Although no one can be blamed for Hector Robles's behavior except Hector himself, how could this situation occur unchecked for so long?
Is anyone else amazed that in this day of technology and "blackberry this" and "i-pad that" that the Hartford Police Department is still using handwritten index cards to account for payroll time? And what about tracking and payroll software? Were there no red flags when the payroll was input that he was billing for the same, duplicate hours?
Is it really conceivable that Officer Robles is the only rocket scientist that figured out how to beat the system by double dipping? Out of a force of almost 460 officers could Robles be the lone fox feeding in the "PJ" henhouse?
How could an Officer that was assigned to the South Meadows as the community service officer be missing in action on all those occasions he was alleged to be double dipping? Did anyone ever notice he was making no traffic stops , no arrests, no case numbers being drawn, no productivity of any sort?
Where was the supervision? Where was his Sergeant who should be checking on him throughout the day? Where was his Lieutenant who at the very least should know what his activity was for his area for the week?
And just for the sake of Officer safety, why wasn't the dispatch center aware who is working and who is not? Routinely only patrol units sign "on the line" at the beginning of their shifts. Shouldn't every officer, detective, supervisor, Lieutenant Captain right up through the Chief be accounted for when they are working? Who tracks that all officers on the street are safe and return at the end of the shift?
It amazes me that no single person, whether a dispatcher or the Headquarters Commander could answer specifically at any given time who is available and accounted for. That just seems like a huge safety issue. Not to mention shouldn't it be known what resources are available at any given time?
Whatever happened to that modern technology we were supposed to be implementing called "GPS"? Would that have not shown that Robles's assigned cruiser was stationery for hours at a time at a construction site when it should have been patrolling the Southend of Hartford?
And with the number of Assistant Chiefs and Deputy Chiefs assigned to know what is going on in their areas of the City, were they all asking "Hector who?"
Heads need to roll on this one and it shouldn't just be Hector's head. He is responsible for his actions, but a lot of others need to be held accountable for theirs.
Fortunately a new supervisor assigned to the area noticed something wrong with Robles's productivity and started asking questions that others didn't. Luckily HPD has a Chief that has taken his responsibility and accountability to the community seriously and immediately launched an Internal investigation. And more importantly, Chief Roberts has built an Internal Affairs Division that handles investigations promptly and efficiently and has greatly reduced the backlog of investigations that he inherited as Chief.
A year to complete the IAD may seem like a long time to complete the investigation, but I think a 300 page report speaks for itself as to the extent of the investigation and its thoroughness.
It is getting late, but maybe tomorrow I'll try to address the timing of the reports release as my sources have explained it to me. It had nothing to do with politics.
If you have questions as to how this happened , feel free to post them and I'll try to get the answers
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