It is time to end my silence after many weeks of hoping that the management of the City of Portsmouth would “do the right thing”. They have not, yesterday I was told by the new Chief of Police William Corvello that he was recommending I be reinstated to my previous position as a Police Officer. Ah but the caveat.. of course there is a caveat. I must agree to accept punishment (less severe, but still punishment) involving the incidents that were involved in my termination. Well one of them I could stomach in the name of compromise but not the other. I will never take a “plea” or accept punishment for something I didn’t do even if it gets me my job back. As I have said in the past sometimes it’s harder to do the right thing and stand up for ones own morals and ethics.

You can read the letter I received from Chief Corvello by clicking this link Chief Corvello Written Grievance Response. Now before I go any further I want to say a few things about the last several weeks. First, yesterday was my fourth meeting with Chief Corvello. He is impressive, intelligent and I firmly believe he is the second major change that has taken place since Kenneth Chandler became City Manager (the first being Ed Longs resignation) that was positive change for the department. He strikes me as a fair person that is genuinely interested in fixing the problems within the department. I know from my contacts that he has already started to do that. He has already fixed a number of injustices that former Chief Ed Long committed while he was Chief. I like Chief Corvello, have nothing bad to say about my interactions with him. I talked to a lot of people prior to meeting him, did quite a bit of research and could find no one that had anything bad or negative to say about the guy. That’s quite a feat after spending 40+years in law enforcement. Given his unfamiliarity with the issues I raised during the meeting yesterday I suspect that the written grievance response was generated by someone else (perhaps the City Attorneys Office). When I raised the issue about the discipline being the wrong OPR he pulled out the Policy book to look at it himself. Since I included a detailed synopsis of the problem in my 18 page grievance I was surprised to see him unfamiliar with the issue I raised. He then told me he would have to get back to me so he could research the issue. I left the building and got a call to come back an hour later. When I came back he stated that it was going to have to remain as-is. I then had to mark “Not Acceptable” on the grievance form and move on to a Grievance Panel Hearing. I have little faith in panel hearings given my previous experience with them. I was involved in one where the City of Portsmouth was in violation of Federal Law and the panel simply said that it needed to be taken up with the feds.

I disagree with Chief Corvello’s decision today for a couple reasons. The first is that I did nothing wrong involving the Farm Fresh Shoplifter and followed the Departments Policy on handling Shoplifters. Here is were the Administration of former Chief Ed Long is flawed. They stated that I failed to release the suspect on a summons which they claim was a violation of Police OPR-20. The problem with that is that OPR-20 is not applicable because OPR-19 is the policy specifically written for the handling of Shoplifters. The city does not want to admit that they were that incompetent in the handling of the matter and my termination so they won’t yield or admit they made a mistake. So you can read both of the Policies yourself Click Here to see Portsmouth Police Policy OPR-19 & OPR-20. Examination of OPR-20 will reveal it’s inapplicability in this case, and likewise, review of OPR-19 and my actions will show I followed procedure to the letter. I followed OPR-19 as I was trained to do and as we have always done. I was not going to accept punishment for something I didn’t do even if it meant getting my job back. The underlining reason I believe that they won’t do the right thing is because if I will take the punishment then I am admitting the whole incident is my fault hence the civil rights violation that was committed by Deputy Sheriff Joe Lilly and the attempted cover up by the City of Portsmouth would then disappear. The City would claim that I should never have brought the prisoner into the Sally Port. Nice try but I’m not biting, I followed established policy and procedure. It’s sad that they just won’t do the right thing but they need a scapegoat so when the Civil Rights complaint is investigated by the Feds they can justify the Sheriff’s actions and the City’s attempt to cover it up.

I have finally obtained a copy of the Sally Port incident on DVD after a year of legal wrangling with the Sheriff and the City. I am making it available but be forewarned it is a 40 meg Windows Media File that is 33 minutes in length. See the video below to watch the whole incident;

It shows the Sheriff’s Department taking custody of the criminal after I executed the warrant issued by the Magistrate. The warrant was “permitted” at my discretion. This means it’s up to me whether I release the criminal on her signature and she walks out of the building or she is processed (photographed and fingerprinted) then bonded out. This criminal had just committed two shoplifting incidents in an hour and we did not have a photo or fingerprint of her on file. I decided that given her current behavior it would be important to have her photo and fingerprints on file in case she committed additional criminal incidents. This way if she got away a photo would be available to the Police Department to conduct a photo lineup with her next set of victims. Sheriff’s Deputy Baker took custody of the criminal then took the criminal and all her property into the processing area. Once the warrant is executed and this occurs the Sheriff’s Department now has custody of the criminal and I am no longer responsible. Shortly after they took her into the prisoner processing area they bringing her back out while not allowing me to leave even after repeated demands for them to unlock the door. They refused and Deputy Lilley tries to force me to unlawfully seize the criminals property. I had no legal right to take the criminals property at that point. She had legally purchased the products at Farm Fresh (she stole some items and paid for some items). When they refused to allow me out they were in essence abducting me. I asked numerous times for them to allow me to leave and they refused. It’s convenient that there is no audio which I was told was broke that day. Think about this incident and how you would feel if someone refuses to allow you to leave someplace. That is abduction or illegal imprisonment. No one should have to tolerate that, it is contrary to our constitution, it is a civil rights violation.

In the next couple days I will go into more detail about the various incidents, provide more documents and more clarifications to incidents I have discuss and some that I have not. There is plenty more that needs to be shown about the unethical and illegal conduct of various members of City of Portsmouth Agencies.

It appears that the City of Portsmouth City Manager Mr. Kenneth Chandler had finally reached the point that he felt action needed to be taken to maintain credibility of the Portsmouth Police Department. I applaud his actions and hope other senior executive staff still there are held accountable for their transgressions.

Accountability is the key word and needs to be applied uniformly throughout the department. I don’t know Chief Corvello personally but I have heard nothing but good things about him. I wish him well in his new job and offer my assistance in anyway possible to help fix the problems within the department. I really enjoyed the work there just not the working environment or the management style of the former Chief.

I have plenty more to say, quite a few more documents to post but in an effort to let the new Chief settle into a position that is going to require significant work I am going to hold off posting any new material for a couple weeks to give him a chance to start moving forward with positive change within the department.

I have heard some interesting things about an incident involving a public figure from Portsmouth that occurred in another city but until I can confirm the information (via some additional FOIA’s) I am not going to spread rumors without documentation to back it up.

Portsmouth
Police Officers Oath of Office

I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as a Police Officer of the City of Portsmouth, according to the best of my ability. So help me God.

The theme of the week is accountability, justice must prevail and hold those accountable to the law without preferential treatment or to cater to any ones convenience.

The quotes above, the first Eleanor Roosevelt’s, the second mine not only speak about the last couple days in the City of Portsmouth but also it touches on my day in the Portsmouth Courts. Even though I am no longer an officer with the Portsmouth Police Department I still have quite a few outstanding court cases to deal with. I am obligated to attend court now just as I was when I was a Police Officer. I have been making all my court dates and seeing my cases through not only because I am obligated but it is my duty as a citizen. I no longer get paid to attend court as I would have if I were a Police Officer, worse I have to pay for my own parking to meet my legal obligations in coming to court. Such as life it’s my duty and I have no problem doing it.

Today I was extremely disturbed and disappointed in the actions of a substitute Judge that was sitting in Portsmouth General District Traffic Court. I had a Circuit Court trial that I was subpoenaed to attend that started at 10am. My Traffic Court cases didn’t start to 11am. My name was placed on the attendance roster in the Traffic Court so that the court was notified that I was in Circuit Court. Circuit Court is a court of record and as such it is a “higher” court which has priority over lower courts such as General District court. I could not leave Circuit Court till the trial was completed and I was released by the prosecuting attorney. I was finally released at about 11:30-11:45am and immediately responded to Traffic Court. When I got there I found the doors to the court room locked. I went to the clerks office and was told that Judge Babbs had dismissed all my cases.

All of the people I had charged with various traffic related offenses got out of their traffic tickets (Click here to see the cases dismissed today by Judge Babbs). Several of these involve people who were driving suspended. These are jailable offenses and are a serious menace to the motoring public. There is a reason these people had their drivers licenses suspended or revoked. One of the cases had more serious ramifications that could impact whether the victim of an accident can recover damages when she was hit by an unlicensed driver and was sent to a hospital. This incident even involved the driver switching places with the passenger (who owned the vehicle) and lied to me about it in the course of the investigation. Had the driver been held accountable and found guilty of the failure to yield offense it would have made it easier for the injured victim to pursue a civil case to recover damages for the damage to her vehicle and her hospital stay.

I could completely understand if I had failed to show up that the Judge had every right to dismiss the cases. That was not the case I was in another court in the next building over, Judge Babbs knew that and his actions are inexcusable. During the trial in Circuit Court Judge Babbs Bailiff called the Bailiff in Circuit Court to advise her that they were waiting on me and the Bailiff in Circuit Court told me that she told Traffic Court I was in the middle of a trial and would respond to Traffic Court as soon as I could.

I lived up to my duties to appear and proceed with my cases even though I no longer get paid for. Their was no justifiable reason for the judge to dismiss any of those cases, he could have just as easily continued them to my next Traffic Court date (which I have two per month) or made them wait for me to finish in Circuit Court.

I am going to approach the Commonwealth Attorney to have the cases put back on the docket since I don’t have the power to do this as a private citizen. This is a travesty against the very nature of the justice system and their is NO EXCUSE for Judge Babbs to dismiss these cases and not hold these people accountable for their illegal activities.

Shame on you Judge Babbs, if you no longer have the patience to see justice through then perhaps it’s time to retire permanently from the bench. I have no control over when trials are set and had to follow the rules of the court going to Circuit Court first.

My Dad taught me that if you do something, do it RIGHT or don’t do it at all..

It appears accountability is the word of the day in Portsmouth. Chief is the first to go, hopefully some others in management who can’t follow their department’s policies or the law will follow shortly. Read on if you want to know what I am referring to.

Well those that read this blog and are familiar with the Portsmouth Police Department found Chief Edward G. Long’s departure today as no surprise. Most of us have been speculating for months about when he was going to depart not if. Their have been numerous rumors about issues between the Chief and City Hall but nothing that could be pinned down till today.

I actually had a meeting with the Chief at 11am this morning involving the grievance of my termination and trying to get my job back. Meeting involved myself, the Chief and his Administrative Aide Sgt Huntington. Normally he is not real friendly with me (no surprise their) but he actually laughed when I walked in wearing shorts, deck shoes and an untucked collared shirt. Normally I wear suit & tie to such affairs but I figured that for what I thought was going to be a 30 second meeting to hear the Chief tell me “NO” about getting my job back at least I was going to be comfortable. I was surprised at his attitude, it wasn’t friendly but it was cordial. In fact he allowed me to ask him a bunch of questions involving my termination and we chatted for a while. I tried to explain that perhaps he was unaware of some issues involving the underling facts. I asked him why he waited till March of 2008 to initiate my termination when the last of these alleged incidents occurred in August 2007 (7 months before). He really could not provide me with any real answers to my questions and in fact appeared not to be familiar with a good bit of the underlining facts. He told me several times that he was going to let my grievance continue to the next phase. One of the issues I did raise is that one of the “alleged transgressions” he terminated me for. I had never received Disciplinary Review prior to the termination. This is a procedure required by Departmental Policy anytime an officer is investigated (Click here to read the Portsmouth Police Policy ADM-23 Disciplinary Review) an results in the opinion that a charge is founded. The charge could be anything from a policy violation (and their are lots, 3 inch thick 3 ring binder full of them) to an officer getting a traffic ticket or a citizen complaining about an officers demeanor. Some time after the Disciplinary Review (sometimes months) the Chief makes his decision on discipline and then the officer is notified by letter. I was never given that opportunity and that is a violation of Departmental Policy. In fact from what I can determine Chief Long never followed that policy as written since he became Chief. In addition I was never provided with a written list of charges against me prior to the discipline (my termination), this is another Department Policy violation. Each of those violations is termed a Group Two offense punishable with up to 10 days unpaid suspension. Three Group Two offenses in a 12 month period can result in termination. During one of my previous court sessions involving documents I was attempting to obtain under the state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) the Chief through his legal counsel (Ms. Cheran Cordell) admitted that he was in violation of the law by failing to respond to my FOIA. That is another Group Two offense. So by my count that was three Group Two offenses comitted by the Chief in a 12 month period. Perhaps the City Manager Kenneth Chandler finally had enough of the Police Administration steam rolling the troops but committing numerous Departmental Policy violations themselves. It would be a pleasant and long overdue surprise that City Hall is finally holding the Chief and several of his senior staff accountable to the same polices they have enforced against the Police Officers who are the backbone of the Portsmouth Police Department.

A couple of good examples of the Police Departments selective discipline or selective law enforcement. One involves the disgraced SWAT Commander Lt. Brian Ali. You will note that he was arrested on 12/19/2006 (Click here for the online Portsmouth Circuit Court document showing the arrest date and sentence of Lt. Brian Ali’s Felony Conviction). As far as anyone knows or can determine he was never disciplined for his FELONY misconduct but he was rewarded with his retirement on 2/1/2007. Click here to see the email that was sent about Felon Lt Brian Ali’s retiring. Talk about not holding someone accountable, here is part of what it said “Please join me in wishing this employee success and prosperity as he embarks into a new chapter of his life”. Yea in prison. Here’s another, I tried to hold a City Police Contract Tow Truck accountable for it’s flagrant violation of the law. Click here to read the email detailing Wet Towing flagrant disregard of the law. This exchange involved the now acting Chief of Police Harry (Skip) L. Fremd who made in perfectly clear that nothing was to be done about the illegal activity by a Police Contract Wrecker. Next time you’re in Portsmouth take a look at any of the Wet Towing tow trucks. I will bet two years later they still have tint so dark you can’t see into the vehicle. That is termed “Limo” tint and is illegal but they are not held accountable because they “help” the police. Well I say to that that they are doing the duties as a good citizen should and should not receive preferential treatment. In fact as you read in the email they are a representative of the Portsmouth Police as a Contract Tow company and should be held accountable for illegal activity. As to the comments about stopping the criminals with the dark tint I did that as much as I could but with only three tint meters (an electronic device that can measure the percent of light passing through a tinted window) in the entire department two years ago and when I last worked a month ago none (they were all broke) it can be difficult to enforce the law without the required tools.

Several years ago I was involved in the Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) Project testing and installation. During that period I became concerned about less then competent operation of the Portsmouth 911 Center. I was concerned that the way the dispatchers were performing could be a liability to the city and expose the public to undue hazard. I was also provided with information that indicated that the Portsmouth Police Department was spending the 911 Telephone Tax money on items that were in violation of law. I submitted my first FOIA and it was down hill with the department from there. Click to read the Internal Affairs complaint involving the Portsmouth Police 911 Center and the Captain in charge I made. This was for a threat made against me via another employee that I was told about. Threats such as this are Group 3 termination offenses. Years later as far as I can determine that incident has never been investigated and the party involved is now in line for a position as Deputy Chief of the Department. I guess you can get the point I am trying to make. Their has been up to now NO ACCOUNTABILITY at the upper management level of the Portsmouth Police Department. Chief Long never held his senior people accountable and as far as I am aware never investigated complaints such as mine that were made.

But I digress back to today ..

After my meeting with the Chief I decided to go over to the City Attorneys office and see if I could meet with the City Attorney to see if some of the issues could be resolved. I was informed that he was out of the office. I then asked to see the Chief’s legal counsel Cheran Cordell. She was in the office but was too busy to see me and said via one of the Legal Assistants that she couldn’t see me till end of next week. At that point I told the legal assistant that I came over to pay a courtesy call to try and resolve some of the issues. I made the effort to try and work some of the issues out but if no one wants to see me then at least I feel as though I made the attempt. Oh well the things I wanted to discuss with them will be making it’s appearance in the next several days on this blog.

Their was no signs in Chief Long’s office today indicating that he was leaving the department. No boxes, nothing being packed, all his wall decorations in place. Based on my conversation with him, his attitude and the condition of his office I would say his resignation today was unplanned. In fact I have heard through reliable sources that their was quite the blowup in City Hall today when Chief Long was summoned over to see the City Manager. Sources said that he was told by someone in authority that he needed to leave City Hall immediately because his conduct was becoming disorderly. My best guess is that his departure was unknown to him till that meeting in the late afternoon in City Hall. As others have said Ex-Chief Long appears to be a nice guy but just didn’t cut it as Chief of Police.

I was involved in one of my grievances on Friday at the Department Head level and Chief Edward Long was absent. Lieutenant Colonel Fremd acted in his place. City HR did not explain his absense to me or the Grievance Panel members.

Another mystery …

Funny title huh? Think that it’s a joke well it’s not. Back at the end of 2006 the city had new City Code books printed. I became aware of this as did people in Animal Control. We both asked for a copy of the new City Code book. Click City Code Book Email 113006 to Chief Long to see the response from the City Clerk’s Office.

Now as a Law Enforcement Officer you need to have knowledge of the laws you are tasked with enforcing. But again it becomes a money problem, it cost money to print code books and apparently the City of Portsmouth does not think that it’s important enough to fund such a outlandish concept as providing the City Code to the very people that are charged with enforcing it.

The City of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Police Department also do not provide copies of the Commonwealth of Virginia Criminal or Traffic Code Books to the Police Officers either. Some of us used the internet access on our personal cellphones to lookup the State codes on the Commonwealth Website Link to the Code of Virginia . The City of Portsmouth uses “Municipal Code Corporation - Virginia” which is a private company to publish the City code on the internet. Because of the way the site is setup it is not easy to use via a cellphone.

The Portsmouth Police Department provides a City and State Code Cheat Sheet for it’s Officers to use. Unfortunately all the cheat sheet provides is the Code section and the title of the code. It does not contain any of the text of the code. For some codes that’s ok, they are not that complicated, i.e. Speeding 25 in a 35 MPH zone but others are very complicated and you really need access to the text to understand the law.

The department installed Mobile Data Terminals (MDT i.e. Laptop computers) in most of the Uniform Patrol vehicles a couple years ago. These terminals are tied into the Computer Aided Dispatch System (CAD), the Virginia Criminal Information Network (VCIN) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). The MDT’s are interfaced with these networks and are not allowed to have internet access for security reasons. Because of this restriction they are unable to use the MDT’s to query any of the resources available via the internet that provide access to the City or State code.

I find it remiss that again officers in the City of Portsmouth Police Department are not provided with the tools to accomplish their job and it comes down to money. It is extremely difficult to enforce laws if you are not provided with anything more then a “cheat sheet” to refer to. This issue puts the City of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Police Department in a situation where there could be a liability concern. If an Officer makes an arrest which had he or she been able to read the code before making that arrest the officer might have chosen a different course of action.

Recently a Police Officer from the City of Portsmouth was involved in a DUI Accident (Click WVEC Segment on the Portsmouth Police Officers DUI April 2008 to view the WVEC segment on the incident) . As a former police officer I have worked a number of DUI’s and currently I still have two pending Felony DUI’s before the court. I find someone that drives under the influence is foolish and reckless, they disregarding their own safety and those of the motoring public. Their really is no excuse for this behavior and as I have said in previous posts Police Officers must set the example and be above reproach.

On to the tragedy, I know the officer that was involved, seemed like a nice guy and appeared to be a competent officer. What I was told this past week from a reliable source was that this officer apparently had a drinking problem. People thought he might have been an alcoholic. I have no first hand knowledge but was told that the Field Training Officer (FTO) that trained this officer had documented incidents of him coming to work in a less then stellar form. As has been the case in the past the management of the Portsmouth Police Department ignored what appeared to be warning signs or take action early on to prevent this tragedy.

The City of Portsmouth has a program called EAP (Employee Assistance Program). This program is available to employee’s who have mental or emotional issues and need some help in trying to overcome those problems. It can be voluntary or mandatory. From the second hand information I have been given it would appear that mandatory EAP might have helped this officer with his problem and perhaps prevented this tragedy.

The only people that really know are the ones that had direct dealings with the officer and have read the documentation that was written about the officer by his FTO.

Again the Portsmouth Police management has failed in their duties to protect and serve. In the past officers have been pushed through field training after the police academy even when training officers have raised red flags that some of these trainee’s have a major deficiency that might put them, their fellow officers or the public at risk.

Officers in Portsmouth are afraid to disagree with their superiors for fear of ending up like me. I have said “NO” to my superiors when I was asked to do things that go against the law or my moral or ethical standards.

Perhaps it’s time for an outside entity to come into the City of Portsmouth and take a look at how the Police Department is run. Mismanagement appears to be the norm and had proper steps been taken perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided.

Powershift is reassigned, specialized units are now task with handling calls for service and Portsmouth says they are spending to much on overtime to handle their required day-to-day law enforcement functions. Check out the various document links in the paragraphs below that outlines these major changes that impact the safety of the public and of the police officers working the streets in Portsmouth.

As everyone knows the economy has been in a downward spiral for a little while. When the economy is not so good then tax bases can take hits as part of the fallout. Portsmouth is no different then most other cities, it has revenue issues. Revenue issues impact city services, cutbacks are the norm, doing more with less, hiring freezes etc etc. These cutbacks have to be prioritized and the last place to cut needs to be public safety. Now I am the first to say I don’t know what has happened in other departments but I will show clearly what happened to the police department. They have cut off ALL overtime with the exception of Court over time. Because police respond to essentially random events it is difficult to predict required manning levels in advance. Portsmouth has had a sworn officer authorized strength of 250 officers for sometime, before I was employed and I had been their over 4 years. The way the department dealt with not having enough officers to deal with the day-to-day calls for service was to authorize overtime. Their are times when a whole shift would be held over because of a major incident such as a homicide or robbery. A perfect example of this occurred about a month ago at the American Legion Hall on Peach St. The American Legion had rented the hall out for a “birthday” party. When police were finally called their were HUNDREDs of people inside and outside of the facility. Several Police Officers were hurt trying to regain control of the disorderly group of young adults and juveniles. The incident occurred at shift change and it required BOTH shifts to deal with the magnitude of the incident. In fact I was told by one supervisor that the event would have overwhelmed the midnight shift and that they would have had few if any officers to deal with anything that might have happened during that incident. The evening shift was held over for almost two hours to assist midnight with the incident. Later on during the pay period (within two weeks) the public would be short a full shift of officers for two hours to make up for the two hours of overtime they used that night.

Portsmouth is a small city with a big city crime problem. They have needed more officers on the street for a long period of time but they have dealt with it by using overtime. Now with the current economic situation they say they don’t have the money. To that I will paraphrase what a City Counsel member said at a recent counsel meeting “when we have a project we really want to do we can usually find the money”. To that I say that cutbacks to public safety organizations are fraught with risk to the officers and to the citizens.

Now anyone putting in more time then their normal work week (ie 42.5 hours or 40 hours) are required to “RT” it (a Portsmouth scheduling code) meaning that by the end of the two week pay period they will have to leave early, or come in late or any other way to prevent them from getting paid money for the time they might have worked over during their two week pay period. As an example of how that works the people that worked two hours overtime for the American Legion incident would have to leave two hours earlier on another day prior to the end of the pay period. That day (or evening) that patrol shift is short an officer (or more then one) for that period of time. Less officers on the street to protect and serve, less officers to come to the assistance of their comrades if an officer needs help.

Click cutbacks_memo_1 to see the memo outlining the staffing changes. To make up for the shortages other specialized units now are required to answer calls for service. So that could mean that NIO’s will be out of there neighborhood, TRU-Street crimes units are answering calls for service instead of working on neighborhood drug problems, you get the idea. The “Powershift” was a small group of officer permanently assigned to work 5pm to 3am Wednesday to Saturday. This covered the shifts that statistically had high volumes of calls and provided a group of officers that allowed an organized shift transition covering the time at the end of evening shift and the beginning of midnights when their are few officers on the street to cover calls.

As I start pulling statics from various sources I think I will be able to show that Portsmouth needs an increase in authorized sworn officer strength to maintain a safe and efficient law enforcement organization. They have been using the overtime as a stop-gap measure for years and it appears that the money is no longer available for whatever reason. Again Portsmouth must learn to balance it’s economic efforts with it’s requirement to provide Public Safety services. Holiday Inn’s, Traffic Circles and River Front Crystal lights don’t make the streets safer they just make them prettier. Someone in the Portsmouth government needs to start reevaluating Portsmouth’s spending priority’s and bring Public Safety back to the top of the priority list not the bottom. Portsmouth has the lowest paid Police Officers in the area with the highest crime rate. Click Area Police Pay Comparison to see a pay comparison made in July 2007 of the various local Police Departments salaries. Portsmouth ranks at the bottom on virtually all of them. Click Hampton Roads Cities Crime Statistics Comparison for 2006 to see a crime statistics comparison for the various localities showing that Portsmouth has the highest crime rate in the area when the crime statistics are converted to make the comparison by a 50,000 person population base.

The City of Portsmouth management needs to start looking at the realities of the situation and doing a better job prioritizing there spending. Safety First .. Economic development later ..

The radio system problems have far reaching consequences and puts every city employee that relies on a city radio at risk if they call for help in an emergency situation. The ones with the most serious risk are the Police Officers and Fire Fighters that are called on to protect citizens on a daily basis and are frequently put in harms way during their daily duties. These problems also expose the City of Portsmouth to liability problems because numerous people (myself included) have made the management of the Portsmouth Police Department aware of the problem but they have chosen to ignore it until recently when some courageous officers have directly contacted several City Counsel members about the problem. The Police management never even made the Portsmouth’s Chief Executive Officer City Manager Kenneth Chandler aware of these issues. I would love to take credit for spilling the beans to the City Counsel but I was actually trying to meet with City Manager Kenneth Chandler shortly before he terminated me about these very issues. His Executive Assistant never contacted me back about the meeting. In fact I attended the Portsmouth City Counsel Public Work session on the issue and was surprised to hear City Manager Kenneth Chandler asked the City Counsel if it was a serious problem and why he was not made aware of it.

Their are significant coverage problems with the current system when an employee is using a handheld radio in Churchland. In December of last year an officer was out on patrol and came across a volatile situation. During the course of the incident his handheld radio was not able to be received by the police dispatchers in the 911 center to send him help. He was holding a suspect at gunpoint that had just brandished a firearm at another person while restraining a second suspect. Click on the word audio to listen to the audio and hear for yourself how bad the radio problem can be.

This is not an isolated problem, it has happened frequently for a long period of time and is especially prevalent when the city is using the backup radio site on top of the city jail. The backup site on the jail is a very poor location to provide city-wide coverage and because the antenna is 187 feet lower then the Primary site on Frederick Blvd it does not provide even close to the reception coverage that the Primary site covers. Click on the word email and you can read an email one officer sent up his chain of command to try and make sure that the problem gets addressed. Again months later they have only a partial solution using a limited number of “repeaters” they have put in a select few police and fire vehicle.

These vehicle repeaters while a step in the right direction fall far short of correcting the problem. Click here for a flow diagram showing where the radio signals travel. They require procedures that have to be followed to get them to work that will make them problematic for a Police Officer. First the Police Vehicle has to be left running for them to work because they require significant power. Second, the officer has to switch his channel selector on his portable radio to a certain channel to communicate with the repeater in his vehicle which then retransmits his audio to the dispatch center or other officers. In normal routine day-to-day calls this is not normally a problem but if an emergency situation occurs and the officer might have to jump out of his police vehicle to chase a suspect then the opportunity for disaster is there. It will be difficult for an officer to take the time, reach down to the radio on his belt switch the channel selector to the correct channel. Not easy things to do when your trying to ran after a suspect, watch where they go, watch for weapons and keep track of where your running. It’s a recipe for disaster. The real solution to the radio problems is to install a new simulcast radio site in Churchland. The Motorola equipment cost alone would be in excess of $1,000,000 and that does not take into consideration a location to install the Motorola radio equipment or a tower to mount the antenna’s on. But again, the City of Portsmouth has it’s priorities, what’s a Police or Firefighters life worth compared to a new Holiday Inn.

There are other problems with the departments current operational policies that need to be addressed. Again attempts have been made but the Management of the Portsmouth Police Department does not like change and the “we’ve always done it that way” attitude is alive and well. Click here to read an email memo about suggested changes to enhance mutual aid communications. I submitted the memo and no one even bothered to contact me back either to ask questions or ask for help in implementation. Currently if the Portsmouth Radio System fails the officers are directed to go to the nearest Fire Station to make phone contact with the 911 Dispatch Center. This method is antiquated and inefficient. Portsmouth and all the surrounding cities have “Mutual Aid” channels and agreements in place to allow for the use of those channels in an emergency. They are independent of the Portsmouth system so all an Officer has to do is switch his handheld radio or vehicle radio channel to one of the “Mutual Aid” channels and they can communicate with Portsmouth Dispatch and other Portsmouth Units or another cities 911 dispatch center. The City of Norfolk and City of Chesapeake’s radio systems offer excellent coverage in most parts of Portsmouth and this method would be far more efficient then going to a Fire Station and using the phone. It provides a significant enhancement to Officer and Fire Fighter safety as they can communicate directly with other units and the 911 center if an emergency develops where they couldn’t if they were using telephones. The city frequently rely on their employee’s personal cellphones but they sure don’t pay for there usage. Portsmouth Police units have been in multijurisdictional vehicle pursuits and could not talk to any other agency that is assisting because their is no training or policy in place to coordinate the radio communications. Portsmouth has been in vehicle pursuits on the interstate with a State Police vehicle in the next lane and no method in place to communicate with them over the radio. The technology has been in place for all these safety enhancing procedures but a lack of vision by the City of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Police Department leave the citizens and the emergency services in jeopardy and leave in place unsafe antiquated procedures.

To any of the Portsmouth Officials that might be reading this post I would be happy to help out in implementing any of these procedures or policy changes as a volunteer consultant because these issues are too important to not fix when we have the technology in place it just needs to be implemented. Here’s a novel idea, how about all the local cites form a committee and formulate procedures for multijurisdictional incidents that require communications between different agencies. Again the technology has been here for sometime but no one wants to sit down and work out the details.

Virginia Beach at least has the right idea. They managed to get a multi-million dollar Port Security grant and installed a multichannel repeater system on the top of the Town Center. System has excellent coverage but again another resource that goes unused for the most part and no procedures in place in Portsmouth to take advantage of an available resource that might be important in a crisis when it’s to late to figure out how to use it. Portsmouth just received a $300,000 federal grant to move a communications link involving the Virginia Beach sponsored ORION communications system from one tower in Portsmouth to another yet they can’t (or won’t even try to) come up with the funds to make it safe for the city employee’s and Public Safety Personel.

To my friends and comrades in Public Service .. Be safe out there .. To the Citizens of Portsmouth contact your elected officials if your unhappy about some of these issues ..