By Mike Donoghue, Senior Correspondent
Village Manager Eric Duffy, in his letter to Police Chief Joseph Swanson has outlined 11 specific conduct concerns. Duffy goes on to say the reasons he is contemplating discipline for the chief are as follows:
- After the traffic incident on 10/13/24, you never called on-duty personnel to notify them of the incident, nor did you notify me.
- You directed staff not to worry about collecting outstanding amounts on 2022, 2023 and 2024 parking tickets and violations from a police officer, fireman and fireman’s wife, and said that you would handle the tickets and violations. You took no action.
- You shared police evidence on multiple occasions with your husband, who does not have authority to access such evidence.
- You have regularly ordered dispatchers to sign you in, in the early morning, several hours before leaving your home.
- You often conduct personal business while on duty, including swimming, going to the gym, getting a haircut and walking your dog.
- You are often out of uniform in the office while on duty.
- You have not completed a death investigation report from January 2024, for which you were the primary officer assigned.
- Due to your inattention to emails, you failed to procure video evidence in a timely manner for a May 2024 crime outside the M&T Bank.
- You failed to take appropriate disciplinary action against an officer in relation to both a parade incident and a high-speed chase from the Summer of 2023.
- In my opinion, you showed a lack of empathy for your subordinates in your response to them regarding a threat of violence made against the police station in January 2024.
- It is alleged that you failed to properly log evidence (an Apple Watch) from a March 2024 kidnapping case. The owner called the department on January 9, 2025 seeking to retrieve it and department employees could not find the evidence in the evidence locker, the evidence book, the case files, or the Valcour system. Evidence should be kept in the locker and logged in all above places. It was found in a folder in the Dispatching Center.