Page 3 - Florida Sentinel 12-25-20

Feature
Attorney Says, ‘Detective Badgered In Toxic Workplace’
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
Last week, a Tampa Po- lice Detective was suspended without pay and arrested on 2 counts of tampering with evidence and 1 count of for- gery. She is also most likely to be terminated.
Newly promoted, Detec- tive Jarda Bradford, is accused of tampering with evidence and forging the sig- nature of a witness.
According to police, the incident occurred in October pertaining to an attempted murder case. Detective Bradford composed a photo lineup. One of the in- dividuals in the lineup was wearing earrings. Depart- ment policy states the pic- tures to be uniform and the earrings be covered up in line with the other photos.
Detective Bradford re- portedly did not cover them at the time she showed the photo lineup to a witness. She is accused of realizing the mistake and covering the earrings before placing it back into evidence. She is also accused of failing to get the signature of the witness and forging it on the new photo lineup, police said.
Bradford’s Attorney Makes Statement
Attorney Richard “Rick” Escobar is repre- senting Detective Brad- ford in this case.
During a telephone inter- view, Attorney Escobar said Detective Bradford was promoted and assigned to District II, she went into a toxic environment. She had only 20 minutes of training in her new role. Between July and October, 6 detec- tives left and only one of them left because of promo- tion. All 6 of them worked for the same Sergeant, he said.
Another female, Detec- tive Flanagan, was as- signed as a mentor to Detective Bradford. How- ever, Detective Bradford was the lead detective in this case.
Speaking about the events that led to Detective Bradford’s arrest, Attor- ney Escobar said she made procedural errors, but did not break the law.
Jarda Bradford worked in community relations while an offi- cer.
comment on the case be- cause it is in litigation.
Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan responded to a series of questions submit- ted about the case. The ques- tions and answers are as follows:
Chief Dugan said, “The Tampa Police Department is committed to transparency and our community is enti- tled to it, in this and in all cases. The department has a history of holding a press conference upon the firing of an officer due to criminal ac- tivity and/or egregious mis- conduct in the performance of their duties.
“Across the nation, the public has spoken loudly over the past few months de- manding transparency and accountability in their police agencies. We heard these calls and agree that when misconduct is recognized, the individual must be held accountable and the public is entitled to be informed of their actions and the depart- ment’s investigation.”
Question: In the in- vestigation that led to the charges lodged by you was there presence of intent? I read the CRA, but didn’t read anything that indicated
her actions were of crim- inal intent. Was it her in- tent to correct an administrative error or is there any evidence that she was attempting to help the defendant by her actions?
Chief: Bradford’s ac- tions in this case were inves- tigated by detectives and presented to the State Attor- ney for thorough review. The State Attorney agreed that Bradford’s actions rose to the level of criminal activity. The case was then presented to a judge for additional review. The judge also agreed that the charges were sound and signed off on an arrest war- rant due to her actions.
Question: How did you all reach the conclu- sion that her actions warranted that she be arrested and charged, al- luding to criminal in- tent, as opposed to her making an error that could have been viewed as “administrative by a novice detective?”
Chief: The decision to charge Bradford was based solely on the fact that she consciously committed a crime — not a mistake.
He explained that Detec- tive Bradford was busy when Detective Flanagan approached her about creat- ing another photo pack to show to another witness.
“She printed the photo pack and gave to Detective Flanagan who said she would take care of showing it to the witness. Detective Flanagan reportedly gave it to a street officer who met with the witness. The witness was unable to select the sus- pect in the case. It was at that time she realized the ears had not been blackened in the photo pack.”
He further said it was at that time Detective Brad- ford allegedly blackened the ears in the photographs.
The procedure was to write on the back of the photo pack if the witness had identified the correct sus- pect. However, since the wit- ness was unable to identify the suspect, Detective Bradford reportedly wrote her initials on the front of the photo pack to link it to the correct witness.
Attorney Escobar said Detective Bradford was to cover herself and she noted in the police report that the witness was not able to iden- tify the suspect when shown the photo pack.
“It’s not a crime. In the statute, you must prove spe- cific intent. She didn’t de- stroy evidence to prevent prosecution.”
He also said that he had spoken with Chief Dugan and asked for more time, until Friday, before the arrest was made. However, Chief Dugan arrested her the fol- lowing day.
Attorney Escobar fur- ther said he learned from a
credible witness that State Attorney Warren had in- structed Chief Dugan to di- rect file the case so that he could review it and deter- mine if charges would be filed, but Chief Dugan elected to make the arrest in- stead.
Attorney Escobar also pointed out the retention rate of Blacks. African Amer- ican officers must struggle to survive at the Tampa Police Department. He said that less than 10% of the officers on the department are Black. And, that for every 2 hired, only one is retained.
“Detective Bradford
came to the department with 5 years experience. She was a Certified Field Training Offi- cer before she came. But she had to work 10 years to get promoted to detective while others were sergeants with less time.”
He also pointed out other instances where officers should have been disciplined but were not.
State Attorney Comments
Andrew Warren,
Hillsborough County State Attorney said, “Every officer — every person — knows it is against the law to forge someone else’s signature on a legal document. And from their earliest days on the force, every rookie officer learns it’s a crime to alter ev- idence in any way.
“This is not a lack of training at the detective level — these are decisions even a first-year officer should not make, and they undermine the public’s trust in the entire justice system.”
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said she could not
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