CrimLaw

The Jerry Oliver Saga:

Jerry Oliver was the police chief of Richmond, Virginia. During his time things were not perfect in Richmond but since he left things have gotten a lot worse. Violent crimes - in particular murder - have spiraled out of control. "The city has had 83 homicides this year, compared with 59 at this time last year."

Chief Oliver went to Detroit where he was expected to fix a very broken police force. However, when you are a reformer brought in from the outside you had best not make even a minor error. And Chief Oliver did. He bought a .25 caliber pistol (not terribly unusual for a police officer) and while traveling had it in his checked luggage without telling airport officials. For that the feds fined him $300 and then the sharks started circling in Detroit where the County prosecutor charged him with owning an unregistered gun. Part of the problem was that Chief Oliver was not yet a certified law enforcement officer in Michigan which requires its citizens to have a permit to carry a gun. At first Chief Oliver swore he would not resign but eventually he was forced to resign (tacky website here). Detroit then appointed one of the officers from its broken police force to take his place. Of course, after Chief Oliver was put in his place he was allowed to have no punishment for having the gun.

Now, the Commonwealth Attorney in Richmond wants Chief Oliver back but the City Council is sticking with the new Chief (another reason the city needs an elected mayor).

I guess nobody wants a man who can get results. The city which is lucky enough to get the man after this will have have benefited from the loss of Richmond and the stupidity of Detroit.