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| NEWS > 10 August 2006 |
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Columbiana police chief invest
Columbiana Mayor Allan Lowe has requested two separate investigations of the city's highest-ranking law enforcement officer.
The probes were ordered in response to allegations made against Police Chief Johnny Brown, Lowe said Tuesday afternoon.
Lowe said he was not aware of any specific charges filed against Brown, but confirmed some of the allegations "did involve possible minor theft."
Brown remains on extended sick leave.
"To my knowledge, Chief Brown is being treated," said Lowe. "I do not know when to expect that treatment to be complete."
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San Antonio Express (subscript
10 August 2006
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Ken Rodriguez: Hail to the chi
The troops are in high spirits. Two days after Assistant Police Chief Jerry Pittman announced his departure, a patrolman left a message on my answering machine:
"Over here at the substation, we're doing back flips in the parking lot."
A traffic cop wrote: "I am one of those officers who cheered in the streets when this story broke."
Then there was this from a detective: "Morale in the SAPD has never been better and it's all thanks to the new chief."
Bill McManus, take a bow. Your troops are drunk with joy.
On Aug. 3, Pittman embarrassed the department with a bloody affair at a local motel. Five days later, he's retired. Wow, what a coincidence.
Monday afternoon, McManus tells me he's not sure what to do about Pittman. "I'm still chewing on that," he said.
Not long after, the chief spit out a decision. Because at 12:08 a.m. Tuesday, an e-mail arrived: "Just heard that Pittman signed his (retirement) papers."
Sometime after 1 p.m., the official phone call came. Pittman is leaving. No one saw that coming.
Can you believe it? We've got a chief who knows how to clean up a mess?
Officers say morale was up before Pittman's ouster. Up because McManus mingles with patrolmen at roll call. Up because he agreed to the request for new uniforms. Up because he doesn't lead autocratically. Up because he implements the ideas of the rank-and-file.
One example: Patrol captains proposed saturating hot spots of crime with dozens of street cops. McManus embraced the idea. And when the Crisis Response Unit was born, arrests went up, crime went down.
Complaints? I haven't heard a one.
Back to Pittman. Most expected him to escape with a wrist slap.
For years, officers have resigned themselves to a frustrating fact of life. Different spanks for different ranks, they say.
In other words: A patrolman caught with a prostitute gets suspended. A high-ranking officer gets a reprimand.
Pittman, police say, did not consort with a prostitute. He had a bloody, non-criminal motel room encounter with a consenting woman other than his wife.
No crime. No problem. Everyone get back to work. Then just as everyone did — boom! — the bombshell.
"All I will say," McManus said, "is that we talked. And at the end of the conversation, Jerry felt the best thing was for him to retire."
McManus is smooth and simple. A third-grader could read between those lines.
What will the chief do next?
He'll let an Internal Affairs investigation into the sordid saga continue — at least until Pittman's official last day, Aug. 31. But you have to wonder how serious the effort will be.
Internal Affairs is looking for ethics violations when it should be looking for a cover-up.
Officers say supervisors tried to sanitize the motel incident report. That evidence wasn't collected. That friends tried to protect Pittman.
True? Since he's leaving, no one may have the heart to find out.
The chief doesn't believe a cover-up took place. And besides, many who do believe are refocusing their attention.
The union contract says McManus has 90 days to replace Pittman with a deputy chief.
The rank-and-file is keenly interested. But they're also interested in more change at the top. A familiar refrain: The chief needs to keep cleaning house.
That may yet happen. An audit is due shortly on a multimillion-dollar computer system that keeps crashing. Early word is that the report is harsh. Frustrated officers hope for another purging.
After four months, the chief has exceeded in-house expectations. The new uniforms were nice and all. But this latest gift, well, it's made officers flip.
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