Friday, May 14, 2010

An eye for an eye.

I know its been a very long time since I have posted, but we have been going through a lot of stressful stuff. It all start last December, just after my hubby, Jon, was awarded the life saving metal. A patrol car as damaged and he was blamed for it. It suposedly happened on a very cold, snowy and busy night. The next morning the damage was reported by the next officer who drove the car. So Jon was blamed and written up. But he didn't do it and could prove it, so why should he have that on his record. He told his sergant that the security gaurd was with him the last hour of the shift and didn't see any damage on the car. Well, the sergant didn't interview the security guard.

So Jon appealed to the Chief, who wanted him to take a polygraph. If you have half a brain and know anything about polygraphs then you know that they basically don't prove anything. But police departments use them all the time, as well as most federal agencies. So Jon went to take the polygraph and the examiner asked him if he as under any stress. Jon told her that he was expereincing symptoms of PTSD (Post tramatic stress disorder). Well, she administered the test anyway. Not surprisingly, Jon failed the test with flying colors. Jon's therapist, who has been treating his PTSD, told him that taking the polygraph was pobably not and good idea, but the examiner's behavior was unethical.

The next day Jon is put on administrative leave and meeting was set up with HR for the next week to determine what was going to happen to Jon. It was time to call his union laywer, best $50 a month we have ever spent. The laywer suggested we get Jon's therapist to write a letter about his PTSD and Jon also wrote a letter about his PTSD that told about how a Marine buddy killed himself last December. At the meeting, Jon read both letters and his laywer hinted that if he was fired based on the results of the polygraph then that action would be considered unethical treatment of a vetern and the Chief could lose his job. The Chief was surprised and said that in all the years he has relied on polygraph he has never excountered something like this. So a desicion was not made and Jon remained on administrative leave for another 3 weeks. Altogether, we spent 4 week wondering if Jon was going to keep his job. He was finally fired based on the polygraph.

You would think that someone would hear the voice of reason after all of that. Nope. Like I said before, we have very good laywers who are taking an appeal the the state employment board. Last week at date was set and the Magistrate, who acts as a judge, saw our appeal saw the case and did not like what he saw. He sent a notice the police department and campus attornys ( Jon was working for a campus police department if you didn't know). The campus attornys took a look at the files and knew that they were going to get screwed and called our laywers to set up a date to talk about settling.

After all this time of stressing we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I knew all along that everything would be alright, but it was really hard to keep believing after everything kept happening. The only thing that we have ever wanted out of this whole ordeal is to have Jon's record exponged. But after everthing, I want somebody to get some serious consequences. I want everyone envolved in the desicion to fire Jon fired. I want them to go through what we went through. I want them to be as broke as we are and be punished in every way possible for what they did to us. I really just want justice. Is that too much to ask for? My husband would say that I am ready to get out the torches and pitchforks and burn down the campus. I would settle for this and a few other dirty secrets to be leeked to the school paper or certain TV stations. I know enough to get the Chief and most of the command staff fired. I'd do it in a heart beat but Jon says I can't.