always420
10-23-2005, 04:38 PM
By Pete Goering
The Capital-Journal
Having a reasonably good understanding of the workings of a narcotics squad -- hey, I used to watch "Hill Street Blues" and I once stayed in a Holiday Inn Express -- I was shocked to hear about the shenanigans our district attorney exposed last week in the Topeka Police Department.
The fact TPD's narc squad apparently has a few bad apples isn't shocking in itself. If what D.A. Robert Hecht says about the squad is true, what's shocking is that applicants aren't lined up and down S. Kansas Avenue wanting to get in. Hecht's report included this paragraph:
"Some narcotics officers regularly, and as often as two to three times per week, would leave their duty shift early (frequently as early as four hours) and in their duty vehicle drive to Harrah's casino to gamble, and on occasion being accompanied by female civilians other than their spouses."
So let me see if I've got this right. Some Topeka narcs regularly gamble and cheat on their wives, and they do it on company time. And with company cars. The report also cites examples of narcotics officers helping themselves to drugs from the evidence room and of on-the-job drinking to the point of getting drunk.
And they get paid for this? Nice work, if you can get it, huh? Beats all heck out of flipping burgers at some drive-in. You can see why this job might be appealing.
Sadly, I don't have the right stuff to be a narc. But come to think of it, I didn't think I was qualified to be Kansas education commissioner, either.
And we thought this kind of thing only happened in movies, you know, where the stereotypical narc is a swashbuckling, handsome man who lives hard, fast, and loose and plays by his own rules and his own set of laws. But this isn't some movie. This isn't Dennis Franz on "NYPD." This is TPD. This is real.
Remind me again how boring Topeka is. That wasn't a boring picture Hecht painted last week. It was glamorous. OK, glamorous and, well, yeah, criminal as hell.
It was criminal not only because some of those narcotic officers allegedly broke a whole bunch of laws, but also because in the process their revelry painted an entire unit with the same slanderous brush. Some might even argue the paint blotched the entire Topeka Police Department.
And that's not right. Is it?
See, there's the problem. Of course, the force has good cops. The overwhelming majority are good cops. It's just that the D.A.'s blistering report, coupled with the conviction of one former narcotics officer and charges against another, makes you pause, if for only a second.
You would have hoped the narcs in the police department would have learned something five years ago when similar problems surfaced next door, in the Shawnee County Sheriff's Office. Apparently not.
Pete Goering, executive editor of The Capital-Journal, writes a column on Sunday and Thursday. He can be reached at (785) 295-1191 or pete.goering@cjonline.com.
The Capital-Journal
Having a reasonably good understanding of the workings of a narcotics squad -- hey, I used to watch "Hill Street Blues" and I once stayed in a Holiday Inn Express -- I was shocked to hear about the shenanigans our district attorney exposed last week in the Topeka Police Department.
The fact TPD's narc squad apparently has a few bad apples isn't shocking in itself. If what D.A. Robert Hecht says about the squad is true, what's shocking is that applicants aren't lined up and down S. Kansas Avenue wanting to get in. Hecht's report included this paragraph:
"Some narcotics officers regularly, and as often as two to three times per week, would leave their duty shift early (frequently as early as four hours) and in their duty vehicle drive to Harrah's casino to gamble, and on occasion being accompanied by female civilians other than their spouses."
So let me see if I've got this right. Some Topeka narcs regularly gamble and cheat on their wives, and they do it on company time. And with company cars. The report also cites examples of narcotics officers helping themselves to drugs from the evidence room and of on-the-job drinking to the point of getting drunk.
And they get paid for this? Nice work, if you can get it, huh? Beats all heck out of flipping burgers at some drive-in. You can see why this job might be appealing.
Sadly, I don't have the right stuff to be a narc. But come to think of it, I didn't think I was qualified to be Kansas education commissioner, either.
And we thought this kind of thing only happened in movies, you know, where the stereotypical narc is a swashbuckling, handsome man who lives hard, fast, and loose and plays by his own rules and his own set of laws. But this isn't some movie. This isn't Dennis Franz on "NYPD." This is TPD. This is real.
Remind me again how boring Topeka is. That wasn't a boring picture Hecht painted last week. It was glamorous. OK, glamorous and, well, yeah, criminal as hell.
It was criminal not only because some of those narcotic officers allegedly broke a whole bunch of laws, but also because in the process their revelry painted an entire unit with the same slanderous brush. Some might even argue the paint blotched the entire Topeka Police Department.
And that's not right. Is it?
See, there's the problem. Of course, the force has good cops. The overwhelming majority are good cops. It's just that the D.A.'s blistering report, coupled with the conviction of one former narcotics officer and charges against another, makes you pause, if for only a second.
You would have hoped the narcs in the police department would have learned something five years ago when similar problems surfaced next door, in the Shawnee County Sheriff's Office. Apparently not.
Pete Goering, executive editor of The Capital-Journal, writes a column on Sunday and Thursday. He can be reached at (785) 295-1191 or pete.goering@cjonline.com.