BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016) — As a commentator to THE PLANET noted yesterday, Pittsfield city officials would have us believe that most of the data on the PPD‘s  “Lost Records” have been recovered — all except those pertaining to the botched arrest of 88-year-old Phyllis Stankiewicz. It’s another of those “Pittsfield Coincidences” that happen in abundance always to the benefits of The Suits.

The Stankiewicz case raises a bunch of questions about the competency and leadership at the PPD. Of more concern, however, is how officials — the police, the DA‘s office, the mayor’s office — covered up the “data loss.” This leads to the most reasonable question of all: What else are they hiding? The corollary can be found in the implication: How can Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski — the honest, hard-working, taxpaying citizens who invariably end up paying for these mistakes one way or the other — believe anything the city tells them, be it about public safety, assessments, taxes, or new $200 million high schools?

Additional Points to Puncture City’s Hot Air Balloons

• In the original incident, dispatchers sent officers Dale Eason (left, in photo) and Jennifer Brueckmann (right, in photo) to check out a report of a person outside with a baseball bat. Does baseball now require a city license?
• Eason and Brueckmann show up by mistake at the home of Stankiewicz. Apparently, they confused 57 Memorial Drive with 57 Wilson St., Stankiewicz’ address.  Lt. Mark Trapani, in an e-mail to Wynn, wrote: “I listened to the call and radio transmissions regarding this unfortunate incident. The caller states that she is in the ‘Wilson Project … in front of number 57.’ She does not say 57 Wilson [S]treet. The poor performance of the dispatcher is the reason why the officers were in the wrong location.”
• Mrs. S is in the kitchen baking pies. No one is outside, let alone Ted Williams with a bat. Nonetheless, the two Barney Fifes — we won’t say “inept Barney Fifes” because this is Anti-Oxymoron Month — go to the door. Stankiweicz answers holding her “lethal” paring knife, which, by the way, is a great tool for trimming pie crust.
• The two cops, according to digBoston, “imprisoned her in her home for reasons they failed to specify.” When Stankiewicz tried to leave, the cops shoved her, and the spunky woman gave Eason a-palm-and-five in the face. The cops then put the old woman on the ground, handcuffed her, and hauled her to Allen Street. She had a bruised right arm.
• The DA declined to prosecute Stankiewicz.
• An internal e-mail written by Capt. David Granger referred to the actions of the officers as “something that could tarnish the reputation of the department for years.” Mission accomplished, and exactly the kind of information officials would want to “lose” to a hard-drive crash, an armed break-in, or a tiddely-winks champ.
• The PPD brass wanted to contain this story as much as possible. Nonetheless, word got out about, enough to pique the interest of Andrew Quemere and Maya Shaffer of digBoston. They heard about the bizarre arrest and on June 29, 2015 made a routine records request to the PPD. They were stonewalled.
• On July 1, according to internal PPD e-mails, investigator John Bassi reported having “issues” with the play-back of booking videos.
• How much faith do Granger and police chief Mike Wynn have in Eason and Brueckmann? Granger writes in an e-mail to Wynn: “I believe if we sent any other combination of officers from this department to the call it would NOT have ended in an arrest.”

If you haven’t watched this YouTube video, you should. It’s the reporter trying to contact the PPD midday during the week: : not picking up its phone and for trying to charge an unlawful $5 fee to process records requests.

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THE PLANET has two e-mails (sent Friday, re-sent yesterday) into Mayor Linda Tyer with the followup questions she invited when she issued her one and only statement on the incident, one in which she exonerated to Wynn’s department. We’re still waiting for a mayoral response.

With the budget coming up, how much longer before ordinary citizens and not just “the activists” storm city hall and take back their government? How much longer before beaten-down taxpayers throw off their chains and demand accountability?

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“What man hands his son a stone if he asks for bread or a serpent if he asks for fish?” — Jesus of Nazareth.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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