Open Mike for City Workers

Does anybody remember Richard Nixon and his missing eighteen minutes? I submit again, how will we know what we hear or read is a COMPLETE record? And what bars them from shady actions behind closed doors outside the meetings?

I think you guys are overly concerned with the meeting minutes. The meetings are open to the public — and people are prersent for each meeting. I am sure that no super secret dastardly deeds are being openly discussed. If there are such deeds they are being talked about behind closed doors. You either trust your elected officials or you don’t. As long as we have human beings in positions of power and authority — we will have issues. As responsible citizens, we just have to stay involved and keep our eye on things… Chiasm is right though — its not the primary powers in the city that can be (or usually are) the problem. Its the Directors of certain Departments — and people just below that level where serious problems can fester for years without being seen. I worked for Idaho Falls City for almost 20 years. I never saw corruption persay — but I did see the good ol’ boy network alive and well — taking care of its own and letting the hammer down once in a while on those not a mwember of that infamous organization.

I don’t think that there aren’t big enough problems to report. I think we got off on this tangent of discussing the problem in general because of my first posting. Sorry. I know everyone who writes here knows about problems, but I think many of us are afraid, and understandably so. I personally know of criminal cases where evidence has been destroyed, perjury has been committed, theft of property from criminal defendants by law enforcement, the wrong individual has been charged for a crime, etc. Explain to me how you want this disclosed via this site and I will consider if I want to “report” it.

The attorney general has been contacted but they cannot investigate unless they are “invited” in by the prosecutor. Now, if you were the prosecutor, would you invite them in?

The good thing about the written word is getting your say in without interruption. The bad thing is the inability to get someone’s tone. I would hope, Guest, that you’re tone was not one of sarcasm, suggesting that I should be willing to sacrifice my job to do something about what’s happening. My job is not in any jeopardy. I have, however, risked my very life to try and protect some of the individuals (you say criminals) who have been caught up in this web of corruption. It is happening, and the evidence is a matter of public record. One just has to wander down to the courthouse and ask for the right files. Since the prosecutor has approved the prosecution by his deputies of these cases, he will never agree to have the attorney general conduct an investigation. Civilly and maybe criminally, he could be held personally accountable for their actions, even for those cases he didn’t know about. The buck stops at his desk and he knows it. There are several people who are seeking a way around the necessity of his approval.

i wore the badge there for over 15 years. Never — for any reason would I have let the crimes you describe go just for my job. Jobs are easy to come by. I have a much better one now. I left for reasons nearly as disturbing as those you describe. If you truely have information about those types of activities — you and I both know there are ways to get it handled.

There is a case where a senior official at the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office left a threatening message on a young woman’s voice mail. When the young woman did not do what the officer wanted, he set up a situation where she was arrested with some of her friends after an illegal traffic stop. (The message has been copied and will be presented in court.) The prosecutor’s office is well aware that the defendant was threatened by the officer, they heard the tape, but has chosen to ignore it. The officer was asked about it but has replied that he doesn’t recollect making the call. LOL! This young woman’s attorney has appeared in court twice to ask for an order from the judge that the prosecutor’s office be ordered to release discovery to him. The judge has refused to issue the order. Every attempt to acquire the information through discovery or subpoena has been headed off by the prosecutor. What information they have released has been tampered with. The latest court filing states that 18 minutes of videotape that was provided by the Sheriff’s Dept were deleted. Shades of Richard Nixon? He didn’t get away with it. Why should the officer be allowed to? At least half of what the attorney has asked for has been withheld. The law requires that a defendant be given discovery. The prosecutors just don’t care. The judge is aware that the prosecutors are refusing to hand over the discovery but has scheduled this case to go to trial next week anyway. The defendant cannot prepare a defense without it. This would be an illegal proceeding and the judge and prosecutor know it. There is another hearing tomorrow morning, Friday, at 9:30 in St. Clair’s court where the prosecutor has asked the court to order sanctions against the defense attorney for trying to obtain the discovery through subpoena since the prosecution won’t hand it over. The defense attorney has filed another motion asking the court to order the release of the discovery. So, in this case, we have a sheriff’s deputy threatening someone, we have a prosecutor refusing to hand over discovery as mandated by law, and a judge who is ordering a defendant brought to an illegal trial anyway. There is also strong indications in the police report that the officer who arrested these individuals lied in his report and maybe even planted evidence. If he repeats these lies during trial, that’s perjury. The problem with proving it is that the sheriff’s department or the prosecutor’s office has deleted the evidence from the videotape and the prosecutor is fighting to prevent the verifying documents that the defense attorney has subpoenaed from being released. He actually wants the attorney fined/jailed for even asking for it!
How’s that? It will be interesting to see if any one of you fine folk show up to watch.

Not many cops would be stupid enough to leave a “thretening message” of the severe variety on someones messaging machine. The problem that I have is when people start making all of these horrendous claims of police corruption — and then make excuses why they cannot (or will not) report them. When the police commit crimes for real — people jump at the chance to deal with it — including good cops.

Well, this certainly doesn’t address the bad cop threatening employee situation. But, it’s an observation I wondered if others had shared.

I noticed on your #20bpost, Joe, of this thread that you talked ahout media checking this site out. Just curious if anyone read what I did in the 07/20 PR in the City and County column usually reserved for issues and agendas of the I.F., and sometimes Ammon,city council meetings?

Per chance you missed it, here’s what I remember being so different. I can’t recall reading an article about CITY DEPARTMENT MEETINGS Previously. Have any of you? The column told us where each department was having their meetings for the next week, the location, the time and the Department Director’s name. I don’t ever recall seeing the times and dates of some of these meetings. It would be great if citizens attended.

I remember reading about the “bored CEOs ” and company execs who felt like they had little to get up for in the mornings. I wish some of these people would consider attending a few of these planning or other departmental meetings! It would be superb if they did a follow up piece here.

What do the rest of you think?

Also, besides the PR, what other media do think T

Well seems like there must not be too much corruption in Idaho Falls — as this string pretty much died…. I can honestly say — I worked in Idaho Falls for many years — “retired” from the police department. I just didn’t see any corruption. I never saw an illegal or imprproer search — I never saw any abuse of force — I don’t remember hearing about any cases that were dismissed because of illegal police activity at all. Its a fact. I did HEAR about one rogue cop who apparently did some illegal searches — and man have I got a sdtory to tell about that one! No time now though… But I never saw any of that — just heard about it. If I had seen anything out of line I would have reported it… There is corruption anywhere that you have a large enough number of people. But as cities go — Idaho Falls is probab;y one of the “cleaner” cities. But still with its problems. Does anyone remember the big police scandal from the 50’s” The night shift cops were actually burglarizing homes while people were gone on vacation — they (cops) were using the “vacation watch list” to know which places to hit. Some even went to prison over that one….

So do I understand that since 99.9 percent of “them” are guilty, civil rights are irrelevant? If we let the police “slide” a little here and a little there, will there be anything left? What’s the point of having laws if we just want to “slide” on them anyway? Or should we just fire up Ol’ Sparky as soon as “they’re” arrested? Guess that would save us a bundle on prison/jail space, wouldn’t it? Actually it would save us a real bundle on the justice system all around. Why not just dispense with the arraignment, probable cause, discovery, warrants, trial, the jury, even the judge? It sounds like our police are so infallible they should act as judge, jury and executioner.

I thought we believed that it was better to let 12 guilty men go free than to allow one innocent man to be sent to prison. Or are we saying that looks good on paper, but we don’t want to practice it in real life because 99.9 percent of “them” are guilty anyway? Gawd! I hope no one I know ever ends up being the 0.1 percent! In a population the size of Idaho Falls that means 50 innocent people could be arrested, tried and convicted. A lot of blame is going to the defense attorney and the “criminal” – who I learned in elementary school was INNOCENT until proven guilty in a court of law. Not every defense attorney is trying to get his client off on some trumped up defense. Most of them, good and bad, do try and make sure that the defendant’s rights aren’t violated. In a big way, that’s the real point of being a defense attorney, defending everyone’s rights, not just the criminal’s. If we allow “their” rights to be violated, what about “our” rights? What makes “us” different from “them”? After we’ve reached the point of door-to-door searches (we’re not far from that now), are we going to be happy with a “oops, sorry ma’am” when they’re done tearing our house or car apart and haven’t found anything? When they knock down your door or pull you over with your grandkids in the car, are you going to ask to see the warrant and hope to heaven that the cop did his job first? By the book? Or are you going to be okay when they tell you they want to “slide” a little because 99.9 percent of “them” are guilty.

You said cases are being dismissed all the time here because of these illegal searches and arrests. Wouldn’t the police have learned the right way to do it by now? Split second decisions are made in the rare life-threatening situations. Not all their work is “split-second”. In the case of an arrest or a search, I would think they would have more than a “split-second” to decide if they really had probable cause. Heaven forbid they should hold off while they got a warrant! That just wouldn’t do, now would it? Oh, that’s right. I forgot, they’re infallible. Sorry.

Writers said they would jump if they thought there was any chance that a cop might be crooked or might be threatening people or otherwise acting inappropriately. So what did we learn in court last Friday when we jumped? Was it the police, the defense attorney, the prosecutor, the judge or the criminal who was causing the problems in this case?

I have a number of interesting stories to tell about the “Good ‘Ol Boy Network” and just amazing things in general that happend in Idaho Falls over the years. I didn’t witness this one — before my time — but I heard this first hand from people that were there: Back many years ago — probably the 70’s I would imagine — maybe late 60’s a police officer was having a family problem and was involved in a heated arguement with his wife. Sonmeone called the police and City Officers responded. The home t5hat they were responding to was the home of a fellow officer who they knoew well. Once the Officers knocked on the door, the door flew open and there stood the off duty policeman — with a gun pointed at the responding officers. The repsonding officers dove off of the porch just as the shot was fired. One Responding Officer in particular was nearly hit, but made it out of the way just in time. No one was arrested for this. It was hush hushed and pushed aside. The shooter was later promoted to Sergeant within the Police Department, and years later was elected Sheriff of a local county (not the current Sheriff!!) Now once again — no names listed here — and I did not see it happen. But it was well known — talked about almost as “legend” and i heard it from the fine fellow who was nearly shot. I have several stories like these…. History in any small town can be very interesting….

One thing further. Didn’t Livesey say in his press report that if they had wanted to cover this Mason thing up, they could have done so without breaking a sweat? I would suggest that means he knows how easy it is to cover things up.

Chiasm,
If I were to provide more details, it would disclose my identity, which is something I cannot do. You may be fine with that, but I am not. What’s your problem with having gone down to the courthouse to find out for yourself. You could have heard the threat for yourself, you could have heard the prosecutor trying to defend the missing videotape, and found out for yourself what they were charged with. Maybe what I’ll do is tell you when the next hearing is scheduled and you can try again.
As for putting words in your mouth, I don’t think I am. You are quite obvious in your defense of EVERY police officer and your condemnation of every person who is arrested. You said yourself you believe they’re guilty and that cops wouldn’t put their futures at stake by crossing the line. I have seen too much to agree with that statement. Innocent people are arrested, guilty people are illegally AND improperly arrested and some cops do cross the line, for unknown reasons. I wish this weren’t true, but it is.

Joe — just FYI — I believe that the Police Dept has their own IT guy — who would be in a position to handle all IT concerns within that specific Department. The city IT guy wouldn’t know — but the Police Department IT guy likely would

Anyone interested in the IFPD’s quota which targets IF residents and is a money making scam for the department.

A few months back we started a traffic school program which does have some good points. But only IF residents are eligble. If you live in Ammon or further away you can’t take it.

The administration is now requiring that 1/3 of all the officers citations are for traffic school. Initially officers were told they didn’t have to participate and if they did they were to write no more than 1/4 of their tickets into it. But the department soon learned how much money it could make off the program. Now we have to write traffic school, 1/3, and if we don’t do this we can be disciplined. Because IF brings in a lot of non residents for work and visiting a lot of the people we stop are not eligible for traffic school. Meaning we almost have to try and get any IF residents we stop to take traffic school to make our 1/3 quota.

Traffic school costs seventy five dollars and is a 4 hr class. Every dime of that goes back to the department to fund whatever pet project the administration might want to do. But a lot of the money is wasted because instead of having instructors teach the class on normal pay they are paid overtime. A few handpicked guys are making thousands of dollars off of this class. One brags about how the class is paying for a remodel job on his house.

Its not a completely bad thing thats happening. 100% of the money coming back to the department is much better than the 2% or so we get on a normal ticket. But the system is biased either for or against IF residents depending on how you look at it. And it could be done better if the instructors were teaching it on normal pay.

And it is a ticket quota. You won’t get anyone official to call it a quota. But as the saying goes if it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck . . . . . .

One more question — what is the criteria used to determine who goes to “school” and who has their car insurance raised by 15%? Is it Officer discretion — number of previous citations or what? You claim that they saythat 1/3 of all cites must be for this school — so apparently its just up to the officer. Thats a bad deal! I get the feeling I am missing some detail though…

Speak out
Sure would like you to start on the Kimball Mason affair, think we all would like to know everything we can
Ignorance is not always bliss

Regarding the last question above — the newly created position that was filled by an officers wife — I am not 100% up on this — the info I have came from people on the “inside” — but I did not see this and do not claim it is accurate….– but I understand that there is now or will shortly be a civil suit filed over this… All I know is the girl who ran the dog pound always seemed to do a great job. She was accused of some wrong doing. A person in a certain position of expertise did a certain type of an investigation — and apparently cleared this lady of any wrongdoing…. she was fired anyway — and the position that she held was changed a little bit – the salary was raised and the requirements were changed to perfectly match the new young lady that was hired for the job. The only problem — the person doing the firing and the hiring — I have been told — Hired his wife for the job. Now thats all 2nd hand from the police who are in the middle of it all….

The husband is Ken Brown. The wife is Irene Brown. Someone laid it out in detail in the good ole boy network thread.

I don’t know how much the salary actually increased. I just have heard that she was raised a couple of pay grades. The city has fifteen or so pay grades depending on the position and you advance along a set scale. What I’ve heard is that Irene started out on a pay grade two levels higher than the person she replaced. I don’t know dollar wise what that amounts to.

I’ve also heard of all the same incidents Speakout mentioned.

I also heard a friend officer griping recently about how many of the officers had a gun range training session taken away because the department couldn’t afford the overtime. He didn’t understand because none of them were on overtime to begin with. But they apparently can still afford to pay supervisors overtime for Taylor Days and traffic school. Which begs the question – what is more important – an officer being trained to use a firearm correctly or making money for the department in traffic school and having a good dog and pony show with supervisors making a ton of overtime money at Taylor Days.

I might be in the minority (yet again), but as a taxpayer I’d much rather see a budget priority on overtime being spent on actual police work (patrols, investigations, etc.) or getting extra training to do their jobs, and overtime spent on teaching traffic school being a much lower priority.

Can the city council create priorities in the budget like that? Like prioritize overtime expenditures first on safety needs, then training needs, then niceties like the traffic school?

I guess it wouldn’t suprise anyone that Ken Brown is talking about throwing his hat into the ring when Livsey leaves, would it? So is the Captian (Mark McBride) who helped get his son-in-law hired. If either of them gets the position, you can rest assured the PD will coninue to go down the crapper.

Its kind of a shame. A city the size of Idaho Falls has a tremendous ability to draw some serious administrative talent to their police department. There are so many very educated and experienced people out there — living in large, crime infested cities, who are looking to escape to an area like Idaho Falls. It is very healthy to bring in some “new blood” — particularly in the position of Chief of Police. The last Mayor understood that. I can tell you that she made a great move when she brought in an outsider to take that position (Livsey) I am not a Livsey fan — but the choices that were there for an “inside promotion” at the time would have been disasterous. If the new Mayor is smart, he will do the same thing. The quality of people that would apply for this position in a nice little town like Idaho Falls would blow your mind! Why settle for one of the “Home Grown Good ol’ Boys” — who for the most part have never had ANY experience outside of Idaho Falls — or outside of that Police Department for that matter — when you can bring in very educated, highly experienced, and gifted leaders. There is no world class talent down their now — I can tell you that. Most of the people who would be in the running have no business being the Chief of a Department that size. But I believe that its likely a done deal — and McBride is the new Chief – regardless. Kind of a shame. He is a good guy for the most part — but his qualifications just do not match those of the people who would apply if this position was seriously opened up Nationwide. The day you see McBride appointed by the Mayor as the new Chielf of Police will be the day you see the “Good Ol’ Boy Network” is alive and well….

McBride may have it in with the mayor, but he still has to be selected by the councel. I for one am planning to visit a few of those elected officials to show them a few things I complied while in the IFPD. They might not be so hot to have McBride running our police force after that. (Everyone except Ida of course). I can only hope. The process is supposed to be open to the public and we should make sure the public takes advantage of this.

I know McBride being the next chief is almost written in stone, but I’ll be d__m’d if I let it happen without giving it a try.

How about city council members and others with special ties to the dpeartment receiving special treatment from the IFPD that the regular joe wouldn’t?

A few weeks ago councilman Mike Lehto complained about speeders in a school zone near his home. Two officers were assigned to do speed enforcement in that school zone both morning and afternoon for over a week straight meaning other school zones were not covered at all. An ordinary citizen complaint wouldn’t have received this treatment.

There is a history of favoritism towards Lehto this way. After he was first elected some decorative lights on his driveway were damaged a couple of times in a month. Officers were assigned to round the clock surveillance to try and catch the vandals.

Mayor Milam also got favoritism this way when she complained about alleged problems such as speeding that were tiny compared to others going on in the city at the same in other places.

This favoritism leads to tragedy when something horrible happens. Like when Todd Briggs tried to kill Melissa Garcia by dousing her car in gas and running her down. The police did not watch her. And two days later Briggs murdered Melissa Garcia. Then he kidnapped and shot a BYU – Idaho student. The IFPD failed Melissa Garcia. Too bad she wasn’t as important as Mike Lehto’s lights.

Its all about connections. Lehto gets the protection. As does in a more recent case a health and welfare worker who received round the clock protection from ex-husband, Leander Hawkins, who skipped out on work release. He had made no threats, he was just crazy. But she got protection because she’s connected.

Allegedly, all people are treated equally. Some are just treated more equally than others.

There are a lot of good officers in the IFPD. And there are a lot of good lower level supervisors. But things have become increasingly corrupt at the top and corruption seeps downward. The rank and file officers cannot do anything about it and they face discipline if they speak out. When the time for a change in police chief comes, it has to be an outsider. Otherwise the corruption will destroy the department.

Most cops do honestly feel bad about what happened to Melissa. No doubt about that.

But they haven’t learned the lesson as they should. There have been no more Melissa’s thankfully. But there have been many women who were much more seriously put in danger than was the health and welfare worker and have gotten no protection. No way would a woman in Bel Air get that kind of protection.

And of course there are Mike Lehto’s lights which is what I think angers a lot of officers.

Man — if this site wasn’t blocked at the City PD before — it will be now! LMFAO

The PD won’t block it, (I don’t think).They have busted officers in the past for looking at porn, so they must be able to create some kiind of web log over there. They would want officers posting without knowledge of this so they could find out who they need to target. then they’ll block it.

I said something to that effect a couple of months ago when the possibility of the site being blocked first came up. They will monitor traffic at the station to see if anyone is logging in and especially to see if anyone is posting. They will also likely monitor posting times here to try and determine if current officers are posting.

LMAO at the reference to a certain officer looking at porn and at men. If I had to guess I’d say that mainly refers to a certain recently retired officer who was well known to openly ogle women and and male officers in the locker room.

speakout,
please explain “Everyone except Ida of course”

Anonymous (McBride Croonie),

Who are you trying to kid? There are other officers who ran internal affairs and no-one has complained about them. Maybe it is because unlike Mark McBride, those people didn’t perform their duties as ineptly as McBride did. Since there is clear cut evidence (sworn affidavits) that McBride tried to coerce, threaten and even suggest bribary to witnesses against officers, maybe he deserves exactly the kind of reputation he has. Let’s not forget the fact that he also had a tendancy to “misplaced” certian files that under department policy, must remain in the officer’s records for life. Files that officers requested to see, and were told could not be located. As an end point to your arguement, McBride was not responsible for determining guilt or innocence. He was supposed to investigate the facts, pass them on, and let the officer’s Captian or the Chief decide the outcome. If he catches flack for anything it is because he couldn’t do the job and do it well. The critisms are well deserved.

As far as his son in law goes, McBride did not recuse himself from still being involved during the hiring cycle that involved his son in law’s application.

Or how about the fact that he tends to always side with his buddies on ever issue. Like when his pal Royce Clements wanted to start raiding patrol officers for his own pet projects in the traffic division. despite complaints that it would cut into manpower, McBride gave Clements the green light to do as he wanted.

Maybe his policy that officers who want to wear short sleeve shirts with exposed tattoos must be subjected to his opinion of whether those tattoos are suitible for public display is as unbiased as his dealing out favors to his croonies.

You’re the joke. But you’re a more pitiful joke because you can’t back up what you say.

The general contempt that most IFPD officers have for McBride has nothing to do with him being in internal affairs. Steve Roos, the current internal affairs officer, is very well respected and to a man most officers like him, trust him, and hope he is our next chief. McBride on the other hand is very disliked and officers either hate him or are at best cautiously neutral about him.

McBride is very smart but he is horrible at managing people. And he has almost no experience at supervising officers. He spent well over ten years in nebulous adminstration positions where his job was interacting with the community or investigating officers. He also moved up the ranks of the supervisor chain while doing this and missed out on all the lower level supervisory positions. Now he is in charge of the entire patrol division and he’s got no feel for the needs of his officers. The Captain needs to make sure both the needs of the community and his officers are being met and try to find the best mix of the two. McBride could care less about his officers and morale is at the lowest point its been in a long time.

What great news that Steve Roos was appointed as the Chief of Police! The Mayor made the right choice — believe me. Steve is one of the finest people I have ever known, and will do a great job. Idaho Falls can look forward to improved morale on the Department, and a Chief who is very much in tune with the Officers and the citizens. Congratulations Chief Roos!