Schenectady council OKs secure evidence lockers Purchase request comes in the wake of a harsh grand jury report
By DAN HIGGINS, Staff writer First published: Tuesday, November 20, 2007
SCHENECTADY -- Hours after addressing reporters about an explosive grand jury report outlining decades of corruption and carelessness in the city's Police Department, Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett asked the City Council on Monday for $16,000 toward helping improve evidence handling procedures. Bennett requested permission to spend the money on new, metal evidence lockers. While the funds will come from seized drug money, the City Council must approve its expenditure.
The council's finance committee unanimously approved the request without any comment. The full council will vote on it at its next meeting.
Bennett said the new lockers, to be provided by low bidder Inner Systems Inc. of Brewster, Putnam County, will be part of a new, $110,000 evidence-handling system the department will use.
On Monday, a grand jury slammed the Police Department's vice squad for lax supervision, which created an environment that made it possible for former officer Jeffrey Curtis to steal and use crack cocaine evidence.
Bennett said about 65 percent of the changes recommended by the grand jury already have been done, including requiring a new system of tracking work hours. Crime evidence already has been moved to a more secure location he said.
The new lockers, he said, "Are a critical component of revamping the entire property and evidence system at the Police Department."
The new system will have police officers placing evidence, like drugs, cash or firearms, into a metal locker. Once the door is shut, the only people with access to the items will be evidence technicians, Bennett said.
Furthermore, the evidence room will be under constant video surveillance, he said. Lauren Stanforth contributed to this report.
Dan Higgins can be reached at 454-5523, or by e-mail at dhiggins@timesunion.com.
SCHENECTADY Report blasts police leaders Grand jury analysis ordered in wake of department scandals BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter
Supervision and management of the Schenectady police are the most serious problems facing the department, a grand jury report released Monday states. The report, created in the wake of the department scandal over missing drugs, found ALSO problems dated back decades and created a culture that invited INSIDE abuse by dirty cops. “This has repeatedly subjected the Police Department to ridicule and shame and resulted in the erosion of public confidence in the organization,” the grand jury wrote, “which undermines the morale of hard-working officers who care about their job and their community.” The 31-page report outlines how disgraced Detective Jeffrey Curtis stole drug evidence and took advantage of his colleagues’ trust. Curtis is now serving four years in state prison, having admitted to drug use and stealing drug evidence. Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney called for the grand jury investigation to make recommendations on how to prevent such a breach from happening again. About two-thirds of the recommendations have already been implemented, Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said. The rest soon will be. “There is going to be a lot more change that will take place,” said Bennett, who was brought in to oversee the department after the scandal broke. “Regardless of challenges, it’s going to happen.” Bennett is to draft a response on how that will happen, and submit it to Mayor Brian U. Stratton. Bennett had already slashed the number of people who have access to drug evidence. Two captain positions were also created to improve oversight. Still to come is a camera system to monitor storage areas and anyone who accesses them. The grand jury report outlines dozens of recommendations where policies can be improved and in many cases, policies created where none existed before. The last evidence-related policy was adopted in 1993, and was revised twice since. Even then, it largely was not followed, with two mandated forms never created. The grand jury made recommendations on how to better handle evidence, from when it is fi rst found, to the cataloging and storage to final destruction after the case is completed. LEADERSHIP FAILURE The grand jury report also exposes missed opportunities where it found police brass undermined supervisory control and abolished a program and position that could have discovered Curtis’ criminal activities far earlier. At that time, in 2003, Lt. Brian Barnes attempted to implement an inventory and audit procedure. That ended two years later when he was removed, in part because of complaints by officers to “upperlevel management.” By May 2006 — when the fi rst drugs began to go missing from the vice squad — Barnes had been assigned to the community services unit, notifying neighborhoods of sex offenders, among other duties. Barnes was contacted Monday but declined comment. “The Grand Jury finds that such undermining of supervisor efforts is extremely debilitating to the overall functioning of the Police Department,” the report reads. “Nothing in this record,” the report continued, “indicates that this supervisor failed in his duties, only that he made people uncomfortable by doing his job.” Missing from Monday’s press conference was the department’s police chief; it is currently without one. Former Chief Michael N. Geraci Sr. moved on to a federal job last month. A search is under way for his replacement. Assistant Chief Michael Seber, who oversaw the vice squad, was also not at the press conference. He did not return a call later for comment. PATTERN OF SCANDAL The report mentions five other officers who have been sent to prison since 2002. Four served prison time related to a federal probe on the mishandling of informants and drug evidence, another gave a gun to a drug dealer. Officers Michael F. Hamilton Jr., Nicola Messere, Michael Siler and Richard Barnett each did prison time as a result of the federal probe. Michael Hamilton was convicted of tipping off an informant, Messere of drug possession. Siler and Barnett admitted to extortion and drug counts. Officer Kenneth Hill went to prison in 2004, after admitting to giving a gun to a drug dealer. The federal case dates back to the previous police administration, that of Police Chief Gregory T. Kaczmarek, who left in the wake of that scandal. Geraci began work in 2002 and left last month. But the report goes back even further, noting that $10,000 in cash that went missing from the vice squad in 1988 and was never found. Curtis, the report said, was “part of a dysfunctional continuum” where secrecy became a cloak in the absence of supervision. Even after the 2002 federal investigation, policies were not enacted to outline exactly how informants were to be dealt with, District Attorney Carney said. “It’s a little hard for me to believe, but given what the department went through in 2002,” Carney said, “with patrol officers running rogue operations with confidential informants, that the department has never promulgated procedures for dealing with confi - dential informants.” The collective culture, the report reads, is one of a “secret society.” The current police contract was also discussed in the grand jury report, including the practice of seniority-based promotions, rather than merit-based. That the contract is the source of the dysfunction, the report reads, “is a complicated issue and one that is not easily dismissed.” “We need to promote a meritbased system,” Mayor Stratton said, “to ensure the best and brightest and most capable individuals are promoted.” Police union head Lt. Robert Hamilton, however, responded that a merit-based system results in promotions based on politics, not merit. Regardless, Hamilton said, the problems that the report cites the union has no control over. “It has everything to do with the management of the Police Department,” he said, Carney and the grand jury report admitted that, even with problems in the seniority structure, this was not why Curtis fell. It was enabled by a fundamental lack of supervision. “If we’re going to have that system,” Carney said of seniority, “we have to have accountability and oversight. We must have managers who are managing the department so that non-performing people are weeded out. “That has really been sorely lacking in the Police Department.” MARC SCHULTZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Schenectady Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett, right, Mayor Brian U. Stratton, center, and Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney address the media on Monday
SCHENECTADY Addicted cop operated in secrecy Report describes officer’s easy access to stored drugs BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter
Jeffrey Curtis’ methods were secretive, according to a report released Monday, but by no means were they elaborate. Sometimes, the former Schenectady police vice squad detective, now a convicted felon, pocketed drugs during raids — one or two pieces of crack cocaine — with the rest being booked as evidence. Other times, he would swipe drugs from a supposedly secure drop safe, a safe where drug evidence piled up so high one detective used an ice scraper to jam in additional evidence. When that didn’t work, drugs were simply left next to the drop safe. A Schenectady County grand jury report released on Monday describes the Police Department as lacking in oversight and ripe for a dirty officer to victimize. Curtis even circumvented the department’s drug- testing system, beating a December 2006 test and staying on the job for another three months before another drug test finally exposed him and brought about his arrest. The revelations came Monday as part of an overarching grand jury report on how drugs came to be missing from the vice squad and how to prevent it from happening again. The report gave dozens of recommendations, many of which offi - cials said were implemented in the wake of the police scandal. Curtis was arrested in March, two months after drugs were fi rst discovered missing. He admitted in June to taking the evidence and was sentenced in September to four years in state prison. As part of his plea, Curtis admitted he took drugs. He also told state police investigating the case how he did it. He acted alone, he told investigators. No one else in the department knew. Though the accounts in the report of how the drugs were taken came largely from Curtis himself, they were corroborated by other interviews, Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said. Investigators found no evidence of anyone else involved. Carney noted one interview with a dealer that Curtis used suggested that Curtis was so secretive about his crack cocaine addiction that he didn’t tell even those he used powder cocaine with, suggesting he also did not tell others. Monday’s report included much of the findings by the state police, who were brought in by city officials to investigate in January after the first drugs were discovered missing. Investigators reviewed all vice and intelligence cases from Sept. 1, 2004, to Jan. 31, 2007, including more than 3,700 pieces of evidence. They ultimately found 17 cases that had drugs missing, involving 17 defendants. Two were from 2005 and involved small amounts of marijuana and powder cocaine believed lost or misplaced. The report also notes those losses have since been dealt with administratively. Carney confirmed those were related to former squad day supervisor Sgt. Daniel Diamond, who spent months on paid leave earlier this year and was demoted in July. But the other 15 cases — involving about 200 pieces of crack cocaine — were all from May 28 to Dec. 13, 2006. The drugs had been logged into evidence and packaged for submission to the state police for testing. But they disappeared before they could be tested. Even more pieces were never logged, with Curtis taking them before any record could be made that they existed. Curtis gave an informant his own cash under the guise of an investigation and shook down informants he found with drugs, taking them for his own use, he told the grand jury. About half the suspects in the missing drug cases had already pleaded by the time the scandal broke, their attorneys apparently never checking the drug evidence. The district attorney’s office gave favorable plea deals to the others. Only defendant Anthony Best saw his case entirely dismissed when no drugs allegedly linked to him could be found. In his interviews with investigators, Curtis could not provide specifi c dates or times he took the evidence. But he outlined how it was done. The grand jury report also outlined how Curtis got around the department’s drug screening policy. Each member of the department is screened, on average, once every two years. Curtis was screened in December 2006, but passed, using loopholes in the system that allowed for advance notice and preparation. Tests were always on Mondays. He also knew he needed 72 hours to have clean urine. To defeat the test, he would stay clean for weekends. If he got a call for a test, he would use leave time to delay it until the next day, giving him the needed time to clear his system. Curtis was finally done in by a hair test, one not mandated by the police contract, but requested by state police investigators. He is now serving time at the state’s Oneida Correctional Facility in Rome. He is not eligible for parole until February 2011.
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com. How a police dept. didn’t get cleaned up
Here is a good one for those of you who might be interested in how the Schenectady Police Department was run after four offi cers were convicted and sent to federal prison and a couple of supposedly top administrators were brought in to clean things up. That is, after 2002 and before the beginning of this year, when yet another offi cer was found guilty of felonious behavior and was sent to prison. This was the time when Mike Geraci from Colonie served as chief and Dan Boyle from Syracuse served, briefly, as commissioner, with a mandate to get the department ship-shape so there would be no more crimes on the job, although, as we now know, a Vice Squad detective, Jeff Curtis, was in fact purloining drugs from the evidence safe for his personal consumption. For an understanding of that supposed shape-up period I turn to the grand jury report released yesterday. It found comical shortcomings with internal controls in the Vice Squad, especially with regard to the handling of confiscated drugs. It said a lieutenant had been placed in charge of the Vice Squad in 2003, the year after Chief Geraci took office. “He attempted to inventory and audit drug evidence and to create a case management system for the Vice Squad,” which was exactly what was needed. But, “He was removed in part because the people he supervised complained about his supervision to upperlevel management.” The report adds, “The Grand Jury finds that such undermining of supervisory efforts is extremely debilitating to the overall functioning of the police department.” Well, I should say so. A supervisor tried to do his job, the boys complained, and “upper-level management” removed him. And of course a year later it turned out that one of the boys was in fact a crack-head who was stealing evidence and putting it up his nose, or smoking it. The current man in charge of cleanup, former State Police Superintendent Wayne Bennett, who came to Schenectady a few months ago to try his hand at setting things right, says the situation may have been more complicated, but basically, yes, Lt. Brian Barnes tried managing the Vice Squad and ran afoul of Assistant Chief Mike Seber, under Geraci, and wound up transferring to another unit, whether or not he was forcibly removed. Basically, the boys in the Vice Squad didn’t like being supervised, and I can see why. Not only was one of them a druggie himself but all of them were milking the system for overtime pay, which has long been characteristic of the PBA culture in the Schenectady Police Department, as I have often said. Assignment to the Vice Squad as a detective, as a reward for putting in one’s time as a patrolman, was like hitting the jackpot, in terms of overtime. “Multiple detectives took a role in most cases,” the grand jury found, “which required multiple officers to testify at Grand Jury or trial,” for which they had to be paid overtime, while at the same other colleagues would get paid overtime to fill in for them. “Such practices and the economic benefit that results have been an expectation of service in the Vice Squad for many years and those members enjoying the benefit are resistant to change,” the report said, not a surprise to anyone who has followed these matters. What was the Curtis drug case? It was, in the words of the grand jury, “part of a dysfunctional continuum where the secrecy necessary for the proper conduct of Vice operations has become a cloak allowing detectives to operate without supervision and oversight.” I’ll have more on this later.
EDITORIAL Keep scrutinizing Schenectady Police Department
“Scathing” is the term favored by the media to describe grand jury reports like the one on the Schenectady Police Department released Monday. This report did some scathing, but it did even more illuminating, clearly and simply detailing widespread management and supervisory failures in the Vice Squad that have persisted over time and led to cases like that of Jeff Curtis, the cocainestealing, -using detective. After reading the report, one has to wonder: Is it just the Vice Squad, which the grand jury investigation was limited to? Or if the same kind of light were shone on other parts of the department, would it uncover similar problems? The city should be trying to fi nd out, instead of simply reacting, as it has in the past. Mayor Brian Stratton has done a good job with the city’s finances and can take some of the credit for economic development. But for a long time, he did little to clean up the Police Department, or even to hold Police Chief Michael Geraci accountable for making the changes he was supposed to make when he was hired, along with Commissioner Daniel Boyle, by former Mayor Al Jurczynski after earlier scandals involving dirty cops. Imagine if, upon taking office, Stratton had brought in an outsider to do a thorough review of the department’s management and operations. Then it is unlikely we would have had a Jeff Curtis, who could, as the grand jury discovered, steal drugs from unsecured evidence rooms and safes; take drugs from informants and use them himself; beat urinalyses, in part, by routinely taking extra time off when he knew that a test was scheduled for the next day. The report found that various policies and directives for improving evidence handling were never followed, or positions filled. Even more outrageous, when one supervisor tried to get control of the evidence room a few years ago, detectives complained to management and he was reassigned. The grand jury also went beyond specifics and reached some general, and justified, conclusions. It 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 allowing detectives to operate without supervision and oversight” ... and that “duties are performed in a manner calculated to increase compensation rather than to combat illegal activity and solve crimes.” The second reference is to the practice of having many Vice Squad detectives in charge of a case, rather than just one, which assures that no one is accountable but many are eligible for overtime to testify in court. Some factors that contribute to the problems, such as assignment by seniority, must be negotiated with the union, but not all. Wayne Bennett, the new public safety commissioner, seems committed to making what changes he can on his own, and in fact has already made many. But he could use help. The City Council or mayor, who have subpoena power, should establish a panel to look at all aspects of the department, including the Patrol Division. It’s hard to believe that there are not serious issues there, as well. Failing that, Bennett should call back the state police (his previous job was state police superintendent), who investigated the Curtis case, to do a through review of the department and provide guidance. That, says Bennett, would require a commitment from District Attorney Robert Carney to prosecute if evidence of criminality were found, which Carney shouldn’t hesitate to give.
Young officers key to change Police experts say Schenectady force can rebound from bottom up
By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer First published: Wednesday, November 21, 2007
SCHENECTADY -- No matter who Schenectady hires as its next police chief, the new leader will have to deal with a department that has flouted supervision for decades, law enforcement experts said Tuesday. After seeing Monday's scathing grand jury report outlining years of mismanagement and a culture of abuses and criminal behavior in the police department, local officials said they're hopeful the report will provide a starting point for change.
"I know a lot of young people in that police department. I know them and I know their families. They're decent and honorable people who want to have a good police department," said Tom Constantine, a public service professor at the University at Albany who has been a State Police superintendent and head of the Drug Enforcement Agency in Washington, D.C.
He said the report's revelations -- and the expertise of former State Police Superintendent Wayne Bennett, now city public safety commissioner -- provide a good base for an attempt at change for the better.
"I think there's hope over there," he added.
Schenectady County District Attorney Robert M. Carney said change is best effected from the bottom up, and it will be up to the new, young police officers to listen to the old guard or stand up for the values they learned in the academy.
The city currently has about nine officers waiting to graduate from the academy.
"It will be interesting to see if new blood has a new outlook on it," Carney said.
"Will they think there is some change they could effectuate that makes them proud of the organization that they're in?"
The 31-page report, which was made public Monday by Carney, said the vice squad, for example, has operated for decades with minimal supervision.
That let officers get by without documenting cases when leads went cold and go without turning in signed time cards that proved they worked a full day. Also, drug evidence wasn't audited.
It was in an environment of sloppy evidence handling and limited supervision of the vice squad that former officer Jeffrey Curtis stole drugs to feed his addiction. Curtis was sentenced in September to four years in prison.
The city is currently looking to hire a new chief to replace Michael Geraci, who left last week to take a job with the federal government.
Albany County Sheriff James L. Campbell said it could be a challenge to find someone who wants to tackle improving the department while trying to reduce crime.
"They have to realize that they'll be spending a lot of time at work," he said.
Attempts to foster change also have been met with resistance.
For example, Lt. Brian Barnes was put in charge of the vice squad in 2003, and attempted to inventory drug evidence and create a case management system.
But the report said Barnes, without naming him, was removed in 2005 after officers complained.
"He made people uncomfortable by doing his job and was not supported in his efforts by his superiors," the report states.
The Schenectady Police Benevolent Association has said it tried to keep him in the post, but upper management balked.
PBA President Lt. Robert Hamilton has said that Mayor Brian U. Stratton and previous mayors had a say in who fills in supervisory roles.
Bennett said it will likely take a few months to find a new chief. Still, he is optimistic about finding qualified candidates.
"This agency has challenges and I'm quite convinced there are people who will rise to the occasion, believing they are capable of handling those challenges," Bennett said.
Stanforth can be reached at 454-5697 or by e-mail at lstanforth@timesunion.com.
Schenectady's scourge First published: Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Some 29 pages into its inventory of dysfunction and corruption in the Schenectady Police Department, a county grand jury gets to the core of the problem. A police officers union that's entirely too powerful and officers operating without remotely adequate supervision are responsible for such a shameful state of law enforcement. "The Schenectady Police Department is, by contractual language and past practices, governed by a system in which work assignments are determined based on seniority," the report says. "Few departments maintain such a system, and few would want it," the report adds by way of context.
The city has few options if it's to alter a system where mediocrity prevails over talent, the grand jury concedes.
"Unless the Police Benevolent Association revises its belief in the desirability of such a system, it cannot be changed."
That adds to the burden of Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett. What can be done to reform the culture of the Schenectady police, the grand jury report says, depends on Mr. Bennett, a former State Police superintendent, or someone like him. Someone, that is, "with police experience gained in other places."
Mr. Bennett was hired by Mayor Brian U. Stratton to bring order to a police department overrun by the scandal that District Attorney Robert Carney convened a grand jury to investigate. He needs to use the power he does have to impose the supervision and oversight that's been lacking for generations.
That's the other great failing of the Police Department, the grand jury says. It's what allowed a drug-addicted officer, Jeffrey Curtis, to carry on as he did, stealing crack cocaine from crime scenes, informants and the Police Department's own evidence storage.
"It is imperative," the report concludes, "that the commissioner continue to be supported in his efforts to bring about needed change by the political leadership of the city of Schenectady."
If only the report hadn't ended there. What's also needed, anyone reading it might reasonably infer, is public outrage of an almost unprecedented degree. Either the people of Schenectady take back the Police Department that works for them, or they can await for similarly scathing reports of ineptitude and lawlessness in the future.
They should call on Lt. Robert Hamilton, the president of the PBA. He says, after all, that the union recognizes the problems afflicting the Schenectady police. What that should mean, of course, is the revision of the union's belief in seniority before merit that the grand jury report condemns. A willingness to change would best be demonstrated at the negotiating table.
Let's hear Mr. Hamilton and the other PBA leaders say what the grand jury has, that the Police Department has to "strengthen its supervisory force to ensure adequate performance by all officers, particularly those assigned to drug crimes." Let's see both the union and the department leadership confront what the grand jury has identified as an environment where "results matter more than process and duties are performed in a manner calculated to increase compensation rather than to combat illegal activity and solve crimes."
Otherwise, Mr. Hamilton's words are hollow ones, most meaningful for his unconvincing attempt to shift blame to Mr. Stratton. Otherwise, Mr. Bennett is doomed to fail as well. The grand jury report, posted at http://www.timesunion.com., is both a blueprint for reform and a scorecard for the implementation of it.
THE ISSUE: A grand jury report details the shame of the city's police force.
THE STAKES: Further urban revival requires bringing the police under control.
There should be a grand jury investigation of the PBA! That would solve the majority of the problems that plague this police deptartment.
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
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Sch’dy police: ‘dysfunctional continuum’ Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
Listening the other day to the recitation of failings within the Schenectady Police Department at a press conference at which a grand jury report was released, I was struck by several things: The ease with which a cop could beat a drug test despite being a heavy user of crack cocaine. The laxity of controls of drug evidence exemplified by no audit having been done of piles of confiscated drugs since Commissioner Charlie Mills ordered such audits in 1993. The shabbiness of record keeping that allowed a crackhead cop to work only two hours a day while getting paid for full days. The lack of any policy for dealing with street informants even after four cops were sent to prison for misusing informants in their own drug adventures. The discovery by state police investigators that 80 case fi les in the Vice Squad were missing and unaccounted for, and no one seemed to know or care. The finding that an effort by a lieutenant to institute stricter management was “resisted by members of the Vice Squad and ultimately not supported by upper-level management.” All of this, I repeat, after four cops went to prison for assorted felonies and after City Hall made a high-profile effort to clean up the department by bringing in a new commissioner, Dan Boyle, and a new chief, Mike Geraci, from outside the Schenectady ranks. But one thing especially stood out for me — the failings I had suspected, if not known — and that was the insistence that the union-driven system of seniority in the Police Department must end. This is the system by which officers “bid” on job openings and are selected on the basis of how long they have been employed. It is the system by which a patrol cop becomes a detective (where he can make a lot of overtime money) solely on the basis of how long he has been on patrol, without regard to how good a job he might have done. “There’s no reward for merit, and that’s very destructive,” District Attorney Bob Carney said. He noted that “the union thinks it’s a benefit, and they don’t want to give it up.” Mayor Brian Stratton said, “I hope the members of the union will understand — we need to promote by merit.” And Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said, “There’s not any kind of reward system, and that’s not good. I’m asking the union to re-evaluate the impact on the department, and I’m hoping they will honestly debate that among themselves.” All three recognized that the union can cooperate or not cooperate as it sees fit, since state law does not allow for a contract with public employees to genuinely expire. The so-called Triborough Amendment keeps contracts in effect for perpetuity, so the only way they can be changed is by mutual agreement, which generally means paying for, or “buying back,” as the expression goes, what the employer wants. Do you want to get rid of the seniority system? Well, how much will you give the employees in extra pay and benefi ts? Commissioner Bennett thinks it’s damaging to morale to have a conscientious employee get paid the same as some goof-off counterpart alongside him, and I don’t doubt he’s right, but of course that’s not unique to the Schenectady police or even to police in general. It pervades government employment, and I have often mentioned it with regard to teachers, which is something teachers hate to hear about though it’s perfectly true. They too get promoted and paid solely on the basis of seniority — every year, up one step — without regard to how good a job they do, and how can that not be discouraging to someone who is dedicated and conscientious? To see a laggard move up at the same rate. Yet the teachers’ unions absolutely insist on it, just as the Schenectady PBA insists on it. Going back to what I mentioned the other day, about how the Schenectady Police Department’s Vice Squad operated basically as a mill for generating overtime pay, which was “an expectation of service in the Vice Squad for many years,” as the grand jury put it, let’s see: Detectives would make sure that as many of them as possible handled a piece of evidence, like a lump of crack cocaine, with one doing the seizure, another carrying the lump to headquarters, another bagging and labeling it, another transporting it to the state lab for testing, and so forth, so that when it came time to give testimony in the resulting criminal case, they would all have to be called and they could all get paid overtime for sitting in the hallway at the courthouse waiting their turn in the courtroom. That was no big surprise to anyone who remembered the fl ap some 10 years ago between then-Police Chief Mike Moffett and District Attorney Carney, when Moffett tried to get Carney’s office to pay the overtime bill for his officers, but it did bring back to my mind the interview I conducted at the end of 2002 with the new public safety commissioner at the time, Dan Boyle, and the new chief, Mike Geraci, who were supposed to overhaul the Police Department in the wake of the earlier scandals. I suggested to them that rampant, budget-busting, overtime spending by the police was a problem, and they both denied it. Boyle said overtime spending was “about taking care of the business of this city,” and Geraci said, “It’s based on the demands of the citizens.” I recalled those words as I read the grand jury report on the scamming in the Vice Squad to create overtime and how this extra illearned income was an “expectation of service.” So I have no reason to modify my earlier, harsh-sounding judgment that Geraci functioned as a patsy for the PBA more than as reformer while he was chief. Demands of the citizens, indeed. What I would like to see now is an examination of the entire Police Department during his tenure, and especially the Patrol Division, where most of the cops work. Not just the Vice Squad, as the grand jury was mandated to do. I would like to know if controls were any tighter anywhere else. As for Commissioner Bennett’s promise to genuinely change things in the Schenectady Police Department — “Regardless of whether I get challenged, it’s going to happen” — and as for his pledge to be tough — “For those who don’t get on board there are going to be consequences” — I reserve judgment. I wish him the best, but I will wait and see. I don’t believe it’s just a few bad cops tainting an otherwise upstanding workforce, as he has suggested. I believe there is a “dysfunctional continuum” in the Police Department, as the grand jury put it, and “the collective culture is one of a secret society, ” as the grand jury also put it. The police union, the PBA, is the organizational expression of that culture, and I remember what its president said to me in 1988 when Karen Johnson took office as mayor and began to challenge the union’s supremacy: “After she’s gone, we’ll still be here,” he said. The same goes now for Commissioner Bennett, I’m afraid, even though PBA presidents don’t talk to me much anymore.
SCHENECTADY Subpoenas of police officers urged Grand jury report prompts Riggi’s criticism BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com
Resident Vince Riggi all but ordered the Schenectady City Council Monday to subpoena police officers and dig deeper into the corruption he says surrounds disgraced Detective Jeffrey Curtis. “You have subpoena power. Let’s use it,” he said during privilege of the floor at Monday’s council meeting. “I think it’s pervasive, obviously — probably throughout the whole department.” Riggi wants to know, for example, if other officers are going home after two hours of work, yet reporting they were working an eight-hour shift, as Curtis is accused of doing in the grand jury report. “I am just outraged by this,” Riggi said. The comment sparked a discussion among city officials about the recent grand jury report, which illuminated a “dysfunctional” and “secret society” at the police department that flourished in the absence of effective supervision. The phrasing suggests that Curtis was not alone in his misdeeds, which include stealing cocaine evidence and smoking it. But Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett came to the department’s defense, saying he is staunchly opposed to any further investigation of the police. “It’s going to have an even more negative effect on the morale,” he said. “This isn’t a time we need any more criticism . . .We have enough things to do.” He also said an investigation would not uncover any further examples of officers stealing drugs, shaving time or misusing confi dential informants, acts the report says Curtis committed. “In the short time I’ve been there, I do not see that type of abuse,” Bennett said. “I don’t think there’s any reason to assume there’s a problem next door just because of Curtis.” He said the grand jury report did not suggest the rest of the department was also corrupt, even though it said Curtis was “part of a dysfunctional continuum” at the police department. The report directed the council to improve supervision and make a myriad of other changes, but did not recommend the type of investigation Riggi proposed. MCCARTHY RESPONDS In response to Riggi’s comments, Councilman and Public Safety Committee Chairman Gary Mc-Carthy promised to find a way to “create a department of accountability and responsibility.” He said his committee will discuss the issue at Monday’s meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m. in Room 110 at City Hall. McCarthy said the council must determine how to reorganize the department to keep officers like Curtis from committing similar acts in the future. “We want to change it and it’s going to happen,” he said. Mayor Brian U. Stratton said the city should demand a change in the contract so that officers can be promoted by merit instead of seniority. “That needs to change,” he said. “We need a promotion system that gets the best people into supervisory positions.” He also said every resident of Schenectady should read the grand jury report, which he offered to mail to anyone who called his office and asked for it. “You should be as outraged as we are. It’s a shocking and sobering report,” he said. “It’s a scathing and very sad report. But there’s many opportunities for reform.” Bennett was the only official to say that further criticism of the police was harmful. Riggi bristled at the idea that his comments might hurt morale. “People say, 'Let’s support the police department.’ I support them. I want them to support me,” he said. “I’ve been supporting them for years — with my taxes.” In the absence of an investigation, Riggi said the police need to clean their own house. “I’m going to challenge the good officers in the department to step forward,” he said
When you read of the crimes in the city, the only cop you see named is Lt. Brian Kilcullen. Is he the spokesperson for the SPD or is he the only cop that works?
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
Schenectady needs a more effective and better managed police force First published: Thursday, November 29, 2007
Schenectady has a great opportunity to move forward with its Police Department, as it has with downtown redevelopment. Obviously, hindsight has 20/20 and one can point more fingers than you have on two hands. Without name-calling and the blame game, the grand jury report states what anyone who has seen the news in the past several years is aware of. There was a huge problem. The media did not fabricate the stories; they reported them. The Schenectady Police Department became the punch line of a million jokes. One can only feel empathy for the majority of officers we encounter every day who, I truly believe, are dedicated and hardworking. It only takes a few officers making bad choices to tar the reputation of the majority, as Schenectady seems to enjoy some new life.
Let's remember that there is no magic button or easy road. I doubt that anyone in Schenectady would disagree that more police are needed, but until the tax base increases, the taxpayers in the city cannot be expected to keep digging deeper and paying more, especially when the situation with the police force deteriorated to the level that it had. That is the economic component, and with Golub Corp. locating its headquarters in Schenectady and the recent news out of GE, perhaps we are entering a new phase to be optimistic about.
As far as the part about evidence being mishandled and so forth, those were internal problems at the department with nobody accountable. This was not a problem of the rank and file officer. This was an issue of poor supervision and a lack of accountability on the part of management. With that situation, it does not matter whether you have 20 officers on the force or 2,000 officers on the force.
When it comes to politicians, they can be voted out. Union contracts do not meet the same fate, however. Hopefully in the future, Schenectady will be able to hire enough qualified personnel and pay all of its public safety employees enough, so they do not have to work overtime to make a living. That way the police in Schenectady can be out from under a cloud and be proud of the professional job they do and feel the respect they deserve.
Quality of life, economic viability and public safety are tied together, and you cannot have one without all three. Schenectady cannot grow and improve without a top notch police force.
Open letter to Sch’dy’s good cops Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
Dear Good Cops, I’ve heard a lot about you over the years, about how you greatly outnumber the supposedly “few bad apples” in the Schenectady Police Department, and I’ve been hearing a lot about you again recently, what with the blistering report delivered by a grand jury, so I’m writing to you directly to offer my regards along with a few suggestions. You probably know who you are. You are the officers who go about your jobs honestly and conscientiously. You respond to calls promptly; you are reasonably polite with ordinary citizens and reasonably firm with miscreants and malefactors. You call in sick only when you are genuinely sick; you fill out reports accurately; and when you are called to testify you do so truthfully, not fudging the facts in order to get a conviction. You do the job that you are paid to do, without cheating, as indeed many other people do, and I salute you for it. But here’s what I wonder about. We always hear about how brave you are, about how every day you lay your lives on the line for the rest of us, and yet you don’t seem to be brave enough to stand up to the laggards, the cheats, the crooks, the bullies, the malingerers, and occasionally even the criminals that you work side by side with. How is that? How come you don’t have the courage to denounce and expose them? How come you don’t speak up at a PBA meeting and declare that you will no longer look the other way if you notice misconduct by fellow officers but will rat them out just as you would expect a citizen on the street to rat out a drug dealer or mugger? It shouldn’t be difficult if you constitute a majority. You could even put out a public statement making your position known to all: We, the good cops of Schenectady, will no longer tolerate cheating in our ranks. We’re fed up with it. If we catch one of our own getting out of line, woe to him. How come you keep quiet? And not only keep quiet, but sometimes, when one of your own is arrested and plausibly charged with criminal behavior, you make a show of defiant support on the courthouse steps, brows furrowed and arms folded, and consent to your union funds being used to pay for the accused’s legal defense. Let me guess one possible answer: You’re afraid your fellow officers will resent you and will no longer cover your back when you’re in trouble on the street. They’ll call you a rat. That’s what I have often heard, and it may be true, but it does call into question the claim that you are a majority and the bad apples are few. It makes it appear there is a bad-apple culture at the Schenectady Police Department. Anyway, I’m eager to believe that most of the members of the department are good, but maybe I have a more expansive idea of “good” than simply doing the job one is paid to do and looking the other way when it’s convenient. So this is my suggestion to you: Act with the same vigilance and the same integrity that the good members of other professions exhibit when they find corruption in their ranks. Simply going along to get along, after all, is what low-lifers on the street do. Sure, facing down an armed drug dealer takes courage. But so does standing up for what’s right on the job.
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