Disgusting Allegations Flying about Mistreatment of Corpses in Escambia County....

According to the letters written to the BCC
about issues with the treatment of bodies in our
morgue lately--one 
might assume "Art the Clown" was in charge of 
handling the corpses locally.....But there is no proof
of these allegations, however, and
professional opinions vary among the local
funeral homes....

I must warn readers in advance on this one.  Don't eat before you read this.  And you won't want to eat after you read this.  My apologies, in advance, but here goes......

Everyone knows we are having issues coming up with a plan on how to modernize and adequately staff and size the D1 Medical Examiner's office (serving the four county area of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton Counties).  It's a topic that is out there.  The current facility is inadequate and undersized.  It is creating issues.  And it needs to be fixed.

The ME herself has been raising the flag on this for a while now.  I visited, I saw the issues.

And even as we on the Escambia BCC are working toward solutions to this vexxing issue--- one local morning radio host, Andrew "Tallman" McKay, ignorant of all of the  inside issues swirling around this topic (among many others) and much of the logic surrounding our cautious approach to finding the right solution to this particular matter, second guesses us and our practical approach to fixing the problem.  With a particularly vituperative, angry, personal attack on those of us (and me in particular) that simply disagree with him and know he is wrong.   But second-rate, low ratings, small market and substandard entertainment DJ's like Tallman do this: swipe, snipe, jab, assign blame, and attack---between radio ads for sandwich shops, used car dealers, and the latest weather and traffic blurbs--of course.  Then they move along to the next market... 

Yes, drive-by Tallman's opinion on where the ME's office should be located is wrong.

But I digress.

Now comes multiple local funeral homes making shocking, written allegations about the current Medical Examiner--allegations via correspondence to the county the full content of which I will not link here.  Why not?--because I'm not sure if they are founded, that is why. 

Meanwhile, I read the letters the county attorney sent to me and applied logic and reason to each one; therefore I am not printing or linking these full letters here. 

I read each letter then mentally juxtaposed what I was reading with the person who I have met and spoken with on multiple occasions-- Dr. Oleske.  And in short--I'm not necessarily sure I agree with or believe some of these claims.  Here's why.  Even though I may disagree with her approach to getting a new facility, even though I disagree with some of the plans put forward for such a new space--I DO NOT believe she would allow these things to occur on her watch.  I believe she is a professional.

Nevertheless--these complaints  have been forwarded by multiple funeral homes via written correspondence to the county--so they can't be ignored.

What are these funeral directors alleging in these letters? One Pensacola funeral home writes:

"human beings are being released to funeral homes with used golves, biohazardous materials, and trash stuffed into their cavities.  The body bags are torn and leaking fluids.  Autopsied bodies are in dire condition whe they leave her care, causing embalming and fuenral services to be a demanding feat.  In cases of accidental overdoses, or other fatal mistakes, Dr. Oleske will list the cause of death as suicide.  This understandably causes irreparable emotional damage to families.  Can you imagine your child, sibling or your friend, being listed as a suicide whey they simply made a mistake?  This is an example of the mental suffering our families experience.  Here is a real life example:  XXXXXXX lost his son to an accidental overdose in June 2022.  Dr. Oleske listed his son's cause of death as suicide.  Sitting with him in our foyer, we saw the weight and agony of this set in.  We kept him here at our funeral home as he denied, cried, and mourned for his son whom he though had purposely ended his own life.  XXXXX [dad] passed away this March, after spending three of his last nine months living believeing his son had murdered himself...."

Said a different funeral home about the current ME and her office:

"...the autopsies performed in this office i would almost equate with mutilation.  Most of the time the arteries and veins are so butchered that they leak when trying to embalm.  Every previous medical examiner woud tie off the major arteries and veins, so that they were easily visible among the surrounding tissues...I believe a Winn Dixie Butcher takes more pride and care in their work.."  this particular company's letter writer went on to claim "I personally picked up a deceased from the medical examiner's office and when the deceased was brought out to me, the person releasing to my care accidentally dropped the deceased's head on the table and said, 'oops, she didn't feel it'"

Yet another area funeral home wrote this:

"They are extremely slow in approving cremation permits and families get upset at the funeral home because of the Meical Examiner's incompetence...The deceased are often times not clean leaving the Medical Examiner's Office.  They are covered in bodily fluids that can simply be taken care of by running water over the deceased.  They leave trash inside the bags with the deceased which is absolutely disrespectful...in conclusion our Medical Examiner's office is the worst I've ever seen"

"Answers" to Questions that will Elicit More Questions......

As a public employer, we have to do what is right by all employees  and follow board policy faithfully.  We must do it exclusively and do it consistently.

I have taken a significant interest in the case of an employee that has endured what I believe to be retaliation and harassment for making a complaint against one of his supervisors.  Retribution and/or retaliation for making a complaint against another employee is a violation of our BCC Workplace Harassment Policy--and this is the reason I have taken an interest in this issue.  I am NOT trying to micromanage or meddle in staff affairs, I'm simply trying to get to the bottom of why one of our policies was not followed properly and why one of our policies has been violated with no appropriate recourse yet given to the affected employee.  I have reviewed reams of documents and spoken to dozens of current and former employees intimately familiar with the EMS department.

Once the County adopted their "final word" on Matt Selover's harassment complaint----I was left with more questions which I submitted in writing to the HR director and County Administrator.

I received the answers to the questions late yesterday afternoon. They are pictured below.  The answers to these questions will most certainly elicit more probing questions from me because in some instances--I do not believe the answers are completely factual.

Some other answers are actually non-answers.  Here's what I mean by that:

Any answer (s) to any question (s) that I have posed to our Administrator and her staff that come back to me as (paraphrased) "This answer is not known and the relevant county employee should be asked."  Yeah, uh, that is not an answer I will accept.  That's lazy, weak, and feckless.

Believe me, they don't want me asking these questions of employees directly, nor should I have to.

I get it, a lot of this all happened before our most recent administrator and her newly hired staff was brought aboard.  A lot of it was inherited.

But once she accepted the job, she now officially owns it all.  All of it. I empathize about the difficulty--but that does not change the fact that she owns it.  And I do appreciate her hard work and I have high hopes and great expectations for what she will do as our administrator.

But that does not change the fact that she and her current staff have to own it.

Just as we, the elected commissioners, OWN all problems, issues, poor planning decisions, and historical mistakes made before our arrival as members of the BCC.  We can't sidestep tough, probing questions--we have to own them.

Imagine if I told the residents who are losing their back yards to a stormwater ditch that is swallowing their property "Yeah, you'll have to go ask the county engineer who is no longer here why that property was permitted to be platted that way!"  Just imagine how that would play?!?

....NO, we can't give weak answers and deflect blame.

Neither can our well-compensated staff.  So this list of "answers" I got yesterday will generate more questions and I will insist on complete answers to the questions I have posed, not "Go ask her" answers.  More on this to follow.

County's Final Harassment Complaint Disposition Letter Released----Which Will Lead to More Questions

I received a copy of the County's updated final disposition letter in the Matt Selover harassment complaint against Dr. Rayme Edler issue from May 1st of this year.  The initial investigation led to a report which urged Selover be returned to duty as soon as possible.  This earlier report also described other troubling issues with the way Mr. Selover was treated.

This latest final letter reverses much of the opinion of the first report from 6-24.

This report, below, is the county's final word on that complaint.  It will lead to many more questions from me and others--particularly as it pertains to the timeline of the events from 4-23-2019 through 5-13-2019.  Specifically and importantly I'll be asking for all the information about both complaints that were filed--because I do not believe the timeframe presented below and that events unfolded the way they are described in this final letter.  More on that in follow-on posts......

Why Does this Complaint from May Still Have No Resolution for the Employee?

The below report was completed and submitted on June 24th of this year.  But the employee who made the claim has had to push to get any movement on his complaint.   Why?

Investigating and Acting upon Harassment Complaints--What if our Own Policy is not Followed?

If a board policy is not followed with fidelity, it is not worth the paper it is written on....

The Board of County Commissioners has a robust policy that details employee rights, responsibilities and avenues for reporting harassment, misconduct, and/or sexual harassment.

You can read the full, updated policy here.

The critical question for me is this though:  What happens if our own policy is not followed?

There has been a simmering complaint that was investigated last spring and into early summer.

A final disposition letter was written by our HR department on June 24th.

But then that report was shelved and the employee who made the complaint was never given any closure.  It appears to me that this employee has suffered retaliation in the wake of his complaint against a higher-up.

After I first found out about this whole nasty issue in early November---I asked about it!

The "investigation" was suddenly pulled from the shelf and re-started.  That was the rationale given to me at that time for the document I had by then acquired still being classified as "confidential."  I was told that in short order it would be releasable.

The timeframe for the final word/disposition of this long running harassment complaint that stopped and started in fits and spurts was yesterday at COB. 

In communicating just this morning with the employee who made the complaint this past spring----he still has received no final word on the status of his complaint.

I asked all last week for the status of this matter from Administrator Gilley and our County Attorney.  I thought the ten-day period for final disposition ended Thursday.  I was told it ended Friday.

Friday was yesterday.

As of this morning, no final determination has been made so far as I can tell.  The only assumption I can make is that because the employee that made the complaint was not given any answers at the completion of the timeframe, and because I have not been given any answers about the disposition of this complaint (which I have requested)-------- the final disposition is that no additional action will be taken.

At a minimum, whatever action is to be taken should have been memorialized in writing as our policy dictates.  This has not happened and this is disappointing.  Sure, there has been lots of staff turnover, and sure, we have as a county had lots of burning issues with which to contend.

But that does not relieve leadership and staff of their duty to follow our policy with fidelity and to communicate to us in those instances where (and why) these policies may not be followed completely and in timely fashion.

Meanwhile, I will be releasing the document today because it is now a bona fide public record that has been requested of me by the media.

This report was investigated and completed on June 24th.  It should have been handled then, not now.

But it wasn't.

Two Words: Press Charges

I was sickened when I watched a video of a student being sucker-punched, knocked to the ground, and then beaten with fists and kicks until he was unconscious.

Thankfully, I have spoken to my school board representative Kevin Adams and he reported to me that the student in the video is going to be okay.

And I know from my experience as a school board member that those that committed this battery on another student will face school discipline--which could potentially include reassignment or expulsion.

But after watching this and seeing it for myself----it is disturbing.  Really hard to watch.  I also believe the student (s) who filmed this from beginning to end, obviously knowing what was about to happen, these student (s) should be disciplined as well.  Will they be though?  We will never know but they should be.

Because the blows to a downed individual could have been lethal--this young man could have been killed in this attack.

That's why I have two words for the parents of the victim here--because that's what he was in this attack, a victim.   PRESS CHARGES.  I would strongly encourage the parents to press charges to get justice primarily, and to remove these violent students secondarily from the schools so that such attacks are not committed on other students.

I say this because I have seen, in my many years on the school board prior to joining the county commission, instances similar to this where  students that committed similar type assaults and or batteries come out of the school discipline process and return right back to the schools from which they were removed or are moved to different public schools once the often light school discipline (3-day, 5-day, or 10 Day suspension)-is concluded.  Sometimes this happens much too quickly--so far as I am concerned.  At least if charges are filed, a just penalty can be achieved for the families and the victim.

I tried hard to make discipline firm and meaningful when I was on the board, but the proclivity of the administration was always to defer to political correctness and discipline was watered down.  This was infuriating to parents, and frankly I do believe it is one of the reasons the population voted to finally move to the appointed superintendent model (which cannot happen soon enough!).  I also believe feckless, weak discipline is driving good parents and good families to flee the public schools--which is very sad to me as a staunch public school supporter.

Bring back firm discipline, remove and segregate the violent predatory monsters, protect the vulnerable, enforce board policy on bullying, and back up the teachers when they write referrals---and the school population will increase again.  I'm convinced of that.

(In case anyone is interested, here are some posts from the past on this topic, real incidents, real stories).

The School District Must Follow the Law and School Board Policy

I feel sorry for students who have train-wreck home lives, I truly do.  I want to do everything I can to help such students.  And there is no shortage of such students here in Escambia County.

With this said, there is absolutely no excuse for any student-no matter how poor he is, where he lives, or what his dysfunctional home life might be---to bully, harass, and/or abuse another student.  Every student deserves to be safe at school—rich, poor, White, Black, Hispanic, Asian—all students deserve a safe school environment and I’m fed up with the inaction on corralling the bullying taking place in our schools.

I have brought examples and described circumstances that were not handled appropriately.

Yesterday I had to point out yet another one, where the law and school board policy apparently was not followed.

It seems like every month lately I hear from constituents and/or I find in the back-up documents anecdotal evidence that our policy against bullying and harassment (mirrored from state statutes) is not being followed with fidelity.

I went ballistic in February over this, and was assured that we were doing it right from “now on.”

Two months later in April of this year, the same thing happened at another school and the teacher was deliberate in describing the incident as bullying, even going so far as to document that the perpetrator had victimized the same student on more than one occasion.  The teacher knew it was bullying, and called it that.  

But the school neither coded it as bullying, nor did the statutorily required 10 day investigation.  If 

What Should a Parent Do if Their Students are Assaulted or become Victims of Battery at School?

It becomes frustrating for parents if they have a student that has been assaulted or battered at our schools because parents trust us to keep their kids safe while appropriately punishing  violent bullying offenders, and yet we as an educational entity cannot divulge the punishment we give such offenders.  Discipline records are educational records and cannot be divulged under FERPA.

If the same parents press charges, they will receive information on the offender to include charges and eventual disposition of the case--to include any punishment given.

I struggle with this.  When parents have students that have been assaulted or abused at school, and the school minimizes the issue or downplays the severity, this infuriates parents.

As an example, right now at PHS there is an issue brewing of which I am aware that may erupt and result in Police being brought in;  The issue, incessant bullying and harassment of one student by another, with the aggressor hauling off and slapping the victim's head multiple times on multiple occasions over a multiple week period--frequently in the presence of other students.  This abhorrent behavior continues to this day.  The victim is afraid to defend himself, and is humiliated and demoralized because this keeps happening, and he does not know what to do.  According to what I have been told, the school has been made aware of this, and has taken a "boys will be boys" nonchalant stance on the matter---which is infuriating the parent.  Nothing is being done, and the student who is being victimized intends to transfer out of this school as soon as he can, in order to escape this bullying and harassment.

These incidents must be met with immediate steps to stop the behavior.  Allowed to continue, who knows how such behavior might escalate.  Perhaps the next time it could be something horrific like this past Wednesday's high school beating in a Baltimore High School...There must be zero tolerance for violence, bullying, and harassment in our schools, Zero Tolerance!

Why does the school not follow policy and put an end to this?  I'm going to dig into this PHS incident like an industrial horizontal boring machine.  I'm tired of hearing these stories about how our schools

Violence in Some Local Schools Continues

I was contacted by another concerned, irate parent yesterday afternoon about school violence.  The issue, incessant bullying and violence directed at his 7th grade son.  "I'm worried my son will snap, I'm worried he will go off on these students that are harassing him, and this is going to be really bad if it happens!" he stated to me in our long phone conversation yesterday afternoon.

"I've never ever dealt with such an incompetent response to a significant problem---what can I do, what should I do to ensure this does not happen to my son any more at Escambia County Schools?" was the question from this concerned father.

"It has been on-going ever since elementary school, and nothing ever changes and students are bullying and harassing my son and other students as well-- and it is getting to a point where I will consider pressing charges!" he continued  "Last week, my nephew that attends the same school with my son was attacked, he was punched in the face and he was badly injured!--when will the employees of this school control this situation?"

I have received numerous complaints about violence in this school over the last three years.  I am going to follow this particular incident very closely to ensure that our board policy is being followed with respect to the students who attacked other students at this school.  There must be swift punishment for violent, aggressive and/or abusive misconduct at our schools.  If the school only gives a weak consequence or worse yet no significant consequence for this sort of assault, I believe this parent will press charges.  And I don't blame him.

The parent asked if he could take a couple of days to get the whole story out of his son and call me back on Sunday;  additionally, he said he is going to talk to the school principal to see what is being done to correct this misbehavior.  If the issue is not fixed, he reiterated the idea hat he may call the police and file a report.

Sad as it may sound, with all of the chances we give, sometimes and not infrequently it takes a parent pressing charges to permanently remove some predatory students from some of our schools.  This is sad but true.  Just last year, at a different middle school, we had a 6'1" 270lb 15 year old 8th grade student, on his 15th referral( with a previous record of several violent/aggressive incidents), punch a 6th grade girl in the face and injure her.  In that case, that student received an anemic punishmnet--a week out of school.  When he came back (which he should not have been allowed to do, in my opinion) he eventually ended up sexually assaulting two different female students on a bus, their

Getting Better Numbers Part III: Coding Infractions Incorrectly

When a discipline infraction occurs in our schools, if it rises to the level that consequences must be administered, a certain code is assigned to the infraction.

This coding drives the discipline consequences.

Politicians in Tallahassee and in DC have over the last several years made bullying a high priority issue.  It is for this reason that Florida DOE puts a school district's Safe Schools allocation (for Escambia County it is about $1Million dollars) on the line if a district does not accurately report and code bullying in the system.

I know that school administrators don't want to have bullying be an issue on their campuses--nobody wants that problem.

But when a teacher uses the word bullying in a written referral, and the corresponding coding is not utilized, I have an issue with this.  This month there are instances of this and I am going to ask about this.  In a particularly blatant instance--the classroom teacher writes the referral on a student she has witnessed bullying and harassing her students in her class.  She uses the word "Bullying" two times in the referral.

"[he is] bullying another student.. XXXXXX Knows he is on thin ice.  He tries to control his behavior but I do not tolerate bullying against another student who is trying to learn"

In this instance, the bullying was then coded to "disruption,minor, instigating trouble, refused to follow instruction"  but no bullying listed.

Our board rule stipulates, in 7.18, as does the state law, that once the term bullying is used a specific set of steps must be taken to address the behavior, generating an incident report of the findings.  Within ten days an investigation must be concluded and a report generated.

I have asked the superintendent today for a copy of that report as it relates to this student's infraction from 12-2-2014.  I hope it was completed and the process was followed, because this infraction was not the one that led to this particular student's removal from school;  that infraction happened later in April and was much worse, leading to his arrest on a Felony charge.

But why was this behavior not curtailed after all the earlier transgressions, the bullying, and other infractions this student committed?  Why?

Having the greatest reporting system in the universe and a magical "Discipline Intervention Matrix" does nothing if they are not both properly utilized and aggressive, abusive, and violent behavior is not swiftly addressed.

School board rules have a specific set of steps that must be taken when bullying is alleged and I'm going to push and push on this until I know these steps are being followed.

Are these reports being completed as board rules dictate?  I do not have complete confidence that this board rule is being followed.

I certainly hope it is not being done deliberately in order to get lower numbers.

If so, it is not right and it will jeopardize, potentially, not only student safety but also our safe schools allocation.

Mr. Big "A" and Discipline Dysfunction.....

It started out pretty innocuously.  Big "A" transferred from one middle school over to another in the 7th grade here in Pensacola.  But "Big A" started getting into trouble at his new school.  Nothing serious at first, nothing really too terrible.  He was caught selling candy in violation of school rules.  He was tardy.  He started to become a disruption.  nothing too bad at first.

Soon, Big A was blatantly defiant to district personnel, and willfully disrespectful to other students.  Big A liked to push his weight around, figuratively and literally;  As a seventh grader, he stood 6' 1" and weighed in at 270.  He was a big kid.

Soon, these referrals started to stack up (eventually there would be 16 in one calendar year, sixteen!)

At referral number 5, Big A committed a significant infraction;  The teacher that day recorded on the referral she wrote that Big A was "Bullying the same female student again, calling her "ass-crack" every time he saw her.  This student was upset, and did not understand why Big A was bullying her, and she did not like it.  The teacher used the word "Bullying", in her write up--but for reasons that I do not understand this infraction was not coded as bullying in SESIR.  

Other referrals came, Big A used demeaning homophobic slurs on some students, taunting others calling them "Bitches"

He confronted a female staff member outside, intimidating her to the point that she reported feeling threatened.

Big A even shoved a teacher that was trying to keep him from fighting with another student.

Fast forward a few referrals later, and Big "A" was walking up and down the halls of his school, using the "N-Word" over and over, loud enough that other students and faculty can hear it.  When