Thursday, November 8, 2007

Po Po Pinocchio

Springdale's finest, the police force that says it is understaffed yet has assigned surplus officers to the federal snipe hunt unit, has been telling fibs about other things, too. The department is conducting an internal investigation into the Fraternal Order of Police fundraising scam at a softball tournament and a charity golf tournament the cops held earlier this year. Doh! Where else would they investigate?

Donors were told or led to believe that the funds would go to the "Shop with a Cop" program for underprivileged kids. Thousands of dollars were raised from trusting citizens. Turns out that 75% went to the marketing firm collecting the money, and the rest went into the pot for whatever the Fraternal Order of the Police wanted to spend on themselves.

The police and their fundraising operations do not consider themselves covered by the Do Not Call laws that allow citizens to avoid telemarketers. The next time one of them calls asking for a donation to one of their various public relations projects, ask them how that internal investigation is going.

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