[lbo-talk] Pepper spray cop gets even more trivial than usual slap

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Thu Oct 27 09:18:23 PDT 2011


http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/no-highway-therapy-for-pepper-spray-commander

October 27, 2011, 10:56 am

New York Times

City Room - Blogging From the Five Boroughs

No `Highway Therapy' for Pepper-Spray Commander

By AL BAKER and ROB HARRIS

[Charlie Grapski, via YouTube: An image from a video on YouTube shows

Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna using pepper spray against protesters

on Sept. 24]

When imperfect police officers are caught and punished, they sometimes

receive a form of discipline known colloquially behind the Blue Wall of

Silence as "highway therapy."

If an officer who works in the northern Bronx and lives in Rockland

County, for instance, breaks some departmental rule, he might be sent

to work in a command in the far reaches of eastern Queens, such as the

105th Precinct, on the Nassau County line.

There are lots of highways and roads to navigate, the thinking goes,

and lots of time for an officer to reflect.

But such reasoning has seemingly not factored into the punishment given

to Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, the New York Police Department

commander who pepper-sprayed protesters during the opening days of the

Occupy Wall Street demonstrations last month.

A week after Inspector Bologna, 57, was hit with internal disciplinary

charges for running afoul of departmental rules regarding the use of

pepper spray, a law enforcement official said he opted to accept the

department's proposed penalty: the loss of 10 vacation days.

And he was summarily transferred to a job on Staten Island, the

official said, which happens to be where Inspector Bologna, a veteran

of nearly 30 years on the city's police force, lives. Such moves are

approved by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who police officials

say oversees all transfers.

The commute for him in his new assignment, thus, will be shorter than

for his former job as a commander in southern Manhattan. On Staten

Island, he will be working at the department's headquarters for the

borough, the official said.

Shorter commute or not, Deputy Inspector Roy T. Richter, the head of

the Captains Endowment Association, which represents about 730 of the

higher ranking officers in the department, said he believed the veteran

commander would move forward with his policing career.

"Deputy Inspector Bologna is an experienced professional who will work

hard to excel in any assignment the commissioner directs," Inspector

Richter said.

<end excerpt>

Michael



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