Institutional failure

Like most Nebraskans, I'm a fan of the Nebraska football team.  I'm not the rabid sort, but I make it a point to find a TV or a radio on fall Saturdays. I watched Saturday's game against Penn State on TV, but the best part for me was on the radio, afterwards, as I puttered around in the garage and listened to Coach Pelini in the post-game show.

It was the coach's finest moment.  He spoke bluntly, and what he lacked in polish was more than made up for in candor and emotion:

I will be honest with you. Going into the football game, I didn’t think the game should have been played, for a lot of different reasons. My job as a football coach is to educate and to prepare the kids that come into the program for the rest of their life and that’s what we are. We’re a university system. The situation that’s going on is bigger than football. 

I had the same feeling. Something seemed so wrong about this.  Wednesday's spectacle of 10,000 clueless students rioting, the veneration of the former head coach, all this just smelled rotten.  While neither the fans nor the players are responsible for this mess, the institution of The Pennsylvania State University has some soul-searching ahead.

I urge you to read the grand jury presentment.   There is an old legal saw that a decent prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.  We all should remember that Jerry Sandusky is innocent before the law.  He will have his day of judgement, and it will be from a higher authority than you or me.  Assuming his innocence of the criminal charges that have been filed, I separate this from the actions of the institution, through its leaders, who, regardless of the veracity of the charges, should have quickly and decisively acted to protect children and fulfill their legal and moral obligations.  From their own sworn testimony before the grand jury, it is clear that a cascade of Penn State University personnel failed to take steps to intervene in an apparent felony sexual assault of a child in progress and to report a suspected violent crime to the police after becoming aware of the offense.

When you read the grand jury report, you learn that a 28 year-old graduate assistant, witnessing what he believed to be the first degree sexual assault of a child in the shower room, called his father.  The head football coach apparently felt no obligation at all beyond passing the graduate assistant's report along to the athletic director, who in turn told the senior vice president.  And the president of the University, informed that a staff member had seen some sort of discomforting activity in the shower between a former coach and a child, did not ask follow-up questions, investigate any further, or heed these obvious warning signs.

Everyone understands that evil exists in the world, and that in any institution a trusted person in a position of authority can succumb to its power.  We've seen in in churches, in schools, in police stations, in the halls of Congress, and in the White House.  Normally, we can separate the bad act of a person from the insitution itself.  How do you make that distinction, though, when the chain of culpability begins with the graduate assistant, and flows through the head football coach, the athletic director, the senior vice president of business and finance, and the president himself?  The problem, in this case, is not only an individual.

I will be curious to see how the NCAA reacts to this case of institutional failure.  How does (at best) ignoring, or (at worst) covering up the signs of 13 years of child sexual assault compare to something like failing to report that some players have received free tattoos? How to you deal with this situation, when the reaction of the entire chain of command at the University, faced with these unfathomable report of the rape of a child was:

to take away the alleged perpetrator's keys to the locker room?

Nebraska law

Mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect to law enforcement or the Department of Health and Human Services is the law in Nebraska.  The Statute is very clear:

28-711. Child subjected to abuse or neglect; report; contents; toll-free number.

(1) When any physician, medical institution, nurse, school employee, social worker, or other person has reasonable cause to believe that a child has been subjected to child abuse or neglect or observes such child being subjected to conditions or circumstances which reasonably would result in child abuse or neglect, he or she shall report such incident or cause a report of child abuse or neglect to be made to the proper law enforcement agency or to the department....


28-717. Violation; penalty.
Any person who willfully fails to make any report of child abuse or neglect required by section 28-711 shall be guilty of a Class III misdemeanor.

Rethink that

I've had this conversation with a few hundred parents across the years, and it has occurred twice in the past week.  The parent will be talking to me about some kind of situation their teenager was involved in (normally, getting arrested or ticketed for something like shoplifting or MIP).  The parent asserts that their child was just an innocent bystander, and that the police arrested/cited him or her despite the child's innocence. The police officer wouldn't even listen.

I generally read the parent a few excerpts from the investigative reports, which is decidedly different from the account offered by the son or daughter.  With depressing regularity, the initial reaction of the parent is that the officer is lying.  "What", I ask, "would the police officer gain by fabricating the report, or by embellishing the facts?"  The answer is pretty obvious: absolutely nothing.  In fact, she or he would most certainly face termination of employment if the facts were embellished or fabricated.  The teen, on the other hand, has a vested interest of immense proportions.

Nonetheless, the parental response, rather than being a rational assessment, is often this: "My child would not lie."  Really?  Like you never lied to your parents, or stretched the truth, or told the story in a way that made you sound a little less culpable, and a little more like a victim of circumstances who was just in the wrong place and the wrong time?  Really? Better rethink that.

Here's a news flash:  good people do bad things.  Young people are even more prone to do stupid things than adults, even when they are honor role students, standouts in the school orchestra, and members of the Church youth choir.  Human nature is to paint our own bad conduct in a manner that reflects less negatively upon ourselves. Parents need to remember that.  A good starting point is to remember what they did and said themselves when they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't support them, help them, protect them, or love them as they learn the lessons of life in the school of hard knocks.

Good things in medium-sized places

A few months ago, I blogged about good things in small places: what I admired and learned from the tiny little police department in Waverly, Virginia.  Yesterday and today, something similar is going on here in Lincoln.  Four members of the San Diego County Sheriff's Office are here in Lincoln for a site visit: Commander Beyers, Captain Donahue, Deputy Blackwell, and Dr. Noah Fritz, the crime analysis manager.

Noah and I became acquainted more than a decade ago, when he managed the Crime Mapping and Analysis Program for the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center.  He went on to be the president of the International Association of Crime Analysts for several years, earn a doctorate, teach at the collegiate level,and conduct original criminal justice research--all after a good run at the head of the Tempe, AZ crime analysis unit, where he mentored a rather incredible cohort of young people who are now some the leaders in this field from coast to coast.

Most recently, Dr. Fritz has returned to his roots: managing a large crime analysis operation in an agency of nearly 4,000 employees providing law enforcement services in the fourth largest county in the United States.  He and a his colleagues are visiting Lincoln to learn about our unique approach to police information resources and technology, which begins with the fundamental question "What would be helpful to our street officers, investigators, and detectives?"  It has been an honor to host their visit, and just as I was impressed by Chief Kevin Sands' operation in Waverly, I think the staff from San Diego has seen some very interesting and thought-provoking stuff here in Lincoln, despite the fact that we are about one tenth their size.

As previously noted, Lincoln seems to be in a sweet spot: large enough to have some significant resources, yet small enough to actually implement some clever and innovative ideas.  Size is not always an advantage, and organizational momentum exerts its own gravity. It would be hard to turn an aircraft carrier around in Salt Creek.

Hot seat

Remember that scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie's little brother, bundled up in a snowsuit, falls down on the way to school and can't get up? That's about what I felt like yesterday afternoon at a live burn training for Lincoln Fire & Rescue recruits.  The rookies helped suit me up, and into the burn house I went, where what seemed to be a pretty intense fire had been kindled.  Despite the Nomex hood, my ears were burning, and it had nothing to do with anyone talking about me.

I had never been in bunker gear before (hot, tight, heavy), and never used a self-contained breathing apparatus before (hot, tight, heavy, and slightly frightening at first).  I have a major fire phobia, and here I am--at 58 years of age--crawling on hands and knees into an inferno.  Geez, I took a baby aspirin this morning, who am I kidding?  In Round Two, the inferno was much more intense, but the experienced firefighters all reminded me that this was kids' stuff compared to a real fire, and that the combustibles in this exercise--all wood products--were quite a bit different from mattresses, upholstered furniture, carpeting, and so forth that would be encountered in the real deal.

Having survived a deadly real deal (barely) in 1964, I knew they were right.  Hence, my fire phobia.  I'm glad I did it, though.  It was informative, and in a strange way rather exhilarating--sort of like exorcising a demon that has dogged me for nearly 50 years.  Here's a few take-aways from the afternoon:

1. I will never view a knot of firefighters standing around at a fire ground in the same way.  From this point forward I have a new appreciation for "rehab."
2. The principle of "two in, two out" is crystal clear to me.  Even in a controlled training situation, I was mighty comforted to know that someone had my back, a feeling I have had on many occasions, though in a different uniform.
3. It takes me at least 60 seconds to tie my necktie in the morning. Getting into your turnout gear in a minute is a feat I can hardly imagine.
4. I was crawling into the burn house to watch.  Firefighters, on the other hand, have work to do in that gear: roofs to ventilate, power tools to operate, ladders to climb, strategies to execute, hose to drag.  It was about all I could do to drag myself.
5. Relaxation really works:.  A little past experience in remaining calm in crisis helped me deal with the instinctive terror remarkably well.  To a certain extent, you really can convince yourself to stay cool in the hot seat. I have a feeling that this ability cuts both ways: it is at the same time both helpful and dangerous.
6. Forced to choose between fire, heights, snakes, spiders, and public speaking, I'll deliver an speech with a tarantula on my head while handling a copperhead and balancing on a phone pole (are there still phone poles?), thank you very much.  

And thank you to the instructors and the trainees who helped me.  I wish you all well as your careers begin. Within a few months, you will have experiences and accomplishments that few people can even imagine, much less achieve.

Why am I suddenly craving a nice wild party call, a bar fight, 10th & Q, and a foot pursuit with a drunken chain smoker?

Alarmed and sprinkled

Since becoming Public Safety Director, I have maintained an office at the Lincoln/Lancaster County Health Department building, at 3140 N Street.  Yesterday afternoon, though, I was downtown for a city council meeting, when my iPhone beeped with an automated text message notifying me of a working fire at...3140 N Street!

Shortly after I had left the building, a fire alarm sounded at the Health Department.  Despite around 200 employees and clients who were in the facility, no one knew there was a fire until the alarm sounded.  The building was evacuated promptly, but this was no false alarm.  A pretty significant fire had started in a lower level storage room.  It had a head start, but as soon as the detectors detected, the alarm went off along with the sprinkler system, keeping the fire isolated to the room of origin until Lincoln Fire & Rescue responded and completed extinguishing the fire.  We'll have a better idea in a few days of the source of ignition.

Without the alarm and the sprinkler system, it's hard to tell what would have happened.  This much is for sure: the damage would have been much more significant, and quite possibly lives would have been imperiled.  We've seen recently what a fire can do in an unsprinkled office building of similar size.  This is the second time in the past two days that alarms have alerted occupants to a peril and allowed evacuation from a structure fire that could have been catastrophic.  

Mayor Chris Beutler came to the scene as the overhaul was underway, and had a good opportunity to see how the Fire & Rescue Department handles a fireground, and how the National Incident Command System works in managing such incidents.  I could tell he was both intrigued and impressed, as was I.  In particular, I was interested in watching and learning about the work that must occur after the fire is out: the removal of smoldering materials, the examination of interior walls and ceilings for lingering fire that may be hidden from sight, the monitoring of hazardous carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide gas, the ventilation of the building, and so forth.  All of this is time consuming and tedious, but very necessary before the clean-up and rehabilitation can begin.  

It appears that the damage and loss will be somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000--covered by insurance. It could have been much worse. Good preventative engineering and preparation and good response by all involved prevented a greater tragedy.

Lost and found

Here's an email that went out to all LPD employees on Saturday, from Officer Brad Junker. Let's hope it has a happy ending!


On 10-29-11, at approx 1300 hrs, I located a men's white gold
wedding-style ring in the weight room; it was found on the floor next to the
white squat rack. In the event that you do not enjoy wearing gloves in your
house around your wife and do not enjoy sleeping on the couch, the ring was
turned over to Cpt Wright and can be claimed in the LPD Duty Command office.

Job hunt

Here in Lincoln, there are two universities that offer graduate degrees in forensic science.  I suppose there are 20 or more people who graduate with a master's degree in this field every year in Lincoln.  I doubt there are five jobs that open up annually in the entire state of Nebraska for forensic scientists. I get the sense that the same phenomenon occurs elsewhere in the United States. It is another aspect of the CSI effect, I suppose.  Our gain, though, because a significant number of our police recruits these days are graduates from these programs.

On the other hand, the field of crime analysis seems to have a significant number of job openings at any given time, and I know from my own experience that sometimes good applicants are hard to find for those jobs. Here's a sampling of job postings from a single source (the International Association of Crime Analysts) in just the past several weeks. Anyone looking to get involved in policing, but not as a sworn officer, would do well to consider this field--especially anyone interested in applied technology, problem solving, computer software and data mining, as applied to policing.

Earlier this week, I had a conversation with a friend who is a crime analyst at a mid-sized California police department.  She has a very bright intern who is interviewing for jobs as an analyst.  I offered to help with some references, as I am acquainted with people at the two agencies where she had applied.  If my friend thinks she is sharp, I have no doubt that she'd be a good one.  In reality, the intern needs to decide where she would prefer to work, because in her job hunt, she will have choices to make and need not settle for the first offer.  That's not true in many fields these days.

The International Association of Crime Analysts website is a great place to go for working analysts looking for resources, or for students exploring potential career fields.  Crime analysts do varied and interesting work, and have the opportunity to make a major impact in their community in many different ways.