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Badge? What badge?
August 15th, 2008, 5:40 pm · 28 Comments · posted by Tony Saavedra, Register investigative reporter
A few weeks ago, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens ordered the professional service responders unit – a fancy name for people who donate their talents to the department but aren’t full-fledged reserves — to turn back their official-looking badges.
This week — at the urging of our brethren at the Los Angeles Times – Hutchen’s agency checked to see how they are doing so far and counted that 42 of the PSR badges have been reported missing.
In comparison, only four badges have gone missing from the official, gun-carrying reserves unit.
Hutchens has called a mandatory PSR meeting for Saturday at 10 a.m. at the sheriff’s training facility in Tustin to talk about the badge recall and the future of the unit.
She’s expected to also warn that anybody improperly flashes a badge will be arrested and prosecuted. So far, 109 badges have been returned.
Former assistant sheriff Don Haidl has told FBI agents that the PSR program was merely a way to award donors who contributed heavily to the campaigns of former Sheriff Mike Carona.
Documents released by the department Friday showed that badges were reported lost or missing by Carona backers developer Michael Harrah, attorney Mike Schroeder and restaurateur Antonio Cagnolo.
Meanwhile, your OC Watchdog will keep an eye on Ebay.
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So, where is the list of those that were supposed to turn in their badges?
And where is the list of those that didn’t turn in their badges?
Let’s get a badge sniffing dog on the case.
I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help the following:
Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!
How about the Sheriff start fixing some of the real probelms in OCSD, instead of political posturing for the press.
I wouldn’t turn mine in I would put it next to my drivers licence to get me out of tickets just like the real cops do.
Why not design a new badge that makes the old one obsolete?
That way these political donors can keep thier trophies.
This is a good move by the Sheriff & I support it.
I hope the feds put Carona, his wife, and his girlfriend in the same cell.
They deserve each other in close quarters for several years.
She is really grasping at the low hanging fruit here, these badges don’t mean anything. They’re not official and you can’t use them anymore now that Corona is gone… the magic is gone from them.
How is the investigation into the problems at the Jail going? What steps is she taking to clean up problems INSIDE the department rather than spend time on this extraneous fluff. A bigger question is how far she is willing to go in striping away 2nd amendment rights from law abiding citizens.
But watch as the LAPD attitude starts pervading OCSD as she brings over her LAPD cronies to help make it mirror that corrupt, Federally overseen department.
Balderdash!! These rich people paid big bucks for the badges and all its’ good for is a wall trophy for bragging rights. “Look at what I got! All I had to do was give tax write-off money to the Sheriff and I got a get out of jail free card.”
To those Professional Service Civilian Responders that gave their time willingly to the citizens of Orange County, thank you for your time and efforts. To those that gave back the badges and ID cards when asked, again, thank you. To those that think this is a game your money can get you out of, and the badge is nothing more then a toy, I’ll personally place the cuffs on you, and no, you can not keep the cuffs either.
At time like this I am glad that I had to move away from Orange county.
Turn in your badge and then go to Santa Ana and get a fake one for 50 bucks.
I think they should LIST all the Reserve Sheriffs, regardless of whether or not they turned in their badges.
I know a couple of them. One is a loose cannon that I would trust with a throw pillow.
The other one can’t be trusted with his own mother….
A fine bunch of reserves who value their job that they accidentally lost their badges? What a crock.
What a joke. Sheriff Hutchens herself was embarrassed by the LA Times calling today’s meeting mandatory. Today’s meeting was all about damage control by the Sheriff to the very valuable group of men and women who give countless hours of their time to the department.
After she threw all the PSRs under the bus in several quotes in local papers recently she finally stood up and said I was wrong and I apologize.
This article is just another case of a Sheriff who shoots from the hip as she slaps the OCSD’s hard working volunteers in the face over and over again. Ironic it came out the same day she was groveling to them.
So which is it Sheriff??? Are the PSR’s one of the most valuable resources the OCSD has as said in today’s meeting? OR are they a bunch of badge stealing, Carona cronies as she acknowledges in this article???
Sheriff, leadership is standing up for the hard working people in your department. Not throwing them under the media bas every other day.
MAKES ME SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it 2010 yet?
ATTN: Tony Saavedra, OC Register Investigative Reporter
The OC REGISTER offering a LINK to the story in the LA TIMES
does NOT sound like investigative reporting to me.
Hey, bigbadjohn, I want to know where all my money is. You talk about “rich people paid big bucks for the badges”, I am not rich and never asked for a badge. I only had public service in mind when I joined the PSR program. As to your patronizing “thank you”, if I only THOUGHT you were sincere, I’d still say that you are nothing but a Hutchens suck up. Since I would have never used my badge in the way you suggest, we will never get the chance to see just how that whole, “I’ll personally place the cuffs on you”, scenario would play out. That just makes YOU sound like the “gestapo” type cop with no common since.
As someone else already said, the meeting was NOT “mandatory” and if it were, I would have resigned. One kick in the gut is all I will give anyone, EVEN the Sheriff.
You need to investigate better sir… The PSR Meeting was not mandatory. PSR’s have been told several different things about returning the “badges” and NO CLEAR DIRECTION has been given thus far. Bring them in, mail them, we’ll send you a postage paid envelope that does not arrive…
People, I am not rich. I did not give donations to any political campaign. I joined the PSR program so I could give back to my community. I donate my time, expenses and I offer my professional services to the sheriff’s department to save our county money. It’s the deputies that don’t want us volunteers to take away their overtime and give the PSR’s a bad reputation. Carona’s cronies that don’t give back to the sheriff’s department are long gone or they are still contributing!
Hutchins tells the paper one thing and the PSR’s another. Either she has multiple personality, she can’t make up her mind or the puppets are pulling her in all directions. If you don’t know what you are doing, why make a statement on it? We need a strong leader to make decisions and not waffle to the puppet masters. Step up the the pate Hutchins and make some sound decisions or go back into retirement!
Hey, bigbadjohn, I want to know where all my money is. You talk about “rich people paid big bucks for the badges”, I am not rich and never asked for a badge. I only had public service in mind when I joined the PSR program. As to your patronizing “thank you”, if I only THOUGHT you were sincere, I’d still say that you are nothing but a Hutchens suck up. Since I would have never used my badge in the way you suggest, we will never get the chance to see just how that whole, “I’ll personally place the cuffs on you”, scenario would play out. That just makes YOU sound like the “gestapo” type cop with no common sense.
As someone else already said, the meeting was NOT “mandatory” and if it were, I would have resigned. One kick in the gut is all I will give anyone, EVEN the Sheriff.
I turned my badge in today as I was requested. I don’t know how many were turned in but they collected a bunch, perhaps 100 or so.
Once again the facts were not reported correctly by the Times.
For the record:
The meeting was not mandatory.
The sheriff didn’t warn anyone about flashing badges. In fact she praised the people in the Civilian Responder program and told us that she appreciated our contributions to the department . She said trusted us not to misuse our badges. She acknowledged that only a few incidents have been reported of misuse of PSR badges in the past and they have been dealt with.
She went on to say the main problem with the badges is the Attorney General has issued an opinion that non-sworn people should not be given badges. She is looking at collecting badges from a lot of people besides the Civilian Responders.
If anyone’s interested, I wasn’t given a badge by Mike Carona. Mine was issued by Jack Anderson after completing the application process which included fingerprinting and a thorough background investigation. I never donated a penny to the Carona campaign. As a matter of fact I didn’t vote for him either.
BTW - Don Haidl is a convicted felon. While his testimony may be salacious and makes good fodder for newspaper stories, it’s probably not going to mean much in a court of law.
Hey, bigbadjohn, I want to know where all my money is. You talk about “rich people paid big bucks for the badges”, I am not rich and never asked for a badge. I only had public service in mind when I joined the PSR program. As to your patronizing “thank you”, if I only THOUGHT you were sincere, I’d still say that you are nothing but a Hutchens suck up. Since I would have never used my badge in the way you suggest, we will never get the chance to see just how that whole, “I’ll personally place the cuffs on you”, scenario would play out. That just makes YOU sound like the “gestapo” type cop with no common sense.
As someone else already said, the meeting was NOT “mandatory” and if it were, I would have resigned. One kick in the gut is all I will take from anyone, EVEN the Sheriff.
Require each person reporting their badge lost or stolen to file a crime report indicating such. Should they get caught flashing the badge at a future date then charge them with filing a false police report.
Sheriff Hutchens needs to work on the O.C. Sheriff Department, bringing up their standards and professionalism. I work with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department on a daily basis and believe me, OCSD has a long way to go. Her time would be better served on the county gang problems, than wasting her time on the PSR and CCW programs, which neither one has caused any earth shattering problems.
“Come On 2010″
That requirement already exists and so does the penalty.
Mike,
That requirement already exists and so does the penalty.
bigbadjohn - you sound silly.
In the war against crime in O.C., Antonio Cagnolo, the mega-rich restauranteur, can hit complaining customers at his restaurants over the head with a stale loaf of bread. Don’t care how much money he’s contributed to the former Sheriff’s funds. Money shouldn’t buy everything…
This whole story is about a stupid looking badge that obviously has no meaningful authority anyway. Corona sold ‘em for money to a bunch of Jr. G-Men with no appreciation of the value of money. This whole issue is just stupid.
SpenceOC Says:
This whole story is about a stupid looking badge that obviously has no meaningful authority anyway. Corona sold ‘em for money to a bunch of Jr. G-Men with no appreciation of the value of money. This whole issue is just stupid.
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Not only is the “whole issue just stupid”, so are you and everyone else that still thinks that the badges were “sold”. I know for a fact that this is not true. I and my fellow PSRs paid nothing but TIME, not a single DIME. It may sound like a broken record by now, but WE spent our TIME training and serving, with NO MONETARY compensation. What a freaking concept, people doing something for nothing. Try running a company with 400+ VOLUNTEERS, you would probably not last very long. But, put those 400+ VOLUNTEERS (just in case your feeble minds missed it, I said, “VOLUNTEERS!”) out there as an extra pair of eyes, ears, hands and feet, to assist the Law Enforcement community and now you have a formula for success. Just keep on thinking like sheep and you’ll never “get it”, just keep on believing everything the OCR, LAT and every other liberal piece of trash says and you’ll never truly learn anything about the “real world”. KEEP the stinking badges [b]SHE[/b]riff Hutchens, all we ask for is some freaking RESPECT. Not only from you, but also from your department and the media.