This Times column identifies the Hammond city official who ia actually the alcoholic:
Need a cab? Hail a cop in Hammond
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BY MARK KIESLING
| Thursday, November 25, 2004 | No comments posted.
Do Hammond cops drive black-and-whites or Yellow Cabs?
The City Council and Mayor Tom McDermott have been given 911 center recordings made Sept. 3 in which an off-duty police dispatcher calls for a squad car to get a ride to a bar, followed by a request for multiple cars by the son of a veteran police sergeant who is also in a bar and apparently is in need of some assistance.
Complicating things is that the dispatcher used Fire Chief Dave Hamm's cell phone to make the call, prompting Hamm to decry the leak of the recordings as political. Which it is.
The dispatcher gave Hamm a ride to his South Hammond home from the Calumet Tap, where the chief and some fellow firefighters had stopped for a few beers. Hamm said he was not intoxicated, but wanted to take no chances with a city car and had the dispatcher, who had not been drinking, drive him home.
Smart move by Hamm, who avoided even the appearance of impropriety. When the dispatcher reached his home, she was faced with a problem. She had no way to get back to the bar.
Did she or Hamm call a cab? Or call over to the bar and have one of their party come pick her up?
No. She dialed the 911 center and had an officer sent out to drive her back to the bar.
It was a Friday night filled with the usual Friday night stuff in a decent-sized city. Shootings, burglaries. Squad cars tied up all over the city. Finally, one is shaken loose to get the dispatcher despite obvious misgivings by the on-duty dispatchers and the cop, who has his sergeant called and informed of the situation.
The whole affair raises some questions about the use of officers as cabbies for the well-connected, the "hooked up," as one dispatcher called the other.
The dispatcher who called in obviously knew her request was being recorded, and apparently did not care. Which raises the question as to whether this is a common practice.
Another call came in that night in which a cop's son requested squad cars be sent to a bar. After officers converged on the bar, one called in to say nothing was happening -- the kid had apparently had a few too many and was afraid someone might beat him up.
"Next time, talk to someone else in the bar before you put out an all-call," one of the cops told the dispatcher.
Hamm may well be right. The leak to the council may have been politically motivated. But so what? Whatever the motivation, the city needs to find out is how widespread the use of police for personal purposes is.
The people in the black-and-whites are there to serve and protect, and this is what most of them want to do.
If that's not what they're going to do, just paint the cars yellow, put a meter in the front and be done with it.
Mark Kiesling's column solely represents the opinion of the writer and not necessarily that of The Times. Readers can reach Kiesling at
markk@nwititmes.com or (219) 933-4170.
He is STILL drinking.
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