Gang Strike Task Force: Millions spent, but few results
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posted by Bob at Sunday, July 19, 2009
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Sunday, July 19, 2009
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The Metro Gang Strike Force was short on paperwork and prosecutions, law officials say.
By RANDY FURST, Star Tribune
Last update: July 19, 2009 - 8:04 AM
Metro Gang Strike Force operations had less to do with prosecuting gang members than with harassing them, law enforcement officials say.
The now-defunct agency, shut down Friday by the state public safety commissioner, appears to have spent more time taking people's cars and money, frequently without arresting them, than building cases, officials say.
Having reviewed the Strike Force's records, officials said they were struck by the lack of paperwork within the unit, even though it is an axiom of good police work that successful prosecutions require thorough reports.
"How people can take police action and not write a report -- that's what befuddles me," Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion told a recent meeting of the Minnesota Gang and Drug Oversight Council, which oversees 22 gang and drug task forces statewide.
In closing down the operation Friday, Campion said it had lost the support of law enforcement agencies. An FBI probe and a state investigation of the unit are continuing.
The 34-member Strike Force received $1.9 million in state money last year, and indirectly an almost equal amount from the police agencies that assigned officers and supervisors to it. Those agencies paid the first $50,000 of each member's compensation.
The Strike Force's commander, Chris Omodt -- who took over in January just before State Auditor James Nobles began uncovering evidence of missing cash and improperly seized cars -- told the state oversight board: "In files I've seen, I see very few prosecutions come out of our office."
Data on Strike Force prosecutions is hard to come by. A 2008 Strike Force report claimed 783 arrests of gang members during 2007, 544 for felonies. But it doesn't list the number of cases prosecuted.
The Ramsey County Attorney's Office says it filed felony charges in 39 cases brought to it by the Strike Force in 2007 and declined to charge 14. In 2008, 23 cases from the unit led to felony charges while 13 did not. In 2009, six felony cases were charged. Spokesman Paul Gustafson said some cases turned down might have been charged, but not as felonies.
The Hennepin County attorney's office has no record of how many cases were brought to it by the Strike Force because of the way it classifies cases.
"My impression is that we did not get a whole lot of cases that were worked up by the Strike Force," said Pat Diamond, deputy Hennepin County attorney.
Crimes by Strike Force?
The FBI probe is looking at whether Strike Force members committed any crimes. Campion has convened a separate panel to study Strike Force operations. Campion indicated Friday that the state panel may issue a report in August.
The Star Tribune has learned that in one case being examined by the FBI, a man claims Strike Force members beat him and placed a gun in his mouth, then cocked it and demanded to know where he had hidden drugs.
Strike Force members acknowledge that the man, Hector Garcia, now 26, was detained in 2007, but they deny the brutality allegations. No drugs were found, and he was never arrested or charged.
An internal Strike Force report on the case, obtained by the Star Tribune under the state Data Practices Act, is less than a half-page long. One prominent law enforcement official who reviewed the report said it provided insufficient information and lacked the basic protocols considered "best practices" for police recordkeeping: It did not provide the officers' probable cause for detaining the man and searching him and his relative's house, and it did not contain reports from the investigators involved. The report claims that the residents, who spoke no English, gave officers their consent to enter, making a search warrant unnecessary.
Evidence but no paperwork
The Strike Force was supposed to investigate gangs and transmit information to police and sheriff's departments in the Twin Cities area. While some Strike Force members did solid investigative work, the unit's failure to produce thorough reports meant that other agencies were not getting what they needed from it, law enforcement officials say.
Concerned that other task forces around the state not repeat the Metro Gang Strike Force's mistakes, Nobles, the Legislative Auditor, and his staff were asked to brief the state oversight board earlier this month.
"We got the impression a lot of activity was not involved in prosecution of people," Nobles told the officials, who included a number of sheriffs from across Minnesota.
"It was more about making life difficult for people and taking their stuff," he said. "We saw a lot of that stuff in the evidence room."
Nobles said it is imperative that task forces not deviate from their mission. "The strategy needs to be driven more to prosecutions," he said, with an emphasis on building cases.
The Garcia case
Garcia, 27, a roofer who speaks only Spanish, described the incident that is under review by the FBI in an interview through a translator. He said that on the afternoon of April 4, 2007, Strike Force officers threw him to the ground as he was leaving his wife's aunt's house in south Minneapolis, then handcuffed him and took him inside the house.
There, officers handcuffed other family members, Garcia said, and took him upstairs where they struck him several times. He said he was told by an officer who spoke Spanish that an informant had reported someone in a brown sweatshirt selling drugs, and he was wearing a brown shirt.
The officers asked him where the drugs were, Garcia said. Then they took him to the basement where they threw him on a bed and "they started hitting me more, asking where the drugs were," Garcia said.
"One of the police officers told me to open my mouth, and the other put the gun in my mouth." The gun was then cocked, he said. "I started to cry and I thought I was going to die."
Garcia said a dog was eventually brought in to search for drugs, but found nothing.
Garcia retained attorney Bruce Nestor, who filed a complaint with the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights. A response filed by the city attorney's office in August 2007 said that police were "acting on credible information from an informant" when they detained Garcia, but gave no details. The memo acknowledged that Garcia was interrogated but denied officers beat him or put a gun in his mouth.
Last month Nestor learned that the Civil Rights Department had dismissed the case, saying the Strike Force was not within its jurisdiction.
The Strike Force report on Garcia's case alleged that he was a member of the Vatos Locos gang and was "supposed to be in the possession of a pound of meth." The allegation was based on a tip from an informant. Garcia said he has never been a member of a gang and doesn't use drugs, according to Nestor.
The law enforcement official who reviewed the report said it gave insufficient reasons to verify that the informant was reliable or that there was reason to detain Garcia or enter the house.
"I am shocked by the lack of documentation that apparently exists in Metro Gang case files," the official said. "It is not how we do business."
Randy Furst • 612-673-7382
No results? I think that depends on what kind of results you want? Free cars and merch to sell off to your buddies sounds like a result to me.
Don't forget all that profit from Sharons car!
Start looking at their safty depostit boxes, and see who has what!
To Serve and Protect.
Serve yourself to whatever you want, and Protect your colleagues all the way to prison.
This is incredible.
Wasn't the Sheriff complaining about needing more money for the Strike Force and Stanek has a personal vendetta against him?
After seeing the fiscal management of this strike force by its fiscal agent the Sheriff's office, I'd say Stanek was right on the money.
Millions of dollars for only dozens of prosecutions?
Can we get our money back?
So, who going to jail for wasting our money?
NOTICE to all of Bob's posters.
Don't click on the title: Truth about Strike Force on the 8:32 AM post.
This site has a tracking program and will download crap onto your computer.
It took me lots of money and time to get rid of the crap that was downloaded onto my computer without permission just by clocking onto the link above or going to www.bobfletcherexposed.com
9:32
How do you install a tracking program on a public blog that you can post anonymously all day?!?!
Its by blogspot just like this one. I went there and its full of evidence against Bob Fletcher. I gues you don't want people seeing all of that.
What are you afraid of? Its just a blog.
I don't know who runs the Fletcher Exposed blog but its got them running scared and and threatening their own deputies who they think are leaking internal information.
Bob Johnson, you've been there too and know its safe- unless you are one of the deputies about to go to jail.
I can tell you're a Fletcher stooge because you think others are as dumb as you. Just keep saying "Move along folks, nothing to see here". We'll keep looking.
Oh, to get a idea of what happens when you public employees over-reach, look at the story of Alice Krengal.
Mr. Johnson, you should remove that post above, its factually misleading and cause unnecessary fear.
I had a computer geek from the geek squad from best buy spend 4 hours getting the crap off my computer from the bobfletcherexposed blog. The way he explained it to me everyone that clicks onto the blog their IP address is tracked. By clicking onto the blog it downloads a program onto your computer so they can see who else you go to.
Part of what you describe is a cookie. Go here and read about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
MOST websites you visit tag cookies to your ip address. You don't have to go to Geek Squad and pay money to remove cookies, you just have to go to your tools menu and click on CLEAR COOKIES.
Cookies, they are not executable. In other words you cannot embed a virus or spyware in the guise of a cookie. Just can't be done.
A-Democracy leaves a cookie. Its not set up by Bob, its just that kind of site.
I've gone to Bob Fletcher Exposed and had my MalWare detector running- nothing.
I would suggest that maybe you have downloaded too much porn (the number one source of malicious ware and viruses) or, opened one too many email that start off "I can't believe what I did last night, click here to see the pics..."
Another question, why would the people over at Bob Fletcher Exposed infect people's computers who come to read what they write? Seems counter-productive to me.
Eric
eric,
i am a women who has been through a lot in my life, but porn is not something i do.
as for the crap on my computer from the bobfletcherexpossed site. the geek squad who repaired my hard drive ran a program. they found that the problem was tied to a spy program that was downloaded onto my computer from the bobfletcherexposed site when i clicked onto it. these assholes are using some sort of tracking/spy ware that is very advanced. i was told by the geek squad that some investigative types use this software to spy on employees.
i am through clicking onto any site this blog posts or links.
eric i don't care what you say, i have the bill for $267.59 for the cost to repair my computer and it was not a simple thing like deleating cookies. the spy software these creeps download when you click onto their website has a real bad effect on my computer.
if i ever see you at a meeting, i am going to let you have it. how dare you say i download porn, eric you are just a sicko.
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