Sleep-deprived gang members

[maxim]

From todays on-line HA at http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061022/NEWS01/610220338

Young black men and women lay in bed at night wondering if tonight will be the night their doors are kicked in and they are taken to jail on a minor crime because their names are on a list that dates back to the late 1980s.

Well, the HA has made it sound as if these young folk got on the wrong mailing list. Golly, what to do with all these Orvis catalogs? Sure wish I wasn't on that list...

What the HA kept from its readers was that these fine folk have outstanding arrest warrants... that's why they are worried about being taken to jail.

What the HA kept from its readers is that each and every one of them could get their ass out of bed and down to the courthouse and turn themselves in on the outstanding arrest warrant. They could go to trial or go to jail, depending on the flavor of the warrant.

What the HA kept from its readers was essential information about the central premise of the story (people are tense, gangs are tense, police are tense, etc.) and in one of the opening paragraphs!

A sarcastic round of applause to the HA for presenting wanted criminals in a sympathetic light. :smt038

Remember, if you have an outstanding arrest warrant and can't sleep, the answer might not be your mattress.

[Conveyor Belt]

Way to go, Rueben Mees... you keep reinforcing my perception of the HA!!!

[maxim]

Way to go, Rueben Mees... you keep reinforcing my perception of the HA!!!

In my small experience with the breed the editors bear at least as much responsibility for the finished product as the writers. As one reporter told me, "there's three editors who're supposed to catch me when I fall. They routinely let me fall flat on my face. What's that tell ya?"

Now, that wasn't at the HA, but at another of about the same size. Better paper, though.

[LipsofanAngel]

I'm so glad to know that I'm not the only on who has noticed this about HA for years now... yay! I'm not crazy! Maybe we should write a Letter to the Editor... (not that it would accomplish anything, and we'd end up just being accused of being racist).

[Maggie-Doodle]

maxim, RIGHT ON with that post!

Another reason the warrants are not served has to do with the p.d. court system..there are thousands of warrants down there...probably more than half the time the clerks are to damn lazy to physically get up and check for a warrant when dispatch calls them to verify. Alot of time the clerks at the front desk just stuff the warrants any old where rather than putting them in order as they should be...anything to get them out of the way of the supervisor...if they arn't visable then their work has been done efficiently as far as she is concerned.

There are alot of instances where an officer goes to serve a warrant and the suspects address has changed and therefore they can't be located. The officers makes a copy of the warrants and doesn't take the original out of the office until it is served and is attached to an arrest report, however when the clerk pulls the warrant to get a copy then just jams it down in a file folder willy-nilly afterwards it is a lost cause...it could go years before it is located again. The warrant stays "active" in the computer. Later when and officer has cause to check for warrants on someone and front desk can't find it where it is suppose to be, the person is not arrested on the outstanding warrant even though it shows active. The officer has to have a hard copy of the warrant in hand

[Hub a Bubba]

It sound to me like there are as many problems at the HA as their is at the HPD....:confused:

[LipsofanAngel]

It sound to me like there are as many problems at the HA as their is at the HPD....:confused:

I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to go through the paper with a red marker and circle the many errors and then mail it back to them... that's not even considering my opinion on the actual content.

[kevin]

Affirmative Action Newspaper!!!!

[maxim]

maxim, RIGHT ON with that post!

Another reason the warrants are not served has to do with the p.d. court system..there are thousands of warrants down there...probably more than half the time the clerks are to damn lazy to physically get up and check for a warrant when dispatch calls them to verify. Alot of time the clerks at the front desk just stuff the warrants any old where rather than putting them in order as they should be...anything to get them out of the way of the supervisor...if they arn't visable then their work has been done efficiently as far as she is concerned.


Well, now... seems to me the decline of the HPD has also affected the people filing/retrieving warrants. How can the HPD know who is wanted or who the most serious offenders are if the paper warrants don't match the computer lists?

Hopefully the HPD officers confirm a real, actual paper warrant is in hand before arresting someone. Civil rights violations don't come cheap - paying out a few million dollars for intentional deprivation of liberty will cost a lot more than cleaning up the warrant filing mess.

So, if the worker bees are allowed to mis-file warrants, what is to stop them from removing warrants? Say, that's my cousin! Oops, it fell into the shredder. Darned things are dangerous.

Where's the supervision? How can a supervisor not know their subordinates are not doing their jobs? Is the supervisor in another wing, or another building? Is the supervisor politically connected?

How about auditing and verifications? Shouldn't the HPD be checking the computer list against the paper files every few months?

Hey ho and on we go... file little Johnny Jones under the D's 'cuz the D's are closer to my chair...

[Maggie-Doodle]

maxim, to answer the points you ponder with your last post:

1. YES, the decline has hit all areas of the p.d.: court, records, dispatch and the officers. Alot of warrants are not served as easily as they should be because of the paperwork not being found...misplaced if you will.

2. When the officers go to a scene and have a suspect in hand, they call dispatch and have that persons name run on n.c.i.c. (national crime computer) and have locals (check for local warrants) run thru the p.d. computer. The dispatcher sees in the computer an active warrant and calls the front desk to see if it is active. At that time the front desk clerk is suppose to get up off of their butt and actually look in the files and pull the warrant. They then tell the dispatcher "yea" or "nay". Therein lies some of the problem...I have seen some clerks actually pull the warrant and lay it on the counter instead of either making a copy for the officer or turning it a little cock-eyed in the folder for a few minutes until the officer can come get the warrant. You know as well as I that if it is pulled and left lay on the counter it can disappear...and has.. Sometimes they will take it out to read something off the warrant, get busy then they "attempt" to file the warrant back in a rush and put it in the wrong folder in incorrect nummerical order. It could go months before someone notices it being out of order and then takes the initative to take it out and correctly file it. I have also seen clerks tell the dispatcher the warrant was active but they only looked at what was in the computer and did not pull the paper warrant for verification. I have known clerks who did not remove the names of the suspect from the computer after the person was arrested and the warrant served. Later the person may be checked again and there is a warrant still showing active...the person is arrested again....this has happened numerous times...I am so surprised that they have not had lawsuits for false arrest....you can see how if the clerk doesn't do their job the whole thing can get screwed up royally...and it has from time to time.

3. Yes, it has been known that on occassions there have been certain worker bees misfile and some even destroy warrants and other paperwork...many havn't been caught doing so but I know of at least two that were. They got chewed out and nothing else.

4. as far as the supervisor...SHE is a joke! Inept at best! She knows alot of the clerks do little but she doesn't do anything about it. I know of one instance where a worker came in late (anywhere from 15 min. to an hour and a half) for nearly a year, talked constantly on the phone (personal business)...nothing was done...a year or so later the employee was made employee of the year! The supervisors office is at the very end of the building, no where near the employees she supervises. She would come in early in the morning and go to her office, close the door and you might see her 4 times thru out the day...SHE is of the chiefs and mayors persuasion (if you know what I mean). For all practical purposes she just as well be on Mars for all the good she does.

5. as far as auditing and verifying the files, I have never known them to do that. When I was there most of the clerks had more to do than enuf...and the slackers of course were not made to do their own work little alone help the overworked ones. Remember I said there was thousands and thousands of active warrants....it would be an impossibility to check them, especially with as few employees as they have these days.

I don't mean to cut anyone down but I am telling you just how it is....the whole p.d. is in a shambles, from the top on down...there are few left who actually care what happens...but to those folks I say thanks for what you do...

[carsalesguy]

arrest me on a unpaid ticket....watch what happens......

[daisy]

Do the warrants ever expire? Or would it always be an outstanding warrant?

[maxim]

Do the warrants ever expire? Or would it always be an outstanding warrant?

Warrants never expire until the person named in them does...

If they do not audit and verify, they have no clue as to the real number and type of warrants outstanding.

I wonder if they misplace patrol cars and budget line items as well? That might explain the whole 94 officers or is it 79 officers thing... they've just lost track of some.

Maybe there are a dozen HPD officers standing around a crime scene from 1998 still waiting to be relieved... we should go get those guys!

[Janedoe]

This article was amoung the most ridiculous to date. All I could think was about all of those nights when my husband had to work out of town & I couldn't sleep for fear of someone breaking my door down. Only I was afraid that it would be one of our precious gang members. The HA isn't good enough to wipe your azz on anymore. They pretty much glorify the gang lifestyle & make the excuse that it is "in style" to look gangsta. Sorry. That doesnt make it right. Try again nincompoops.

[Maggie-Doodle]

Daisy, warrants stay active either until they are served. I would imagine there are still active warrants in the computer on people who have died. Unless a clerk or officer knows that someone had a warrant and that they died, the warrant would just stay active. Sometimes the person who signed the warrant will call and tell the clerk that so and so died so what do they need to do about the warrant...then the clerk SHOULD remove the warrant. I have had that happen several times in the past. I would then look in the paper, cut out the obit and attach it to the warrant and affadavit and put it in one of the judges boxes so he could ok me recalling it and so I could remove it from the computer...after the ok from the judge, I would recall the paperwork then attach the obit to the original paperwork..someone else would then file it. There SHOULD NOT be any paperwork at the p.d. that has been issued a report number and signed off on by a patrol supervisor or judge that would be shredded or otherwise done away with, other than to file in numberical order.