Memo from cop prompts review

Complaints should go to the union, an official says.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Patrolman Robert Giovanni is under review for possible rules violations because of a memo he wrote citing dangerous conditions for officers working the late shift in one-man cars.
"There's ways to do things," Lt. Robin Lees, Youngstown Police Department spokesman, said Friday. "He should have approached the union for a grievance or followed the chain of command."
The Vindicator obtained a copy of Giovanni's memo, which noted that it would be distributed to the chief of police, mayor and Internal Affairs Division.
Lees said the rules violations govern public criticism of the department and protocol, which dictates that officers not communicate with the mayor's office without permission of the chief. He said Giovanni remains on the job pending a review of the event by IAD.
Patrolman Kevin Bokesch, Youngstown Police Association president, could not be reached Friday. In response to the memo earlier this week, Bokesch suggested that officers now assigned to specialized units be temporarily brought back to the patrol division.
Bokesch said the police department hasn't hired any patrolmen in roughly three years and, overall, is down about 30 officers who haven't been replaced.
Unsafe conditions
Giovanni's memo was prompted by a July 4 fireworks riot on the South Side that left five city officers injured. The crowd at the illegal fireworks display, estimated at 200, failed to disperse when ordered shortly after 11 p.m. at the Market Street-Chicago Avenue intersection.
City police called for and received assistance from police in Boardman, Austintown, Youngstown State University, St. Elizabeth Health Center and Mill Creek Park. Three of the five people arrested are charged with one or two counts of assaulting a police officer.
Giovanni, in his memo, said the police department and the city are responsible for causing injury to officers who are forced to work in unsafe conditions caused by short staffing.
Lees has agreed that more officers are needed, but he pointed out that none can be hired until city workers now laid off are called back. In the meantime, the chief said he would look at the way days off are distributed and officers deployed.
meade@vindy.com