Elections 2007: Gorilla of my dreams

Dan Bernstein is at it again in the Press Enterprise covering this contentious election season, which was manifested by two incidents in the past several days.

Apparently a woman who lived in an unspecified odd-numbered ward had received two ballots in the mail and there was a gorilla toting an "Anyone but Betro" sign invading the downtown pedestrian mall and scaring the shop owners on the strip.


Bernstein and the head of the Voters' Registrar office quickly sorted out the situation involving the doubly registered woman, but what is to be done about gorillas wandering downtown especially since that area of Pottersville is now apparently off-limits to teenagers, let alone animals?


I did go to a zoo once and while at the snack bar, I noticed an orangutan wandering around the picnic tables but this is an entirely different crisis impacting the All-American city.

Yesterday, I had received some stories that an invasion of the simian kind had occurred in the heart of the city's jewel, the epicenter of Riverside Renaissance but had a difficult time believing it. Having lived in Riverside for quite some time and I really should have known better.


I guess this is what's called "guerrilla theater". A historical perspective of "guerrilla theater" in the 1960s is here.

Then later on, there was the "guerrilla girls", a troupe of feminists who protested wearing gorilla masks that still is active today.

Now, in the heart of the Inland Empire, there are gorillas in its midst as well.


Here is one harrowing eyewitness account spilled to Bernstein by one shop owner in the usually sedate teenager-free downtown mall.


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Can you imagine the feeling I had?" gasped CeeAnn Thiel, proprietor of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkles gift shop on the downtown mall. "This tall man or lady came up to the counter in a full-blown gorilla suit -- gloves, shoes. You couldn't see a person there at all. I thought I was being held up by a fuzzy gorilla. My stomach fell to the floor."

The Wednesday afternoon visitor eventually produced a sign saying, "Don't Monkey Around -- Anybody But Betro," a reference to Ward 1 incumbent Dom Betro.

Thiel: "I told her (she finally figured out the person in gorilla suit was a woman) to go to the bank. Surely, she'd be thrown in jail."



I guess if the gorilla had been wearing a three-piece suit and visiting from Orange County, it would not have caused such fear in the heaving bosoms of those it encountered, though rumor is that most of those in downtown at the time thought it was hilarious and a welcome break to their day.



The mysterious gorilla did not go directly to jail without passing Go, but the folks at the Mission Inn did call the police when it payed them a visit. That figures, the Mission Inn is apparently a proud endorser of Betro and other members of BASS. And while it might not be illegal to impersonate an animal species on the downtown strip just yet, don't be surprised if soon enough the city council will be considering a newly drafted ordinance to do as some might say, make it so.

Animals have been banned on the mall since the city freaked out over the guy who used to frequent the now-defunct Wednesday Night fairs with a huge albino python around his neck. But obviously, when the city passed that restriction, they hadn't thought that a gorilla might drop by.


Oh what horrors!

I thought what was scarier at first were when those giant artistic oranges suddenly appeared all over downtown without much in the way of an explanation, but after a few weeks, they did kind of grow on me. Then came the quartet of local police officers who apparently were caught doing axels and spins at the temporary ice skating rink. Their aspirations to create their own version of the Ice Capades apparently were nipped to the bud before they could take it on the road.

All this is indeed shocking stuff, but gorillas performing guerrilla theater and bearing signs especially in the heart of Betro's territory, that is awfully nervy.



In other local news, the organization, Save-Riverside will be picketing beginning at 4:30 p.m. at the corner of 14th and Market streets. No word on whether the gorilla will be making another appearance.

Remember to send in your ballots by June 5 if you live in an odd-numbered ward and have received them.




The man who was arrested for allegedly dragging a Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy with his off-road vehicle near Canyon Lake was released from custody. In this case, witnesses came forward and said that they disagreed with the Sheriff Department's version of events that resulted in a nonfatal officer-involved shooting.

The Riverside County District Attorney's office is still reviewing the case.


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Spencer Meineke, 22, of Canyon Lake, a witness whose twin brother was riding in the off-road vehicle with Mende, said Mende had driven in a restricted area and ignored deputies when they motioned to some off-roaders. But when the confrontation with deputies occurred, Mende was in an area along the inlet to Canyon Lake where about 30 people had come to ride off-road vehicles and personal watercraft.

Witnesses said deputies had their guns drawn when they approached Mende on his vehicle. Mende was so frightened that he took off, Meineke has said.

A deputy grabbed hold of the off-road vehicle for a moment before falling, but was not struck by the vehicle or dragged, witnesses said.



Did the Los Angeles Police Department violate its consent decree with the federal government when 60 of its riot officers stormed a park on May Day, hitting individuals including representatives from the media with batons and shooting them with less lethal shotguns?

This is a question being asked by local community activists and organizations who are asking for a federal probe into the incident by the U.S. District judge who has been overseeing the reform process, according to this article in the Los Angeles Times. No doubt in response to the recent report released by the federal monitor of the LAPD's consent decree which stated that there might have been deterioration of the supervision and training of the department's officers.


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If U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess grants the request by groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, and if the resulting investigation finds the department violated the consent decree in the MacArthur Park melee, the judge could expand the federal oversight, set to expire in 2009.

"The decree was set up to prevent exactly the kind of outbreak of violence that took place May 1," said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney for the ACLU of Southern California.

Rosenbaum said his group was seeking an inquiry by court-appointed monitor Michael Cherkasky to determine whether the decree should be expanded, including requiring extra police training in handling demonstrations.

One member of the Police Commission said he saw no need for yet another investigation because both the LAPD and the commission's inspector general were already conducting probes.

"Let the systems in place do the job, and then we can evaluate how they did," Commission Vice President Alan Skobin said.




In the midst of this latest development, over 2,000 people marched to MacArthur Park, the site of the May Day incident.



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Among those in attendance were Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) and Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' San Gabriel Region, who called it a day of "peace and solidarity with all those who marched on May 1."

As he addressed the crowd, Villaraigosa also made reference to the May 1 melee at MacArthur Park, where police, pelted with bottles and rocks by agitators, were videotaped using batons and riot guns on the crowd, including reporters and photographers.

"Here in Los Angeles we all have the right to march peacefully," Villaraigosa said in Spanish to the cheering crowd. "We're here because we love this great country and we want to share in the American dream."





The New York Daily News ran an editorial supporting the presence of media cameras in the courtroom during the trial involving three New York City Police Department officers who were indicted by a grand jury for criminal charges in connection with the November 2006 shooting of Sean Bell and two of his friends.


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And far from inflaming public passions, cameras helped soothe unrest during and after the trial of four NYPD officers in the tragic killing of Amadou Diallo. Because the public saw and heard the evidence firsthand, they understood why the jury voted to acquit.

The city faces another highly charged trial of police officers, those accused in the shooting death of Sean Bell. The public will want to see that justice is done in that case, and lawmakers should give them the right to do so. Return cameras to the courtrooms.



The three officers indicted in that case recently appeared in court for a scheduling hearing according to the New York Times. Their lawyers had a list of evidence that they wished to receive from the Queens District Attorney's office including eyewitness accounts and transcripts of grand jury testimony given by police officers who were not indicted.




A jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court awarded over $10 million to four officers working for South Gate Police Department who claimed that they were harassed on the job by White officers including supervisors because they were men of color.

The city plans to appeal, just like the city of Riverside did when it was handed a $1.64 million verdict by a jury who heard the racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation case of Officer Roger Sutton. However, after this city filed its appeal, it soon dropped it and payed out the money.





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The officers, all of them minorities, claimed they were harassed because of their connection to two South Gate Latino leaders: former acting police chief Rick Lopez and former city treasurer Albert Robles.

They said supervisors and fellow officers most of them white threatened them and attempted to undermine their work, in one case refusing to provide backup for one of the officers and endangering his life.

Three of the officers still work for the city in southeastern Los Angeles County.

The jury determined that the officers did not face direct discrimination based on their race, but were punished in part because of the ethnicity of those they were associated with Robles and Lopez.

The biggest part of the award $4 million went to Officer Albert Carrillo, Robles' brother-in-law.

Bradley C. Gage, the attorney for the four men, said the award "proves exactly what we have said all along, that this is a police department that's out of control."