Official to review officers' e-mail

The mayor said the police chief should be reviewing the e-mail, but isn't.
& lt;a href=mailto:sinkovich@vindy.com & gt;By PEGGY SINKOVICH & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- An extensive review of e-mail generated by city police officers from their cruisers will determine if the $453,000 mobile data terminal system is being used properly.
The review by safety-service director Fred Harris and ordered by Mayor Hank Angelo comes in the wake of a Vindicator article about e-mail messages sent on seven days this year.
Most of the messages are about trips to the convenience store and joking between officers -- not official business.
The mayor is not laughing.
"I don't find derogatory messages about ethnic groups or parts of this city amusing at all," Angelo said, referring to messages that stated the west side was "like a war zone" and a reference to "Mike the Arab."
Some police officers said the e-mails were not meant to offend anyone.
Going back to look
"I'm going to go back and review these messages for several, several months," Harris said. "I'm going to go back as far as possible. I will also be doing periodic reviews of these e-mails to make sure the system is being used for it's intended use. This is not a toy."
Police Chief John Mandopoulos could not be reached.
"This is something the chief should be doing, but he isn't," Angelo said. "The chief and police officers accuse Fred [Harris] of sticking his nose in the police department's business but the chief isn't doing it, so Fred has to help."
The city bought the six-figure computer system for cruisers in 1998 to give officers a way to communicate with one another without using the radios, which can be monitored by criminals, officials said.
For example, the system can be used if officers want to get out a description of a stolen car without letting criminals know police are on to them.
The mobile data terminals are installed in cruisers. The department owns another dozen or so hand-held units.
& lt;a href=mailto:sinkovich@vindy.com & gt;sinkovich@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;