Last month, Police Chief Buz Dillon had me arrested for reporting that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) had ordered him to investigate allegations that one of his officers may have lied in court and that an internal affairs investigator may have covered it up. KWTN had asked the FDLE to get involved after Dillon had refused to conduct an investigation on his own.
In essence, he had me arrested for reporting my own complaint. The arrest warrant, based on an obscure Florida statute that had been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge 10 years ago, was bogus, of course. It only took State Attorney Mark Kohl a few days to throw it down the stairs and out into the street.
In the report that Dillon sent to the FDLE last week in response to our complaint, he had to admit that we were right. He admitted that Lt. Al Flowers did fib in court—— but "unknowingly", Buz said. And, although Internal Affairs Investigator Bob Christensen didn't really investigate a citizen's complaint about Flowers' alleged lying, Buz said that's not important.
But, yet, in spite of the State Attorney's ruling and Bungling Buz' own admissions in his report to the FDLE, we hear that he is continuing to brag around town that, if I again complain to the FDLE about incompetence and inefficiency in his department— and write about it— he'll have me arrested again. Big talk for a man who is a laughing stock nationwide. No less than Dennis Miller and Bill O' Reilly have ridiculed him on national television.
We're ready to test his brag.
Twelve weeks ago, on May 4, we published an open letter to Dillon calling for him to investigate allegations that another KWPD officer may have lied in court. Dillon has yet to respond.
So, three weeks ago, on July 9, I wrote a letter to Mayor Jimmy Weekley, asking him to call for an investigation. Failing that, I told him, I would again go to the FDLE myself— and that I would report that in my newspaper. And if the FDLE again orders Dillon to investigate, I would report that, too— presumably giving Dillon an opportunity to arrest me again!
Here is the text of our open letter to Dillon, followed by the text of our letter to Mayor Weekley.
April 27, 2001
TO: POLICE CHIEF BUZ DILLON
COPIES: Mayor, City Commissioners, City Manager, City Attorney, State Attorney
In view of Lt. Al Flowers recent admission of homophobia and documentation of how that has affected his job as a police officer, the allegation that he wrongfully ordered the arrest of Key West Civil Service Board member Gene Peary back in 1997 should be revisited— as well as Officer Ken Stinson's apparent perjury at one of Peary's two trials.
Consider this letter a formal complaint and a request for a full investigation.
For a number of months before his arrest, Peary said he had been harassed by members of the police union for stands he had taken in support of Chief Ray Peterson, as well as for voting to promote Officer Ken Hock following a testing fiasco.
On a March night in 1997, Peary was riding in a pickup truck with his partner. Both had been drinking and they were arguing. At a stoplight on South Roosevelt Blvd., Peary decides to get out and call a cab. He gets out of the passenger side of the vehicle and walks around to the driver's side to give his partner one more verbal shot. Then he walks in front of the vehicle to cross the street to a service station/convenience store.
Officer Stinson, in his patrol car, is behind the pickup. He sees Peary walk from the driver's side, around the front of the vehicle. He would later say that he "assumed" that Peary had gotten out of the driver's seat.
Subsequently, after consultation with watch commander Flowers (who, reportedly, was overheard to say, "Now we've got that little faggot"), both men were arrested for DUI. The rationale for charging Peary was that Stinson said he had seen him get out of the driver's side of the vehicle— so the two men must have switched seats.
But Peary's partner was a big guy, and the pickup was a small model with a stick shift between the two front seats. In addition, several manuals used in his work were reportedly piled between the seats. It is unlikely that the two could not have switched seats without Peary's partner getting out of the vehicle, too.
At the arrest scene, when Peary protested that he had not been driving, Flowers reportedly told him, "Get a good expensive lawyer. That's what the courts are for." The scandal devastated Peary's reputation and the fight to clear his name virtually bankrupted him. If the DUI charge against him was simply invented by Flowers and Stinson, as our investigation suggests, shouldn't they be charged and prosecuted? Or is it okay for police officers to casually ruin people's lives just because they want to?
At Peary's first trial, Stinson testified under oath that he had seen Peary get out of the driver's side of the vehicle. But the trial ended with a hung jury.
At the second trial, Stinson also testified under oath— but this time he testified that he had not actually seen Peary get out of the driver's side of the vehicle. Peary was acquitted.
At which trial was Stinson telling the truth and at which trial did he perjure himself. Was he pushed by Flowers to, at the first trial, stand by their story that Peary had been driving— even though Stinson couldn't honestly testify to that as fact? And did Stinson simply decide to come clean at the second trial? If Flowers and Stinson really knew that Peary had not been driving, why would they feel comfortable concocting a story that would virtually ruin Peary?
I am also copying the State Attorney for possible action. And by copy of this letter, I am asking the Mayor and City Commissioners to join in the call for a complete investigation.
Dennis Reeves Cooper
Publisher
* * *
July 9, 2001
TO: MAYOR JIMMY WEEKLEY
COPIES: City Commissioners, Police Chief
During the recent City Commission meeting, you suggested that it was somehow against the rules for the publisher of a newspaper that uncovers and reports corruption and incompetence within the police department to make a formal complaint to the FDLE— even if nobody on the City Commission is willing to do it. You saw, in my paper, those allegations that an officer may have lied in court and that an internal affairs investigator may have lied about whether or not he investigated a citizen complaint about that allegation. But, apparently, you didn't care enough to call for an investigation. And, then when I do take action to force an investigation, you criticize me. Why would you want the answers to those questions covered up?
Well, Jimmy, here we go again. Attached is an open letter to Chief Dillon that I published more than a month ago. He has not responded and, as far as I know, has not launched an investigation. And apparently, neither you nor any of your fellow commissioners care very much about the allegations of police officer perjury described in the letter (and in previous editions of my newspaper)— perjury that had a terrible impact on a citizen's life.
Since you say that it's somehow wrong for me to contact the FDLE to request an investigation, do you want to publicly call for a probe this week? I will hold off on any contact with the FDLE until the end of the month to give you or others an opportunity to take action. If that doesn't happen, I will personally make a complaint to the FDLE— and publish my complaint.
And if/when the FDLE writes to tell me that they have ordered an investigation of the Peary case, I will also publish that letter and see if Buz wants to have me arrested again. (I was disappointed, the first time he arrested me, that he didn't just give me a ride home to my daddy.)
Dennis Reeves Cooper
Publisher
NOTES: The above reference to "a ride home to daddy" refers to an incident involving Mayor Weekley's son a few months ago. When the young man lost his temper on a city bus a and threatened to blow up the school, the bus driver called the cops. But the cops didn't take him to jail. They gave him a ride home to his daddy.
City Commissioner Carmen Turner has supported the Chief in the recent arrest controversy, arguing that the law should be enforced equally for everyone. We put this special note on her copy of the above letter: "You say you want the law to be enforced equally for everyone. But if a boy from Bahama Village had lost his temper on a city bus and threatened to blow up the school, he would probably still be in jail. Yet, I didn't hear you protest when Jimmy's son got favored treatment under the law. Can you say `duplicitous'?"
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Why, do you think, would the Chief of Police hesitate for an instant to investigate and explain what appears to be a case of perjury by a police officer? And why, do you think, might the City Commissioners be a part of this coverup?