(R) Pilliod, James P
(R) Millham, Alida I
(R) Jeffrey St. Cyr
(R) Boyce, Laurie J
(R) Peter Bolster
(R) Elaine Swinford
(D) Bill Johnson
I felt I must post a followup to the story reported here on GilfordGrok about the distraught man who fell to his death after being shot by NYC police with a TASER. Heaping more bad news on an already sad story, the police Lietenant who ordered the use of the stun type weapon has committed suicide. Click here to read the story. Our condolences go to both families, naturally...
Of course, you could make a case that "There is no factual information that indicates that a TASER caused an injury." You see, it was the sudden stop...
Here's the story, as reported by WCBS TV:
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Community activists are calling on authorities to fully investigate the death of a Brooklyn man who was tasered by police in front of a crowd of onlookers.
The last moments of 35-year-old Inman Morales's life were spent naked and perched on a ledge in Bedford-Stuvyesant. Dozens of people watched, while some took photographs as the apparently emotionally disturbed man jumped up and down on top of a 10-foot high roll-down gate swinging a florescent light bulb towards police officers who were trying to grab him on a nearby fire escape.An officer on the ground then raised his taser stun gun and fired a five second jolt of 50,000 volts of electricity immobilizing him. Morales then fell head-first to his death.
"He wasn't hurting anybody, witness Racquel McDonald said. "They could have just grabbed him and bring him down, but they tased him instead and he fell to his death and it was real wrong."
Man falling after being tased...
Added a witness named "Kyle:" "The man was isolated for minute … and then he just fell to the floor. They had about eight cops that could break the fall. They just moved back."
Morales's mother was standing just a few yards away when her son fell. According to other family members, she called police because her son had a chemical imbalance and she believed he was suffering from a bad reaction to medication.
"The mother was screaming he's gonna fall and they said ma'am step back. They wouldn't allow the mother to talk to him," said Charlene Gayle-Gordon.
Community activists called on the city to investigate.
"We're not holding the whole NYC police department at fault, but we are questioning the actions of the supervisor of the Emergency Service Unit who took and who shot this young man, not one time but twice," Sharonnie Perry said.
I wonder if that's like a SWAT team? I'll bet Morale's mother is sure glad she called the public safety people...
Today's Daily Sun ran a front page story regarding the rumored Taser injury of a Gilford police officer. As reported by Mike Kitch in the Sun, Chief Markland says:
"There is no factual information that indicates that a TASER caused an injury."
And yet there's verbiage about training and one surmises that an officer was indeed injured sometime in the recent past.
Sounds like the SOP we heard about on the budget committee last year-- that all injury cases involving TASERS are found to have other causes, being merely agitated by the device.
Question: Do we have an injured officer unable to perform his normal duties, or have we recently?
Did the injury occur in an exercise in which a TASER was in use at some point?
The Gilford taxpayers (rightfully) spend a lot of money to ensure the utmost safety of all its employees, especially those in the public safety departments. TASERS were okayed, in fact, as a safety measure. The taxpayers have a right to know the circumstances causing an employee an on the job injury so they can evaluate the effectiveness of the measures for which they pay.
If revealing the nature of an on the job injury using town owned equipment and techniques is private and therefore unknowable, according to law, why did we learn Officer Bredbury broke a finger in a motorcycle week cruiser crash-- one that wasn't known publicly for an extended period of time?
What's the difference?
And what if a policeman had been accidently shot. Would the public be barred from knowing the full story?
I'm not suggesting there's been a "cover up" to hide wrongdoing. Perhaps bad publicity about an event everyone wished hadn't happened? Well...
Here is a video of the TASER demonstration given for the Budget Committee's benefit last year during the debate over whether or not to fund their purchase by our town:
As you can see, the effects are rather intense. Despite the obvious fitness of the officer, he is no match for the device. The question at the time was, and still is, whether such a weapon is really needed by police officers in our tiny hamlet? Is this something we want used upon our citizens? At the time of the vote, I was one who voted yes, feeling that the device would ultimately enhance the safety of our officers as they go about their business.
So, what has transpired since the decision was made? Have TASERS been deployed in Gilford? If not, why not? Could it be that something has happened that might change some peoples' minds on their usage here in our town? GilfordGrok has been sitting on information for some time now regarding an injury involving this device.
Much like the cruiser that got wrecked motorcycle weekend, the question is,
Is there something to hide? Inquiring minds want to know. The GilfordGrok staff does not wish to make mountains out of molehills, and therefore has kept this quiet, in the hopes that the town would eventually share the news at a time convenient for them. For the length of time that has now passed, we are beginning to wonder if they were ever going to tell us what happened. Perhaps with this posting, they'll now have to.
We're waiting... (still)
Our friend Chan from Weekend Pundit started a new blog site One Voice In Gilford when he ran for Selectman this past election. The latter was supposed to be for the election, but he is now hoping that this new site will be more successful than his run in that he'll be blogging about local stuff here in Gilford (WP is more "other focused").
With that all said, I trundled on over to see what his take on Gilford was and found this:
I have to wonder what was running through the minds of the Gilford Board of Selectmen during yesterday's meeting.
In March the voters of Gilford decided the Facilities Planning Committee should receive $150,000 to put towards the completion of plans for the addition to and renovation of the police station. The FPC had hoped to work with the architect – Stewart Associates of Gilford– to complete those plans and to work with the original general contractor – Horne Construction of Rochester – to come up with a firm will-not-exceed price.
[snip]
..which promptly turned it down and directed the FPC to go back to square one, sending out new bids for a new architect and new contractor. With this decision 15 months of work and almost $50,000 of taxpayer money was flushed down the toilet. (See Laconia Sun article below)
I'm not part of the inside baseball concerning the FPC, but I do know that folks have been a tad upset about the delay. Chan's post did include some musings about the new "schedule" of that as well:
Bidding a new architect will take a minimum of 6 weeks, with 9 weeks being the most likely time line. During that time the FPC will be able to get little if anything done because it cannot go forward without an architect. Once one is selected, it will take between 4 and 8 weeks to complete the plans started under Stewart Associates. Then another 6 to 8 weeks to qualify contractors and to put out a bid to those contractors. After that the selected contractor and the FPC will need time to work on refining the costs of the project. Not counting the last part, which could take an additional 4 to 6 weeks, that takes the time line of this project out to the end of September/beginning of October, a good month or more past the Labor Day deadline requested by the Board of Selectmen. And that's assuming everything goes right the first time. If everything on the time line takes the longest portion of the estimates, we're now out to the end of October, meaning the Board of Selectmen won't see the 'end product' until November or early December, which still leaves us exactly where the FPC was last December, except that an additional $150,000 taxpayers dollars will have been spent.
Kinda seems like situation set up for failure, time wise. Flush the $50K so far, now add another $150K?
Go read his conclusion(s).
From the Citizen:
With contract negotiations still in process, Gilford voters will not see any new union contracts for either Department of Public Works employees or the recently-formed Police Department union in 2008
Town Administrator Evans Juris said Tuesday that an agreement has not been reached during negations and due to the lack of time before the town vote in March, these contracts will have to be put on hold until 2009.[snip]
The Gilford Police Department union, organized through the Teamsters Local 633, does not have an established contract to keep in place like the DPW does.
Capitalism is risky - when your company does well, the owners can do well indeed. When it does not, the owners can lose everything. However, while luck, the level of capitalization, and timing do have an effect on the outcome, with all things otherwise sufficient and equal, the outcome is mainly dependent on the grit, determination, and brainpower of the principals. It is the ability of the individual to succeed that matters. Yes, the team, as it is put together, is a vital part of that. But when it gets down to brass tacks, it is the ability of those individuals to perform that is rewarded (principals or not).
Some, on the other hand, seek safety within a group - or union. The individual is of less importance in the actual renumeration as in most unions, it is seniority that counts and not always capability (having been around manufacturing plants for over 13 years and having to deal with unions during times of change with new software and new ways of doing things, I know this). Competition within the group is not rewarded - in fact, it is often rewarded negatively.
"They're status quo," Juris explained.
This means that until a contract is established for the department, there will be both no pay increases and no changes to benefits or anything else.
Sometimes, tying your success to a union may all that great in the short term. Especially when your fellow non-union municipal workers may well be getting a pay raise.
"We are continuing negotiations and we are progressing, just nothing will come to the voters until March of 2009," said Juris.
Police Department union spokesmen Officer Steve Colcord was unavailable for comment.
Oops.
Doug, in his column in the Daily Sun of , made some observations about Gilford's K-9 unit. I made a couple more, as I had responded to other Letter to the Editors (also in the Daily Sun). However, Chief Markland had a response in the Gilford Steamer (Letter to the Editor, 9/6 - paid subscription) and the Daily Sun (not online) in response to Doug's column.
To the Editor:
[snip]
In the year following the passage of a K-9 Unit, we budgeted $2,500 for the upkeep of the K-9 Program, a significant decrease from the K-9 Unit's inception. Currently we have not exceeded that amount and do not anticipate that we will. We have budgeted $2,500 for the coming year, so the assumption of escalating costs is not true.
My question will be, come budget time, will we find out that this is the true cost of the dog, his training, the handler, and the cruiser? Or, as in the joke that is well known by those of us who have to fill in travel related expense reports "go ahead, find the boots!".
The cruiser that was "dedicated" to be the K-9 Unit was a cruiser in the town's vehicle rotation. This means that vehicles purchased by the police department are rotated to other town departments as needed after a few years of patrol use, thus maximizing the usefulness of the vehicle's initial purchase.
This is fine, and most citizens would expect that this would happen to the point that the vehicle will keep working (face it, cruisers pile up mileage real quick, and even with great mechanics, they will last just so long).
The matter of "keeping the dog busy" is misconstrued as it pertains in this opinion. One of the most important parts of keeping a K-9 dog highly trained in its specialties is to use the dog often in real scenarios. The police department has a standard policy in place in the deployment of the K-9, a policy utilized by K-9 Units nationwide. We must maintain the dog's ability to perform in a high standard of competence in order to substantiate the dog's actions in legal matters.
And this is one of the main points that Doug in his column, and I in my Letters did agree on. We all agree that the dog must be active in order to be useful.
The problem is "does the needs of Gilford provide a an overwhelming percentage of the dog usage in those real life scenarios? In fact, while we are paying for the dog, the handler, and the cruiser for the K-9 unit, what percentage of official calls are strictly for Gilford, and which are for "outside use?
The loss of the Laconia Police Department's canine, Yogi, in July meant more responsibility was placed on the only canine left in Belknap County. That canine is Agbar, the Gilford Police Department's three-year-old Czech-born German Shepherd.
and Agbar are now first on the response list in towns where they used to be back-up and were called out twice in one week recently, one call being in Laconia.
Both the Laconia and Gilford canine units were called in the past to respond to several area towns' calls including Belmont, Alton, Tilton, Northfield, Loudon and Meredith. The first responder called depended upon the distance and location of the call. When asked about the added workload, Parent [K9 officer] said the pair have been managing just fine and are on call all the time. Parent's shifts re scheduled at night when most of the calls are made. "We are designed to be here when stuff happens," Parent said.
While Parent's calls will extend to other departments in Belknap County, particularly Laconia, the Gilford Police Department does not seek compensation for these service calls. Parent did note that the additional calls provide Agbar with valuable on-duty experience. Responding to assist other departments are considered good-faith efforts to help build relations between departments. "It's just law enforcement helping law enforcement," added Parent.
Lots of things can happen when one goes off on vacation....including this project once again. Certainly it is better named now - instead of a single standalone building being the subject of discussion, now it is the entire Townhall, as the decision has been made to put on an addition.
GilforGrok will certainly be willing to chime in from time to time with our views - we hope that you will too. We certainly wish our blog friend DCE from Weekend Pundit luck in his efforts to help bring this project to fruition (sorry, still thinking about the Corpse Flower!).
I had commented in the local papers about the previous process, and I put forward the same thing that I said before - will it be too big, or not big enough? A fundamental flaw that I saw was the lack of an analytical effort to try to do an educated guess on the the size of the needed facility by using "call" growth (where a "call" could be a traffic stop, an actual call into the Dispatch center, or an arrest - see the Gilford Police log when it appears in the papers). Reasonably reviewing the past call history and projecting forward some rate of growth (3%, 5%, 9% ?) would yield some ideas of manpower needs in the future, et. al., driving the size of the needed facility. What I wrote:
simple charge- determine the most cost effective way to address the space needs of the police department, with an addition to town hall given priority as the primary solution.
"everything is on the table" with regard to the use of the current space at town hall, including moving the offices of the School District- which occupy space on the lower floor, which is accessed from the rear of the building- out.
(1) Move the SAU office out of the Town Hall building. (2) Move the Planning Department and all related persons to the vacated SAU office. The existing customer friendly entrance configuration is ideal for the form of business transactions that office handles. (3) Expand the Town Clerk / Tax Collector’s section into areas vacated by the planners. (4) Study exactly what records and evidence must be kept and perhaps classify into different levels, thereby creating a realistic storage/retrieval system. (5) Construct a multi-story addition right behind the existing sally port. (A “sally port” is a garage area where a police cruiser with a criminal can drive directly and securely into the building.) The bottom of the new addition would be the new sally port. The existing sally port can be renovated to create more efficient booking area. (6) Close off part of the existing lobby for “secure” waiting area. (7) Explore storage options. (8) Maximize efficient use of all existing areas..
The work could be done in phases through two budget years, minimizing impact on the taxpayers. By attaching a multi-story addition directly to the rear area of the present police station, work could be performed with little disruption to the daily department activities. Openings between new and existing areas would be created during the very last stages of the project.
.
(1) Move the SAU office out of the Town Hall building. (2) Move the Planning Department and all related persons to the vacated SAU office. The existing customer friendly entrance configuration is ideal for the form of business transactions that office handles. (3) Expand the Town Clerk / Tax Collector’s section into areas vacated by the planners. (4) Study exactly what records and evidence must be kept and perhaps classify into different levels, thereby creating a realistic storage/retrieval system. (5) Construct a multi-story addition right behind the existing sally port. (A “sally port” is a garage area where a police cruiser with a criminal can drive directly and securely into the building.) The bottom of the new addition would be the new sally port. The existing sally port can be renovated to create more efficient booking area. (6) Close off part of the existing lobby for “secure” waiting area. (7) Explore storage options. (8) Maximize efficient use of all existing areas..
The work could be done in phases through two budget years, minimizing impact on the taxpayers. By attaching a multi-story addition directly to the rear area of the present police station, work could be performed with little disruption to the daily department activities. Openings between new and existing areas would be created during the very last stages of the project.
“The term ‘design-build’ refers to a range of alternatives to the traditional project delivery system. A useful way to look at design-build is by what it is not. Traditional design-bid-build is a segmented, sequential process in which the owner first contracts with a design professional to prepare detailed, suitable-for-construction plans and specifications (or sometimes has them prepared by its in-house engineers), then uses the detailed plans and specifications to solicit competitive bids for construction, and finally awards the construction contract to the low bidder. In design-build, one entity performs both design and construction under a single contract.”
