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Sunday, March 3, 2019

THE NEXT SHOE TO DROP, ANOTHER COMPLAINT BY A FEMALE HPD EMPLOYEE EXPECTED

I guess you might as well ride the wave to your benefit while you can.

 Several sources are confirming that another complaint regarding working conditions for female employees at the Hartford Police Department is about to be dropped on the City Hall HR Director's desk.

This follows at least one credible sexual harassment (Baerga)  that is being dealt with and a second complaint by a scorned employee (Gentry) transferred out of a coveted Community Service Officer position for her lack of productivity. After he transfer, she cooked up a sexual harassment, (oh yeah, allegedly) complaint against a Captain  who had nothing to do with the decision to transfer her. The decision was actually made by a newly promoted Lieutenant who evaluated all of the Officer's under her command  and found that Officer Gentry was dead wood and producing very sparse results for the area she was assigned to. A female Lieutenant by the way, not that that matters.

So when you can't argue with the facts and the statistics that your work performance is abysmal, do the next best thing and cry "Sexual Harassment". Hell, go back fifteen years if you have to, someone might believe you.

Now notice, I am not mentioning the first complaint because in my opinion that complaint has validity and I think it is being dealt with appropriately.(Even though Officer Baerga has refused to cooperate with IAD investigators charged with investigating the matter) I understand the agenda and the objective in  play here. A relatively new Police Chief is in place and making structural changes that a handful of people don't appreciate. So you have to destroy the Chief and his administration at all costs. And what better way than to ride the sexual harassment wave that almost kept a Supreme Court Justice from being confirmed.

Cry Sexual Harassment, and whether it is legit or not, people will pay attention. The Union leadership will be making a beeline for every Newsroom  in the area willing to listen, dumping documents fitting of a Wikileaks breach , and your agenda to discredit a Chief you refuse to work with will gain mileage. Who is willing to take the heat challenging a phony complaint? Especially when it involves something as sensitive as sexual harassment.

Well, I will. Let me be the first to yell bullsh*t on the next complaint being written now to ride the wave.

The next complaint, from what I am being told, is being typed by Lieutenant Christine Mertes  and most likely relates to her claims of HPD being a hostile work environment.
Mertes  recently was  passed over for a promotion to Captain. Not because she is a female. Not because of anything other than the fact she is incompetent and not suited for a position of leadership. Mertes was recently disciplined for a Facebook post where she was clearly identified as a Hartford Police Officer and made some very sexist/sexual remarks in a post on her page.

Originally when Mertes was questioned bout the matter, allegedly she claimed that her Facebook page had been "hacked" then owned up to her behavior after IAD conducted an investigation

Mertes was also removed as the Commander of the Hartford Police Academy by former Chief James Rovella and transferred back to patrol after Rovella became aware of numerous sexual harassment complaints made against Mertes to other supervisors.  Complaints made by both male Academy recruits and male instructors in the Academy. These actions apparently took place in the confines of the Academy as well as in Public Places such as Bushnell Park, On at least one occasion Mertes was reportedly overheard by members of the public addressing recruits and referring to erect male body parts as she was yelling at recruits.

Apparently according to complaints, it was also a regular occurrence for Mertes to be seen in the halls at the Academy wearing only her bra and panties. Yes, you read that right, and it has nothing to do with funding and not being able to supply uniforms to Mertes.

I think you get the picture by now, so I will stop with the details. But this is what Chief Rosado is dealing with and trying to break a culture that is now rearing its ugly head. Are there problems at HPD ? Absolutely. But change is never easy and as long as this nonsense is allowed to continue, nothing will change and most likely it will get worse.

I am pretty sure the plan by the handful of malcontents is to discredit Rosado, Medina and Thody to the point that they are removed, at which point it will be back to business as usual. Under that scenario the malcontents win and we will only see HPD become more dysfunctional.  Change is never easy. I am sure Chief Rosado knew that when he took the job. Every day now and with every negative, nonsensical complaint it should become more obvious to the people and "leadership" of Hartford that there is clearly an agenda in play here and we can't allow that agenda to succeed.

Is Chief Rosado perfect? No. Is it easy to come in and turn a ship around before hitting the iceberg? No but it takes a Captain at the helm to steer us through the iceberg ridden sea, Chief Rosado with the team he has built is the right person to have on the bridge steering the ship and we need to support him to stay off the planned mutiny of the malcontents.


Friday, March 1, 2019

THIS WEEK'S "WE THE PEOPLE" PROGRAM"

RE-ARREST ORDERED FOR FORMER HPD SERGEANT

SCN_0015 by on Scribd
A Hartford Superior Court Judge has ordered the re-arrest of former HPD Sergeant Justin Torniero after he failed to appear in Court for his most recent Court date.

The charges stem form Torniero's December 2017 arrest after an Internal Affairs Investigation.

 Torniero may be hospitalized in a addiction treatment facility, but that information could not be verified at the time of his Court hearing by his attorney to the Court's satisfaction, resulting in a re-arrest warrant being issued for Torniero, and his bond being increased to $375,000.

 If it can be verified that Torniero was actually hospitalized the re-arrest warrant will be vacated by the Judge

Thursday, February 28, 2019

LESLIE: IT IS TIME TO COME OUT OF YOUR BUNKER AND FACE THE MUSIC

At the beginning of this week, I probably would have said things can't possibly be as bad as I am being told in the Hartford Schools. No adult that claims they care about children would allow it.

Then the barrage of phone calls, e-mails and text messages kept coming in all day Tuesday and Wednesday and they haven't stopped yet.

Here is one example below:


" I teach at a school in Hartford. The behaviors we are dealing with on a daily basis are insanely disrespectful and disruptive. I am sworn at daily. I feel like a verbal punching bag. One student has verbally threatened me twice and just the other day he stepped close to my face & flinched his shoulders as if he was going to hit me.  (I wrote him up but there was no consequence). I write the same 5 kids up daily as they sabotage my lessons daily. The superintendent will not allow any out of school suspensions unless they are approved by her office. This is a way to doctor her @attendance matters” data! 

This superintendent has got to go! Why the district hired someone with no classroom experience is disturbing. How can you decide what is best for your schools, teachers and students if you haven’t worked in one! "


And that e-mail above was tame.

Then I got a call regarding the suspension of Jose Colon -Rivas, the COO for the Hartford Schools. It sounded very similar to the removal of Joanne Laiscell, the Financial executive who was also removed recently. And eventually you have to start asking , is there really a problem or is this just a way of discrediting people in the Central Office who are getting too close to the truth.


Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez refuses to answer questions despite numerous requests from the Internal Audit Commission and e-mails sent below.

The problem is that Leslie Rodriguez-Torres has pretty much gone into hiding to avoid any scrutiny or to explain her actions hiding behind FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) a Federal Law governing educational  information, or the usual "its a personnel matter". Even Hartford's Internal Auditors who are tasked with getting answers to financial questions are hitting a stone wall with Torres-Rodriguez. as detailed in the e-mail below obtained through an FOI request

Subject: FW: IAC meeting request
Good afternoon Leslie;
 
Per the email chain below, we’ve been trying to obtain a response from you about attending our Internal Audit Commission (IAC) meeting.  To date, we have not been able to confirm your acceptance of our request.  We initially emailed you on Jan 17th @9:09AM and you responded that you couldn’t make our Feb 13th Internal Audit Commission meeting and preferred a phone call instead.  The requesting IAC member prefers that you attend an IAC meeting rather than a phone conference call.  We then reached back out to you on Jan 22 @10:19AM and then again on Feb 4th @7:45AM to attend our March 20th or April 17th meeting; however, we have yet to receive a response back from you.  I have been asked by a member of the IAC to send a 4th invite in hope that you can attend our next meeting on March 20th set for 2:00PM in Room 304 of City Hall.  Please let the Chief Auditor, Craig Trujillo, know if you could attend the March 20th IAC meeting or not.  Thank you and we hope you can attend the IAC meeting.
 
Thanks,
 
Joseph Caruso, CPA
Deputy Chief Auditor

The problem is that Leslie Rodriguez-Torres has pretty much gone into hiding to avoid any scrutiny or to explain her actions hiding behind FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) a Federal Law governing educational  information, or the usual "its a personnel matter". Even Hartford's Internal Auditors who are tasked with getting answers to financial questions are hitting a stone wall with Torres-Rodriguez

Hearing about a teacher who was attacked in her classroom at Noah Webster School was troubling. No investigation to figure out how the parent was buzzed in and was able to enter a building where many parents most likely feel their kids are secure. The parent, Cassandra Decosta was eventually arrested a few months after her attack and actually appeared in court yesterday. What would have happened if she had a weapon? According to staff members at the school that I spoke with, they stated they have 2 great security Officers in the school, but the number of guards was reduced down to two for budget cuts and it is almost nearly impossible to secure a school that size with just two Security Officers.

Even more troubling is the conditions described to me at Hartford High, where one teacher referred to Hartford High as a "powder keg ready to explode any second" This was  confirmed for me by police officers who are also very concerned going into Hartford High alone. Apparently a Hartford High Security Officer was assaulted at the school late last year and I am told he hasn't returned yet. That School Security Officer is also a retired Hartford Police Officer who was capable of handling himself as a Police Officer on the streets of Hartford until he was attacked by a group of "students" at Hartford High. In an ironic twist, one of the same students who was arrested for the assault on the SSO at Hartford High was again arrested yesterday for assaulting another student.yesterday, Feb 27th...the same juvenile that assaulted Security Officer Dufault...was arrested for another assault at one of the schools...

Here is an e-mail from another staff member:

"I was physically assaulted by a student several years ago years ago at HPHS. The damage I received affects me to this day, and I have been fighting a Workers Comp case ever since. I have never received so much as any word of concern from the Superintendent or the Board of Education. I have gone from having an average of 2 days of absence per year before the attack to over 40 days of absence per year afterwards.

Luke Cage asked above about Officer DuFault. He was attacked at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year, taken down by a riot of students, kicked and stomped horribly, and was taken out by ambulance. He has not been back since.

According to the press release, the Superintendent stated only that, "No student was harmed." She did not mention Officer Dufault.

In the interim between the assault on me and DuFault, teachers throughout HPHS have been regularly assaulted, several have had bones broken in student assaults, many have had their lives threatened repeatedly.

Students have claimed their hallway hangouts in which mobs of students loiter in the halls, cussing out and verbally threatening and insulting any teacher who dares to pass. Nothing is ever done. Most teachers are afraid of coming to work. Administration always blames us and criticizes us when we make any attempt to intervene to get students back to class.

Our school, HPHS, is unsafe! "


And just as a sidenote, the teacher assaulted at Noah Webster Shool never even received as much as a courtesy call from the Superintendent or any member of the BOE. You don't treat people like this, especially if they are valued employees.

And to all of the members of the Hartford Board of Education who are upset when I call them "puppets", let me just ask, when was the last time you went to Hartford High , unannounced and walked through the halls to observe the conditions there, or has Leslie ordered you not to?



JANUS DECISION ARRIVES AT HPD, THIS COULD BE INTERESTING

At issue in the case are the laws in 22 States, which allow public unions to require that public employees who are not union members to pay so-called “agency” or “fair share” fees. The idea is that even public employees who are not members benefit from the collective bargaining of that union, and therefore should pay for the union’s representation. Without the ability of unions to charge these agency fees, unions would be spending a great deal of time and money negotiating contracts that benefit both members of unions and non-union members. This creates the problem of non Union "free riders" — workers who benefit from the union’s collective bargaining efforts but don't pay for them.

The Supreme Court blessed this arrangement in a 1977 case called  Abood v Detroit Board of Education in which the court found that public employees could be forced to pay for expenses associated with collective bargaining and other related activities, but not for political activities. Despite the court’s ruling in Abood, Mark Janus, a public employee who is not a member of a public union, claims that the state law allowing unions to require him to pay agency fees violates his First Amendment rights. Janus specifically argues that by forcing him to pay for union activity with which he disagrees, he is being compelled to speak for and associate with the union.

A large percentage of Union dollars is spent on lobbying efforts and political donations which the members may not necessarily agree with.


Janus appears to overturn the premise in Abood and now Public Employee Union members can drop out of paying Union dues.

 Many Police Officers are concerned about the potential legal counsel they would lose by dropping out of a Union, but apparently fraternal organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Police "FOP" offer legal  "buy in" programs for their members that in many cases are more effective than the Union representation at a much lower membership cost than the forced Union dues.

A Hartford Police Officer dropped out of the Union today and apparently he is not the first. Only time will tell if this will be a trend for government employees not happy with their Union representation.
SCN_0014 by on Scribd

HOW DO WE STOP THE NONSENSE IN THE AGE OF #ME TOO?

Sexual harassment is wrong, actually any type of harassment , bullying or discrimination in the workplace or anywhere else is wrong.

How do we control the Jussie Smollett's of the world by filing false and frivolous complaints  to cover their own incompetence or shortcomings?

A couple of examples are coming out of the Hartford Police Department. The Officer Baerga complaint has been making the news- recently. The case revolves around a sexual harassment allegations perpetrated , allegedly, by Baerga's supervisor, Sergeant Andrew Rodney. Although I don't agree with the entire complaint, I think there is more than enough to say the complaint is credible. Even Sergeant Andrew Rodney as acknowledged many of the accusations in the complaint occurred.

Now we have another sexual harassment complaint coming out of HPD. This one seems to be looking to ride the coat tails of the doors already opened by Baerga. This one seems much less credible and appears to raise more questions than to encourage believability.

This also is highly suspicious for the timing. It was only after the complaining Officer was transferred out of her Community Service Officer position that she sat down and wrote the complaint. Why?. The complaint is against Captain Gabriel Laureano, the HPD Captain in charge of Patrol Services .  Although Laureano was just the messenger delivering the news to HPD Officer Mirella Gentry after Gentry's Lieutenant made the decision that her patrol performance as a CSO was less than adequate and it was time for a change.

On December, 20, 2018, Gentry was removed from her position as a CSO and was transferred back to Patrol. That was the same day that a southend male CSO was also transferred out of his spot and returned to patrol..

According to sources within HPD, the reason for Gentry's re-assignment was due to her extremely low productivity, not limited to no case numbers drawn, no traffic infractions and overall low community contacts for extended periods. Apparently a newly promoted Lieutenant was assigned to Gentry's area and was not satisfied with Gentry's performance and made the decision to move her. ( a female Lieutenant by the way, not that it makes any difference)

The performance statistics will be posted here as soon as I receive them

Apparently, Officer Gentry's transfer  suddenly caused her to recall back almost 15 years and come up with a claim that Officer Laureano, long before he became a Captain , had made "unwanted" sexual advances toward her. Apparently there is no record of these advances and they are just coming .

It is suspicious that over the years, no one was ever informed of Laureano's alleged abuse. Even more suspicious is the fact that Gentry had relationships with at least one high ranking HPD official and never mentioned it to him? I would think that she would have been comfortable enough to mention it during that relationship to someone who would have definitely been in the position to do something.

I in no way want to trivialize any sexual harassment complaint, but complaints that are made to further an agenda or cover for discipline, damage every person who makes a legitimate complaint after being a victim. I know it is a difficult issue, but there has to be a better way to file a complaint instead of waiting fifteen years and then launching. It is unfair to both the alleged victim as well as the alleged offender.
GENTRY Complaint by  on Scribd
Below is a recent acknowledgement of Laureano's efforts in the Community, submitted by HPD Union President John Szewczyk
SCN_0013 by on Scribd