DILLON WRITES A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE CITIZEN, A NEWSPAPER HE SAYS HE DOESN'T READ
It was absolutely delicious! Police Chief Buz Dillon quoting Theodore Roosevelt to try to explain away the continuing incompetence and corruption in his department.
In a letter to the editor published in the Key West Citizen last Saturday, Dillon quoted a piece of Roosevelt's well-known "man in the arena" speech. Applying the quote to himself and the Key West Police Department, Dillon suggested that his critics are "timid souls" who simply cannot imagine how difficult it is to be a cop.
Quoting Roosevelt, Dillon wrote: "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and tears and blood . . ."
We've got a few basic questions and comments right off the bat.
1. Why is Dillon writing a letter to a paper he says he doesn't even read— unless, of course, he really does read the Citizen and was lying when he said he didn't. We suggested to you a couple of weeks ago that Dillon's lying may be pathological— lying as a way of life. This may be just another example.
2. Does Dillon want us to believe that Theodore Roosevelt is one of his heroes and that, years ago, he memorized the man-in-the-arena passage and maybe even has it framed on his office wall? Or did he just look it up in a book of quotations?
3. About the sweat and tears and blood part: Was he talking about the handcuffed suspect that one of his cops allegedly kept pepperspraying and punching in the face? When the State Attorney found out about that incident, he charged the cop. But Buz knew about it a year before the State Attorney did— and he did nothing. What would Theodore Roosevelt think about that?
4. And, finally, even some of his own men might question whether or not Buz really gets into the "arena". You rarely see him in uniform. And, after canceling all vacations for his men during Spring Break, he took off and went to the Bahamas.
In his letter, Buz did admit that his people are human and, therefore, sometimes make mistakes. In an earlier interview, Buz said that Police Lt. Al Flowers simply made a "mistake" when he knowingly charged a suspect with a felony he didn't commit. That "mistake" was so serious that the State Attorney gave Flowers the choice of resigning or facing charges. Flowers resigned.
Dillon expressed regret and said that he wished he had a dozen officers like Al Flowers. We went back and read the Roosevelt quote again. We didn't see anything about it being okay for the man in the arena to lie.
Was it just a "mistake" when those three Key West police officers pulled their weapons last July and fired eight shots at a pickup truck fleeing down a busy Old Town street? When the cops found out that it was a violation of police policy to fire at a moving vehicle they said that what they were really trying to do was kill or wound the driver, who had allegedly tried to run down two officers. That's allowed under police policy.
But to this day, nobody in the cop shop has been willing to try to explain why, when shooting virtually at point blank range, none of the officers could, apparently, hit what they were supposedly firing at. In fact, several of the bullets even missed the truck! Bystanders were cowering in fear. But, apparently, the safest place to be was in the cab of that pickup.
Maybe it was just a "mistake" when Dillon promoted an officer to captain who had been forced to resign from the Sheriff's Office because he got caught having sex with an underage boy. And, then, he lied about it when he applied for a job with the KWPD. We can just hear old Teddy now: "Way to go, Buz! That's exactly what I would have done!"
In quoting Roosevelt, Dillon also included the concept that failing is okay as long as the man in the arena "dares greatly". We guess that would explain the recent situation in which the Key West cop spent seven months undercover to "gather information" about t-shirt shop scams. At the end of the investigation, the young cop admitted to stealing money from dozens of tourists— but was unable to make a single arrest on consumer fraud charges. Not a single one. Zip.
Because of the growing public perception that Buz Dillon's Police Department is in disarray, there is a growing movement toward the establishment of an independent civilian Police Review Board (CRB)— an idea, incidentally, that never seemed to occur to anybody when Chief Ray Petersen was in charge. Such a board would make it harder for Buz and his cronies to cover up police abuses.
But there's another idea that we've heard discussed in recent weeks: The concept of an elected police chief. This is not a radical idea. We elect our sheriff. Why not our police chief?
Required qualifications? If you want to run for Sheriff here, you only need to be a registered voter in Monroe County. You don't need to be a law enforcement officer. You may recall that, not long ago, a controversial former judge was elected Sheriff here.
The same qualifications would be required to run for Police Chief here— you would have to be a registered voter in Key West. Those who would argue that only law enforcement officers should be allowed to run for Police Chief would also, presumably, argue that only law enforcement officers should be allowed to run for Sheriff.
We know that a ballot initiative movement is developing for the creation of a Civilian Review Board. A committee is forming which will submit the ballot question to the City Clerk,. The Clerk is required by law to provide petition forms. If committee members can get 10 percent of the registered voters here to sign the petitions, the question then goes on the ballot— and the people can decide. If the referendum passes, it becomes law.
Maybe petitions that support the idea of an elected police chief can be circulated along with the CRB petitions.
Running for office might give Buz an opportunity to climb into a real "arena"— rather than the one he only imagines himself in now. Well, maybe not. Buz couldn't run for Police Chief here because he neither lives nor votes in Key West.