Cop suspended for four days

By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The head of the police department’s Accident Investigation Unit was suspended for four days for improperly filling out time cards.

Detective Sgt. Patricia Garcar said she has filed a grievance over the suspension, which was handed down Feb. 27 and is being served this week.

She also received a written reprimand for failing to provide her supervisor with a list of medications she needed to take.

One day of her suspension comes from an improperly filled-out time card Dec. 21. An investigation by the Internal Affairs Division found that Garcar put down on her time card that she worked a special detail that day beginning at 1 p.m. but she did not show up until 4 p.m.

Additionally, on Jan. 4, she claimed four hours of accumulated time for handling administrative duties on her day off, but there is no record of her ever coming to the station, according to the investigation.

The investigation said Garcar told officers in the IAD that she may have written the wrong times on her time slip and that she sometimes drives her personal car to work instead of the department-issued car she uses when on call.

Investigators checked her GPS records on her department-issued car and determined it was never at the police department Jan. 4.

Garcar denied filling out false information to be compensated for time she did not earn.

For the Jan. 4 infraction, she was given a suspension of three days.

She also received a written reprimand for failing to give her supervisor a list of medications she was taking after returning from back surgery, according to the investigation.

Departmental policy states that any officer who is taking medication that could be considered a controlled substance must give a list of those medications to their supervisor, who will determine what duties they will be able to perform.

Garcar said she believes the amount of discipline she received is excessive for someone who has been on the force for more than 20 years and has received just three verbal reprimands in her career, along with being docked 15 minutes of accumulated time with one of those reprimands.