Journalistic ethics: a matter best ignored by Hearst journalists?

Ethics at George Randolph Hearst III's newspaper the Albany Times Union?

Subject: "Chief" J. "Frank" Wiley [Re: "Man charged in lewd behavior case at UAlbany": Correction]

Date: February 18, 2013 1:55:33 PM EST

To: "Buckley, Teresa"

On Feb 18, 2013, at 12:34 PM, "Buckley, Teresa" wrote:

| we had no reason to change Frank Wiley’s title from chief because it’s correct.

A straightforward answer, and I can respect that. A straightforward question: is that an assumption on the part of the Times Union or is it a statement based on evidence? The latter was what I was hoping to find.

Not being a lawyer myself, I can't be absolutely certain, but it had seemed to me that Mr. Wiley might not be chief for the following reasons, somewhat hastily written and not very easily put in digest form:

On August 2, 2012 I'd filed a FOIL request with UAlbany for Mr. Wiley's Oath of Office. I never received an acknowledgement of my FOIL request, but I was e-mailed a threat the next day from UAlbany that I may not communicate with (among others) their Records Access Officers. I'm pretty sure there's no provision in FOIL for issuing such threats?

There's a SUNY Oath of Office procedure item requirement http://www.suny.edu/sunypp/documents.cfm?doc_id=546 , citing N.Y. CIV. SERV. LAW § 62, N.Y. EDUC. LAW § 3002, and N.Y. Const. Art. 13 § 1. Both the SUNY webpage and the N.Y. EDUC. LAW § 3002 even state, "These oaths or statements must be available for public inspection" and "Such oaths or statements shall be available for public inspection" - seemingly FOIL would not even be required to obtain them. The latter also states "It shall be unlawful for an officer, person or board having control of the employment, dismissal or suspension of teachers, instructors or professors in such a school, college, university or institution, to permit a person to serve in any such capacity therein in violation of the provisions of this section."

I resubmitted the August 2, 2012 request not to UAlbany (since I'd been threatened about that) but to the NYS Department of State, and the DoS wrote me that Mr. Wiley has no Oath of Office on file for 1996 when he was hired, or 1999 when SUNY police were promoted from peace officers to police officers. Mr. Wiley would seemingly thus have vacated his office back in 1996 under N.Y. PUB. OFF. LAW § 30 (1) (h) and the legal precedent in People ex rel. Walton v. Hicks (173 App. Div. 338, affd. 221 N.Y. 503), at 341 which states of the New York Public Officers Law:

"This statute is emphatic and unequivocal. It does not seem possible that it can be misunderstood. In case a person appointed to office neglects to file his official oath within 15 days after notice of appointment or within 15 days after the commencement of the term of office, the office becomes vacant, ipso facto. That is all there is to it. No judicial procedure is necessary. No notice is necessary. Nothing is necessary. The office is vacant, as much so as though the appointee is dead. There is no incumbent, and the vacancy may be filled by the proper appointive power".

According to N.Y. EDUC. LAW § 3002 it would also seem to have been unlawful to employ him as an instructor, should he indeed lack an Oath of Office on file as required, as the NYS Department of State informed me that Mr. Wiley did indeed lack for his 1996 appointment. However, Mr. Wiley has been an instructor at the university:

"Chief J. Frank Wiley has taught the undergraduate course 'Law and African America' here at the University at Albany since 1998." http://www.albany.edu/studentsuccess/assessment/docs/Divisional%20AR%2007-08%20Compiled.pdf

The NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services wrote me [on December 11, 2012 4:13 PM in response to a December 7, 2012 1:16 PM FOIL request] that Mr. Wiley "has not completed any training, including basic training, reported to DCJS".

On November 28, 2012 I'd filed a FOIL request with SUNY system administration for "the oath of office card and Division of Criminal Justice form 2214A" for Mr. Wiley, which SUNY should have since the SUNY Police Manual §10.01 states, "Upon the swearing in of a new officer, the officer’s oath of office card and Division of Criminal Justice form 2214A shall be forwarded to the Office of University Police within three working days." SUNY did not fulfill the request.

Had you found any evidence he'd sworn and filed his Oath of Office in 1996 with the NYS Secretary of State as required? Any evidence he's legally and constitutionally qualified to be a Chief of Police or a university instructor?

How could J. "Frank" Wiley have met the legal and constitutional requirements of N.Y. CIV. SERV. LAW §§ 58 (1) and (1-b), N.Y. EXEC. LAW § 840 (2) and N.Y. CONST. Art. 5, § 6? In 1996 he was appointed chief of UAlbany's peace officers at age forty, at which time he was said to be a Baltimore, Maryland public schoolteacher; the UAlbany department became full officers by NYS legislative act in 1999, when he was forty-three. Don't officers have to take the NYS police exam prior to age thirty-nine, demonstrate merit, moral, and physical fitness, work their way up through the ranks to become chief, etc.?

With the NYS Police Academy right next door to UAlbany, choosing a Maryland schoolteacher was perhaps not only a strange choice but an offensive one. Plenty of men and women who've worked their way up through the ranks in New York would have been far more qualified and deserving of the highly-paid job.

SUNY Albany had hired Mr. Wiley after Oberlin College in Ohio had rejected his application for employment that same year (after the Oberlin Review had initially reported he'd been hired). Evidently he wasn't interested in remaining in Maryland? Prior to that he'd been Director of Public Safety for the University of Maryland Eastern Shore for a short period of time, during which he somehow also found time to also be the Assistant Coach for the Lady Hawks women's basketball team there, which UMES tells me he must have been doing on a voluntary basis. His resume is decidedly weak for a number of other reasons as well. Appointing him in the wake of the campus shooting by Ralph J. Tortorici was perhaps not the wisest of appointments.

Mr. Wiley's under the impression, among other things, that the University at Albany has something called the "office of Student Rights and Responsibilities" and he believed that a fraudulent document with his own name on it that he'd acknowledged the UAlbany Police did not have as the document itself claimed was somehow not a police matter, but a matter for that fictitious office.

From: Wiley, J. Frank

Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 5:16 AM

Subject: Re: OK, so the December 9, 2011 cease and desist order I was sent is fake…?

Sir. Given the nature of your concerns i [sic] suggest you contact the office of Student Rights And Responsibilities [sic]. This [sic] office is the more appropriate outlet for your concerns. I will forward your concerns to that office. With respect to your desire to submit corrects [sic] i [sic] will forward your communication to the appropriate person who will contact you. Chief Wiley

Of course, nobody ever contacted me about the corrections or amendments I wanted made. Why I was addressed as "Sir," I don't know, but the biggest questions for me are why he didn't see it as a police matter, and why he believed there was something called the "office of Student Rights And Responsibilities."

I'm not sure if his tendency to use a lower case "i" to refer to himself was a poetic conceit (he doesn't go by j. "frank" wiley, so I'd guess not), or just a small manifestation of a seeming larger tendency on his part to be extremely sloppy about his work. The sloppy work of the UAlbany police is something the Times Union to its credit has repeatedly reported about, though it has unfortunately not tended not to follow up on such stories to any great degree. Mr. Wiley wouldn't be the only SUNY police "chief" with such issues, it would seem, according to people who certainly ought to know:

James Lyman, Executive Director of Council 82 for the New York State Law Enforcement Officers Union, "there are police chiefs in SUNY who are not mandating policer [sic] officers, certified, whatever. We have police chiefs that refuse to voluntarily give up their fingerprints" (108). http://www.nysenate.gov/files/SUNY%20testimony%20pt.%202.PDF

Peter Barry, Vice President and Legislative Director of New York State University Police Officers Union, Local 1792 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFSCME, Council 82 and AFL-CIO, "decentralized structure promotes erroneous crime reporting and record keeping. One possible cause for this is that SUNY police chiefs serve at the pleasure of the campus president, thus are motivated to keep crime stats down by any means […] SUNY can no longer afford to staff, or overstaff, a body which is subject to inefficiencies, manipulation, cronyism, ill motivation and mismanagement" (127-128). http://www.nysenate.gov/files/SUNY%20Testimony%20pt.%203.PDF

With Mr. Wiley having been a "former high level athlete" who'd played "years of high impact sports," perhaps his injuries were not limited to the painful arthritis he appears to have given testimony about to a Massachusetts massage parlor? http://www.bmt.massagetherapy.com/testimonials http://www.usamassagetherapist.com/business/berkshire-massage-therapy

I'm not sure what all sports are considered "high impact": football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, field and track I'd guess. Mr. Wiley has the stocky physique of an ex-football player, and is publicly known to be a big fan of the sport.

"Study finds chronic brain damage in retired football players." L.A. Times. January 22, 2013. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cte-concussion-nfl-proteins-20130122,0,6280878.story

A checkup might be in order, should anybody care about the man's health, aside from other concerns about his performance of the job and the impact on others of his actions or inaction. After all, Mr. Wiley's past the age at which his predecessor Chief(?) Williams was forced, unwillingly, to retire.

In addition to that, SUNY Police Manual §20.09 also indicates that "All members of the department shall maintain good physical condition so that they can handle strenuous physical contacts that may be required of a university police officer." SUNY Police Manual § 1.13 states that members of the department are "Duly appointed university police personnel in the department, either in professional or classified services, including sworn and unsworn personnel." Mr. Wiley's painful arthritis and mobility problems, if still an issue, and his seeming obesity, would appear to put him in violation of 20.09, regardless of whether he swore and filed an Oath of Office with the NYS Secretary of State or not.

The Times Union used to pay the SUNY Albany police to do security for the N.Y. Giants' football training camp at UAlbany. Mr. Hearst is the President of the Board of Directors of the University at Albany Foundation. To investigate or not investigate the question of whether Mr. Wiley is really, legitimately, "chief" poses a challenge of journalistic ethics, or at least so it seems to me; I'm hoping the Times Union is up for it? I think the public could only respect the Times Union for having that high a level of journalistic integrity, or at least I'd like to think so.

The Times Union cares about student safety and campus security, I trust; I certainly do.

Thanks,

[...]

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“Make you the world a bit better or more beautiful because you have lived in it.” - Edward W. Bok

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"Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act" 20 U.S.C. § 1092(f) (17)

"Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to permit an institution, or an officer, employee, or agent of an institution, participating in any program under this subchapter and part C of subchapter I of chapter 34 of title 42 to retaliate, intimidate, threaten, coerce, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to the implementation of any provision of this subsection."