Pubdate: Sun, 10 Feb 2002
Source: Clarion-Ledger, The (MS)
Copyright: 2002 The Clarion-Ledger
Contact: http://www.clarionledger.com/about/letters.html
Website: http://www.clarionledger.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/805
Author: Thyrie Bland, Greg Mayer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption)

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION: COPS, ETHICS AND THE LAW

JPD Increases Training, Spot Checks

Jackson Police Lt. T. Daryl Smith doesn't feel good every time he nabs the 
bad guy.

It's just the opposite. "It makes you sick," he said.

As head of internal affairs at the Jackson Police Department - a department 
that saw eight of its own officers arrested in 2000 on corruption charges - 
Smith oversees one of its most critical divisions.

"Credibility is everything when it comes down to a police officer doing his 
job," Smith said.

The Jackson Police Department, like others around the country, is looking 
at new ways to combat internal breakdowns and keep officers from straying 
into trouble.

Last year, the department started ethics training for new recruits and 
plans to expand the training later this year to include veteran officers.

Recruits also must go through criminal background checks and psychological 
screening.

And the department does random "integrity checks" - using internal affairs 
officers to check for unprofessional behavior.

But, in the end, there is no way to guarantee every dirty cop is weeded 
out, Jackson's acting police chief, Jim French, concedes.

Or, as Michael Clay Smith, dean of graduate studies in criminal justice at 
the University of Southern Mississippi, put it: "There is no police 
department that isn't touched at some time, in some way, by integrity 
issues. Any police officer that's been on the job six months knows what I'm 
talking about.

"The nature of the work is such that it leads people to tempting 
situations," Michael Smith said.

Just ask Jackson police chaplain Sgt. David Horton, a 22-year veteran.

"Drug dealers standing on the street corner - they are so bold," he said.

"Not only will they say, 'I am not going to move off the corner,' but, 
better yet, 'If you leave me alone, there could be some advantages in it 
for you,' " Horton said.

Veteran Detective Willie Mack has seen it, too.

"I've had folks tempt me," Mack said. "It's not worth throwing away a 
career over."

But what about those officers who might be more susceptible to that kind of 
temptation?

That's where Jackson's new program of ethics training comes in.

The training started with Jackson's last police recruit class, which 
graduated in December. The current class should begin its ethics work soon.

Horton, Thomas Jenkins, a civilian who serves as a police department 
chaplain, and Joe Austin, a police training officer, are passing on what 
they learned last year during a week-long ethics instructors' course at the 
Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers Training Academy.

Horton said the best way to teach the class is for recruits to consider how 
officers might respond to ethical and moral dilemmas, and then examine the 
consequences.

"On one side, put all the good results that can come out of making good 
decisions," he said. "On the other side, put all the things to the contrary 
that can come from making bad decisions and let them (the officers) look at 
it and count up the costs for themselves."

Michael Smith agrees ongoing ethics training is vital. "If you don't think 
about it, stuff can sneak up on you," he said.

And ongoing ethics training is a worthwhile investment of time in an effort 
to prevent corruption, said the Rev. James Turner, a Jackson resident.

"I certainly think it would be very important," Turner said. "And I would 
hope the voice of ministers and other people are included in the training."

The Police Department also does its best to screen out candidates who have 
questionable backgrounds or display other signs pointing to trouble.

Police recruits undergo a polygraph test, psychological testing, interviews 
with a psychologist and written exams. Recruits' work histories and 
criminal records are also checked.

Among the most common reasons applicants are turned down are poor work 
histories, failure to pass employment tests and past arrests, French said.

In the 1990s, the city learned the hard way the consequences of lowering 
its standards.

In an effort to expand the force, Mayor Kane Ditto's administration allowed 
the hiring of recruits with misdemeanor criminal records, such as 
possession of marijuana.

The results were disastrous.

Of the 167 recruits who graduated from the police academy in 1992-1993, 
eight were fired, 18 suspended and 21 reprimanded within three years. They 
became known - not in glowing terms - as "Ditto's Rangers."

Even with the most rigorous screening, though, there are those who will 
slip through the system or become corrupt at some point after they hit the 
street.

They are the officers who eventually become the targets of the department's 
Internal Affairs and Public Integrity Unit - the cops who police the cops.

It's not a glamorous assignment.

"We're not liked. We realize that," said Lt. Smith, who heads up the unit. 
"But, at the same time, people realize we're needed."

It was the internal affairs unit along with the FBI that busted the eight 
officers arrested in 2000.

Six were arrested after a 15-month sting. They were accused of taking 
bribes from undercover federal agents posing as cocaine traffickers.

Former Sgt. Fred Gaddis, Patrolman Tim Henderson and Patrolman Nate Thomas 
pleaded guilty and ex-Detective Stanley Butler was convicted by a jury. 
Charges were dropped against former Sgt. Ronald Youngblood and Detective 
Joe Wade, but federal prosecutors are still considering whether to 
prosecute Youngblood, whose cooperation led to the indictments of his 
fellow officers.

In separate cases, former Detective Alvaline Baggett was found guilty of 
taking money from drug dealers to fix drug cases and former Detective 
Wallace Jones, Baggett's brother, pleaded guilty to taking a bribe from a 
federal agent posing as a cocaine trafficker.

"My personal opinion is these officers were not criminals when they came on 
the department," French said. "Whether it was seeing the money that a major 
drug dealer makes, whether it was financial problems ... Something made 
those people make a really bad choice in life."

Horton said he learned from the class he took that many officers go wrong 
when they have to make split-second decisions.

"Officers every day in this career, unlike many others, are faced with 
dilemmas," Horton said. "Many officers have made bad choices. These choices 
were due to the lack of ethical training with their department." Horton 
said when he was a police recruit in 1980, he was not given any extensive 
training on ethical behavior.

Horton said he was just warned to stay out of trouble.

The Jackson Police Department began making a more concerted effort to 
remove corrupt officers from its ranks after a 1999 study of the department 
hinted corrupt officers were on the force.

In response to the study, the department beefed up internal affairs, adding 
seven officers, asked for the FBI's assistance in weeding out crooked cops, 
moved internal affairs out of headquarters to a separate Amite Street 
building and started conducting integrity checks.

Internal affairs was moved partly in hopes that people would feel more 
comfortable filing complaints against an officer if they didn't have to 
worry about bumping into him.

At the same time, the number of non-criminal complaints investigated - 
things such as an officer verbally abusing a citizen - has tripled from 110 
in 1996 to 339 last year. Lt. Smith couldn't elaborate on the nature of the 
complaints against officers, citing they are personnel matters.

Lt. Smith attributes the increase, in part, to an increase in the size of 
the internal affairs department and the ability to handle more complaints.

In addition to non-criminal complaints, there are also four criminal 
complaints under investigation.

Lt. Smith would not elaborate on the criminal complaints.

The unit also began conducting integrity checks in 2000.

Internal affairs officers might randomly pull officers' incident reports to 
see if the evidence cited on the report matches what's turned in to the 
evidence room, or they might secretly respond to calls to see if a patrol 
officer shows up.

French would not go into further detail about the checks. He has stopped 
releasing the results since the first checks were done in 2000. But, so 
far, none has turned up any corruption, French said.

In the integrity checks in 2000, when the results were released to the 
media, 22 Jackson police officers failed.

The checks found 12 officers were often late for work, four failed to 
respond to calls and six more had jobs outside the department but didn't 
report them to the department as policy requires.

The same type of checks, however, have been credited with helping clean up 
the once scandal-plagued police department in New Orleans.

The internal affairs division in New Orleans spends about 25 percent of its 
time on integrity testing, said Terry Ebbert, executive director of the New 
Orleans Police Foundation.

Those checks, he said, include even small things, such as how a traffic 
stop is handled.

"The police officers know they are being watched on a continuous basis," 
Ebbert said.

French said, however, that the best remedy might be the focus on rigorous 
ethics training.

"The bottom line here is we have officers making very poor choices," French 
said.

"We have got to do things to make our officers make good decisions. No 
matter what a parent teaches us when we are children, we face new dilemmas 
when we become adults. There are things parents can't teach us how to handle."
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