NO COURAGE, NO ACCOUNTABILITY, NO CHARACTER, NO INTEGRITY

CRIME SCENE ANALYSIS #101

“Failures are divided into two classes—those who thought

and never did, and those who did and never thought.”

~John Clark Salak, author

Here is the “Law Enforcement Oath” of Honor ascribed to by the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police:

“On my honor,

I will never betray my badge,

my integrity, my character,

or the public trust.

I will always have the courage,

to hold myself and others

accountable for our actions.

I will always uphold the Constitution,

the community,

and the agency I serve,

so help me God.”

Before Police Officers take upon themselves the “Law Enforcement Oath of Honor,” it is vital that they understand what it truly means. An oath is a solemn pledge someone voluntarily makes when they sincerely intend to do what they say. The key words in the “Law Enforcement Oath of Honor” are defined thusly:

Honor means giving one’s word as a bond and guarantee.

Betray is defined as breaking faith and proving false.

The Badge is a visible symbol of the power of your office.

Integrity is firm adherence to principles, both in our private and public life.

Character means the qualities and standards of behavior that distinguish an individual.

The Public Trust is a duty imposed in faith to those we are sworn to serve.

Courage is having the “heart,” the mental, and moral strength to venture, persevere, withstand, and  overcome danger, difficulty, and fear.

Accountability means that we are answerable and responsible for our actions.

Community is the municipalities, neighborhoods, and citizens we serve.

           

The actions of the police on the morning of April 16, 2007 played a role in the deaths of 30 people and the wounding of at least 17 others at Virginia Tech. There is no reason to belabor that those investigating the murder of Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher early in the morning that day violated several basic rules of crime scene investigation—such as using common sense, asking the right questions, and avoiding knee-jerk judgments. The facts speak for themselves. As a result of these errors in judgment and procedure, people died and people were wounded. The stunning lack of professionalism on the part of some members of the police force needs no hyperbole; the facts speak for themselves.

During my research, I found that the guidelines and standard operating procedures for investigating a crime scene—specifically murder—are broad and general. I thought there would be a manual of standard and specific procedures, but as far as I can find out there is not. This lack of specificity is probably because there is no typical crime or crime scene and therefore there is no typical approach to investigating a crime. But the lack of detailed guidelines is no excuse for what happened on the morning of April 16, 2007. A crime scene is where logic meets harsh reality, requiring a careful, well-executed and methodical examination of the evidence; something that was lacking on the part of certain members of the police that terrible April morning.

The decisions that are made and the questions that are asked in the first few minutes of arriving at a crime scene can be, and usually are, critical to preventing future violence and/or solving the crime. Interviewing witnesses to the crime or other individuals who may have pertinent information is of paramount importance. In other words, asking the right, poignant questions, even when unpleasant or difficult, is critical. Equally important is listening to the answers.

In the case of the police personnel called in on the morning of April 16, 2007, there were serious blunders in both the questions that they asked and in the analysis of the answers they received, and these had catastrophic consequences. Mistakes in judgment were made in the first hour after Hilscher’s and Clark’s bodies were found, not just once, but over and over again. No matter what label Flinchum and others put on the West Ambler Johnston murders—“targeted,” “domestic,” or “love triangle,” they cannot hide the fact that they ignored the best practices of their own profession and were tragically wrong. 

If you look back to the Law Enforcement Oath of Honor ascribed to by the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, you have to ask where was Flinchum’s integrity and character when a flawed timeline was knowingly allowed to stand for nearly two years and make it into the initial draft of the official report on the Tech tragedy? Where was his courage to look at all the possibilities in a crime investigation instead of choosing an easy answer that fit the needs of a fund raising schedule? Looking at the actions of some members of the police on April 16, 2007, and in the months and years that followed, you search in vain for courage, accountability, character, and integrity. The duty to serve the community and uphold the public trust, and in so doing honor the badge was, if not betrayed, wanting. (To be continued.)

GOOD PEOPLE-TERRIBLE DECISIONS: THE TANYA TARASOFF CASE

 

Good people make terrible decisions with horrific results. The more I delve into the school shootings in this country, the more apparent that fact becomes. It also becomes crystal clear that our society needs to hold “good people” accountable for their actions and inactions—particularly when they result in death. I am not talking about revenge; I am talking about removing people who clearly do not understand the law, override experts in mental health, or do not do their jobs.

Many of the poor decisions I am talking about are made for fear of lawsuits or to protect careers. In doing my research I came across a similar example of poor decisions made in connection with the murder of a freshman student at the University of California, Berkeley.

On October 26, 1969, Prosenjit Poddar murdered Tanya Tarasoff, a University of California Berkeley student. Poddar had met Tarasoff at a social event, fell in love with her and proposed marriage. When Tarasoff rejected the proposal, Poddar began stalking her.

Poddar voluntarily sought psychiatric help, saying he had thoughts of violence and getting even with Tarasoff. He had around eight sessions of outpatient therapy with Dr. Warren Moore over a period of two and a half months. When Dr. Moore challenged him about his violent tendencies, Poddar became angry and broke off therapy.

On August 20, 1969, Dr. Moore called the campus police and reported that Poddar was dangerous to himself and others. He provided the police with a letter from the acting head of the psychiatric department concurring with his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenic reaction, acute and severe.  Dr. Moore proposed a 72-hour emergency detention order if the police would pick Poddar up and take him to the hospital.

Three police officers interviewed Poddar, and based on their interview, decided Poddar was not dangerous and did not detain him. To my knowledge, none of those officers had any experience or training in mental health, but they overrode the recommendations of two highly trained mental health experts.

No one warned Tanya Tarasoff or her family of the threat Poddar posed.

On October 27, 1969, Poddar found Tarasoff alone at home shot her with a pellet gun and then chased her into the back yard where he stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife.

In 2002, people in positions of authority ignored the warning signs at the Appalachian School of Law—requests for campus security from the faculty, the soon-to-be murderer taking over classrooms and ranting and raving, a doctor calling the killer a time-bomb waiting to go off, police ignoring the very basic rules of triage and allowing a critically wounded student to bleed to death when the hospital was 10 minutes away—I could go on and on. A few weeks before Peter Odighizuwa killed three people and wounded three others, then-law-school President Lucius Ellsworth responded to requests from female faculty for campus security (the school had no security) by saying, “Oh you women, and your hormones, nothing will happen, it will be all right.” Ellsworth was never held accountable, or even asked to explain his words.

As for April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech, volumes could be written about the warning signs centering on Seung Hui Cho. He was deemed a threat to himself and others, but no one put his name on the list making him ineligible to buy guns in the state of Virginia; a faculty member threatened to resign because Cho frightened students and faculty alike, but he was not barred from campus. On top of this, on April 16, 2007, the school administration failed to follow its own security procedures and standards and as a result 30 people were slaughtered at Norris Hall.

On August 21, 2006, eight months before the Tech massacre, William Morva escaped from custody in Blacksburg, killing two people. There was no evidence or indication that Morva was on the Tech campus, yet the school closed down. On the morning of April 16, 2007, two students were found shot to death in a school dormitory, there were bloody footprints leading from the crime scene, and the school hesitated and vacillated over whether or not to even warn the campus. While administrators dithered, Cho made his way unhindered to Norris Hall, finding 30 more victims. And, no one has been held accountable.

To make matters worse, the state of Virginia paid a small fortune to a contracting firm to write a report that covers up, glosses over, or does not address many of the actions that would make people culpable and accountable. I will examine The Governor’s Review Panel Report, and TriData, the firm that wrote the report, in future posts.

Some argue that there is no way to prevent tragedies like the shootings at Berkeley, the Appalachian School of Law, and Virginia Tech, saying that history does not repeat itself.  They are right, history does not repeat itself, but we can learn from history.  The future cannot be predicted with exact certainty, but based on warning signs you can predict that the conditions exist and the stage is set for violence. We should and can learn from the past. We can learn from 1969, 2002, and 2007. If we will finally face the hard facts and realities of what led to these shootings, if we can make people in positions of authority accountable for their actions or inactions, we can prevent some of these kinds of shootings from happening again. We can make it a crime for a university president and school officials to ignore warning signs; we can adopt laws that keep guns out of the hands of those who have been deemed a threat to themselves and others. We can and should learn from history.

Just because something has been done in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, does not mean the right things were done, and it is certain that not enough has been done. So I persist, I write in hopes that my words will sensitize the public—particularly parents—to the seriousness of the problem of school tragedies and the fact that much more must be done to prevent future shootings. (To be continued)

IT'S CHEAPER TO HIRE A NEW PROFESSOR THAN PROTECT THE CURRENT ONE

 

Perhaps the most frightening and discouraging part of the problem of school safety can be found in the excellent research and writing of Professor Helen de Haven. Professor de Haven was a member of the founding faculty of the Appalachian School of Law in 1997, was the first Dean of Students at the school 1999-2000, and was at the school on January 16, 2002—the day Peter Odighizuwa shot and killed Dean Anthony Sutin, Professor Thomas Blackwell, and student Angela Dales—the mother of my oldest grandchild. De Haven is currently an Associate Professor of Law, John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, Georgia.

Professor de Haven’s article, “The Elephant in the Ivory Tower: Rampages in Higher Education and the Case for Institutional Liability,” raises disturbing questions about safety on this nation’s institutions of higher learning. Her article appears in The Journal of College and University Law, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Notre Dame Law School—the citation for the article is 35 JC&UL 503 (2009). Her words leave the reader with the impression that many of this nation’s schools approach the threat of gun violence on campus with apathy, confusion, and a denial of responsibility.

De Haven writes, “It is clear that 10 years after the shootings at Columbine; seven years after the killings at the Appalachian School of Law; two years after the massacre at Virginia Tech—as well as the scores of other school shootings along the way—far too many school officials, law enforcement personnel, and politicians remain mystified and perplexed over how to meet the threat of school violence.”

She further asserts that, “Though they are still relatively uncommon, school shootings in higher education are happening more frequently, and they are likely to increase unless we in the academy learn from our collective history. We need a new consensus about how best to keep ourselves safe without destroying academic freedoms and pedagogical values that best define us.” De Haven’s words were prophetic, Sandy Hook and Chardin, Ohio attest to that fact.

Professor de Haven’s words imply that many who run our academic institutions harbor one or both of the following: an inexplicable naiveté or a disregard for human life. I would also not rule out an element of bureaucratic incompetence and mediocrity. In fact, reading some of the explanations and statements put out by individuals defending the actions leading up to, during, and following the shootings at Virginia Tech University, I could not help but wonder, “Are these schools run by carnival shills?”  For example, faculty members expressed fear for their personal safety to senior management—yet Virginia Tech denies prior knowledge that Cho was a threat.

Having read Professor de Haven’s words and examined the events surrounding school shootings here in Virginia, I can only say that unfortunately the academic community is far from reaching a consensus on how best to tackle the problem of keeping our schools safe. Here in Virginia, for example, school officials at Virginia Tech did not sufficiently heed the concerns and warning of faculty members. When schools ignore faculty expressions of fear for their personal safety, as well as for the safety of their students, something is terribly wrong!

Indeed, Professor de Haven asserts: “… universities have a legal duty as well as a professional obligation to make academic spaces as safe as they reasonably can for students. … We have not yet owned up to the ways in which academic cultures ignore the legitimate safety concerns of their faculty and students, disable appropriate support services, and enable dangerous and violent student behaviors.”

Professor de Haven is not the only academic to identify a problem with institutional responses to faculty complaints about threatening students. Professor Carol Parker at the University of Tennessee and her colleagues tell the following story:

“A law professor was being stalked and threatened with death by a student who was failing his class. He and his colleague went to the administration. Sadly, he later reported, ‘They simply stuck their heads in the sand and said nothing was happening. For the administration, this do-nothing strategy was a win-win situation. If they took action, they might get sued. However, in the small chance that the student actually carried out his threat and killed the professor, we figured that they would hire a cheaper faculty member.’” (Smith, Thomas & Parker: Violence on Campus Practical Recommendations for Legal Education)  Carol Parker’s article is accessible free on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).

Reflecting on this disgraceful attitude of a school administration, I could not help but think that this was the exact same way of thinking that typified the shootings at Virginia Tech and in many respects made the tragedy inevitable. (To be continued)

LOST OUR WAY

At least with regard to higher education in the United States we have lost our way and we are paying a terrible price—in lack of security for faculty, staff, and students. If faculty members are concerned about their safety and the safety of their students and if school administrators ignore signs of abnormal violent behavior on the part of students or staff, then the atmosphere is counter productive and certainly not conducive to learning.  One college professor told me that every day she wonders, “Will this be the day a student brings a gun to class and kills us all?”

         There is no simple answer to why security has deteriorated on so many of the nation’s campuses—but one of the greatest contributors to this deterioration has been the tendency to see state-funded colleges and universities as businesses rather than institutions of learning. Learning in a safe atmosphere conducive to intellectual pursuits appears to be totally absent from the thinking of this new breed of university and college presidents.

            Robert Bickel and Peter Lake, in their exhaustive and thorough look at risk and responsibility on college campuses, The Rights and Responsibilities of the Modern University, (Carolina Academic Press, 1999) point out that “by far, this (the business model) is the dominant current conception of modern relations, if one aggregates the cases.” The net result is that most college presidents today are “glad-handers” and fund raisers—not educators.

Even worse, some—such as Charles Steger the President of Virginia Tech—are woefully lacking in crisis management skills. Indeed, Virginia Tech’s President is a prime example of the problem we face. Read his biography or listen to his defenders—the repeated emphasis on how much money he has raised for the school drowns out all else. His leadership was absent on April 16, 2007; this lack of leadership may have cost 30 lives. But, he is an outstanding fund-raiser—unfortunately that seems to be what counts in Blacksburg and elsewhere.

            The fact of the matter is that in order to make our colleges and universities safer, we will have to spend hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars on such things as security training and equipment, and mental health programs. These expenditures cannot be tallied on a profit sheet—they are expenses on behalf of the safety of our children and on behalf of this nation’s future; they are long-term investments we must make to preserve this nation’s greatness.

            To run state colleges and universities on a “for profit basis” is not only counter-productive in the long run, but it has cheapened the quality of education and undercut campus security. For example—if you pay for your daughter or son to go to college, under the business model some lawyers argue that you have paid money and established a contract—your child is owed a degree. The result has been a lowering of standards. A friend of mine was an English professor at a major university in the Washington, DC area. She developed an English test that all seniors had to pass to show that thet had a certain degree of facility and understanding of English. So many seniors were flunking that the alumni association was up in arms and the school was forced to do away with the test.

            In blindly following the business model we are paying a price in so many ways, and not just campus security and the quality of education, but in our nation’s security.  I witnessed the latter a short time ago. I was working with non-native English speaking Americans who were doing translations for our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. In my classes I give these students a laminated translation aid on rules dealing with some of the problem areas of English—areas critical to their work. The laminated study aid costs $4.95. The CEO of the multi-billion dollar consulting company I was working for wanted to cut non-essential costs to help raise the stock price, so he cut the study aid. I guarantee you that wrong decisions will be made based on poor translations—decisions that may cost lives. But, the company’s stock price went up.

            To say that this country is in a sorry state of affairs doesn’t begin to describe the magnitude of the problem. Our values seemed turned upside down; we measure everything including human life, only in terms of dollars and cents. Few recognize that making a profit in higher education is not synonymous with our national interests; making a profit is not synonymous with securing the safety of our children. On the other hand, increasing the size of an institution’s donor base and value of its endowments are high on the priority list. I once read, “to be ruled by ideas for which there is not evidence … is generally a sign that something is seriously wrong.”  There is no evidence that turning our colleges and universities into businesses improves the quality of academic training. If fact, the opposite appears to be true. One consequence of turning schools into businesses is that when it comes to making our schools safe it appears that many in positions of responsibility and authority are intent on limiting information in an effort to manipulate public opinion and prevent people from being held accountable for their actions or inactions. That was certainly the case in the shootings at Virginia Tech, which I will detail in detail later. (To be continued)