Police Investigation

Summary:  The Police Investigation was handled poorly in almost every way.  We must learn from it. 

They say that hindsight is 20/20, and it is probably a little cheap and easy to look back now and take pot shots at the way the Police Department investigation was handled. That said, at the very least it can now be said that the situation was regrettable and expensive, and probably could have been prevented.  Hiring an outside consultant to handle this type of issue (especially the notoriously high-billing firm that we hired) is fraught with danger, and we need to exercise extreme caution about repeating this same strategy in the future.   The whole process still makes me feel angry and sad.

This issue is in the past and I am not going to make it a big campaign issue, other than to say that I hope and pray that I will use the wisdom learned through this experience to help me handle similar issues that I would confront as Mayor.

I would like to clarify a few things that I was involved in during the course of this investigation.  To start, I was not on the Council when the original charges were filed.  This is not a "passing the buck" statement--If anything, I have held off on my criticism of the Council due to the fact that it is easy to Monday Morning Quarterback and I don't really know what I would have done when confronted with the same information.

Toward the end of the investigation (after Chief Kingsbury had resigned and Det. Swetlik had his charges dropped), I released a public statement encouraging the Council to drop the remaining charges against Lt. Puestow.  I want to clarify why I did this.  Some have suggested that I did it because I knew that Lt. Puestow didn't lie, so I released the statement to serve up my own verdict.  Some felt that I was fed up with the non action of the Police and Fire Commission, so I released the statement to shame them into quick action.

Neither of these explanations are true.  I released my statement out of concern for taxpayer money that continued to be spent every day that the investigation dragged on.  It had reached a point where I didn't see what would be gained by continuing to spend money for the sole reason of determining whether Lt. Puestow lied over an issue that did not directly impact public safety.  Let me be clear:  I do not condone lying.  I did not propose dropping the charges either because I thought the Lt. Puestow didn't lie or that I didn't care whether he lied--I simply don't know whether he lied or not.  But--In the big picture I represent the taxpayers and they were not getting anything out of prolonging this investigation.

The PFC did their job admirably under incredibly difficult circumstances.  My statement was not directed at the PFC and was not intended to influence them.  The PFC is necessarily deliberate in their actions--They have to be!  That is why I directed my statement to my fellow Council members. 

Do my arguments warrant a promotion to sargeant or should I be sent back to the police academy?  Air your grievances on the discussion board.