Friday's Promotion Ceremony Ought to be Interesting

Time has finally come for a promotion ceremony in what has to be the longest, strangest delay in announcement-to-ceremony in CMPD history (note: this is more of a guess than fact-checked).

Bigger note to reporters: you should attend, because the lead-in to Friday is filled with some very fired-up controversy from officers about promotions, transfers, raises, lawsuits, and what seems to be the loss of all the private records of the entire police force from the Training Center, location of the cermony.  The Police Department and several other agencies have so far refused to confirm this to multiple sources, but it seems an immediate denial would have been in order if it weren't true. 

Word is that all the missing files were discovered by an audit, but there have been requests by the Brass to all police officers to re-fingerprint themselves voluntarily... So these missing records are not a surprise to everyone.  What else is missing in this massive security hole?  Was it intentional or negligent or some other root cause that caused these records to be (allegedly) unaccounted for?  Finding out exactly when and who knew will be very interesting.  Finding out if it relates to recent promotions will be interesting. 

The CMPD paid at least $10,000 for an outside agency to get their CALEA certification recently. 

CALEA stands for Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc.   If you look up the CALEA certification folks, the first item that comes up says "As evidenced by many other recent initiatives, CALEA is working smarter to ensure its services complement the needs of agencies participating in CALEA Accreditation programming. To this end, CALEA remains the Gold Standard in Public Safety, and we invite you to visit the general conference webpage at https://conference.calea.org," so they are definitely interested in promoting their conferences.  When the city-wide citizen input meeting was canceled by snow earlier this year, they were not interested enough to stick around for an extra day and take in information, or to re-schedule.  Wonder if they looked around the Training Center for records?

Cedarposts.blogspot.com has the announcement of all the promotions released and also some other moves being made.  Check out the list here.  But you'll want to read the "CMPD Shake Up" story, which explains the list--but check out the comments.

Pattern and practice.  Wow.

Read the City's position on A&E Show "First 48" and Then Weigh In

See this extensive article regarding the "reality television" show filmed last year here in Charlotte, and in several other cities across the United States.  Then please use the comments to share how you feel about the issues. 

read:   Monroe’s Reality: “First 48” and More…?

Did Charlotte's officers know ahead of filming what they were signing up for? What about after? Did the Fraternal Order of Police have any review or input? Is this show part of the reason the CMPD liability insurance premiums were increased by 25% this year, for cause?

Does this affect the way police to their jobs, for the sake of the show?  Is there pressure for a "good show."

What about hours or 'special consultants' to the show... there are just so many questions about a contract that was apparently signed and approved by no one but Police Chief Rodney Monroe, and according to his attorney, he did it all with only one e-mail to the troops when it was done, congratulating them on a "Great Arrest" featured on an episode.  Very Strange.

Justice in Charlotte?

Criminal Justice in Charlotte...  have you experienced "the system" directly?

Behind a badge?  Behind the bench?  Behind bars?

Many in Charlotte are not paying attention to crime until it becomes necessary in their lives, often with tragic consequences of different degree.  Too often, network news coverage focuses on sensationally tragic stories with morbid glee unil there is nothing left to talk about, while they ignore the root causes of the problems in our community.

Where were the questions for Mayor Foxx at the end of May following the Memorial Day gang-related riots and murder on our streets when he stood up and stated that there was no fighting here?   Where were the questions for Police Chief Rodney Monroe--or his boss, City Manager Curt Walton--when Monroe stated that "at no time, at NO time, did we ever lost control" after he said they had undertaken careful strategic planning and had adequate staffing levels?  He also made a presentation to all of City Council claiming there had not been a riot, presenting in writing a definition of riot that did not match CMPD's definition, not to mention common sense.  Monroe had told press that Charlotte's gangs are not bad--our gangs get along well with each other (GOOD NEWS!).

The truth is that a man was murdered.
There was gunfire on our streets downtown.
Downtown should not be the only area of concern, even if it will be the site of DNC2012.

On the Fourth of July, how much extra money was spent to flood the streets with police officers trying to ensure the real state of affairs in Charlotte and Rodney Monroe's Police Department was not exposed?  Politicians and Public Affairs personnel claimed victory with the assistance of community volunteers.  While the volunteers' efforts were certainly positive and commendable, any honest assessment would assign victory to Nature and Numbers: the largely peaceful July 4th was mostly due to wild lightning storms just before festivities were scheduled to begin, combined with a huge additional police presence and the relatively minute number of people ambling down the sidewalks. 

Attendence was radically down.  What was the Police OT budget for that night?  How many businesses lost money because they had to close for the night?  And how much did all the specialized police equipment cost?  What about peace of mind?

The PR machine is tearing this town apart instead of addressing the problems.   What do you think?  What do you know?