On April 25, 2016, in Chief Lenny’s Epic Fail,  I reported that the North Miami Police Department failed it’s accreditation assessment performed by the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation.

One week later, this stunning failure led to the abrupt – and humiliating – resignation of then Chief of Police Leonard Burgess.

In typical Lenny fashion, he refused to man up and take responsibility for the wreckage he single-handedly created.  He then spent the next seven days desperately searching for someone or something else to blame.  When he finally ran out of scapegoats, Chief Lenny simply took his toys and went home to Miramar.

Unfortunately for the City of North Miami and its Police Department, the fallout from the loss of state accreditation is far from over.

According to the Florida Accreditation Organization, the benefits of maintaining accreditation standards are immeasurable to both the community and its police department.  Some of the more crucial benefits listed on its website are:

• Accreditation increases the law enforcement agency’s ability to prevent and control crime through more effective and efficient delivery of law enforcement services to the community it serves.
• Increases cooperation and coordination with other law enforcement agencies and other branches of the criminal justice system.
• Accreditation serves as a yardstick to measure the effectiveness of the agency’s programs and services. The services provided are defined, and uniformity of service is assured.
• Accreditation streamlines operations, providing more consistency and more effective deployment of agency manpower.
• The morale of the agency is enhanced by increasing the employees’ confidence in the effectiveness and efficiency of their own agency. Operations become more streamlined and consistent.
• Accreditation is a coveted award that symbolizes professionalism, excellence, and competence. Employees will take pride in their agency, knowing that it represents the very best in law enforcement.

Needless to say, the loss of state accreditation by the North Miami Police Department is devastating for all of its police officers and the community as a whole.

Sadly, this catastrophe could have been prevented.

But, what’s even more incredible is that certain members of Chief Lenny’s former Executive Command Staff are still  covering for him by deliberately withholding information from me, despite numerous public records requests.

You’d think they would have learned by now.

On April 22, 2016, I submitted Public Records Request 798, which read:

According to a public notice from the North Miami Police Department, which was also posted on Facebook, the department completed its accreditation assessment yesterday.

Please provide copies of the complete results of this assessment, including the areas which were assessed and the final grade that each assessed area received.   Please also provide proof of the agency’s accreditation status.

On May 3, 2016, I received a response from Major Franzia Brea dated April 28, 2016, advising me:

Three weeks later on May 18, 2016, I sent an email inquiring about the status of my request.  I was told the department had still not received the report.

On May 24, 2016, I sent another email, and I was advised by Major Brea that she had still not received the report.

I immediately wrote back to her:

Thank you for writing.

May I have a copy of the preliminary report in the meantime.

If there is none, how was the North Miami Police Department made aware that it was non-compliant with the accreditation standards?

On May 26, 2016, she wrote back:

I apologize, I was out of the office most of the day, yesterday.  We do not have a preliminary report.  The North Miami Police Department was made aware of non-compliance issues verbally by the lead assessor of the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA).

By now, I was getting a tad annoyed at Major Brea’s stalling tactics, not to mention her treating me like an idiot.  I also happen to know she was lying to me about being out of the office the day before, but whatever.  I immediately wrote back:

Major Brea,

I’m assuming that someone took notes during this verbal communication.  Therefore, please provide me with any and all documentation, including personal or official notes and communications, including handwritten, email, digital, video, and/or audio with any city official, including Mayor, Council, City Manager, and/or police department personnel, pertaining to any meeting or meetings, verbal communications, notifications, and internal memoranda, regarding the accreditation assessment results.

Thank you,

Stephanie

Eleven days later on June 6, 2016, I finally received SOME of the public records I requested.  I was also advised that a CD containing the emails I requested was available for pick up at a cost of $5.00.

The records I received via email included a copy of a letter dated May 20, 2016 from Chief Lenny to the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation, in which he never addressed the areas his department FAILED, but he did manage to list “a sample of our continuous successes that we have accomplished during our past accreditation cycle, from April 2013 to April 2016.”

He closed his shameless, and patently false, self-promotion with, “The North Miami Police Department pledges to work vigorously to prevent any issues from interfering with our ability to meet all accreditation standards at this time and for years to come.”

The second part of my request also included individual Action Plans that Chief Lenny intended to implement in order to bring the department into accreditation compliance for four of the areas they FAILED.  The areas he addressed were the Annual Dart-Firing Stun Gun training, its procedure for the registration and community notification of sex offenders, its procedures for property and evidence held by the department, and its infectious disease training program.

According to these Action Plans, Chief Lenny’s excuses for failing to pass the accreditation standards ranged from “a sudden change in staffing late in the year of 2013,” to we “believed that the policy was in compliance,” to “prior successful accreditation assessments never indicated this non-compliance concern.”

In other words, “It’s Bush’s fault.”

Not literally, of course.

As an interesting, but important, aside, when former Chief Marc Elias was appointed, the property room had been an abject disaster under Assistant Chief Larry Juriga.  Chief Elias even called in the Miami-Dade Public Corruption Unit to investigate the situation for possible criminal negligence.  Chief Elias worked hard to resolve the problems and progress was well under way until Chief Lenny decided to make sweeping changes in the department.  He assigned Major Franzia Brea to oversee the unit, under the “guidance” of Larry Juriga.

We can see how well that worked out.

We can also see why Major Brea is loathe to my digging too deep for information.

As expected, Chief Lenny absolutely refused to take responsibility for any one of these failures, despite the fact that every one of them occurred under his watch.  No one should be surprised that he’s trying to save face.

After all … Walk and Talks!

Or something.

More infuriatingly, after over a month of trying, I still had to get my hands on the second part of my public records request – the CD that hopefully contained the “smoking gun” emails.  So I arranged for a member of my research team, who works in North Miami, to pick up the CD on her lunch hour yesterday.  Imagine my surprise this morning when I opened the file to find …

… Copies of all the emails sent between the North Miami Clerk’s office, Major Franzia Brea and … ME!

Not one email between Chief Lenny and his staff!

Not one email between anyone in the NMPD Executive Command Staff and each other!

Not one email between the NMPD and the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation!

Zip, zilch, bupkes, NADA!

The only documents included on that CD were copies all of the emails that I already had.  Most of them, in fact, were my own emails!

So, yeah, I am PISSED!

I find it completely incredulous – not to mention suspicious – that not one individual in the entire Executive Command Staff of the North Miami Police Department corresponded with anyone at all via email (other than the blogger) about the failure of its accreditation assessment.

REALLY?

Here’s the thing.

Chief Lenny might be ultimately responsible for this major screw up, but there is certainly plenty of blame to go around.

Despite Major Franzia Brea’s insistence that she still has not received a written final report, and despite her refusal to provide me with the complete documentation I requested, I’m well aware of specific information that she and her cronies would prefer to keep hidden from the public eye.

It’s important to first note that Dale Briganti, Manager of the NMPD Accreditation Unit, is charged with the monitoring, assessing, and reviewing all departmental standard operating policies and procedures in order to ensure that the department is within accreditation standards.  In fact, Ms. Briganti attends conferences and seminars on a regular basis, at considerable cost to the city, which are designed to keep her abreast of current state accreditation standards.

As the Accreditation Manager, Ms. Briganti is supposed to be  doing her job continuously throughout the year, and not just when the assessors are scheduled to arrive.  Once the assessment team shows up, it’s too late to fix any problems.

And, as we all now know, that ball was dropped.

Spectacularly!

In light of Dale Briganti’s managerial debacle, Chief Lenny’s attempt to blame his monumental failure on “a sudden change in staffing late in the year of 2013” could not be more ironic.

Dale Briganti is a civilian employee (and retired police officer) who took advantage of the city’s Early Retirement Incentive Program, which went into effect on November 12, 2013 by Ordinance 1361.  She then was retained as a contract employee by the North Miami Police Department, and has continued to serve as its Accreditation Manager ever since.

Furthermore, it was Leonard Burgess’ decision to keep Dale Briganti on the department’s payroll instead of replacing her with a full time city employee.

He owns this one!

The North Miami Police Department also failed in four additional areas for which no Action Plans have yet been formulated.  These areas include non-departmental issued firearms, less-lethal weapons, photo line-ups and the department’s wrecker policy.

In addition to Accreditation Manager Dale Briganti, the other individuals who oversee and manage all of the areas in which the agency FAILED its accreditation assessment are:  Assistant Chief Larry Juriga, Major Franzia Brea, Major Trevor Shinn, and Sgt. Ernie Reyes.

With the exception of Sgt. Reyes, all the above assignments were made by Chief Lenny.

Yet he had the incredible CHUTZPAH to claim the assessment failure was due to “a sudden change in staffing late in the year of 2013.”

Lenny might have thought he could bamboozle the Commissioners of the Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation board – the same way Major Franzia Brea thinks she outsmarted me – but nothing could be further from the truth.

The good news is that Chief Lenny is now the problem child of the Miramar Police Department.

The bad news is that the folks who aided and abetted Chief Lenny’s utter incompetence are still high ranking officers of the North Miami Police Department.

Chief Lenny’s puppetmaster, Assistant Chief Larry Juriga, currently oversees Investigations, Communications, Training and Property.

Major Franzia Brea, who was assigned by Chief Lenny to take over the property and evidence room, was a Chief Lenny bootlicker.

Major Trevor Shinn, the head of the Investigative Section, is in charge of firearms training, and is also one of Lenny’s flunkies.

All of them directly reported to Chief Lenny, and ALL OF THEM are solely and directly responsible for the North Miami Police Department’s FAILURE to pass the current state accreditation assessment.

Just saying.

North Miami residents deserve better!

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”