04/28/03  Who did they call?

Do you ever wonder who are those people getting called for their opinions on stuff that affects our lives?

I was reading the DMN poll on the Mayor's Re-Election and nodding with the conclusions until the part claiming the respondents approve the job performance of both the City MisManager and Chief of Police.  They have got to be kidding!  Where did they take this poll? 

Poll shows Miller holds sizable lead;  Support also shown for at least part of bond package 04/27/2003  By VICTORIA LOE HICKS / The Dallas Morning News

. . .   according to a poll conducted for The Dallas Morning News and WFAA-TV (Channel 8)  . . .   Ms. Miller leads her nearest opponent, council member Mary Poss, by nearly 20 percentage points, the poll of likely voters indicated. . . .   substantial support for the 17-proposition $555 million bond package.  . . .   undecided at this point are not likely to vote even though they told questioners they intended to, pollster Mickey Blum said. . . .  North Dallas resident Amy Marrs, 28, said she likes Ms. Poss because she seems less strident than her opponent. . . .   just more genuine,"  . . . . Bond package support . . .  strong but not overwhelming support for the bond package, with 39 percent of those polled saying they will vote for all or most of the 17 propositions.  . . .  leading reasons people cited for rejecting at least one of the propositions were that taxes are already too high and that much of the money would be wasted through poor management.  . . . Approval ratings close . . .   Fifty-one percent of those polled said they approve of Ms. Miller's performance as mayor, while 48 percent approved of Ms. Poss' performance as a council member. . . .   Fifty-six percent of Poss supporters disapproved of Ms. Miller's performance. . . . Poss' push for voters    Ms. Poss hoped to parlay her longtime association with the Republican Party and Ms. Miller's unpopularity among black voters into a winning coalition. However, the poll found that she has failed to catch fire with any voter group.   . . .  many more black respondents disapproved of Ms. Miller's performance than approved of it, Ms. Poss was able to garner the support of only 36 percent of likely black voters.  . . .   white voters, who typically turn out more faithfully at the polls, Ms. Miller enjoyed a lead of 20 percentage points: 54-34 . . .     Hispanics favored Ms. Miller almost as strongly: 41 percent to 17 percent, . . . . . .  smoking ban . . .  60 percent of poll respondents said they favor the ban. . . . Personality is a plus . . .   55 percent said that, in their view, "as mayor, Laura Miller needs to have a strong personality to get the job done."  . . . Key issues to address . . .   job performance of City Manager Ted Benavides and Police Chief Terrell Bolton, more respondents approved than disapproved of both men's performance. . . .  More people had opinions about Mr. Bolton, and those opinions were more strongly favorable, especially among blacks and Hispanics. . . .  Mr. Benavides' approval rating was highest among Hispanics and lowest among whites. Mr. Bolton's was highest among blacks and lowest among whites.  . . . preponderance of respondents in every demographic group said both men should keep their jobs.  . . .| Staff writers Jaime Jordan and Colleen McCain Nelson contributed to this report.

If this poll is accurate, we are in big trouble.  Consider these contradictions:

Wonder if these numbers would hold among the poll's Hispanic respondents had they seen the DMN story by Eiserer & Becka on the fake drug scandal?

Fake-drug furor splits police, prosecutors; Mistrust, frustration linger as agencies' accounts conflict  04/27/2003    By TANYA EISERER and HOLLY BECKA / The Dallas Morning News

The early days of Dallas' fake-drug scandal caught top-level police and prosecutors off guard, but in public they appeared united to solve the problem. . . .  15 months later, this united front has crumbled amid an FBI investigation that led to an undercover narcotics officer's indictment Friday.  . . .   The district attorney's office now says that police knew much earlier than they have ever publicly let on . . . .   "We were contacting DPD from the time we got the first no-dope lab test or just trace amounts, and we continued to contact them as the lab tests would come in," First Assistant District Attorney Mike Carnes said. . . .   Corrupt informants scammed police officers. Prosecutors pleaded out cases without seeking drug tests for seized substances. Defense lawyers didn't challenge the evidence. . . .   Vast amounts of seized drugs turned out to be billiards chalk. At least a dozen people ? mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants ? went to jail on bad charges. Prosecutors later dismissed more than 80 cases tainted by two officers and their informants. . . .  If lawyers for the wrongly charged immigrants can prove that police ignored or covered up warning signs that the informants were crooked, then the city ? and taxpayers ? could face liability, said Don Tittle, an attorney who has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit. . . . Frustrations . . .  District Attorney Bill Hill recently hinted that he distrusted top-level Police Department officials. He expressed frustration with what he believes was Police Chief Terrell Bolton's slow response to the scandal. . . .  Chief Bolton . . .  "we don't stall at the Dallas Police Department." He also vowed to take appropriate action when the time comes. . . .  Lt. Miller, who temporarily supervised the street squad at the center of the FBI investigation, acknowledged it took a "considerable amount of time" for officials to realize the scope of the problem. . . . Notification Lt. Miller . . .  said a fax from the district attorney's office in late November 2001 served as the department's first "official" notification of eight problematic cases.  . . .  "Were there conversations that took place in the hallways? There may have been," he said. "Could they be corroborated? Not to my qualifications they can't. ... If I felt the sky was falling, I would reduce it to writing as soon as I could." . . .  "If everything was to be put in writing, how did the CI [confidential informant] files show up in our office [in January 2002] without a written request?  . . .  Mr. Carnes said the Police Department waited months to respond to prosecutors' requests for information to help them identify tainted cases. He said his office notified police as problems arose and prosecutors dismissed cases in September, October and November 2001. . . .  "Ten [narcotics] cases had been dismissed by then [the end of November]," Mr. Carnes said. "Ten cases dismissed would be important to a police department. When we dismiss one big case, the police department in that case is always very interested in the reasons why." . . .  The revelation about Mr. Alonso came days after Chief Bolton held a New Year's Eve 2001 news conference to praise officers and the informant for taking fake drugs off the streets. Chief Bolton told reporters that he was notified only the week before that there were questions about several narcotics cases and he vowed to look into the matter. He said the department had no information indicating that the informant was not "aboveboard."    "Based on the information I have, I have a confidential informant that knows how to find drugs or poison," the chief said at the time. "He's very good at it." . . .Prosecutors say that in late October 2001, Lt. Miller called to say police had prohibited Mr. Alonso from working cases. Mr. Carnes said prosecutors asked whether the Police Department had concerns with the informant's credibility. He said Lt. Miller told them that police didn't think it was appropriate to use Mr. Alonso because he was under investigation. . . . Another contradiction . . .  "It's only when we received the CI [confidential informant] files that we discovered they [the police department] had all that information at their fingertips ? but we didn't get it until the 11th of January," he said. . . . Staff writer Todd Bensman contributed to this report.

What happened to the CRUSHED SHEETROCK?  When did the fake drugs become CRUSHED BILLIARDS CHALK?  I remember Chief TB talking about the risk of having drug users buying and using crushed sheetrock.  

This DMN article was cited in DallasArena.com's Happy New Year (1/1/02), but the link no longer works because DMN changed their format.  Here is what we quoted:

Several Dallas drug arrests jeopardized by fake cocaine 01/01/2002

Charges stemming from at least a dozen large drug busts by Dallas police in the last year are being thrown out or downgraded by prosecutors after lab tests found the drugs believed to be cocaine were fake.    All of the drug arrests were generated by the same paid confidential informant who has received more than $200,000 from Dallas police in exchange for help in arresting drug dealers.  . . .  Chief Bolton said he believes drug dealers are selling large amounts of fake drugs ? in this case ground gypsum ? and that it's "a blessing" that authorities discovered it.     Drug users who ingest gypsum, the main component of sheetrock, might suffer serious health consequences, Chief Bolton said.

DallasArena.com's response:

How could anyone approve of Chief TB's performance?  How could any Hispanic approve of Chief TB's performance when he showed absolutely no remorse or concern for what people under his command did to a dozen Mexican nationals who did not have the resources or means to defend themselves.  The people who did the harm to those Mexican nationals were put in their positions by Terrell Bolton.

DMN's Ruben Navarrette pins the tail on Chief TB's substantial hiney:

Conviction no longer a sign of guilt 04/18/2003  By RUBEN NAVARRETTE / The Dallas Morning News

The criminal justice system in Texas has lost some of its swagger.  . . .  here in the Lone Star State, frankly, we no longer are sure who is innocent and who is guilty. . . .  It has been almost 16 months since Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton admitted that what police thought were bricks of cocaine seized as evidence in drug cases actually turned out to be ground Sheetrock. Prosecutors dismissed 86 drug cases and released dozens of defendants ? all of them Mexican immigrants or legal residents ? with not so much as a lo siento mucho (I am very sorry). . . .  the more time that passes, the fuzzier the picture becomes.     One reason for that is Chief Bolton. The chief has first-rate survival skills, and he seems far less interested in finding out what went wrong than in saving his skin.  . . . Chief Bolton did find it necessary, however, to go before a group of Mexican-American officials a few months after the scandal broke. There ? according to several who were in the room ? the chief tried to reassure the group that the press was on a witch hunt and that the entire affair had been blown out of proportion.  . . .  it seems what we have in Dallas is a remorseless cop who finds injustice easier to tolerate than unemployment.   . . .  according to one council member ? there is real disagreement as to whether Chief Bolton should be fired or even disciplined. The council member claims that her Hispanic and African-American colleagues are protective of the city's first black police chief and the man who supervises him, Ted Benavides, the city's first Hispanic city manager. I recently confirmed as much during candidate interviews conducted by The Dallas Morning News editorial board in advance of the May 3 election. . . .

Granted, I like the part of the poll that puts Mayor Miller back in with a resounding margin of victory, but the rest of the poll results just don't ring true. 

No wonder Mpossible still thinks she has a shot at singing!