Posted on 05/20/2002 8:27:54 AM PDT by TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig
Monday, May 20, 2002
By MIKE ROARKE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Ronal Serpas sensed something was wrong in Enumclaw. Why did state troopers hand out tickets in only 40 percent of the crashes they investigated there during March? Shouldn't they have ticketed more?
"What's goin' on, you think?" the Washington State Patrol chief asked Capt. Leslie Young, the Bellevue-area commander who sat in front of him at a captains' meeting May 2.
The patrol offices in Tacoma grew hushed, except for the fans stirring air around 50 of the agency's top brass, who all held big books of numbers summarizing tickets, arrests and wrecks on state highways.
By now, district commanders are used to being quizzed by Serpas in front of their peers if their numbers aren't satisfactory.
Serpas took over the State Patrol last August after spending his entire career with the New Orleans Police Department. As chief of operations in that city known for police corruption, he was responsible for cleaning out bad cops and clamping down on crime. His "no excuses" style helped bring the police back into decent standing.
Since his arrival in Washington, Serpas is again trying to engineer dramatic changes. He has made it known that he is keeping score and wants progress. For the motoring public, that's meant more tickets.
Lots more.
During the first quarter this year, compared with the same three months a year ago:
Troopers handed out about 12,000 more speeding citations on state highways, an increase of 31 percent.
Nearly 3,500 more drivers were ticketed for not wearing seatbelts.
659 more drunken drivers were arrested.
The number of fatal accidents fell by 10 percent to 69.
"Put people in jail, stop drunks, write tickets and by God let's see some numbers. That's what he's all about," one patrol detective said.
It's true. Serpas wants more of everything -- except costs and crashes. Serpas wants aggressive motorists hunted down and fined. He wants everybody to buckle up, and obey the speed limit. And he wants captains such as Young -- who doesn't know why Enumclaw's crash-related tickets were down but assures they'll be up next time -- to keep close tabs.
Serpas also demands that all eight district commanders keep tighter wraps on their budgets, limiting overtime and even cell phone use.
Performance on these goals is measured monthly, in numbers, to his face, in an open room. These gatherings -- called the Strategic Advancement Forums -- were started under former Chief Annette Sandberg. But Serpas holds them once a month instead of twice a year to see the freshest data, which are memorialized in thick books. One captain calls his book the "hymnal."
"The biggest difference is the accountability," said Capt. Mike Dubee, who has increased trooper road time in his Spokane district by 22 percent this year. "He expects you to do great things. And you will be held accountable for positive and negative results."
Serpas has put the detective unit in a fishbowl, too.
"In my first meeting with the chief -- as fast as I could write -- I counted 42 things he wanted to know about on a monthly basis," said investigation bureau Lt. Doug Thoet.
Numbers are critical to justifying the agency's $321 million biennial budget and its 2,200 employees, Serpas said. He also feels they account for his $111,000 annual salary.
"If we count the number of people who are slaughtered on the roadways by drunks, then we ought to count the number of drunks we're putting in jail," he said.
'Making a difference'
Some troopers worry that the State Patrol is headed for a quota system. One veteran said he doesn't recall a time in the last 20 years when more tickets were handed out.
"One thing the State Patrol has prided itself on is fair enforcement. I'm fearful that will be lost in writing so many tickets," said Sgt. Ron Mead, vice president of the Washington State Patrol Troopers Association, the officers' union. "While they haven't come out and taken away all discretion, the message has been sent."
"We used to be quality-driven. This chief has said 'I don't care about quality, I want quantity,'" said a trooper who asked not to be named. "I think there's going to be a negative backlash" from drivers. He said his district office already is receiving more complaints.
"I can tell you we're being very, very aggressive," added Capt. Daniel Eikum, who heads the Tacoma district. Earlier this year, he issued a memo telling his troopers to stop no fewer than 10 cars in an eight-hour day, though the directive was quickly canceled.
Serpas says he's not a "ticket hound." But there are some drivers in the state "who just don't get it" and those are the ones whom troopers are going after.
Highway safety is his endgame -- determined by numbers, of course.
Between October and April, Serpas said, injury crashes on state highways fell by 3 percent. Fatal wrecks dropped 4 percent -- and he thinks it's partly because of more aggressive enforcement.
"Early indications demonstrate we are making a difference," he said.
Serpas, who just turned 42, doesn't use words that often come with careers in public service. There's no mention of committees ("they cause paralysis"). Everyone in Olympia headquarters now repeats a saying: "Two meetings and a product."
Another slogan that made the rounds was "Slackers leave before 8" at night. Serpas said he works 10- to 12-hour days. Many of his top managers also put in late hours. The captain in the government relations unit recently left a reporter a voice mail at 11:30 p.m.
Serpas also hates unnecessary delays. He is reforming the patrol's disciplinary system, which some troopers have long viewed as retaliatory. If a trooper wants to stand up and admit wrongdoing, Serpas will mete out punishment that day. Gone are drawn-out investigations for being rude or telling a bad office joke.
But "we still have troopers and sergeants receiving heavy levels of discipline" for low violations, the union's Mead said. "The chief certainly isn't ensuring everybody has been fair."
Serpas' management philosophy seems suited for a quick-footed Internet company, not an institution rooted in tradition.
He wants his top commanders to be brilliant and dream up clever ways of doing the same job. He talks about "daring greatly," and loves to celebrate failure because it shows someone has tried.
Each month, he makes captains report on one innovation. The Yakima district, for example, has started working with courts to bill drunk drivers for the time troopers spend on their cases. The money is used to buy video cameras for patrol cars.
From dropout to chief
Before helping turn around the New Orleans Police Department and galvanizing his career, Serpas first needed to turn around his own life.
At age 17, Serpas learned he would be a father. His girlfriend, who later became his first wife, was 15. To support his family, Serpas dropped out of school and his mom found him a job as a hospital orderly.
By 20, he committed to entering the "family business" and became a cop. His father and uncle both wore New Orleans police uniforms, and the Serpas family had had men on the job since 1914.
He signed on in 1980 and was sent to patrol the city's French Quarter, where he walked a beat on Bourbon Street and navigated the Mardi Gras crowds on horseback.
Serpas became the youngest sergeant, lieutenant and major in the city's history. He made the rank of major at age 30, and was saddled with the nickname "Major Minor."
By that time he had earned his master's degree. He ended up obtaining a doctorate in urban studies from the University of New Orleans.
All the while Serpas was rounding out his life and being promoted, the New Orleans Police Department was developing internal villains. Cops were going to jail for killing other cops, protecting dope dealers and robbing strip clubs.
The city paid its officers pathetic starting wages (about $16,000 in 1994). Training and staffing levels were sub-par, said Terry Ebbert, head of the New Orleans police union.
Some days, Serpas was embarrassed to say where he worked.
The department needed an agent of change. Hired for the job in 1996 was Richard Pennington, whose last post was in Washington, D.C.
Pennington pledged to work with the FBI to take care of the "integrity" problem. He picked Serpas as his No. 2 man to handle day-to-day crime.
Results were not optional. "If we didn't get it done, we were all gone," Serpas said.
Reform meant liquidation -- firing about 60 cops and disciplining 300 or so more.
Another element -- similar to what Serpas is doing with the Washington State Patrol -- was building in a top-down accountability system modeled after one used by New York City police.
Each week Serpas ran brass-tacks meetings that examined the city's crime figures. District commanders were questioned and held responsible for the trends in their sections.
When Serpas left in 2001, the number of murders in New Orleans had fallen to 212, down from 363 in 1995. Violent crime had plunged by nearly 50 percent.
"By the time I left, I was telling people the corruption that existed as a culture had gone," said Charles Matthews, an FBI special agent who used to run the bureau's New Orleans office and now works in Portland.
"Richard (Pennington) and Ron (Serpas) did a lot to change that."
'Ain't going there no more'
Serpas said he wants to take the State Patrol to another level, just like in New Orleans. "They have so much more potential than they see themselves," he said.
Some troopers say they worried when he was named chief. Serpas was known as a disciplinarian.
"There was a lot of turmoil when this first happened, and you could see the fear," a detective said.
Serpas appointed five new district captains and named three deputy chiefs. There were no demotions.
Serpas admits that his monthly meetings bred "apprehension" among the captains.
Some still say they are not comfortable up in front of the chief.
"The reason we make all the managers sit up there in the front row is not because it's kindergarten, it's because they are under the spotlight," Serpas said. "They should be worried about producing with the resources we give them, but they should not be worried about retaliation."
Gov. Gary Locke said he is satisfied with what Serpas is doing. Locke said in appointing a new chief that he wanted a strong leader who could direct the agency, which had low morale in recent years. And Locke says he himself is "very much into measurements."
John Lovick, a patrol sergeant in Marysville and a state representative, said spirits in the rank and file are improving. "You can talk to him about anything," Lovick said of Serpas. "He'll make it as a comedian if he doesn't make it as a State Patrol chief."
There's little doubt Serpas has talent for working a room. He has good timing and a grin that says, "Trust me, I'm with you." During the captains meeting this month, he cracked jokes about Northwest weather ("What do you call two days after rain in Seattle? Monday.") And his occasional butchering of proper English ("We ain't goin' there no more") adds to an air of transparency.
Serpas calls it a fair question when asked why he took the State Patrol job, bringing his second wife, Jill, and youngest of three children with him.
He seemed to be the logical heir for the top post in New Orleans, which now sits vacant. "I felt I had done all I wanted to do there."
Serpas has pursued other chief's jobs, in El Paso, Texas, and Omaha, Neb., saying he has always wanted to run his own show. At the State Patrol, he has the challenges of leading more people, monitoring a crime lab system, and applying his accountability framework statewide.
He also said he is committed to further analyzing traffic data to check for racial profiling and whether troopers are handing out tickets to minorities at skewed levels.
In hindsight, Serpas might have picked a good time to leave New Orleans. Last year, crime increased and a survey found growing safety fears.
He is not tempted to go back -- yet.
"Mount Rainer is starting to grow on me," he said.
And judging by the numbers, his style already has grown on the patrol.
P-I reporter Mike Roarke can be reached at 206-448-8127 or mikeroarke@seattlepi.com
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