OFFICER'S REINSTATEMENT SHOULD CLOSE THIS CHAPTER

Rank-and-file officers of the Tallahassee Police Department have
every right to feel undermined and slighted by the comments of Chief
Dennis Jones regarding the recommended reinstatement of Investigator
Ryan Pender.

Mr. Pender was fired for his role in a high profile tragedy in 2008,
the drug deal gone bad that ended in the death of informant Rachel
Hoffman and sent her two attackers in prison for life.

Last week, an arbitrator ordered the city to reinstate Mr. Pender
along with back pay and benefits, saying that at most he should
receive a written reprimand for allowing Ms. Hoffman to be frisked by
a male officer.

Chief Jones, however, has declined to support the reinstatement of
the one officer, Mr. Pender, who appears to be the "fall guy" for the
department's lack of adequate policies and rules governing the use of
confidential informants.

"It was a slap in the face to everybody," wrote Fraternal Order of
Police President Mauricio Endara of Mr. Jones' resistance to bringing
Mr. Pender back on the job. "I've never seen the morale be so low."

No one is questioning that mistakes in judgment were made during the
May 7, 2008, drug operation in which Mr. Pender was Ms. Hoffman's
primary police contact. But without spelled-out departmental
procedures and approval of operational plans by his superiors, Mr.
Pender, with a history as a fine officer, ought not be isolated and
suffer such career-ending punishment.

"We do regret the situation that it took for the lack of procedures
to be recognized," Mr. Endara wrote, saying the force welcomes Mr.
Pender back. "But we are encouraged that a review and implementation
of better procedures will certainly improve the way our Department
functions as a whole."

Mr. Jones seems to be framing the situation as a power struggle
between employers and employees, saying arbitrators "are generally
known to favor the employee over the employer."

But for the citizens of Tallahassee, the morale and confidence of
those employees -- the law-enforcement officers who are on-the-street
guards of public safety -- it is important that they feel their
department, their chief and city officials right up to the city
manager won't leave them hanging when something unexpectedly awful
goes wrong in an operation of this magnitude.