State police investigator probing brutality at Indian nation says he was muzzled
Published: Sunday, August 05, 2012, 6:15 AM Updated: Sunday, August 05, 2012, 6:28 AM
By John O'Brien, The Post-Standard
Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-StandardSalvatore Valvo, then an internal affairs inspector for the state police, found what he considered troubling information about the department's handling of a protest at the Onondaga Nation in 1997.
When the state police were accused of roughing up Native Americans during a protest south of Syracuse in 1997, the department began an internal investigation.
Salvatore Valvo, then the agency痴 most senior internal affairs inspector, saw things he didn稚 like.
Just one example!
How could some of the 24 arrested protesters be charged with trespassing when they were on their own land? Why did the troopers remove their name tags from their uniforms, in violation of state police policy, before marching into the protesters?
Did the troopers use excessive force on protesters who weren稚 fighting them? Why weren稚 the protesters given an order to disperse before troopers moved in?
But Valvo never finished as the head of the investigation.
His bosses called him in the middle of his interview with the commander of the state police痴 Troop D, who had headed the protest operation. The top state police internal affairs officer said he壇 received complaints from the officers being interviewed that Valvo was being too harsh.
Deputy Superintendent James Fitzgerald, the head of internal affairs, told Valvo to temporarily halt the two-day-old investigation to allow for a cooling-off period, according to Fitzgeraldç—´ deposition.
Valvo was allowed to stay on as an inspector, but another officer was immediately promoted and put in charge. That officer told Valvo he wanted the team to 都lant this investigation, Valvo said.
Valvo protested, but it went nowhere.
Now, 15 years later, a lawyer for many of the Indians says Valvo痴 revelations helped convince the state to offer a $3 million settlement of the protesters lawsuit against the state. The settlement won稚 be final until all 98 of the plaintiffs sign it.
The Indians accused troopers of using excessive force and of overstepping their bounds by breaking up a peaceful protest on sovereign Onondaga Nation territory next to Interstate 81. The Indians claim of a state police cover-up is based largely on information from Valvo, said Terrance Hoffmann, one of the lawyers bringing the lawsuit.
Valvo has never before told his full story on what happened that day in May 1997 and in the aftermath: The officers in charge of the operation had seen firsthand how violent the Indian protests could become, because they壇 witnessed a dozen troopers being assaulted in protests in Western New York a few weeks earlier.
Retaliation seems to be the only explanation for why the officers would violate state police policy, make illegal arrests, use excessive force and å…Žndanger the lives of the protesters and the troopers, Valvo said.
View full sizeStephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-StandardState Police, in riot gear, arrest protesters at the Onondaga Indian Reservation in 1997.
Under the proposed settlement of the lawsuit, the state would admit no wrongdoing. Lawyers for the state police declined to comment.
But Valvo said the settlement amount confirms his allegations of misconduct and cover-up.
的f these guys did nothing wrong, why do we the taxpayers have to give the Indians $3 million? he asked.
禅ough questions
The commander of the operation at the time, then-Maj. James Parmley, recently declined to talk specifically about Valvoç—´ accusations. Parmley was the commander Valvo was interviewing when the call came from headquarters to back off.
å¾¹bviously, I disagree with what he said, said Parmley, who is retired. æ»´eç—´ not really a credible person for you to be interviewing.
In a deposition, Parmley said he thought Valvoç—´ é›»emeanor was less than professional during the interview that lasted more than three hours.
Parmleyç—´ second-in-command at the time, Capt. George Beach, could not be reached for comment. Fitzgerald did not return phone messages.
In affidavits and depositions, state police commanders don稚 dispute Valvo痴 claim that he was ordered to back off because he was too aggressive in his interviews. Fitzgerald said in an affidavit that the troopers union had complained that Valvo and another inspector browbeat Parmley and Beach. The union threatened to have lawyers attend the interviews, Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald had heard from his officers that Valvo was being ç”°ondescending and arrogant and creating a hostile environment, Fitzgerald said in an affidavit.
Fitzgerald was a deputy superintendent who headed internal affairs. He had two assistant deputy superintendents under him and seven inspectors who covered the whole state.
Valvo was one of the inspectors. By 1997, he had worked internal affairs for five years. A couple of years earlier, he was one of the inspectors selected to investigate what may be the agencyç—´ biggest scandal the evidence-tampering case in the Southern Tier that ended with six troopers being charged with planting evidence.
Valvo said he壇 never before been stopped in the middle of an investigation and was never told he was too harsh.
The inspector working with him that day, Joseph Loszynski, also said recently that the administrators interruption of the interviews was unheard of. The commanders should致e expected tough questions, said Loszynski, who went on to head the state police internal affairs division.
å…¸here was no browbeating, but there were tough questions being asked, Loszynski said recently. 溺ajor Parmley was a little upset with the line of questioning and the tenor of the interviews, but my response to that is, å¡‘ouæ±*e a troop commander. If youæ±*e asked tough questions, we expect an appropriate and honest response.樗
Wayne Bennett, the first deputy superintendent at the time, said heç—´ never heard of another time that the chief inspector halted an internal affairs interview.
å…¸he job of the staff inspector and anybody in internal affairs is to get to the truth, said Bennett, who later became state police superintendent. æ·»ou have to ask the appropriate questions. You have to be very specific about what youæ±*e asking because youæ±*e not going to be able to make an intelligent conclusion unless you have the answers to the difficult questions.
Both Loszynski and Bennett vouched for Valvoç—´ credibility.
禅hey were brutalized
To this day, Valvo is bitter over how his bosses responded to his inquiry in the days following the arrests. He calls it a whitewash by the agency he壇 worked for over 27 years.
的 was getting dynamite stuff in my interviews, Valvo said. 滴eads should致e rolled.
No one was disciplined over the arrests, according to him and other state police officials. Parmley lost two vacation days and received a letter of censure over the arrest of a television news cameraman at the scene, he said in a deposition.
Valvo retired that year, after he sued the state police and his bosses transferred him to an office job administering records. The lawsuit claimed state police administrators violated his freedom of speech by restricting his investigations. A judge threw it out on the grounds that Valvoç—´ bosses were immune from claims over a decision about one of their employees.
Valvo, 65, who lives in a suburb of Buffalo, maintains that the state police mistreated the Indians that day.
å…¸hey were brutalized, he said. å…¸heir rights were violated. Falsely arrested. What were these guys thinking?
Of the 24 protesters arrested, 23 had the charges dismissed. One took his case to trial and was acquitted.
A state police report at the time, produced by officers working for Valvo痴 replacement, casts the troopers conduct in a different light. The report, revealed in the Indians civil rights lawsuit, called the state police痴 actions 渡ecessary and appropriate to reopen I-81 after the protesters had gone onto the highway and slowed traffic.
Another protest in mind
The protest was initially over the leadership of the Onondagas but ended up including a demonstration against a deal with the state to require sales taxes on cigarettes sold to non-Indians at smokeshops on Indian land.
In the weeks leading up to the Onondaga protest, Indian protesters in Western New York had confronted troopers with violence and blocked highways, the state police report said. Twelve troopers were injured in those clashes, including two seriously, the report said.
Two-thirds of the protesters arrested in the Onondaga protest were from other tribes, state police said. The Onondaga chiefs had told state police they wanted protesters arrested for trespassing, the report said.
å…¸he chiefs made it clear they did not support the actions of the protesters and would sign trespass complaints against any individuals who interfered with traffic or otherwise acted unlawfully, the report said.
The report did fault state police for having no plan about what to do if the protesters left the highway and returned to the Onondagas property, which is what they ended up doing.
展hile the troopers understood what they were to do if the protesters were on the road and refused to leave it, they did not have specific instructions for other contingencies that might have developed, the report said.
The protesters did leave the highway when they were told, said Hoffmann, one of the protesters lawyer.
In a memo Beach wrote afterward, he said the plan was to arrest anyone who did not get out of the road.
Valvo claims the state police cover-up began even before he started his interviews. A high-ranking internal affairs office met with one of the targets the day before and gave him pointers on what to say, Valvo said.
å…¸hatç—´ not how itç—´ supposed to work, Valvo said.
In a deposition for his lawsuit, he contended there was �isconduct on the part of members that I was not allowed to pursue.
He recalled something he told Fitzgerald a few days after being removed as head of the internal affairs investigation.
æ·»ou embarrassed me in front of all my colleagues, Valvo said in the deposition. æ·»ou have conveyed to people like Parmley that he, who is the target of an investigation, can turn that around and focus the attention back on those who investigate misconduct.