Trails in the Sand by Peter Traceit, the Street Detective
The Street Detective is dressed in a long trench coat with a brimmed fedora and has an oversized magnifying glass in hand. Ol Pete is wiping away sand and grime to get a good look at the officers at last week’s Broward schools board meeting. Pete is chucking at the sight of them dressed in suits instead of their regular police clothing. After arresting the Volunteer of the Year and allegedly violating their own policies around how to handle disruptive speakers, it would seem Chief Jamie Alberti is trying to clean up the department’s image. Pete is thinking just because you put lipstick on a pig (no pun intended), it doesn’t silence its squeal.
If what happened as de-scribed in a letter signed by several advisory chairpersons, Volunteer of the Year, Debbie Espinosa, got a bird’s eye view of the mistreatment, rush to judgement, violation of rights and downright disrespect of human decency that Black folk have been crying out about for decades upon decades.
Street Detective Peter Traceit wants accountability. Superintendent Peter Licata talked about accountability until he was blue in the face as he sought the top job. There has to be some accountability starting with the arresting officer and ending with the Chief of Safety. Ol Pete sleuthed and reported the lack training of safety employees at schools over a year ago and called out that school security was not being trained even after seventeen people were massacred on the International Day of Love in 2018 at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. Going from one school to another school yielded a different check in procedure. Nothing was standard. Reports, not rumors, from school security say that there are some drips of training but nothing as extensive as what it should be. One security specialist told Pete that he leaves these pseudo trainings more confused than he did before he came. Pete’s conversation leads to believe that if school security employees are not being trained, then it’s most likely that neither are the sworn police officers.
Pete is reminded of an article, Freedom ain’t free and neither is Safety in BCPS penned by the Westside Gazette publisher Bobby R. Henry, Sr. a year ago. It is scary to read about the safety holes in the district and realize not much has changed. You know what they say, “If you can’t change people, change people.” Alberti is over his head, and it just didn’t start. Ol Pete is thinking Chief Alberti might be New Pete’s first casualty.
The Detective watched as a lot of pieces were being moved around the Chess Board during the selection of the new Board chair. Several nominations came from the floor… Lori Alhadeff for a second term, Debbie Hixon and Alan Zeman. There were a lot of hurt feelings once the roll call eventually revealed that Alhadeff would clinch the chair position for a second term.
Pete is told no one had expected Alhadeff wanted a second term. Ol Pete snickered as Alhadeff’s face looked like the cat who ate the canary. Hixon’s face was BIG MAD, and Zeman was emitting his usual beet red fumes.
Nominations for vice chair included Daniel Foganholi, Debra Hixon, and Alan Zeman. Just as Alhadeff kept her seat as chair, so did Hixon as vice chair. But in the end, Hixon was still BIG MAD because it was a consolation prize. She was desperately seeking to sit in the BIG CHAIR. Zeman was still fuming and Foganholi looked pretty content as we all know he had put the decision in God’s hands.
Ol Pete wants to end his trail to tip the hat and bid fond respect to Dr. Brenda Snipes and Mr. Carlton Campbell, both who served as educators in Broward schools. In remembrance of these two educators who were put to rest this past weekend, all Detective Traceit will say is that there is a longing for the days of what these two individuals lived out and represented to Broward schools and its children.
Until then, Ol Pete will continue dredging the sands.
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