I hesitate to bring this story up. As a frequent reader of this blog will know, I am not a fan of the Texas Department of Public Safety. I regard them as lazy, inept, and ethically challenged. That being said, when compared to the Massachusetts State Police (MSP), Texas DPS are paragons of virtue. I am afraid that should DPS get wind of the MSP antics, Texas will take it as a challenge.
Years ago one of my fellow investigators at the narcotics task force twisted off. The first indication that there was trouble is when he wrecked his g-ride at nine in the morning. As was routine, he was required to take a piss test. That’s when routine went all to hell. According to the technician that conducted the analysis, the agent’s results showed the highest concentration of cocaine that he had ever seen.
The offending agent was sent back to his agency. A good bureaucrat would have left it at that, problem solved. Did I mention that the boss and I are a little goofy? A cop high on cocaine, assigned to a narcotics task force that has cocaine stored in the evidence locker. What are the odds?
We decided to conduct an inventory of the evidence locker. We went to DPS Narcotics Service (our overseers). We got, ‘it sucks to be you… let us know how it turns out.’ We tried the Texas Rangers. ‘We seem to have a bad connection, I can’t hear you. Even the FBI had an answer, ‘not our table.’
We persevered and discovered that we were missing a kilo of cocaine. We recovered several ounces of it, still with the evidence tag attached, in the bent narc’s apartment. I put the case together the bent narc got 12 years to do in a Federal prison.
Fellow narcotics commanders voiced their support. “Why didn’t he (the boss) leave it alone? This was sentiment shared by the bent narcs Chief.
This leads me back to the story posted above.
Trooper Matthew Kelley, Mr. Improper Storage of Contraband. They never admitted he was gone until we spotted it in an obscure court filing out of Bristol County.
Howie Carr, The Howie Carr Show
It seems the Massachusetts State Police became aware of Trooper Kelly’s short comings after he was treated for a drug overdose. It is unclear whether or not Kelly resigned or was fired. At this point, he has not been criminally charged. What does the MSP know? They know that he was treated for a drug overdose. They know that contraband in his care custody and control is missing or otherwise unaccounted for.
What does Improper Storage of Contraband mean? It could mean that the contraband was not labeled correctly. It could be that the contraband was not deposited or submitted to the lab within acceptable time limits. It might be that the contraband was not packaged in the prescribed manner. All of these would be policy violations and not necessarily criminal in nature. Then again it could mean that he was tampering, not reporting and consuming drug evidence under his care. That is criminal.
How can you tell when a police agency is out of control? Here is another example from MSP.
Trooper Andrade’s short, squalid career. He took a shine, as they say, to a victim — a woman he met on the highway while responding to a domestic abuse call. He began texting her,
As Nidu (Andrade) continued his courtship, the woman “confirmed that she received a photo of a penis which she said was his penis and which she never asked for. She confirmed that this was the only picture she had received from him.”
She was asked by the investigator if the X-rated snapshot was the trooper’s, and she answered yes.After which the investigator observes, “NOTE: It is not known how (redacted) knows that or if she was speculating.”
Howie Carr, The Howie Carr Show
This could be a loop hole! Just because the photo came from Andrade’s phone and he said that it was a picture of Mr. Happy, how does she know?
Don’t get me wrong. Chickenshit is the bread and butter of Internal Affairs investigations. However, there are times when you gotta cull the herd. Used to be Pride was based on the quality of one’s job performance. Nowadays pride is about not getting caught or when caught beating the rap. Don’t believe me? Look at the FBI
