Police chief shakes up the brass ranks
By CB Online Staff
Police Superintendent Héctor Pesquera announced Thursday a shakeup at the top ranks of the Puerto Rico Police Department.
Pesquera made changes at the top of commands, regions and divisions around the island. The moves came in the wake of a broad work slowdown as thousands of officers took part in a “sickout” over the past week to protest pay and pension issues.
The shakeup also came as Pesquera appears poised to ink another contract to remain at the helm of a 17,000-member force that is the second largest in the U.S.
Pesquera has said that the sickout put the public at risk and posed another challenge in his drive to restore the reputation of a department which has long been accused of corruption, illegal killings and civil rights violations.
A former head of the FBI office in Puerto Rico, Pesquera was tapped by former Gov. Luis Fortuño to take the reins of the department in late March 2012. He had been serving as chief of security for the Port of Miami and was contracted on loan from the Miami-Dade County government for a one-year deal that ended March 31. He is technically still an employee of Miami-Dade County, but his pay and expenses are being covered by the island government.
He is the highest paid agency chief on the island with a total pay and benefits package topping $283,000 that includes $144,542 in salary.
Pesquera has been credited with plugging leaks that have hurt investigations in the past. He has also given his top brass more leeway in forging their own anti-crime strategies around the island without clearing every move through headquarters in San Juan.
Gov. Alejandro García Padilla and Pesquera met after the November election to discuss the situation at the Police Department, including the settlement in December of a federal civil rights lawsuit that will require deep reforms. Pesquera agreed then to stay in the post for the first few months of the new administration to provide stability in the nation’s second largest police force.
The U.S. Justice Department and the Fortuño administration signed an agreement in December to reform the island’s police department, which has long been accused of corruption, illegal killings and civil rights violations.
The agreement resolved a lawsuit that U.S. authorities filed the same day, more than a year after federal prosecutors issued a scathing report on the U.S. territory's police department, which is the second-largest force in the U.S. with more than 17,000 officers.
The lawsuit accused police of discrimination, using excessive force and conducting unlawful searches and seizures.
The 106-page agreement calls on the Police Department to evaluate how it uses its resources and officers, to revise many of its policies and procedures and provide better training for officers.
The department also is expected to create a merit-based promotion system, using written exams as part of a selection process through the rank of captain, and to prohibit specialized tactical units from doing general patrol and police work.
The agreement also orders the department to create a system to collect information on every police officer, including all complaints, killings and uses of force.
Once a judge approves the agreement, a monitor is expected to file an evaluation on the department every six months for the first three years. In five years, the monitor will evaluate the police department to see whether any changes have taken place, and whether the agreement should be modified.
Top cop: Sickout deeper than first seen
By CB Online Staff
The sickout at the Puerto Rico Police Department was deeper than initially thought, with roughly one-third of the 17,000-member force calling in sick on any given day over the past week, the island’s top cop said Wednesday.
Police Secretary Héctor Pesquera told lawmakers that the peak of absenteeism was registered on Sunday, when 6,100 officers said they were too sick to report to work, representing nearly 38 percent of the force. The absenteeism was spread evenly over the three daily shifts, with roughly 2,000 officers calling in sick around the island during each turn.
The Police Department had said that the sickout was tracking at a rate of just 2,000 officers a day in apparent protest of pension cuts and pay issues. Pesquera said Wednesday that attendance rolls are not digitalized and are still all done by hand.
Pesquera and Gov. Alejandro García Padilla both said this week that the sickout was putting the public at risk. The chief said it also jeopardized the safety of officers who did report for duty and had to cover for absent colleagues.
Pesquera said the department began monitoring widespread absenteeism last week, but has yet to launch an investigation into the sickout despite his belief that it was a “coordinated” effort.
The Senate Judicial, Security and Veterans Committee is staging a legislative inquiry into the sickout at the second-largest police force in the U.S.
Senate President Eduardo Bhatia queried Pesquera during a public hearing on Wednesday on efforts to bring to an end a “coordinated action aimed at causing chaos in the Puerto Rico Police Department.”
“If it is proven that an officer was absent without cause, that officer won’t remain on the force,” Pesquera said.
The police chief said officers can be punished with community service or firing if they don’t present a medical excuse to justify sick days.
“Those who have broken the rules should know that I won’t hesitate to investigate and judge any unjustified absence,” Pesquera said.
Col. Reinaldo Bermudez, operations director for the island’s police force, said late Tuesday that police operations were slowly returning to normal as absenteeism has been reduced to 5 percent.
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