
ALSO INSIDE
CITY, PBA debate reform. B3
   “So far the council’s not involved and until they do, nothing is going to change,” he said.
   He also said he’d given a copy of the union’s proposal to every council member, and told them that if they read it, they might decide the police were offering a fair deal.
   “For some reason I do not understand, the city walked away from the bargaining table,” Hamilton said. “The city, in our opinion, has not been bargaining in good faith with the PBA.”
   Stratton disagreed.
   “We have made a very valiant effort to put forth a very reasonable proposal. We’ve laid out proposals for reforms to be made,” he said. “We’re not getting any cooperation from the union.”
   But Hamilton said city officials kept changing their focus.
   “Every time, the issues that are the most important to them change,” Hamilton said. “One time they say it’s health insurance and raises. Next time they say no, it’s union time and comp time.”
   Stratton said his negotiators laid out a series of reforms, including 12-hour shifts and the elimination of comp time to increase the number of officers available to work on each shift.
   “They’ve been prioritized. Maybe the union has a different way of looking at that,” Stratton said.
   “I wish we were able to achieve the reforms we need at the bargaining table. But all arbitration is going to get us is a two-year contract. …We have so many fundamental reforms that are needed, we’re going to go right back to the bargaining table to achieve them.”
   Health insurance was the mayor’s priority when he began negotiations with every city union. The others all agreed to pay a portion of their insurance.
   But after negotiations began, The Gazette’s review of police schedules showed that some shifts were severely understaffed because of the use of comp time.
   John Paolino, then the city’s fi - nance commissioner, also did his own analysis of the issue before negotiating with the police and found that it would be cheaper for the city to pay overtime instead of offering the option of comp time. He pushed for changes in the comp time system.
   Most recently, after a grand jury report made recommendations on how to improve the Police Department, Stratton reiterated one of his original goals for the negotiations: to promote officers by merit, not seniority. That was cited in the grand jury report as a major issue.
   Hamilton said Stratton was wrong to describe promotions as based on seniority. Promotions — moving from sergeant to lieutenant, for example — are regulated through civil service exams. However, moving to better assignments often considered by the public to be promotions — such as becoming a detective — are primarily decided by seniority.
   Officers who have seniority but don’t have the qualifications are allowed to learn on the job, but can be removed if they don’t perform well after a reasonable amount of time, Hamilton said, citing the contract.
   “We believe seniority is the fairest system,” he said.
   “Once seniority gets you that position, it’s your job performance that keeps it.”
   Council President Mark Blanchfield disagreed, saying that if management ever tried to remove someone from an assignment because of poor performance, the union would fight it.
   “They’ll say, ‘But this person back in 1978 did this, and he kept his job,’ ” Blanchfield said. “To some degree, management is enslaved to ‘past practice.’ ”
   Hamilton said the city would win if the union tried that.
   “Past practice is not trumped by clear contract language, and that is clear contract language,” he said.
   Now that the contract negotiations are in arbitration, city and union leaders must decide on a neutral arbitrator to oversee the case. The arbitrator will be on a panel of three: the city’s panel member will be Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden, while the union’s panelist will be PBA attorney Michael Ravalli.
   The city’s labor attorney, Michael Smith, will present the city’s case. Ravalli’s partner will present the union’s case. No date has been set yet for the proceedings.
   In the last negotiation, in 2000, the city spent a year trying to get certain concessions. The PBA didn’t budge, so the issue went to binding arbitration. The arbitrator rejected all of the city’s requests. City negotiators immediately went back to the table with the PBA. It took until March 2003 to get an agreement

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SCHENECTADY
County jail guard to receive $60,000
Authorities accused woman of hiding brother from police
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    A county jail guard accused of hiding her brother from police will receive $60,000 from the city and its insurance underwriter in connection with that incident.
    The Schenectady City Council unanimously agreed to settle a lawsuit with Michele Bergeron, who said she was falsely arrested in an incident almost four years ago.
    Police charged her with obstructing governmental administration on Jan. 1, 2004. The incident began when Bergeron’s brother, Clifford Johnson, ran from police at a traffic stop to avoid getting a ticket for driving without a valid license. Police tracked him to Bergeron’s Stanley Street home.
    “She told the officers her brother had gone through the back door and over the fence,” Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden said. “Officers investigated and in the snow, there were no footsteps. Then she was overheard in the house shouting, saying something to the effect of, ‘I’m not going to lose my job over you.’ ”
    Van Norden said police went back to the house, where Bergeron met them at the front door and told them her brother was inside. Police detained him and later returned to charge her with obstruction.
    A jury acquitted her of the obstruction charge. That made things tricky for the city. When Bergeron sued, the city’s only defense was to prove there was probable cause to arrest her, Van Norden said.
    “We analyzed it. We all determined the cost to defend the case through a verdict would probably cost more than $100,000,” Van Norden said.
    The city has already spent roughly $17,000 on legal fees. He advised the council to settle for $60,000, of which the city must pay $50,000. The city’s insurance carrier will pay the rest of the settlement and legal costs.
    This is Bergeron’s third court battle over her brother’s run-in with police. In addition to the obstruction trial and the false-arrest suit, the 15-year veteran of the county jail lost her job and had to convince an arbitrator to reinstate her.
    County Sheriff Harry Buffardi fired her after asking her for a written statement regarding her actions. He said the statement did not correspond with the police report.
    She was also charged with filing a false instrument, but the charge was later dropped when her statement could not be found.
    An arbitrator ruled that she had filed a false report, but that the infraction did not rise to the level of termination. She went back to work in February 2005.
    Her brother pleaded guilty to aggravated unlicensed operation, obstructing governmental administration and failure to obey police, according to City Court records. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

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SCHENECTADY
Police to get small patrol bikes
Council OK’s paramedics carrying narcotics
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The police motorcycle unit will be doubled and firefighters will be allowed to carry narcotics on their paramedic rigs, the City Council decided Monday.
    The new motorcycles, which will be much smaller than the department’s white Harley-Davidsons, were proposed to stop people from taking their own motorized vehicles into the Woodlawn Preserve.
    “There are ATVs and dirt bikes that are damaging the habitat,” Councilwoman Barbara Blanchard said, adding that residents sometimes hold late-night parties in the Pine Bush preserve. In past years, neighbors have also reported bonfires there in the summer months. In winter, snowmobilers sometimes create trails through the delicate vegetation.
    Putting a stop to all that was one of the first issues Blanchard raised when she was elected two years ago. Police repeatedly told her they had no way to get into the preserve, where there are no paved trails.
    “Now we have the equipment,” she said Monday. “I’m sure they will be able to enforce the law now … I look forward to an improvement in the condition of the Woodlawn Preserve next year.”
    Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said he plans to have officers using the new motorcycles as often as possible. He hopes the smaller bikes will help police patrol not only the Woodlawn Preserve, but also Vale and the unpaved portions of Central Park.
    “We’ll use them as much as we possibly can,” he said. “They can get around a lot easier.”
    The council voted unanimously to buy Suzuki dual-purpose motorcycles, which Blanchard described as “street-legal dirt bikes.”
    The two bikes will cost $9,600. The city will spend another $5,200 on sirens, radios, helmets and other equipment.
    The department got its fi rst motorcycles in 1999, when the city bought two Harleys for $13,566 each. The bikes were garaged a year later due to staffing shortages and the department tried to auction them off for $12,800 apiece in 2002. No one bought them, so then-Public Safety Commissioner Daniel B. Boyle put them back on the road.
    Officers assigned to the motorcycles go to a special police school for training, must to pass a written test and get their motorcycle operator’s license.
DRUGS ON RIGS
    The council also decided unanimously that the fire department’s paramedic rigs could carry narcotics.
    Schenectady was one of only two agencies in the Regional Emergency Medical Organization that did not carry life-saving drugs to treat cardiac emergencies and seizures, as well as a narcotic for pain relief, Chief Robert Farstad said.
    Bennett said that even though Mohawk Ambulance typically transports patients in the city, the fire department’s paramedics usually get to medical emergencies first.
    “They’re probably going to be there quicker. The fire department’s got an excellent response time,” Bennett said. “It’d be a tremendous shame if they had to sit and wait for someone else to bring the narcotics they could just as easily administer.”
    Farstad also told the council that the drugs could not be easily stolen.
    “We’ll carry a minimal amount,” he said.
    The drugs will be kept in safes bolted to the floor of the rigs. The safes can only be opened with a passcode, and will be checked daily by supervisors. Any used drugs must be brought to St. Clare’s Hospital, which will restock the safes for free.

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New direction for police

After the grand jury report critical of Schenectady police operations was released, several city politicians weighed in with their own observations.
Mayor Brian Stratton, no doubt unwittingly, assessed the situation with an alliteration. "This is a shocking, sobering, scathing, sad report," Stratton said. "Everybody should be outraged."
In the early '90s, Charlie Mills was brought in to clean up the department. He got the ship running smoothly before then-Mayor Frank Duci ran him out of town because he resented the police commissioner's popularity.
The department nose-dived again. Enter new Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett, the retired State Police superintendent, entrusted with turning things around.
A dozen or so veteran cops I spoke with agreed inept supervision at the top level has been reason for most departmental problems. Hopefully Bennett and his ultimate new police chief pick can right the ship.

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Strock is right: ‘Good apples’ need to speak up about the bad ones

    Carl Strock’s Dec. 2 column, “Open letter to Sch’dy’s good cops” blew me away!
    We have all seen and heard the many comments and news clips about the bad cops in town, who make the honest, courageous cops who do their jobs with pride and compassion look bad, and make it harder for them to do their jobs. The community feels unprotected, even resentful and embarrassed, that others think that Schenectady is a dangerous place to live or visit.
    You brought the focus exactly where it belongs, Carl, on the people who have a huge influence on the “bad apples.” You may as well have said the “good people,” because the solution to this problem is true for other problems we face every day, like the unmentionables — racism and sexism. We fill jails, hire more police, make more laws and fund programs — all of which help tremendously but won’t solve the problem.
    When good people, who know in their hearts that what they see and hear is wrong, let it be known that we won’t tolerate verbal abuse, beating a partner or making racial slurs, “bad apples” and their protégées will decide to stop what they are doing. Our society dictates what is acceptable. Silence removes barriers to bad appleness and agrees with bad apples’ belief that they have a right and entitlement to break the law, abuse their partners, and act on their prejudices.
    Thank you, Carl, for reminding us that the courageous and proud people are a very powerful silent majority in our community. All it takes is using that power to speak up. Think about it — if we are afraid of what the “bad apples” will do when we speak up, can they be trusted when we don’t speak up?
    CAROLE FOX
    Schenectady

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Blue Code of Silence
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The Blue Code of Silence is an unwritten code of honor among police officers in which reporting another officer's errors, misconduct, or crimes is regarded as a betrayal.

Studies demonstrate that most police feel that the code is applicable in cases of "illegal brutality or bending of the rules in order to protect colleagues from criminal proceedings," but not to illegal actions with an "acquisitive motive."[1][2]

Nevertheless, cases such as the Rampart Scandal demonstrate that blue code culture can sometimes extend to cover-ups of every level of crime, acquisitive or otherwise.

Other terms that can have a similar meaning include the "Blue Wall of Silence" and "the Thin Blue Line".


[edit] See also
Police misconduct
Police brutality
Thin Blue Line
Code of Silence
Frank Serpico
Christopher Commission
Rampart Scandal

[edit] References
^ Louise Westmarland. "Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence", Policing and Society, June 2005. Retrieved on 2007-08-28.  
^ Ann Mullen. "Breaking the blue code", Metro Times, 2000-11-8. Retrieved on 2007-08-28