Reasonable Doubt

Shreveport, Louisiana citizens should feel safer knowing one more cop has been added to the police force. Or do they? Reinstated is a better word and safety is a matter of circumstance or opinion. The facts surrounding the nationally known events between Wiley Willis and Angie Garbarino are a blurry "he said she said" but the flaws in the police procedure in this instance have never been clearer.

In a previous blog published on this site by 'Cops Busted', an account of what happened to Garbarino while in custody was detailed. A search on the internet brings up the shocking video and pictures. Angie Garbarino was taken into custody on suspicion of DWI and ended up being taken from the police station on a stretcher.

"Much of what happened was recorded on a videotape, but there is a gap of undetermined length. During that time, the woman wound up injured. She said she was beaten up; the officer said she fell," Cops Busted explains in the earlier mentioned blog.

Wiley Willis, who was put on suspension and then later fired for "violating departmental policy" while arresting Garbarino, was reinstated with a year and a half back pay and all benefits, to his place on the Shreveport Police force following a hearing with the city's Civil Service Board on Wednesday, August 12, 2009. Wiley had appealed his dismissal on the grounds that his Police Bill of Rights had been violated when the investigation was not finished in 60 days, and because the polygraph expert had failed to record the test as required. The findings of the 7 person panel was that his Police Bill of Rights had indeed been violated when the results of his polygraph test were not recorded.

The Shreveport Times online reports that "Wayne Nissen, who administered the polygraph, testified before the board that he was aware the police department was investigating Willis' actions. He said he wasn't given a line of questions to ask during the exam but was told to ask questions about the night of Garbarino's arrest."

Learning that there was a polygraph test that was never recorded seems to have many people asking the same question and coming to a grim speculation. If Willis' account of the night in question had been confirmed in a polygraph exam, why didn't wouldn't the city happily record and release the findings, exonerating themselves as well as the officer employed by them? If the polygraph exam had confirmed Willis' story why did the city so readily agree to a settlement with Garbarino? And if the polygraph exam was favorable to their officer, shouldn't they have shouted it to every media source that had flamed them? It is a strange circle of events Willis has used the very thing that would infer his guilt or innocence, to seek reinstatement.

In my own opinion a more disturbing issue than the test lurks centering around Wileys other claim of "violation of the police bill of rights." With so much public and legal scrutiny about police procedure, how could the city overlook the 60 day deadline of concluding the investigation? Why WAS the suspension deadline breached that gave him grounds to get his job back?

However, according to The Shreveport Times online "Civil Service Board members found no fault with the city's actions in those matters but unanimously cited the failure to tape the exam."

Sources: .
The Shreveport Times Online http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090813/NEWS03/908130319&template=printart.
http://beta.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090812/NEWS03/90812012&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL.
Cops Busted http://cops-busted.com/blogs/1/Start-a-Blog-on-Cops-Bustedcom.html