[No, this isn’t a repeat of this episode of “Mike and Me,” from a couple of years ago. More on that at the end. This article, slightly tweaked, is crossposted on TrueNorth, my LiveJournal and on the Forum, as well as here, where comments are welcome.]
*ring*
*ring*
*ring*
“Joel Rosenberg.”
“Will you hold for Commissioner Campion?”
“No.” *click*
*ring*
*ring*
*ring*
“Joel Rosenberg.”
“Will you hold for Commissioner Campion?”
“No.* *click*
*ring*
*ring*
*ring*
“Joel Rosenberg.”
“Mike Campion here. Got a minute for me?”
“Sure, Mike. Happy to talk to you. Not happy to get a call to be put on hold by His Most Puissant Excellency Herr Commissioner Campion’s secretary.”
[long pause; deep breath] 
“Fair enough. I see you’ve been having a bit of fun with that Metro Gang Strike Force story.”
“Yup. I laugh so that I will not cry. Been following the popup cartoon stuff?”
“Constantly.”
“I haven’t had so much fun since I walked out of your office that time you summoned John, Professor Olson and me to hear your sermon. It’s dreadful, and I guess it’s better to laugh than to — “
“You walked out a scant fifty-eight minutes into a one-hour meeting, Joel.“
“True. Wish I’d had a camera. Loved your expression. I did thank you for the coffee, though.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what can I do for you, Mike?”
“I take it you think I really stepped in it.”
“Well, yeah. Piles of cash and thirteen cars disappear — on your watch — and first thing you do is carefully not order the perps’ offices sealed?”
“I didn’t think — “
“Correct. You didn’t think that, after the announcement that there was going to be an investigation, things might disappear there. When you’re going to raid the Rolling 60’s Crips, you usually hold a press conference in advance? Not exactly sure
“I guess that looks bad.”
“Yeah. Mike, didn’t I read somewhere about people going to prison for tipping off the target of a raid?”
“Well, I —
“Looks like you announced that there was going to be an opportunity to steal the horses before the barn got locked.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to, but — “
“Whatever.”
“So what do I do now? I mean, these guys do a lot of good work, and — “
“I guess you could issue another statement assuring the public that you don’t think any evidence of criminality will now be found, what with that head start you gave the perps, and all. Wonder where all that cash and those cars got to.”
“It’s probably just bookkeeping errors.”
“Sure. Cars often disappear in bookkeeping errors. Happens all the time. In Narnia.”
“Do you have any constructive suggestions? I mean, we gotta do something to win back the public trust, and — “
“Nah. You’re not going to do the obvious, so — “
“I don’t see what’s so obvious.”
“Yeah. At least thousands of dollars and more than a dozen cars disappear while in the possession of the Gang Strike Force, and you don’t see what’s so obvious. But you’ve got a nice little, slow investigation that won’t show anything as long as it doesn’t go deep, and the perps had time not only to lawyer up, but to flush the evidence, unless you — “
“I’m going to hang up if you don’t give me one constructive suggestion.”
“Hang up if you want, but I’ll give you one way anyway. Not the only possibility, but I’ll make it easy for you: Get on the horn to Susan Gartner. County Attorney, Ramsey, where some of this money appears to have disa — “
“I know who she is.”
“Good. Tell her you think it’s in her interest to bring on a special prosecutor, give him a staff, and 
“Special prosecutor?”
“Yeah. You don’t want somebody who needs these cops to make cases to be the one investigating — and maybe prosecuting — them. Even if he looks real, real hard, and doesn’t find anything — and, shit, there’s got to be some clean cops on the Gang Strike Force, after all, no? — it won’t clear their names, and it won’t nail the crooks who ‘lost’ all that money and all those cars. And let’s not get to their splendid Hawaiian vacation.
“So instead of getting up in front of the press and announcing that you’re maybe going to eventually hire some unnamed guy who has scored a lot of points in slam-dunk Federal prosecutions and some ex-FBI guy who may or may not be able to find his ass with both hands, and do that before the evidence has been secured, now that you’ve screwed up —
“And screwing up by saying in advance that they probably wouldn’t find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, like I did — “
“Stop interrupting. Just get somebody with real prosecuting experience in Minnesota, who isn’t in the game anymore, and let him hire on some staff who know how to look. I know one guy; you know more, and Gartner knows more than you do. Tell him to hire some clean, retired cops, who still have their current POST licenses, and swear ’em in. Kaplan* is about to retire out of EPD, and, hell, Lex Kent* used to work for you, even though he’s got that new gig. I know some; you know more. A forensic accountant or two — have him follow the money. See where it leads.
“And I’m sure you know who should be leading this, or on the task force, right?”
“Hell, no. I mean, were it me, I’d pick up the phone to Ya’acov Smalls* and see if he’d do the the lawyer part. Smalls is tough and honest, and he’s prosecuted enough guys, after all. Both of the Turk* brothers are retired, but they’ve still got their licenses, and you know they’re straight arrows. Don’t know what they’d say if you asked them, but how much stink do you think they like on the badge? Billy Mitchell* would probably love to run the financial and bookeeping side of it — he likes to keep his hand in — and, hell, you’ve already got Wong* at the BCA to run the computer forensics side of it.
“But what do I know? I don’t have the connections you do; you’re the state’s top cop, and I’m just a balding, middle-aged Jew writer who knows a few people. Finding one honest former prosecutor and six honest guys who used to carry badges and do keep their word and would say yes to this should take you about ten phone calls. If I have to guess — “
“You don’t.”
“You called me, Mike. Don’t interrupt so. As I was saying . . . if I had to guess, a real thorough investigation would exonerate a bunch of guys, and might just convict a few. I dunno. But, either way, it would do something to persuade people that you really want to get to the bottom of this, and not apply a slow-rolled coat of youknowwhat.”
“Yeah. I see your point. Get to the bottom of it, even though we screwed up by announcing the investigation before we preserved the evidence.”
“Yup. Admit the screwup, do your best, clear the innocent and arrest the folks you’ve got reason to think are guilty . . . and let the system handle it while you move on. Glad you called?”
“Not really.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help, Mike. Really.”
*click*
[Author’s note: the previous episode of “Mike and Me” wasn’t fictional. This one is fictional. Yes, published reports indicate that the real Campion did everything that the fictional Campion admits to in this fictional dialog — he says he’s appointing some former Fed prosecutor and some former FBI guy to look into things; he didn’t arrange to have the Gang Strike Force HQ sealed and guarded — that only happened after Chris Omodt was informed, according to the Star Tribune’s Randy Furst, that “some Strike Force investigators turned up at the agency’s New Brighton headquarters after hours on Wednesday to remove items from the offices.” Maybe those items were just keepsakes of the leis that they’d gotten on their Most Excellent Taxpayer-Funded Hawaiian Vacation. Yes, there really are real people behind those names I gave the fictional Campion; I know them all, and have talked to none about whether or not they’d be willing to look into this, but they’re all honest guys — they’d either pass, or they’d do it.
[And, no, Campion didn’t call me. I told you this was a story, didn’t I?]
________________________
* Not the real name.
Now I don’t know anything about Minnesota law enforcement, but I’m from Chicago so I can take a few guesses. For instance, I’ll take a wild guess that the Gang Strike Force is one of those units whose mission requires a great deal of secrecy. After all, gangs are everywhere, and you wouldn’t want their important mission to be compromised by letting anyone else in the department find out what they’re doing. The secrecy is so great, in fact, that an officer could, for example, spend his entire shift driving to 28 different appliance stores to find the best price for a 32″ flatscreen TV, or kicking in drug dealers’ doors and taking all their cash, or filing all the VIN numbers off a car, and nobody without special access would ever really know.
Am I close?
It’s even stranger than it is for you southerners. Not only are these folks on double-secret status, but they’re on such a Special Secret Status that the get to brag about it on Facebook and elsewhere.
Seriously.
I’m sure that there’s some good cops assigned — I don’t know him, but I’ve heard good things about the new commander, Chris Omodt; he’s a HennCo Deputy, and the son of a former HennCo sheriff. But I haven’t heard much, one way or another.
That said, while he only took office in December, at least some of this stuff happened on his watch, including the shredding. (Which, to be fair, he apparently blew the whistle on; see http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/45805632.html . Strange that the head honcho would be the whistleblower, but . . . )
But they’ve also had bozos like Landen Beard.
I don’t know how they spend their days.
These SuperSpecialSecret Task Forces pretty much are a Petrie dish for misconduct and mismanagement, though. Remember, all of these guys were sent there by some other department. At least some (maybe most?) of the cops who are kicked sideways are folks their own organization has been unable to handle, and it’s easier to make them somebody else’s problem, as it’s just about impossible to fire them.
The managers are sometimes good, upwardly mobile white shirt types, but sometimes dead enders, kicked sideways to get them out of the way, too. It’s going to be the rare Chief or Sheriff who will be willing to lose the services, sometimes for years, of his best folks — more often, it’s going to be dead wood and burnouts with enough office political skills to keep their heads down. (I’m sure that if you asked Rich Stanek, he’d say something to the effect that the HennCo Sheriff’s Office made a sacrifice when he loaned Chris Omodt out, and if the devoted badged civil servants do their jobs in investigating this mess — not a good bet — we might find out if he’s right. I honestly don’t know.)
But, yeah, they’re largely unsupervised, although many will be whining, about now, about the endless supervision that they don’t get but complain that they do.
Some real risks, there. Undercover cops have a lot of exposure to some obvious temptations: women, drugs, and money. Be interesting to see what some blood and urine samples and a little forensic accounting might unearth there.
But I bet we won’t see. Just another coat of whitewash.