Thursday, January 21, 2010

Call for Better Screening Not Enough

Like a thunderstorm that has long since passed on a hot summer afternoon, soon all that will be left of the Marcus Jackson story will be a hazy memory.

Come summer I expect most of Charlotte's citizens will forget the cold December when a Police officer used his badge and authority to attack at least six Charlotte women.

For now the Chief and his supporters have deflected blame by saying Jackson was hired before he (Monroe) became Chief. The Charlotte Observer's editorial staff re-enforced this excuse by demanding "Lax police screening practices must be fixed"

In short Chief Monroe and the Observer are saying Marcus Jackson was simply a "bad hire".



Frankly if Chief Monroe can't see a violent sexual offender by sitting next right next to him at the academy, standing before him at graduation, or after nearly 12 months of supervising him on the street how will we ever feel safe in Charlotte?

The trouble is not with the pre-employment screening process. Yes tighter controls might have helped vet out Jackson, and maybe he would not have been hired. But Jackson fell through the cracks "after" he was hired.

The attack on his ex is where CMPD supervisors missed the big "red flag".

When the Mint Hill Police Department put CMPD on notice that Marcus Jackson was a violent offender that should have been enough to pull him off the streets.

The lack of supervision after Jackson graduated is appalling.

Chief Monroe has already stated he has no plans to re-check the back grounds on recent CMPD hires.

Since the CMPD lacks the desire, ability or even the structure to conduct continuing review and background checks on their officers this will happen again.

Without ongoing screening and putting in place the ability to monitor officers for off duty and out of state problems this will happen again.

Chief Monroe tells the media he's made changes yet he refuses to detail these changes and the lack of transparency at CMPD will continue.

Recently Chief Rodney Monroe posted a video that was for CMPD officers only. In the video he rails against those who "talk" to the media, and blames them for the media firestorm surounding Jackson, while saying he is confident that Jackson is a rare and unusal case. A week later we have Fuel Pizza.

Marcus Jackson will soon be forgotten, just another perp locked up in some jail house.

But the lack of transparency from Chief Monroe's office, his unwillingness to be upfront at about changes he has put in place and the lack of ongoing review for CMPD officers will linger like a hot summer day that never seems to end.

And often those long hot summer days bring a night of storms.

15 comments:

ThaQueenCity said...

No the bad hire was RuttMutt... Why is our local government so afraid of saying "You're Fired"? I think it is time for us to replace ALL City and County Board Members! Maybe then Charlotte and the county can get better leadership!

Anonymous said...

It is the media that have alerted the public to his thugish ways and will hopefully keep on reporting the corruptness that starts at CMPD with rodney and ray/ray.

They run CMPD much like a mafia family. The consequences are dire for going against the "Don" rodney...and his consigliere, ray/ray.

I guarantee you the officers of CMPD are not forgetting what is now going on there.

Anonymous said...

Like someone said, we need to see the personnel file of Marcus Jackson.

And there is a good reason that rodney doesn't want that to become public....and it's NOT to protect Jackson's privacy, it's to protect rodney's reputation.

What is in that file is, as someone else said THE smoking gun in rodney's regime.

Let's demand to see it, City Council, are you listening?????

Is rodney really the guy you want running the CMPD and representing Charlotte??

Anonymous said...

Cedar you got it!

RoMo figures by admiting that they screwed up the screen process everyone will forget that they had plenty of chances to vet Jackson after he was hired.

He's pleading quilty to the lesser offense hoping we forget about everthing else. But you know he gave the guy a free pass after the Mint Hill cops called!

PJ said...

Officers are intimidated by the threat of a lie-detector to determine who is talking to the media. Unless the City Manager or the City Council orders that the intimidation stop, the public will never know the evil that sits in Chief's chair, surrounded by "yes" men of the same evil character. What a pity that a fine organization is being dumbed down and as we have seen with the Patrol over the years, there will be more black eyes given the department because of the actions of a few.

Anonymous said...

lack of supervision in the entire department -- carried out by qualified, competent supervisors -- is completely lacking in the department

you are dead on

it doesn't stop with an initial screening and it isn't just about illegal behavior, it's also about making sure officers are doing a good job of law enforcement and making good cases and writing good reports, etc.

Anonymous said...

Well said Cedar!

Anonymous said...

The city council is only covering up by not opening Jackson's file to the public. The IA hearing where he was supposed to be suspended for thirty days got knocked down to almost nothing by RoMo. How can the city council not follow up on what RoMo says to confirm or deny it. Whatever happened to the Crime CZAR position the county created? Has that person done anything other than earn a salary from the county?

Anonymous said...

All the officers have to do is give their information to a friend outside of the PD and they will go to the media. Not that hard to do.

Anonymous said...

If you are an employee, the last thing you want is someone to put your personnel file out to the public. If you think that opeing everyone's file is okay, you have never been the subject of an investigation. You do not want open open file system. Those who think that is some underhanded way to "get" Chief Monroe are idiots. But, most of the rants on here are posted by morons. The Chief did not reduce any suspensions given to Jackson.

Anonymous said...

I don't think anyone is calling for files to be made public. But the CMPD needs to run background checks on everyone on a routine basis.

As far as most of the people posting here being "morons" or "idoits" maybe so but there sure are a lot of them.

RuttMutt didn't reduce the suspension he told IA that the recommended ten day was too long.

But it doesn't matter RuttMutt didn't fire Jackson when he had good cause so it is his burden and his alone.

Anonymous said...

Only MORONS I see are the ones who think Rutt Mutt is a hero!

Anonymous said...

Anon 3:01
I was told on good authority that rodney did indeed "reduce" the sentence......if he is putting out there NOW that he didn't do that, he is just spinning it and being disingenuous once again.

Geez, how many times are you folks going to fall for this??

It's easy enough to check Jacksons work records to see how many days he actually got off. Will anyone actually do that??Or will they once again believe the spin he is trying to put on things.

So, you would rather rodney continues his swath of destruction at CMPD?

No one is trying "to get" rodney, he is doing a bang up job of that all by himself.

He is the moron.

Anonymous said...

"Underhanded" way to "get the chief"?? That's a good one.

Of all the underhanded things he has done since taking over at CMPD??
I think his "underhanded" ways will be what "gets the chief".

Oh yea, I heard he is telling his "people" to put it out there that he did not reduce any suspensions...bullcrap!

That is simply NOT THE TRUTH.

I don't know who is going to cover up for him this time.

Like with everything else with rodney, he believes the lies he tells after a while and expects everyone else does, too. NOT!

Let's see that part of the files, then. The TRUE files.

Anonymous said...

He probably lives by the old saying, "It's not a lie if you believe it."