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Curtis case moves
to County Court
   SCHENECTADY — Former city police Det. Jeffrey Curtis appeared in City Court Monday, agreeing to have his case sent up to County Court, officials said. The move allows the city case to be considered at the felony level.
   Curtis faces one count of thirddegree criminal sale of a controlled substance in Schenectady. He also faces a possession charge in Princetown. He is still scheduled for a Wednesday appearance in Princetown Court.
   Curtis was arrested in March as part of an ongoing state police probe into drugs missing from the city police vice squad safe. Curtis was a member of the vice squad. He is not charged with taking the drugs.
   He has since retired from the department.

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Body found in the Mohawk River
Updated: 6/19/2007 5:31 PM
By: Web Staff
  
An investigation is underway after a body was found in the Mohawk River in Schenectady Tuesday afternoon.

A couple walking in Riverside Park saw the body floating about 20 feet from shore and called police.

A Schenectady Fire Department boat responded and recovered the body. Officials said there were no obvious signs of trauma.  

Witness Chauntell Brown said, "It was just a person with a do-rag on, and you could see the black shirt and the shoulders just kept lifting up. And the head kept coming up, going down, coming up. And I said, oh my God baby, it's definitely a body."
  
Schenectady Police Captain Pete Frisoni said, "We might not ever be able to determine his point of entry. But we will be checking the shoreline to see if there's anything that helps us in our investigation. We will try to identify the man and check his background and see if we can find out what happened leading up to his death."

He is described as a black man in his 40's, about 5'10" with a thin build and a goatee. He was wearing a black t-shirt, brown pants and a red bandana on his head. He was not carrying identification.

A criminal investigation is underway, and an autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday at Ellis Hospital.

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SCHENECTADY
Body found in river; probe is under way
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

   Authorities pulled the body of a man from the Mohawk River Tuesday afternoon after passersby saw it in the water about 20 feet off shore from Riverside Park.
   Investigators from the Schenectady Police Department are still unsure of the man’s identity or cause of death. City firefighters used their rescue boat to pluck the body from the river just west of the park pavilion.
   Capt. Peter Frisoni said the body had no discernible injuries and was found clothed but with no shoes, and had been in the water for more than a day. He said the body appears to be that of a black man about 6 feet tall and in his late 30s or 40s.
   “At this point, that’s all we’ve got,” he said at the scene. “It was obvious that he had been dead for a period of time.”
   The body was taken to Ellis Hospital where a coroner is expected to conduct an autopsy this morning.
   Police remained on the scene for more than an hour. Frisoni said the area would be considered a crime scene until investigators can determine the cause of death.
   “At this time, we don’t know what caused his death or how long he was in the water,” he said.
   Witnesses on the shore reported the man was wearing a black or grey shirt and a red do-rag.
   Chauntell Brown was walking through the park with her friend, Alvin Jones, when she spotted something in the water shortly before 2 p.m. She first thought the body was a piece of debris until catching sight of a watch on the man’s hand that was shimmering in the sun.
   “I just kept seeing his head bobbing,” said Brown, who was shaken by the discovery.
   Kaitlin Snow was reading a book by the river when she was approached by Brown and Jones. She said they considered pulling the man from the water until they realized he had been dead for some time.
   “He had been in there for a while,” said the young woman, who was also disturbed by the sight. “It’s so sad.”
   Police last pulled a body from the Schenectady stretch of the Mohawk in May 2004, nine days after a city man was seen jumping into the river from the Western Gateway Bridge. Investigators later determined the man had committed suicide.

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Body found in Mohawk River identified
Updated: 6/21/2007
By: Web Staff
  
Schenectady police say they've identified the body found floating in the Mohawk River on Tuesday, but they're not releasing the victim's name just yet.

Investigators said the man is 44 years old and apparently homeless. They're trying to contact family members.

The official cause of death is drowning, and police said they have no reason to think the man was murdered.

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Fatal shooting in Schenectady
Updated: 6/22/2007
By: Web Staff

  
Police are looking for three suspects in connection with a fatal shooting in Schenectady.

The shooting happened around 2 p.m. Friday at 101 DeGraff Street in the Vale neighborhood.

Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said police responded to the two-family home after reports of shots fired.

The male victim in his twenties was found in the stairwell with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at Ellis Hospital.

Witnesses reported seeing three males in their late teens or early twenties fleeing the scene on bikes.

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Officers pulled from classrooms, put back on the streets
6/22/2007
By: Web Staff
  
The City of Schenectady is dealing with a shortage of officers on the streets. Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said he's looking to pull some out of the classroom and back on the streets.

Bennett said the police department will be eliminating two of three School Resource Officer positions currently assigned to Schenectady middle schools as well as the current DARE officer position.

Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett announced the Schenectady Police Department will be eliminating two of three School Resource Officer positions as well as the current DARE officer position due to operational need.

The changes will be put in place over the next few weeks following the end of the current school session.

Currently, the department is short-staffed 16 officers. Mayor Brian Stratton said the majority of those positions should be filled by early next year.

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SCHENECTADY
Schools lose 3 resource police officers
District officials looking at new security arrangements
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

   The city school district will have a new security arrangement in place by September to offset the loss this year of three city police officers assigned to the middle and elementary schools, Superintendent Eric Ely said Friday.
   Citing a need for more officers on the streets, Public Safety Commissioner Wayne E. Bennett announced Friday the Police Department will transfer two school resource officers and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer to other police duties when the school year ends June 30.
   The police department will maintain one school resource officer for the four middle schools and two school resources officers for the high school.
   Ely plans to present the school board with options at its mid-July meeting on ways to fill the security gap left by the loss of the officers. “We will be announcing a plan. I’m targeting the July 20 board meeting as a deadline to have everything in place,” he said.
   The district is considering several options: hiring retired police officers, seeing if the state police or the county sheriff’s department can provide officers, or hiring a private security fi rm.
   Ely has not fully calculated the cost of each option, but said, for example, hiring two retired police officers could cost approximately $60,000.
   City police notified the district several months ago to expect the staffing change, but school officials did not officially receive notification until Friday, Ely said.
   Ely said the district is disappointed by the city’s decision. “I believe that this will hurt the security and safety plans we have in place currently. We will have to alter those plans and come up with alternatives to keep our schools safe and secure,” he said.
   Bennett said the three current school officers are needed to answer emergency calls in the city. “That is our number one priority,” he said. “It’s a hard choice to make, but we are making the right decision.”
   City police will continue to patrol around the schools, ensuring a quick response in case of need, Bennett said.
   The 160-member police department is currently understaffed by 16 positions, Bennett said. “It’s one-tenth of the entire department. That is a significant effect on our response,” he said.
   Mayor Brian Stratton, who is seeking re-election this year to a second four-year term, has given the go-ahead to hire 12 officers. The officers will enter the Zone 5 Law Enforcement Academy on July 11. Academy training takes approximately six months, and the rookie officers then undergo several weeks of in-house training with a veteran police officer before being allowed to patrol on their own.
   “We’re looking at 2008 when they will be available,” Bennett said.
   The department is also reviewing several lateral transfers from other police departments. “If they meet our standards, we would hire them,” Bennett said.
   The police department pays the salaries and benefits of the school resource officers. The DARE Advisory Committee had been paying the DARE officer’s salary, but this funding source has dried up, Bennett said.
   The funding loss did not play a role in the decision to remove the DARE officer from the school, Bennett said. “Although the DARE program has now lost funding, and even if funding did exist in the future, the decision would not change the options available to the police department. Additional program changes are also being examined to further enhance patrol coverage,” he said.
   The transfer of the three offi cers to regular duties will set off union bumping rights, which will take several weeks to resolve, he said.
   Ely said school resource offi cers play two key roles. “The kids know they can go to an officer to get help and they are a visible security aspect; people feel more safe having that visible presence,” he said. “Most of their time is talking to kids and being visible.”
   District-employed hall monitors “do the bulk of patrolling in hallways. The police don’t do that; they don’t get involved in the day-to-day running of buildings,” Ely said.

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SCHENECTADY
Time off cuts police manpower
Data show shortages when officers use comp days
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

   Saturday evenings are often the worst time of the week for Schenectady police, as crime spikes with shootings, assaults and robberies.
   But even though it’s usually the shift on which officers are needed the most, it’s the one they work the least.
   Nearly half of the officers assigned to the 4 p.m. to midnight shift find a reason to avoid coming in on Saturdays, according to the results of The Sunday Gazette’s review of 2006 police attendance records.
   On average, fewer than 10 of the 17 scheduled officers work the Saturday evening shift each week. Any weekday evening has better coverage — typically 14 officers are on duty on those lessbusy shifts.
   But even on weekdays, nearly onethird of the scheduled evening officers don’t come in. It’s a situation that endangers public safety, Commissioner Wayne Bennett said.
   “You obviously can’t fulfill the mission when you have that many people not reporting in,” he said after the Gazette shared the attendance results with him.
   A day-by-day review of every offi - cer’s 2006 attendance record found that absence rates vary dramatically by platoon. The lowest absence rates were posted by the midnight to 8 a.m. platoon, which has the newest officers. On Saturdays, an average of 25 percent of the scheduled overnight officers did not come in last year. On weekdays, the rate was 16 percent.
   The 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. platoon, which has the most experienced officers, posted an absence rate of 27 percent on Saturdays and 26 percent on weekdays.
   The 4 p.m. to midnight platoon had the worst absence rate. On Saturday evenings, an average of 42 percent of the assigned officers called in last year. On weekday evenings, 29 percent of the scheduled officers called in.
   Bennett said he plans to take a close look at those rates.
   “Anytime you get that percentage of people not reporting for work for any reason, you need to ascertain is something wrong,” he said. “There are legitimate excuses, but you have to look into whether there’s abuse.”
OVERTIME BENEFIT
   Often, when people allege that the police department is abusing its call-in privileges, they mean that officers are calling in sick when they’re perfectly healthy. But evening platoon members are calling in to use a legally earned comp day just as often as they call in sick.
   Compensatory time is a paid day off to make up for 5.3 hours of unpaid overtime. Officers can choose whether to get paid time-and-a-half or to set aside some of their hours toward a day off when they work overtime.
   Days off were by far the more popular option for the evening shift, which used 333 comp days last year. That was 21 percent more than the night shift and 26 percent more than the day shift.
   Some officers used comp days to take off nearly every single weekend they were assigned to work during summer months. Others got creative and doled out their hours over the course of a week, taking seven comp hours every day so that they only had to patrol for an hour.
   Contractually, the only limit is that they cannot divide their comp time into increments of less than 4 hours per day.
   While the evening shift was tops in comp days, the other platoons weren’t far behind. The entire patrol division took 843 comp days last year. That’s more days than four officers would work in a year.
   That drives up overtime costs. It also wreaks havoc with police schedules.
COVERAGE CONCERNS
   Bennett said officers decide to use their comp days with little or no notice, making it impossible to schedule a full complement without resorting to overtime. According to the police contract, officers can claim their comp time if they inform their superiors 24 hours in advance.
   “Therein lies the problem. When people do that, you obviously still have to field a team,” Bennett said. “It leaves the operations of the police departments without much choice. It is totally unproductive. It is not cost-effective. If only you could control when comp time is utilized.”
   There are some limits in the contract. On the evening platoon, five officers can take comp time simulatenously, although five more offi - cers can claim their time if no one is on vacation. That cuts the platoon from an average of 20 scheduled officers to just 10, assuming no one else calls in sick or wants to use a personal day. Last year, there were some days when just five of the scheduled officers showed up for work.
   Bennett said the comp time privilege must be revoked.
   “What I would like is no comp time. They should get paid for the hours they work,” he said.
   City officials want to get rid of the comp time system, too.
   “It does not do us any favors to have comp time versus overtime,” Director of Administration John Paolino said. “Pay ’em. Do away with comp time altogether.”
   Police union President Robert Hamilton and Vice President Mark LaViolette did not return repeated requests for comment. But in a February interview about staffi ng problems at the police department, Hamilton said the real issue was not police benefits but a lack of officers.
   “Our wheels are spinning. We need help,” he said. “The bare minimum our department should be is 180 members.”
   The department is now budgeted for 166 officers.
SAVINGS PUZZLE
   In a January interview, he said hiring more officers was also the best way to cut back on overtime — which would reduce the number of comp days.
   “I’ll cut the overtime. Allow me to do the hiring,” he said. “If they hired more officers, the overtime would be significantly lower.”
   But Paolino said the city could reduce its overtime budget just by eliminating comp days and paying officers for their time instead.
   Comp time can actually cost the city more than regular overtime, he said.
   The officer who wants comp time earns one full day off for every 5.3 hours of unpaid overtime. The rest of the officer’s overtime shift — a normal shift is eight hours — is paid at the officer’s overtime rate.
   Initially, the city saves money by paying for only 2.7 hours of an eight-hour overtime shift. But when the officer claims the comp day from the rest of that shift, the police department must often pay someone else to work overtime to fill the vacancy.
   In those cases, the city ends up paying a total of 10.7 hours of overtime between the two officers. It would have only paid for 8 hours of overtime if the original officer took pay instead of a comp day.
   “If you get a comp day, you’re still getting paid and it’s going to drive my overtime up,” Paolino said.
   Two or three hours of extra overtime pay for every comp day might not sound like much, but it adds up. The patrol division used 843 comp days last year.
   Paolino said he believes comp time was encouraged when the city was struggling to have enough cash flow to make payroll each month.
   “The financial system at the time was such that it was ‘defer payment as much as possible,’ ” he said.
   But the city can afford it now, he added.
   “It would be a bit of a burden on our cash flow, but our cash flow is such that we can pay it,” he said.

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Disorganized records lead to pay problems
Time cards make overtime hard to track
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

   The police department’s payroll is so disorganized that there is no way of tracking how much money the city has spent in overtime, and officers have occasionally been paid more overtime than they earned, payroll officials said.
   The city can’t tell how much overtime money is left to spend this year — it can’t even say how much was spent on overtime last week.
   “We can’t track it. That’s always been a concern to us,” said Personnel and Benefits Administrator Kathy Finch.
   The problem is that police overtime is not computerized, forcing the city payroll department to keep track of thousands of tiny time cards filled out by officers for each day’s overtime. Officers often turn in those cards weeks after they actually worked the overtime and can choose to delay payment for years.
   Until Finch gets the cards, files them and enters them into her system, she doesn’t know how much overtime has been used. And since officers don’t turn in the cards right away, she’s always behind.
   “It’s just the organization of it all,” she said. “It’s difficult with all those little pieces of paper. They’re an administrative nightmare.”
   Not only is it time-consuming to file all the cards, but police can choose to “bank” their overtime pay for years. When they finally decide to take their money, payroll workers occasionally make a mistake and key in the officer’s current overtime rate instead of the officer’s original pay rate.
   “It has happened,” Finch said. “We’re all human.”
   Sometimes she catches the mistakes. But she knows there are times when she didn’t.
   “Being that we have a weekly payroll, you’re working in very tight time constraints, and police is the biggest department,” she said. “It’s very difficult to make sure you’re doing it all right. It’s really the overtime. The overtime is the biggest problem.”
TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION
   The city already has the means to eliminate the problem by adding police to the city’s electronic payroll system. The system would automatically calculate all payroll if police punched a time clock, which city officials want them to do.
   It would be an unusual practice for this area. None of the suburban police departments in Schenectady County use time clocks. Albany and Troy also don’t use them.
   It’s not clear how Schenectady police would react to the proposal. Police Benevolent Association President Robert Hamilton did not return repeated requests for comment for this story but has often insisted that city officials negotiate any item that is not already approved in the police contract.
   The electronic payroll system would allow Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett to track overtime continuously. Every other department head can already do that because their workers use the system, city Finance Commissioner Ismat Alam said.
   “You can see at any given time where your overtime is,” she said.
   But the police administrators are in the dark. To help them stay within budget, Alam laboriously calculates an overtime estimate for the police department each month. She combines the payroll department’s best data with the internal police overtime schedule to figure out how much the department has spent.
   The department still ends up over budget every year on overtime, although it has managed to stay within its overall budget for the past two years.
   In overtime, the department was supposed to spend no more than $1.7 million last year. Officers actually received a total of $2.4 million.
   Alam thinks it would help if the police department could check its overtime data more often.
   “I would like to see it computerized for accountability reasons — everything is transparent,” she said.
   Alam also wants everything computerized in case of a disaster.
   “Suppose everything goes up in flames — you will not lose your hard documents because they’re on the server,” she said. “And we do backups in case the server goes up in flames.”
   But the police records, carefully stacked on a desk in the payroll office, would be lost forever.
MOUNTAIN OF PAPERWORK
   No one at that office would mourn if the police time cards were eliminated. They spend a lot of time sorting through the mountain of cards, Finch said. She estimated that the work is enough to keep one person busy all year, although it’s actually shared by several employees.
   There is one hitch in computerizing the police payroll. The city’s payroll system would have to be changed to track banked overtime.
   But Alam, Finch and Director of Administration John Paolino have a simpler solution in mind: eliminate banking. They’re trying to add that to the police contract, which is in negotiations now.
   “We should pay it when it’s earned, not when they decide they want it,” Finch said, noting that no other city department has the option of banking pay.
   Banking overtime pay can be desirable as a way of avoiding higher payroll taxes that could come with a spike in pay. And some officers prefer to put overtime aside until they’re out on disability with a short-term injury, such as a broken arm. During that time, they receive less than their full pay, but they can withdraw their banked overtime to keep their salary stable.
   Paolino said he understood the reasons behind banking overtime but argued that it’s not worth the risk of paying the officer at the wrong overtime rate.
   “There exists the possibility for human error. I would get out from underneath this administrative nightmare,” he said.

Quoted from BIGK75

I'm sure you'd get a second on that from PatZ, bumble.

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SCHENECTADY
Cops working less than state police colleagues
BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Steven Cook at 395-3122 or scook@dailygazette.com.

   City police officers last year worked an average of just more than 197 regularly scheduled days, not including overtime, a Sunday Gazette review of department attendance records shows.
   That number is fewer than the 220 regularly scheduled days state troopers work, according to city Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett, former state police superintendent.
   Contributing to the difference for city police appears to be sick time and time given in exchange for overtime, or comp time, the Sunday Gazette review showed. The department averaged about 12.25 sick days per employee last year and an average of 9.2 comp days given in exchange for overtime worked.
   Troopers are only paid overtime, not given time in exchange for overtime like city officers, Bennett said. They also have strict limits on sick time.
   The time off given in exchange for overtime, Bennett said, creates a spiral, with officers having to be called in on overtime to cover for officers out on compensatory time.
   The average officer worked overtime, for various reasons, the equivalent of about 50 eight-hour shifts last year.
   “You can see the potential for a very, very costly and giant headache from an operational standpoint,” Bennett said.
   Bennett said it’s hard to determine whether sick time is being used inappropriately. What should be looked at, he said, is whether there are any patterns in time taken off, such as on weekends or the days before or after regularly scheduled time off.
   Many of the officers with the most sick days taken, records show, were out for extended periods of a week or more.
   “Any time you’re not getting the full benefit of employees’ attendance, you need to look at it,” Bennett said.
TWO SYSTEMS
   Under the city police union’s contract, police work under two different sick time systems. Offi - cers hired before 1995 — about 70 — have unlimited sick time, while those hired since earn 15 sick days each year.
   The statistics show those offi cers with unlimited sick time do average more sick time than their counterparts, about 14.4 sick days to about 10.3 for the post-1995 officers.
   In calculating the sick time averages, officers who were out more than half the year for workers’ compensation or other causes were excluded. One detective and two officers were out on workers’ compensation the entire year, with another officer nearly so. Also excluded was sick time used by Det. Michael Kelly. Kelly, who began work with the department in 1981, used 243 sick days in 2006, out almost the entire year, amounting to more than 11 percent of the total sick days used by the department.
   If everyone were included, amounting to 157 employees, department members would have averaged just 188 regularly scheduled days worked last year, with an average of 13.3 sick days and nearly 8.9 comp days.
   Sick time numbers, however, are likely slightly lower than records show, with data and interviews suggesting some sick days later changed to workers’ compensation or Family Medical Leave Act time was recorded as sick in papers but elsewhere correctly.
   The Sunday Gazette examined the records after two highly publicized stories called into question how much time officers actually work. One story found that the union president, Lt. Robert Hamilton, worked his police job just 10 days in 2006, doing union business on many of the rest.
   The new data shows four other union officials took at least 30 days off for union work in 2006, something that is allowed under the contract.
   Hamilton defended his union time then, saying he spent at least 60 hours a week meeting with offi cers and conducting union business.
   Hamilton did not return repeated requests for comment on this story.
   Questions about sick time also arose in March, when former Vice Squad Detective Jeffrey Curtis was shown to have taken 50 sick days. Curtis’ health was called into question after his arrest that month on drug charges as part of a larger scandal. He is to appear Monday in Schenectady County Court to face those charges.
   In terms of the number of sick days taken, Curtis was third highest in 2006. Kelly led the list. He was out on sick time nearly the entire year, 243 days. Second on the list was Officer John W. Lewis, with 66 credited sick days. Lewis began work in 1994.
   Letters left for Lewis and Kelly seeking comment were not returned. Both have unlimited sick days.
   Regarding Family Medical Leave Act time, there were at least three instances found in papers provided where sick time was ultimately found to be covered by that federal law, suggesting there may have been more.
   The city changed its policy toward Family Medical Leave Act time about two years ago, expressly forbidding the older officers from using their unlimited sick time to get paid for that time, Mayor Brian U. Stratton said.
   The federal law allows for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for an immediate family member. The city’s practice of allowing unlimited sick time to cover that time was allowed by a previous administration, Stratton said. Once it was discovered, it was stopped, he said.
SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
   Police brass suggested several explanations for why officers might use sick time more than people in other professions.
   Assistant Chief Mark Chaires, head of the administrative services bureau, offered working conditions. Officers are often out working in inclement weather, coming in contact with different people and working at odd hours.
   “You always want to keep it to a minimum,” he said, “But they’re human beings and they get sick.”
   He noted that provisions in the contract make officers confi rm any lengthy illnesses.
   Officers hired before 1995 are allowed four sick days without certification. Any sick days beyond that or for more than three consecutive days may require certification by the police surgeon, according to the contract.
   Those who joined after Jan. 1, 1995, are allowed eight sick days without certification but only accrue 15 per year. All days in excess of the eight may require certifi cation. Post-1995 officers also have a catastrophe bank to draw from. One officer took advantage of that option in 2006, using 42 such days.
   Chaires said the department does routinely follow up on excess sick days. “For most part, people don’t abuse the system,” he said.
   To better promote fitness, a wellness program is being devised, Chaires said. But it was unclear when such a program could be implemented.
   Assistant Chief Michael Seber noted that someone with a sprained finger in the private sector can usually go back to work. “In our line of work, you have to grab hold of somebody to secure them,” he said.
   Seber heads up the department’s investigative bureau, made up of older members, each one with unlimited sick time.
   The 40 members listed in the investigative bureau averaged 193 scheduled work days last year with 17.2 sick days. But remove Kelly and the detective out on workers’ compensation and the remaining 38 detectives average 11.7 sick days and 203 regularly scheduled days worked.
   Seber also pointed to investigators who used little or no sick time. At least 22 were credited with 10 or fewer sick days, 29 with 15 or fewer.
   Among them is Sgt. Arthur Zampella, a 29-year veteran of the department. Zampella works arson and child sexual abuse cases. He has consistently been at the top of the city’s pay list, leading the past two years. He made $141,653 in 2006.
   Zampella was credited with just under 219 regularly scheduled days worked, a total of 28 days vacation, zero sick days and six Family Medical Leave Act days. He also had an estimated 200 e q u i v a l e n t e i g h t - h o u r o v e r t i m e days.
He also had just two days in exchange for overtime and much more overtime paid. He noted he took one personal day, essentially giving two back.
   “I just come in and do the job,” Zampella said. “Someone has to do it.
   “It’s not fair for a kid who’s sexually abused not to get the proper police attention. Why should a girl or boy who’s abused wait a day or two for a detective to come in?”
   The quicker they get the information, Zampella said, the quicker the case can be solved.

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Bennett said he plans to take a close look at those rates.

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SCHENECTADY Cops working less than state police colleagues

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Ex-Schenectady cop admits he took drugs
Curtis pleads guilty to felonies, must cooperate  
  
By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
Monday, June 25, 2007

SCHENECTADY -- Ex-Schenectady narcotics officer Jeffrey Curtis admitted this morning that he took crack cocaine from an evidence locker in the vice squad unit where he once worked, helping state investigators to explain the mystery of who lifted the contraband.
  
But while Curtis admitted taking at least some of the narcotics, he said he could not remember if he took all of the cocaine that State Police investigators say is missing. An audit has revealed that cocaine disappeared from 15 drug investigations and marijuana was missing from another.

``He crossed many lines and became exactly what he was sworn to protect the community from,'' District Attorney Robert M. Carney said.

Curtis -- who came under scrutiny after a positive drug test earlier this year -- pleaded guilty to charges of drug possession and evidence tampering as part of a plea bargain that will cap his prison sentence at four years and require him to tell all to a grand jury investigating the 150-member force.

Carney said Curtis was such a faithful customer that his own drug dealer gave him a discounted rate in exchange for his help distributing drugs to others.

``He has disgraced the badge. He has disgraced the police department. He has offended every single police officer that works in this agency and they owe him nothing,'' Schenectady Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said at a news conference.

Bennett said Curtis' conduct should not be seen as a reflection of the entire department. ``They shouldn't have to take ownership for what he did to them,'' he said.

Curtis' attorney, Stephen Coffey described the case against his client as overwhelming. Curtis, he said, accepted the sentence in hopes of putting the ordeal behind him. But he added his client could not remember for sure whether he took all of the drugs that ultimately disappeared.

``Whether he took every baggie there, he's not prepared to say that,'' Coffey said. ``He took a substantial amount. He certainly jeopardized prosecutions in this county.''

With his guilty plea in Schenectady County Court, Curtis became the seventh cop on the force convicted of a crime this decade. An eighth officer resigned amid allegations he roughed up a part-time prostitute.

Curtis, 46, is the only Schenectady cop to be arrested in connection with the missing evidence investigation. However, disciplinary charges are expected to be filed against his boss, Sgt. Daniel Diamond who duty it was to oversee storage of vice squad evidence.

The State Police were asked to investigate in January after prosecutors and Schenectady police discovered that narcotics were missing.

Curtis initially came under the scrutiny of the State Police after the failed drug test administered in connection with the investigation.

Police put him under around-the-clock surveillance and arrested him on March 16, shortly after investigators said they spotted him coming out of a suspected drug dealing den in Schenectady.

The plea bargain negotiations, reported exclusively by the Times Union last week, culminated weeks of intense talks between Carney and Coffey.
A result of the State Police investigation has been Mayor Brian U. Stratton's hiring of Bennett, the former State Police superintendent, Bennett to make reforms in the troubled department. It's the third time in less than two decades that an outsider has been brought in to deal with trouble the the department.
Earlier this decade four patrol officers served time in federal prison after an FBI-led investigation into a clique of rogue cops who used crack cocaine to reward informants for tips. One officer was convicted of telling one of his informants that she was under investigation by other cops and the other three were convicted of narcotics distribution.

A fifth Schenectady officer was sent to prison in connection with allegations he gave a stolen gun to a drug dealer. Another officer earlier this year admitted he tipped of a friend about a State Police gambling investigation, but he was allowed to keep his job.

Quoted from BIGK75

  Hey look, Schenectady's finally learning from Rotterdam!  A Study!!!!!



Notice that on purpose, I put both of these on the same line, not broken by location, title.  For one reason.  Anybody remember when things were going so good because the state troopers were "helping out" in Schenectady?  Maybe we just need to disband the Schenectady PD, oh, and Rotterdam, Niskayuna, Scotia.  Put them all under the State police.  There's a word for this.  Let me think..... ummm..... CONSOLIDATION?!?!?!  (I COULD REALLY USE A YELLING OUT LOUD "SMILEY" RIGHT HERE.)

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‘He disgraced the badge’Police officer admits stealing crack cocaine
BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter

   Jeffrey Curtis, a one-time recipient of the Schenectady Police Department’s highest honor and a 21-year officer, admitted Monday in court he stole crack cocaine from the department’s vice squad safe.
   Curtis, 47, of Guilderland, a former vice squad member, pleaded guilty in Schenectady County Court to felony counts of drug possession and tampering with physical evidence.
   In exchange for his plea, Curtis is to be sentenced Sept. 14 to four years in state prison. He is also to cooperate with state police investigators.
   Curtis admitted in court to taking 85 units of crack cocaine from the locker, an act that forced the dismissal of drug charges against a man who faced years in prison had he been convicted.
   That dismissal set off a firestorm that eventually led to Curtis’ arrest, but placed a cloud of suspicion over the entire department and tainted any drug case from the vice squad.
   “He crossed many lines,” Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said at a Monday morning news conference. “He became exactly what he had sworn to protect the community from — a drug dealer.” Carney said Curtis also helped supply others with drugs, protected a Mont Pleasant drug dealer and did nothing to get them off the streets.
   The plea left the only other officer named in connection with the probe, Sgt. Daniel Diamond, still out on paid leave.
   Diamond, the day vice squad supervisor, has been on leave since February. That was shortly after he allegedly found drug evidence from at least one case in the trunk of his own personal car. He came forward with the evidence himself, Carney had said.
   Carney said he is still undecided on whether Diamond would be charged, but a preliminary state police report found no grounds for a prosecution. Diamond has passed all drug tests, according to authorities.
   However, administrative charges are being finalized against Diamond, Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said. He declined to characterize those charges.
   Carney said further charges are unlikely against anyone else. However, he noted that he would have a better idea following Curtis’ interview with state police investigators.
   After court Monday, defense attorney Stephen Coffey called it an open question whether Curtis took all the drugs, though he said he wasn’t claiming others did.
   “He’s simply not aware that he took all of them,” Coffey said. “He took a substantial amount, but whether he took every baggie there, I don’t know.
   “He’s not lying; he simply doesn’t know.”
MYSTERY REMAINS
   Coffey declined to answer a major question in the case: How did a 20-year police veteran and vice squad member get involved in drugs in the first place, and involved to the extent that he would steal from his own department?
   Coffey placed the problem as only “during the last year or so.”
   Carney also did not have the answer, noting that in every missing drug case but one, crack cocaine was missing, and each case was since June 2006.
   “There may have been a time before that he used powder cocaine, but at some point he started using crack and he was gone,” Carney said.
   State police investigators conducted a thorough review of the department’s drug cases as part of their independent inquiry. They found a total of 16 cases with 17 defendants where drugs were missing.
   Anthony Best faced years in prison as he took his drug possession case to trial in January. Instead, all charges were dropped and he walked out a free man.
   It was Best’s case that Curtis admitted to tampering with. Curtis did not know Best, officials said.
   In addition to the cases where drugs were missing, several defendants whose cases involved Curtis have been given favorable sentences. No other case, though, ended like Best’s.
   It was after the January revelation that the state police were brought in to investigate.
   Each member of the department’s vice squad was given drug tests. A hair sample supplied by Curtis came back with enough of a reading to brand him a heavy drug user, authorities said.
   It was then that investigators focused on Curtis, putting him under surveillance and placing a tracker on his personal truck. He was arrested March 16 after investigators witnessed him purchase drugs from his dealer on Hodgson Street, give a portion to a friend on Congress Street and drive off.
   Curtis’ alleged dealers, Heather Martin, 36, and George W. Finney, 58, were arrested later in March, after a state police raid, authorities said. Both were charged with drug felonies.
   On Monday, Carney also identified the man to whom authorities believe Curtis gave the drugs.
   Wayne L. Smith, 47, of 2078 Oaklawn Ave., was charged the same night as Curtis, with fourthdegree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a felony. The charge remains pending in Princetown Court.
   Smith, an alleged drug user, received the drugs from Curtis, took a portion and left the rest outside Curtis’ home garage in Guilderland, Carney said. Authorities recovered the drugs in a search of Curtis’ home following the arrest.
   Smith’s attorney, Michael Chenel, described his client’s involvement in the case as “pretty limited.” He said, however, that Smith has cooperated with police in the investigation.
DISGRACEFUL ACTIONS
   Carney said that not only did Curtis not do anything to stop the alleged dealers, he benefited from his relationship with them. He steered his friends to the dealers. In return, Carney said, Curtis received a discount on his own drugs.
   Police and city officials on Monday expressed outrage at Curtis’ behavior. Frustration was evident in Mayor Brian U. Stratton’s comments at the morning news conference. He called the day a terrible one, and Curtis’ acts unthinkable and an outrage. He noted that he and police officials routinely talk with residents about the problems of drugs and violence.
   “To think that one of our own police officers was doing the very same thing we were trying to fight,” Stratton said. “It’s disgusting.”
   Stratton vowed to do everything he could to prevent something similar from happening again.
   He already brought in Bennett, the former head of the entire state police, to straighten out the department after a number of scandals.
   Bennett has compiled a laundry list of changes to better secure drugs and evidence. Cameras will be installed, and the list of those able to access evidence has been slashed. Old drug evidence is being destroyed. Cash is also being deposited in accounts, not left in the safe, and audit procedures have been put in place.
   The cash move apparently was not done after a similar, unsolved disappearance of $10,000 in cash from the safe in 1988.
   Regarding Curtis himself, Bennett questioned how many people were left on the streets who could have posed a danger to the very officers he was working with.
   “That is as bad as it could possibly get,” Bennett said. “He has disgraced the badge. He has disgraced the police department. He has offended every single police officer that has worked in this agency. They owe him absolutely nothing.”
   In court Monday morning, Curtis answered Schenectady County Court Judge Karen Drago’s questions, giving his name, his date of birth and Social Security number. Drago asked him if anyone forced him to plead guilty. No one did. She also asked if he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, a standard question during pleas. He said he was not.
   Then she read the charges against him.
   “Guilty, your honor,” he responded.

MARC SCHULTZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Former Schenectady police Investigator Jeffrey Curtis leaves Schenectady County Court with his wife on Monday

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Why Sch’dy is paying more for less policing

   Asked for his reaction to the package of stories about the Police Department in Sunday’s newspaper, Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton called it “sobering.” Wayne Bennett, the new police commissioner, said “it exposes the system for what it is — in three letters, bad.”
   The stories, written by Gazette reporters Kathleen Moore and Steven Cook and based on a lengthy review of police attendance sheets, quantified what most of us already knew. The average police officer takes a lot of time off and also works a lot of overtime.
   The common perception was that the time off was sick leave; and that’s certainly part of it. The records show that the average offi - cer took generous sick leave — nearly three weeks’ worth. The suspicion is that at least some of this was abuse, and the city needs to make more of an effort to make sure those days off are legit.
   But the stories revealed that at least as big a factor as sick time is compensatory time. When an officer works overtime, he or she has the choice of getting paid for it at time-anda-half, or getting time off for it at basically the same rate. And there are no real limits on how much comp time is taken or when. The contract requires only 24-hour notice. The result is that officers routinely call in and take off just when they are needed most, during the summer and especially Saturday evenings, typically the most dangerous time of the week.
   When someone calls in at the last minute, there are only two options, neither of them good. The department can go short-staffed for that shift or call someone else in on overtime. If they then take their OT in the form of comp time, as they usually do, the whole nasty spiral continues.
   The situation isn’t helped by the fact that overtime records are neither computerized nor timely (officers are allowed to bank overtime and sometimes don’t put in for it until years later). The city is in the process of converting to an electronic system, but as long as police are allowed to bank OT, it will never have a truly accurate picture.
   An end to banked OT is one of the things the city should insist on in current negotiations with the PBA. Others are an end to, or at least strict controls on, time off for union business, and an end to comp time. In the final analysis, it would be cheaper to pay officers overtime in a timely manner.
   As Bennett points out, excessive time off not only drives overtime and hurts public safety, it jeopardizes the safety of other officers when there aren’t a full complement of them on a shift. He says he will do whatever is necessary outside the contract, such as take people out of indoor jobs, to get more officers on the streets.
   Years ago city negotiators may have given away control over things like comp time in an attempt to save money on raises or overtime, but never thought through the implications. Now those decisions have come back with a vengeance, costing the city more in every way. At this point, the most important thing is to make systematic changes that will allow Bennett or whoever is police commissioner to manage the department.  

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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Sch’dy cop
pleads guilty, others quiet

   I was in Schenectady County Court yesterday when retired Schenectady police officer Jeffrey D. Curtis pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the Police Department’s evidence locker, and I don’t mind telling you I was surprised.
   I had expected him to plead guilty to possession — he had, after all, been caught red-handed with cocaine in his car — but I didn’t see how the district attorney or state police investigators would be able to jolly him into admitting something they couldn’t prove.
   And the other thing I was surprised at was his sentence — four years in state prison, which is what he agreed to as part of a plea bargain. (It will be imposed in September, if he keeps up his end of the deal and cooperates with a continuing state police investigation.) I had expected he would be treated more gently.
   The police often say, and a couple of them said again yesterday, that they are held to a higher standard than ordinary civilians, but in my experience it’s the opposite. They get breaks that other people would not get. I for one am happy when they are held to the same standard as everyone else, and I believe that’s what happened with Curtis. He bought cocaine, passed some of it along to a friend, in exchange for wh