Friday, March 13, 2009

BOFPC suspension premature?

Today I've been thinking about the unpaid suspension of Woodstock Police Officer Jim O'Doherty, and I'm wondering whether the action taken by the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners (BOFPC) was wrong.

O'Doherty was suspended with pay on March 2, and then on March 12 the BOFPC changed the suspension to "without pay" and set a tentative hearing day for March 23.

Many in the area have probably gotten their information from the article in the Northwest Herald. What if some of that information was incorrect? What if it turns out that O'Doherty is found Not Guilty, when his case gets to court?

Will the Chief and the BOFPC have made the right call by suspending him without pay? Should they even suspend him without an appearance before the Board? If a hearing is not scheduled for another ten days, and even being scheduled only "tentatively" as one Commissioner emphasized yesterday, is this an unfair administrative action for something that happened off-duty and away from the town of his employment?

Is there a rush to judgement that should have slowed down?

It seems to me that we might have a case here of "Guilty until proven innocent", instead of the other way around.

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