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.
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Michael