Some Quick Drops in the Bucket

RPD Officer Roger Sutton will have to wait another two months to go to trial, after presiding Judge Edward D. Webster formally recused himself from a case he had been presiding over for several months as it continued to twist and turn its way through the labyrinth known as Riverside County Superior Court.

Webster admitted to both parties that he had married former Deputy Chief Audrey Wilson to her current husband retired Sergeant Mike Wilson. He also said that he was friends with both of them and Audrey Wilson's parents. He also was friendly with most of the other defendants in the case who were employed with the Riverside Police Department.

Before Webster chose the eve of trial to drop his bombshell, both sides argued over the pile of motion de limines the city had filed in court to expunge even the mere scent of racism from the trial. Ten motions, some of them clearly connected with the allegations of racial harassment made by Sutton in his original complaint filed in August 2000.

Eugene Ramirez, the attorney for the city, said that if the motions are not granted, then the trial will not take three weeks as scheduled but between five and six weeks.

Three weeks to try the facts, and three more to try the plaintiff. That is what Riverside has come to during the first five years of the new millenium.
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The department has remained steadfast in its silence involving the internal investigation of Gang and narco detective Joseph Miera. When asked about the status of the investigation, Lt. John De La Rosa who heads Internal Affairs cited confidentiality to every question asked, then finally said, "You know it's confidential." Then he advised me to talk to the city attorney.

So basically, yes there is an investigation and it is currently ongoing otherwise, De La Rosa would have said that one had been completed as he had in the DUI case involving Officer Melissa Brazil.

Been there, done that in writing. A supervisor of civilian front desk employees at the Riverside Police Department's Orange St. Station refused to forward a Freedom of Information Act request sent to Chief Leach, and opened it up, reading it, then referring it to the Record's Division where no doubt, it still sits.

Fortunately, the city attorney's office emailed the FOI request to Chief Leach's office and Leach responded, in writing in a letter received on July 5. He said that Miera is still employed by the department but cited confidentiality and threw out a bunch of penal codes preventing the public from knowing what its own public servants have been up to, during their time out serving the public.
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The city plans to appeal the decision of Riverside County Superior Court judge Stephen Cunnison to reinstate former Det. Al Kennedy back to the police department. Chief Russ Leach also has stated that he will not allow Kennedy back into the department.
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To the unidentified plain-clothed, bearded bald anger-management case in the Orange St. Station Parking lot this past week....get off the steroids, they're bad for you.
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