Montana officer reprimanded for unauthorized use of information

http://helenair.com/news/crime-and-courts/article_3f1f239d-26b2-54e0-8a2a-8f33cf60ad76.html

BILLINGS — Cleared in two fatal shootings and investigated for illegally keeping animals including pot-bellied pigs and a fawn on his property, Billings Police officer Grant Morrison has now received a letter of reprimand for obtaining criminal justice information for his own use.

Billings Police Chief Rich St. John said Wednesday that in late September Morrison called for information kept by the Criminal Justice Information Network and the National Crime Information Center when Morrison became concerned about a car driving periodically by his Laurel house.

“There had been a lot of rhetoric against him” including on social media following the shootings, St. John said.

Morrison requested driver’s license information, registration information and a photograph of the woman seen driving near Morrison’s house, St. John said.

Morrison shot and killed 38-year-old Richard Ramirez in April 2014 and 32-year-old Jason James Shaw in February 2013. He was cleared in coroner’s inquests after both incidents.

He’s since been assigned to a Drug Enforcement Agency prescription drug task force and as such does not respond to calls for service, St. John said.

The chief said he was satisfied by Morrison’s job performance in his new assignment.

On the day in question in late September, Morrison, according to St. John, was requesting the information from the CJIN and the NCIC and, in a subsequent call for the license plate check, from an officer assigned to light duty. “We get those requests all the time. They run the information, and they give it to (the officer),” St. John said.

The problem with Morrison’s request, St. John said, is that officers can seek information from crime databases only when pursuing a case — not for their personal use.

St. John said Morrison, a Laurel resident, should have checked with the Laurel Police Department if he feared for his safety or that of his family.

The CJIN/NCIC technician on duty when Morrison’s request came in took the information to Sgt. Neil Lawrence. After that, police administrators determined there’d been a violation of the rules and that Morrison had obtained the information inappropriately, St. John said.

The corrective action chosen was the letter of reprimand, which will remain in Morrison’s file for two years, St. John said.

The Billings Police Department employs a progressive discipline system by which similar violations can ramp up punishment for officers. Punishment that does not result in a suspension is generally handled by sergeants, the department’s frontline supervisors, St. John said, and then reviewed by officials higher up in the department.

Any punishment that involves an unpaid suspension requires signoff by the chief himself. At that point, St. John said, officers in certain circumstances have two choices — serve the suspension at home without pay, or serve the suspension with pay, but with additional requirements designed to teach and clarify preferred practices.

Those requirements can include additional training through such tools as the FBI’s virtual academy and having the suspended officer write a paper on proper procedures. St. John said he’s been known to require that those officers also write reports on such books as Steven R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

Suspended officers have several weeks to write the reports and are paid for their efforts, he said.

A decision on whether to allow the officer to participate in a paid suspension with the additional written requirements depends on how salvageable the officer’s career is deemed to be, St. John said.

Education-based discipline “has proven to be an excellent tool,” St. John said. In the 10 years he’s been chief of police, not one officer has opted for suspension without pay, he said.

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