Posted on 05/02/2012 11:46:31 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri fired four law enforcement officers after they were found to have shirked their duties while on the clock. One said he watched a movie while on duty. Two others were suspended.
Claiming they intentionally hid from supervisors, Gualtieri fired three deputies and one sergeant for failure to work during their assigned shifts.
An investigation revealed that the deputies responded to calls if dispatched, but did not initiate any law enforcement action for hours at a time.
They concealed their cruisers, disconnected the GPS, and left assigned areas in order to go home, visit family, or idle in other locations. One even watched a movie while working.
"These deputies ... essentially cheated the taxpayers out of well over $24,600 during the time of the investigation - which was from July 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011," said Guiltieri. "We believe our findings are a snapshot of what was going on for a longer period of time. This is behavior that will not be tolerated, and they are being held accountable."
Two other deputies received suspensions.
The following are the names of the terminated deputies and the Sergeant, along with a summary of their charges:
Terminated: Deputy Kenneth L. Burroughs Hired: 10/1/96 Age: 42 Idling and loafing during July 1 - December 31 amounted to 172 instances, for a total of 285 hours, or 35 eight-hour work days of inactivity. At his base pay rate - $27.3934 per hour - that amounts to $7,807.11 the taxpayers lost.
Deputy Robert G. Harmer Hired: 6/10/90 Age: 42 Idling and loafing time totaled 180 instances, amounting to over 251 hours, or 31 eight-hour work days of inactivity on the job. The taxpayers lost $7,853.48, based on the base pay of $31.2888 per hour.
Deputy Samuel Mitchem Hired: 5/2/94 Age: 42 Idling and loafing time totaled 212 instances, amounting to over 314 hours, or 39 eight-hour work days. The taxpayers lost $9, 002.34 based on his base pay of $28.6699 per hour.
Sergeant Christopher W. Metro Hire: 1/13/91 Age: 43 Failure to supervise squad members (including Burroughs and Mitchem), neglecting supervisory responsibilities, failure to use available technology and other tools to monitor staff activities, leaving his area of assignment and idling, going to personal residence, 10 instances in all of idling of at least one hour each, having knowledge of the deputies' idling and failure to act. Admitted to watching a movie while on duty.
Suspensions:
Deputy Brian T. Clark Hired: 4/27/98 Age: 40 Suspended for 1 day for lack of self initiated activity, about 4 instances of idling.
Robert J. Wojciechowski Hired: 12/1/86 Age: 46 2 day suspension - Lack of self initiated activity, failure to have GPS repaired, about 4 instances of idling.
I worked for a local County Central Police Services depart ment and one day went out on patroll with an officer
It was the fastes 8 hours of my life- it seemed like I just arrived and my day was over- we did a LOT that day and it all went by so fast I was amazed.
And he ate more sugar than I would have thought possible- He ordered a sticky cinnamon bun for lunch and POURED MAPLE SYRUP ON IT!!
In Massachusetts there's a state law that says if a cop...any cop...suffers a heart attack at *any* time,under *any* circumstances that heart attack is considered to be job related.A Boston talk host mentions it from time to time and says that stats indicate that the *overwhelming* majority of such cops never return to work of any kind (not even desk jobs) and get a huge,tax free pension because of the "job related" factor.
Would Teddy Kennedy have been consider a Master Loafer?
Maybe those that were fired can work for Creative Loafing.
http://clatl.com/
He was a Master debater.
Pinellas ping...
I thought for an instant about following the link and thought Naahhh!
It’s a harmless link. It’s the weekend periodical for Atlanta. It’s similar to The Stranger in Seattle.
I suspect that the chief was one of those managers with the firm belief that “busy hands are happy hands”, who don’t care if there is work to be done or not, just as long as everybody looks like they are working.
This only works as a managerial technique over the very lowest level workers, and then only if their supervisor is willing to ride herd on them constantly. For anybody with brains or at least experience, it is a waste of time and they know it.
Even the US Army has a more reasonable attitude about work during peacetime. They are positively thrilled if they get an *average* of 1 man hour of work per soldier per day. And they have long noted that this is more of an ideal rather than a practical goal.
Did this investigation find any officers who were working?
The investigators haven’t gotten around to it.
I was referring to being to lazy to click it.
Every time I read that line in the story, I broke out laughing.
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