ok…wow…u wipe out the command structure except the chief. That is funny. I thought the mayor was a military man…doesnt add up…chief should have been gone too…if your are using the true chain of command. Can understand keeping straub, although he should go in due time…this is all Happening under straubs watch…good officers are being made scapegoats, while..the bad coppers, thru the admin stupidity are giving them credability for their stupidity. Appears Strab doctorate is stupidity/hypocricy…Im just sayin

A lot of people are wanting massive firings up and down the line. I ask them, who do you think we would replace them with? A bunch of rookie new hires? Beat cops without sufficient experience suddenly promoted into positions they aren’t ready for? Have Straub bring in some cronies from New York?

As a police officer with 3o plus yrs, I do not believe in anyway that there was a cover up. IPD (IMPD) has proven many times over that if they find a bad officer that they will and have taken action. I fully understand the bad feelings of family and friends of the victims. BUT shouldn’t we wait for the trial before we declare guilt? I belive that this was a massive knee jerk reaction with all of these demotions

Straub has made so many frequent changes since his arrival. Just one example- North District is on its third commander. Have individuals in their new positions even had time to learn their new job responsibilities? Especially when it comes to understanding technical loopholes like where/where not to get blood drawn so the evidence stands up in court? Did the officers on the scene arrive there because they happened to be nearby and quickly responded and helped out- or were they at the scene as part of their official job assigned capacity?
Major Conley has served admirably for 30+ years. I’m not sure he had one blemish on his record-but because he was there and lent a hand, he gets demoted?
All of this is a tragedy, the person responsible looks horribly guilty at this point, but he will get his day in court. Not so sure the rush to judgement on the police officers is just.

Where’s the comment I posted?

“FOP, meet ISTA. Being an apologist for a broken system isn’t enough anymore. You’ve got to be part of the solution.”

Amen. Unfortunately, our entire Federal goverment heads the list with the DNC, RNC, Banking & Wall Street, ABA, Pharma, AMA, AARP, NEA, SEIU, AFL-CIO, and a long line of other responsible parties coming before ISTA, the FOP, and even IPS.

During Straub’s brief tenure, he has been making frequent personnel changes at IMPD-reassigning people in long term positions of leadership in one department and transferring them to another. Those who are inserted into newly assigned positions haven’t had the time to totally learn all the fine points of their recently acquired responsibilities. Just one example-the North District has had three different commanders since Straub’s arrival. Would those placed in their new roles know the technical details about where to send an officer for blood tests so that the results would withstand scrutiny in court as evidence? Have they had time to learn the nuances of hospital drawn blood work vs. blood drawn at an industrial health clinic? Maybe there have been too many changes made, too quickly.

Also, were the officers who arrived at the scene those whose particular job assignments required them to be there? Or were they officers simply responding to an emergency situation because they happened to be nearby and wanted to lend a hand? So, were they simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and have now become convenient scapegoats?
It’s hard to believe that a 30+year veteran like Conley, who probably has nary a blemish on his work record, and is respected by one and all, would make a snap decision to conspire to mess with an investigation of such a serious nature. It just doesn’t fit…
While the evidence against Officer Brisard is pretty damning at this point, he will get his day in court-unlike the demoted officers. Their lowered rank is not just.

I’m not a cop, I’m asking: The average citizen who was the driver in a multiple-injury, single fatality accident would not be asked to remove their sunglasses to asertain their condition to be driving, and take a breathalyzer while at the scene? What’s the liklihood an average citizen would have a two-hour delay before such testing after such an accident? With the testing conducted at the legally wrong place by the wrong personnel?

For the third time in a month, I again say the police have an impossible job to do. I don’t doubt that there’s a lot of collective culpability to spread around. This was and is not a typical display of the competency of our police department. I sympathize with upper-rank officers being the ones to take the hit so far. But, as we and the relatives of the victim know, life isn’t always fair. What does it take to make this not happen again?

This is just another obvious action in a pattern of behavior that demonstrates that Frank Straub thinks he is police chief. Although he has NO operational control, he is micromanaging the department, telling the chief what to do. Straub is all about appearance, and has NO idea what moral courage or “doing what’s right” are all about. Sure, remove those command staff members. But why? What expectation did they not conform to? The answer is that they were removed for the appearance sake, not for any failure.

And just why isn’t the police department critical of Carl Brizzi for dismissing the matter??? 9-30-6-6 (g) in our law was, by all appearance, complied. Was it that Carl Brizzi failed to do his homework and prepare for a legal battle with a much better prepared defense lawyer? Carl didn’t prepare and just gave in….

Personally, I’m getting more and more upset with this weasel who is letting all of these supervisors take the hit for what HE alone did. I know he won’t, but he needs to man up and face the music and quit letting others get hurt. It is beyond ridiculous that Conley, Pierce and the other guy (can’t remember his name at the moment) are taking a hit to their careers for what he alone did. Says something about Straub and Ciesielski too that they are willing to throw these guys under the bus. Were these supervisors on the scene? Yes. Do they know the finer points of fatal accident investigations? I highly doubt it.

I would like to take a minute to insult your intelligence:

This K-9 officer had other accidents on his record, in very large part, because he was part of a group on North District that got into a great deal of police chases with stolen cars. Look at his record, most of the accidents weren’t even his fault. Not sure what you’re insinuating, that he’s been showing up drunk to work for years and nobody noticed or reported it?

It’s common at fatality crash scenes for the onscene investigation to take upwards of 2 to 3 hours before any type of test is administered, unless there is reason to believe intoxication (we’ll get to that later), which by omission the report stated there wasn’t. This is, has been, and probably always will be the way these investigations are conducted, regardless of the victim/suspect.

Blood draws are always done on fatality accidents as an exclusionary practice. The confusion here was that Department policy also requires it, and Department policy states that blood tests are to be done at Methodist Occupational Health. They didn’t have the suspicion to conduct a criminal investigation, so the blood draw wasn’t done at Methodist, which is where DUI blood draws are done. This has already been discussed ad infinitum in the media.

No, Conley does NOT have 25 years of experience as an incident commander. The brass don’t assume incident command in these types of situations, they never have and they never will. Responsibility usually falls to the street sergeant or lieutenant who shows up on scene first that has a grasp of the situation. Brass are usually fashionably late because they’re coming from downtown or an office. The incident command system hasn’t even been in existence for 25 years so Im not sure where you’re getting your facts about him having all that experience. Hicks has more experience running incident command than he does, but regardless of that it wasn’t his responsibility to run it because he didn’t call it. Also, brass usually show up to media incidents. Not a big deal, not sure what your point was on this one.

Not sure where you heard the bit about a certified technician doing blood draws, normally it’s up to the medical professional who signs off on the work to make sure someone is properly credentialled. It’s definitely NOT taught in the Academy on day one, either way. Not sure what a ‘Regular Order’ is, either. If someone lacks the credentials to draw blood it can actually be considered battery and is a criminal offense. The case easily could have been made the lab tech WAS certified, but this is Brizzi’s way of sticking it the city for censoring him. The same way he dropped charges in the Brandon Johnson case.

Sooo…. let’s get this straight. You are saying that there is a GIANT coverup, involving over 100 individuals, to include police officers of almost every rank, city garage personnel, one or two phlebotomists, medics, citizens who were on scene, the surviving victims (yes, they spoke with him in the immediate aftermath as well), the medics and IFD who were on scene, the doctor who was working at MOH, and his FOP attorney? Really? Or are you saying he was such an alcoholic nobody noticed, because if you’ve ever lived in the lower 48 you should know alcoholics STINK when they’re sweating in the afternoon heat (the index was over 100 that day, and by your own factual basis you stated he was outside walking around for an hour and a half.) Or are you saying that by some incredible coincidence NOBODY who came into contact with him that day smelled it on him or even had a remote suspicion he had been drinking?

The facts DON’T add up no matter how you cut it, but the rank and file are pissed because the admin keeps throwing people under the bus thinking that this is going to appease the public. This is the same way they handled Jerry Piland.

If Jerry Piland acted wrong then why did Straub and Ciesielski have to INVENT a new Use of Force policy, in direct contradiction to the anchors SCOTUS banned in criminal investigations and highly frowned upon civilly, and then RETROACTIVELY apply it to the Piland case? This ‘new’ use of force policy which has NEVER been clearly defined outside of the press conference where Ciesielski used said banned anchors against him?

I think your condemnation isn’t hateful, just very misguided. If you had some familiarity with the way police departments work I think some of your anger would never have found it’s way into your post.

Oh, and IMPD doesn’t have cameras in their cars because they are very expensive to install and maintain, and crash investigators aren’t told to make people take off their sunglasses. Without at a least reasonable suspicion, this would probably be considered an unlawful seizure.

Less than 50% of the majors in the annual zone of consideration make lieutenant colonel each year. In the aggregate less than 10% of the second lieutenants who are commissioned each year will make lieutenant colonel in their career. You are clearly misinformed (as usual) and clearly have never served in the military. Anyone who is lucky enough to be promoted to Lt Col has had a very successful career. Period.

What was your rank, slack ass? Oh, that’s right, you didn’t serve. You just take misiinformed cheap shots from the peanut gallery. Before you wrap your fat narcissistic ass in that blanket of freedom tonight, hit your knees and thank God that people like Ballard were willing to do the things they did.

When confronted TA goes dark. You won’t hear from him after this pasting. I suspect that he is not sending money to Haiti for each and every error of his exposed on this site. Haiti is still in a lot of financial distress which would not be the case if TA paid for his tutoring.

Nope don’t want to take back anything I stated. I have worked for over 30 years and have never observed any cover up of such an incident. I have known John Conley and Darryl Pierce for 30 years. I have complete faith in them. Neither would have intentionally ignored the officer being drunk, NO COVER UP. Either mistakes were made or the officer was not drunk. But I repeat myself, these fine officers no matter how much they love and support thier fellow officers would be involved in a cover up.

GDM, the blood draw cannot be used against Bisard in a criminal matter. It was NOT thrown out because the draw was botched-thus making the results invalid. The draw was discarded on a technicality. At no time has it ever been reported, or alleged, that the draw itself was botched, and that he was sober.

Bisard’s blood was tested twice — both tests returned a BAC value of 0.19 — thus, that he was over twice the legal limit about two hours after the crash is a matter of FACT. I’m reasonably certain that the test results can be used in a civil action against Bisard.

oops 30-plus years 309 would be, uh, a little long

Surely you have to put the RCC and RNC on that list.

The whole BAC doesn’t make sense. If this officer was drunk, with presumably 0.19 at 2 hours, that would be well over 0.2 at hour 0. Say it was 0.25 at hour 0, there surely would have been external signs of intoxication leading people on the scene to become suspicious.

NOW…if the BAC draw was done by someone inexperienced with drawing BAC for evidence, they could have used an alcohol swab instead of betidine which could have skewed the results, leading to the 0.19 BAC results.

Another thing…if someone was going to drink at work, or start work drunk, there probably would have been other occasions this would have happened. That is not normal behavior, except maybe for an alcoholic. And if that alcoholism is the case, there again would have been historic signs pointing to such.