Alan Bernstein’s profile of Democratic Harris County District Attorney candidate Clarence Bradford (which has already generated discussion here and elsewhere) heads into almost virgin territory for this campaign, as Bernstein actually managed to entice Bradford out of hiding to talk about various scandals during his time as HPD Chief.
Given the (low) quality of the answers, one can certainly understand why Bradford’s handlers prefer him hiding from the press.
Here are some sidebar comments on Bradford’s notion of responsibility:
- “Anytime something goes wrong in the police department the chief is responsible. If the toilet doesn’t flush in the police building, the chief has to take responsibility for that. That’s part of the job”
- “9/11 happened when President Bush was president. I don’t blame the president for 9/11 happening because he was president at the time, OK? Things happen”
Things happen, yes. But as the Bromwich reports made clear, life-and-death things happened with the HPD crime lab during Bradford’s watch, and Bradford was part of the problem.
Bradford, though, admits that he hasn’t read those reports — reports for which area government spent millions so we could try finally to fix the problems of the crime lab — and that he doesn’t plan to:
The former chief, however, said he had no intention of reading all of the reports on the two-year, $5.3 million investigation of the crime lab by a team led by Michael Bromwich, a former U.S. Justice Department inspector.
Asked why, Bradford replied: “Because I was part of the process (of the investigation). I am familiar with the reports; I have read the summary of all of them.”
The reports repeatedly fault HPD’s “chain of command” for lax oversight. Bradford said he disagrees with some of the conclusions.
Any candidate for Harris County District Attorney who has pledged NOT to read more than a summary of the Bromwich reports on the crime lab should be disqualified from pursuing the office. That’s just an astounding, damning, admission.
Moving on from the responsibility theme, Bradford does have in mind who’s really to blame for mismanagement of the crime lab:
“What I should have done — which I didn’t see until this all blew up — I should have at least annually gotten independent audits of the crime lab, as opposed to relying on, like the two previous chiefs had done, this particular supervisor … stating the crime lab met all the federal standards,” he said. “So, yes, that’s when I dropped the ball. I relied too heavily on the people with the science and biology degrees.”
The experts let Clarence the Delegator down! Oh, and so did the other member of Houston’s Dynamic Duo at the time:
Bradford, 52, said he was unable to increase lab staffing because of tight budgets dictated by Lanier’s successor, Lee Brown — whose law enforcement consulting company, Brown Group International, has employed him since his retirement.
So, this man who won’t be capable of trying major cases in court because of lack of experience and has said — in this profile even — that as District Attorney, he will be a major public voice and manager rather than a prosecutor — wasn’t able to persuade Lee Brown, Council, or the public that perhaps funding to deal with some known issues at the crime lab would be a good idea? That seems like a guy who isn’t likely to be a persuasive public-facing District Attorney either.
But he wants voters to know he’s learned from the ordeal:
Bradford, with degrees in criminal justice, public administration and law as well as training by the FBI National Academy and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, considers the lab failures a plus for him now: “I am able to learn from those and move forward. … That makes me more prepared to go in and deal with organizational issues such as these.”
Defendants whose evidence was mangled as the leaders ultimately responsible for the Crime Lab fiddled, so to speak, will surely be pleased to know there’s a silver lining to the mess.
Good for Bernstein for finally getting Bradford to answer some of these important questions. We suspect, given some of these disastrous answers, that we may not see Bradford answering many more press inquiries in the near future.
