The fraudulent claims of Homer Johnson

From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary [emphasis mine]:

Main Entry: fraud·u·lent

Function: adjective : characterized by, based on, or done by fraud : deceitful

Main Entry: fraud

Function: noun

1 a: deceit, trickery; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick

2 a: a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : impostor; also : one who defrauds : cheat b: one that is not what it seems or is represented to be

I was going to be nice to Mr. Johnson this campaign, but since he and his sycophant supporters want to go around and spread his lies, let’s go:

From his homepage:

ELECT The People’s Choice for Sheriff

“The People’s Choice”? Really, then why did you only receive 33% of the vote when running for re-election as a twelve year incumbent?

More like the convicted felon choice…

From his “Consider this page”:

Consider the Criminal Solve Rates for the 12 years I was Sheriff

• 1992 – 65%
• 1993 – 73%
• 1994 – 75%
• 1995 – 86%
• 1996 – 83%
• 1997 – 88%
• 1998 – 91%
• 1999 – 90%
• 2000 – 93%
• 2001 – 91%
• 2002 – 94%
• 2003 – 90%

That’s some nice fraud there, from your own Uniform Crime Report reports, the actual criminal solve rates that you reported:

Year:	Claimed:	As Reported to the FBI:
1992	65%	65%
1993	73%	72%
1994	75%	75%
1995	86%	86%
1996	83%	84%
1997	88%	87%
1998	91%	91%
1999	90%	72%
2000	93%	69%
2001	91%	61%
2002	94%	55%
2003	90%	59%

Why the decrease starting in 1999? Well, starting in 1999, the Commonwealth of Virginia required agencies to submit data in incident base format (with details about every crime) instead of monthly tally sheets as had been done before. As for his claimed 91% solve rate in 1998 and before, it’s completely bogus. For five years, he claimed he solved 100% of the rapes that were reported to the sheriff’s office. The national solve rate for rape is only 41.3%. He claims he solved 91.46% of the larcenies that occurred in 1998. How did he accomplish this when the national solve rate for larcenies is only 18.0%? Are we to believe that Homer Johnson is, in fact, the dark knight, the caped crusader, Batman?

If Homer was the master of criminal investigation, why isn’t he the police chief for the Richmond Police Department or the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, instead of working at the local Q-Mart?

The Criminal Solve Rate was 58% when I took office as Caroline County Sheriff.

No, It wasn’t. it was 65%. Do you just make up numbers off the top of your head?

Is the current administration effective? Consider this…..

• The Sheriff’s Office budget has increased from 2.1 million in 2003 to 3.7 million in 2007.

Yeah, your point? A lot of that money is going to dispatching, which the sheriff’s office is wholly in charge of now. Not to mention, the over 10% pay raise for sworn personnel and the over 5% raise for civilian personnel. Now Caroline County can compete with neighboring jurisdictions for highly trained personnel instead of telling deputies, like you did, “that they better stop their schooling”!

• The size of the Sheriff’s Office has almost doubled since January of 2004.

So, you plan to cut personnel?

• Since January of 2004 there has been over 60 employees come and go from the Sheriff’s Office.

You mean like the deputies that didn’t have training or were giving people traffic tickets with uncalibrated radar units and were using three years outdated implied consent cards?

• The Crime Rate in Caroline (the number of crimes being committed) is up 66%.

Uh, no it isn’t.

• The Criminal Solve Rate (the number of crimes being solved) of the current administration is 58%. That’s where we were in !991!

Uh, again, no, it isn’t.

From his “Time for a change” page:

I know the workings of a county sheriff’s office. In my 33 years of experience with Caroline I have been a jailer/dispatcher, the Chief Court Bailiff, the Safety Officer, The Field Training Officer, a Road Deputy, an Investigator, the Field Lieutenant and for 12 years, the Caroline Sheriff.

You only receive 33% of the vote as a twelve year incumbent! Why can’t you take a hint?

Criminal investigation is now and has always been a pressing concern of mine. “If somebody takes your property, breaks into your house or assaults or robs you . . . that’s my top priority”. Keeping you and your homes safe is the most important thing that the Caroline Sheriff’s Office can do.

Really? I’m still waiting on you to find the persons responsible for smashing my mail box up or burglarizing my dad’s house. Oh wait, we had to catch the delinquents ourselves.

Combating the drug problem will continue to be a major concern of mine. Drugs threaten us every day, in our communities, jobs, schools, families and homes. I will seek to use all resources available and will seek grants to help us fight the battle against illegal drugs.

Then why didn’t you accomplish a damn thing as sheriff? Why is that drug distribution arrests have more than doubled since Lippa took over?

I believe that Caroline deputies must be hired from the county so that they will know the county and the citizens will know them. A deputy who makes his home in Caroline will have more of a vested interest to see that Caroline is kept safe. He will care about where his children go to school, he will know his neighbors, he will know when something in his neighborhood is not right. Another plus to having deputies who live in Caroline would be having a shorter response time in case of an emergency whether it be a natural disaster or other threats. Deputies that do not live in Caroline just come to work to get a pay check and then go home.

Emergencies? Why is that my dead neighbor had to lay in a garden for four hours while his widow waited because all your deputies were on I-95? Another neighbor contacted you at home and you wouldn’t come! It’s only a eighteen (18) minute drive according to MapQuest and you still wouldn’t come!

Traffic enforcement has its place and is an effective tool in fighting crime. A Selective Enforcement Program in our county does enable deputies to capture wanted felons, seize contraband, weapons, drugs, stolen cars and remove drunk drivers from our roads. But, the Sheriff’s Office needs to be more than just a “traffic division”.

Are you not aware of the investigators in the sheriff’s office? They were lead by Sergeant (now Lieutenant) Chatman.

Why is that all I used to see was deputies on Route 301 doing radar? They used to be at every cut-through. Hell, the truck drivers are still spooked and still hit the brakes at every cut-through.

Now, I actually see deputies doing this thing called “patrolling”. Why is it, in 2003, in your platform summary, you included the following: “to expand traffic control programs”?

The Caroline Sheriff’s Office needs to get back to protecting you the citizens of Caroline and concentrating on solving crimes against you, crimes that invade your home and threaten you and your families. The Sheriff’s Office can only be effective in this endeavor through the help of citizens who help point officers to clues. For citizens to help they must have faith and trust in their elected officials and the deputies that are hired. A good rapport with citizens is one of the most important tools a sheriff or deputy can have. It has been my experience that people are willing to help when they know criminal investigation is high on the priority list. It saddens me to see that the faith in the Caroline Sheriff’s Office has slipped. We need to repair the trust. That is what I will do if elected your sheriff on November 6, 2007.

Let’s see, since Lippa has taken over, I can be sure if I have a problem that a deputy will respond; unlike what happened when a riot call was put out in 1993 at Horne’s Restaurant because none of your personnel would respond.

From his “The Beginning” page:

• The criminal solve rate of the Caroline Sheriff in 1991 was 58%. Over the next 12 years that I was sheriff the solve rate grew to 90% in 2003, giving Caroline County the highest criminal solve rate in the state. Caroline County carried first place in crime solving the last 7 years I was sheriff.

Let’s see, your crime solve rates are frauds and you never had the highest criminal solve rate in the state (even when you were lying about your rates). Can you please stop your pathological lying?

• Beginning in 1992 and for the next 12 years, deputies began receiving specialized training to include homicide investigation, child abuse, drug interdiction, burglary seminars, counterfeit money detection, composite drawings of criminal suspects, DUI enforcement as well as state mandated basic retraining classes.

Really? Then why didn’t you have a crime scene forensics vehicle back then?

How many of your deputies were teaching Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) classes? I know at least one of Lippa’s deputies does currently (an Alzheimer’s awareness class). Heck, Lippa used to teach at the police academies!

• I believe in hiring the most qualified applicants, regardless of race or sex. In 1992 the first employee I hired was an African American man, Lester M. Johnson, Jr. and soon after I accepted the application of Regina Howard to be transferred to road duty from communications. Ms. Howard was the second female road deputy in Caroline history.

Then why didn’t you have any female sworn personnel for five years when you were sheriff according to your own statistics submitted to the Virginia State Police?

They’re currently five female sworn personnel now (including a sergeant and an investigator [who happens to be a forensic tech]).

• I reinstated the DARE program to 5^th graders in our schools in Fall of 1992. DARE was expanded to cover primary, elementary and middle school in the following years. The Dare officer also conducted crime prevention programs, including Neighborhood Watch Programs in several areas.

There was never a neighborhood watch program in my neighborhood until Lippa took over…

• I placed the first School Resource Officers in Caroline High School in 1995 and in Caroline Middle School in 1999.

Funny, the school resource officer at the middle school was gone half the time when I was there…

• In October 1995 I received a grant and hired the Sheriff’s Office first full-time narcotics officer who worked with the regional drug task force of which Caroline was a member. We immediately began collecting evidence through a covert operation on suspected drug dealers, working with undercover officers, doing controlled buys to combat the drug problem in Caroline.

But you didn’t accomplish a damn thing…

Why is that the state police in Caroline had more drug arrests than the sheriff’s office did during your tenure?

• I formed an auxiliary deputy force in 1996 to help free up road deputies. Auxiliary deputies are volunteers who are fully trained, insured and uniformed just like regular deputies. They attend the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy and upon completion of their training can perform any and all law enforcement duties. The only distinction being that they are not paid, they “volunteer” their time to Caroline and its citizens. My auxilary force ranged from 6 to 10 deputies. The Auxilary Volunteers also provide a pool of trained persons to hire from. This program has stopped with the present administration and I would like to see it reinstated.

And who pays for the training and equipment for these deputies? (You need to learn how to spell “auxiliary” as well.)

• In October 1997, the Caroline Sheriff’s Office launched the biggest drug bust in the county’s history to date with 50 persons being convicted on 120 charges of cocaine possession and/or distribution.

Really? Then why did you only report forty (40) arrests for drug abuse violations to the FBI in 1997? And thirty (30) (75%) of those arrests were for possession of marijuana!

Meanwhile, the state police in Caroline in 1997 had sixty-two (62) arrests with nine (9) of those arrests for the sale or manufacture of drugs. Wait, wasn’t Lippa the first sergeant of this area then?

• On April 15, 1999, I continued the pressure on suspected drug dealers with a large-scale drug bust that netted 38 people arrested on 62 drug charges. We shut down 2 drug houses on Macedonia Road and seized $6,400 in drugs.

Really? You only had seven (7) arrests for drug abuse violations the whole year! And only one of those arrests was for the sale or manufacture of drugs (and that was listed as the sale or manufacture of “other dangerous non-narcotic drugs”). Not to mention that I don’t see any drug seizures occurring on that date in your National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) reports!

Meanwhile, the state police had thirty (30) arrests for drug abuse violations in 1999! Wait, wasn’t Lippa the first sergeant of this area then?

• On October 19, 1999, the Caroline Sheriff’s Office seized 231 marijuana plants with a street value of $462,000 in the area of Burke’s Bridge near Milford. To date that harvest was the largest marijuana bust in county history. I received a tip from a county resident who had stumbled upon the plants. The citizens of Caroline were always the biggest help to me and my administration as we fought the drug problem together.

It’s funny how you have had three drug arrest/seizures that were “the biggest”. You obviously haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on in the county, considering that the sheriff’s office seized 944 plants in 2005! Not to mention that I don’t see any drug seizures occurring on that date in your NIBRS reports!

• In early October 2001, Caroline deputies seized 80 marijuana plants valued at $80,000 in the Sparta area.
• In October 2001, the Caroline Sheriff’s Office had the biggest drug seizure in Caroline history to date when $500,000 in pot was seized in the Chilesburg area. According to Corinne Gellar of the Virginia State Police it was one of the largest in central Virginia that year. Over 500 female plants (some over 20 feet tall) were seized.

It’s funny how you have had three drug arrest/seizures that were “the biggest”. You obviously haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on in the county, considering that the sheriff’s office seized 944 plants in 2005! Why is it that you had no arrests for the sale or manufacture of marijuana in 2001?

Consider the Richmond Times-Dispatch article: Police Can Tell Tall Tales About Bust (October 19, 2001) [emphasis mine]:

The drug bust, which yielded plants with an estimated street value of $500,000, is the largest in the county’s history and one of the biggest ever in the region, state police said.

[…]

Investigators searching a residence in Chilesburg in western Caroline seized the marijuana plants on Wednesday afternoon, state police said. They also confiscated 30 pounds of marijuana, three firearms, a van, equipment used to grow marijuana and several hundred dollars in cash, authorities said.

“It was a very complex, sophisticated growing operation,” said Corinne Geller, a state police spokeswoman.

And what grown man, a former sheriff no less, uses the word “pot”?

• I worked over the years to secure over 1.2 million in state and federal grants. A few of the programs started with these grants were
  • ….Community Policing, the hiring of 3 additional deputies to be assigned to working more closely with the citizens.

I never saw these mythical community policing deputies…

• • ….Obtaining new equipment to better help deputies and Investigators.

Uh, why were the deputies being forced to use thirty year old restraints on prisoners and batons that barely worked?

My experience with Caroline County Sheriff’s Office

• From October 1981 to January 1992 I was the Field Lieutenant. I supervised all road deputies, served as the Field Training Officer and the Department Safety Officer. I was also in charge of all courts and outside activities.

Then why didn’t you reinstate DARE when your were a field lieutenant if you were in charge of “outside activities”?

• From January 1992 to January 2004 I was Caroline County Sheriff. I was the chief law enforcement officer in the county. I was totally in charge of all department operations, personnel and police vehicles.

Totally, dude. Ever find the person that stole the wheels off of that police cruiser?