Has the Venice Police Department over-managed itself into law enforcement irrelevance?

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By failing to balance the need for public safety against its cannibalistic appetite for eating itself, the Venice Police Department, under the leadership of Chief Julie Williams, is becoming a danger to the very public it is supposed to be protecting
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Several stories that I have been working on for some time have all dovetailed into current stories involving the upper management of the Venice Police Department, which in turn brings into question the city manager's ability to manage and city council's ability to oversee both the city manager and the police chief.

For several months I have been researching allegations made by county resident David Moore that a Venice police officer committed perjury in an attempt to secure a reckless driving conviction against Moore last year. Moore opted for trial by judge and successfully defended himself against the charge by accusing the officer in open court of lying. Moore obtained a video from a local business that, according to Moore, shows that the officer was not where he claimed to be when said officer allegedly witnessed the violation, and that showed Moore driving in a normal and safe fashion through an intersection when the officer claimed under oath that Moore was driving like a rocket-packed bat out of hell.

Judge Kimberly Bonner took several months to issue her decision, during which time she reportedly reviewed the video evidence and weighed it against the cop's written statement. Finally, in late September of last year, Bonner ruled in favor of the defendant, dismissing the criminal charge by stating somewhat cryptically that "the evidence, as indicated by the evidence" (sic) showed that Moore was not guilty of reckless driving. Bonner stated in her ruling that Moore had committed the violation of speeding (as Moore admitted in court that he had been going some six or so miles per hour over the limit), but that speeding alone did not constitute reckless driving.

Translation: Bonner didn't believe the cop.

I've been studying the video evidence and the audio of the trial on and off since the beginning of this year. There's still a few questions I have that remain unanswered, like why the Venice Police Department never investigated the outcome of the trial, seeing as Chief Williams has a well known predisposition to investigate anyone on her payroll that she doesn't like for ridiculous sounding reasons (anyone remember the Michael Frassetti story?) and has been known to look the other way on allegations of wrongdoing pointed at her favorites.

Dovetailing into this story is the tale of Officer Demitri Serianni, who Williams referred to as "despicable" for challenging an internal investigation against him earlier this year. While Serianni was cleared of any wrongdoing through the city's resolution process, that didn't stop Williams from stating to the Herald-Tribune's Kim Hackett that Serianni was a "despicable" officer for questioning a decision made by a fellow officer (coincidentally, the same officer that the above David Moore has accused of perjury and that Judge Bonner didn't believe).

Serianni is currently under yet another internal investigation, this apparently for the way he defended himself against the last set of charges, and as if that isn't overly weird even by Venice standards, wait until you read the next few paragraphs on this page.

Venice Florida! dot com has asked for paperwork surrounding Serianni's recent annual evaluation in which Serianni was taken to task for, among other things, making public records requests (in order to defend himself ) in writing. The police have had me bouncing back and forth between city hall and the police department in an as yet unsuccessful attempt to get the full documentation.

However, dealing with the partial documents that the police have provided me with, it becomes clear that Chief Williams is blissfully unaware of Florida's public records laws.

If I am reading these documents correctly, and if Chief Williams was actually stupid enough to make this accusation, Serianni was told that if he wanted to make public records requests, he was to make those requests verbally only. In his annual review, Serianni is taken to task for continuing to make his public records requests in writing. Such a chastisement itself is a clear violation of Florida's public records laws.

Serianni is also cited for his low "stats." What are stats? The department's desired amount of traffic tickets. This is not a quota, I am told, because quotas are illegal, and if the department had quotas, offenders would be able to successfully challenge their tickets in court based on the fact that they were merely a means to the end of meeting an officer's quota. So nobody at the VPD ever gets disciplined for not meeting their quota; instead officers are sanctioned for not meeting the desired "stats," which, the department wants me and you to know, are not quotas.

Also, read Kim Hackett's story on the arrest of Joshua Graf in today's Herald-Tribune very carefully.  Hackett raises an interesting issue, although she stops short of asking aloud the obvious question in the story: why did the cops wait a day to arrest a dangerous and violent person and why, oh why, haven't the police raided and searched the known drug dealing house in question? From out here in the cheap seats, it looks like standard VPD actions with drug dealers: give them plenty of notice and time so that drugs can be disposed of BEFORE an actual raid takes place.

Some members of the VPD will take great exception to this point of view. Such management members of the VPD should prioritize public safety over revenue enhancement through traffic tickets, and maybe this kind of criticism wouldn't be necessary.

I'll be back in a few days with more details.