Pubdate: Thu, 18 Mar 2010
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
Copyright: 2010 Tallahassee Democrat
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/hdEs6Z0o
Website: http://www.tallahassee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/444
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Rachel+Hoffman

OFFICER'S REINSTATEMENT SHOULD CLOSE THIS CHAPTER

Rank-and-file officers of the Tallahassee Police Department have 
every right to feel undermined and slighted by the comments of Chief 
Dennis Jones regarding the recommended reinstatement of Investigator 
Ryan Pender.

Mr. Pender was fired for his role in a high profile tragedy in 2008, 
the drug deal gone bad that ended in the death of informant Rachel 
Hoffman and sent her two attackers in prison for life.

Last week, an arbitrator ordered the city to reinstate Mr. Pender 
along with back pay and benefits, saying that at most he should 
receive a written reprimand for allowing Ms. Hoffman to be frisked by 
a male officer.

Chief Jones, however, has declined to support the reinstatement of 
the one officer, Mr. Pender, who appears to be the "fall guy" for the 
department's lack of adequate policies and rules governing the use of 
confidential informants.

"It was a slap in the face to everybody," wrote Fraternal Order of 
Police President Mauricio Endara of Mr. Jones' resistance to bringing 
Mr. Pender back on the job. "I've never seen the morale be so low."

No one is questioning that mistakes in judgment were made during the 
May 7, 2008, drug operation in which Mr. Pender was Ms. Hoffman's 
primary police contact. But without spelled-out departmental 
procedures and approval of operational plans by his superiors, Mr. 
Pender, with a history as a fine officer, ought not be isolated and 
suffer such career-ending punishment.

"We do regret the situation that it took for the lack of procedures 
to be recognized," Mr. Endara wrote, saying the force welcomes Mr. 
Pender back. "But we are encouraged that a review and implementation 
of better procedures will certainly improve the way our Department 
functions as a whole."

Mr. Jones seems to be framing the situation as a power struggle 
between employers and employees, saying arbitrators "are generally 
known to favor the employee over the employer."

But for the citizens of Tallahassee, the morale and confidence of 
those employees -- the law-enforcement officers who are on-the-street 
guards of public safety -- it is important that they feel their 
department, their chief and city officials right up to the city 
manager won't leave them hanging when something unexpectedly awful 
goes wrong in an operation of this magnitude.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake