Her comments, much anticipated by many who follow the intricacies of the Police Department, provided little additional insight into the internal investigations process. In a statement released last week, she promised to outline "crimes and malfeasance" occurring within the department, which she referred to as a "cesspool."
But one claim making waves in the department is an allegation that officials quietly agreed to drop a case involving Sgt. Darryl Massey, president of the Vanguard Justice Society, which represents black officers, if Massey agreed that Vanguard wouldn't speak out about a case in which a black officer said his white supervisors made him view a Ku Klux Klan Web site.
Sgt. Kelvin Sewell, who is black, alleged that he was forced to view the racist material, and critics of the department alleged that the case against two white officers wasn't being taken seriously. Woodson-Branche said Massey, facing internal charges that he and seven others were abusing overtime, was prepared to speak out about the Sewell case but agreed not to if his own case was dropped.
When the department cleared dozens of cases this month, both Massey's case and the case against the white officers were among them.
Massey did not respond to requests for comment. Woodson-Branche did not elaborate on who struck the alleged deal with Massey, and the department said it would not respond to any of her accusations.
"The Police Department never publicly disclosed the reasons for Ms. Branche's separation from the agency; that's a personnel issue that we do not comment on," said chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. "As far as the cases [that were dropped], there were administrative concerns. We're not going to elaborate on the nature of that, and we're moving forward."
Robert Cherry, president of the city's Fraternal Order of Police lodge, said Woodson-Branche's claims back up much of what officers have said over the years about the internal affairs process. But, like Dixon, he questioned why she kept her silence.
"If in fact she's saying that the department is using politics to hold back certain officers, we'd agree with her," Cherry said. "Our only concern is that it's obvious that politics run so deep that it took her to be terminated to come forward with this."
