County Police Department Replaces Crashed Helicopter

November 18, 1993

After receiving no opposition from county supervisors who had initially voiced doubts about the purchase, the Fairfax County Police Department has gone ahead with plans to replace a $ 1.5 million helicopter that crashed last summer.
The helicopter crashed moments after takeoff Aug. 24 because its pilot and co-pilot forgot to unplug it from a battery unit on the ground.
Board Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R) and Supervisor Ernest J. Berger (R-Dranesville) questioned last month whether the helicopter, one of three in the police fleet, needed to be replaced. Fairfax County is the only area jurisdiction in Virginia with its own police helicopters.
"If a kid asks for a glass of Coke, and you give it to him and he drops it, do you give him another one? Of course not," Davis said at the time. He contended that some of the 18 officers in the helicopter unit could be reassigned to understaffed police units. But neither Davis nor Berger made any attempt to stop the purchase when it was described to the Board of Supervisors at its meeting this week.

Commentary

Washington Times

August 28, 1991, Wednesday, Final Edition

Car 54, where are you?

SECTION: Part G; COMMENTARY; EDITORIAL; Pg. G2

If you thought Fairfax County's four-chopper air cavalry division was a good story, get a load of yet another little item, this one uncovered by Thomas Heath of The Washington Post: "More than $1 million worth of brand new Fairfax County police cars are sitting unused on a fenced grassy lot, their batteries disconnected, purchased because officials wrongly believed the big sedans they favor would no longer be manufactured."


Naturally, piecing together a story that lays blame for wasting a million dollars is a tough job, but Mr. Heath seems to have uncovered all the taxpayers need to know.


* At a cost of $3.2 million, the county bought twice as many cars as it needed, which will continue depreciating and deteriorating until the police can use them.


* Like many of the decisions that went into buying the elaborate furnishings of the government center, including $4 million worth of new furniture, this one was made because county officials simply didn't know what they were doing. When county officials found out the Ford Crown Victoria they purchase for police duty would undergo a design change and be unavailable in the near future, they asked Chevrolet what it could offer. County officials claim that Chevrolet said it was downsizing its police model, so they decided to buy twice as many Fords. Chevrolet says the company never had plans to downsize its car, which costs $530 less than the Ford. * "No analysis was done to determine the cost of maintaining the cars or how much money the county would lose by not earning interest on more than $1 million." As the Republican nominee for county supervisor, Tom Davis, noted, "This is just another example of lack of appropriate oversight by elected officials and the delegation to county staff of wide spending discretion." Whether Mr. Davis is including himself in that group we don't know, but his point is well taken. A helicopter fleet costing $4,000 a day. Millions in new furniture costs. Granite flooring and mahogany paneling in the government center. A fitness room with thousands of dollars worth of equipment. A $96,000 television system. A $37,000 granite conference table. Exotic pine trees costing $4,000 apiece. All of which cost more than $100 million (the lion's share of it going to the new government center), a figure that approximates the deficit the county faces next year. With the approval of the Board of Supervisors, Fairfax County's top-level bureaucrats have spent the Moore years building an empire with taxpayer money. Come November, the taxpayers should act accordingly.

National Police Misconduct NewsFeed Daily Recap 11-23-10

With the settlement of the Kwethluk Alaska case (below) Police misconduct has, cost taxpayers about $98,000,000 (ninety eight million) dollars in the month of November and the month ain’t over. That figure comes from known settlements. Out of court settlements, conservatively, is at least $10,000,000 more.


America needs to have a national discussion about the national police problem


Assault
Kwethluk Alaska has lost a civil suit for over $23,000,000 in a jury award to a man who was left a quadriplegic when a Kwethluk police officer and a tribal officer arrested and dragged him to an ATV despite his suffering a head injury and broken neck.


Two Rochester NY cops are under investigation after a local pastor accused the officers of using excessive force when they broke his son’s nose.


A Laurens County SC deputy has been arrested on an assault and battery charge for allegedly assaulting a detainee in jail last year.


Nut job
The police chief of Zionsville IN is the subject of a state investigation over allegations that he stole a television and gun from evidence and that he drew a cocked and loaded firearm out on his officers during a meeting when he felt that officers weren’t paying attention to him.

Obstruction
A Yakima County WA sheriff’s sergeant is under investigation on allegations that he refused to dispatch assistance to a police officer who took part in the arrest of a fellow Yakima deputy who has been charged with raping a woman at gunpoint.


The police chief of Greenwood IN is also under investigation on allegations that he ordered officers to transport an officer to his home after he was detained on allegations that he pulled a gun on a man who confronted him about leaving his baby in his car. Responding officers said they smelled alcohol on the officer’s breath but refused a breathalyzer. The chief allegedly offered the officer a drink at his home after that, essentially making it impossible to discipline or charge the officer.


Theft
A Morehouse Parish LA deputy has resigned after an audit found discrepancies in accounts containing funds deposited by inmates for buying necessities from the jail commissary.


Typical Cop Weasel behavior
The West Virginia State Police are being sued by a newspaper claiming that the agency has been refusing to comply with FOIA requests seeking internal affairs reports related to closed investigations.


And of course, the standard creepy cop behavior
A Bosque Farms NM cop has resigned after an investigation into allegations that he had videotaped himself having sex with two different women, one while on-duty inside a city official’s office, and then uploaded the videos to a departmental computer where they were later discovered.

Cops and Kids: Run Children! Run!

The now-former sheriff of Park County MT has been sentenced to five years in prison after he accepted a plea deal that reduced several charges down to a singly intimidation charge in relation to allegations that he sexually assaulted a teen girl on multiple occasions and threatened to have her arrested if she didn’t keep quiet.

Cops and animals, a strange, strange relationship

A North Las Vegas NV cop has been accused of needlessly shooting a family’s pet dog to death while off-duty. The officer and her police officer husband claim that she shot the dog when it got loose and threatened him but the family and several neighbors say the dog was friendly and the woman walking the dog says that the dog was just being playful and came back when called the dog. she also claims she had hold of the leash when the officer shot it in the street.


A NC State trooper has been ordered to be rehired by a judge who ruled that videos showing the idiot officer pick his police dog up off the ground and kick it were not outrageous, but instead was an acceptable training method for police dogs. The judge claimed to have made the decision because he believes police dogs should be considered as weapons, not animals.