The Silence of the Lames: MPD Edition (Updated)

See update, below.  Timmy Dolan isn’t taking the disgrace of his deparment lying down; he’s issued a stern memo decrying . . .

. . . the criticism.  Sigh.

The Minnesota Metro Gang Strike Force scandal continues to unravel; hopefully some of the various coverups will, as well, sooner than later.  Among the latest developments:  Chief Tim Dolan of MPD announces that 

his department was informed by Luger and Campion that seven of his officers assigned to the Strike Force were involved in several allegations of misconduct. Dolan also said in an interview that some officers who were involved in allegations were supervisors.

Hmm… according to the Heimerl report, there were, at last report, three supervisor-grade (Sergeant or up) MPD cops on the MGSF. “Some” officers, according to Dolan, involved in “allegations” were supervisors.

But Dolan isn’t going to take that sitting down.  He and his cops are fed up.  (I think he misspelled “lawyered up.”)  Let’s take a look at just some of the recent of their greatest hits:

Fresh upon being returned to the MPD after the dissolution of the Strike Force Gang, Heimerl is now, according to the MPD, a sector commander.  Ghu knows what the others of the supervisors from the MGSF are up to.  But if any of MPD’s MGSF cops have been taken off the street and assigned counting the plastic spoons in the break room, it’s been a closely-held secret.  But it isn’t just the cops involved in the MGSF who have disgraced Dolan’s department.

The Jenkins video of  at least one MPD cop mistaking a possibly drunk driver for a soccer ball? No prosecution of the kicker; the FBI is looking into it.

Then there was the $495,000 settlement after one of Dolan’s badged boys punched an innocent bystander — resulting in two brain surgeries.  That not enough? 

There’s the “antics” at the end of last month, when a bunch of drunk MPD cops — these guys apparently can’t even play a game of softball without disgracing themselves after — “picked a couple of fights and told patrons no one could stop them because they were all cops,” according to witnesses.  (The gentle term, “antics” is that of the badgelickers at Fox9 — I’d find a less gentle term.)  This after being too drunk to get into a strip club, and before the shooting started . . . which the MPD carefully didn’t report.

And that’s just the recent news. 

The opening paragraph of Rochelle Olson’s story is chilling:

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said today that he and his 900 officers are “fed up” with bad publicity about the department when he says they are performing better than ever in crime fighting and officer behavior.

Yeah, the poor dears are just underappreciated by the public.  I guess they need to go get themselves a new public.

“I believe the Minneapolis Police Department is better than ever,” Dolan said.

Shit, Timmy — you mean it’s always been worse than this?  Maybe it Olson quoted him wrong, or mistranslated; it probably sounded more credible in the original German.    

Update:

And this just in from Dolan, who is shocked, shocked at . . . the criticism of his department.

Let’s take a read:

The recent cases that have come to light in the media make me and other employees of the Department mad. 

… at the cops who have stunk up their badges?  Nah.

The alleged actions of a few are being used to discredit all the great work that my 1100 employees do everyday.  In reality, I believe that, in this region and possibly the country, the Minneapolis PD does the most and expects the most from our officers – and holds them to the highest degree of professionalism.

Who are you going to believe?  Dolan or your lying eyes?

Let’s talk about some realities of the MPD:
We have well over a million contacts per year with citizens.
A few less than 900 officers handle about 400,000 calls for service a year; that is about 1100 calls per day.
My officers make over 30,000 arrests a year; that comes to about a 100 arrests per day.
My officers conduct around 1,500 traffic stops in a busy week.

Although my officers have over a million contacts with citizens each year we still only see about 200 complaints a year against our officers.  And that number has decreased in each of the three years of my administration.  That percentage of complaints is actually lower than the percentage seen by the LAPD which is currently being praised for a low level of complaints.  Of the 200 cases that are filed about 90 result in open Internal Affairs cases.  Of those 90 cases we had about a dozen sustained excessive force cases last year.

There are, basically, only a few reasons why complaints might be low.

• There really isn’t much to complain about.  That’s Dolan’s position, but him vouching for his department is kinda self-serving.  That doesn’t mean he’s lying or wrong, but it is the sort of thing where you’d want to count the change.
• People who have legitimate complaints think that filing one with the MPD is just a waste of time.  That’s certainly my feeling — and given how Dolan himself, in a previous job, waved away a minor complaint I had, some years ago (it was just an arrogance and stupid public relations thing — a couple of his detectives decided to run my plates because they didn’t like my “Criminals [heart] Unarmed Victims” bumper sticker.  I happened to be in the coffee shop while they were giggling over the possibility of having the car towed if there was some outstanding traffic ticket, which is the only reason I know that).
• People who have legitimate complaints fear retaliation.  By design, the complaint process makes an anonymous complaint impossible — and, to be fair, the MPD warns erstwhile complainants on their website that their complaint will not be anonymous, and that’s true.  (They also say that a complainant will be contacted by IA within five days; that’s simply not true.)

I take investigations of complaints against my officers seriously.  In my last three years in office 16 officers have either resigned or been terminated due to our investigations of: theft, domestic assault, misuse of force, DUI, lying, and other misconduct.  And I am likely not done this year.

Ya think?

That number of terminations exceeds any previous administration.  Let me make it clear – I don’t like firing police officers.  I wish I never had to fire an officer.  However, I must hold all my employees accountable for their conduct.

What we have also done is implemented internal technology and practices that make us the most transparent agency in the Midwest.  These are our videos being played on TV.   We take complaints against officers in many forms including on-line.  We publish our complaint statistics every year in our Annual Internal Affairs Unit report.

Yes, you do.  And you constantly aver that a low complaint rate means that you’re doing a peachy-keen job, rather than that it’s pointless.  Did the guy who got stopped for a DWB and arrested and booked into jail on a fictional crime (possession of hollowpoints) ever file a complaint?  Last time I heard, he hadn’t — and your sergeant apparently felt that “unarresting” him was all the apology he needed.  The guy who did get a gun pointed at him by one of your off-duty cops — like many MPD cops, he was of the ignorant opinion that permit holders must conceal their carried handguns to the satisfaction of MPD cops — had his complaint dismissed without any review at all.

So rest assured I take these recent allegations seriously. 

Gotta say, I’m not resting all that assured, Tim.

In looking at the recent allegations I can say that we were already aware of most of them and had already begun internal investigations before they became public.  The most recent video shown was sent to IAD for review the day after the incident.  At our request it was reviewed by an outside agency and declined for criminal prosecution, and it came back for our standard review process.  Our system worked for that incident.

Again, let’s go to the video, with particular attention to events starting at around 4:05 into it — on what planet is the kicking okay?

I view each incident as an opportunity to better our processes and review what we expect of our officers and how they are trained.  In light of recent incidents I have enhanced our force review process and I am changing our use of force training.

Sincerely,

Timothy J. Dolan
Chief of Police

I fail to see the sincerity.  The anger, sure.  Sincerity?  Nah.  You start encouraging complaints about bad service, figure out why that “Shots Fired” I mentioned some months ago never got a response, put an end to “arrest the gun” and treat rousting as a policy violation, and then let’s talk.

I won’t hold my breath.