SAVANNAH CHATHAM METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT – CORRUPTION

Willie Lovett was promoted to Chief of the SCMPD in April, 2010 after having served as Assistant Chief and twice as Interim Chief. At the time of his September, 2013 retirement he had served the department for 40 years. During the current inquiry MDBI attempted to determine the role played by Lovett in the chain of events concerning Malik Khaalis and Willet Williams. In shmt, it appears that Lovett chose to have little involvement in matters and determined, by his own admission, that the allegations and evidence against Williams and Khaalis did not represent serious violations of SCMPD policy. Accordingly, he participated in relevant events as follows:

  • On June 3, 2010, when informed that the FBI and CNT were to present a briefing on possibly criminal misconduct by Khaalis and Williams, he dispatched Captain Dean Fagerstrom and two other officers assigned to IA to the FBI office to attend.
  • Subsequent to the FBI presentation he received a briefing by IA conceming the allegations against Khaalis and Williams, chiefly concerning an April 16, 2009 surveillance during which Khaalis and Williams were determined to be in telephonic contact, resulting, in the opinion ofthe FBI and CNT, in compromise ofthe surveillance.
  • Lovett was also briefed by IA concerning a written statement prepared by CNT LT. Russ Smith detailing the unauthorized depat1ure of Khaalis from the CNT wire room, his initiation of a traffic stop of a subject and his subsequent lie to Smith to the effect he had discussed these actions with the case officer.
  • He was briefed by IA again in July, 2010 after a second meeting with the FBI and was told that Khaalis had failed a polygraph exam and that the FBI would never again work a case in which Khaalis was involved. He was also told by IA that the FBI would provide no further documentation oftheir investigation.
  • In August, 2010 Lovett instructed that Khaalis be returned to active duty.
  • On September 10, 2010 Lovett was briefed in his office by CNT Commander Harris, theUnited States Attorney and the FBI regarding details ofthe case against Khaalis.
  • On October 5, 20I0 Lovett was personally given by County Attorney Jonathan Hart a detailed memorandum prepared by CNT Commander Roy Han·is conceming theinvestigation ofKhaalis.
  • When interviewed by MDBI, Lovett stated that if he had seen the Harris memorandum hewould have handled things differently. His attention was drawn to the fact that he hadseen the memorandum.
  • lA officers have stated that Lovett never shared the Harris memorandum with lA,although they heard that such a memorandum existed.
  • When questioned by MDBI as to why he did not forward the Han·is memorandum to lAfor their consideration, Lovett had no explanation.
  • By Special Order of Chief Lovett dated October 29, 2010 the Delatorre brothers and EricBroome, who had patticipated in the CNT investigation of Khaalis, were transferred fromCNT to patrol precincts.
  • MDBI has been told that such transfers by special order of the Chief are rare and thatalthough a policy exists for rotation of CNT officers after five years, it is rarely observed.
  • Lovett stated that as Chief he did not get involved in assignment of officers to specific precincts, even though in the case ofthe Delatorres and Broome, the transfers to precincts came directly from the Chiefs office. He denied that the transfers had anything to do withretaliation.
  • In November, 20I0 Lovett instructed IA Captain Hank Wiley to prepare a Letter ofTransmittal, covering the final IA Report and send it to him for approval. The LOT was to state that the evidence presented by CNT and the FBI proved no violations of policy and that the documents received had been reviewed by the City Attorney’s Office, who could find no evidence of illegal activity by Khaalis.
  • There is no record of the City Attorney’s Office conducting any such review; the City Attorney (at that time) and his Assistant (at that time) deny being consulted in this matter; the County Attorney only recalls meeting with Lovett for the purpose of delivering the Harris memorandum and does not recall giving legal opinions regarding illegal activity by Khaalis.
  • On November 16, 2010 Lovett initialed the LOT, finding that all allegations of violations by Khaalis and Williams were unsustained.
  • Lovett stated that the handling of this LOT was irregular and that SOP was that Captain Paul McBurney at CNT should have prepared the LOT. It was his belief, however, that McBurney would not have done anything with the information in the lA Report.
  • During his MDBI interview, Lovett stated that he based his decision to exonerate Khaalis on a “one page report” he had been given. This report was determined by MDBI to be a one page surveillance log concerning the April 16, 2009 surveillance of James Williams, with an attached document showing details of telephone contacts between Khaalis and Willet Williams and Willet Williams and James Williams.
  • While Khaalis was on Administrative Leave, Lovett allowed him to take the exam for Sergeant and at some subsequent point promoted him to that rank.

During the course of the MDBI inquiry, representations relating to Chief Lovett, but extraneous to the Khaalis/Williams matter were brought to the attention of the investigators. Examples follow:

Major Geraldine Long was forced into retirement by Lovett because of a disagreement involving wearing of “mourning bars” at a funeral. Lovett explained that he had ordered that the mourning bars not be worn because the deceased had not died in the line of duty. He received word that Long had countermanded his order, resulting in him (Lovett) instructing that an IA investigation be opened.

Information was received that a former SCMPD Officer, Kendall Brown, effected a drug-related arrest of an individual determined to be the step son of Cleveland Lovett, nephew of Chief Willie Lovett. At the time Cleveland Lovett was a Sergeant in SCMPD IA. The information indicated that subsequent to this arrest Lovett initiated a campaign wherein he opened numerous spurious IA investigations of Brown, culminating in Brown resigning from SCMPD. It was determined that only one IA investigation of Brown took place subsequent to the November, 2005 arrest and that the case occasioning Brown’s departure from SCMPD was a complaint o f use o f excessive force. The validity o f the complaint was corroborated by others.

Further, no evidence was discovered indicating that Lovett attempted to influence events at the scene of his step son’s arrest or that he engaged in any form of retaliation against Brown

Law enforcement is a difficult and often dangerous profession. Unit cohesion is essential to the accomplishment of the mission and the underpinning of such cohesion is an implicit trust in the integrity of one’s colleagues. Police officers assigned to elite elements such as CNT draw much of their strength and confidence from their association with individuals working toward a common goal. Once a member of the team begins to display bizarre behavior and take actions that lead him to be suspected of consorting with the opposition he becomes a distraction and over time this inevitably results in a diminution of the essential bond of trust. This undeniably occurred at CNT when it was discovered that Khaalis had contacted Willet Williams during a surveillance and then Willet contacted the target of the surveillance, effectively compromising the operation.

As MDBI investigators reviewed documentation and carried out interviews several things became apparent. The first thing is that during the period under review CNT was staffed by some extraordinarily talented and industrious officers. Of particular note, Interim Chief Tolbett pointed out that the Delatorre brothers and Eric Broome were viewed as strong investigators and it is obvious that they were strong leaders. The second thing that became clear was that inexplicable things began to hinder important investigations and because Khaalis and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Willet Williams became prime leak suspects, CNT and DEA were forced to expend what should have been an unnecessary amount of effort on non-mission related activities. For example, time and effort were spent moving cases from CNT to DEA and then back in an attempt to protect investigative information and uneatth the leaker; time was spent placing and monitoring a GPS device on Khaalis’ car; Khaalis’ activities within CNT were regularly monitored; and, for reasons of operational security, key management officials such as Lt. Russ Smith and Captain Paul McBurney were kept in the dark. This last item caused many difficult situations, such as an increasingly frustrated Lt. Smith being told by Director Harris to take no action regarding unacceptable behavior by Khaalis and Lt. Smith becoming upset with Pete Delatorre when he, with the approval of Director Harris, made it appear that the James Williams case was not being pursued.

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