Canary in the Mine: The annual report by the numbers

No end in sight at least not for a while for the fires raging through Southern California including the Inland Empire.

Hundreds of thousands have evacuated unsure of where to go or if there will be anything left standing to go home to. Fire operations for the Inland Empire blazes are being run out of Riverside.

Whether warnings about fires were ignored is also being examined as well as whether or not insurance companies will raise rates or bail from California as several companies including All State have already done.




"Did you know most complaints could be avoided through the use of common courtesy?"

---CPRC Annual Report



In Riverside, the Community Police Review Commission released its public report for 2006 about five months before its public report for 2007 is due. Originally scheduled to be released and presented for the city council in March 2006, the report was delayed because of the campaign that was initiated against City Hall against the CPRC beginning in January 2006 but intensifying nearly a year later.


The average time that complaints spend from the time they are filed to the time they even reach the CPRC is 170.8 when combining both category complaints(more serious allegations including excessive force). According to departmental policy 4.12, the guidelines for category one complaints are 60 days and 30 days for category two complaints. These do not include the times that the CPRC held a complaint or sent it back to the department for further investigation or inquiry. About 86% complaints were heard and the rest were administratively closed.

Complaints in the Eastside are still registered as zero. The reasons why are many. Residents don't file because they or their family members fear retaliation. That there is an informal complaint process in place that circumvents the CPRC and the police department's own complaint system. In recent weeks, the police department has even challenged the statistics provided by the CPRC on the Eastside but has yet to offer up any numbers of its own.

The majority of allegations made involved violations of departmental policies followed by those involving discourtesy. Of those sustained, most of them were in these two categories as well.

The majority of the more serious allegations including excessive force, criminal conduct and discrimination or harassment received not sustained findings from the CPRC. Most of the other categories did not reflect this trend.

The number of complaints increased in 2006 over 2005 which was a year where a fairly high number were filed, but the number of allegations decreased. Allegations in most categories decreased although due to a reclassification of complaint categories, it was not possible to make comparisons between this year and previous ones.

Complaints involving discrimination and harassment sharply increased and came in at its highest number since the CPRC first heard complaints in 2001.



The sustain rate for the CPRC involving allegations was 8.6%. For the department, it was 5%. For the city manager's office which makes the final decision, it was 4.6%.

Allegations that are unfounded range from 32% of the CPRC's complaints to 76% of the police department's allegations with the city manager checking in at 62%. The CPRC in contrast has a much higher percentage of complaints which are not sustained than either the police department or the city manager does.

Complaints filed by ethnic or racial category are the following.



African-Americans: 22%

Latinos: 15%

Whites: 40%

"Other": 4%

Unknown: 15%




Officers with multiple complaints are part of the following statistics.

Complaints: 80

Allegations: 168

Officers receiving multiple allegations: 14(4% of the department)

Half of these officers had at least one sustained allegation.


Number of officers receiving five or more allegations: 5 (with at least one sustained)




The CPRC also discussed the ongoing trends involving the police department as reflected in its complaints received last year. Many of the trends are the same ones that have appeared in annual reports for several years now so much so the text remains virtually unchanged.

Officers are required to activate their audio recorders in professional contacts. Full compliance is still not done but the department has taken a role in taking action when this policy is violated.

The department's policies and procedures including departmental policy 4.12 and the department's conduct and performance manual for administrative investigations mandate certain requirements in areas where the department still has problems, including how interviews with witnesses and officers are conducted.

The stipulated judgment required the department to conduct unbiased, thorough and timely investigations, but it's clear if the CPRC's trends are correct representations of reality that more work needs to be done in this area.

One noted trend which has been in quite a few annual reports now stated that the administrative investigators, be they internal affairs sergeants or field sergeants, should ask questions that "elicit facts and opinions and not desired responses" which are also known as leading questions.

Even though the department's performance manual lists some "common pitfalls" which include "leading questions" , failure to interview all witnesses and "refreshing a witness' memory"", these problems is still noted in this latest annual report.

The commission also noted that complaint interviews had been seen where the witness's credibility is questioned and not the officer's. This is puzzling given that the stipulated judgment required that an officer's credibility be carefully and thoroughly evaluated including through the examination of his or her past complaint history. Noted criminal justice professor and author, Dr. Samuel Walker from the University of Nebraska, Omaha praised this practice and the Riverside Police Department's use of it in his latest book. But the commission noted a deficiency in this area.

A happy note in the report was that there weren't as many sergeants or lieutenants assigned to investigate complaints they were involved in and that situation had improved though there were still cases where that did happen.


More on the annual report in future blog postings. You can pick up a copy for yourself to read at City Hall, Sixth Floor at the CPRC office. It's hidden at the moment in a maze of cubicles in the back of the sixth floor, just follow the signs that read [sic]"police review commission".

Though on the other hand, the sign is fairly accurate these days.

If you have adobe acrobat, you can also download the pdf version at the CPRC Web site. Just follow the links on reports.



"Did you know you can read the results of cases reviewed by the CPRC online at www.riversideca.gov/cprc by clicking on the "FINDINGS" link?"

Actually no, that page which is here has been removed but is being repaired. Scroll further down on the page down to where "findings" is located.

The flow of mash notes has stopped from "B" but still more spouting off by those very courageous initialed individuals at Craigslist including someone using the moniker, TGB who apparently has confused himself with "B" the cyber harasser and is whining about being accused of being a cyberharasser himself or herself. Besides the creepy, quasi-intimidating title, his or her post was constructive criticism as I have stated. But if he or she wants to throw in his lot with "B", he or she can go right ahead.

It's perfectly understandable to confuse yourself with another person, who like yourself doesn't use their real name, opting instead for fake initials to hide behind by making personal attacks that have nothing to do with political views.

Since these individuals choose to remain anonymous, there is no way for me to ascertain if they aren't the anonymous individuals who told me that I would be the first liberal on the list to be shot or the target of violence. Or the individual that said I had lost my license because of too many DUIs and was everything from a bitch to a whore. Or that my mother's uterus was "filthy" and that I should have my uterus sewn shut by the county. All written by cowards who didn't use their names.

There's after all, a big difference between saying that I hate your blog and disagree with everything in it and posting that I saw you so-and-so many times, where and when and what you're wearing and gee, I can just imagine the stains in your "granny pants". One's about expressing an opinion. The other, is called cyberstalking. And as I recall those individuals, none of whom ever posted under their names, whined and cried about how I was censoring them for choosing to moderate comments or for not allowing them to continue to ejaculate or piss on my blog. These terms are accurate because these individuals were also likely, socially immature and like many people in that category, resorted to scatological and sexual references throughout their posting tenure.

My fear for my safety, elicited nothing but laughter and more cyberstalking behavior from them. Terrorizing a woman was fun for them and very funny, but then at least one of them tried to rationalize by saying that his or her opinion, I wasn't even a woman or a person for that matter.

See, these individuals are like the "B"s of the world. They are nameless cowards who know that number one, if they used their names they will probably be recognized by someone reading or myself and that what they are doing is inappropriate behavior. If they are so proud of what they are doing and it's really helping their candidate if there's one involved or for whatever reason they claim to be doing it, then how come they won't give their names? But at least they have other initialed individuals like themselves to defend their behavior. So did these other individuals.

So if they want to write posts pissing and moaning about being accused of being this, that or the other, that's their problem when they choose to hide like a coward behind initials which are probably fake and behave in ways that are at the very least, creepy. It's difficult to sympathize and I'm not going to do so and I'm not going to split hairs about there being "good" harassers and "bad" harassers.

It's a shame because there are many in their camp who do not behave in this fashion. People who are out there campaigning for their candidate and having to work extra hard so that these individuals can spend their time on Craigslist saber rattling not to help the political campaigns but to make themselves feel better. The behavior of these initialed individuals doesn't flatter their candidates of choice. It just smacks of desperation and fear of an election that they might not be able to predict its outcome. As it should, there are a lot of futures invested in stock Betro and those who are out walking his precincts whether in his camp or not and thus too busy to post on Craigslist, say that hey, this guy Mike Gardner's got a lot of support. Betro most likely will win because most often, money does, but those who back him still have to sweat out two more weeks. and the stress, tension and toll it's clearly taking on some of them is manifesting itself here.

Actually, some of his alleged supporters did initially spend time talking about what their candidate did in a way that was intelligent, but alas, now it's all about making personal attacks on individuals, not for political views but for clothing. Why the change? Why the desperation that wasn't there only a few weeks ago? Why the fake initials? Maybe all the intelligent Betro supporters just left and are out doing phone banks and walking precincts and these ones are the replacements who can't do those things so they try to "win" in other ways.

As for harassment on Craiglist or elsewhere including the posting of links to personal information, pornographic photos and other things, I have been one person who has condemned it as I will keep condemning it no matter if you're for Betro, against Betro or don't give a damn either way. It's been done against people on both side of the coin here and it's wrong period and cowards(including in that they never use their real names to cyberharass) are the people who engage in it.

I'm not going to be like this unidentified but probably using fake initials TGB character and cry about how it's being done on "his" or "her" side and then defend it or write it off when it's against someone I disagree with. And I hadn't even pegged this "B", for simplicity sake let's call him Bozo, as a Betro supporter like TGB apparently has. That person appears to be a harasser who just likes to harass.

And why I'm at it, I don't give a damn what you all wear or how you dress. Whatever suits you.

Of course, being tossed into a group of people together as "cronies" of this, that and the other organization when some of us don't have a horse in this race as long as it's a fair contest, would not be disappointed if all the sitting council members got pink slips, don't like candidates who are racist and xenophobic in their campaigns, want independence on the dais not cronyism in the form of what's been called "team players" and are thinking, no hoping that in two years by the time some of us have our turn at the polls that this ridiculously long election season will be shortened. Having two elections five months apart is ridiculous. It focuses the attention on raising more and more money which makes it all the harder on grass-roots campaigners who can't or don't rely on out of town developer money.

But then running an election process as if it's a city-wide contest which is all about forming and knocking down alliances of "team players" which represent one special interest group or another, rather than focusing on ward representation is ridiculous as well. Quartets to knock down civilian review. Quartets to knock down city resident participation and enrich development interests. Quartets to fire city managers. Quartets to push for the hiring other city managers while they are still working elsewhere. Quartets to knock down a "bad" quartet when it's really about replacing one group of elites with another. Quartets going back and forth claiming to do one thing and then quietly doing another, like in the case of BASS and the CPRC. Quartets built and cultivated mostly by people with political connections and money.

Which is why you have the same group of people working on many "team player" campaigns including many individuals who don't live or work in those wards and thus can't cast a vote. That's why there's a repetitiveness to the lists of endorsers on several campaigns including many businesses donating from outside the county let alone the city, and individuals from outside the wards. That's why some of the campaign lists appear so similar.

If individuals on the dais are endorsing people who haven't even filed papers to run yet, then that's an issue of concern involving cronyism for many people whether that is involved or not. After all, the same people who called that cronyism themselves several years ago are quiet now. What these elected officials are basically saying through these actions is that they will only work with people of their choosing, not those of the voters in those wards. People who stump for Betro who go on the attack against Councilman Art Gage as if the next mayoral race was taking place in two weeks, rather than the city council race cloud the issue as well.

Just as in the case of the email that originated from a city-owned ISP, there were tips galore on who the individual or individuals was who are playing the role of "Bozo". The flagging and removal of posts linking to this blog has apparently resumed this morning with a twist. That being that the postings involving the police department's crime statistics report given at this week's city council meeting have been the focus of these removals. But given the restrictions that their candidate of choice has pushed on the speakers at city council meetings, most notably on July 12, 2005, flagging posts for removal while defending it is par for the program.

That posting included information provided by a police union representative about staffing and equipment issues in the department, issues which have been at the forefront before. Concerns about these issues are not recent news, but have been discussed in the past including during the city's annual budgetary process. It's no secret that the Riverside Police Officers' Association's leadership has advocated for these things to add to a growing department that is essentially playing catchup to a faster growing and expanding city.

The city manager, Brad Hudson, had informed me that they needed to find the money for both of these items. That struck me as odd because you didn't hear that when the unspecified percentage of the city's budget which will be allotted to subsidize what a certain crowd in Riverside believes is art. As I have stated several times, I haven't seen a lot of Black or Latino artists representing this agenda item at the last two city council meetings when this issue has come up for discussion.

I think it might be moot because after November, it's not known whether the "city of the arts" title will not be shelved in favor of the next hot thing.

But discussing initialed people who claim to be so committed to their political candidate but yet, still use fake initials to hide behind in order to make personal attacks against people, purportedly on his behalf is really not worth the time and energy so back to the rants and the raves. Back to I guess, doing what makes them run around rampant with initialed identities ranting about people's clothing as if that's a form of political campaigning in the first place.





The battle over the fate of a supermarket that was nearly seized by the Riverside Redevelopment Agency and handed off to Developer Mark Rubin to build apartments ended with the proposed renovation of the mall including the construction of 22 condominiums, according to the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)


Councilman Ed Adkison won election to the City Council in 2000 and said renovating California Square was one of his campaign promises. He is not running for a third term and his time on the council ends in a few weeks.

"This is a good way to finish it up," Adkison said.

It wasn't until the city Redevelopment Agency got involved that things began to happen at the strip center, Adkison said.

At first, officials threatened to force out all the businesses, including Maxi Foods, and to allow Los Angeles developer Mark Rubin to build apartments.

But a public outcry about losing the supermarket, the Iglesias family's threat of litigation, and a projected cost to the agency in the millions of dollars, led Adkison and the City Council to reverse course.

In November 2004, they agreed to work with the Iglesias family. The agency bought some of the parcels, including through eminent domain, and the Iglesias family bought one, too. The buildings on most of these parcels were torn down earlier, leaving only a section once occupied by a television store, an auto parts shop and a Mexican seafood restaurant.




Updates from Riverside Land Grab about former Ward One candidate's decision to endorse Mike Gardner in the runoff as well as an article that critiques the coverage of eminent domain in the city of Riverside by the Press Enterprise.

I had pegged Doug Haberman for the city's future public information officer, which is a shame because he was once a hard-edged reporter. You can see that the days of a Dave Danelski, who now writes award-winning environmental exposes, and Phil Pitchford are long gone. Most of the really good reporters at the Press Enterprise don't seem to spend much time at the Riverside bureau for some reason anymore.

I was puzzled to see Ray Smith take the county job because he was a cool reporter who covered trials at the courthouse for a while. The county of course is covered by excellent investigative journalist, Kimberly Trone.




The still sublime Dan Bernstein, columnist at the Press Enterprise writes this followup to his earlier piece on the rumors that the novel would no longer be taught in high school classrooms. He had the candidates running for the Riverside Unified School District seats pick their favorite novels.

Still Bernstein remained blue about what some have called the novel's demise as a teaching tool in Riverside.


(excerpt)


Moi? "Our Mutual Friend," Charles Dickens. I wasn't much of a reader in high school, and this book intimidated me. But I stuck with it and, to my surprise, found myself immersed in a stratified society of peculiar characters with even more peculiar names -- compliments of an author who knew a thing or two about writing.

As these candidates described their memories and spoke of values and passions forged at a young age and carried through life, it occurred to me that this is a fitting legacy -- or epitaph -- for the novel. It had its time. It did its job well.

Today's proficiency-propelled pupils are headed along a much different path. It's easy to devalue the novel, but impossible to replace it. And it's awfully depressing to think that some students might never even know what they missed.




Is the system in place to track narcotic evidence in Berkeley's police Department adequate enough to prevent it from being stolen?

That's the question asked during an 18 month investigation done by members of the Berkeley Police Review Commission and the department was found wanting, according to the East Bay Daily News.


(excerpt)


In a lengthy report compiled following an 18-month investigation, the Berkeley Police Review Commission subcommittee slammed the department, some officers and Police Chief Doug Hambleton for failing to notice, report and act in a timely matter when then-Sgt. Cary Kent tampered with and stole from 286 drug evidence envelopes.

Kent was feeding a drug habit that had severely impacted his job as a police sergeant, the findings said.

"The personal failings of one (officer) may be forgiven. The systematic failure of a department to identify and remedy major lapses in security, personnel management and administration must be addressed immediately," the report states.

In April 2006, Kent pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft by embezzlement and one count each of possessing heroin and methamphetamine. He was sentenced to spend a year in an electronic home detention program and sent to a drug treatment program. Kent, who had retired a month before at age 55, was also sentenced to five years' probation.

It is not known how long Kent was stealing drugs. Problems were noticed by others in the department as early as January 2005, the report states.


The department implemented new changes to address the flaws that led to the drugs being stolen by one of its own officers.


(excerpt)


Changes made include:

_Moving drug evidence into a separate alarmed unit.

_Conducting drug evidence inspections at least once every six months and random audits in between.

_Making certain that drugs are inspected, weighed and chemically tested, which was not the case before.

_Inspecting and logging the contents of the drug envelopes before they are destroyed or burned.

Additionally, the city council earlier this year repealed a 20-year-old law that outlawed drug and alcohol testing of police and firefighters. Drug testing has not started because the rules for when an employee would be tested have not been agreed upon with the unions.

Firefighters and police would not be tested randomly; tests would follow reasonable suspicions or after a serious on-duty accident.

Lastly, drug evidence may be moved to a different department and monitored by a city employee outside the police department, Hambleton said.



According to the San Diego Tribune, a New York City Police Department officer was suspended without pay pending an investigation into an off-duty shooting of an unarmed motorist.

(excerpt)


The officer, who has been with the force since 2004, was involved in a traffic dispute that began early Sunday after a fatal motorcycle accident forced police to divert traffic off the FDR Drive in East Harlem, police said.

Jayson Tirado, 26, apparently refused to let the narcotics officer's sport utility vehicle merge into traffic, and “words were exchanged,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

A passenger in Tirado's car told police that Tirado “made reference to the fact that he had a gun – 'Mr. Ruger' or something like that” – then pointed toward the officer with his right index finger, Kelly said.

At least one shot struck Tirado in the torso, and he died at a hospital, Kelly said.

The officer left the scene but approached a marked police car early Monday, identified himself, said he was having chest pains and “then makes a statement he may have shot somebody,” Kelly said.



In Los Angeles, the police chief there, William Bratton is unveiling his agenda for his second term according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


Bratton cautioned, however, that budget woes -- including a threatened loss of a telephone users tax now being challenged in court -- have created uncertainty.

"I do not want to really start planning for new initiatives when I don't know if I will have money basically to maintain current initiatives," the chief said.

But he said that barring financial cuts, he wanted the Valley Bureau to be split into two sections for better command and control.

"I want to create a second bureau in the Valley. It is getting so big that [Deputy Chief] Mike Moore effectively has eight commands out there. It is getting too big with the population growth in the Valley."

The bureau currently includes the police divisions of West Valley, Van Nuys, Mission, Devonshire, Foothill, North Hollywood and Valley Traffic. Another station is slated to open next year.

Bratton did not reveal how he planned to divide the area.




Whether or not officers with protective orders against them due to domestic violence allegations should be able to carry and possess weapons is being hotly debated in Pittsburgh, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

At least 35 officers in that city's department have had domestic violence-related protected orders filed against them but many can still take their firearms home.