Largo must have a true hands-off philosophy

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By HOWARD TROXLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 12, 2000

Can we agree on this much?

Can we agree that it was wrong for officers of the Largo Police Department to have sex with, or consort privately with, 18-year-old members of the Police Explorers, a youth group associated with the Boy Scouts?

Apparently not.

Not only are two officers involved not fired, as the city first considered, but a disciplinary board recommended a mere reprimand. The department decided to suspend them briefly instead. Yet the police union is fighting, on the grounds that there was no written policy in place in the early 1990s when these events occurred.

"The representation that somehow or another, these Explorers were kids or children is a misnomer," Bill LauBach, executive director of the Police Benevolent Association, told me.

"They are adults. They can vote. They can buy cigarettes. They can buy automobiles. They can do everything except buy whisky.

"Relationships between male and females, at the time of these events, were not covered by any policy on fraternization," LauBach continued. (Parents will be relieved to know that now they are.)

I asked: Come on, with all respect, isn't there such a thing as using common sense? Can we never just say, these officers should have known better? Weren't they role models?

LauBach stuck firmly to his guns. "That is how these people live: They've got rules and directives, the things you should and should not, the things you can and cannot do.

"Also, we're talking 1992, not 1892."

The Largo Police Department is 75 years old and employs 123 sworn officers. Many good things can be said about it. For example, Largo is a national innovator in handling domestic violence. The department performs excellent enforcement of, and public education about, the traffic laws.

The department requires a college degree. Like police everywhere, Largo's officers protect and serve, respond to crimes, apprehend the accused and risk their personal safety. Consider Officer Kim Barnes, who on Saturday successfully disarmed a disturbed man who was lunging at her with a sword -- without killing him. Even the officers involved in the Explorer matter have done many good things, their files show.

The majority of Largo police officers are angry and embarrassed about this. They are depressed that this is what the public is hearing about their work. Some of them even disagree with their own union for defending such conduct.

The chief, Jerry Bloechle, a 20-year veteran of the department, is retiring. The stress of this scandal is one of the reasons. No doubt he feels that it is unfair that his accomplishments (for example, his innovation in the domestic-violence arena) seem to be overshadowed. I wanted to talk to him and heard through an intermediary he would talk to me if I had something positive to say, but I could not promise it to him.

The fact is, the police chief had a clue of the Explorer scandal when a troubled patrol officer mentioned it in a suicide note. Even the single hint of it, buried in a long, rambling letter, should have set off alarm bells, but it didn't.

In more recent years, the same indifference met claim after claim of sexual and gender harassment. Female civilian volunteers working in the department alleged they were stroked, touched, spoken to inappropriately. Even the union's LauBach agrees: "You can't do that kind of thing, period."

To paraphrase LauBach, this is 2000, not 1900 or 1950. There are things in modern conduct that are intolerable.

Having sex with teenagers in a program under our supervision, even if they are eager 18-year-old Lolitas, is one of these. Employees who think they have the right to stroke, grab, or verbally harass other employees are another. To the extent tolerance for these things has been part of the culture of the Largo Police Department, the new chief's top job should be to eliminate it.

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