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02-20-2005, 10:29 AM
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Crime stats just don't add up
Detectives in Florida are accused of falsely filing cases as solved and pinning them on people already jailed
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 20, 2005
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Jorge Fuentes, who is doing time in federal prison for drugs, was astounded to find out that detectives at the Broward County Sheriff's Department had pinned a series of burglaries on him.
Fuentes "spoke freely without prompting" about the break-ins, detectives wrote in their crime reports.
But Fuentes says he never committed any of those crimes and never even spoke with the detectives.
"Basically, it seems like they were just clearing their caseloads," Fuentes, 33, told prosecutors investigating what has turned out to be widespread falsification of crime statistics in Broward County, Florida's second-most populous county.
Investigators have discovered that detectives buffed up the department's crime-fighting stats by falsely classifying scores of cases as solved. In many instances, detectives pinned crimes on Fuentes and dozens of other scapegoats, knowing full well they did not commit the offenses.
Many of these scapegoats were already behind bars for other reasons, and were never prosecuted for the additional crimes; the offenses were simply moved from the "unsolved" category to "cleared."
In addition, hundreds of crimes such as burglary and larceny were downgraded to minor offenses like trespassing, keeping them out of official reports that go to the FBI.
The result: Sheriff Ken Jenne suddenly was presiding over an impressive-looking drop in crime and a 2003 crime-solving rate in Broward County of over 50 percent, more than twice the national average.
"We're talking about falsification of records, which is a crime and goes to the heart of the integrity of the organization," said Assistant State Attorney John Hanlon in investigative documents released this month at the request of news organizations.
Other police departments around the country, including those in Atlanta, New Orleans and Philadelphia, have been caught falsifying crime stats in recent years. But Broward detectives took things a step further by fabricating confessions and blaming crimes on suspects already in jail.
So far, Florida prosecutors have charged two detectives with official misconduct, and charges against several more are expected. More than two dozen detectives have been reassigned and four senior commanders have retired.
The sheriff said in an interview last week that he has made a number of changes, such as requiring that more confessions be videotaped, improving training and oversight, and scrapping a statistical system called Powertrac that encouraged the falsifications. Powertrac was based on the Compstat system pioneered by the New York Police Department.
"We recognize that the system was broken. It's now fixed and we are dealing with the problems," Jenne said.
The probe has revealed a pervasive effort inside the sheriff's office to produce crime-fighting gains.
Shawn Enser, a sergeant who first brought the problems to light in 2003, said many officers downgraded crimes or otherwise falsified paperwork to avoid embarrassing questions from higher-ups if crime spiked in their districts.
"If you're under the impression that your supervisor is going to crawl all over you for taking this report or making it a crime . . . you are going to, you know, leave things out of the report," Enser told prosecutors.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
Crime stats just don't add up
Detectives in Florida are accused of falsely filing cases as solved and pinning them on people already jailed
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 20, 2005
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Jorge Fuentes, who is doing time in federal prison for drugs, was astounded to find out that detectives at the Broward County Sheriff's Department had pinned a series of burglaries on him.
Fuentes "spoke freely without prompting" about the break-ins, detectives wrote in their crime reports.
But Fuentes says he never committed any of those crimes and never even spoke with the detectives.
"Basically, it seems like they were just clearing their caseloads," Fuentes, 33, told prosecutors investigating what has turned out to be widespread falsification of crime statistics in Broward County, Florida's second-most populous county.
Investigators have discovered that detectives buffed up the department's crime-fighting stats by falsely classifying scores of cases as solved. In many instances, detectives pinned crimes on Fuentes and dozens of other scapegoats, knowing full well they did not commit the offenses.
Many of these scapegoats were already behind bars for other reasons, and were never prosecuted for the additional crimes; the offenses were simply moved from the "unsolved" category to "cleared."
In addition, hundreds of crimes such as burglary and larceny were downgraded to minor offenses like trespassing, keeping them out of official reports that go to the FBI.
The result: Sheriff Ken Jenne suddenly was presiding over an impressive-looking drop in crime and a 2003 crime-solving rate in Broward County of over 50 percent, more than twice the national average.
"We're talking about falsification of records, which is a crime and goes to the heart of the integrity of the organization," said Assistant State Attorney John Hanlon in investigative documents released this month at the request of news organizations.
Other police departments around the country, including those in Atlanta, New Orleans and Philadelphia, have been caught falsifying crime stats in recent years. But Broward detectives took things a step further by fabricating confessions and blaming crimes on suspects already in jail.
So far, Florida prosecutors have charged two detectives with official misconduct, and charges against several more are expected. More than two dozen detectives have been reassigned and four senior commanders have retired.
The sheriff said in an interview last week that he has made a number of changes, such as requiring that more confessions be videotaped, improving training and oversight, and scrapping a statistical system called Powertrac that encouraged the falsifications. Powertrac was based on the Compstat system pioneered by the New York Police Department.
"We recognize that the system was broken. It's now fixed and we are dealing with the problems," Jenne said.
The probe has revealed a pervasive effort inside the sheriff's office to produce crime-fighting gains.
Shawn Enser, a sergeant who first brought the problems to light in 2003, said many officers downgraded crimes or otherwise falsified paperwork to avoid embarrassing questions from higher-ups if crime spiked in their districts.
"If you're under the impression that your supervisor is going to crawl all over you for taking this report or making it a crime . . . you are going to, you know, leave things out of the report," Enser told prosecutors.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.