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| NEWS > 24 September 2006 |
Other related articles:
Ex-cop blasts fatal crash repo
State Police ‘‘fabricated excuses’’ for an off-duty police officer involved in a fatal accident on the Southeast Expressway last year, a consultant’s report alleges.
Stephen R. Benanti, a retired State Police accident reconstruction specialist, called a State Police investigation into the accident deeply flawed and biased.
In his report, Benanti faulted State Police for not charging Boston police officer Thomas Griffin, whose vehicle struck and killed Michelle Vibert in her disabled vehicle at 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 12. 2006. Vibert, of Weymouth, was a 29-year-old mother of tw... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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theage.com.au
24 September 2006
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Learn from history, don't repe
The Police Association secretary, Paul Mullett, needs a lesson in history. The Spanish Inquisition, to which he likens the Office of Police Integrity, were the torturers. The inquisitors were the theological equivalent of the armed offenders squad and Torquemada was the secretary of the Spanish Inquisitors' Association.
That's a small point. The big question in the present confrontation between the OPI, the Chief Commissioner and the Police Association is who is going to win. And going on past form, we can safely place our bets on the association.
In a disgraceful display of political opportunism, the Liberal Party has threatened to review the contract (a euphemism for sacking?) of the Chief Commissioner, Christine Nixon. For what offence? For showing extraordinary courage and determination in cleaning up the police force? Not only that, the Opposition is also promising to give the police trade union the thing that it most fervently desires - the abolition of the OPI.
In the past few years, three police squads (the drug squad, the major crime squad and now the armed offenders squad) have been found so corrupt they had to be abolished.
We have short memories where police corruption is concerned and we tend to be distracted by the particulars of the current case. If the police union complains about the independent OPI - as they have complained in the past about its predecessors - we tend to fall for their line that their members are just a bunch of hard-working cops holding the line against a sinister army of crooks? It goes down well because we so quickly lose sight of the big picture.
In 2004, it was not the independent investigators who were most in danger from corrupt police - it was other police officers. The police investigating corruption in the disgraced drug squad, under the code name Ceja taskforce, received death threats in the form of police-issue bullets engraved with their own names and the names of family members.
After 13 detectives from the squad were arrested, the threats grew so serious that one policeman told The Age (May 21, 2004): "Is it going to take the murder of an internal investigator before (government and police command) acknowledge there is a major problem in the organisation and stop resisting calls for a full independent inquiry?
At the time, the opposition spokesman on police matters, Kim Wells, called for an investigation by a body that had the power to coerce testimony.
Dr Ian Freckleton, who worked with the Cain government's short-lived Police Complaints Authority, sees the Police Association as a dangerous, reactionary force that has indirectly allowed corruption to flourish. "It ran a high-profile campaign against the police complaints board, objecting to almost everything we did. It was the most unique fusing of management and rank-and-file. It was a powerful political lobby group that has held politicians captive."
There is some good news and some bad news on the matter of police union political activity. The bad news is that the Police Association intends to campaign against the government at the state election. The good news is that they are getting advice for campaigning from the Queensland police union, which tried to get rid of the Beattie Government.
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