Best Political Scandal

It was around this time last year that the Broward Sheriff's Office, the sixth-largest in the country, reported that it had solved more than 50 percent of the crimes committed in 2003. That was more than twice the national average. It was also a lie. Some of the "solved" crimes were pinned on people who had airtight if highly inconvenient alibis: They were incarcerated or dead when they were supposed to have broken the law. Other crimes were demoted (e.g., burglary became "trespassing") to keep them out of official reports. The culture among commanders at BSO, prosecutors found, encouraged fudging numbers. A former aide to Sheriff Ken Jenne revealed that the sheriff had urged him to smear the Miami Herald's police reporter, who had been hammering BSO over the scandal. Two Weston detectives were charged with criminal misconduct for falsely clearing cases. When the true numbers shook out, they showed that crime was actually on the rise across much of Broward County. The BSO morass, years in the making, just keeps unraveling, this enigma wrapped in a riddle inside, well, bullshit.