You can't rely on the police to administer justice fairly! - "Latroy Campbell falsified reports and closed cases without conducting any investigations ... Police later reviewed all of Campbell's work as a detective and found about 10 to 15 percent had been mishandled."
To be honest I suspect the only reason Latroy Campbell is being demonized is because he pissed off one of his bosses. If he had not done that all his crummy work would have been swept under the rug for nobody to see but the cops.
And of course from a Libertarian point of view if he tossed out all the cases which were victimless crimes I don't see a problem with that. If the cops would stop jailing people for victimless crimes American and the world would be a much better place. The police shouldn't be jailing pot smokers or people who have consensual sex.
Goodyear Police Department reviews investigation methods
by Jackee Coe - Jan. 23, 2011 08:48 PM
The Arizona Republic
A Goodyear police investigation into a former detective's "egregious" mishandling of criminal cases has sparked a department review of how caseloads are managed.
The internal investigation revealed Latroy Campbell falsified reports and closed cases without conducting any investigations. Campbell resigned in August, but the situation has left lingering questions about how it happened.
Campbell had been promoted to sergeant after receiving stellar performance reviews.
Other Goodyear police detectives who took over his caseload found problems with several criminal investigations, leading to an internal investigation of more than 100 of Campbell's cases.
"We're looking at this problem from a holistic viewpoint," said Cmdr. Ralph McLaughlin. "We've been extremely disappointed. We're taking steps for that not to happen ever again." [Yea sure it will NEVER happen again! Well at least until we read another newspaper article like this again!]
A call to a phone number listed for a Latroy Campbell was not returned.
Goodyear investigators found problems with 35 of 106 cases they reviewed from the last two years.
Most dealt with sex crimes, many involving children.
Police later reviewed all of Campbell's work as a detective and found about 10 to 15 percent had been mishandled.
"They've all been reassigned to other detectives," McLaughlin said.
About half of the cases have been closed with an arrest, inactivated because leads were exhausted or led to charges being filed.
The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board will discuss whether to revoke Campbell's certification to be a law-enforcement officer in the state at a hearing Feb. 16.
Campbell had been with Goodyear since 2001.
Incomplete cases
According to the internal investigation:
- Campbell closed a case involving sexual conduct with a minor after two months without explanation.
Eight months later, he wrote a backdated report stating that the victim did not give any information about the accusations.
But a video interview he conducted shows the victim gave details about the abuse.
- The original responding officer in a child-molestation case collected physical evidence from the scene and obtained descriptions and possible locations of the suspects, but Campbell did not follow up, process the evidence or attempt to find the suspects.
He closed the case a year later with no documented explanation.
- Campbell conducted several interviews and collected evidence in a case involving sexual conduct with a minor but closed it months later without documenting the suspect interview "in which she makes several admissions."
The case was never submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for charges.
- The suspect in a rape, kidnapping and aggravated-assault case "made several admissions" during an interview with Campbell and was booked into jail. But Campbell didn't document anything else he did and left the report incomplete, so charges have never been filed against the suspect.
Promotion leads to inquiry
The issues first came to light in May after Campbell was promoted to sergeant in October 2009.
Detectives who took over his cases quickly realized many had holes and reported it to supervisors, calling it "a blatant violation of public trust, professionalism and obvious dereliction of duty," according to documents provided to The Arizona Republic in a public-records request.
McLaughlin called Campbell's case mismanagement "egregious" because he was "closing cases improperly (and) not following up on cases that could have been followed up on."
He said Campbell's conduct is not a reflection on the department, pointing out that Goodyear detectives brought it to light. [So a bad cop doesn't make the department look bad? But a good cop does make the department look good?]
"This is all internal," he said. "This was us looking at ourselves trying to make ourselves do things better and more efficiently."
Lingering questions
After the Campbell situation was discovered, the department conducted an audit of its criminal-investigations division and implemented changes.
"While we still trust our detectives, we're going to follow up and make sure the supervisors and managers are following up on what they're doing," McLaughlin said.
Detectives now cannot close cases without supervisor approval, must record activity on a case within 21 days and must pass a full case review before leaving the criminal-investigations division.
The department also will develop more in-depth training of its record-management system so supervisors can better monitor detectives' work.
McLaughlin would not say whether supervisors possibly could be disciplined.
The department is conducting two more internal investigations of other detectives identified in the audit.
Once those are completed, there will be an entire case-management review that will examine the investigations process, including detectives' and supervisors' responsibilities.
"My concern is to be responsive to the victims of crime and make sure we're doing that better, and any disciplinary issues will be secondary at this point," McLaughlin said.