TRUTH is NOT ALWAYS a DEFENSE

by Leigh Lundin

Readers have heard me gripe about central Florida’s genteel corruption. I didn’t blame Jeb Bush when he couldn’t contain his glee as he suspended Orlando’s gladhand-washes-the-other mayor Buddy Dyer on election fraud charges. However, when it was learned the grand jury heard testimony that also accused a state senator, a US senator, a judge, and Jeb’s own Secretary of State and former Orlando mayor, things didn’t look so peachy. Although Glenda Hood was protected by statute of limitations, it doesn’t look cool if the Supervisor of Elections is tainted by election fraud.

Independent mayoral candidate Ken Mulvaney spent ages in court, trying to challenge the election and suddenly, there it was laid out in court documents. Ken sought to be appointed temporarily as mayor until officials could figure out what to do.

Poor Ken didn’t have a chance against the grinding gears of politics.

The grand jury’s score was two Democrats, two Republicans, and a corrupt judge. After a flurry of conferences, indictments were quashed and Buddy Dyer was allowed to return to office after signing a dozen-page agreement that he would no longer do the corruption he said he hadn’t done.

Hands were shaken all around. Glenda Hood resigned "to spend more time with her family." Mel Martinez briefly woke up, shifted in his Senate seat, and dozed off again.

Florida State Senator Gary Siplin, convicted of grand theft, faced an unusual problem. As a convicted felon serving in the Florida Legislature, he could vote in the Senate but he couldn’t vote for himself. Naturally, he sponsored a bill to restore his voting rights. A year and a half ago, an appeals judge remanded the case back to the lower court with instructions to issue a directed verdict of not guilty. In other words, not only did the judge overturn the jury verdict, he directed the court to issue one verdict only: not guilty.

And some Floridians claim our courts and politics don’t work! We can name other examples of elections overturned through bribery and corruption, but that’s recent history. We’ve got new stories.

Police Force

Recently a woman accused an Orlando police officer of shoving her down a stairs. Officer Fernando Trinidad issued a number of vitriolic denials leveled against the woman and the press… until video surfaced of him pushing the woman down the stairs, just as she said.

Sadly, Officer Trinidad is still with us, still on the force. Me, if I had an employee lie to me, I’d fire his ass. Actually, Officer Trinidad is our employee. Moreover, how can his word be accepted if he’s called upon to testify in court?

Suck it up, Trinidad. Do the decent thing and resign.

This follows on the heels of another documented video. After crashing into a car, Orlando Police Officer Richard Ruth leveled his weapon at the driver’s head, swore at him "Open that ƒ-ing door. Open that ƒ-ing door you motherƒ-er! Get out of the God-dammed car!" He and another officer dragged the man from the car and slammed him to the ground so forcibly, they knocked him out.

This came to the media’s attention because the driver happened to be the stepson of the head of Orlando Police Department’s Internal Affairs. Orlando Police Officer Richard Ruth received a three day suspension, which he complains was too harsh and plans to appeal.

Suck it up, Ruth. You knocked an innocent man senseless. Your video scared the hell out of me. Even former Police Chief Dr. Richard Weinblatt said, "It appears to be an officer out-of-control, an officer motivated by anger." Three hundred three-day suspensions wouldn’t have been enough in my opinion.

Sergeant Barbara Jones, Orlando Police Department’s official spokeswoman (shown at left in a promotional photo removing guns from the streets– in this case a SAM missle), gave the usual excuses why malfeasance is acceptable. Barbara herself stands accused of fondling male officers, five male officers so far. She says she embraced her underlings. Officers said she embraced their genitals.

Suck it up… er, um, maybe we’d better not use that expression.

Orlando’s Police First Couple

Orlando Police Chief Val Demings is the wife of Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings. Thus far, I’ve been cautiously optimistic about our new first couple. I want to like them. Usually, I cast police chiefs, sheriffs, and deputies as heros in stories, because we want the good guys to win.

Val Demings inherited a massive crime problem and, like newly elected Obama, she has no end of critics. Unlike Obama, not being a career politician, she’s having difficulty handling her critics, some which call for her to step down, saying the post should be turned into an elected position instead of suffering the taint of appointment by an indicted mayor.

If she ran for the office, there’s every chance I’d vote for her. She takes on crime-riddled neighborhoods and does her best to set things straight. Yes, she still has things to learn. She has to understand there’s no shame in discovering bad officers on the force. Shame comes from leaving them there. Indeed, I formed great respect for the Orlando PD when an Orlando officer refused to tell a tiny lie in court to make a case. His integrity was more important than others’ opinions.

The Gadfly

By his own admission, Ezell Harris is a pain in the ass. He’s a private citizen who makes life ‘interesting’ for Orlando and Orange County politicians, founding a group called Floridians Monitoring Law Enforcement (FMLE).

Not many private citizens dare take on judges, but Easy Harris did. At a city hall confrontation, Harris harangued an Orange County judge for having an affair with his court administrator. The judge backed down; Harris didn’t.

Now Harris has made the Police Chief his personal pet project. Mostly he complains about the above incidences, particularly the two cops who abused their authority. He says the same things the Orlando Sentinel, the Orlando Weekly, and local television news reported (although the The Pine Hills News took a different position). He says the same things most of us are thinking.

Executive Action

Harris also complained as the city moves to deploy encrypted radios so that the public– and news media– cannot listen in on police calls, a staple of television, radio, and press since the earliest days of police radio. The Police Department moved to clamp down on dissemination to the news media and has said all statements will be released by a PIO– a Public Information Officer. As Harris and others pointed out, if the police department becomes opaque, "who polices the polices?"

Since then, three things happened:

• Harris launched a web site, ValDemings.com
• Demings lost her gun
• Demings found a lawyer

Chief Complaint

The Chief’s SIG-Sauer P226 was stolen out of her car parked in front of her house. My opinion? It’s an embarrassing incident in a 25 year career, but little more than that. However, the Chief’s critics used the incidence to ridicule her.

Given the chance, I would have patted her back and said, "Stuff happens. It’s not the end of the world. Move forward. Suck it up."

Instead, her attorney, Griffith J. Winthrop, III, Esq. moved to have Ezell Harris investigated, simultaneously threatening Harris with a letter^[pdf] in an attempt to muzzle him. Winthrop is quoted,

"Truth is not always a defense."^*

An investigation of a private citizen critical of the police? Isn’t that what authoritarian regimes do to silence their political opponents?

Note that I said Griffith J. Winthrop, III, Esq. launched the investigation. Could he be aware a similar position resulted in police raiding the home of a critical blogger in Phoenix? Until I hear otherwise, I choose the position Orlando’s Police Chief didn’t authorize a retaliatory probe and Winthrop is acting on his own out of youthful despotic zeal. That said, Val Demings must quash any effort smacking of witch hunt and defend Harris’ rights to free speech and free press, as much as it galls her.

Crime writers and crime readers want our heroes (and heroines) to be heroic. It’s the right thing to do.

^* Winthrop may be referring to a chilling February ruling the First Amendment protects neither free speech nor truth. (See comments below.)

Remember, crime readers: accusations, crimes and misdemeanors mentioned herein are alleged– unless, of course, the accused actually did them.