I (heart) the CPRC: More to come

Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Berstein does what he usually does, which is hit the nail right on the head when it comes to Riverside's constant need to reinvent and relabel itself.


(excerpt)


It was only a matter of time (a commodity never in short supply for Riverside mayors) that MayorLuv began to tell audiences (most of them captive) that Riverside was "California's Next Great City" on "The Brink of Greatness."

Tuesday, like that "superbug" we've been hearing about, the mayor's terminal effervescence finally spread to the City Council, which nicknamed Riverside the "City of the Arts."

This was no slam-dunk decision. I hear council members debated whether Riverside should be known as:

"City of the Marts"

"City of the Warts"

"City of the Boxcars"

"City of the Injunction"

"City of the Arts -- Except the Novel"




Bernstein did seem a bit confused as to what "arts" the city was talking about at the last city council meeting. Does "arts" refer to music, dance, theater and other forms of well, artistic expression or did it refer to the name, Art?

That's hilarious considering the attempt of the "team players" to exorcise malcontent Art Gage off of the dais and replace him with one of their own. Any serious discussion about what "art" means, would inevitably lead back to the philosophy that one man's "team player" is another man's "crony".



Speaking of Gage, I ran into this note here at Inland Empire Craigslist. It's the latest in the ongoing Councilman Dom Betro vs Gage smack down taking place on that site among mostly unidentified parties. Candidates William "Rusty" Bailey and Mike Gardner must be watching this with some amusement from the sidelines watching what could eventually lead up to the most anticipated mayoral races in recent history on the horizon.


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Save Riverside and Art Gage?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: see below
Date: 2007-10-18, 8:55AM PDT


Is Save Riverside, the group that “seeks to serve as an instrument for the unification of community voices to take action by advocating for empowerment,” really endorsing Art Gage the councilman who called the Community Police Review Commission “garbage” just before he made a motion to de-fund the police oversight commission? Who is Save Riverside really? Apparently they were not around, or maybe not paying attention, 3 years ago when this occurred. Maybe they just discovered “progressive.” Maybe they are really Art Gage and his supporters doing a great job of hiding behind simple minds susceptible to manipulation.

Bingo!





A published comment so eloquent deserves its own posting, but you can begin here under the Sept. 9 entry to read the city council's report card. There's been some slight changes since then given that information is always flowing in about the CPRC and what is going on behind the scenes because despite the unrelented attacks on the body, it does have many friends. One city council member's grade will drop quite a bit but it's not either of the two involved in the current smack down at Craigslist.

But first of all, Gage referred to the CPRC as "junk" because he made this comment in response to a comment I had made at a city council meeting about this commission. As for the motion to de-fund the CPRC, thank you Gage! He, along with the courageous stance taken by Councilmen Frank Schiavone and Ed Adkison who despite their displeasure with the CPRC pushed to have all the charter review committee's recommendations on the ballot, were what catalyzed the inclusion of the CPRC in the city's charter.

Betro should be far ahead of Gage in terms of how he views and treats and speaks out on the CPRC, but if you examine his history closer, he's really not. If some of his closest supporters weren't supporters of it, I really doubt he would give it a second thought. It's a tribute to those in his camp who do support it, though instead of pointing fingers at non-"team player" Gage, it would be more useful to urge their own elected official to do much more than he has done to this point.

Also, news flash for Betro supporters is that the city council member who is probably the most detrimental to the CPRC is considered a "team player" and has endorsed your candidate.

And what is one thing these two candidates, Gage and Betro, do have in common? Their biggest campaign donor is the Riverside Police Officers' Association, probably among the biggest opponents to the CPRC you will find in this city. Betro and Gage each received at least $10,000 from this union. The same people who have denounced candidates who received RPOA funding now are embracing it because how else can you handle the decision of a city councilman to take money from the same organization he blasted in public just six months earlier?

The RPOA's new board has made inroads to try to cope with civilian oversight but who knows what goes on behind the scenes? And as much as some police officers try to say they embrace civilian oversight, it's much easier said than done.

Only one police officer in the Riverside Police Department has ever publicly embraced the CPRC, saying he absolutely loved it at a meeting several years ago. His words seemed heartfelt and sincere and deserve to be commended. But what can one police officer do to spread that message across from one side of the department to the other?

Since then, Betro and the city council appointed one of Betro's key supporters, Chani Beeman, to the body not long after the departure of Commissioner Steve Simpson. Betro's other contribution to the CPRC is current American Medical Response manager, Peter Hubbard who is from Ward One. That's Betro's two main contributions to the CPRC.

Beeman spoke at a recent special meeting on the Lee Deante Brown shooting, and the beginning of her comments were spot on. She said that the CPRC should agree to release no conclusive finding on the shooting and put that in the public report. That was a really good idea. The issue had come up in earlier meetings but she hit that one home. The problem was, the second half of her comments when she said that the commission should review the administrative work product from the department and then come to a more definitive finding which would never be released to the public. Instead, the commission should focus on releasing policy recommendations and suggestions to the department, which as she said, was the "meat" of what this commission is about.

She echoed words murmured by City Attorney Gregory Priamos at an earlier meeting along those lines. It was also a philosophy she expounded on in an opinion piece she wrote on the Summer Marie Lane shooting case that was published in the Press Enterprise in 2005.

Why what she said would among other things contradict prior precedent in terms of similar predicaments faced earlier by the commission will be part of a future posting. Why rendering such a secret finding could prove detrimental and problematic to the community, families of the person killed and the involved officers will be discussed in a future posting as well.

What appears to be emerging is two conflicting agendas involving the CPRC, neither of which really appears to be interested in what the community has to say about all this, let alone what's been going on behind closed doors on the top floor at City Hall for the past 18 months. It's all about politics at City Hall and protecting the city from the civil liability it seems coming from a police commission it can't micromanage.


By the way, I'm thrilled to learn that this individual is so concerned about the state of the CPRC. I look forward to seeing him or her at future meetings showing that support!






The discussion continues in Fresno over whether or not it will implement civilian oversight, according to the Fresno Bee.


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Fresno Mayor Alan Autry has fought unsuccessfully for an independent police auditor throughout his two terms in office. He set aside $200,000 in his proposed budget in June to pay for an auditor and one or two support staff members. His proposal didn't make it through budget hearings.

Richard Unruh, a professor of political science at Fresno Pacific, said Fresno is the largest city in California without some form of citizen review.

The council's decision doesn't sit well with Betty Harmon, who used the forum, attended by about 50 people, to describe her frustration with the investigation of her mother's slaying.

Harmon says she lost trust in Fresno police when a detective failed to investigate mysterious ATM withdrawals from her mother Lilly Mae Harmon's bank account before and after her death in December 2004. In June, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said he sent a letter to the state Attorney General Office's cold-case homicide unit to take over the case.

Similarly, attorney Laura Guzman Magill described a case where she said the Fresno Police Department failed to discipline an officer who abused his authority. Magill represented Holly Louen, who for years lived across the street from officer Brian Twedt in Clovis. Fresno County Superior Court Judge R.L. Putnam granted a restraining order for Louen against Twedt, finding there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Twedt had intimidated her. Twedt was cleared in September by a federal jury in a civil rights suit arising from the case.





In Jackson, Mississippi, some police officers vowed to start airing out the dirty laundry in their city and police department, one day after funding increases for the promotions for several of the mayor's bodyguards were voted down by the city council, according to the Jackson Free Press.

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After leaving a Tuesday afternoon meeting with the mayor, Det. Juan Cloy, president of the Jackson Police Officers Association, said that Melton would not concede to the union’s desire to reverse his appointment this afternoon.

“The mayor advised us that he was not going to rescind that order and that he would not stop his constant meddling in police business,” Cloy told reporters. “We reminded the mayor that he is not a police officer, he is the mayor, but once again, he refused.”

Cloy was not clear on the union’s next course of action. “We’ll be getting with members of the community, and we’ll take it from there. Hopefully, we’ll have more meetings with the mayor,” he said. The union will not strike, and plans no lawsuit against the city, although the arbitrary promotion was grounds for legal action.

“We’re not really interested in suing the city because of the state of the city’s finances right now. The day that order came down, yes, each and every one of us could have filed a lawsuit. That’s not what we’re interested in. Hopefully it won’t come down to that,” Cloy said. He instead promised a war of information, wherein police will reveal to the public infractions and mistreatment of JPD by the city.

“The citizens don’t have a clue as to how the police department and its resources have been raped over the past years,” Cloy said. “This is not Mr. Melton’s fault. It happened way before he was in office, and we plan to expose that and relay that and let the citizens handle the council members who were present when that took place.”



The union said it believed that the promotions of Marcus Wright to assistant police chief and sergeant were done after the mayor overlooked more qualified candidates and elevated individuals who were only certified to be patrol officers.

The Jackson Free Press link includes some very interesting dialogue from readers on the ongoing controversy. Apparently, there's a lot going on in Jackson.




More contention and turmoil in San Antonio after the city's police union called Police Chief William McManus on the carpet for his decision to hire a consulting firm to investigate the department.


(excerpt, KENS 5 Eyewitness News)


“Today, I’m calling out Chief McManus and asking him to finally stand up for the department he leads,” said Teddy Stewart, with the San Antonio Police Officer’s Association.

The San Antonio Police Officer’s Association does not support plans to bring in the Police Executive Research Forum.

“This study is an illegitimate fishing expedition into what is wrong with the police department,” Stewart said.



McManus took a defensive tactic by responding to criticism from within his ranks with harsh words against the department's critics outside the agency, which makes sense because communities don't "fire" police chiefs, labor unions essentially do.

This battle may continue all the way until a federal agency decides to take a closer look at San Antonio Police Department which often happens in cases like this one. It may even continue after that.






"They think loyalty and integrity are the same thing."


---Sgt. Ed Exeley(Guy Pierce), L.A Confidential(1997)





In Chicago, a man who was sodomized by an officer welding a screwdriver was given a $4 million settlement from the city according to the Chicago Sun-Times.


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The announcement came moments after a jury of nine women and men ruled that they believed Coprez Coffie over the two police officers who testified they had no idea where that screwdriver in their squad car's glove compartment came from.

"I just told my story because I wanted justice," said Coffie, who was 19 when the incident occurred. "People need to know what's going on."

The head of the Police Department's Office of Professional Standards, which earlier had cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, said Tuesday she now will re-open the investigation, as required by the city's new ordinance governing her office.

Coffie and his mother said the officers should be fired. Annette Coffie said it galled her during the trial to watch the officers testify that her son had drugs and that they never assaulted him: "... them sitting up there, saying that they did nothing," she said, her voice choking with emotion.

Coffie's attorney, Jon Loevy, said he is not optimistic the department will ever hold its own accountable.

"The Police Department does not do an effective job policing themselves. ... Why can't the Police Department see what everybody else sees?" said Loevy, who noted that in all six million-dollar-plus verdicts he has won against the department in recent years, OPS had exonerated the officers in every case. "And nothing is going to happen now."




Chicago's police department has been in the news lately as it has going back into the 1970s and earlier and the rank corruption inside this agency has almost become a joke in many circles. But to the city's residents and to police officers trying to operate outside that corruption and illegal conduct, it's not a joke. They wear the stain of what their colleagues do or have done. It's too bad that too many of them remain silent about it or even defend it. The ball is in their court in Chicago and elsewhere.