Taxpayers Fork Out $90,000 for Police Commissioners' Farewell Party

A professional singer and stand-up comedian cost the taxpayers $16,000 (70,000 shekels) for appearing Wednesday night at a farewell party for outgoing Police Commissioner Yochanan Danino.

That is only a small part of the taxpayers' money at work, so to speak. Total cost of the festival was $90,000 (370,000) shekels, part of which went for 200 copies of a book written in his honor and distributed to guests

The title of the souvenir is "My father, the Police Commissioner."

A group of police officers boycotted the party.

The book and the officers' absence  say volumes about Danino and the police department, whose trust from the people is somewhere around zero following several sex scandals and years of gross politicization when it comes to crime. Hundreds of complaints have charged that police officers arrest Jews on trumped-up charges when they file complaints of assault against police or Arabs.

Several of the invited guests who did not show up last night included former senior police officers and commissioners, who were quoted by Haaretz as saying that Danino "frequently speaks as if there were no commissioners before him.”

Several of them had left the police force out of frustration that Danino turned the police department into a club for his cronies.

Journalists were barred from covering the party .

Danino told Channel 2 television last week that he was not involved in planning the party, but officials in his own office said that the whole idea of the party was Danino's and that he planned it.

The party concluded month-long "farewell events' for Danino throughout the country.

The total cost to taxpayers is not known but obviously is far higher than the cost of last night's gala.