Police Red Light, Officer Speeding Violations Not Tracked

As a follow up to the issue of St. Pete Police Officers running red lights, I made a public records request asking if there is a report that tracks  officer red-light violations. I received the following response from the City Clerk:

Gene,

P.D. responded that there is no list or report; the information is not tracked. 

Previously I had asked for a report on officer speeding and careless driving complaints and received the following: 

Gene:

The Internal Affairs cases are not classified by the breakdown listed in the
request, but by allegation types to include as a sample Crash, Discourtesy,
Discharge of Weapon, etc.. 

Staff has indicated there were 29 Improper Procedure cases in 2011 and 6 from January 1 - May 1, 2012. It is estimated that it will take approximately three hours to review the cases at a cost of $59.13. If you wish us to proceed, please make your check payable to the City of St. Petersburg and send to my attention at the address listed below.  Read the entire response  

From these responses it appears that PD command staff has no formal method, and no interest in being routinely informed about the driving conduct of the 500 or so patrol officers who drive 4 million miles per year.

Since there are violations going on, it makes you wonder what other laws the PD thinks they are above.

It might also surprise you to know that there are no GPS devices in the PD command staff City supplied vehicles down through the rank of Major. I always thought it would be a good idea to know where these folks were in an emergency, but they didn't agree.

Some concern about knowing where they were the rest of the time.

I'm not sure how you justify not managing driving performance, reducing risk and loss; and not knowing where all of your people are in an organization as big as the St. Pete PD. Especially when all of the tools are already in place.

Organizations usually don't manage what they don't track.

The Police Chief talks a lot about accountability, it's time for the Mayor or the City Council to hold the Chief accountable the actions of all of his staff.

 e-mail Doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net or send me a friend request on Facebook at Gene Webb