Reforms and Renovations

Alas, it appears that Mayor Ron Loveridge is out of town again and consequently, has left current mayor pro tem, Ed Adkison in charge of the dais. Early wagering will be accepted on how many people particularly those who will be elderly, will be ejected during the evening session.

During the afternoon session, the city council took the opportunity to congratulate itself for its contention that it has spent more money to construct wheelchair ramps on the city's curbs than any other city in Southern California. Officially, the money spent is $7 million and City Attorney Gregory Priamos helpfully pointed out that the city had entered into a contract to do curb ramp construction before U.S. District Judge Stephen Larsen had issued his ruling against it.

Some people have disputed the budget figures provided by the city so it's time to hunt down the paper work to settle that dispute.

City Manager Brad Hudson pointed out that as an older city than like Temecula, Riverside faced a greater burden at building these curb ramps in terms of the cost.

That's interesting because when it comes to the issues of development, redevelopment and this latest Riverside Renaissance, neither Hudson nor the city council has allowed their aged city, its aged streets, sidewalks or the money spent or borrowed from the city's coffer, to stand in their way to realize their vision of the future city.

So the aged curbs should not stand in their way in terms of making them accessible to the disabled. Because after all, Riverside Renaissance is supposed to be for all the city's residents, right?

The case in question is U.S. District Court case, Jon Lonsberg v the City of Riverside. It was set to be discussed by the city council in closed session today with an update on the process being given by Priamos at the evening session. Most of the city council did not comment on this item though Adkison defended the city.

It's more than probable that the city plans to appeal the judge's decision on this case given that Hudson boasted that the city had beaten Lonburg's prior 10 law suits that he filed and that it apparently was important that the city maintain its reputation as a champion for the disabled in Southern California. As if it were the image that mattered more than the reality. If the reality were as grand as Hudson envisioned, then there probably wouldn't have been 10 law suits filed against Riverside.

Hudson championed the city's record be that what it is in this area at both the afternoon and evening session which mercifully was presided over by Loveridge who had been attending the funeral of a young Riverside man who was killed in Iraq and missed the afternoon session.

And like the Community Police Review Commission, the new Commission on Disabilities was used as a prop for the city to give itself props for doing what it called the right thing, which apparently may include fighting this judge's decision. Hopefully, the latter commission will only just look the part and won't be "hollowed out" to embody it.

All the city's boards and commissions should be allowed to serve their purposes including the select few that enjoy the protection of the city's charter. However, in reality the CPRC, the Human Relations Commission, the Human Resources Board and the Cultural Heritage Committee have learned the hard way that it's a formidable task to exist and perform in a way that's not just what looks good on paper.

Could Hudson ultimately be the champion of the curb ramps in Riverside even as it's likely the city will appeal the verdict? It could happen. After all who would have expected to see Nathen swoop down to save a city from his radioactive brother on the Heroes finale the other night? Hudson's actions in real life would certainly top that plot development from a fictional program if indeed they were realized.





The Press Enterprise's Readers' Forum is brimming with letters written for or against various candidates running for election in the odd-numbered wards including one written by an individual who may or may not be the lieutenant in the city's northside precinct. The registration deadline for people planning to vote in this spring's election has passed, but people who are eligible to vote still have until June 5 to mail in their signed ballots.





Riverside County Public Defender Gary Windom made public an audit that found serious problems in how his department was being run, according to an article in the Press Enterprise. Windom's office is also under investigation by the county grand jury and the county's human resources department. The audit included 11 recommendations including ones which stated that Wisdom should spend more time at the other offices of his agency and work on improving the department's morale, which will be difficult considering how many senior public defenders have quit. Others filed complaints and one of them, Daniel Schmidt wrote letters to the County Board of Supervisors and one to the Press Enterprise which was published several months ago.



(excerpt)


In a February letter, Indio Deputy Public Defender Daniel Schmidt wrote to county Supervisor Roy Wilson that there had been an "exodus" of experienced deputy public defenders from the desert office.

"The overall rate of turnover in the department is high," the report said, "ranging from 19 percent to 22 percent per year ... about twice the standard expectation." The report said of the 73 departures from March 2004 to March 2007, one-third were employees assigned to the Indio office.

The report estimated recruitment, training and other turnover costs for 2006 at nearly $700,000. But that does not capture costs of low productivity and morale or poor performance related to vacancies, the report said.

Schmidt said that resulted in criminal cases languishing, sometimes for years, as they awaited trial or were handed off from one departing public defender to another.

Wilson said supervisors had received complaint letters from current and former deputy public defenders.

Along with the County Executive Office, the Riverside County grand jury has been looking into complaints about the office, but its report has not been released. The county Human Resources Department is also conducting an investigation, the report noted.





When I think of the Riverside County Public Defender's office, unfortunately I remember the case of a young Black man who lived in Riverside and faced four charges including a felony drug possession charge after being approached by a Riverside Police Department officer when he sat inside his car near midnight at Bordwell Park in the Eastside.



The officer assumed he was on a stimulant according to the conversation picked up on that officer's belt recording. He ordered the young man out of the car and when he didn't immediately comply, dragged him out and threw him on the ground. Another officer arrived and said that the man kicked him on purpose. The officers searched the car and found no stimulants, just prescription codeine prescribed to the man's mother in the glove compartment. The young man was charged with felony possession of that medicine because it contained codeine.



Although the man never tested positively for codeine or a stimulant, he still faced misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of a drug, battery of a police officer and resisting arrest in addition to the felony charge.



His public defender assigned to him told him in my presence that going to trial was useless, that there's no way a Riverside County jury would believe the word of a Black man against White officers and to plead guilty to all the charges.



The young man refused and decided to represent himself. Well, any expert would say even a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But this young man fought the felony charge at a preliminary hearing and the judge discharged it. The judge then pushed the prosecutor from the Riverside County District Attorney's office to dismiss the under the influence charge because about five toxicology screenings showed negative results. The District Attorney's office finally did.


The young man then took the two remaining charges to trial and did everything his public defender should have done including pick the jury. And it turned out, it was his jury.



After several hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted him of the battery charge because they didn't believe testimony from the second officer that he was intentionally kicked, because he had stood near the man's feet and since the man was lying on his stomach with the first officer on his back at the time, it's unlikely that he was even aware the first officer was there. The jury convicted him of obstruction of an officer, but members of the jury regretted that decision when they realized that the judge may have erred with one of the jury instructions because they hadn't wanted to convict him but thought the instruction stated they had to do so.



So the man appealed the conviction, an action not contested by the prosecutor at the Court of Appeals.



And what of the officers? Well, the man filed a complaint against the first one for excessive force and racial profiling. In 2004, the Community Police Review Commission agreed that the officer used excessive force when he arrested the man and sustained that finding. The racial profiling allegation received a not sustained finding, meaning that evidence reviewed did not render a definite finding proving or disproving that the act occurred. They exonerated an officer at the station on a separate excessive force allegation. However, a letter by the city on the final dissolution of the complaint showed that both allegations of excessive force were determined to be unfounded, the decision likely reached by the police department's own investigators. Not surprising, considering the man had filed litigation against the city in U.S. District Court in relation to the incident.



The second officer actually was fired last year, after allegations of unspecified misconduct were sustained against him and another officer but was reinstated back to his job just several weeks ago after an arbitrator cleared him and the city council voted first to appeal that decision and then reversed that decision in a second vote.



In due fairness to Windom, when he became aware of this case, he conducted a personnel review of the public defenders assigned to it, and there were a few because in many cases, the defendant can be assigned a different one each time.





That's probably not the right impression to have of an agency which is comprised of overworked, underpaid attorneys who do a lot of good work representing the majority of the people charged with crimes especially felonies in Riverside County as most of them are unable to afford a legal defense. But if this young man had taken the advice of his attorney, he would have had among other charges a felony on his record that didn't even need a fully trained and experienced attorney to make them go away.













The organization, Save-Riverside will be holding a picket at the corners of Jurupa and Magnolia today, May 23 at 4:30-7 p.m.






The Salt Lake Tribune in Utah published an editorial about the importance of increasing transparency in the city's civilian review board which has seen over half of its members resign in a matter of weeks. That's somewhat worse than what's been faced by the police commission in the city of Riverside which has seen five out of nine of its commissioners either resign or term out in the past six months.

Apparently, the city is trying to fill those positions, which won't be easy based on the past stormy months experienced by members of the commission.

Riverside's also had a difficult time filling its vacancies as well, but fill them it did, and it included among its appointments a woman who received over $150,000 in campaign contributions from two local police unions including that in the Riverside Police Department when she ran for political office nearly four years ago.


At the beginning of the editorial, there's a recruitment pitch of sorts.


(excerpt)


Salt Lake City is looking for a few good men and women to serve on its Police Civilian Review Board.

If you volunteer, you'll be part of the only autonomous board of its kind in the state, ruling on misconduct complaints leveled against police officers and providing independent oversight of the department's division of internal affairs.

And you'll be doing your part, as Mayor Rocky Anderson writes on the city's Web site, "to promote greater trust between the police department and the community it serves."

Be warned, you'll have to undergo training, serve long hours, attend countless meetings. And the rewards are, well, here's what you get in return. Zero pay. Zero authority. And zero respect.




In Riverside, it helps if you have political connections to at least one city council member as the selection process becomes more politicized. One of the latest appointments, Linda Soubirous ran for the Riverside County Board of Supervisors position nearly four years ago and received over $150,000 in contributions from both the Riverside Sheriffs' Association and the Riverside Police Officers' Association. Word is that Soubirous is considering either another run at the supervisor position or perhaps a spot in the California State Assembly next year. If either is true, then her stay on the CPRC is apparently not planned to be a long one.

The editorial board went further to admonish the city for not encouraging transparency in the operations of its mechanism of civilian oversight.


(excerpt)



The review board has the potential to be a wonderful thing. Working with an independent investigator hired by the city, it has heard 230 cases since 2003, siding with police about 54 percent of the time.

In theory, it can ensure police accountability and protect officers who are falsely accused. And it will do exactly that, as soon as the city stops limiting information about allegations of police misconduct.

The city needs to release the review board's complete reports and recommendations, and make the final ruling of the chief of police a part of the public record. That way, the board's work will have meaning. The public will hold Police Chief Chris Burbank accountable for his decisions. Trust will be engendered. And the citizens will be well served.







Another day, another Riverside County Sheriff Department employee arrested for having sex with a woman in his custody, according to an article published in the Press Enterprise. The latest addition to the growing list is Correctional Deputy James Emerson Brewer apparently is facing sexual battery charges from an incident that happened at the county's Banning facility.



It's the second recent bust involving correction deputies with the first one involving several employees at the Indio facility. Makes one wonder what else is going on.





After the tragic shooting death of one elderly Black woman and at least one close call with another, the Atlanta Police Department has decided to rehaul its corrupted narcotics unit.

The U.S. Justice Department is conducting an investigation of the department particularly this unit in the wake of the corruption that erupted when a group of narcotics officers committed serious criminal offenses even before they broke into the house of Kathryn Johnston, 92, and shot and killed her. After leaving her dying on her floor in handcuffs, officers first searched for weapons or drugs then when they didn't find any, planted drugs in her basement.

The house of cards came crashing down after one of the officers confessed. Three of them were indicted on felony charges, both federal and state, and two have already plead guilty and are working with federal investigators.

Every single officer including the supervisor working in that unit has or will be transferred out and replaced by other officers. The division will also be rehauling its policies and procedures to make them more in line with federal laws.


(excerpt)



The remaining narcotics unit officers will be given other positions within the police department as part of the overhaul, spokesman James Polite said Wednesday. "Everyone is being replaced," he said.

Overall, Pennington announced more than 140 police personnel changes Tuesday, including a number of key promotions, transfers and major changes in top leadership.

The leadership changes include swapping command of field operations and criminal investigations and appointing new heads of internal affairs and major crimes investigation.





In the wake of these changes, it remains to be seen whether the department needed to move all of its officers around or it needs new officers beginning at the top. It's one thing if all its problems lie in its special investigation division, but it's another if the problems are department-wide and thus far have only been manifested in the public spotlight in the narcotics unit because this unit was able to engage in corruption fairly openly with complicity from within. Where was the police chief and his management team when all this was going on? Where were the supervisors? What was the internal affairs division doing? If city residents were complaining, what happened to those complaints?

Obviously nothing good if the internal affairs division in the department is already being restaffed and most likely, will also have its operations rehauled in the future especially if Atlanta's police department ends up under a federal consent decree. Especially given that when all this corruption was going on, the department's internal affairs apparently was sustaining less than 3% of the complaints it was receiving, far less than the national average of sustained complaints which is around 15%.

And whether it will take another killing of another resident from one of Atlanta's most vulnerable populations to admit that.