By Emerson Drake
5/19/11
We followed up on Modesto Police Chief's claim that the "F.B.I. was consulted and chose not to investigate the matter."
"The matter" being the Modesto Police Department in view of now retired MPD officer Craig Plante's email that reminisced about a long time MPD action called "beat and release", along with other allegations that were made by an anonymous long time MPD employee whose information has proved to be extremely accurate.
Our public information request to the city revealed that Supervisor Special Agent Todd Irinaga from the local F.B.I. field office was the individual Chief Harden spoke to. We weren't able to speak with Special Agent Irinaga, but after leaving a message followed by a trip to his office here in Modesto, we received a phone call from the F.B.I office in Sacramento which supervises the Stockton/Modesto area.Special Agent Steve Dupre said on the advice of counsel, the F.B.I wasn't going to comment on Chief Harden's claims.
What we know from other sources is that the F.B.I., through a multi-jurisdictional task force, is investigating at least one member of the Modesto Police Department for the manufacture and sale of illegal weapons.
Is the F.B.I. not commenting because of their "other" investigation or is it because they weren't actually invited to look into the violation of civil rights allegations which they are required to perform.
A Freedom of Information request has been filed with the bureau for more information.The one thing we can promise from all of this is, as soon as we know, you will too.
