Dodging the DOJ and every other independent audit

Mayor Richard Berry is dragging his feet on an independent investigation of the APD by the Department of Justice.

Why?

According to the Journal, link, Berry claims his resistance and concerns are only "procedural" and not based on his need to obstruct the investigation for other more nefarious reasons.

The bottom line; when all the t's have been crossed and all the i's have been dotted, the investigation will make Berry and APD Police Chief Ray Schultz look very good; honest and competent, or it will make them look bad; incompetent, possibly corrupt.

Obviously, he thinks the results will make him and Schultz look bad, or he wouldn't be obstructing it at all. If the investigation was going to make him look good, he would be falling all over himself in an effort to get the investigation done and published. In terms of re-election, he couldn't buy better press if he tried.

Marty Esquivel and Winston Brooks aren't blocking an executive and administrative standards and accountability audit of the leadership of the APS because the results will make them look good. They're obstructing it because it will make them look bad.

They spend a million dollars a year on Monica Armenta and her communications department, to look good. If a $35K audit was going to make them look good; competent and morally courageous, they would have commissioned it long ago.

They are not, for example, hiding the Caswell Report on an investigation of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrator because the investigation cleared them of wrong doing. They're hiding it because it reveals precisely the opposite.




photo Mark Bralley