Details, Details, Details

Police Commissioner Ed Davis has done a good job improving the community’s perception of cops since the implementation of his community policing initiative. But that’s only part of what it’ll take to make people stop hating the po-po. The other part was underscored in today’s papers, with the announcement that three BPD Lieutenants were facing hundreds of charges for abusing the department’s controversial paid detail system.

The internal audit of shifts worked in 2005 concluded that Lieutenants Haseeb Hosein, Timothy Kervin, and Ghassoub Frangie engaged in untruthful reporting of hours, performed details that conflicted with a scheduled tour of duty, and received details through unauthorized means. Hosein and Kervin were also cited with breaking the law, but officials did not provide details on the alleged infractions… In 2005, the lieutenants earned much more than their base salaries of about $75,000. Kervin earned $237,272.34, more than any other city official that year; Hosein made $228,807.33; and Frangie took home $171,916.94, according to city records.

Phew. OK, take Kervin. A guy with a base salary of 75 grand winds up making nearly a quarter mil with overtime. According to my quick calculations, that means he pulled an additional $162,000 in detail work. Given that details tend to pay about $35 an hour, that would mean he worked 4,629 hours worth of details, which translates to roughly 12 hours a day of overtime every day (weekends too) for the entire year.

And he still has time to fight crime? He must be godamn RoboCop! Also worth noting is that Officer Kervin’s brother found himself in similar hot water in 2004, and was actually demoted for it. This is from the Globe report:

Less than 5 percent of police officers working in Boston’s largest and busiest district collected a quarter of all the overtime paid in the three months before its captain was removed for vastly overspending his overtime budget, department records show.

District Captain John Kervin, who oversaw overtime assignments before his demotion in early October, was the district’s third biggest recipient with $16,226 in those 14 weeks.

A Globe analysis of a department audit of payroll records ordered after Kervin’s demotion indicates that 17 officers made a total of $230,217 of the $915, 859 in overtime that was paid to 356 officers and civilian employees between July 1 and Oct. 7….

Kervin also approved $697 in overtime for his brother, Lieutenant Timothy Kervin, though the lieutenant worked in another district on the other side of the city.

Ah, family values. Also worth noting is that the other two officers bagged this week are now suing the BPD for discrimination. We’ll see how that one goes.