Chief Lenny, Born to Lose!

born loserAfter two months of patiently waiting, I finally got my hands on a copy of the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation’s Assessment Report of the North Miami Police Department.  As I previously reported, the Commission performed an on-site assessment of the police department from April 19 to April 21, 2016, which resulted in the FAILURE of the NMPD’s state recertification.

Former Police Chief Leonard Burgess publicized the “event” by issuing a press release announcing that “a team of assessors from the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA)” was coming to town on April 19, 2016 and will spend three days examining “all aspects of the North Miami Police Department’s policies and procedures, management, operations, and support services.”

Had the North Miami Police Department passed the test, Chief Lenny would have planned a huge staff party and called a press conference to announce what a great job he was doing.

But, since the North Miami Police Department FAILED under his watch, Chief Lenny was sheepishly hoping the whole thing would just quietly go away.  He should have known that the bad news wouldn’t escape the attention of the blogger.

Too bad, so sad.

The assessment team consisted of Accreditation Manager Gloria Sepanik of the Punta Gorda Police Department, Sergeant Aaron Grassi of the Clermont Police Department and Lieutenant Brandon Kutner of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.

According to the report, the problems began the moment the assessment team entered the building and began to review the department’s files.  Team Leader Gloria Sepanik wrote that the assessors “found the files contained multiple file issues which slowed the team’s progress throughout the assessment.”

Instead of maintaining police department files, Lenny was apparently too busy moonlighting at Wal-mart.  Decorating cakes.

Just saying.

Although the “assessment team worked with the agency to bring as many of their files into compliance in order to meet accreditation requirements,” it was too time consuming an ordeal and hindered the team “from spending adequate time with personnel and reviewing agency facilities.”

When the assessment team finally was able to meet with staff and review the various units in the North Miami Police Department, they found a multitude of policy FAILURES.

For starters, the assessors’ review of the department’s directive addressing agency approved less-lethal weapons revealed that the NMPD did not require a review process or for an annual inspection “to ensure expiration dates are not exceeded.”

In fact, there isn’t even a line to note expiration dates on the department’s inspection form checklist.

It should be noted that Assistant Chief Larry Juriga is directly responsible for this unit.

In all fairness, Juriga did have more pressing things to deal with.

Juriga FBEven worse, the assessment team noted that there is NO “supervisory oversight of this requirement.”

Even more embarrassing, when an assessor inspected the Taser cartridge of a Field Training Officer it was discovered “that the cartridge had expired in November of 2014.”

expiration dateIt only got worse from there.

The assessment team noted that despite a directive requiring in-service training for officers who carry weapons, “Taser training was not conducted during year 2 of this accreditation cycle.”

For the record, “year 2” happened to be the year 2014 – the same year that Chief Lenny assumed the position.

In fact, even the Taser instructor’s own certificate had EXPIRED!

The assessors’ ultimate determination that the NMPD “was unable to provide documentation (3YD) documenting yearly Taser or OC Spray training” was just icing on the cake.

Moving right along.

Directives regarding the procedures for registering sexual predators, as well as notifying the community, were found to be not in compliance with Florida Statutes.

Not only was it determined that the North Miami Police Department failed to “address the requirement in the standard to refer sexual offenders wishing to move into the municipality to the appropriate registering agency (in this case the MDPD),” but the police department’s directive also referenced “a North Miami City Ordinance which no longer exists.”

sex offenderIncompetence personified!

When it came to infectious disease training, which was required of all NMPD personnel “prior to assignment where risk of occupational exposure may occur,” again, the FAIL was EPIC!

It seems that a Crime Scene Technician, who was hired in June of 2015 by Chief Lenny, did not receive the proper training until January of 2016.

Furthermore, Hepatitis B vaccines are supposed to be “made available AFTER receipt of infectious training within ten working days of initial assignment.”  The Commission found that the same Crime Scene Technician was vaccinated in August of 2015, BEFORE she received the required training.

Note to Team LennyIt gets better.

The assessment team noted that, although the North Miami Police Department has an agency directive that specifically addresses the description, procedure, review and approval of agency directives, there is absolutely no system in place requiring the review of issuing such directives, who is authorized to issue directives, how these directives are disseminated, or “the procedures for storing and archiving agency directives.”  The team noted that the NMPD’s written directive stated that it “shall periodically review the Department’s written directives.”

For those unfamiliar with bureau-speak, what this means is:

  • There are rules.
  • No one knows who makes these rules.
  • No one knows where to find the rules.
  • No one knows how the troops are informed of the rules.
  • But, y’all are expected to follow them.

breaking all the rulesAlrighty then.

There were more problems with the police department’s procedures regarding the approval of personally owned firearms, the way photo lineups were handled, and the policy regarding the towing of vehicles.

But those were just minor problems compared to the fiasco in the property and evidence room.

For one thing, the assessors found that “jewelry, money under $1000.00 and drugs not of trafficking weight are comingled with other evidence.”

Obviously, this is a no-no.

The assessors also discovered that of an inventory of over 70,000 pieces of evidence, a grand total of 124 items were audited, and they noted that “during the assessment [Assistant] Chief Juriga advised that a full audit will be scheduled to include all evidence and property.”

I’m sure he’ll get right on it!

The Assessment Report also noted that an inspection of perishable items of evidence, which are supposed to be stored “in secure refrigerated storage,” revealed that there were three conflicting policies in place, one of which “referred to a refrigerator that was no longer in service.”

left the evidence roomDid you hurt yourself laughing yet?

At this point, it should be hilariously noted that there are two individuals directly responsible for the oversight of the property room.

The first one is Assistant Chief Larry Juriga, who has been lobbying heavily to be second in command ahead of the two new Assistant Chiefs, Neal Cuevas and Robert Bage, despite the fact that every unit under his “leadership” FAILED the accreditation assessment.

That moment when you realizeThe second is Major Franzia Brea, who’s also been bitching to anyone who’ll listen that she was passed over for a promotion, despite the fact that she’s the least qualified for the job.

Just saying.

In summary, the assessment team literally blasted all the policies that were the responsibility of Assistant Chief Larry Juriga, who reported directly to Chief Lenny, both of whom own the complete and utter FAILURE of the North Miami Police Department’s re-accreditation.

Surround Yourself with

The final assessment report did have a silver lining, however.

In its report, the Commission’s assessment team did take the time to note the exemplary policies in place under the Community Services Section, including the Code Compliance Unit, which was operated under newly appointed Assistant Chief Robert Bage.

The Commission also gave a shout-out to the NMPD’s COPS and Camp Program, the Police Athletic League (PAL), Junior Cadet Program and the Citizen’s Mobile Patrol Volunteer and Chaplain Programs, all of which were overseen by Assistant Chief Bage, and which were the direct responsibility of then-Assistant (and now Chief) Gary Eugene.

Chief Lenny may be gone, but unfortunately, he won’t be forgotten any time soon.

The disaster he left in his wake, with the help of his fellow incompetents, will now have to be cleaned up by Chief Gary Eugene and his brand new Command Staff.

Good thing NMPD’s A-Team is ready to kick ass!

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”

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12 thoughts on “Chief Lenny, Born to Lose!

  1. If this was a private company and employees performed their jobs in such an unbelievably horrendous and unsatisfactory way they would be fired. How dare the City of North Miami ask the tax payers to keep employing some of these pathetic excuses as police officers? Leonard Burgess is gone and anybody else who was directly responsible for this disgraceful failure should be terminated immediately! If that is not possible they should be reduced several ranks.

  2. Wow!!!!!! this guy gets paid 169K to play pathetic childish games with his M&M’s while at work. A real man would just grab a handful, chomp on it, and then wash it down with an ice cold beer, or Jack and Coke. If not playing games with the M&M’s you can find him in his office with the TV remote in one hand and a Shake Weight in the other, doing the unthinkable. How the heck did this clown get to be an Assistant Chief, better yet how the heck is this guy even a police officer. He should be immediately demoted to a position more suited to his intellect and personality—like Assistant Dog Catcher or station janitor. Thank the lord that change is here.

    1. Just to be clear, the M&M Facebook post was parody (sorta like Chief Lenny’s “leadership” abilities). Ironically, lots of people asked me if he really did post it on Facebook. In the interest of full disclosure, and just so Juriga doesn’t file another EEOC complaint, please note that it’s not his post.

      When I saw that picture on the internet, though, it was so hilarious (and apparently so appropriate), I just had to use it. No matter how many times I read it, it still cracks me up.

  3. It’s time for people to open their eyes and realize that Assistant Chief Juriga isn’t what they think. It’s time for Mr. Spring,Carol Keys, Scott Galvin and Kevin Burns and all the other politicians and wannabe politicians to realize that Juriga doesn’t know how to be a leader, doesn’t know how to be a supervisor, and doesn’t know how to run a police department. It’s time everyone faced the fact that they’re letting themselves be influenced by what they see in the outside and overlooking that there’s nothing on the inside. He makes an impression in a uniform and says all the right things but when you go deeper there’s nothing else. Juriga can’t run the property room, it’s stuff not people. If he can’t manage things, how do you think he can manage people or a police department? He couldn’t keep a big closet in order but you think he’s going to keep the PD operating? Open your eyes people. Juriga isn’t qualified to run a McDonalds. He never learned how to do anything because his promotions were handed to him. He never got experience do anything, never got his hands dirty and now he doesn’t know how any of the sections in the police department are run. He sits in office drinking protein shakes and farting and hoping they work on auto pilot. Now the truth is coming out and his big head is turning red and about to explode because the mask is getting pulled off his head.

    1. Funny he sounds like the Parks & Recreation Director Derrick Corcker(Deputy Director Art Sorey’s bff). Another fool who makes $100,000 who doesn’t know anything besides sleeping around with women at City Hall. All this with poor programming and events being offered to the citizens of North Miami.

  4. Arrow is spot on. Let’s look deeper into this. Juriga is an individual that will forever be known as the one that could never do anything on his own. Juriga has always had his dad propping him up or one of his dad’s buddies that still hold a position in the command staff doing the dirty work of payback by elevating Juriga to a higher position. Juriga is nothing more then a hypocrite, shallow, hollow, self serving, artificially inflated with P. E.D.’s , backstabbing, lying narcissistic loser. Whether rookie, vet, or in the middle, all will probably agree that Juriga can be compared to a Disney cartoon character. Anybody with kids will recognize immediately that Juriga can be compared to Scar from the Lion King, and all his illuminati buddies are the hyenas. Now in the movie good triumphs evil, hopefully the outcome here will be the same.

  5. Imagine what’s going on with the other departments. The City of progress I think not. All this foolery is going on, on the average tax payers dime who makes below the median income.

  6. Deputy “King” Art Sorey has been going around city hall telling folks they are planning to get rid of the new chief already since he didn’t promote people who represent the population. Let’s see how long the new A-team last.

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