Canary in the Mine: The director or the directed?

The second round of interviews for the final candidates for the executive manager of the Community Police Review Commission are supposedly taking place this week or next. Nine candidates were interviewed last week by two panels, one that's community-based and the other that's from the city. It's not clear how many of them made it to the next round in the selection process expected to result in a final candidate by the end of July.

This individual will replace interim executive-something-or-another Mario Lara who has held a position for over six months that he has no experience, qualifications or training to hold. When DeSantis was asked what Lara's qualifications were to serve as the CPRC's director at a Public Safety Committee meeting, he snapped back that Lara had sat in several meetings between DeSantis and Internal Affairs Division personnel and that he had been working with him for a while. It's really not an optimal let alone professional situation to have a management employee in place who clearly has no idea why it is important to have an executive director, even an interim one, who is properly trained overseeing a civilian oversight mechanism. That's how it works for boards and commissions across the country if not currently in this city.

That's how it worked under former city manager, George Carvalho and former Interim City Manager Tom Evans not to mention former and interim assistant city managers, Larry Paulson, Jim Smith and Penny Culbreath-Graft. Not to mention that these former employees also provided accountability regarding their own decision making process on findings by releasing statistics to the CPRC on the outcomes of complaints that resulted in differential findings from the CPRC and the police department. This information covering a three-year duration was included in one annual report.

Contrast that with the current city management team which won't even admit to keeping such statistics let alone provide them to the commissioners or the public.

Unlike Payne, Lara has not been visible in the community as the interim director of the CPRC. You're more likely to see him sitting in on committee meetings addressing issues outside the purview of the CPRC than you are to see him representing the commission out in the community.

Even though the executive manager position includes community outreach as a job requirement, so did the job description that Payne worked under and we all know what happened with that last autumn. The actions which essentially banned Payne from doing outreach and the invisibility of Lara out in the community seem to strongly indicate that the new executive management will be tightly reined in, in terms of his ability to do outreach. History is what unfortunately provides testimony to this realization.

There's a name for what DeSantis had described but it's not called appointed an interim director who is qualified to perform the job responsibilities of directing the CPRC. After all, Lara's predecessor, Pedro Payne, received training to perform his job duties by retired police chief and former commissioner, Bill Howe before it was announced that he would be working in that position.

When asked whether or not the latest executive manager would be allowed to be any more independent than his predecessor, the answer appeared to be, a firm no both outside in the community and inside the city. After all, look at the city's history including the past several years that the CPRC has served under its current management.

Everyone watched last year what happened to Lara's predecessor, Pedro Payne and how his position was slowly micromanaged by the city manager's office after the commission issued its controversial finding on the Summer Marie Lane shooting in November 2005. The last controversial finding this commission will ever reach.

Payne's days were numbered after that finding was released.

An initial briefing submitted as part of Riverside Police Department Officer Ryan Wilson's law suit against the city and the CPRC details the reaction of the police department including its management to the Lane finding. Soon after the Lane finding was released and essentially ignored by the city manager's office, the police department, city attorney's office and city manager's office began pushing for the implementation of changes to the commission particularly its investigation of officer-involved deaths, which was blamed by the police chief in a deposition as the cause of problems between the department and the commission.



(excerpt, Chief Russ Leach deposition, Ryan Wilson v the City of Riverside)


"It was not until they got involved in conducting their own investigations of these officer-involved shooting deaths when the communication process broke down."



Payne's resignation in December 2006 eventually led to a search for a new executive manager. Nine applicants were interviewed last week. One, Candidate X, called asking questions about what had happened to the CPRC as part of background research. I guess it's hard not to notice the exodus of commissioners during the past six months.

One of the questions, was who would really be running the show? The executive manager or the city manager's office? It's a question that probably every applicant for the position was at least thinking about.


So one wonders what will happen instead when the dust settles and an executive manager is finally hired. Will the city hire someone that it feels it can keep under its already very crowded thumb or will it mistakenly hire someone who is independent-minded and clash with that person, as much as an "at will" employee can clash back, for the foreseeable future?

What do you think?

It also appears that Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis isn't the only one smarting over the questions coming to his door regarding the current state of the CPRC on his watch. Far from thriving as it would under competent, visionary management from upstairs, it is now a shadow of its former self with commissioners resigning with regularity and very little work product in the way of community outreach and status reports including the annual one to show for it.

Not to mention three fatal shootings by officers that are waiting to be investigated and reviewed including the Lee Deante Brown shooting that's going on its second year. A shooting that perhaps has already been adjudicated, given how much the official time line of it under G.C. 3304(d) has fluctuated in the past year depending on who is talking about it.

It's clear that DeSantis isn't happy with those who ask him the wrong questions, but he's far from the only one.


Two floors down, apparently City Attorney Gregory Priamos is still a bit miffed over last week's CPRC special meeting when his latest legal interpretation of the term, minority reports was met with criticism from several commissioners. There's been a lot of activity buzzing around on the Seventh Floor over that meeting in terms of what will happen next to the beleaguered commission. On how to handle it, what to do next and muzzles may be handed down by end of this latest episode to more than one commissioner.

And then there's the minority report.


Never has there been such a battle over the control of a document filed by a member or members of the CPRC as there has been over Jim Ward's latest minority report. It hasn't been read or seen by any other commissioners yet and its impact has already threatened to undo the 6-1 vote to find the Brown shooting within departmental policy. The vote that was taken as a sort of "straw poll" by the panel before any real discussion took place. It became clear after the vote was taken that more than one commissioner was confused by what they had just voted on. Most of the audience was as well.

Whatever lies in its pages or just the thought of what may be there, has clearly unnerved several commissioners to the point where several were considering jumping on board at least in part.

But the issue of minority reports has been a thorny one.

At a workshop in March 2004, Chief Russ Leach advocated for the production of minority reports by commissioners regarding findings on citizen complaints. Since Leach's opinion on the CPRC appears to depend on who he's talking to, it's hard to gauge how he really feels about a report that in all likelihood would challenge not just the commission's own finding but that of his own department.

We all know how that works from the Lane case, albeit from a far more worrisome majority perspective. Thanks to Wilson and his attorney, Michael Lackie who deposed Leach last February as part of Wilson's law suit.

So what's the history with minority reports?

If you remember, Ward had tried to draft a minority report on the incustody death of Terry Rabb, but was told by the city that he could not release it with the CPRC's public report unless the other commissioners by vote agreed to allow him to do so. They voted against him doing so, because they said, they disagreed with its content.

This ruling by the city's attorney that led to this vote made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Fortunately, however there's been several different opinions provided since.

On the Rabb case, Ward's report was not distributed publicly. What was interesting is that its content although for the most part, unseen did influence the content on the commission's final report.

But Ward's latest report is causing quite a few ripples on both the commission and the city.


It's already caused quite a disturbance on the Seventh Floor of City Hall, which plays into the old barter system that still rules politics on the top floor. Just how much so may be clear quite soon.






Under intense cross-examination, Inglewood Police Department Sgt. Kenton Ferrin stuck to his contention that former San Bernardino County Department deputy, Ivory J. Webb exercised restraint when he shot Elio Carrion in January 2006, according to the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)



"He was trying to get compliance," Ferrin said. "This (profanity) was used, in this case, as a certain degree of force."

Ferrin disagreed that Carrion's noncompliance with Webb's orders was the result of mere drunkenness.

"I believe he was intoxicated ... but not to the point that he can't comprehend or understand," Ferrin said. "I believe he was (intentionally) defiant and uncooperative."

Webb was dangerously close as he held Carrion at gunpoint, Ferrin said, but the expert argued that Webb had to stay "in harm's way" so that he could also keep an eye on the driver, who was still in the Corvette.

"Backing up does present a problem," Ferrin said of the alternative. "Deputy Webb has no idea what is behind him" and could have tripped and fallen, which also would have made him vulnerable to attack.

Asked by Webb's defense lawyer if he would say that Webb found himself in harm's way because of bad tactics, Ferrin said no.

"I'd call that valor."




The Press Enterprise's Editorial Board praises the state's highest judge's decision to send 12 judges to spend the summer handling the backlog in criminal cases impacting the Riverside County Superior Court.


(excerpt)


Resolving the differences between judges and prosecutors would also improve local court dynamics. Judges blame the district attorney's opposition to plea bargains for crowding the court with criminal trials, while the DA says the judges could do a better job of managing the workload. But both sides have a big stake in a functional court system and should work together to find solutions.

Still, the long-term answer is more judges for the county and the state. The California Judicial Council, which oversees state courts, wants to create 150 new judgeships. Legislators added 50 new judges statewide in the current fiscal year, and the Legislature should approve 100 more over the next two years. And that total is less than half the number the state needs, the Judicial Council says.

Without new judges, the court system will grow increasingly overburdened, and not just in Riverside County. The strike team can ease the immediate crisis, but only the Legislature can truly remedy the judicial shortage.








The New Haven Register published an article on the ongoing situation involving its police department and the ongoing federal probe being conducted involving alleged corruption within its ranks. This investigation stemmed from the arrests of two police employees, Lt. William White and Det. Justen Kasperzyk who were nabbed in a sting conducted by the FBI.

Community members appeared at a public form to describe their experiences with these two officers and others in the department.



(excerpt)


For Danielle Legrand, knowing that the FBI is investigating police corruption charges simply is not enough.


Back in January, Legrand said she was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" when narcotics officers raided a house on Sherman Avenue. "They kept asking me for my ID," she said.


Legrand said her identification was in her wallet in another room, and after all was said and done and the police were gone, so was $200 in cash.

"I just cashed that check," she said at a public hearing Monday on police corruption at James Hillhouse High School on Sherman Parkway. The hearing was held by the Board of Aldermen's Public Safety Committee. Another hearing will take place at 6 p.m. July 5 at Fair Haven K-8 School, 164 Grand Ave.




More information on the two planned hearings on police complaints in New Have, Connecticut can be found here.



In Seattle, criticism has been aimed at the police chief there for being too lenient on his officers, according to this article in the Seattle Times.


Strife within the Seattle Police Department between management personnel and rank and file officers has apparently led to Chief Gil Kerlikowske softening his tough attitude regarding them.

Not long ago, the citizen review board began to start paying attention to it, particularly after allegations were raised that Kerlikowske intervened too much in the investigation of two officers who allegedly used excessive force on a drug dealer and then lied about it. A video tape of the incident contradicted the officers' version of events.


(excerpt)


A Seattle Times statistical review in 2005 found that since January 2002, Kerlikowske had reversed 27 out of 100 findings by investigators of misconduct by officers. In some of those cases, officers accused of multiple violations were disciplined for at least one offense. But in others, no discipline was imposed.

The reversals caught the attention of the citizen-review board -- the panel that last week concluded in a report that Kerlikowske intervened in the internal investigation into the actions of a pair of officers involved in a controversial drug arrest in January.



Here's a question to ask in situations like this one. Who can fire a police chief and who has fired more police chiefs through "no confidence" votes?

Community members or the police unions? That's not a difficult question to answer. Just look around you and behind you.



The San Jose Mercury News' Editorial Board admonished the city council to resolve its issues with the independent police auditor's office. It stated that current auditor, Barbara Attard was asking for too much in her request for more powers, although it agreed with giving her some of what she asked for and urged greater cooperation from both the police chief and the city council.


(excerpt)


There's no cause to change San Jose's model. The number of complaints against the police - 444 in 2006 or 4.4 per 10,000 people - remains low. There has been no widespread pattern of officer misconduct. The auditor currently gets to review all complaints and to appeal disagreements to the chief and the city manager. Last year, the auditor appealed only 18 formal findings and got the dispositions changed in seven.

However, there have been troubling trends. Rising numbers and larger percentages of complaints have been dismissed as proper procedures. More than half of the 444 complaints filed last year, including some alleging excessive force, were classified as mere "inquiries" where citizens agreed not to proceed with a formal complaint and to forgo a formal investigation.

Davis says that the rise in inquiries may reflect better outreach. Attard says it may show that the department is not taking complaints seriously or is discouraging people from filing them.

It's hard to know which is the case; people are reluctant to file complaints for many reasons. But Attard is right in urging a more objective process with written materials, so that people with complaints know their options, including mediation.

Attard has requested too much power. But with his campaign to dismiss her report, Davis is undermining his argument that the police have nothing to hide.


Another article in the same newspaper offered up a list of suggestions from the mayor's office on how to address civilian oversight in San Jose.


Even though it involves a totally different civilian review mechanism than that in Riverside, it's hard not to see some parallels between what's happening in San Jose here.



Another San Jose Mercury News article depicts the first civil law suit filed in the wake of an audit done by Californians Aware which tested accessibility to public information in different law enforcement agencies. Many agencies in the state received poor or failing grades by the audit including those in the Inland Empire.

The law suit won an important ruling by the presiding judge.


(excerpt)


Public information watchdog groups called the lawsuit unusual when it was filed in February. Normally cases charging government agencies with violating public records law are brought by people denied the records. The judge in this suit ruled Friday that such a move wouldn't be necessary, but that the Naymarks would have to prove that they pay taxes in cities other than where they live for the case to move forward.

"This was a great victory," McManis said. "Now the case can move forward on its merits."

The documents the suit alleges that law enforcement agencies routinely deny the public access to could help people learn about crime in their neighborhood or the ways that the department spends public money.

McManis said that he plans to bring a number of people who've had trouble accessing documents to the witness stand.