Police Probe May Be Over In Few Weeks

2 Dust-Ups In One Year Convinced Mayor To Act


By JIM KEVLIN


Mayor Dick Miller took office Jan. 1, 2010, at the tail end of a scandal in the Oneonta Police Department.
Three officers had been accused the summer before of engaging in improper relations with underage girls, and two of them had resigned; the third would do so in February.
During the fall campaign, candidate Miller had called for a broad investigation of the police department.  Once in office, he had second thoughts.
The police department had been understaffed when the scandal broke and in the months since had “taken a beating,” the mayor said in an interview in recent days.
“I thought if there were lessons to be learned, they had been learned,” said Miller, “and that an investigation at that time would be a demand on the OPD at a time they were going to be stressed otherwise because of a lack of manpower.
“I believe, in retrospect, that it was the right decision at that time,” the mayor said.
In September the department was back in the news, when Chief Joseph Redmond demanded an apology from City Judge Lucy Bernier, who had alerted his lieutenant when a public defender advised her that a suspect may have been mistreated during an arrest.  The involved officer later filed a complaint against the judge.
Miller said that second go-around was “completely unrelated,” and did not cause him to consider further steps.
But then, late last month, a suspect came forward and said he was punched repeatedly in the head by an officer after he was apprehended Jan. 28 while attempting to flee from a traffic stop.
This time, the mayor acted:  Joseph F. Loszynski, retired deputy superintendent, Internal Affairs Bureau, New York State Police, has been contracted to conduct a broad review of OPD.
The review, the mayor said in a statement Sunday, Feb. 5, “will be broad in nature with the Jan. 28 incident as a starting point.”
Why now?
Since taking office, the mayor said, the strains the department faced have been lifted: “They’ve returned to virtually full strength.  They’ve had plenty of opportunity to restore their credibility in the community and they have done so.”
So the allegations surfacing under the new stability called for a more in-depth look.
The mayor declined to discuss alternative outcomes, saying “the review has to be concluded before we speculate as to its outcome.”
However, he said it’s his hope the situation can be settled “in a matter of weeks.”