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| BOYCE HAMLET WOULD MAKE AN EXCELLENT SOUTH PARK CHARACTER |
We have previously posted about tainted ABC Enforcement Director Boyce Hamlet not possessing the required law enforcement credentials for his position. That coupled with his lack of credibility and honesty poses serious problems for the ABC and its enforcement efforts.
Arkansas Code Annotated § 12-9-106(e) and the Arkansas Commission of Law Enforcement Standards ("CLEST") and Training both make it clear about having the necessary certification.
A recent hire also lacks the required credentials like his tainted boss as well.
Kenneth A. Peatoss was hired as an ABC Enforcement Agent on May 17, 2017 with an annual salary of $40,000.
This was a drastic drop in income from his previous position with Walmart where he was making $92,000.00 a year.
Before Peatross worked for Walmart, he was a Special Agent with the FBI making $137,000 a year.
Ok, so now you are probably saying that he was trained by the FBI. Yes he was. But that training is vastly different than the training for a police officer in Arkansas. And his FBI training does automatically qualify him to obtain certification in Arkansas. In fact CLEST has not recognized it nor do they shown him having any type of certification.
Sharp readers will notice that CLEST has Peatross as working for Tobacco Control as we did.
But the fact remains that he, like Hamlet, is not a certified law enforcement officer in the State of Arkansas.
We sent a FOI request to CLEST on June 4th for a copy of their file on Peatross and the required F1 form. CLEST had no file on Peatross (no file equals no certification in Arkansas) or and F1 form. All they had was his enrollment for a refresher course.
Peatross is signed up for a refresher course, but without having the initial required certification, that course is useless - it won't make him certified.
After we received the email from CLEST we sent a FOI request to the DFA/ABC.
Then on June 7th, DFA mouthpiece Jake Bleed sent us this email.
He claimed that no F1 form for Peatross existed. Imagine that. CLEST sent us the one they had received from the ABC on June 5th (which they also sent to us) yet Bleed stated no such form exists.
We sent Bleed this email:
We never received a response from Bleed about his snafu.
Hamlet was reluctant to send the legally required form to CLEST upon Peatross' hire (as he was in his own instance due to no certifiaction) and he did not send it until we requested a copy and reminded him about his legal obligation to send the required form.
Hamlet did not submit the F1 form to CLEST for Peatross until June 5, 2017, twenty days after he was hired.
This does not surprise us as Hamlet is an admitted law breaker and genuine dumb ass.
If an individual fails to meet the required certification's, they cannot carry a weapon or perform many of the duties of an ABC Enforcement Agent. When we met Peatross at an ABC Board meeting shortly after he was hired, he appeared to be wearing a weapon and ABC badge on his belt.
Peatross can obtain the necessary certification by attending training at ALETA - Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy or try and get a waiver from CLEST.
Perhaps the Governor plans to replace Hamlet with Peatross as he actually has the experience and training (less the Arkansas certification) to be Enforcement Director especially with the ABC being involved in the Medical Marijuana process. Hamlet is a ticking bomb due to his past and our exposure of him is not something that can be swept under the carpet and forgotten about.