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SWORN STATEMENT OF JOSE CARDELL MARCH 28, 2012 JOSE CARDELL having been first duly sworn testifies as follows: MR. TORRENS: 28, 2012. Today is Wednesday, March I am

It is approximately 12:41 p.m.

Sergeant Edward Torrens, internal affairs investigator for the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department. Mr. Cardell at this time could you

read the affidavit into the record, please? THE WITNESS: I, Joe Cardell, being first

duly sworn hereby state my name is Joe Cardell. I reside at 6100 Northwest 2nd Avenue for work. My date of birth is 9-1-57. is 305-219-2155. My contact number

I'm making the following

statement to Sergeant Edward Torrens who has identified himself as an internal affairs investigator from the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department, State of Florida, in connection with case number IA number 12-001 and IA #12-002. I'm of sound mind and I'm not under

the influence of any drugs or alcohol at this time. I understand that giving false

information in this statement is in violation of Florida Statute 837.05, false reports to law
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enforcement authorities punishable as a misdemeanor of the first degree, 837.06, making false official statements punishable as a misdemeanor in the second degree. MR. TORRENS: sir. Okay, thank you very much

Mr Cardell, are you appearing here today

without any promises and without any threats or duress to provide information in an investigation being conducted by the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department? THE WITNESS: MR. TORRENS: Yes. Sir are you aware that the

conversation with me is being recorded? THE WITNESS: MR. TORRENS: Yes. Are you aware that anything

you say may or may not be used in a departmental hearing or in a court of law? THE WITNESS: MR. TORRENS: Yes. Okay sir, okay Mr. Cardell

the affidavit you signed it, and did I sign it as a witness? THE WITNESS: Yes.

DIRECT EXAMINATION Q Okay, thank you sir. Okay Mr. Cardell,

tell me what brings you to IA today.

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Well earlier this week on Monday, March

26, I was instructed to insure that dissemination of the T.M. reports or data in our system follow the protocol for dissemination. Q A Okay. And apparently it was a heightened case

because of the murder of the individual and that causes a lot of requests for information. So we're

just put on alert to make sure we follow the protocol which is for any reports that are work through the SOP or the records unit to the PIO and from there, potentially the districts information officer, chief information officer. it's been John Schuster. Q officer. A Legal implications and school board Yes, he's the chief communications Classically

attorneys so that's why it needs to go that route. Q A Okay. So I was you know, I had been through this

before with Southwood and Coral Gables. Q A On some other incident, okay. And so I understood it was just a reminder

to make sure -Q Okay.

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A Q A

-- protocol is followed. Okay. And I proceeded to review the case, if we

had already disseminated it. Q A Okay. Apparently we had to the PIO but then

looking in the system I discovered that there was some activity on the police report with different individuals printing it out and/or making modifications. Q A Okay. So I -- I reported that immediately to the

chief which had asked me to make sure that protocol was followed and I brought it to his attention that you know, different people had printed out the report on different dates. Q A guess. Q Okay, all right and I see you brought some Okay. And so that's the reason why I'm here I

documentations, some print out. A Q A Q Yes. And if you could just kind of -Well, this is a systematic process. Okay.
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A pen. Q A

I have here -- let me see, let me get a

Yeah, you could use my pen. On page one I have a snap shot of the

police report. Q A Q A Okay. In form presentation. Okay. Not as the police report would show if it

printed out but just the way it shows in the computer system. Q A Okay. Particularly on the officers lap top that

originated the report. Q A Okay. And it's two forms. Basically they

clearly show that on October 20 of 2011 the incident occurred and that the report was written October 21 and it was completed and submitted to the supervisor for review and the supervisor cleared the report EC, exceptionally cleared, on the status in disposition. And after a denial for some reason it was ultimately submitted and ultimately Sergeant Urstrelly (phonetic) approved the report with the exceptionally cleared and submitted it to records
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for it's -- it's finality basically.

It was not

referred to GIU and it shows here assigned investigator blank, investigative unit blank, investigation status not referred. So that's page

one and then page two I have here in November 15 of 2011, the department was conducting a routine quality control. Routine quality control on a

monthly basis and so we pulled the October reports. And then here it clearly shows that that particular report was pulled. Ultimately it wasn't reviewed

but it was pulled as part of the pull from which to pull the ones that would be quality control. Q A volume. Q A Volume of sampling, okay. Right and so here this particular report So like the sampling? So it was a sampling, it was the large

clearly shows an identical match to the original record that was submitted -Q A Okay. -- when it was first submitted after being

written in October. Q A Okay. So there it shows again that you know,

Officer Dunn was the officer, Ustrelly was the

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supervisor, and the status in disposition both show an eight which is equivalent to EC or exceptionally cleared. Q A Okay. And then investigator zero, meaning there

is no investigator, and the investigator status is not referred and then I see that the public narrative is identical to what it currently is today. But consistently the report was basically

written and sent in and that was the end of it. Q A Okay. But the concern arrises in the fact that On page two where on the top side you

-- let's see.

have the quality control record -Q A Okay. -- you have below that there's two forms

from an audit that was done on the police report -Q A Okay. -- in order to determine if any

dissemination had been concluded or occurred as a result of being requested, to ensure proper protocol. Q A Okay. So what this audit reveals is that in

fact, the report was printed by user S. Hadley -Page: 7

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Q A

Okay. -- on February the 29th at about noon and

you know, it indicates that prior to this occasion it had not been printed but as a result in this activity, the printed incident report, 2011 -11-4-77 was printed a full copy with initial narrative with all related supplements and for S. Hadley in DSP. Q A 29th. Q A -Q A Q A The incident? -- the individual got murdered in Orlando. Okay. There's another print for Renee Kearse, Okay. Which apparently was three days after the Okay. And -- well that occurred on February

support specialist at GIU. Q A Okay. And so that was you know, something I had

to bring to the attention to the chief -Q A Okay. -- because I had just been instructed to

make sure that protocol was followed -Page: 8

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Q A

Okay. -- so he needed to be aware that this

apparently was already printed and you know, taken outside of the system. Q A Okay. Since then it's been -- well let's see,

page three -Q A Okay. -- here shows that another event occurred

with this police report on March the 21st for some reason, which I don't understand and I don't intend to speculate -Q A Q A Sure. -- but Sergeant Lourdes Hodges -Okay. -- as the user made a modification, which

resulted in a tracking that resulted in system stamping a note that says, "Status changed to 8. 3/21/2012 at 15:25 by case management". So

apparently, a user L. Hodges, was identified by the system and the system generated a record that a modification was made to the status of the police report with an EC -Q A Okay. -- which is the same value that it
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originally has. Q A Okay, so let me -- okay go ahead finish. And so that was a modification made to the

report and the -- the conflict here is that the report had not been referred to the investitive unit -Q A function. Okay. -- and that this was an investigative And so this was not understood what the

relationship is with this change on a report that had not been referred. Q A Okay. But it's just activity so the system put

that out there. Q A Okay. And -- and there after on page four and

then five -Q A Okay. -- we see that user S. Hadley, again, on

March 27, which was yesterday, at 1:22 and 1:23 p.m. went back into the system and printed out the report, the same report again, 2011 11-4-77 -Q A Okay. -- printed it out again by user S. Hadley But also, another report was
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on 2/29 and on 3/27.

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printed out which was 2012, 02534 which is a different police report and apparently in some way it relates to the other report. Q A Q A Okay. Some property or some -Something. -- confiscated. But anyways, that report

was printed out as well. Q A Okay. There's policies in the standard operating

procedures for records -Q A Right. -- and you know, the dissemination of

police activity records and public records access should be strictly done through the records unit and so it appears that depending on the purpose of the use of the print outs and the access of the reports, if in fact they were disseminated, violates the policy and procedure of the department. Q A Okay. And this case apparently ended up in the

news media because I was watching television on the news and -Q attention.
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Yeah this is a high profile, has national

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After all this work that I had done to

secure our data I was familiar with the case and I was watching the news and basically the news reported you know, verbatim, this police report. And how it got out there, other than through the proper protocol which I don't believe that the Schuster or the school board attorney has released this report yet, but it appears that the report has -- it appears that our protocol has been compromised and that the report is out there and many news media have it. And you know, I'm in charge of a

department that doesn't disseminate this and they -you know, we're instructed not to disseminate it and then they didn't, they only handed it to the PIO -Q A Right. -- which these other instances we can't

account for them. Q A Okay. So I'm just putting the information that's

available to me out, for someone else to do what they're supposed to do which -Q A Right. -- is outside of my purview or my

management jurisdiction. Q Okay, let me just, you know, for clarity.

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All right, I see the printouts here.

As far as you

can tell or as far as you know with the research that you've done has the -- any of the two reports or the police reports, the content, the narrative, has there been any changes or -A Q A No. Okay, so that's okay. I looked at the narrative from the

original report and what we did in quality control and I compared that narrative with the narrative that is in the report today and they were both exactly matching. Q Exactly the same, okay. Question, you

have on printout here indicating Sergeant Hodges, or S. Hodges, that there was -- I'm sorry my correction, L. Hodges. See here it says status, and

I'm reading here from the incident tracking snap shot here. The status changed to eight and it has 1525 by case management.

the other date 3-21-2012.

Okay, that is as some kind of default? A Q A Q A That's a system input. Common system input, okay. It's a system stamp in the notes. Okay, in the notes. As a result of the user effecting a change
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-Q A Q Okay. -- to the record for the status. For the status, okay. So it was changed

to eight and you indicated that eight is the equivalent of exceptionally cleared. A Q Exceptionally cleared. Okay, and it was -- what was the case

status before this? A Q Before this it was an eight. Okay, so basically it would read here

status changed to eight and the date it was already -- so it was kind of like a duplicate -A Q then. Redundant. Redundant, okay, so it was more redundant Okay, so we have this here. And do we have

any indication here that L. Hodges printed anything out? A Q A Q No. No, just basically that? Yes. Okay, that she -- okay. But what we do

have is these other two employees here and it does read here and I'm reading out of page two the auditing, where it says printed. So Hadley, I guess
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a sign in name or identification, printed it -printed a report here, and also an R. Kearse. But

then you also have for this other here on page four and five, you also have S. Hadley printing out the report again. So we have one here, okay, so we have

this one here, this report was printed a second time actually as of yesterdays date. A Q Yes. And then you have the other report which I

guess has some kind of correlation or relationship with the individual -- with the young man that was killed, this other report. So he -- it also

indicates here that S. Hadley printed out that report? A Q Yes. Okay, so I just wanted to make sure that I Is there anything else you want to

have -- okay. add? A

We've taken steps to further secure the

police reports since there's this activity so others won't access it -Q A Okay. -- and I don't really have anything else I can continue researching the system

at the time.

to see what else I can identify or find that are

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potentially regularities. Q Right, and just kind of looking here at

what you're saying on the first page where it was -when the report was originally a report -- the case number 211-11477 back on October 20 -- what is it, October 20, yeah, 2011. It was written and cleared,

exceptionally cleared by the supervisor, Sergeant Ustrelli (phonetic) and I could see here it was never forwarded -- I'm just reading here, I want to be correct here. In the incident report, it was

never forwarded and not forwarded to the investigative division, there is no assigned investigator or no investigative number. Okay, I

just want to make sure that I'm reading that correctly. Okay, Mr. Cardell, is there anything

that I may have failed to ask you that you would like to add to your statement? A Q Nope. Okay, are there any other persons or

witnesses to the alleged act? A Q Nope. Has everything you've said been the truth

to the best of your knowledge? A Q Yes. Okay, you are reminded that you are
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prohibited from disclosing any information obtained pursuant to this investigation until this case is closed. This concludes the statement. It is

approximately 1:02 p.m. much sir.

Mr. Cardell, thank you very

(Sworn statement concluded at 1:02 p.m.)

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