Schiavone takes on choo-choo trains and other tales

This blog is rated PG-13 here.




Riverside Councilman Frank Schiavone is off on his crusade against Union Pacific freight trains again and will unveil his plan to place an initiative on the ballot to fine trains for stopping and parking in the city's intersections jamming up traffic. This event will take place at the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting today at City Hall. Representatives from at least one train company will be in attendance.

Schiavone says in the article that his breaking point finally came when he was stuck for over 20 minutes in the Brockton parking lot. What was political for so long had become highly personal or otherwise, Schiavone had what was called a "click" moment. So he's off to do well, something.


(excerpt)


"It gives the people of Riverside ownership" in this issue, Schiavone said Friday.

"It's their way of telling the railroads 'We've had enough.'"

Union Pacific Railway spokesman James Barnes said a company official would attend Monday's meeting.

"We need to go and listen to what the city has to say" to understand officials' concerns, he said.

BNSF Railway spokeswoman Lena Kent said she was unaware of stopped trains being a problem on BNSF tracks in Riverside but said her company would prefer to work with city officials rather than see a measure go on the ballot.



It's a serious problem in this city when emergency vehicles trying to navigate their ways through Riverside's already congested streets have to contend with a never-ending traffic jam caused when freight trains stop to allow other trains to pass, change work crews or even stop for a lunch break.

During one stoppage at the always popular Magnolia and Merrill juncture, two ambulances passed each other at the Brockton intersection where a parked train was located scant inches away from the crossing. The ambulances were unable to drive down Magnolia which was blocked for 10 minutes that time.

The city officials say things have improved since an informal agreement was brokered with Union Pacific last year, but in actuality, the average times trains spent blocking intersections has increased and the impact on the response times of emergency vehicles has increased as well. This lead to the decision to impose more drastic measures, including the installation of cameras at key rail crossings to provide evidence to counter Union Pacific's claims that there's no train near Riverside when in actuality, it's there and it's blocking traffic.


Schiavone's "click" moment


(excerpt)


Just last month he was stuck for 22 minutes on Brockton Avenue at the Union Pacific crossing because of a stopped train.

But what galled him as much, if not more, than the wait, he said, was that railroad officials contacted by Assistant City Manager Michael Beck at the time denied they had a train stopped in Riverside.

"I said, 'That's it!' " Schiavone said. "That prompted me to make an effort to take it to the voters."



Hopefully, this is a sincere effort on Schiavone's part and not a ploy to catapult himself in the race for county supervisor next year. Some more light should be shed at the meeting this afternoon.





Are you glad about the renovations being made at City Hall? Respond here at the Press Enterprise's poll on the subject.




WPXI in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania brings the splendid news that three police officers in that city have been promoted into higher positions despite being charged with criminal conduct.

Read all about it here.




Two of the three officers promoted had histories of being charged with domestic violence crimes including assaults against wives and daughters. These charges don't seem to have hindered their trajectory up through the ranks one bit. Ironic, in a profession that is intended to address crime not reward those within its ranks who wind up on the wrong side of the law.

But domestic violence in particular is more prevalent in law enforcement than it is among the public at large according to at least one study.



Not surprisingly, the promotions have elicited concerns in at least some corners.


(excerpt)


City Council President Doug Shields said, “I am concerned about that, and I’d like to talk to the mayor."

Shields said he doesn't know the officers, and he said they may have distinguished themselves. But, he said, that may not matter.

Earlier this week, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl defended the promotion of Trosky.

“This decision was based on a 30-year analysis … not one or two bad things, and as a result I made the decision to support the chief,” said Ravenstahl.



One or two bad things? Denial isn't just a river in Egypt as that saying goes.




The problems continue in Pittsburgh as an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette details allegations of abuse by police officers against immigrants.


Over 40 people crowded the city hall trying to get a meeting to discuss this issue. Some had been trying to get a meeting for six months.

Several individuals told their stories about their experiences with Pittsburgh Police Department officers.



(excerpt)


Alfonso Barquera, a 35-year-old Beechview resident of Mexican descent, said he was in a vehicle with two women and three children on Wednesday and was stopped by city police. He said the occupants were asked for "documents," cursed at, and held for an hour in the car -- the kind of encounter PIIN organizers said has become too frequent in recent months.

Police Chief Nate Harper said he did not believe people were being pulled over and asked for documents because of their ethnicity. If they were sworn at or treated discourteously, they should file a complaint with the city's Office of Municipal Investigations or the Citizen Police Review Board, he said.

He added that he wants immigrants rights groups to participate in police sensitivity training in the future.




Pittsburgh is well known as the first city to have been placed under consent decree by the Department of Justice through legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in the mid-1990s authorizing pattern and practice investigations of law enforcement agencies.

Two studies on Pittsburgh's consent decree and its aftermath can be found here at the Vera Institute Web site.

That decree was bifurcated five years after it began and was dissolved several years ago.





Four female detectives in Portsmouth are speaking out against the handling of an incident involving a lieutenant who groped the breast of one from their ranks according to this article in the Seacoastonline.


Lt. Rodney McQuate was suspended after the incident, which sparked outrage inside and outside the department which hasn't even begun to abate.


(excerpt)


We would like to express our dissatisfaction in not only McQuate’s behavior but also the manner in which the Portsmouth Police Department chose to handle the situation,” reads the memo. “This behavior was deliberate and absolutely unbecoming of an officer, let alone a lieutenant of the Portsmouth Police Department. This behavior and the disciplinary choice set forth would lead one to believe that respecting women in this department might not be a priority.”

Magnant said McQuate was first suspended with pay for an unspecified period “pending the outcome of the investigation.” The chief called the paid suspension “customary in serious internal investigation.”

An unpaid suspension followed, according to the chief, who said the Herald’s prior report that it was a 3-day unpaid suspension is incorrect, though he declined the opportunity to correct the record.

“I’m informed that I am not allowed to release information contained in personnel files,” he said.

Suggesting a union “fight” might have ensued “if a more aggressive stance was taken” with regard to McQuate’s behavior, the four female police employees wrote to the chief that they “hope that the administration and police commission would have readily stood up and chosen to take on the fight to ensure that women in law enforcement are treated respectfully.”

“This is not only important to women, but also to the men in law enforcement who wear the badge every day with honor and integrity.”



This incident reminds me of the story I heard once in the neighborhood some years back about several male Riverside Police Department officers who once pestered a woman to ask another woman who had breast implants if they could feel her up because they had never felt implants before. I heard this story and thought it was definitely one of the strangest complaints I had heard in a while. I hoped it wasn't true because it's really disappointing and stupid behavior by those officers if that is the case. Hopefully, since then, they've outgrown it because it's not clear where else accountability for that type of behavior would come from.

I don't know if the officers were joking or not, but regardless, it was about reducing a woman to the sum of her body parts. An example of the exercising of a similar mentality as that shown by the lieutenant in Portsmouth. If officers including those in supervisory or management positions like McQuate are engaging in this type of juvenile, sexist behavior, what kind of impression are they hoping to make on those who witness their antics?

Because the impression that they are sending is that they have little self-respect and even less respect for the agency they work for and their profession. The message they are sending to female officers or civilian employees that they may work with is that this behavior against women is what defines the department's culture and may be an integral part of peer bonding among male officers. At the top and bottom where it may be happening if that's an issue involving officers who participate in it and others who might be offended but keep quiet about it themselves. At top, if those who manage the department and supervise its officers are choosing to either ignore problematic behavior or punish those who report it instead of those who do it.

Do these officers including supervisors want the public to look at them as caricatures out of some juvenile comedy or as professional police officers? Do they want their female colleagues to see them as professionals or as predators on the job?

It's hard to know how the Riverside Police Department deals with the issue of sexual harassment or whether it has to deal with it. It's impossible for the public to have any idea of how this problem impacts this particular law enforcement agency unless an officer or group of officers files a grievance or a law suit in court. Then it's part of the public record.

And only one law suit has surfaced in recent years and that involved a female trainee who alleged that she had been sexually harassed at the academy by another cadet. Even so, the allegations made were troubling. In her complaint, she stated that she had complained about it to her supervisor who then punished her with a poor evaluation after refusing to provide her with a copy or an update on her own complaint.

Then she alleged that two officers in the Riverside Police Department had approached her and told her that the department had heard about her complaint and wasn't happy with it or her. Soon after, she graduated 21st in her class out of 70 cadets, passed her tests, graduated and then reported for her first day of work at her new job.

Instead of receiving an assignment, she received a pink slip from several department representatives. When she asked why, they said they didn't like her and didn't have to tell her. It's true that they didn't have to give a reason because at that point, she was a probational officer but when she was asked if she wanted to appeal her termination, she said she couldn't unless she knew why she was fired.


She later filed a law suit against the city and department. The city defended its position that since the cadet who allegedly harassed her and the supervisor who allegedly punished her for reporting it weren't employees of the city or department, her law suit had no merit.

However, the law suit focuses on the behavior that this female officer alleged that she faced from the city's own employees and to that, there was very little in the way of a response except to say that the law suit was untimely.

It was dismissed by both sides last month for that reason. An expert on the issue of women and policing told me that it's too bad, as this woman probably would have won because her story was a familiar one.

What's worrisome is that if this former female officer's allegations are the truth, then the department reacted to her exercise of the academy's sexual harassment process by showing her the door. The only reason for the department to do this if her allegations are indeed factual is because the department feared employing a female officer who had already acquired a track record of stating that she would in no way tolerate sexual harassment. Could it be that the police department feared that she might hold its operations to the same standard? It didn't appear that the department was going to wait very long to find out.

What else is troublesome is that the plaintiff had also claimed that other female cadets had reported sexual harassment by the same male cadet to her. Apparently, she stated in her complaint, that they were too scared to go forward for fear of retaliation. So they remain quiet about behavior they found repugnant and remain employed as law enforcement officers and this woman complains about it and probably will never work in this profession anywhere. What's truly unfair is that it's the academies and the departments that urge women to not tolerate sexual harassment because these agencies say they don't and to utilize the complaint processes available to address mistreatment. Yet, they don't tell these women that they will be throwing away their careers if they take this advice.

Did these things happen involving this woman? Are they taking place in the academy and the Riverside Police Department? If you are a female cadet and you file a complaint, will the agency whose role should be to protect your interests turn against you? Will it send its male employees out to warn you first, as may have been the case here?

These questions won't be answered this time around in a court of civil law but if there's truly a problem, they will emerge again through further incidents, one or several of which will see the inside of a courtroom and possibly a jury trial. That's what has happened in other jurisdictions.

After all, the retention rate for women both in the academy and the department is fairly poor and has been like that for quite some time.

But the words written by the four female officers from Portsmouth bear repeating.


(excerpt)


“This is not only important to women, but also to the men in law enforcement who wear the badge every day with honor and integrity.”



That applies to every law enforcement agency whether it's Portsmouth or Riverside.