Follow the Money

Good evening, my name is Gloria Hernandez, I stand before you as the co-chair of the Fresno County Peace and Freedom Party, a member of Comite NO NOS VAMOS, Fresno County Chapter of the Oct 22 Coalition against Police Brutality, Member of the San Joaquin Valley Coalition for Immigrant Rights and a member of the Central California Criminal justice Committee. I also served on the Chief of Police Advisory Committee until I quit about half a year ago for personal and emotional reasons.

I would say welcome to Fresno except, I don’t believe I should offer a welcome to people we have to pay to come visit us. As you can tell, I have a problem with the Chief of Police wanting accreditation from CALEA. The main problem I have is that I do not believe in having cops watching over cops. I do not believe that will make those of us who are people of color have more confidence in the Chief of Police. I think this is an empty but very expensive process that the Chief is undergoing using our hard earn taxpaying monies.

First of all, the problem I have is CALEA own process of granting accreditation. The way I see it is that CALEA will accept money to review files covering a number of appears written by the Fresno Police Department. The Fresno process is being organized by a FPD’s officer who is paid $60,000 to work on the accreditation process. The files alledgly cover several areas that CALEA norms dictate. Such as training, organizational structure, collective bargaining, grievance procedures, personnel processes and communications and many others, I think there are about 467 standards, am I correct? These standards are to become the norm in order for Fresno PD to gain accreditation status.

An article in "The Bee" around December 2003, when Dyer went to the City Council for approval sates: "Fresno police with pay $16,150 for materials and CLEA staff assistance. Bringing in outside evaluators to complete the accreditation will boost the cost to approximately $30,000. The department will spend an additional $60,000 this year on the salary of an officer working on the accreditation process. Accreditation is good for three years, and CALEA's fee would be reduced for re-accreditation. The police department has a budget of $106 million." That was before the $50.00 tow trucks referral fees. We the public can’t even imagine what the budget is now, with over 278,000 cars towed last year. Yea, crime is high but traffic is under control here in Fresno.

However, if one visits the CLEA website one will learn that there are additional fees that Chief Dyer neglected to tell us about.

“Additional estimated on-site fees are paid prior to the assessment. The following chart depicts current initial accreditation fees:

According to the Fresno Police Department February 2, 2004 Personnel Status Report FPD had 72 sworn personel and 1153 civilian personnel in the department.

Therefore our fees will be

16,900 + 8,455+ 8,455+ 8,705+ 8,707+ 8,705= $59,925.00 plus the $60,000 year cop salary designated for this project And lets not forget that time is money therefore, we should add the time used by the other (local cops) team players plus the hotels, travel food and other travel related expenses for you the assessors who are here for five days. W the taxpayers are looking at spending over $200,000 dollars for the one time accreditation process. (The agency pays its on-site fees and submits its public information and on-site plans. The Commission selects a team of trained assessors, free of conflict with the candidate agency, and schedules all activities for the assessment team’s travel, accommodations, and on-site review of the agency during a period mutually agreeable to all parties. CALEA website)

And all we wanted was a $200,000 budget for the Office of The Independent Auditor.

According to the Chief, his reasons for wanting accreditation is for the following reasons:

“Accreditation will allow the Department to demonstrate the professionalism of the department and our dedication to providing the highest level of public safety services to the community through adherence to international standards of excellence.” Dyer press release this week.

Excuse me but I thought that Members of the Fresno Police Department were already doing that. According to a document signed by all Fresno PD employees they are suppose to do all they can to reduce crime through prevention, intervention, enforcement, investigative, and problem solving efforts. They are supposed to work closely with the community and allied agencies to accomplish this objective. They are also to operate with fiscal prudence and continually explore new and different ways to accomplish our tasks, to include new technology, use of volunteers, and non-sworn personnel with a desired result of becoming as effective and efficient as possible. (statement taken from the expectation of the Fresno Police Employees document) I am insulted that Chief Dyer needs to look elsewhere for standards. If indeed we are looking for international standards then we should look first to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to provide guidance.

According to CALEA… the opportunity to become accreditated will grant:

“Greater accountability within the agency

Seems to me that cops watching cops just do not bring any proven management system without independent oversight. Yesterdays Fresno Bee headlines clearly demonstrates that to us.

Controlled liability insurance costs

it is also my understanding that there is no proof that the above the statement is true and correct. There have been no independent studies indicating this is true.

Stronger defense against civil lawsuits

Independent oversight would force the department to review its practices, its policies and make recommendations for changes, thus decreasing the amount of lawsuits and claims against the city. Please prove to us that CALEA’s statement above is true and correct. Please Provide independent documentation.

Staunch support from government officials

I believe that government officials should look to professors and researchers who are clearly not impressed with the accreditation process. Dyer’s statement on Dec 2003 was focused more that accreditation will minimize mistakes. “if and when they (mistakes) occur they will not be mistakes that will be devastating to an agency either financially or to the department’s image”. Individual officer’s behavioral problems should not be minimized but should be penalized.

Increased community advocacy
Accreditation embodies the precepts of community-oriented policing. It creates a forum in which law enforcement agencies and citizens work together to prevent and control challenges confronting law enforcement and provides clear direction about community expectations.

As a former member of the Chief’s advisory board, I can honestly state, that I took his mission to heart and tried my hardest to educate the cops on the needs of our community and those I serve on a professional and non professional manner. I found my self a broken heart when the chief shook away my concerns and paid more attention to a political appointee who complained for two years about her front neighbor and failed to recognized that the police were ignoring her complaints until I complained on her behalf. It also hurt to know that she had donated all the wine for the Chief’s foundation dinner. But enough about white privilege.

No lets not hold back on privilege…..

One aspect of police-community relations problems is a deep lack of trust in the police among some segments of the community, particularly racial and ethnic minority communities. Many members of these communities believe that officer misconduct is not punished, including even acts of serious misconduct such as use of excessive force that results in injury to a citizen. There is a deep distrust of internal police investigation systems. Contributing to this distrust is the near-total secrecy surrounding police discipline practices. Another reason as to why we only wanted $200,000 a year office of the independent auditor.

I have reviewed Fresno Police Department Claims FY1998-FY 2003

There are many for car accidents, either while on pursuit or plain bad driving… On page 61 the department totals up all the claims paid out at a total of $2,432,331.59. But what I did was take a look at the civil rights (discrimination, employment, sex, race or age) and at excessive force and wrongful death and third category (mental anguish)

They total up as follows:

Civil rights: 248,488.02

Excessive force and wrongful death: 844,576.38

Mental anguish: 23,258.94

Total claim amounts for the above categories: 1,116,324.34*

$2,432,331.59 total amount paid out in claims

-1,116,324.34 special category

$ 872992.75

I then looked at all the lawsuits pages, including the old ones we had and recent ones provided by the department in response to our public records act and note that following:

The city paid out $1,091,799.73 in related civil rights violations including employment- related incidents related lawsuits.

And $668.500 in wrongful death and excessive force related lawsuits:

Total amount paid out in lawsuits: 1,760,299.73

Plus the claims: 1,116,324.34

Total claims & lawsuits: $ 2,876,624.07

This total amount of lawsuits and claims paid out do not even cover the expense of lawyers on both sides, court costs and the many other cost included in litigating or settling these cases.

And all we wanted was a $200,000 budget for the Office of The Independent Auditor.