Let there be light and its different meanings

"We all know who the credible people are here."


----Community Police Review Commission member and American Medical Response manager, Peter Hubbard at a meeting on Oct. 17.


"it's clear he is conscientious, and is struggling with what to do in this case."


---Riverside attorney, Paul Grech about Judge David Wesley's decision to postpone his decision as to whether Zeus Serrano will face the death penalty if convicted of the murder of Markess Lancaster.



"Don't tell me the district attorney is not delaying this case," "Any delays are due solely to the lack of diligence of your office."


---Presiding Judge David Wesley, to prosecutor Alan Tate. Fortunately for Wesley, it's hard to paper scheduling judges as opposed to trial judges.





More information but no light shed on the cause of the series of power outages which struck Riverside's Hall of Justice yesterday, according to the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)


Deputies in sixth-floor Department 61 shined a flashlight on three defendants who were in custody until the emergency lights came on.

The men were in the room for a hearing before Superior Court Judge David Wesley.

Lawyer Paul Grech was in court when the outage occurred.

The judge told the courtroom, "Everyone remain where you are," when it went dark, Grech said. "If there was anything remarkable, it was how the sheriff's deputies handled all the defendants," he said.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Helios Hernandez II said the decision to close the courthouse until the problem was fixed was reached in consultation with sheriff's deputies who oversee security at the building.

Along with security, there was concern about people getting stuck in elevators and how the outages might affect the building's fire-alarm system, he said. City fire engines went to the scene but were not needed. No incidents were reported.



Wesley, who's a member of the "strike team" from Los Angeles County didn't seem fazed by the courtroom suddenly going dark several times or by the evacuation. He sometimes gave this impression in his words that he is wondering if the Riverside County Court system is held together by glue and duct tape.

He's in charge of assigning courtrooms to some of the county's oldest criminal cases including some filed in the last century and after watching him one morning it's easy to say why.




The plan is to try to troubleshoot the electrical system during hours that the courthouse is closed to get to the root of what caused these outages that shut down the building for about two hours yesterday. Much easier than to fix what goes on inside the building.


The power outages of yesterday forced the people inside Dept. 61 to evacuate just as Presiding Judge David Wesley was about to tender a decision in a motion filed in the case of Zeus Serrano who is facing murder charges in connection with the 2002 shooting of Markess Lancaster, 13.


(excerpt)


Don't set the watermark at five years and say they can do it -- it's way beyond unreasonable," pleaded Serrano's attorney, Paul Grech. He wants Wesley to throw out the death penalty as untimely and a violation of Serrano's right to a speedy trial.

"As outrageous as I think it is, as long as he has a remedy, I don't think I can do it," Wesley responded.

The remedy is a delay in trial -- up to a year, Grech estimates -- to prepare for a death-penalty defense. Grech said that without the death-penalty issue, Serrano was ready for trial as early as Oct. 17, 2006.

Wesley said he might sever Serrano's case from that of his two co-defendants, who are not facing the death penalty. The Los Angeles County Superior Court jurist is the case assignment judge for the state judicial strike force sent to help Riverside County send its oldest cases to trial.







In Casa Blanca, many questions were asked of a representative of the Riverside County District Attorney's office about the injunction against Eastside Riva including the obvious.


(excerpt)



Deputy District Attorney Jack Lucky went to Casa Blanca on Wednesday night to answer questions about a gang injunction that does not directly affect that community.

That did not sit well with Eastside resident Monica Barbaria, who wanted to know why the meeting did not take place in her neighborhood, the subject of the court order.

"Why did you come here?" Barbaria asked Lucky during a community meeting attended by about 35 people. "Why not over there? A lot of our community are not here."


Lucky told the audience that Casa Blanca was the first community that asked him to come. He said he could not speak for the rest of the district attorney's office.

Sara Danville, assistant district attorney, said before the meeting they hope to meet with community leaders from the Eastside soon at the district attorney's office.

"We will determine where to go from there," Danville said, referring to the possibility of a community forum in the Eastside.




Actually Eastside residents and community leaders have been asking the office to send a representative but it rebuffed these requests releasing an official statement through its public information officer, Ingrid Wyatt that it wouldn't be sending anyone due to "security concerns". So, it's interesting to hear them through Lucky, who several community members from the Eastside said they had asked for an audience, to say no one from the Eastside had asked to speak with a representative from the District Attorney's office. Anyone who attended several public meetings know that invites were extended to the District Attorney's office and as stated, were rebuffed.

The District Attorney's response through Sara Danville shows that it's still reluctant to meet with concerned Eastside residents including those they claim the injunction was set up to protect. The Casa Blanca neighborhood gets a meeting. The Eastside gets rebuffed and then gets a meeting to determine whether or not it will ever get a meeting.

Both neighborhoods and any others in the city should be able to meet with representatives with the District Attorney's office to discuss issues and actions which impact their neighborhoods. Yet, the District Attorney's office clearly wants to leave the Eastside in the dark, or at the very least not answer questions from residents there.

Some people expressed concerns about whether or not more complaints would be filed during the enaction of the injunction in the Eastside, but that's a neighborhood that according to statistics included in the CPRC's upcoming annual report, received zero complaints last year.

Still, if they filed complaints, they would still be scrutinized according to the standards of the Hubbard "credibility" test. But then again, he manages a company, American Medical Response, as an employee of the company's owners who have entered into a contract with the city for public safety services and we know who in the city's employment ranks oversees the public safety division at City Hall.






The Press Enterprise Editorial Board wrote a compelling piece on the importance of allowing and even encouraging public discourse at governmental meetings, which of course has nothing to do with what's going on locally. Oh no. Of course not.


(excerpt)


Elected officials should be setting an example of fostering speech instead of conniving to penalize it.

A healthy democracy requires a robust exchange of ideas, not conformity of thought. Open dialogue improves ideas by refining them through criticism and debate. This competition can yield better ways of addressing issues, as the strengths and weaknesses of ideas emerge through discussion. Condemning ideas as mean-spirited or extreme, without addressing the arguments on their merits, only dashes that debate.

Quelling speech is also a sign of insecurity. People with confidence in their positions are not afraid to let the other side have its say. In fact, the best way to turn people against a bad idea is to subject it to public scrutiny. But that review cannot happen if elected officials quash detractors' views.



Based on the current actions of Riverside's own city council, confidence must be quite low at this time. Three councilmen faced tough runoff elections and at least one camp is not pleased with the results of several informal polls that they have conducted.








Being arraigned on sexual assault charges is San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, deputy Matthew Linderman, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Linderman is no longer with the department. Whether he resigned or was fired probably won't be answered until he decides whether or not to try to get his job back some time down the line.




Here's a shocker from the Chicago Sun-Times. A Chicago Police Department officer who among other things plotted to kill another police officer ranked third on a list of officers with the most complaints.


Jerome Finnigan received 52 complaints within a four-year period beginning in 2001 while his intended victim had also ranked on the list with 36 complaints. Now he faces criminal charges which would give him a hefty prison sentence if he's convicted. However, if the city of Chicago has its way, its residents and others would never be able to find this information out.


(excerpt)


The city -- citing privacy concerns and other issues -- is fighting in court to keep secret the names of officers with 10 or more complaints over that period. It has provided aldermen with a list of complaints against those officers, but their names were blacked out.

The Sun-Times was able to confirm Finnigan was No. 3 by analyzing the complaint numbers.

Other officers from Finnigan's unit -- the Special Operations Section -- were No. 1 and No. 2 on the list. And the former officer he allegedly plotted to kill also was on the list with 36 complaints against him, according to the Sun-Times analysis.




So like most law enforcement agencies, it struggles mightily to keep the identities of its officers who generate dozens of complaints a secret. And it usually works, until a scandal like the latest group of them hitting Chicago's police department puts an embarrassing spotlight on it. Then it usually all spills out for the public to see at the same time the public wants to look away, like a bad car accident.

The fact that these officers received dozens of complaints and then moved on to do such activities as plot to have each other killed to keep even more bad activities from coming to light shows that at least in this department, there's no Early Warning System[tm] or not one that anyone pays much mind to.




Mayor Gavin Newsome appointed a new head of the Office of Citizen Complaints in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Joyce M. Hicks will be in charge of that office and it is hoped that she would revitalize it.

(excerpt)


Hicks previously served as executive director of the Oakland Citizens' Police Review Board, which heard complaints of misconduct against the city's police department. Prior to that position, Hicks served three years as the deputy executive director of the Community and Economic Development Agency in Oakland and 27 years in the City Attorney's Office.

"Joyce's distinguished career is marked by her experience in responding directly to communities and promoting openness in government," Newsom said.





The latest from Springfield, Massachusetts is that there's a name for the civilian review board, according to The Republican and people appointed to it.


(excerpt)


Mayor Charles V. Ryan said the appointees to the Community Complaint Review Board are "nine outstanding people," and creates a diverse board that is "fully representative of our citizenry."

"I think it's a major step forward," Ryan said. "This is a strong board. I am delighted by their willingness to step forward."

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Ryan also announced the appointment of Melinda A. Pellerin-Duck as the full-time coordinator for the board. Pellerin-Duck will receive an annual salary of $60,000, and leaves the Springfield school system after 27 years, including being named Massachusetts Teacher of the Year in 2004.

One of her key roles will be community outreach, Ryan said.

The board, as stipulated under an executive order issued by Ryan on Sept. 10, will review citizen complaints involving allegations of improper use of force by police or violations of department rules.


Here's something you don't see every day. A police chief in Texas wants an outside review of police procedures according to MySA.com.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus walked




(excerpt)


During the past few months, McManus has come under increasing pressure from community rights activists angry at a spate of alleged police abuse cases, including a dozen men and women who claimed they were illegally strip-searched and an 18-year-old woman who said she was assaulted by an off-duty detective.

So far this year, police have shot seven people, killing four. Two others died after struggles with officers.

Speaking in front of about 30 protesters, many of whom held large signs emblazoned with photographs of alleged abuse victims, McManus acknowledged: "Like any organization, especially large organizations, there are issues."

But he said he has been planning for months to ask the Police Executive Research Forum — a nonprofit group composed of chief executives from state, local and county law enforcement agencies — to review the department's policies, including the way it reports and investigates use-of-force incidents and the ways it investigates complaints made by residents.

If approved, the review is scheduled to be finished in February 2008, McManus said, and would cost up to $70,000.

"In part, it was to make sure that if we're not up to standard, they'll bring us up to best standards and best practices," McManus said, adding that the group would meet extensively with community leaders while conducting its review.

"There are certainly incidents that have happened that have raised suspicion and have raised concern," he said.