Many questions, few answers in Rialto, Riverside

Information is slowly being released about the fatal onduty shooting of Rialto Police Department officer, Sergio Carrera, jr. according to different media sources including the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)


Jaranard Thomas was ready for a fight when a Rialto SWAT team rushed into his apartment to serve a narcotics search warrant, law-enforcement sources say.

The struggle that led to the first fatal shooting of a Rialto police officer in 21 years began in a front room, with a SWAT member trying to take Thomas into custody, according to several sources who know what happened but requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the shooting.

The 5-foot-5-inch, 185-pound Thomas and a SWAT officer wrestled, according to one source, and at one point Thomas reached around the officer and grabbed that officer's rifle, sources said.


Although Thomas never gained full control of the weapon, two or three shots were fired, the sources said.

Officer Sergio Carrera Jr., 29, who was standing in a nearby hallway and wasn't involved in the fight, was hit by at least one bullet, the sources said.About that time, the officer who'd been fighting with Thomas regained control of the gun and took him into custody.



Many questions are circulating through the neighborhood as the multiple probes into the shooting have begun by different law enforcement agencies.


(excerpt)


Why Rialto police served narcotics warrants early Thursday at four apartments on the same block but, to the best of anyone's knowledge, found no drugs?

What happened inside Thomas' home that led to the fatal gunfire?

And why police held Thomas for most of the day before arresting him on suspicion of murder?

"It's senseless," neighbor Yolonda Wade said. "This man's whole life is gone and that officer's dead. That's not the way it should have gone. People around here are scared.

"They've got to give the community a better answer than what they're giving," she said. "The truth is the truth."




Carrera was described by individuals as ambitious, devoted and friendly according to the San Bernardino Sun by those who knew him.


(excerpt)


People who knew him said he was a devoted father and a devoted police officer.

"He's going to be greatly missed. We all felt safer having him in our neighborhood," said Edward Khanoyan, 65, who lived across the street from Carrera in Beaumont.

Carrera, a member of the Rialto Police Department's SWAT team, was apparently shot while serving a search warrant, according to sources at various police agencies.

A struggle took place before Carrera was shot at an apartment at 113 W. Cascade Drive, police Capt. Raul Martinez said.

"He was a great officer - exceptional - very well liked, very well respected," Martinez said during an afternoon news conference.
Counselors were at the department to talk with officers Thursday, he said.

Some were so upset they went home early.

Judy Roberts, a police volunteer who knew Carrera, said he was eager to help with the Neighborhood Watch by going to residents' homes and answering questions.

"He loved interacting one-on-one with the community," she said.

"I know that he was really ambitious, and he aspired to be promoted within the Rialto Police Department, and he intended to make it a career."



So was the man, Jaranard Thomas, who was arrested for allegedly shooting him during a struggle, by those who knew him.



(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)


Jaranard Thomas was known by nearly everyone living in the short stretch of four-plexes lining West Cascade Drive.
Thomas, 32, was a fixture for at least a year, spending much of his time outside playing with kids, selling candy and throwing block-barbecues for neighbors on weekends.

Now, after a roughly half-day delay, he's in West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga charged with homicide in the death of a Rialto Police Officer.

His neighbors and friends say they doubt the charges.

"The word out here is that the police busted down the door, (Thomas) wrestled with them and one of the policeman's guns went off," said April Williams, a 50-year-old who sat across the street from the scene of the shooting Friday.

"This was a gentle guy, everybody liked him, and there's no way he had no gun of his own," she said.

Police records disagree. According to the warrant authorizing Thursday's deadly raid, narcotics officer Cindi Sandona wrote that there is a "likelihood that weapons will be present at the location."

Sandona also wrote that she was of the opinion that narcotics trafficking was occurring in Thomas' apartment, based in part on information from a confidential police informant.

More than a half-dozen residents and friends interviewed Friday said Thomas was something of a neighborhood host, opening his apartment's front yard to dozens for barbecues on weekends.

Thomas' history with the law - or lack thereof - may bear out the community sentiments.

Thomas has no criminal record in San Bernardino, Riverside or Los Angeles counties, according to court records.

He does have a recent citation for driving without a license and failure to appear on the matter, both misdemeanors.




The Rialto Police Department's history of turmoil and resurgence is detailed in this article by the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


Things have improved 100% since the new chief came in," said Mayor Grace Vargas. "They are doing what they are trained to do, getting gang members off the street. We wish things like yesterday didn't happen, but our department is now in better hands."

In 2005, Vargas was the only member of the City Council who didn't vote to disband the police and bring in the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department to patrol the streets.

"I really didn't know what was going to happen. All I knew is, I wanted my Police Department based in the community," she said. The council's decision, eventually overturned by a court order, was an expression of public exasperation with a police force in turmoil for more than a decade.

Its own officers filed more than 100 lawsuits against the department, many alleging racism and sexual harassment.

In two federal lawsuits, officers accused former Chief Michael Meyers and former Deputy Chief Arthur Burgess, both black, of discrimination against non-black officers.

The police were also accused of slow response times and letting a drug and gang culture flourish in the city of 100,000.

While crime rates fell elsewhere in San Bernardino County, they jumped 71% in Rialto between 1998 and 2004, according to FBI statistics. Mayor Vargas said 27 police officers quit during this time of turmoil.

"I didn't think so much we wanted to disband the police but I thought we needed a change," said City Councilman Ed Scott, who voted to dissolve the force.

The first thing they did was hire Mark Kling as chief. Kling had been chief in Baldwin Park.

"I think we had a lot of management problems before and the leadership was bad," Scott said. "Now morale is really good, and we are almost fully staffed."




Many officers left Rialto, not sure of its future, including six who were hired by Riverside's own police department in late 2005. At least four of these, were SWAT officers.


Community members have mixed feelings about the "new" Rialto Police Department.


(excerpt)


Barber Ricky Davis, who counted Thomas among his weekly customers, said that during his 20 years in Rialto he had often seen officers hassle residents just because they lived in neighborhoods with drug and gang problems. "I don't think [the police] have gotten better; they've gotten worse," he said.

Customer Jay Scott said police had stopped him three times in the past two weeks while walking home. "They don't have permission to search me, but they do it anyway," said Scott, as he left the barbershop after his 4-year-old son Jermele's haircut. "They've been to my house so many times, and I'm not even doing anything for them to come to my house."

Longtime Rialto resident Mark Robinson Sr., an associate minister at Greater Faith Bible Church, supports the police but said the department needs to involve the community more.

"I still see crime as very bad," he said. "You have high functioning gang members and drug dealers who came and set up shop here and the police weren't ready for it." In response to the gang problem, Robinson is sponsoring a town hall meeting at 3 p.m. today at his church.

"I think the shooting of the police officer is going to spark even more people to come," he said. "And whatever officials don't come, they need to step out of office."






More information on the memorial fund set up for Carrera at the Arrowhead Credit Union in Rialto is here.



It's been one year since the fatal officer involved shooting of Joseph Darnell Hill and his family and friends held a memorial for him at the scene where he was shot by a Riverside Police Department officer. More questions than answers by community members about that shooting, which is months away from being reviewed by the CPRC unless it bumps the shooting of Douglas Steven Cloud off of the assembly line in front of it.

His family said they gathered simply to remember his life, not his death.


(excerpt)


We're just reflecting back on Joe's life, we haven't forgotten," said his sister, Leslie Braden. "It's not there to bash law enforcement, but they have to start thinking about what they are doing. I want a positive atmosphere; this is what we are trying to accomplish, not hostility, not negativity, but positivity."


Hill's family is demanding the police take accountability for what the family believes is an unjust death.

Police say Hill, 34, became aggressive during a traffic stop and was shot when he took an officer's Taser and pointed it at police.

"It was just a simple routine traffic stop; I don't get how he wound up dying," Braden said. "I just can't tolerate this anymore."

Another of Braden's brothers, Charles Hill, was shot and killed by Riverside sheriff's deputies in 1992.

She said the family is also upset that a year after Joseph Hill's death, Riverside's Community Police Review Commission has not examined the case.

Commission manager Kevin Rogan said Friday the commission received the criminal case books from the Riverside County district attorney's office within the last month. The commission is finishing up another case, and Hill's case is one of two that could be next.

"I would certainly expect it to be within (another) year," Rogan said. "I don't expect it to take a year by any stretch."


Next up on the docket for the CPRC appears to be the fatal shooting of Cloud who was shot and killed by two police officers in Riverside about two weeks before Hill.






Critics of the Los Angeles Police Commission said that failed to increase the transparency of investigations into officer-involved shootings involving the Los Angeles Police Department, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Over 200 of them in fact.



(excerpt)


Two years ago, the five-member civilian commission said it would post the accounts of such incidents on its website along with its rulings on whether the officers' use of force was within department policy.

Since that time, the commission has released only one of the more than 110 force incidents that occurred in 2006. Dozens of other reports from 2005 also are missing from the website. None of the more than 90 incidents this year have been released, but the LAPD is still investigating most of those cases.

"We've fallen behind here, that's regrettable," said Commission President Anthony Pacheco. "Is it important? Absolutely. There's not a dispute here on how important these reports are. We need to do better."

Pacheco said the commission's desire to be more transparent with the public had "run up against our need for more resources." He said posting the reports was the job of the commission's inspector general, who has been overwhelmed with audits and other duties, including reviewing the LAPD's investigation in the MacArthur Park demonstration.

After inquiries from The Times today, the commission scrambled to post more reports on its website. Pacheco said he ordered that the process be "streamlined."

"If you're patient with us, I think you'll see a lot more reports going up real soon," he said.







The ACLU in Southern California issued this press release in response to the Los Angeles Police Department's investigation of the May Day incident that took place in MacArtur Park.


(excerpt)


ACLU/SC Responds to LAPD Report on Violent May 1 Incident at MacArthur Park
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 printer version

The following statement by ACLU of Southern California staff attorney Peter Bibring is in response to the L.A. Police Department’s investigation into excessive use of force at MacArthur Park on May 1. The results of the investigation were presented at a special meeting of the L.A. Police Commission on Tuesday, Oct. 9:

The Los Angeles Police Department’s report on officers’ actions against peaceful demonstrators at MacArthur Park on May 1 is a constructive step toward addressing the root causes of improper use of force on that day.

The Department identified and took responsibility for a set of clear failures in command and control, tactics, and training. Among its significant findings, the report noted that units within LAPD have developed their own use-of-force training, without central oversight over what is taught. The ACLU/SC hopes the new Incident Management and Training Bureau set up in response to the May 1 incident will improve and standardize training across the Department, so that what is promised in City Hall is practiced on the streets.

Today’s report contained a startling finding: it revealed that officers and supervisors believed they were free to use their batons and rubber bullets if peaceful protesters failed to respond to dispersal orders quickly enough. Knowledge that this is wrong is basic use of force policy — it is the first thing an officer should learn and the last thing he or she should forget. It is policing 101.

The report’s recommendations, though significant, do not adequately address the culture of excessive use of force in the Department. If the Department fails to respond to these systemic problems, then it has slept through another wake-up call. The Department cannot, once again, look past the conditions that are pushing officers to ignore their training and use force that they should know is inappropriate. Instead, the Commission must seize this opportunity to address those issues.

The Consent Decree adopted after the Rampart scandal implements significant reforms, and this Commission can voluntarily adopt some of its best practices, including heightened requirements on eligibility, supervision, and length of assignment for officers in the specialized Metro unit. Assignment rotation, a common practice in other departments, should also be implemented Department-wide, and would help reduce an insular culture within units, combat the Code of Silence, and limit pressure for officers to forget what they are told in training when they hit the streets. The events of May 1 shocked this city. Do not miss the moment for real reform.






Red Words, a polical blog, posted this about the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office's decision to investigate the city treasurer.


In news which really doesn't have anything to do with anything, the Screen Writers' Guild has voted to authorize a walkout and strike if a contract isn't reached by Halloween. This strike if it takes place would shut down the film and television industry once all screenplays completed by the deadline were put into production.

Over 90% of the Guild's Hollywood Branch have voted to authorize the strike and it's not yet clear what the vote is in its East Coast counterpart. A key to the success of a strike and the Guild's manuevering ability will be if the Directors' Guild moves to seal a deal before its contract expires next June. The Big Four as they are called, which includes the Screen Actors' Guild and the Producers Guild all have contracts coming up for renewal this year and the next.