Certainly the leadership of OS&LE and LETC will attempt to deflect attention from this blog by dismissing it as being the ramblings of disgruntled current or former employee. But the challenge would be to reach that conclusion after reviewing this blog. It is long past time for VA Office of the Inspector General to review OS&LE or LETC’s training records with respect to their law enforcement authority, review overall activities for efficiency, ethical processes and decisions, and review position descriptions based on actual duties performed versus what is in the position description.
This blog is intended to inform the public about a federal law enforcement national headquarters that issues regulatory guidance, but does not follow its own rules: the Department of Veteran Affairs Office of Security and Law Enforcement (OS&LE) and the Department of Veteran Affairs Law Enforcement Training Center (LETC). The initial awareness that these two organizations were actively ignoring their own rules about becoming and maintaining employment as a member of VA law enforcement came from their own personnel. Several OS&LE and LETC members have been candid about not conforming to the established hiring and training standards. These Freedom of Information Act requests easily confirm what OS&LE and LETC members have described. The releases confirm members of these organizations must adhere to published VA Police standards, that they do not or did not attend annual medical or psychological evaluations per VA regulations, and that they have no activity or standard of oversight.
The releases confirm no extra or special regulations regarding OS&LE or LETC positional requirements. This is easily concluded because if there were such documents they would have been released in compliance with FOIA law, so they do not exist. So OS&LE and LETC personnel must meet the same standards of employment and training as every member of the VA Police national organization. It has been explained that some OS&LE and LETC members were or have been waived from some or all initial or continuing education requirements. If such a waiver policy exists, it was not released which would be a violation of FOIA law, so again it must not exist. Of course this may be happening without the policy, but that would violate the Directive 0730 and this would be identified if they received any oversight at all.
What was particularly concerning is almost each OS&LE and LETC position description had the duty Criminal Investigator. But there was no release of a case assignment roster, investigator log, or any other investigation case tracking mechanism. In fact, the release answering this specific FOIA request for the case assignment roster stated they have no such thing. So either they do have it in accordance with their own policies and did not release it in violation of FOIA laws or they do not perform this duty and their positions should be reclassified to a lower grade.
Perhaps the most outrageous statement from the releases is the assertion that OS&LE and LETC oversee themselves for compliance with VA Police regulations. Is self oversight in line with the “new culture of accountability” President Obama’s promised? They did offer that LETC is FLETA accredited, but this is a poor distraction at best. FLETA accreditation means a law enforcement course meets a recognized standard, not that the instructors are in compliance with their own agency’s employment or arming standards. I wonder if LETC would be FLETA accredited if FLETA reviewed training records?
OS&LE and LETC FOIA Releases 