As consumers, we all understand that insurance rates are based on risk (i.e., claims).
If we did New Orleans wont be rebuilt......my homeowners insurance went up after 9/11 and again after Katrina....we cant stop terrorists or nature...but we dont have to rebuild in OBVIOUS paths of nature......
as for terrorists:
Osama on the right and a sex offender on the left......unless the jails were properly equipped to hold 'em......
...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
Just what was Schenectady County Jail guard David Teller doing on Aug. 15, when a 17-yearold inmate he was supposed to be watching got the tar knocked out of him by four inmates over the course of more than 30 minutes? A recently completed investigation by the sheriff’s chief deputy, Timothy Bradt, doesn’t indicate, but it’s quite clear what Teller wasn’t doing that day. Two of the four inmates, including the one who instigated the beating, were supposed to have been locked in their cells at the time, having been disciplined by jail administrators for acting up the day before. Thus it seems unlikely the assault would have ever taken place had Teller been doing his job. So Sheriff Harry Buffardi has now forced him to resign, which seems like the proper punishment for a failure as grossly negligent as this. County taxpayers will be fortunate if Teller’s resignation marks the end of this latest embarrassment for Buffardi, but a lawsuit from beating victim Zechariah Fay would hardly be a surprise. In jail overnight for allegedly stealing marijuana and a cellphone from a teenager, he sustained a broken cheekbone, severe bruises to his face, back and head, and had blood in his urine following the attack. While Buffardi deserves praise for moving quickly and decisively to get rid of Teller, the question can’t help but be asked: How many more guards are there like him still on the job, and what can Buffardi do to weed them out — or at least to get them to toe the line? After all, this is hardly the first time guards were caught napping: A jail break in February 2006, for example, was made possible because one of the guards who was supposed to be watching inmates in the recreation yard was instead playing video games. In the meantime, residents of Schenectady can take comfort in the knowledge that, thanks to a recent gubernatorial veto of some blatantly prounion legislation, the city’s public safety commissioner can now act administratively — as Buffardi did — against bad police officers without having the sanctions brought to binding arbitration, as the officers’ union has historically done.
Sheriff Buffardi should also resign. How many more mishaps at that sheriff's dept. will it take for his a** to be gone?
Quoted Text
While Buffardi deserves praise for moving quickly and decisively to get rid of Teller
PRAISE?...are they kidding?
And where is Mr. Bradt in all of this? The article states that Mr. Bradt 'doesn't indicate'....which means nothing. I don't know, but between the Sheriff's dept and the SPD, it's like a circus act.
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
PETER R. BARBER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Assault victim transported An unidentified intoxicated man found beaten on Schenectady Street in Schenectady on Saturday is placed into a helicopter behind Pleasant Valley School on Main Avenue Saturday for transport to Albany Medical Center Hospital. The injuries weren’t considered life-threatening, police said.
I was thinking the same thing as you Zim. I have heard the cost is about $4,000 for a ride in one of those. Thats not official, just what I have heard.
Someone I know went by air transport and the bill was $8000.00!
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
District hires two ex-cops for security BY MARK ROBARGE Gazette Reporter
The Schenectady City School District on Wednesday hired two former police officers to take the place of city officers who had roamed the halls of two middle schools. The Board of Education unanimously approved the hiring of Gregory Blair of Johnstown and Robert Helwig of Scotia as school safety officers to be assigned to Central Park and Mont Pleasant middle schools. District Superintendent Eric Ely said each would be paid $30,000 to $35,000 a year. “We’re really happy because we think we got two high quality guys,” Ely said. Helwig comes to the district with some baggage, however. He resigned in May as director of corporate security for Capital OTB after reportedly blowing the whistle on alleged misconduct involving the organization’s check-cashing practices and was fired after 10 years as police chief in the Greene County village of Coxsackie. Helwig was later criticized in an internal audit by Capital OTB for improper payroll practices, including allegations he signed off on sick time for his son Jason, who worked for his father at Capital OTB, for days the younger Helwig also worked for his father as a Coxsackie police officer. Blair is a Scotia native who worked for more than 23 years as a police officer in Middlebury, Vt., before retiring and moving back to the area. Blair and Helwig take the place of two school resource officers provided by the Schenectady Police Department until city Public Safety Commissioner Wayne E. Bennett said in June that he would transfer them and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer assigned to the city’s middle and elementary schools to other police duties at the end of the 2006-07 school year. Bennett cited a shortage of patrol officers as the reason for the transfers. The move left the school district with one school resource offi cer to be shared by the city’s three middle schools and two officers at Schenectady High School. The middle school officer will be stationed at Oneida Middle School, Ely said, while he hopes to hire a third former officer to supplement the two city officers at the high school. “We want to make sure our principals have a resource there with some law enforcement background to handle situations that might arise that our [school resource officers] used to handle,” Ely explained. “We want somebody there with a presence, somebody there the principal can turn to, and we now have two guys that we can call our own.”
SCHENECTADY Council urged to look at closing police substations Mayor objects, saying offices worth cost BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
The city’s two police substations are “feel-good” facilities that have no real effect on crime and should be closed down, Schenectady City Councilman Gary McCarthy said. “What people really want is when they call for a cop, we send a cop,” he said. “We should be focusing on reducing response time and improving the solve rate.” Sending the substation administrators back to police headquarters might free up an officer or two, he said. It would also save money because the city wouldn’t have to heat and maintain the extra offices. Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett doesn’t want the substations either — but in response to McCarthy’s proposal, he said it’s impossible to close them down right now. Until the police court can be moved to a new county courthouse, there’s no space at police headquarters to absorb the substations. But since a courthouse is now in the works, McCarthy wants the council to start thinking about how it will use that space. He’s urging the council to consolidate. He may have a fight on his hands. Mayor Brian U. Stratton said the substations are worth the extra cost in utilities and manpower and he wants to expand them, not close them down. City officials knew what the cost would be when they created the substations, but they predicted the police presence would scare off criminals. That’s why they chose to place the Traffic Division on Albany Street in Hamilton Hill and added a new substation on Jay Street when the downtown rebounded. Stratton said he still supports the substations because those locations need a police presence. “It’s a permanent presence. It’s visible,” he said. “I think they add an additional element to our neighborhoods and our shopping public.” McCarthy said the substations were never effective as crime deterrents. “They are feel-good sites,” he said. One of the biggest problems, he said, is that residents can’t get police help if they go to a substation. “It doesn’t happen. Even when people come to (the substation on) Jay Street, the officer calls the station,” McCarthy said. If it were up to Bennett, he would never have created the substations in the first place. “I don’t think the city is so large that the police department needs to be decentralized. Of course, those decisions were made by a previous administration,” Bennett said. “There could be savings and greater efficiency if we absorbed them.” But he can’t take them back right now. When the Traffic Division was moved to Albany Street, the Offi ce of Court Administration took over half of the division’s former space in the police headquarters. The OCA needed to create another courtroom. “At this point, there is simply no space left in this building,” Bennett said. “Would we seriously consider it if there was space available? Yes.” In the meantime, he has reduced staffing at the Jay Street substation in favor of creating another patrol officer. “The idea was the lieutenant would have frequent and daily contact with the businesses down there,” he said. “But I’m trying to move some of the officers out of here into patrol function to get greater staff where we need them. When we do that, we need someone to take their tasks.” So the Jay Street lieutenant was moved back to police headquarters. He spends half his time on the streets as a patrol supervisor, and the other half at headquarters, doing administrative work. But even before that move was made, Jay Street business owners were fed up. They complained that they rarely saw anyone at the substation and had to call dispatchers when fights broke out only a few steps away. Bennett and Stratton acknowledged that the substation is not regularly staffed. But Stratton said the solution is not to close the office but to better staff it when the department gets back to full strength. The force is operating with 16 vacancies, but 10 recruits are attending the police academy. “Substations can’t put police everywhere, but we have a facility that is staffed when we can on Jay Street,” Stratton said. “What we want to do is to increase police presence on the street level.”
SCHENECTADY Inmate allegedly assaulted 7 officers Four personnel required hospital treatment BY BOB CONNER Gazette Reporter
A jail inmate allegedly assaulted seven Schenectady County Sheriff’s Department employees in three separate incidents Thursday evening. Christopher N. Ingalls, 22, of 120 Albermarlee Road, Scotia, was charged with two counts of seconddegree assault and obstructing governmental administration, and the sheriff’s department said further assault charges will be filed. He was transferred to a special housing unit in the jail, with bail set at $25,000. The sheriff’s department said six corrections officers and one deputy were injured, four of them seriously enough to be treated at Ellis Hospital and relieved from duty. Deputy Eric Fluty was allegedly struck from behind by Ingalls as he was preparing to fingerprint him and suffered “a complex laceration to his left ear,” a sheriff’s department report said. The injury required 17 sutures by a plastic surgeon. Sgt. Christopher Booth suffered a dislocated shoulder, and Officer Mario Montesano Jr. had hip and shoulder injuries. Also injured were corrections officers John Kent, Ernest Reaulo Jr., Joshua Sabatini and Brian Kent. Sheriff Harry Buffardi said Ingalls was initially arrested Wednesday by Scotia police on a charge of menacing. The incidents began at 5:30 p.m. Thursday when two officers arrived at his cell to bring him to Scotia Village Court. “We’re going to get it on,” Ingalls allegedly told the officers. Lt. Jason Temple, who is in charge of the sheriff’s department investigation, said Ingalls “barrels out the door and attacks two of the officers. He lunged at them. They tried to restrain him. He kept on fighting.” The officers called on the radio for emergency backup. Pepper spray was used on Ingalls, who was wrestled to the ground and put back in his cell. Then, Temple said, when Ingalls “appears to have settled down,” he was taken to the medical unit for examination and decontamination from the pepper spray. When his restraints were removed there, Temple said, “he starts to fight all over again.” As a result of the incidents, Ingalls was taken to the booking area to be charged with assault. The statement said, “Ingalls had calmed down and agreed to be fingerprinted.” So once again his handcuffs were removed, and Ingalls allegedly attacked, this time striking Fluty on the ear. Buffardi said Ingalls suffered minor abrasions in the three incidents and refused medical treatment at Ellis Hospital, where the sheriff interviewed him. Buffardi quoted Ingalls as saying, “I was just having some fun.” As an inmate of the special housing unit, Ingalls is now locked up for 23 hours a day and will have leg irons as well as handcuffs when being taken somewhere. Temple said Ingalls has an arrest record going back to 2001 on charges including assault, grand larceny and robbery. But Buffardi said Ingalls had not previously been a problem inmate, which “highlights the fact you can always expect the unexpected. “The restraint these officers exhibited in dealing with this guy was magnificent,” Buffardi said. As for the injuries sustained by the officers involved, “it’s going to be a tremendous expense to the taxpayers,” the sheriff said. “We’re staffed to the minimum. These guys will be off and paid.” And he said overtime will be required to replace the injured officers. Buffardi and Temple said the sheriff’s department is investigating whether Ingalls has substance abuse or mental health issues. Buffardi described him as “beefy, well-muscled,” and he attacked officers “for no apparent reason.” The sheriff said investigators would try to determine if “ ’roid rage,” involving abuse of steroids, might have been a factor.
SCHENECTADY Funds sought for policeman who lost wife Officers hope to aid colleague BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Michael Lamendola at 395-3114 or lamend@dailygazette.com
Tragedy struck an officer of the Schenectady Police Department this week, and his fellow officers are doing what they can to help him. Patrolman Joseph McCabe lost his wife, Diane, from complications as she gave birth to their daughter in Albany Medical Center Hospital Tuesday. The baby, Jeanna Dominica, survived. Mark LaViolette, first vice president of the Schenectady Police Benevolent Association, said the police union began a fund to support McCabe “through these difficult times.” The fund, called the McCabe Family Fund, is at First Niagara Bank, 251 State St. “The PBA would be very grateful for any contribution made to our fund by your association,” PBA President Bob Hamilton wrote in a letter to other police unions in the state. LaViolette said other unions as well as the community are responding. “It’s a heart-wrenching tragedy. We are hoping to run the fund to help them for whatever they need,” he said. Diane McCabe, 32, was born in Troy. Her obituary said she held Jenna in her heart but never in her arms. She worked at Cunningham and Cunningham and the Grog Shoppe. McCabe joined the police department in January 2000. He is out on bereavement leave. He also has another child, Louie.
OKAY THEN....7, SEVEN, officers could not take on this one guy? Paaaleeezzzzeee! I guess they didn't eat their Wheaties!
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
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