So, The Department is in a Crisis........

The crisis began when Vernon Jones hired Terrell Bolton who was fired from the Dallas Texas Police Department. Bolton has a proven track record of being inept. Look what was left in his wake in Dallas. Scandal after scandal and millions of dollars in lost lawsuits. The City of Dallas to this day is paying out monies to the wronged.

470 days ago this department was reeling from the scandals of Graham and Flemister in which racial discrimination lawsuits are still pending. Marinelli took over; the limited number of Tasers was taken away and the department was involved in twelve (12) officer involved fatal shootings.

Enter the unemployable Terrell Bolton. Right from the beginning things started going down hill. The first thing on his agenda was to come up with some crafty slogan. The best he could do was “New Start, New Beginning”. How redundant is that? Does the man have a dictionary?

Mean while officers are standing in the parking lot up to two (2) hours waiting on cars to go to work. There are not enough cars in any of the precincts, but Bolton is gobbling up Expeditions, Tahoes, Chargers and Challengers like they are candy.

Instead of doing his best to get more cars, and instead of arming his officers with Tasers, he asks and gets approval to use $1.5 million in seized drug money to buy 5 campers. And he will soon ask for 2 additional campers at $250,000 or more each.

In 2007, officers were handling 911 calls without backup because there is such a shortage. It was common practice for a precinct to have only 5 or 6 officers working a shift. How dangerous is that? So 184 officers were hired, but 108 quit. So what is Bolton’s answer to this? ICP. He takes an additional 50 officers off the street! These officers do not handle 911 calls. To make matters even better, he gives them take home cars! Some of these cars are given to officers with less than 3 years experience. Veteran officers are still standing around trying to find a car to get in so they can do their job.

In light of recent promotions, there are still three (3) precincts without Majors or permanent commanders. With these precincts without leadership, Bolton promotes one of Vernon’s drivers to Major, even though this driver was a lieutenant still on probation. Does Terrell assign him to a precinct? No, he leaves him to head up all of Vernon’s’ drivers.

Of course the pay raise is a disaster.

Then the Grand Jury comes out with its report, saying all officers should be armed with Tasers. Knowing the county will resist cutting other departments budgets to fund these Tasers, does Bolton step up to the plate and ask to use seized drug money to pay for the Tasers? Hell no, he comes out and opposes it! Why, is there something he is trying to hide?

Did we mention the 911 dispatch computer system is broken; the radio system is so out of date that it is a hindrance to the officer's safety; that Bolton took seven (7) weeks vacation in 2007; he had an officer fired for not paying his ad valorem taxes, yet Bolton didn’t pay his ad valorem taxes either; that Bolton doesn’t live in Dekalb County, much less the State of Georgia; he and his family still live in Texas; he promoted 2 sergeants and put them in property and evidence, so now there are three (3) sergeants supervising 1 person; in 2007 DeKalb County had it's highest violent crime rate in history?

Not long ago someone wrote to this blog stating we should not be so critical of Bolton and his leadership, and that maybe the blog could be used so the officers could make the department a better place. Yeah, right.