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Human Robot Simon Drobik on call every hour of every day, apparently every day of the year. Does Dro

- Mighty Simon Drobik on call every of every day of every year! Does he ever sleep?

- Might Simon is indefatigable!

- Human Robot Drobik made $192,973 last year, making him the highest paid city government employee.

- Drobik put in for 2,809 hours of OT in 2018. Drobik billed the taxpayers for 5,063 hours of work in 2018. A regular, 40-hour-a-week work year is 2,080 hours

- Why hire more cops when The Always-On-Call Cop Simon Drobik will protect us?

In news that would undoubtedly shock OSHA officials and human resources and medical experts, it has been revealed that APD's human overtime robot Simon Drobik has been on call as the department's public information officer every hour of every day, apparently 365 days a year. Or at least every hour of every day when he's not on vacation or out of town.

The news of Drobik's astounding—and some would say dangerous—ability to be on call every hour of every day of every year comes from APD Chief Mike Geier, who included the information in a letter to Ed Harness, director of the Civilian Police Oversight Agency. Geier's letter was in response to the CPOA's investigation into Drobik's astounding amount of overtime hours claimed in 2018.

Here's what Geier's letter said about Drobik's superhuman abilities to be on call as PIO in addition to his duties as a regular patrol officer:

“5. There is no doubt that Off. Drobik was on call during the times he worked the Chief’s Overtime (COT) assignments. Besides exempt personnel in APD, he is perhaps the only officer who is asked to be on-call 24/7. Our policy recognizes exceptions to the restriction regarding not working COT or other similar overtime details while on call for the Emergency Response Team and the Honor Guard. It would only make sense to allow a full-time PIO that same privilege.”

Who in their right mind would allow an employee to be on call 24 hours a day, apparently every day of the year? The geniuses at APD, that's who.

Dan Klein, a retired APD sergeant and ABQReport reporter and columnist, says that allowing Drobik to be on call 24/7 violates APD policy and is dangerous. Here's what Klein said about it:

By allowing Drobik, and other officers let’s not forget, to work 24/7 Geier should be disciplined by Keller for violating 1-1-4 B 7 C


7. Both on duty and off duty, personnel will conduct themselves in a manner that reflects favorably on the Department. Conduct unbecoming an officer or employee of APD includes the following:


a. Conduct that could bring disrepute, shame, dishonor, disgrace, or embarrassment to the Department.


b. Conduct that interferes with or compromises the efficiency of personnel and employees.

c. Conduct that impairs the operation or efficiency of the Department


Allowing an officer to work himself to death clearly impacts the efficiency of the department. In recent years we have had two fatal accidents involving APD officers, could these accidents have been caused by officers who were clearly fatigued from being over worked by APD Command?


Over worked and tired officers make mistakes that can cost lives. You don’t see airline pilots working 24 /7, nor truckers, nor anyone else. This falls upon Geier (and Eden before him) he should be disciplined for abusing his officers.


Drobik should file suit against the city, I believe he has the grounds too, for being overworked for the last eight years. The CPOA stated this started around 2011 and continued to 2019! Any health aliment Drobik has had during this time, or after, can be attributed to being allowed to work 24/7. Does he even see his family?


Geier allowed this, Geier should be reprimanded for it.


Geier's letter also revealed that the State Auditor's Office has opened an investigation into Drobik's astounding overtime claims. Here's what his letter said about that:

“3. The New Mexico State Auditor’s Office recently requested all documents related to this investigation and will assist APD in a comprehensive follow-up review to the CPOA investigation and in any policy recommendations.”

Stonewalling from CPOA's Ed Harness?

ABQReport got Geier's letter from APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos, who emailed it to us on Friday after we had requested it. The letter is public record. But apparently CPOA Director Ed Harness doesn't think so.

Harness discussed the letter on Thursday, April 2, at a public meeting of the Police Oversight Board's Policy and Procedures Subcommittee. When the meeting ended, ABQReport reporter Charles Arasim asked POB member Bill Kass if he could see Geier's letter. Kass allowed Arasim to look at it. Arasim asked Harness if he could have a copy of the letter and Harness shook his head "no." When Arasim asked Harness if he could photograph the letter, Harness reacted negatively.

When Arasim told Harness that the letter was a public record, Harness responded that it wasn't public yet. Here's Arasim's video of the incident. The confrontation when Harness is in the final two or three minutes.

How can a letter from the chief of police about a CPOA investigation that has already been made public, and the letter itself, which had just been discussed in a public meeting, not be a public record?

Either is incompetent, or he was stonewalling a member of the public. We think it's the latter.

More outrage from Klein

Here's more from Dan Klein on Geier's response to Geier's rejection of the CPOA that Drobik be fired:

The CPOA stated no criminal activity occurred from their investigation. The CPOA was pretty clear that their investigation was not in depth. Geier is pulling a Trump by now claiming that “No evidence of criminal activity”. Why? Here is an example, an officer gets called to investigate a burglary. But the officer is handicapped and cannot get out of his police car. So he just drives around house and doesn’t see any evidence of forced entry. Because that is all the officer cal do, the officer says he doesn’t believe a burglary happened. That is the CPOA investigation. Because the CPOA doesn’t have the investigative experience to forensically investigate cell phone records, manipulation of time sheets, etc, their statement of no criminal activity is only based upon their very limited investigation. A more thorough investigation, by the State Auditor / Attorney General will tell us if nothing criminal happened.


But wait, did the CPOA expose criminal activity? Two issues jump out, first, Drobik was taking comp time (which is money) for jogging with cadets. Not once, but a couple dozen times. The CPOA exposed this and now Drobik wants to give the time back, which Geier accepted. Isn’t that like being caught writing bad checks and then handing the money back and announcing it’s all OK now? The event still happened, it’s the event itself that was the wrong and that must be dealt with.


Second, the CPOA investigation exposed that someone was over riding the payroll system, to allow Drobik to make all this overtime. Why? Because the payroll system isn’t human. It was created and it only knows the rules. The payroll system knew that some of what was being claimed violated the rules that Geier had in place. To get around that a supervisor at APD had to manually manipulate the payroll system. This needs to be thoroughly investigated to determine who did it and why. It’s only then that we will know whether or not a crime occurred.


Also, the only two groups allowed by SOP to accept chiefs ot and still be on call are the Honor Guard (go figure that one out) and the ERT teams.


Yet Geier states:


There is no doubt that Off. Drobik was on call during the times he worked the Chief’s Overtime (COT) assignments. Besides exempt personnel in APD, he is perhaps the only officer who is asked to be on-call 24/7. Our policy recognizes exceptions to the restriction regarding not working COT or other similar overtime details while on call for the Emergency Response Team and the Honor Guard. It would only make sense to allow a full-time PIO that same privilege.


That is changing the rules Ex Post Facto. You can’t do that. Geier should know this. He can change the rules for the future, but the rules apply for the past and present. Geier admits Drobik violated the rules. Saying that the rules should have allowed Drobik to work chiefs OT doesn’t make it right nor fair. Drobik clearly violated this rule over and over, Geier can change it for the future, but he cannot ignore it for past infractions.



So Drobik isn't disciplined for claiming 2,809 hours of overtime in a single year, and the chief of police thinks it's okay that one of his officers is on call every hour of every day of every day of the year.


No Wonder Albuquerque is so screwed up.

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I've been a reporter, writer and editor for 37 years. I'm dedicated to honest, fair and hard-hitting reporting. I'm not conservative or liberal, but am just a reporter who tries to get to the truth at any given point in time. I don't believe in pulling punches or being a lap dog because that serves no one. A free and aggressive press is essential to human liberty. That's why the Founding Fathers put a free press in the Constitution. So on this site you'll get a variety of news, fearless opinion, analysis, humor, satire and commentary. It's kind of like a free-for-all. My motto is "Without fear and without favor."  But good journalism takes time and money, so I hope you will contribute what you can to these efforts by clicking on the "Donate" button above. I could use your help. Thanks, Dennis Domrzalski.

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