Background Check Policy for Hiring Teachers Questioned in Lawsuit against School District

Norbert Ryan

By Amanda Kelley
The Myrtle Beach Herald

The father of a former St. James Middle School student is suing Horry County Schools over the district’s hiring of a teacher who had sex with the man’s then-13-year-old daughter, according to court records.
That teacher, Norbert Ryan, had a sexual relationship with one of his students in Michigan prior to being hired by Horry County Schools, the lawsuit states. Neither the local girl nor her father are identified in the lawsuit, which was filed this week in civil court.
Jeff Chandler, the family’s attorney, said information about Ryan’s past could have easily been obtained by Horry County Schools. “The SRO (school resource officer) found it by just doing a little inquiry by calling the former high school in Michigan,” he said. “The school district failed our client in the hiring.”
Police said Ryan was a 32-year-old social studies teacher at St. James Middle when he had sex with the girl during the 2009-2010 school year. The illegal relationship led to Ryan’s arrest. He was sentenced to seven years in prison last year after pleading guilty to a charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor younger than 16. He was ordered to pay court costs and was placed on the central registry of child abuse and neglect.
The lawsuit states that the school district was negligent in both the supervision of its students and the screening of prospective hires. Teal Britton, a spokeswoman for Horry County Schools, said the district’s process for handling background checks varies depending on the applicant.
“Let’s just say that [someone] teaches somewhere else in the system or they are a new teacher in South Carolina,” she said. “They’ve already gone through a background check as part of their certification.”
For those teachers, Britton said, there’s no additional check through the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
Out-of-state hires are put through a SLED records check, but that search only turns up in-state offenses.
Just looking at an in-state criminal history isn’t thorough enough, said Kenneth Trump, a Cleveland-based school security consultant.
In cases where teachers have inappropriate relations with students, he said it’s actually common for those teachers’ criminal history records to come up clean.
“The words background check and criminal history check are not one in the same,” he said. “A criminal history check is just that. It is a records check of prior crime. A background check should be more comprehensive. It should include a criminal history check, but it should encompass a great deal more, including character references.”
Horry County Schools screens out-of-state teachers differently than it does in-state or newly certified ones, Britton said.
“There would be reference checks,” she said. “And they have the ability to do more expansive checks if there is a suggestion that that needs to be done.”
Although the district can do a more thorough background check, Britton said that doesn’t necessarily happen.
“[If] someone certified from another state received very favorable recommendations for employment, [then] there would not necessarily be a national background check,” Britton said.
Trump questions whether that practice is sufficient.
“What is the trigger to get them to dig further?” he asked. “You have to dig to find the red flag to dig further. If you’re only scratching the surface, then you’re taking transcripts or information that is submitted by the applicant at face value.”
The issue of background checks comes down to cost.
“With 5,400 employees and the cost of doing those checks, you don’t annually check everyone,” Britton said. “But you do when there is a suggestion for cause to do so.”
The cost adds up quickly for the district. Britton said even parents wishing to chaperone field trips are required to have a SLED background check.
“It costs us $25 at a minimum to check you to see if it’s OK to be around kids in the classroom,” she said. “You can see those costs add up.”
Trump said the district’s explanation sounds familiar.
“What school districts historically have not done is a truly thorough background check,” he said. “They do the minimum required under state mandate and they do cursory checks and verifications of employment dates. But typically the schools point out that due to budgetary and staffing restraints they don’t have the resources to do comprehensive background checks.”
Many districts pass off troubling teachers on other districts, he said. He calls this “passing the trash.”
“Historically school districts, when they have a problem employee or someone suspected of being a problematic employee, instead of prosecuting or terminating that employee they will allow and encourage the employee to resign and then that employee later on moves to other districts,” he said.
The only thing that the then-former school district will say is that a person was hired here from this date to that date.”
Trump said school districts need to do more detailed background checks.
“It’s doing their due diligence and it’s a cultural change,” he said. “If you’re doing a thorough background check, often it can be those things that are not said by a previous employer that can be as much a red flag as those things that are said.”
Other things to pay attention to are on paper. Trump said gaps in employment and significant mobility could be reasons to question candidacy, though mobility will change if there is a spouse in the military.
“You don’t always see major and frequent movement from town to town and state to state,” Trump said of educators. “If you start seeing a person move, and especially if they’re not moving up the ladder position-wise, that can be a red flag.”
He said school districts need to encourage employees to report their suspicions and action should be taken if those questions are confirmed.
Britton said Tuesday that the school district had not been served with the family’s lawsuit. She said the district typically doesn’t discuss pending litigation.
The school district where Ryan reportedly worked in Michigan referred questions to its human resources division. Calls to that division were not returned.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Police Officer facing discipline over background checks

Lisle Illinois officials want to fire a former police officer of the year after allegations surfaced that he made numerous illegal background checks for a school district and worked a private job when he should have been at Lisle High School or home on sick leave, records show.

Officer Brett Lauten, a 10-year veteran of the force, was suspended without pay after a Lisle Fire and Police Board meeting Nov. 7.

The Police Department liaison at Lisle High School from 2004 through at least 2007, Lauten also has worked as a private security guard for the Olive Trees Condominium Association in Naperville since 2005, according to an administrative complaint released to the Tribune under the Freedom of Information Act.

Lauten, 32, of Naperville, referred questions to his attorney, Richard Reimer, who declined to comment.

The officer's "egregious" actions make up "a pattern of continuing misrepresentation" that calls "into question Officer Lauten's honesty and integrity," according to the complaint, filed by Police Chief Michael Damico.

Lauten did background checks on behalf of Lisle School District 202 personnel through a state police database that legally can only be used for law-enforcement purposes, according to the complaint. Through Lauten, district personnel used the database as a "back door" way of quickly checking on people working for the district, coming into school buildings or contracting with the district.

Records showed that Lauten ran 91 such checks, although when questioned by police officials, he claimed to have made 8 to 10.

"Lauten circumvented ... state law" and helped district employees shirk "their legal obligations to the children attending their schools," the complaint states.

Use of the database bypassed a slower method of checking fingerprints that state law requires school districts to follow.

Lauten called in sick "numerous days" that he worked as a security guard for the condo association, adding up to almost four weeks in 2006 alone, according to the complaint. He was paid for the sick days and for work by the condo association, as well as for working at the high school and the condo complex at the same time, the complaint states.

Damico and Lisle High School Principal Ron Logeman declined to comment. Lisle Community Unit School District 202 officials did not return calls for comment Friday.

The Fire and Police Board must hold a hearing on the charges within 30 days.

The allegations regarding the state database have been referred to state police for investigation. In the past, the DuPage County state's attorney's office has filed criminal charges in similar cases, a spokesman said.

Lauten was one of two police officers of the year in Lisle in 2005 and honored in 2000 along with another officer for saving a man's life after the man had a heart attack, according to news reports

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Policing the air marshals: Crimes within the ranks raises questions about agency's hiring

A recent article published in the Novemeber 13th edition of USAToday, concerning the hiring and background selection process of U.S Air Marshals, paints a disturbing picture of who is policing the friendly skies, and even more disturbing how they were hired. You can see the entire article by clicking HERE


Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Ohio Police Chief upset over allegations concerning background investigation

By Dave Greber
Dayton Daily News

Westchester Township Police Chief John Bruce is demanding trustees here apologize for comments they made in response to an internal investigation that suggested he instructed his nephew to lie on an application.

A letter was sent Tuesday from Bruce's attorney, Mark Mezibov, to township attorney Donald Crain, that said "...Trustees have publicly impugned Col. Bruce and stigmatized his professional reputation by imputing to him acts of dishonesty and unprofessional conduct."

In the letter, Mezibov states: "Col. Bruce demands that the trustees issue a prompt public apology and correction at the next meeting of the Board of Trustees."

But at least one trustee has said a public apology isn't warranted.

"I don't believe the board has taken any action for which they should apologize to anybody," said Trustee Catherine Stoker.

As of this afternoon, trustees George Lang and Lee Wong, declined to comment.

Mezibov said his client's professional career could be negatively impacted by comments trustees made in response to the internal investigation that appeared in the Oct. 25 edition of the Journal-News.

Said Wong Oct. 25: "I have lost total confidence and trust in him as a police chief. He's not allowed to make any major command decisions. This is short of him being relieved of his command."

The attorney said Bruce should at least have an opportunity to clear his name in a public hearing if an apology is denied.

The investigation, launched late last month, concluded Donald Gatliff, 27, of West Chester Twp., was not forthcoming to investigators about his background, and that Bruce advised him to do so.

Gatliff applied with the township in March after hearing about an open position in the police department. But a subsequent background check showed he provided false or misleading information on his application, during initial interviews and again during the internal investigation.

The internal investigation showed Bruce advised Gatliff to omit his history of drug use and not to disclose on the application that he was related to Bruce and Bruce's wife, Denise, who is the director of the township's communications and information technology department.

The township's nepotism policy prohibits department heads from hiring immediate family members or people who live under the same roof, neither of which applied to Gatliff's hiring.

Gatliff has never been convicted on a drug charge, although he admitted to investigators he has used various illegal drugs as recently as 2002, according to the background investigation, but he was convicted for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and operating a vehicle without a license as a juvenile.

Gatliff was nearing the end of completing his ninth week of the 18-week training program at the Ohio State Highway Academy.

Bruce also said he was trying to protect Gatliff's information from becoming public.

Bruce, chief since 2000, is not likely to face disciplinary action. Township records show Bruce has been responsible for hiring 58 people during his tenure. He said that none of his previous hires — or attempts to hire — led to an internal investigation.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Stratford Connecticut Police Captain demoted over leaked background information

By Richard Weizel
Connecticut Post

Police Union President Joseph McNeil was demoted from the rank of captain to sergeant Tuesday and suspended without pay three months for his alleged role in the illegal leak earlier this year of personal background on former police applicant Christian Miron, the brother of Mayor James R. Miron.

The mayor said Tuesday he recused himself from "the entire disciplinary process" because the investigation was related to his brother's personnel file.

"The discipline imposed is due to the severity of this offense," Chief Administrative Officer Suzanne McCauley, who was the hearing officer in the McNeil case and made the final decision, said in a statement Tuesday.

McCauley said she strongly considered firing McNeil, a 17-year-veteran of the local Police Department.

"As the hearing officer in this matter I made the decision," McCauley said. "The town of Stratford has no further comments, as it is a personnel matter."

But the local police union had plenty to say, issuing an immediate statement blasting the town's action as a violation of its collective-bargaining agreement, and arguing that the decision is based on "political pressures." It vowed an immediate appeal of the ruling.

"The Stratford Police Local 407, Council 15, AFSCME does not agree with the conclusions of the town of Stratford in this matter," according to the statement. "By its own admission the town's conclusions are derived wholly from circumstantial evidence.

"The union will immediately grieve this matter because the town has not sustained the evidentiary burden necessary to sustain the just cause requirement found in the collective bargaining agreement," the statement says. The union "is confident that when these facts are reviewed by an impartial panel, free of political pressure, Joe McNeil will be vindicated, reinstated to the rank of captain and made whole for salary lost as a result of the suspension."

McNeil, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, said prior to the disciplinary hearing that he "feared the worst." However, he strongly denied he had any involvement with the release of a personnel background check on Christian Miron, 29, who was issued a conditional offer of employment as a police officer earlier this year. However, a detailed, nine-page background investigation raised questions about whether Miron is fit for police work.

All of the vacant police jobs have subsequently been filled.

The information leaked from Miron's personnel file shows he scored well on the written and oral exams, as well as the recommendation by a psychologist who interviewed him and recommend he be hired, although expressing "strong reservations.''

McNeil's suspension and two-rank demotion, considered "very unusual," according to McCauley, comes a few weeks after more than 70 police officers converged on Town Hall to show support for the president as he went behind closed doors for the disciplinary hearing.

McNeil was accused by town officials and police brass of having a role in leaking Miron's background information to the press and Town Council members, or that he knew who did.

Some union members, including McNeil's brother, police Detective David McNeil, said previously they believe the union president was "railroaded" and "made a scapegoat" in the investigation.

David McNeil claimed that top police officials threatened to fire his brother.

"They have even tried to get him to implicate the former union president and a council member in the leak, and threatened his job if he didn't cooperate," said David McNeil, a 19-year department veteran. "My brother doesn't know who leaked the file, and they are trying to get him to lie."

Joseph McNeil took over in May for former Union President Shawn Farmer after he resigned from the department. A statement released by the union at that time said, in part, that in his capacity as union president, McNeil was the target of a "witch hunt" after he "quickly discovered irregular and highly improper conduct involving senior members of the Town of Stratford Police Department. Since McNeil began questioning those improper activities, a deliberate campaign has been orchestrated against him, the union said.

"With respect to the background investigation regarding the mayor's brother, Christian Miron, Capt. McNeil emphatically denies he released said report to any member within the Police Department, to any member of the media, or any member of the general public," the union states.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

New Jersey job applicant falsifies law enforcement letters that enabled his employment

A 53-year-old Ocean County man has been charged with forging letters from law enforcement officials, authorities said yesterday.

Silvester Colonna of Manahawkin was arrested on Friday and charged with two counts of criminal impersonation and three counts of forgery, Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said. Bail for Colonna was set at $40,000.

Investigators in the prosecutor's office said Colonna was hired by a Hillside company that specializes in international trade. The company performed a background check on Colonna before he was hired, which revealed several criminal convictions. Colonna denied he had a criminal background and, in an attempt to hide his past, forged several letters, authorities said. One letter was ostensibly from the Middlesex County prosecutor stat ing that the Silvester Colonna employed by the company was not the same Silvester Colonna with the criminal convictions, authorities said.

Noticing several inconsistencies and grammatical mistakes in the letters, company officials contacted the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, which denied knowledge of the letters and referred the case to Union County.

Colonna was arrested after a two-month investigation.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Police say background investigation was complete on arrested California 911 operator

Lissa Marie Domanic, 42, of Yorba Linda, seen in booking photo after her arrest, is a civilian employee of the Orange County Sheriff's Department who has been indicted on two felony charges. She has been placed on administrative leave pending a disciplinary review.

By Stuart Pfeifer
Los Angeles Times

A civilian employee of the Orange County Sheriff's Department who allegedly has ties to a white supremacist gang has been indicted on charges of soliciting someone to commit a violent crime and providing confidential police records to unauthorized people, officials said Thursday.

Lissa Marie Domanic, 42, was working as an office specialist and 911 dispatcher when she allegedly asked someone to assault an Orange County jail inmate, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.


She also allegedly used department computers to access confidential records that she forwarded to unauthorized people, Amormino said.

A grand jury indicted Domanic on the felony charges earlier this week, and she is awaiting arraignment in Orange County Superior Court.

Domanic, who has worked for the Sheriff's Department for about 19 months, has been placed on administrative leave pending a disciplinary review, Amormino said.


"We do a thorough background investigation, and nothing came up in her background," he said. "Sometimes people are able to conceal things they are involved in."

Sheriff's investigators began looking at Domanic in May after receiving a tip about her from another law enforcement agency, Amormino said.

Among the things she is accused of doing is asking one inmate to assault another inmate and using department records to identify the housing location of the intended victim, Amormino said. The assault did not occur, he said.

When sheriff's investigators arrested Domanic at her Yorba Linda home earlier this week, she allegedly was under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of methamphetamine, Amormino said.


Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Florida's state report concerning mortgage brokers shows that background investigation results ignored or not accounted for

BY Matthew Haggman AND Rob Barry
As Florida grapples with the worst home loan fraud crisis in the country, state mortgage industry regulators failed to order federal criminal background checks of mortgage brokers and, in some cases, never alerted police agencies to crooked mortgage operations, according to a state investigation of the lead agency that oversees Florida's troubled loan industry.
A report released Tuesday to Gov. Charlie Crist and Cabinet members blasts the Office of Financial Regulation for licensing people with serious criminal histories as mortgage brokers even as the state mortgage fraud rate was soaring to the highest level in the nation.

The six-week investigation by Florida's top inspectors general was prompted by a Miami Herald series, Borrowers Betrayed, which showed state oversight of the mortgage industry broke down at every level -- from the licensing of people with criminal pasts to the disciplining of crooked brokers.

''In some instances, the office was not complying with existing governing directives,'' the state report says.

The Herald's series led to the forced resignation of Commissioner Don Saxon, who oversaw the agency since 2003.

The 23-page report, which was obtained Monday by The Herald, concluded the state's regulatory system was ``insufficient to protect the people of the state of Florida.''

Investigators said the agency functioned without any clear guidelines, making up rules as it went along and operating on the wrong interpretations of the law.

All the while, mortgage fraud skyrocketed during the most explosive housing boom in state history. Today, a quarter of all reported fraudulent loans across the country are for Florida properties.

The Miami Herald's series revealed that more than 10,000 people with criminal histories -- including money launderers, racketeers and cocaine traffickers -- were able to peddle home loans across the state this decade.

Crist and the Cabinet -- meeting Tuesday as the state Financial Services Commission -- passed emergency measures last month in response to The Herald's investigation, including rules that automatically ban felons of financial crimes from peddling homes.

In its report, the state auditors found that from October 2006 until March 2008, the OFR issued mortgage broker licenses but did not conduct federal criminal background checks of the applicants as required by state law.

The auditors wrote that Saxon told them he was ''not aware of the strict language'' of the law and ''did not believe'' the Legislature meant for him to immediately implement the federal background investigations required by a change in the law in 2006.

Intead, fingerprint cards meant to be submitted for federal crimes checks were kept in the OFR's files, the report stated.

The Miami Herald found 88 former federal criminals were licensed by regulators this decade, including former bank robbers.

The state probe also found the state did not issue any written guidelines explaining why applicants with criminal histories should be allowed to work in the mortgage industry. The investigation discovered that agency decisions were made on ''experience'' rather than any clearly understood criteria.

The auditors took issue with the fact that broad benchmarks like ''moral turpitude'' or ''dishonest dealings'' were applied to applicants on a case-by-case basis without clear lines of decision-making.

In fact, one OFR official called the moral turpitude standard a ''moving target'' that required guidance from the legal staff because the kinds of crimes under that category vary so widely.

Yet, a senior attorney at the agency told auditors he was never asked to provide written guidance and -- if asked -- likely would not have done so because the law is not clear.

The report also stated that Saxon's agency could have required brokers to submit background information -- such as updated criminal history -- when trying to renew their licenses. But the agency didn't initiate any such practice.

Separately, the report found that loan originators ''perform essentially the same function as mortgage brokers'' but aren't licensed. Saxon told auditors that licensing loan originators would be next to impossible because of the ``influence of the industry.''

But industry leaders in Florida told The Herald that they had pressed Saxon's office in 2002 and again in 2006 to license loan originators -- but regulators refused.

In addition, agency e-mails obtained by The Herald showed that top leaders of Saxon's staff opposed the licensing of loan originators, and in one case, even removed a provision in a legal draft to bring them under state licensing.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper in unathorized background investigation scandal

By Brad Schrades
The Tennessean
Long before he was accused of running unauthorized background investigations on private citizens, a joke made its way around the Tennessee Highway Patrol about Ronnie Shirley.He could parachute over the old Soviet Union, the joke went, and if you telephoned the Kremlin an hour later, Shirley would have schmoozed his way so far within the corridors of the communist state, you'd hear his West Tennessee drawl on the other end of the line.

The joke illuminates a truth about Shirley, a 6-foot-4 trooper full of charm and backslapping political skill, but it also reflects a long-held belief about what it takes to get ahead in the THP: Politics and cozying up to the powerful too often determine the course of a trooper's career."He makes friends," said former THP Lt. Col. Steve Browder, who is from McNairy County, where Shirley grew up, and helped Shirley get hired as a trooper in the late 1980s."He's kind of a self-serving guy. Whoever is in charge, he will find a place at the table."Browder said he's concerned the latest allegations surrounding Shirley — that he ran unauthorized background checks through a criminal justice database on up to 182 Tennesseans — give a black eye to the state's other troopers.

For years, many have said Shirley, 42, could one day be commander of the patrol because of his skill in courting those in high places in state government.He has enough political clout to land plum assignments in the patrol: serving on Republican Gov. Don Sundquist's security detail, and later serving as bodyguard for House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.It was shortly after the Boston trip that news surfaced that Shirley had fixed a speeding ticket for then-Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley — at the time, the most powerful person in Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration. It later came out that the patrol's leadership had concocted a fake punishment for Shirley to throw off the press and public.Could be a politician.

Whenever Shirley came into General Sessions Court Judge Paul Simpson's courtroom, he was polite and as straight as an arrow, the former judge recalled."It really surprises me he's in a controversy," said Simpson, contacted by phone in Denver, where he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. "I think I know him, I don't think he'd ever do anything criminal. I think he's a law-abiding officer; he's been ever since I've known him."A longtime Democrat and Selmer's current vice mayor, Simpson was one of the people Shirley listed as a reference on his job application with the Highway Patrol. Simpson said Shirley is still a friend, and he would have recommended him without any hesitation."He wants to help everybody," said Bryan Farmer, a former trooper from East Tennessee. "In my 25 years in the Highway Patrol, sometimes you have to say, 'No, I can't help someone.' I don't know that Ronnie has the ability to do that." Farmer said he's surprised by the scandals Shirley has been connected with. If Shirley hadn't been in a THP uniform, Farmer said, with his personality, he'd easily be running for political office — with success.His willingness to help may include a deputy governor with a speeding ticket or a trooper who needs help moving furniture on the weekend, Farmer said. "There's consistently temptations to do things around the general orders" — the THP's internal rulebook —"or around the law because you are in a higher rank," Farmer said. "You just have to be able to say no. You never know a man until you work with him," Farmer said. "That's just something I've always lived by and come to realize. If you work with someone on a day-to-day basis you get to know the ins and outs and how he operates."

The THP leadership has given Shirley good marks on his performance evaluations, including one that was completed more than a month after the unauthorized background checks were reported to the THP.On July 30 — almost a month into the criminal investigation into allegations against Shirley — his direct supervisor, Maj. J.R. Perry, signed Shirley's annual performance review, giving him "exceptional" ratings across the board, the highest possible marks.State Safety Commissioner Dave Mitchell and THP Col. Mike Walker signed the review the same day, approving the evaluation.Walker on Friday said he didn't conduct the evaluation, which is based on the entire year's performance."We don't base it on what's happening right at that time," he said. "You look at the year as a whole. I didn't sign his evaluation. I was the reviewer on it. I was not the evaluator. I simply read it and sign off on it."Shirley's full-time posting is another plum assignment — serving as the Safety Department's liaison to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, a position he's held for about two years.Shirley, is on administrative leave pending the outcome of the criminal investigation

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Background investigations of applicants cause Portland police jobs to remain vacant

By Mariah Summers
The Portland Tribune

Want to be a cop in Portland? What you’ll need is patience.

Just ask 23-year-old Jessica Brainard, who applied to be a Portland cop in July 2007 and took her test in October. She was not hired until earlier this month.

Compared with nine other police departments researched by the Portland Tribune, including West Coast cities and similar-size agencies elsewhere, the Portland Police Bureau’s hiring process ranks third to last in speed.

What requires eight to 10 months in Portland takes only three to six months in Seattle and just three to five weeks in Beaverton, according to interviews by the Tribune. Only Cincinnati and Sacramento, Calif., are slower.

Portland’s slow process is under increased scrutiny these days. City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who has been conducting a study of the police bureau at the request of Mayor-elect Sam Adams, says the delay is the reason the bureau has been unable to fill a high number of officer vacancies. He blames the unfilled vacancies for excessive overtime costs, slower response times and demoralized, stressed-out cops.

“Once we do decide we like someone it takes an unusually long bureaucratic process to hire them,” he said. “We need to hire them right away. A young person needs to pay the rent: We have to hire them.”

Assistant Police Chief Brian Martinek admitted that the delay has been a problem and said, “We’re taking a lot of steps to change it.” But he noted that agencies nationwide are scrambling to find cops.

“We’ve been working on this since Day One when I got here,” said Martinek, who has overseen the bureau’s personnel office for the past two years. He added that the bureau needs time to properly screen candidates, saying, “None of us wants to lower quality.”

The bureau is trying to fill 38 officer vacancies. In addition, the City Council has earmarked funding for 27 additional officers to help reduce the bureau’s spending on overtime.

However, the bureau has been struggling to keep its staffing shortage from getting worse. That’s because officers who came on board during a hiring “bubble” in the 1980s have begun retiring. According to the bureau, it loses an average of 45 officers a year to retirement.

Martinek says the bureau has been rapidly adapting to a changing world. He said that the background investigation policies he inherited upon joining the bureau in 2006 were written at a time when the bureau was seeing thousands of applicants show up for each test. Now the number is in the lower hundreds.

“The entire hiring process, including the background investigation, was designed to eliminate,” Martinek said. “Now we are facing a different challenge.”

For applicants, a written test is just the first in a series of exams that includes an oral interview, physical ability test, psychological exam and a background investigation.
In 2007, Martinek commissioned a report from Charlie Makinney, a longtime bureau manager. It faulted Portland’s background investigation process, saying it is “seriously outdated and actually encourages subjectivity.”

Makinney called the hiring process “time-consuming, resource-intensive, overly subjective, unnecessarily reliant on individual investigators’ judgment and interpretation of facts.”

Since the report came out, Martinek said a number of changes have been made to speed up the process, increase the number of candidates and make the background investigation easier to pass. For instance:

• The bureau now administers its written exam three to four times each year instead of twice.

• Candidates now provide eight references instead of the previous 12

• The bureau is looking less critically at illegal drug use in an applicant’s distant past.


Despite the lowered background investigation standards, “This will still be a process ensuring quality management of applicants,” Martinek said.

But Leonard says the process remains too long and the background investigations too stringent.

He told the Portland Tribune about a recent police candidate who was turned down by the bureau and was later hired by the U.S. Secret Service.

“We need people with good judgment and life experiences, and we’re letting people go who are getting hired elsewhere,” Leonard said. “Once we get people in the front door we’re saying we don’t want them.”

The bureau’s hiring statistics show that only 30 percent of candidates pass the background investigation. The entire process is so selective that of the 889 applicants who took written tests in February, the bureau ended up hiring only 39 entry-level officers.

And even with the recent changes, background investigations still are averaging four to six months to complete. That’s longer than the entire hiring process in several comparable cities.

Martinek attributes this mostly to the fact that Oregon law bans the use of polygraph tests on applicants. An effort to change that last year was blocked by police officer unions working with the American Civil Liberties Union, citing the devices’ unreliability.

Of the seven cities in other states contacted by the Portland Tribune, all employ polygraphs to speed up background investigations.“It’s most important,” said Tom Waller, a Cincinnati sergeant who does background investigations. “Without the polygraph you have no way to check people as to whether they’re telling you the truth.”

‘Waiting is never fun’
But being unable to use polygraphs may not fully explain the difference between Portland and other cities’ hiring times. Other large agencies have gone further than Portland to attract candidates and process them quickly.

Seattle, for example, tests candidates at least once a month.

Meanwhile, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina employs a retired police captain to administer its written test at 65 military bases across the country each year, said recruiting Sgt. Mark Davis.

Davis said candidates are not willing to wait around like they used to. He thinks cutting the hiring time is crucial for modern police departments. His department completes the hiring process in just three to four months.

“If you don’t act quickly, good candidates will go elsewhere,” he said.

In Portland, the police bureau has offered positions to some candidates only to find they’ve already taken jobs elsewhere. However, officials said that does not happen as frequently as it did in the past.

Martinek said Portland has other hiring obstacles besides not using a polygraph test. Other states’ civil service laws allow a more streamlined process; also, he says the city’s human resources bureau has set restrictions that affect the bureau’s ability to hire as aggressively as it would like.

Still, he hopes to cut the hiring time to six months, and remains optimistic about staffing levels at the bureau.

“I want to make it clear we are a big agency, and this is a big challenge,” he said. “I don’t think we’re doing things as well as we can. But we’re trying very hard to do better.”

Brainard, the new Portland hire, is attending the police academy in Salem. A Portland native, she had been looking for local police jobs, and considered working for Gresham and Beaverton.

She decided early in the process that she was willing to wait for a response from the Portland bureau. But she still found the delay discouraging.

“It was really tough at times,” she said. “Waiting is never fun.”

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Residents of New Hampshire town reject police chief candidate over background investigation results

By PAT GROSSMITH
New Hampshire Union Leader

Nearly 200 citizens have signed a petition urging selectmen not to hire a retired Hillsborough County deputy, who was accused of assaulting his wife, as the town's police chief.

The petition, signed by 183 residents, states:

"We the undersigned citizens of Salisbury urge the Selectmen not to hire Frank Jones as Chief of Police of Salisbury. If Mr. Jones has been sworn in as Chief we ask that you terminate his employment and begin a search for an appropriate candidate."

Former selectman Ken Ross-Raymond dropped off the petition this morning to town officials. He said the 183 signatures represent about 95 percent of those asked to sign the petition.

Messages left by UnionLeader.com for Jones and town selectmen concerning the petition were not immediately returned.

Jones, 49, of Bow, who has been in law enforcement for 26 years, was offered the job on July 23, pending a background check and other conditions.

The next day he was arrested in Meredith on a simple assault charge accusing him of grabbing his wife's arm. A judge dismissed the charge last week.

The dismissal came after Priscilla Jones gave police a "revised" statement in which she denied her husband assaulted her and maintained her son called police to get even with Jones who, years earlier, made a 911 call that ended with the son's arrest in Bow. The son was never convicted.

Jones was not among the original police chief candidates interviewed by selectmen and a committee. He submitted an application before the deadline and was interviewed separately.

The committee recommended the town hire part-time officer Daniel Ball, who is also a full-time officer with the Boscawen Police Department. Selectmen instead offered Jones the job.

UnionLeader.com filed a Right-To-Know request with the Merrimack County Sheriff's Office for documents related to the selection of the police chief. The matter was referred to the Merrimack County Attorney's Office which released about 30 documents.

Among them was an April 16, 2008 letter Capt. Craig Saltmarsh of the Merrimack County Sheriff's Department sent to selectmen. In it, Ball was recommended as the top pick for police chief.

No letter of recommendation regarding Jones is among documents released by the county attorney.

Margaret I. Warren, administrative assistant to the selectman, sent a letter dated July 3 to Saltmarsh indicating town officials marked his July 2 letter concerning the "chief of police background investigation" as "confidential for our files."

A second letter to Saltmarsh dated July 22 informed him that a report from Merrimack County Deputy Paul Montray on the background investigation of Jones was also marked confidential.

Warren's letters requested Saltmarsh mark his file copies of both pieces of correspondence as confidential as well.

Last week, selectmen said they would be meeting with town counsel before making any decision on the job offer to Jones.


Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Background Investigations on prospective law enforcement officers seen as subpar by critics

By Jacob Quinn Sanders
Arkansas Democrat Gazette

The Mississippi County sheriff’s office hired Nathan Taylor in May as an auxiliary police officer not knowing he had been charged with second-degree murder and acquitted — also in Mississippi County — in 2000.

The sheriff’s office also did not know that Taylor, 31, admitted during the investigation to using methamphetamine, something he failed to acknowledge on his application.

The information was easy enough to find. The state Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training turned it up the same month after a routine check of the Arkansas Crime Information Center’s database after receiving Mississippi County’s paperwork on Taylor’s hiring.

But many small agencies have trouble performing background checks on new hires, standards commission Deputy Director Brian Marshall said. They don’t have the resources, he said, and often have officers who are tasked with other duties fit the checks in during down time. And those officers, he said, are often unaware of an Arkansas law requiring them to check with the standards commission as part of any background check.

To combat the issue, Marshall will soon add language to the standard initial law-enforcement hiring form, called an F-1, reminding agencies statewide of Arkansas Code Annotated 12-9-602. A subsection of that law mandates contacting the commission before making any hire that requires a state law-enforcement certification.

He described it as a superficial change, more of a service than an admonishment.

“In a smaller city, a mayor might be doing the background check himself on a new police chief or something like that and might not know about this law,” Marshall said. “In other circumstances, the officers doing the checks sometimes just don’t have the right training and so aren’t aware they have to take this step.” Marshall said he notifies agencies of information that might disqualify a potential new officer a couple of times a month.

“The folks in Mississippi County, for example, had no idea about this until we told them,” he said. “The captain I talked to was very, very thankful.” In Taylor’s case, the Mississippi County sheriff’s office fired him June 4 after finding that he made false statements on his application, records show. The sheriff ’s office recommended stripping Taylor of his certification, and the standards commission voted Thursday to hold a hearing on the matter.

Sheriff Leroy Meadows did not return a telephone message.

Sherwood Police Chief Kel Nicholson, a member of the standards commission, said thorough background checks were not open to compromise.

“It’s a burden, absolutely, but it needs to be done,” he said. “One of the ways we keep our communities safe is to make sure we’re hiring the best people we can.” Larger agencies such as the Little Rock Police Department have officers assigned specifically to perform background investigations, Marshall said.

But there are no guarantees an agency is getting all the necessary information.

When former Perry County Sheriff Ray L. Byrd was considering hiring a former Russellville police officer in 1997, he said, Russellville police failed to tell him the officer had severe emotional problems that led them to place him on a suicide watch for three consecutive shifts.

“The only thing they shared with us was that he could be pretty standoffish at times,” Byrd said in a telephone interview.

Byrd hired the officer as a deputy. Five years later, after having demoted him once, Byrd fired him after the deputy made a copy at home of a sex tape that had been stored as evidence. Byrd began to learn of the deputy’s emotional problems only after he went to the deputy’s home to fire him.

“I had to physically pry the man from around my legs,” Byrd wrote in a letter to the standards commission at the time.

Only at the deputy’s decertification hearing — six years after hiring him — did he learn of the problems in Russellville.

“I know we in this business don’t like to say something bad about a fellow officer,” Byrd said in an interview, “but sometimes there are just things people need to know. I have no idea why nobody told me about him.” At least Byrd asked the right questions, Marshall said.

“Not everybody checks,” he said. “And that’s the situation we’re trying to remedy.”

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Border Patrol Training Academy criticized by Union for background investigation flaws

By Arthur H. Rotstein
Associated Press

The Border Patrol agents' union is criticizing hiring and training shortcuts they say the agency is making as it seeks to double in size before President Bush leaves office.

The union says the Border Patrol has dropped minimum educational requirements and is deferring background investigations for new hires, among other changes they say are hurting the agency.

The National Border Patrol Council said in a report released June 24 that the patrol recently dropped educational requirements that called for applicants to have at least a high school diploma or a high school equivalency certificate.
"This relaxation of standards is a matter of concern," the report said.

President Bush announced a crash hiring program to add 6,000 more Border Patrol agents in 2006, with the goal of bringing the number of sworn agents to 18,000 by the end of this year.

The council's report noted that there was anecdotal and other evidence suggesting a small percentage of new hires had only middle-school reading comprehension and writing abilities.

It deplored that as "completely unacceptable," particularly where documents that are poorly written could end up "in miscommunication of critical information and botched prosecutions."

Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Easterling in Washington said the agency takes agents' concerns seriously, but also said neither criticism is a major issue and suggested that neither was correct.

He said the Border Patrol never has had a high school diploma or equivalency requirement. The requirement was purposely taken out after World War I to allow returning soldiers to apply, he said.

He said only 32 of more than 16,000 agents currently do not have a high school diploma or its equivalent, while nearly 12,000 have taken some college courses or graduated, he said.

T.J. Bonner, president of the union, said the agency's academy in Artesia, N.M. is no longer testing candidates' writing skills.

"We have had some of the instructors share some of the work product, some of the memos that new recruits have given; it's appalling," Bonner said. "They can't put a coherent sentence together and we say we're going to rely on this individual to write an arrest report and rely on that for a prosecution? Good luck."

Easterling said recruits go through the academy to learn law enforcement, physical, report-writing and other techniques. "More times than not they're inexperienced," he said.

"Report writing, sign-cutting, things like that, those are things they're going to learn in the field with job experience" and from senior agents.

The council also took the agency to task for deferring background investigations of applicants and settling for a criminal history check and polygraph.

Easterling also said that detailed background investigations are begun before candidate agents begin going through the academy.

The union report said thorough background investigation of new hires' character and history should be done before hiring.

"This is usually one of the first areas where shortcuts are taken when law enforcement agencies undergo rapid expansion," the report said. "Unfortunately, the Border Patrol has also succumbed to that pressure."

The report also said the agency has been using contractors to do the reviews for the past decade, rather than FBI special agents, leading to some corrupt agents sipping into the ranks.

Easterling defended the process and the contractors. He said the initial background investigations for the Border Patrol are the same as for any national law enforcement candidate. Even more detailed checks are done as the agent goes through the academy.

"You never can eliminate the possibility of error in any portion of the employment process," Easterling said, acknowledging that a few bad apples have made it through the academy and into the field before being discovered.

Bonner also said that several of the people involved in gathering information for the report had "a far-reaching discussion" with Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar in March.

"He promised to look into some of the concerns we brought up," Bonner said.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Serious Problems found in police applicants background investigation

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer

One was arrested as a teenager for armed robbery. Another was allegedly involved in an arson. A third admitted having sold marijuana.

The 15 recruits dismissed by the U.S. Capitol Police this week had some serious problems in their backgrounds, according to new details provided by police and congressional sources. The fact that the recruits were hired anyway, and only removed after they had completed several weeks of training, has roiled the force and led to congressional inquiries.

The recruits are contesting their dismissals, a congressional source said. Some are maintaining they only committed minor offenses, such as stealing a street sign while attending college. Officials have said they will fire recruits who do not resign or appeal.

Capitol Police have yet to explain how the recruits could have been hired and sent to a training academy in Georgia despite failing employment criteria such as background investigations and psychological exams. The reasons for the lapse are under investigation.

The U.S. Capitol Police labor committee was so upset by the revelations that it debated holding a no-confidence vote Thursday night on Chief Phillip D. Morse. The committee, part of the Fraternal Order of Police, decided to hold off and instead conduct a poll during the next week on officers' opinions of the chief. The recruits are not union members.

"Clearly, something went wrong when a police department doesn't know about possible felony violations in someone they just hired," said Michael J. Detorie, an officer who brought up the no-confidence motion. He said that while the chief had been strict about holding veteran officers accountable for mistakes, he "has yet to acknowledge an error or accept any responsibility. . . . It just rubs everybody the wrong way."

Morse said in a statement that he valued his relationship with the labor committee's chairman, Matt Tighe. "I find him to be someone I can work with to overcome challenges in order to meet our shared goal of moving the U.S. Capitol Police forward and ensuring the best for our officers," Morse said, adding that he planned to meet soon with the union leader.

Legislators have expressed dismay over the hiring blunder, and the Senate Rules Committee has scheduled a hearing next month to examine the case. But key lawmakers and congressional staff appeared to still have confidence in Morse.

"It seems they're taking appropriate actions to deal with the mess-up," said Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.), chairman of the House subcommittee on Capitol security, which has held two closed-door sessions on the issue.

Terrance W. Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, who helps oversee the Capitol Police, said Morse is "a dedicated professional."

"He loves the department, and he's trying to do the right thing," said Gainer, who once led the force.

The Capitol Police human-resources director, Jennifer McCarthy, has been put on administrative leave for her part in the hirings. While she had been under pressure to resign, she apparently has not done so.

Capitol Police have declined to give details about what disqualified the recruits, but according to police and congressional sources, some had committed serious offenses. One recruit, for example, was arrested as a juvenile for armed robbery, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue. The record in the case is sealed, and the outcome was unknown, the sources said.

Three others admitted criminal activities for which they had not been arrested, including setting fire to construction equipment and selling marijuana, the sources said. The sources did not provide names or further details.

Labor attorney John Berry, who is filing appeals for seven of the dismissed recruits, said that under Capitol Police regulations, the chief is supposed to review candidates' applications and disclosures before they are offered jobs. It "begs the question of whether or not he did his job," he said.

Berry said some of his clients had committed minor infractions.

One of the recruits, for example, was part of a group of 15 college students who stole a street sign, Berry said. The student was charged with a misdemeanor that was later expunged from his record, he said, adding that the recruit had acknowledged the incident before being hired.

The same recruit told Capitol Police officials that as a 13-year-old, he had been with a cousin who was getting high by inhaling the gas in a whipped-cream can. The young man tried to mimic his cousin, "but was too clumsy to do it," Berry said, adding that the recruit had never used illegal drugs. The incident was listed in the recruit's dismissal letter.

"If every person were held accountable for their actions as 13-year-olds and disallowed from job opportunities because of those actions, there would be a paucity of employment in the world," Berry told The Washington Post in an e-mail.

Some recruits were dismissed for non-criminal issues. They included failing a psychological evaluation and providing false or misleading information during the hiring process, officials said.

Gainer said Capitol Police applicants' names are typically run through several databases to check for criminal records. In addition, officials do background checks, examining the applicants' school and work records and interviewing neighbors, he said.
For the original story posted here at this blog, go to HERE

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Police recruits dismissed over flawed background investigation plan legal action

By Jordy Yager

At least five of the 15 recently dismissed U.S. Capitol Police recruits are planning to challenge the department’s decision to remove them. The recruits were asked on Monday to resign because of a departmental hiring process error in which criminal background investigations, psychological evaluations and complete reviews were not fully conducted.

The five recruits have asked John Berry, former general counsel to the Capitol Police’s union, to represent them as they appeal Morse’s decision to terminate their probationary employment. “The reality is they gave up their jobs and they’re not going to get another job in this area because someone’s going to view them as tainted,” Berry said. “It’s almost impossible. And all because people were incompetent.”

Several weeks into their training program, the recruits were asked to return to Washington, D.C., from the training center in Georgia after it was revealed that Capitol Police’s human resources department had hired the individuals without complete background investigations. Deputy Chief Matthew Verderosa replaced former human resources director Jennifer McCarthy earlier this month, and oversaw the proper vetting of the new recruits.

Fifteen did not meet the department’s hiring standards. The reasons for the recruits’ terminations vary, but include juvenile criminal records and minor traffic offenses, according to a Capitol Police source. Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer, a member of the Capitol Police Board, said the problem was not that the recruits attempted to hide their pasts. It was that the human resource department bypassed information that should have been scrutinized.

“There’s nothing the department learned during the course of its investigation that wasn’t known in the file. What is obvious is that people in [human resources] didn’t follow the rules,” Gainer said. As a result, the 15 recruits were dismissed Monday by Morse. His decision was upheld by the Capitol Police Board, but was condemned Tuesday not only by Berry, but by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

“I have great skepticism about hiring people, making them quit their jobs and then saying, ‘Whoops,’ ” Norton said. Berry pointed out that under U.S. law, Capitol Police Chief Philip Morse cannot hire or terminate any employee without first getting the approval of the Capitol Police Board, the House Administration Committee and the Senate Rules Committee.

“The Senate Rules Committee and the House Administration Committee can say, ‘No, we do not approve your recommendation and I’m sorry, they need to start work,’ ” Berry said. “The members of the Security subcommittee have been kept apprised of the situation, and have confidence that the chief will take the appropriate actions,” said Salley Collins, spokeswoman for the House Administration Committee’s GOP leadership.

Gainer said the recruits were dismissed because of information that came up in the new background investigations. “[The recruits] may have initially been untruthful about their information and then eventually become truthful or they acknowledged things that should have been automatic disqualifiers or they had problems in their psychological background which should have prohibited their hiring,” Gainer said.

Gainer said Morse is trying to give the recruits a second opportunity by giving them a chance to appeal his decision. Gainer said Morse is doing this because the mistake originated within the department. “What the chief is trying to do and the [Capitol Police] Board supports is listen, this is a very unique set of circumstances, people did make life-changing decisions and they’re going to be left hanging here,” Gainer said.

“Chief [Morse] gave the recruits an opportunity to counter or refute or offer something in mitigation which might change his mind and the circumstances upon which he made his decision.”

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Background Investigation of Missouri police applicant uncovers child pornography

Leonard J. Cook, Jr. pleaded guilty to on federal charges of possession of child pornography, United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway, Phelps County Prosecuting Attorney Courtney George and Rolla Police Chief Mark Kearse has said.

“People who collect child pornography create a demand for these images,” said Hanaway. “This office, with the help of Prosecuting Attorney George and Chief Kearse, will continue to find and prosecute people who victimize children.”

Chief Kearse stated that this investigation began when Cook applied for a police officers position with his department and during the background investigation the RPD discovered the possible child pornography issues.

“We then asked for assistance with the MSHP and (all the other agencies that got involved). I’m very happy with all the cooperation between the agencies that were involved to get to a guilty plea,” Kearse said.


“It would have been very unfortunate to law enforcement if he would have made it through the process and became an officer. Also a special thanks to U. S. Attorney Hanaway for following up and prosecuting this case,” he said.

“This kind of behavior is not tolerated in our community and it absolutely will not be tolerated by law enforcement officers sworn to serve and protect our citizens,” George said.

On Sept. 24, 2007, Cook allowed law enforcement officers to seize his home laptop computer and hard drive. A forensic examination found child pornography stored within the computer hard drive, including within the Dell laptop computer. Some of these images depicted minors under the age of 12 engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and some involved material that portrayed sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence.


Cook, 31, of Rolla, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one felony count of possession of child pornography. He appeared Thursday before United States District Judge Carol E. Jackson. Cook now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and/or fines up to $250,000, when he is sentenced on Aug. 29.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood.

In February, 2006, the Department of Justice launched Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Applicant process explained for many civil service openings

By Test Ready Pro

Background investigations typically happen after you've applied, been screened during the application process, are interviewed and are then assessed. This often where applicants with a lack of volunteer involvement, post secondary education or work consistency get turned down. If you're competitive enough you will be put through to the background investigation portion. Some services will just put you through their background when you're successful with interviews however, some will first assess your application/resume and make a decision from there compared against other applicants who are also waiting for their background investigation. If selected to move on to the background investigation, a specific investigator will be assigned to your check, they will check with your school, volunteer, work and personal character references. Now, keep in mind you've offered these references but at anytime you could receive a call saying that you need to supply extra references as the ones you've provided could not be contacted or any variety of issues that could occur. Also this is the time when your pre-background questionnaire is drawn upon for reference against traffic accidents, tickets, criminal charges etc. Typically they take four weeks but can take as little as two weeks. Problems with the length of your background investigation occur if you were not born in Canada, have studied outside of Canada or lived abroad.

Letters of reference are great for this process because you know exactly what the person who wrote the letter feels about you. Letters of reference can even be from your friends/personal character reference. Letters of reference are great to bring along with your during your early interview stages, put them in your portfolio along with your OACP COR, other certificates/awards. I highly recommend having letters of reference written specifically to the job you're applying for, either "I have no hesitations in recommending ______ for a career with the _________ Police Service."

A quick note about references: Don't just assume that because someone agrees to writing you a letter of reference or agrees to be a reference that they will give you a good reference. Letters of reference in sealed envelopes intended only for the recipient can be bad news if you're not sure that the reference writing the letter is absolutely happy with you. Also, make sure you references are available, because they write a letter doesn't mean they're off the hook.

If you don't have any letters of reference, dig up your old bosses, current bosses, teachers etc. and have them write something simple. Make sure they include the date, their name, mailing address and a phone where they can be reached. If they're having a hard time writing one or don't know what to do, use google to search reference letter form generators or simply "how to write a letter of reference."

Background checks include credit checks and it's important that you take the responsibility to use the resources out there to check your credit score and determine if it needs to be improved upon.



Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Background Investigation fails to keep murder suspect out of National Guard

The Tennessee Army National Guard is investigating whether a clerical blunder allowed Rusty "Bo" Rumley Jr. to slip through its enlistment screening process last year.

A federal firearms conviction could have been enough to keep him out of the Guard. But there are loopholes in some of the Guard’s background investigations.

For example, the Guard usually reserves federal criminal background investigations for recruits without any previous military experience, officials confirmed Friday. Only a statewide background investigation is done for recruits with a military background.

In theory, the recruit’s federal records would have been checked the first time he joined.

"You’ve been in the service, you’ve been in the system. ... " National Guard spokesman Emanuel Pacheco said. "There’s no real reason to doubt you’re ... good to go."

Bo Rumley’s military background could have endangered law enforcement officers Wednesday when they pursued him into Carter County, Tenn., woods after the killings of four people at Edgemont Towers in Bristol, Tenn.

Carter County Sheriff Chris Mathes considered how lucky authorities were when they corralled Bo Rumley.

They knew the man blamed for the killings was armed. What they didn’t realize was that he was ready to ambush them.

He had a .45-caliber handgun, three magazines filled with seven rounds apiece and 12 loose rounds piled up next to him, according to a report by the Herald Courier’s broadcast partner, WJHL-TV News Channel 11. Bo Rumley even fashioned his belt into a tourniquet so he could stop any bleeding if shot.

"That’s common military belief that if you get shot [and] you’ve got bleeding, you can put that on and continue to fight," Mathes said.

Instead of taking on authorities, Bo Rumley took his own life.

"For whatever reason, we’re very blessed," Mathes told WJHL."It could’ve been a lot worse had he decided to take us on in the traditional suicide-by-cop scenario."

Bo Rumley, 26, of Watauga, Tenn., had on his federal record a two-year prison stay in 2002-2004 for conspiring to sell stolen firearms."That alone should of been a red flag to any background investigator." said Tyra Hearns the President of background investigation firm Pebi Services.

He and a friend stole 28 guns from a home in Abingdon, Va., in late 2001, then trekked to Tennessee to trade and sell the weapons for drugs, court records show.
The Guard’s background investigation policy might have allowed someone like Bo Rumley, who joined the Guard last October with a previous stint in the U.S. Army already under his belt, to hide any federal crimes committed between enlistments.

Or he might have used a moral waiver policy that the military has used for decades when trying to increase recruitment. It allows some felony and misdemeanor charges to be overlooked.

While someone with a misdemeanor domestic assault background is banned from joining the Guard, an applicant previously convicted of conspiring to sell firearms, like Bo Rumley, might get in, confirmed Tennessee Guard spokesman Randy Harris.

If Bo Rumley used a moral-waiver when he joined in October, it means that he just missed the moratorium the Guard placed on the waiver policy in December. It turns out that the Guard has exceeded its nationwide enrollment quota of 350,000 soldiers, allowing it to be more picky when accepting applicants.

Guard officials could not confirm Friday if Bo Rumley used a waiver to join the ranks.

Other military branches still use moral-waivers. In fact, about 30 percent of military recruits need a waiver, according to a November study by The Associated Press.

Troubled police officers discovered as police departments merge

During an interview to become an Austin Park Police officer, Ralph Garcia talked about being fired from the Bastrop Police Department for viewing adult Web sites on a city computer, including possible child pornography sites, according to records in his personnel file.

Park Police officials looked into the matter, which had resulted in an investigation by the Texas attorney general's office but no criminal charges against Garcia. Then they hired him.

A few years later, Park Police officials hired Roger Aguilar, who had quit the Austin Police Department while under investigation for using his Taser stun gun on a handcuffed suspect.

And they hired Armando Valverde, whose personnel file at the Lockhart Police Department had several disciplinary actions, including one for accidentally shooting through the floor of police headquarters.

An Austin American-Statesman review of the 27 Park Police officers who joined the department during the past five years shows that the city has hired officers with problematic backgrounds and that a check of those backgrounds was sometimes inadequate. Tyra Hearns the president of background investigation firm Pebi Services finds these lapses in background investigations frightfully appalling. "The public trust is the core to all law enforcement endeavors and this creates a very untrustable situation." says Hearns

New supervisors overseeing Park Police officers acknowledge the lapses, but they said they have worked in recent months to create a more rigorous hiring process that includes comprehensive background investigations.

How Park Police officers have performed since going to work for the city and their records from other agencies are expected to face scrutiny in coming months as officials begin consolidating city marshals and park and airport police officers with the Austin Police Department.

The American-Statesman's review, which included hundreds of pages of personnel files from previous employers and background information collected by Park Police officials before offering jobs, found that:

The city has hired officers who have been arrested in connection with assault, theft and failure to pay speeding tickets. Much of that information was discovered as part of background investigations, but the city hired them anyway, sometimes after background investigators discouraged it.

Until late 2005, officials had no standard for doing background investigations for prospective park officers. Bruce Mills, the director of the Public Safety and Emergency Management agency, took over the Park Police that year from the Parks and Recreation Department. He said the agency previously had assigned the task to other officers, most of whom had no training or experience doing such checks. An experienced background investigator who works for the agency now performs the reviews.

The Parks and Recreation Department until 2005 had a 10-year pattern of hiring officers as temporary employees and not providing them insurance or other benefits, in an effort to cut costs. Sgt. Michael Hart, president of the union that represents Park Police officers, said the policy probably affected the pool of prospective officers.

Ten officers have an arrest history or some type of disciplinary action against them.

City officials have said they will negotiate with the Austin Police Association this year to determine what criteria park officers must meet before becoming Austin police officers. Some Park Police officers could lose their jobs.

"We are going to do some hard looking, and there is a lot of explaining they are going to have to do," said association President George Vanderhule,who will be negotiating for the union. "We want to make sure we get people who will meet our standards."

Two years ago, city officials combined city marshals and airport and park officers to create the Public Safety and Emergency Management agency and appointed new leadership to supervise it.

Since then, Mills and other officials said they have developed a selection process similar to the Austin Police Department's. They ask applicants to respond in writing to questions, including whether they have ever been arrested or convicted, whether they have ever been cited for certain driving offenses and whether they have resigned or been terminated from a job.

Under those guidelines, officials acknowledge that some of the current officers would not be hired.

However, since the new standards were put in place, the city has hired officers with questionable work histories, including Valverde.

Officials defend their decisions in those cases, saying that they considered candidates' entire work history, including commendations and positive performance reviews.

"The downside to someone who has 10 to 12 years of experience is that they are going to have histories," Mills said. "It's a judgment call. The best you can do is take the collective information and base your decision on their track record."

Cost-saving might have been factor

In Texas, officers can jump from one agency to the next, carrying baggage that can include anything from excessive tardiness to negligent car crashes, without generally drawing interest from the state agency that licenses them.

Only if officers are arrested or indicted are they required to notify the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education.

The agency and state law, in an effort to stop officers accused of misconduct from easily getting other jobs, require all departments supervising peace officers to submit documentation when officers leave explaining the reason for their departure, including whether they quit while under investigation.

But commission officials keep no record of excessive disciplinary histories, said Executive Director Tim Braaten. That means it's up to local agencies to research prospective officers.

Other factors, in addition to inconsistent background checks, could have led to the hiring of officers with questionable histories, Mills said.

As a cost-saving measure, he said, Park Police sought to hire people from other police departments, which probably limited the applicant pool. Other city law enforcement agencies, including Austin police and airport police, tended to recruit people with experience in civilian jobs and then pay for them to attend an academy.

Warren Struss, who started work as Parks and Recreation Department director in 2004 and retired in 2007, could not be reached for comment. Darryl Lewis, who was Park Police chief from 2002 to 2006, did not return calls seeking comment.

Assistant City Manager Mike McDonald, who supervised the Parks and Recreation Department from February 2002 to July 2006, said high-ranking city officials would not have been involved in how background searches were conducted. Those decisions were left to the department director and human resources officials.

Mills said he thought it was likely that when he took over the agency, some officers had extensive discipline histories at previous departments.

He said he and other officials began looking through the documents after receiving the Statesman's requests last year.

What they found in some instances "has caused concern," Mills said, and perhaps pointed up a need for additional supervision of those officers.

No more pornography found

Among the 27 officers hired in the past five years, Garcia was among those whose history troubled officials the most.

This month, after the Statesman requested his background file, Mills and other officials questioned Garcia about the investigation by the attorney general's office and his subsequent firing. Mills said they also checked his computer use but found nothing suspicious.

According to a report from the attorney general's office, Bastrop Police Chief David Board called the office in October 2002 seeking help looking into whether Garcia had accessed child pornography on the city computer.

Investigators used a computer program to view images on the computer and found more than 1,300 possible pornographic images, 277 of which could have been child pornography, according to the report. At the time, they could not tell whether the images had been downloaded onto the computer.

Several days later, investigators wrote in a report that they had found no "actionable child pornography images" on the hard drive.

They referred the case to the Bastrop County district attorney's office and closed their investigation.

Garcia declined to be interviewed recently. He has had no disciplinary actions against him since becoming a Park Police officer in April 2004.

At the time, he asked Bastrop city officials in writing to give him his job back.

"I'm sorry all this happened," he said. "I am glad that I was caught early before it got out of hand. I can tell you it won't happen again."

Two years later, in Aguilar's case, he told Park Police officials that he had correctly used his Taser on a suspect who was "high on drugs." He said he handcuffed the man, but the man continued to resist after he got him to his patrol car. Aguilar said he used his Taser again, in violation of department policy.

He said he decided to resign instead of appealing a possible firing.

Michael Hart, the Park Police union president who performed the background investigation, wrote that Aguilar "falls into the disqualifiers portion of the Park Police eligibility requirements" but recommended that he get a waiver from former Chief Darryl Lewis to proceed to an oral exam.

Aguilar, who declined to comment, was the subject of an internal affairs investigation after becoming a Park Police officer for a use of his Taser. However, officials said he was justified in the July incident because the suspect was resisting arrest.

According to documents from the Luling Police Department, Valverde was fired in 1998 after he had a witness sign a blank statement that the officer later filled out. Valverde also signed the document as a witness to the statement.

An interim city manager rescinded the firing, saying the punishment was "much too severe" and Valverde's error was a "major administrative mistake" but not a crime.

Valverde quit the next year to join the Lockhart Police Department.

His personnel file from Lockhart included disciplinary actions such as a 2006 reprimand for twice leaving evidence unsecured — one from a case involving a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

In 2004, he was reprimanded for not taking corrective steps concerning an officer who repeatedly left her duty belt at home and had to return to get it.

An August 2001 disciplinary memo about the incident in which he shot a hole in the floor of police headquarters said Valverde was running late to work and was trying to see if his gun was loaded. His supervisor found that the discharge was avoidable and that he didn't adequately check the gun to see if it was loaded before firing it.

Valverde declined to comment. He has not been the subject of any discipline or internal investigations since joining the Park Police.

Negotiations to start soon

City and Austin police union officials said they plan to begin discussing at the bargaining table in coming months which Park Police officers should — and shouldn't — join the Austin Police Department.

Negotiations for a new employment contract are set to begin later this year. The current contract will expire in September.

McDonald, who will lead the city's negotiating team, said he will soon begin meeting with human resources officials to get input on possible hiring standards for Park Police officers.

Each will probably face an extensive background check, he said.

Vanderhule, president of the police union, said he would probably support rules prohibiting officers from joining the department if they have been fired from the Austin Police Department or if they resigned while under investigation.

He said he also would support a rule that would not allow an officer with a history of lying to be hired.

"We want to bring people who are going to be good Austin police officers," he said. "That's the bottom line."