Green Bay officers punished for harassment

GREEN BAY — With two officers forced out and others facing discipline, Chief Andrew Smith has put the Green Bay Police Department on notice Friday.

“We have a policy on hazing,” Smith said at a press conference Friday afternoon. “There shall be none. My standard for racial comments is zero. There will be none. No jokes, no funny expressions, nothing derogatory. The standard is zero, people on the department know that, and if they didn’t know it before, they know it now: It’s never OK.”

A lieutenant with seven years’ experience and a patrol officer who had worked for the department for about three years resigned before Smith could fire them, Smith said Friday.

The two were the most egregious offenders in a small clique of officers, mostly on the night shift, who had harassed co-workers for about 18 months, Smith said.

A female officer finally told another officer she’d had enough, and that officer reported the issue to supervisors on Dec. 13, Smith said. That launched an internal investigation that’s still under way.

Smith expects no other firings or resignations, but some officers could  be suspended for several days, he said. And those who survive will be split up, spread across different shifts so they don’t operate as a group, Smith said.

Internal investigators are also checking to make sure no supervisors looked the other way or failed to respond to reports of the harassment, Smith said.

In all, maybe a half-dozen officers were responsible for harassing about that same number of black, Hispanic, Asian and female officers, Smith said.

“It was a small group that thought it was OK to demean other people or pick on the ones they thought were not part of the ‘in’ crowd,” Smith said.

Although the harassment and derogatory comments were never directed to members of the public, it could have affected the way police dealt with a particular problem in the community, Smith said.

“If an officer showed up on call to provide backup and it was somebody they didn’t particularly like or wanted, they would make them the subject of harassment, they’d dismiss them,” Smith said.

Smith notified the District Attorney’s office, not because any of the harassment reached the level of a crime, but to allow prosecutors to make sure none of cases they are working on were affected by the removal of these officers or by signs of possible bias by them, Smith said.

Smith also notified the city’s Police & Fire Commission as well as some of the ethnic and religious groups with whom the department has been working to build bridges, Smith said.

Officer Aaron Walker, one of a small number of black officers in the department, declined to say whether he was subjected to any kind of harassment or racial slurs.

“For me personally, I take the job one day at a time,” he said. “If somebody thought ill of me or less of me, the reality is, I do my job pretty well, my wife likes me, the chief likes me, I couldn’t care less what someone else thinks.”

Walker said a small group of officers, “a kind of exclusive group of guys,” let things get out of hand.

“I’m just glad (the chief) took the appropriate action to make things work,” he said.

Smith said he expects the internal investigation will continue for at least another couple of months.

Officer Mike Knetzker, vice president of the Green Bay Professional Police Association, said the union fully supports Smith's response.

“Hopefully, we’ll all become better because of it,” he said.

He predicted the disciplinary action would cause no lingering morale problems because “They all realize their morale is their problem. We are in control of our morale.”

psrubas@pressgazettemedia.com and follow him on Twitter@PGpaulsrubas