Phone +1 954-764-4357 | ||
Address 3250 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, FL 33021, USA Profiles | ||
The Hollywood Police Department (HPD) is a full-service agency servicing a population of 145,629 in 27 square miles (70 km2) of the municipality of Hollywood, Florida. At full strength, the Department has 322 sworn law-enforcement officers.
Contents
History
The police department was established on 8 December 1925, along with the town itself. The department had seven chiefs in its first year of existence as the city council appointed inexperienced locals with little interest in the work.
On 17 September 1926, a massive hurricane destroyed most of the town. The local National Guard unit protected the city as the department was devastated. Captain Clare Stout headed this operation and became chief of the department less than three years later.
The Great Depression hit the town hard. By 1931, policemen were forced to drive their own cars on patrol and pay in part for their uniforms. The next year, the city was unable to meet payroll and issued letters of credit in lieu of salaries.
The number of police officers on the force varied wildly during this period. The department was understaffed, underpaid and led by chiefs who lacked professional training. During this period, the city became a base for organized crime. Despite the legal prohibition of alcohol, many illegal bars and casinos operated undisturbed by the police. “Lucky” Luciano and Meyer Lansky ran their operations from Hollywood. These activities continued into the postwar era, despite periodic attempts by the state to suppress them. Between 1947 and 1951, United States Senator Estes Kefauver and the Miami Herald highlighted local corruption and vice. This led to increased pressure that drove the biggest operations to Las Vegas and nearby Cuba.
In September 1980 an unknown number of police officers called in sick as a work action. The department’s own website reports that in the 1980s many officers were more concerned with their side jobs as security guards than with their work with the department.
In January 1986, Richard Witt became chief of police. He had served 26 years with the Miami Police Department. He was the first chief of police with professional experience and few connections to the moneyed interests in the city.
Organization
The current chief of police is Tomas Sanchez.
The department is divided into two bureaus:
Campaign against snipe signs
In 2012, the department began to use computer software to call numbers on commercial signs left on roadsides in the city. It reported as much as an eighty percent decrease in these small "snipe signs" in the city limits.
Controversy
Police Chief Rick Stone was brought in to try to reform the troubled and scandal-plagued department in 1996. He filed a RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) lawsuit on April 13, 2000 against the Broward County Police Benevolent Association and two union bosses, who were also members of the Hollywood Police Department.
In 2007, several Hollywood Police Department officers were implicated in a wide-reaching corruption investigation by the FBI, and a few officers turned state's evidence in order to reduce their potential sentences. Four officers were jailed for trafficking in heroin.
In 2009, five Hollywood Police Department officers were accused of trying to cover up a crash involving one of their own officers by lying on police reports. Officer Dewey Pressley is clearly heard on video to "draw little Disney here.." the report and as saying, "if I have to bend the rules to protect a cop I'm gonna." The audio from the incident was recorded by dashboard camera, and was reportedly full of vulgar language. On 7 January 2010, Police Chief Chad Wagner fired five officers involved in the incident. The officers were by that point in their sixth month of paid leave. On 10 April 2012, Officer Joel Francisco was sentenced to ninety days in jail after he pleaded guilty in the original accident. He had been talking on his phone when he hit the other car with his official vehicle. His record shows eight traffic accidents in his twelve years with the department. One other former Hollywood officer, Dewey Pressley, is appealing a ninety-day sentence.
On 28 December 2010, Officer Jonathan Commella beat and tasered Arben Bajra while he was handcuffed. Bajra's skull was fractured in the attack and he suffered permanent impairment. Commella had mistaken Bajra for someone. No charges were brought against either man. In November 2013 the department paid Bajra $195,000. Commella had by then moved on to be a deputy of the Broward County Sheriff.
In March 2015, the city paid $240,000 to settle a police brutality lawsuit. The suit alleged that five police officers beat up a man and planted drugs on him. At the man's criminal trial the officers testified he had ground his own face into the pavement. The case was dismissed. At about the same time, the department lost its state accreditation.
According to a 2017 report by the county inspector general, “The lack of oversight and accountability facilitated the theft of $137,609 and 1,096 pills from the Hollywood Police Department’s custody prior to January 2012,” but nobody was held criminally liable as a result.