River City: From smoke to haze

I attended the Women's Expo at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium which featured lots of vendors addressing issues from breast cancer awareness to selling cosmetics through Avon and other companies. Wall to wall women imparting information to help other women, even information to save lives including the need for monthly breast exams and annual mammograms after the age of 40.

If there's a woman in your life, be it a mother, wife, girlfriend, daughter or sister, it's important for this information to be made available. As for men, they can get breast cancer as well as happened with actor Richard Roundtree.



I did walk in there and thought it would be a good venue for the Riverside Police Department to have a recruitment booth and sure enough, Officer Cheryl Hayes from the department's personnel and training division did have one. Hayes, one of the department's three Black female officers, has been in the division since early 2006 and is set to return to a patrol assignment at the end of July.

She has really worked hard to recruit more officers and has made good efforts with recruiting female candidates. She has originally worked with the department as a dispatcher before attending the police academy several years ago. She used her experience doing both jobs to talk women who were considering jobs as dispatchers to become police officers instead. She said that she really enjoyed her stint in the personnel and training division. Hayes is always willing to answer questions and talk to people about the police department. Hopefully, whoever replaces her will have her same energy because the role of officers like her is very important.

Also making an appearance was a female representative of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department personnel division. It was good to see them and have female officers especially women of color be more visible at these and other events.






The plastics recycling center in the downtown area caught fire this afternoon, sending thick plumes of smoke up into the already polluted air. Apparently, it's not the first time this has happened, according to the Press Enterprise. Stories abounded about the fire, which darkened the downtown area for hours.



(excerpt)


Kris Kravig, a worker at Precision Motion, a neighboring business that restores Porsche racing cars, said, "Everything was so close together (in the yard). Once a pile of stuff caught fire, the whole place was gone."

"The building is still there but the yard is toast," Kravig said.

Representatives of the company could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.




The chair of the Planning Commission speaking as the chair and not an individual representing a dissenting opinion briefly provided a historic perspective of the problems with this plastics recycling center. If you're confused at how this sentence is phrased, then you haven't heard about the controversy involving the Planning Commission and the Cultural Heritage Board which were the focus of efforts to micromanage last year. However, given that there are new targets of those efforts, these two are back to business as usual.

Since the smoke is so toxic, the freeway was shut down in both directions and people were urged to stay indoors. One woman who lived in the University area brought a jar containing a sizable ember which had landed in her yard several miles away from the fire.





Councilman Frank Schiavone checked in yesterday and just wants everyone to know that he's really serious about taking on the railroad companies. Really serious. Really, really serious.





The Riverside County Board of Supervisors have approved the purchase of X26 tasers for deputies in the county sheriff's department to take with them into the field, according to a story in the Press Enterprise which was a followup to an earlier article on the rising rate of officer-involved shooting by that law enforcement agency.





A deputy with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department has been arrested for discharging his firearm outside of a business, according to the Press Enterprise.

George Reginald Graves had already been convicted of disturbing the peace in relation to a domestic violence offense and was currently on probation for three years, fined $400 and had to take a 52 week anger management course.


(excerpt)


Sunday's incident began around 1:30 a.m. at the Corner Pocket bar in Murrieta when employees announced it was closing time, according to the search-warrant application filed by Murrieta police Detective Phil Gomez.

Graves became upset after a bar employee refused to serve him another drink, the records state.

"Graves displayed his anger by throwing a beer bottle on the floor," according to the court records.

The deputy left the bar with a friend and got into Graves' car, but it was unclear who was driving, the records say.

The security guard reported seeing a flash from the gun but said he could not tell who was firing.

As the car sped off, the security guard lost sight of the vehicle but heard five more gunshots, according to the records.



The department's response to all this was naturally to list all the awards and commendations Graves has won. And they scratch their heads at why people don't take their investigations of their own employees very seriously.






The closing arguments were given in the case of the former San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputy who shot a U.S. airman after a pursuit. A Press Enterprise article on the trial of Ivory J. Webb.



(excerpt)


Any reasonable officer would have realized that Carrion and his companion, who was the driver, were simply inebriated and posed no threats to Webb's safety after the January 2006 car chase and confrontation in Chino, argued San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Lewis Cope.

"That's really the issue here: What did (Webb) reasonably believe? And you folks are going to decide that," Cope told the jury during closing arguments that began Tuesday.


Webb's attorney told the jury that it must vote not guilty if the facts of the case were not proven.


(excerpt)


The defense is challenging virtually every aspect of the prosecution's case.

"It's not what we know now. It's what (Webb) knew then," Schwartz argued. "We don't pay police officers to be targets. Mr. Carrion may not have been armed that night, (but) that's irrelevant."

Webb knew that another deputy had chased the Corvette at 100 mph before the sports car outran the officer, Schwartz said. And after Webb began his pursuit, Schwartz said, the Corvette twice nearly hit Webb's patrol car head-on.

Webb also saw the Corvette's crash, saw Carrion climb out of the car, and was subjected to noncompliance and defiance when he ordered Carrion to shut up and put his hands on the ground, Schwartz said.


Predicted outcome: Acquittal after two days of deliberation.




Los Angeles' city attorney, Rocky Delagillo has taken time from his own professional and personal difficulties including a potential ethics complaint to address the issue of patient dumping by local hospitals on Skid Row, according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


The complaints by the L.A. city attorney's office against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Feliz and Methodist Hospital in Arcadia are related to four separate incidents of alleged patient dumping — two by each hospital — over a 14-month period.

Empire Enterprises, whose van driver allegedly left the 54-year-old paraplegic, Gabino Olvera, despite pleas from onlookers, has been named as a co-conspirator

Well, it's official. The assembly bill which would have provided more information to the public about police complaint investigations failed to get a single vote in committee after dozens of officers including those from Riverside showed up to testify against it.


(excerpt)


We still consider it an anti-law enforcement bill," Ron Cottingham, president of the Police Officers Research Assn. of California, told the committee. "It will endanger our officers. It will endanger their families."

Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana), the committee chairman, raised several issues, including concern that the legislation could hamper police recruitment and that it would allow each city and county to decide what information to release.

Solorio also talked about the potentially lethal danger that police officers face.

"It's a real threat that many folks face," he said. "I'm very concerned about maintaining the privacy of police officers and their families."

Romero introduced the bill after a Supreme Court decision last year — Copley Press vs. Superior Court of San Diego — that police agencies interpreted as prohibiting them from disclosing disciplinary records and from opening disciplinary hearings to the public because they are considered confidential personnel records.

Hearings such as those held by the Los Angeles Police Department disciplinary boards had been open to the public for decades before the decision. The issue took on new controversy after disclosures that an LAPD board cleared an officer of wrongdoing in the 2005 fatal shooting of 13-year-old Devin Brown, but never announced the decision.

The legislation, SB 1019, had sparked a heated clash between police officer groups and organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which are demanding more transparency.

The head of the Professional Peace Officers Assn. recently threatened to oppose a relaxation of term limits for legislators if the Romero bill passed.

Romero said she thought the threat over term limits was an undercurrent at the hearing.

"Clearly, when you have this kind of silence, this kind of nonaction, this is a pretty strong signal that the Assembly does not want to see this in their house," Romero said. "It makes it very unlikely it will happen this year."

The inaction means the bill is stalled in committee, along with similar legislation by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) that was held up earlier this year.

Romero said she would not give up, even if it meant revisiting the bill next year.

"This issue is not going to go away because this is about democracy, this is about sunshine on government, this is about the public's right to know," she told the committee during a 90-minute public hearing.




Next year, it will be back up for discussion and maybe the powers that be will hear from the other side that can't heavily donate money into their campaign. coffers.

"Mighty oaks from little acorns grow."

---Geoffrey Chaucer