Halifax Police staff sergeant Mark Hartlen is appearing before the Police Complaints Commissioner this week, with an a five-day hearing scheduled. This morning, commissioner Nadine Cooper Mont would not allow reporters to enter the hearing room.
Hartlen was demoted from investigator to staff sergeant some time after a firm owned by Hartlen and fellow officer Darrell Gaudet were awarded no-bid contracts to conduct polygraph tests of prospective firefighters. Integrity Personnel Screening and Interviewing Consultants Inc. had been conducting the tests for 10 years starting in 1998, but the matter only became public in 2008, when Integrity collected nearly $115,000 without going through the city’s normal tendering process.
Sources say Hartlen is contesting his demotion, and is bringing forward information he considers damaging to police management. Hartlen’s attorney, David Bright of the Dartmouth firm Boyne Clarke, has not immediately returned a call for comment. Brian Palmeter, spokesperson for the Halifax police, declined to make public Hartlen’s employment history, and referred all other questions to Cooper Mont. Cooper Mont has not returned a call for comment.
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.
I bet he knows how to beat the lie detectors….
I thought the hearings were to be open to the public. Why is it behind closed doors ?
joeblow- I was told it’d be open, too, which is why I showed up. But Cooper Mont said it was a “personnel issue” and so wouldn’t let me in. There should be clear rules about these things, but if there are, I can’t find them.
well, i see he is referenced in that ex firefighters statement of defence, the timing on that could spell trouble for hartlen, seems he was doing favors by doing some investigation work in the fire dept. this city is messed up.
One thing that has come to light over the past two years – HRMPD needs to run better assessments/testing of their incoming officers and maybe even periodically test those that have been on the job for a while. We have officers who are accused of shoplifting, dealing drugs, domestic assault, supposedly doing “work” for HRMF&E on the side running IP addresses…let’s not forget the same officer accused of drug dealing and assault ALSO has a ticket against him for driving a police vehicle while talking on a cell phone (I have seen this happening on a semi-regular basis while waiting for a bus)…and this is only stuff that we know about because it has been publicized. I can only imagine WHAT else is happening ‘behind the scenes’ dealt with out of the media spotlight.
Perhaps the city needs to do a thorough review of essential services (PD and FD) from the top down, and perhaps with a new Mayor there will be action and all the ineffective deadwood could be eliminated. The city needs fresh blood, new thinking, and effective management.