Chief TB

Way back when Chief Terrell Bolton demoted all those experienced, but way too White and way too old and way too much smarter, commanders, DallasArena.com went after his rather large hiney. Channel 8's Brett Shipp defended Bolton's decisions. When Chief TB sent all those investigators and detectives back to Patrol, Shipp and others defended Bolton's decisions. When Lt. John Sullivan and That Strawberry Lady said it was Bolton who ordered the lay off of enforcement in NW Hwy-Bachman sex clubs in order to help Old Al Lipscomb assist Caligula Nick Rizo, Shipp and others took Bolton's side again. You really can't blame Brett for getting taken in by that big smile and round, innocent eyes -- a lot of otherwise smart people bought TB's story, too.

W. K. Gordon:
Your articles for today are really great. I'm glad you zeroed in on the gypsum sniffing fiasco. DMN really had Colleen's article buried in metro, but this deal could end up costing the city. Terrell Bolton may end up being the costliest police chief in history!
The city's bond ratings may not be something we can arbitrarily set anymore; we may need to start looking for someone who can really market junk bonds.
Where's Michael Milken these days?

Without naming names, you know who you are.

So, it is particularly fun for me to have Brett Shipp be the reporter who sniffed out our whole fake drug fiasco. When Shipp reported that what was supposed to be cocaine turned out to be crushed dry wall, Chief TB said getting dozens of dry-wall pushers off the street would save hundreds of lives. Just think of the damage sniffing or injecting drywall could do to an addict's health.

As we said in Happy New Year:

Duh! Drug users who ingest drugs always risk serious health consequences. Those counterfeit drug dealers ought to get medals for putting drug users out of OUR MISERY. Do you get how stupid this is? We have an informant who makes 4 times what a regular cop earns, and he's turning in guys who are passing powdered sheetrock off as drugs. Just another example of why we need a change in Dallas.

Maybe we could get the counterfeit drug dealers to fill our potholes with their fake drugs, but then one DMN airhead columnist says we don't have a pothole problem in Dallas.

Even DallasArena.com missed it. Apparently, the poor guys rotting in jail while Bolton was covering his hiney were not pushing anything except the cars they were repairing.

These men were stuck in jail for 3 months and it's going to cost us a whole bunch of money.

Surrounded by all sorts of guns that had nothingto do with the gypsum drug ring, here's exactly what Chief Bolton had to say:

When I heard him say that in front of microphones and TV cameras, I thought it was a joke. After all, it was New Years Eve. But he really said it and really meant it, and I didn't hear any reporters laugh out loud. You can take the guy out of Mississippi, but that doesn't make him ready for prime time.

Exactly what is the "appropriate amount" of gypsum to cause serious illness?

Think about what Chief TB actually said for a minute. "So it's important that we're diligent in our fight, especially to get drugs off the streets, whether they are drugs or whether they are poison."

This is the man who is over those men and women who we count on to protect us from the bad guys. This blithering idiot gets to wear a gun -- a loaded gun.

All kidding aside, 24 men have been busted and imprisoned and even deported to Mexico:

Back when Bolton replaced all those experienced commanders with his fellow "community policing buddies", we should have seen this coming. Actually, DallasArena.com did warn you. When Bolton sent all those detectives and investigators back to Patrol cars (only to have to put them back in their old jobs), we should have seen this coming. And, again, DallasArena.com did warn you.

Being a police officer is not just wearing a uniform and giving safety speeches at townhall meetings and neighborhood gatherings. Commanding other officers is not something that can be done by anyone who happens to fit the Chief's politically correct slot.

An experienced commander would have recognized something was very strange with all of those successful drug busts out of the clear blue. Paying over $200,000 to a single informant in two years should have gotten someone's attention.

We have a mayoral candidate who has paid Vote Broker Kathy Nealey over $200,000 since November, and that doesn't seem to be rattling anyone's cage either, but that's another story.

Here's how Chief TB explains $200,000 for busting a fake ring of gypsum pushers:

There are some people who may have frowned on the fact that we might have paid this informant over $200,000 for helping us over a 2-year period. I'm sorry. In this war on drugs, you can't get the kind of information we need from your grandmother or people next door. . . . While these cases have ended up as poison, we still think that based on what we paid this informant would have been consistent with what we would pay any informant had they been able to deliver this amount of drugs [the gypsum].

Were she still alive, my grandmother most certainly could have told me where to go to get my hands on some gypsum, sheets and sheets of it.

Almost any of my neighbors could tell me where dry wall can be bought, right on Lemmon Ave. in broad daylight.

Following Ted Benavides' mode of investigation, the Chief said at his New Years Eve press conference that he didn't see the need for an investigation. He said:

Had these drugs [the gypsum] ended up out there in the streets . . . , there could have been loss of life. . . . As we continue to make progress in this battle, we will not lose focus of our goal . . . to keep the streets of Dallas safe and whether that's freeing this city of illegal drugs or poison [the gypsum].

Remember Ted Benavides' press conference last year where he announced that while he was out of town on vacation he had investigated Bolton's involvement with Nick Rizo bribing Old Al Lipscomb. The City MisManager said his extensive investigation, which consisted of his asking Chief Bolton if he had been involved with Old Al and Nick Rizo, indicated that Chief Bolton was innocent because Bolton told him so.

After you stop snickering, get back to the issue that a bunch of Mexican Nationals who were here legally, working as mechanics and other every day jobs were used so some informant could shake down the Vice Department for $200,000. They were not just illegally arrested, they have spent months in jail away from their jobs and families, over Christmas.

Instead of expressing regret for the wrong done to these men, here's what CYA TB has to say:

The police chief wants to make sure everything was done right. If there are any improprieties, we'll deal with it. Today, I wanted you to know I don't have anything to suggest that [impropriety]. . . . I have a confidential informant who knows how to find drugs or poison. . . . This is what we ended up with. I also have to ensure that the integrity of the Department is protected . . . . That's why we're here today. Another component which is equally, and probably more, important is the message out there for people who would buy drugs in Dallas. If you got a message from the police chief, it's don't buy drugs.

Do you refer to yourself as "the" anything? Assuming you are not Mary Poss or Princess Velveeta!

TB is really strange. I have several "informants" who can get me gypsum 7 days a week at Home Depot. I don't know any drug users or pushers, but one would suspect that neither drug users or pushers look to "the police chief" for their message of the day.

Instead of taking immediate action to suspend the narcotic officers involved or to call in the FBI to investigate why an informant was paid $200,000 for busting poison gypsum pushers, Bolton did nothing for months. The people involved in the hoax had ample time to cover their tracks and even tamper with evidence. The men who were victimized by the hoax were sitting in jail or had already been deported. Several of the victims speak little or no English.

Here comes another multi-million claim against the city.

Laura Miller says she could find some money in the budget to give police and firefighters a raise, if not all of the 17% they want, at least some of it. She points to the $11 Million we spent last year on outside consultants and the $10 Million settlement with the Police commanders. The City MisManager recommended and the majority of the council voted to borrow $10 Million to pay the $8 Million settlement, rather than take the money out of our EMERGENCY FUND. The Emergency Fund is supposed to be used for EMERGENCIES like multi-million dollar settlements. Those wasted millions are going to look like a bargain when the lawyers for the gypsum gang get through with us.

What has the council done about all of this? NOTHING!!

Councilman Mitch Rasansky tried to get the Public Safety Committee to review the matter with the Chief, but PSC Chairman James Fantroy blocked the meeting after Chief TB hurried his fat rear down there to head off any such review. You are not experiencing deja vu; it's the real thing.

A couple of years ago, newly convicted John Loza chaired the Public Safety Committee when we found out about Nick Rizo and Old Al and some "high ranking Police officer". Loza shouted down District 13's Councilwoman Donna Blumer when she tried to get Chief TB to answer her questions about his involvement in the Lipscomb/Rizo matter and the order to lay off Police enforcement in NW Hwy-Bachman sex clubs.

This year, it's District 13 Councilman Mitch Rasansky being told NO INVESTIGATION by Beat that Indictment James Fantroy. Fantroy is involved in another of the rule-breaking stunts of Tom Dunning's campaign. Fantroy sent out a letter on his City Council Stationery endorsing Tom Dunning and used his title in the letter. County Commissioner John Wiley Price says he paid for the mailing and FORGOT to make a disclaimer on the letter or report the expense. Right!

We are way beyond the FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE, we are in trouble.

Mayor PreTend Poss, who was a screaming you-know-what the other day in her Anti-Miller press conference, is supposed to be this big (no pun intended) law and order gal. Have you heard a word from her about this gypsum drug bust? She's too busy trying to endear herself to Our Downtown Betters so she can be their next candidate in 2003.

We'll take up the mayor's race in Can They Steal It?, but there is a correlation here.

Who is going to stand up and demand some real answers from this inept Chief of Police? Our worthless City MisManager is not going to ask questions. He may not be aware there's even a problem. Our City MisManager is no rocket scientist. Other than Rasansky, no council member is going to ask questions because they might have to take action against the City MisManager who hired this inept Chief of Police.

In the meantime, no one is apologizing to those 24 men who were victimized in this scam. Their attorneys are busily preparing for their retirement, their children's college education, their vacation home, etc., all at Dallas taxpayer expense.

Don't take my word for it, remember former US Atty. Paul Coggins told Todd Bensman:

. . .Mr. Coggins and former Dallas Police Chief Ben Click also said allowing so much time to pass before widening the investigation puts the city at legal risk. . . .
"We've got the prospect that innocent people were picked up, deported, jailed," Mr. Coggins said. "Lives were ruined. Families were broken up. And frankly, the city's going to face civil liabilities of huge proportions."

Can you spell M-I-L-L-I-O-N-S? There are going to be at least 24 new millionaires in Mexico before this is over.

Once again, Dallas taxpayers are exposed to millions of dollars of liability because this Mississippi moron screwed up and allowed a screw up and is now trying to spin it all away. Even his hiney is not wide enough to cover up this mess.

There is absolutely nothing you and I can do about this today, or Friday, but there is something you can do on Saturday.

If you were among those 40,000 who voted early, make sure all your neighbors get to the polls on Saturday to VOTE FOR LAURA MILLER. If you did not vote early, don't let anything keep you from going to the polls to VOTE FOR LAURA MILLER. Nothing will change at City Hall if Tom Dunning steals this election from us with his campaign's dirty tricks.

We have smart people in Dallas, but only one of them is currently holding office. Thank goodness, Mitch Rasansky is at City Hall. He brings up the IQ level to semi-functional with assistance.

As for our Chief of Police, Forrest Gump says it best --

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.