I'm so Confused now ....

An ongoing saga in the battle for the Tampa top-law-enforcement-officer spot which is that of the Mayor (NOT the Police Chief as some might believe) is the fact that the Tampa PD crime statistics (and their meteoric drop)are skewed and Marion Serious Lewis is attempting to get to the bottom of this in his bid for Mayor. (He's got 26 years experience in law enforcement and his opponent Pam Iorio hasn't even a day as far as I've been able to discern)

I'm not too sure why this discussion is being by-passed to the Police Chief; it seems to me that this ongoing debate should be between the two mayoral candidates.

While I'm on the subject there are THREE candidates for the office of Mayor of Tampa and it would be nice if Aria Ray Green would make an appearance. There is likely a great deal he knows as an insider for decades in the Tampa Fire Dept. As well, he was axed as Fire Chief by the current Mayor Iorio in a very troubling scenario.

(Ex-chief feels burned by Iorio: Personnel records and e-mails aid Valerie Kalfrin and Andy Reid of The Tampa Tribune in this piece (this link is dead and couldn't find it in a search only this dig article and the glowing introduction of aria ray green as fire chief and the abrupt change just over a year later which is what that link would talk about, see??) about how the relationship soured between Tampa's first black fire chief and the mayor who appointed him. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio said she asked for Aria Ray Green’s resignation after she learned of a potential no confidence vote by his union. “Questions persist about Green's departure, even as Iorio officially swore in Fire Chief Dennis Jones on Jan. 13. Through interviews and public records, The Tampa Tribune reviewed how the situation unfolded.” The public records handbook profiles state and local personnel records on Page 239 and e-mails on Page 140.

The union who called for his head is now endorsing Julie Brown rather than John Dingfelder who has been a voice of reason and who voted against the police pension increase (the same thing the Shitty of Tampa and TPD is being sued for by a brilliant College Prof because they are jacking us via the insurance companies through the # of tickets they write) but I'll let you make your own connections there. UPDATE:: And, it appears via a brief research I'm going to have to provide some copies of her lawsuit for the merit therein. It was dismissed because she wasn't arrested. I guess if she had been raped (then arrested)like the gasparilla rape victim she could have made her case which was valid because the cops' pension fund is jacking us through a ticket quota via an agreement with insurance companies. At any rate, here is Julie Brown's page and she is a developer's angel.

My confusion lies in the following piece and in order to expediently point out to you where I get confused (another word for questioning) it's going to take some emboldening for my words and some links for my former posts which most of you are familiar with.

Again, sorry for posting the article from the TT in it's entirety -- the articles disappear sometimes if you don't grab them quickly - herewith is my confusion embedded in the Tampa Trib article currently posted at this location.


Mayoral Candidate: Crime Stats Are Skewed
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By VALERIE KALFRIN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Feb 3, 2007

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TAMPA - Mayoral candidate and former Tampa police Capt. Marion Lewis on Friday accused the police department of cheating on its crime figures and called on Police Chief Stephen Hogue to hire an independent auditor.
(CALL ON THE MAYOR SHE's THE TOP LAW DOG) and keep this discussion between you and she. You're not running against Hogue. In fact, you can get rid of Hogue if you play your cards right !!!!
At a news conference, Lewis said the "double-digit drops year after year" in the city's crime rate are "unrealistic and, I dare say, impossible to achieve just by good police work." I agree strongly, this man has common sense and he's not just standing there saying 'the city has done nothing wrong' I deplore pat answers as were given by the police chief and current mayor when this important matter was broached.
Hogue called Lewis' claims campaign posturing. He declined the audit request but said the agency's records are open to anyone who wants to examine them. ROFLMAO Hogue, is this the BEST you can do? I would call it posturing on your part but that's such a lame word. Like the citizens have the time to come down there and look through those records.

"Give me the cases that you think are improperly classified, and we'll look at them," Hogue said. mmmmmkay, this one stands alone sorry to be redundant but ROFLMFAO and does this remind anyone of the School Board's stance against Doug Erwin who won his federal case against them as we all know !!!
The police department's 2005 annual crime report shows a 16.8 percent drop in Part 1 crimes reported to the FBI between 2004 and 2005. These crimes are murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny and vehicle theft. (see my piece yesterday or talk to any statistician about this and the categorizing they have obviously done or they'd welcome an audit, wouldn't they?)The agency's 2006 semiannual crime report shows an 11 percent drop in the number of these crimes reported in the first six months of 2006 compared with the same period the previous year.

Lewis accused the department of misclassifying some crimes as lesser offenses so they are not considered part of the city's crime rate. He referred to a television news report aired Thursday that states the city had 22 murders last year but only reported 20. YAY LEWIS !!!

"If TPD is willing to cheat on the murder rate, you can be sure auto burglary, muggings, assaults are being underreported and misreported," he said. And not only the murder rate ...
When asked to produce a list of misclassified reports, he said he needed more time to compile them and should be available Monday. Why should he be doing this? Does he even have full access to these records? The city should hire an independent auditor chosen by Mr. Lewis. He is running a campaign and they are risking a lawsuit by effecting his ability to campaign.

Hogue said the television story did not state that one of the 22 deaths was ruled a "justifiable homicide" by the Hillsborough County State Attorney's office. The other was ruled a manslaughter and classified as such, he said. (OH MY GOD, tell me they are not talking about the guy that was run down and killed)"It's not as if we swept these under the rug," he said.

City police took in about 25,000 crime reports in 2006, Hogue said. (OKAY, here's where I got REALLY confused --- that's a helluva lot of police reports -- again, is crime UP or down??? And it should be 25,001 or 2 because I know two cases where crimes went unreported due to possible gang collusion with the TPD)

Because of the volume, "there are probably a few of those that are classified wrong," Hogue said, but there are not enough to significantly affect the crime statistics. Finally, he starts to crumble and admit that ooohhhh yes the police are far from perfect..... (and love to all of you good cops who are in there plugging away the few of you who are left)
Reporter Tom Krause contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800.

All in all, I'm not feeling good about the TPD or the Sheriff's office but looking through their site I did find a familiar face which helps me enormously. hehe.

Serious Lewis, DO NOT let them take your campaign time away. If this city has enough damn money to pay for weekly fireworks and gazillions of smiley photo-ops they can afford a good independent audit by an outfit of your choice. I know an honest CPA who probably has good connections in this area.

Just sayin ...............