From Oklahoma:Question: Is there a reasonable amount of time the City has to administer discipline? Meaning if an incident took place approximately 11 months ago and they investigated it approximately two weeks after the incident. Normally punishment is rendered within a few weeks to a month (maybe two). This particular discipline was handed down approximately ten months after the investigative meeting. Answer: The answer will depend a lot on…
Delandro Washington is a police officer in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Department received a complaint from an individual concerning Washington. Washington and other witnesses were interviewed, and an internal affairs investigator prepared a report with his findings, which did not conclude that the complaints against Washington should be sustained. The IA report was sent to the chief of police and his senior chain of command with a comments page for…
For many years, FOP Lodge 12 has represented officers working for the Newark, New Jersey Police Department. The Newark Police Superior Officers’ Association (SOA) represents supervisors in the Department. When the City unilaterally implemented a disciplinary matrix, the FOP and the SOA filed unfair labor practice complaints with New Jersey’s Public Employment Relations Commission. PERC agreed with the unions and found the unilateral adoption of the matrix to be…
Sergeant Willie Jenkins works for the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). On April 18, 2018, Jenkins, along with several other NOPD officers, responded to a call concerning an armed robbery. Attempting to locate and arrest the suspect, Detective Decynda Chambers spoke to the resident and obtained her verbal consent to enter the residence, upon which certain officers entered, encountered the suspect, and arrested him. The officers who entered the…
Lieutenant Elizabeth Ibarra works for the Milwaukee Police Department. She currently serves as the Municipal Lock-Up Facility Administrator for Central Booking and supervises about nine sergeants who supervise about 50 officers. She supervised Sergeant Salvador Hernandez, and in September 2019 prepared his annual evaluation. She then gave him almost all 5’s, which was the highest number she could give, for a total score of 4.98. Both of them signed…
Robert Pitre is a New Orleans firefighter. On June 14, 2020, Pitre was working at Fire Station #24. Upon arrival, Captain Michael Ebbs directed Pitre to obtain his gear and proceed to the location of other firefighters who were responding to a fire. Captain Ebbs and Pitre were the only firefighters at the fire station. Prior to departure, Captain Ebbs was injured when the door through which firetrucks exit…
A case involving the termination of two Los Angeles Police Department officers contains one of the more unusual fact patterns in any reported police discipline case. Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were working as partners on Saturday, April 15, 2017, assigned to a foot patrol beat. Their primary responsibilities included providing community services and addressing “quality of life” issues in the Crenshaw Corridor and Leimert Park area. Sergeant Jose…
Roxanne Mathai was a lieutenant with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in Texas. Mathai maintained a Facebook page that had photos of her in her Sheriff’s Office uniform. On January 7, 2021, the Sheriff’s Office learned from Mathai’s Facebook page that she had participated in the events at the Capitol on January 6. Mathai posted pictures and videos of rioters climbing the walls of the Capitol building. When the…
Corrections officers working for the State of New York Department of Corrections are represented by the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association. The Department began a disciplinary investigation into Sergeant Erik Rakoff, who worked at Sullivan Correctional Facility. The investigation centered around an incident where an inmate was injured during an escort that Raykoff supervised. When the Department issued a discipline notice to Raykoff, the Association…
When the collective bargaining agreement between the Village of River Forest in Illinois and the FOP expired in April 2019, the parties were unable to reach agreement on a new contract. In dispute was the system of appealing discipline. The prior labor agreements between the Village and the FOP excluded discipline from the coverage of the contract and routed disciplinary appeals to the Village’s Board of Fire and Police…
Denise Watkins, who is African-American, was a shift supervisor for the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana. She reported to Lieutenant Marshall Carmouche, who reported to Sheriff Michael Tregre. On January 30, 2018 Carmouche commended Watkins and three other dispatchers for superb work. He recognized Watkins’s performance in an email to Sheriff Tregre, explaining that teamwork in the 911 Department had led to an arrest. Just…
Cliff Snider is a firefighter with the city of Pasadena, California. In 2009, and then again from 2011 forward, Snider was the president of the Pasadena Firefighters’ Association. In October 2014, Snider injured his back while trying to lift a patient during an emergency call. Although Snider initially felt well enough to remain on duty, he soon suffered a severe back spasm that required him to visit the emergency…
Denise Doherty has been employed by the Massachusetts State Police Department for over 20 years. From 2007 to 2012, Doherty was assigned to the Department’s certification unit, which is responsible for providing licensing services for private security, or watch guard, companies. In October 2011, Doherty began an administrative inspection of a watch guard company referred to anonymously in later court opinions as the XYZ Watch Guard Company. Doherty reviewed…
Jimmie Turner was a lieutenant with the New Orleans Police Department. In an October 17, 2018 disciplinary letter, the Department suspended and then demoted Turner to a police sergeant classification after finding that he violated Policy 328 entitled “Workplace Discriminatory Harassment/Retaliation.” The discipline arose from a complaint lodged by Sergeant Peter Hansche. At the time of the complaint, Turner was Hansche’s immediate supervisor in the Homicide Unit. Hansche, a…
Errol Cruz worked as a senior trooper for the Maryland State Police. In February 2018, his supervisor, Sergeant Torres, noticed that “he could not verify Cruz’s location” using a GPS device installed in Cruz’s patrol car and discovered that he was not able to log into the GPS device throughout Cruz’s shifts. Such GPS devices are installed in all police vehicles to enable the State Police to identify the…
A New Jersey group calling itself Libertarians for Transparent Government obtained minutes of the March 12, 2018 Cumberland County Board Meeting of the Police and Fireman’s Retirement System (PFRS), reflecting the Board’s consideration of an application for special retirement by Tyrone Ellis, a corrections officer employed by the County at its correctional facility. The minutes stated that Ellis had been proposed for termination for conduct unbecoming following an internal…
Justin Chaplin, James Michels, and Frank Schonig are firefighters with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. In April 2014, they and four other candidates applied to be interviewed for three fire captain positions that had become available. Before the interviews, a battalion chief surreptitiously texted information to Chaplin, Michels and Schonig about the interview, including questions and desired responses. Without reporting that they had received this information,…
The Middlesex Sheriff’s Sergeants Association, FOP Lodge 59, filed a petition with New Jersey’s Public Employment Relations Commission to sever sergeants from the bargaining unit represented by Middlesex County Sheriff’s Superior Officers Association, PBA Local 165A. Since at least 1977, the PBA’s bargaining unit has included sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. When the PBA intervened in the proceedings, the matter ended up with PERC’s “representation director.” The Director dismissed the…
Eric Reamy was a sergeant with the Glen Rock Police Department in New Jersey. From 2011 to 2015, Reamy wrongfully and without authorization sold four rifles and three handguns that he improperly removed from the Department’s evidence locker. In 2015, Reamy was the juvenile officer for the Department. He began sexting on his work cellphone with two juvenile females, R.K., who was then 17 and H.G., who was then…
The Fraternal Order of Transit Police (FOTP) and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) are parties to a collective bargaining agreement. Mark Byrne had been a police officer at SEPTA for approximately two-and-a-half years when in December 2017, Byrne responded to a radio call concerning a man on a train station platform with four other SEPTA police officers. Byrne later described some sort of altercation, during which the officers…
The City of Newton, Massachusetts and the Newton Police Superior Officers Association Coalition of Police, Local 401 are parties to a collective bargaining agreement effective July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2014. In May 2014, the Parties began bargaining for a successor agreement but were unable to reach a settlement. Eventually the matter ended up before an interest arbitrator. A key issue in the arbitration dealt with video systems….
Morris Johnson was a trooper with the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Johnson pulled over a woman for a DUI, arrested her, and asked her out. A month later, he saw the same woman on the road and pulled her over without probable cause so he could talk to her. He asked her out again, told her he liked her, and asked her to go to the casino with…
Darrell Hartwell worked as a firefighter/EMT for Naval Support Activity (NSA) Panama City for more than 16 years, until he was fired by Chief James Elston. For his entire career at the Department, Hartwell had trouble getting to work on time. The firefighters at NSA Panama City worked alternating 24-hour shifts starting at 7:00 AM. According to Chief Elston, Hartwell was late “almost every shift.” Until 2011, however, Hartwell…
Edward McGovern is an Agawam, Massachusetts police lieutenant. On the evening of June 29, 2012, at about 9:15 p.m., the neighboring West Springfield Police Department received an anonymous 911 call reporting a wrong-way driver on Route 5 North. Three responding officers found Agawam Police Officer Danielle Petrangelo sitting on the guardrail next to the passenger side of an SUV, crying. The responding officers noticed damage on the passenger side…
On April 27, 2017, Cleveland Police Officer Sean Gorman received a call to go to a Cleveland strip club. He texted Officer Aaron Petitt to ask for help. The following exchange of messages ensued: “Gorman: Stop down to hustler apparently there are some middle eastern types giving people a hard time we are in route.Petitt: Packing up. Be there soon.Gorman: Take your time.Gorman: Sorry for bothering you SirPetitt: Never…
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