For those who don't get the Sun-Sentinel

[Blueblood]

Here is an editorial that appeared in yesterdays Sun Sentinel. It pretty much sums everything up. 8)




South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board

June 2, 2006



ISSUE: A grand jury skewers

Belle Glade police.

Albert Dowdell held such promise. He was Belle Glade's native son, the seemingly perfect pick as this impoverished, mostly black community's first black police chief.

He was going to make a difference on Belle Glade's crime-pocked streets, and for a while, he did. Robberies fell. Drug dealers scattered from street corners. Troubled kids spoke of Dowdell as a role model. The new chief seemed to be making his mark, earning the trust of newly hopeful residents.

But there is a wide gap between Dowdell the crusading lawman and the manipulative chief a grand jury describes as intentionally bungling a simple shooting investigation.

The man who wanted to start a boot camp for teens, it turns out, couldn't even be trusted to make sure the most basic police work was done before ordering a man's arrest. Witnesses to the October nightclub shooting weren't interviewed. Evidence wasn't collected. The crime scene wasn't photographed.

Instead, Dowdell and Sgt. Jeffers Walker relied on the contradictory statement of a woman who visited Dowdell's home to finger a shooting suspect.

When questioned, Dowdell was evasive, which the grand jury called tantamount to lying. Even more troubling, the botched investigation may mark a pattern. Circuit Judge Nelson Bailey has complained that shoddy police work derailed felony prosecutions. And in recent months, 120 guns have gone missing from the department's evidence room.

Another investigation will determine if Dowdell and Walker should be charged with perjury or other crimes. It may be harder to figure out how the town's most promising leader fell so far, so quickly. Maybe he took on too much. Maybe he let his close connections blind his judgment. Maybe he wasn't the hero many made him out to be.

Whatever the answer, the city was right to relieve Dowdell and Walker of their duties. It needs to finish the job by turning the police department over to the Sheriff's Office, which can do a far better job at much less cost to the community.

BOTTOM LINE: Let the sheriff take over.


Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

A tale of two cities - and their police chiefs

Howard Goodman
Palm Beach columnist

June 4, 2006

Belle Glade is one of the poorest cities around.

Boca Raton, a 60-mile drive across Palm Beach County, is one of the richest.

But they have more in common than you'd think.

Take their recently departed police chiefs.

Each got in trouble for basically the same thing. Only the settings were different.

Different like catfish and caviar.

Belle Glade's chief, Albert Dowdell, was removed from duty last week, along with a sergeant, after a grand jury found a host of irregularities in the handling of a shooting and an assault.

Boca's longtime chief, Andrew Scott, resigned in December after coming under fire for his irregular handling of a disorderly conduct arrest.

In Boca, the chief's downfall involved a wealthy developer.

In Belle Glade, it was a 29-year-old woman from the poorest part of town.

In Boca, the catalyst was an incident at a downtown restaurant called Luna Pazza, where the bar serves fine wines and the Vitello alla Milanese goes for $28.

In Belle Glade, it was Bobby's Market, where the grimy front door opens to a sour-milk smell, an empty meat counter and an inventory that's almost entirely soda, beer, candy, snacks and cigarettes.

In Boca, developer Greg Talbott tussled with off-duty cops at Luna Pazza after allegedly hassling women at the bar. Chief Scott drove to the station when Talbott was brought in late at night. He let him go home, though other cops wanted him jailed overnight on a domestic battery charge.

In Belle Glade, a woman named April Ridford allegedly hit a man named Darren Hatcher with a Heineken bottle. Before police could answer Hatcher's call for help, Ridford ran to Chief Dowdell's house.

According to the grand jury report, Ridford told Dowdell that Hatcher had hit her -- because Hatcher thought she'd named him in an unsolved shooting of a month before.

The chief demanded that Hatcher be arrested for that alleged shooting. When another officer pointed out that Ridford ought to be arrested for smashing a bottle on Hatcher's head, the report said, Dowdell became "very irate, and started cussing."

"He, the chief, didn't care, but you were going to arrest him for something, she was not going to jail," as the grand jury report rather ungrammatically put it.

Hatcher was arrested and spent 30 days in jail until he was released for lack of evidence.

Not Ridford. She "was protected and not arrested," the grand jury said, despite the glass shards in Hatcher's hair.

The police didn't exactly look like CSI: Miami on that earlier shooting, by the way. The cops didn't interview witnesses. The victim, who'd been shot in the leg, wasn't shown a photo lineup. "Less than minimal" is how the grand jury described the police work.

In Boca, it was the police union that blew the whistle on its chief. Everyone soon had lawyers and spokespersons and partisans.

In Belle Glade, things aren't that refined. A grand jury speaks. The mayor yanks the chief.

But strip the trappings off the two cases, and you get exactly the same thing: A police chief who bent the procedures to favor an acquaintance over the protests of other officers.

Boca, at least, is on its way to reform. One of the advantages of a wealthy community is the ability to solve a problem with a good new hire. The new chief, Dan Alexander, seems exactly that.

The Dowdell incidents came to attention mainly because some out-of-town police were in Belle Glade to help out after Hurricane Wilma -- and couldn't believe what they saw.

You've got to figure that lousy police work has been the norm in Belle Glade, and that people just haven't paid attention. It takes some special ineptitude to lose 120 guns from your evidence room.

In 2004, the last full year for which figures are available, Belle Glade police reported clearing just 12 percent of reported crimes, one of the lowest rates in the county.

It shouldn't be this way. Rich or poor, people should be able to believe in the integrity of their police.

Howard Goodman can be reached at hgoodman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6638.


Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel