There's been a lot of rumors and false information going around the Department about the case involving Officer Jones and Sergeant Allison and many people questioning why I've come out so fervently in their defense, so I'm going to set the record straight and back it up with facts.
At the heart of the issue is the accusation by the Town that Officer Jones tried to get paid for hours on a road job that he wasn't entitled to, and that Sergeant Allison somehow assisted him in doing so. This assertion is not true. Lieutenant Don Olson who was the author of the warrant wrote on pages 4, 5, 7 and 15 of his affidavit that because Officer Jones arrived on the job site at 1045 and worked until 1530 that he was only entitled to be paid for the 5 hour minimum because he had only actually worked 4.75 hours. Per our contract if an employee works a private job they are paid a minimum of 5 hours just for showing up, and if they work in excess of 5 hours, then they are then paid for a minimum of 8 hours thereafter.
This job in question however was not called in for an Officer to work ahead of time, it was called in while the job was in progress. As Every EHPD employee knows, the long standing past practice for overtime jobs in progress or "call ins" is that we get begin getting paid from the time we receive the phone call to come in to work and accept the job. NOT the time that we actually arrive at the Police Station, and NOT the time that we arrive on the job site. Lt. Olson even admits this fact on page 5 of the warrant when he wrote "However, occasionally Private Duty jobs are ordered at the time of the job due to an emergency, a change in the job date or environment, or in some cases the contractor simply forgot to hire an Officer. In these cases, the Officer is paid from the time they are called, accept the Private Duty job and are prepared for duty." However, despite admitting this fact, Lt. Olson later contradicts himself in the warrant by saying the start time should have been the time Officer Jones arrived at the job site, when by his own admission this is not the practice in every other instance of a job like this.
Based on his warrant, Lt. Olson NEVER attempted to obtain phone records, or check the call logs of the hiring Officer to ascertain what time Officer Jones received the phone call to come in and work the job which would've been the actual start time of the job for payment purposes. This information is critical because had Lt. Olson included it in the warrant it would've shown that Officer Jones was actually entitled to claim in excess of 5 hours of overtime which under our contract would result in him automatically being paid for 8 hours of overtime which would disprove the claim that he attempted to get paid for hours he wasn't entitled to. However this information was either never looked for, or was known and never included in the affidavit.
However, even without the information from the call logs, Lt. Olson should've still been able to deduce that Officer Jones was entitled to claim time worked prior to 1045. On page 11 of the warrant Lt. Olson writes that he obtained security camera footage of Officer Jones arriving at Police HQ at 1031, and then leaving in a Department vehicle at 1042 to go to the job site. Now any reasonable person would agree that if Officer Jones is seen arriving at the Police Station at 1031 to work a job he was just called in for, that it is highly likely that he was called in at some time prior to 1031. Now remember, because his end time was 1530, a start time prior to 1030 would've entitled him to 8 hours of pay, not the 5 hours that Lt. Olson has claimed. This fact should be especially apparent to a trained and experienced investigator, however this information wasn't included in the warrant. Had it been included as it should have, I think it's highly likely that this warrant would have never been signed by a Prosecutor or Judge and these Officers never would've been arrested.
On page 15 of his warrant, Lt. Olson admits that Officer Jones never turned in the overtime slip in question because he knew the company had raised an issue over it at the job site and he didn't want any trouble. Officer Jones handed this overtime slip to Lt. Ficacelli when he was notified that a complaint was filed. This is contrary to Lt. Olson's previous claim on page 12 of his warrant that it was "intercepted." Officer Jones never turned the slip in to payroll or attempted to get paid for the job as the warrant claims.
So why was critical information withheld or not searched for? That's the million dollar question (literally). Was it done out of malice, error, or ignorance? Obviously there are several processes ongoing that will eventually find an answer to that question. And to be clear I'm not putting all the blame at Lt. Olson's feet, this warrant and process went though several layers of Supervision all the way up to Chief Sansom who was ultimately pulling the strings. It's now obvious to us why when we asked to see a copy of the warrant when it was issued I was told by Lt. Olson that per Chief Sansom it was to be withheld, even from the arresting Officers. They were hoping to keep these facts secret for as long as possible so they could push through a bogus IA before we saw what they were being accused of.
This simple complaint should have been handled administratively, like every other complaint of this nature has been historically, contemporaneously, and concurrently. Instead the Administration chose to make a mountain out of a molehill, arrest 2 innocent cops, and then send out the most detailed Press release I've ever seen to the entire state's media to publicly humiliate them.
Those are the facts, whether you like them or not. What happened here is abhorrent and none of us should stand for it, as Union members, as Cops, as Citizens, or just as Human Beings. So if you're still wondering why I'm standing up for these guys as strongly as I am, just know that if you are ever unlucky enough to find yourself in a similar situation, I'd be doing the same for you.
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