Thank God it's Friday and for fans

Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolle are coming to the Inland Empire but alas, not Riverside according to Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein.


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Riverside is the "City of the Arts." MayorLuv has said so for years (after finally dumping "World-Class City"). I hear he plans to ask the City Council to officially label Riverside "City of the Arts" next week.

Riverside has arts groups, a fixer-upper Fox, museums, troupes, orchestras, consortiums and fierce, brush-wielding artists. We think arts. We live arts. We breathe microscopic particulates that lodge deep inside our lungs. Each day, we practice the art of survival.

Yet, when Clint and Angie decide to film "on location" in the Empire, where do they roll 'em? At the Santa Fe Depot in Berdoo. I've seen that station. Very nice. Perfectly "historic." But is it really right for this movie?

Consider what the "City of the Arts" had to offer:

A historic Union Pacific Depot that has been converted to a coffeehouse where Rudy Giuliani recently kissed a baby. You just can't buy that kind of heritage.

A historic Santa Fe Depot that would have been converted to a restaurant if a restaurant owner had wanted to move in.

Numerous Home Depots.

What did Clint and Angie settle for? A train station that is still a train station! They took the easy route. It doesn't take an Ebert to see where this movie is headed.

Who could possibly blame the "City of the Arts" for feeling slighted?




It's all right, Dan. Maybe if they ever do the long-awaited remake (given how vogue revisions of old classic films are)to Mr. Smith has a Wonderful Life, then the team of Eastwood and Jolle will hop on board and sign up.

It's not like celebrities avoid this city like the plague. Several presidents have visited or were even married at the Mission Inn. The Inn has been the scene of filming for commercials, television shows(including the long canceled science fiction show, Sliders) and movies including The Time Machine with Guy Pierce and Moonlit Mile, with Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman.

Closer to home, I received some very helpful feedback from this unidentified commenter at Inland Empire Craigslist. This individual took the time, energy and some degree of angst to bring up some interesting issues, which will be the subject of a future posting or two here.



The Press Enterprise's own blogger was at the scene of the latest hearing on the preliminary injunction filed against the Eastside Riva gang at Riverside County Superior Court. I guess he's the guy who was tapping furiously away on the laptop during the proceedings. He does provide journal-type entries of portions of the hearing up to the final ruling of Judge Edward D. Webster which provide a step-by-step process.





A Black New York City Police Department detective has filed a law suit alleging that a hangman's noose was hung over his locker, according to the New York Daily News.

Gregory Anderson worked in a special unit which was called the "slave ship" because of the higher number of Black police officers who worked in it.

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Gregory Anderson, 45, a former Marine who served in Operation Desert Storm, has filed a federal suit claiming he was run out of the unit after he complained about racial discrimination at Squad 8 in Williamsburg.

Anderson, a 14-year veteran, claims his partner, who also is black, was called a "n-----" by a white cop. Anderson also says he was denied overtime tours because of his race.

He said the worst incident took place May 12, 2001, when he found the noose.

"It was no joke because a noose represents hatred," Anderson said. "It represents a period of African-American history that is very painful."

Anderson said the nooses recently found at Columbia University and a Hempstead, L.I., police station stirred up his feelings of revulsion.

"I think my career in the NYPD is over but I'm going to stand my ground," he said.



Unfortunately, he's probably right. Even though most law enforcement agencies have policies which prohibit racial and gender harassment, including procedures to follow if employees wish to file complaints. But most often, it appears that the same individuals who encourage employees to use these procedures in law enforcement agencies, then turn around and fire them. That's one reason why cities and counties wind up paying out big bucks when these cases become litigated in federal and state courts.

How many times has this occurred in this city? Both the Human Resources Board and Human Relations Commission are currently looking at this issue, from different perspectives. The Human Resources Board will be receiving an executive summary on the issue from Administrative Analyst Jeremy Hammond. Hammond is the point person for Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis in the Human Resources Department.




Things continue to heat up in San Antonio, Texas surrounding complaints that city residents have against the civilian review board there.


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In a statement, Citizens Advisory Action Board member Dan Martinez said the board's critics have an agenda, and that agenda is to divide the community.

In his statement, Dan Martinez targets the spokesman for the newly-formed Civil and Human Rights Coalition, Mario Salas. A recent published news article indicates Salas criticized the police department's civilian review board for lacking subpoena power, and called the board dysfunctional, toothless, and one that discouraged citizens from reporting police abuse.

Dan Martinez defends his position on the board, saying he considers all aspects of every case in an objective manner.

In his statement, Martinez wrote,

"Citizens Advisory Action Board members devote their time in this vital service in the public interest, without compensation, only to be maligned and criticized by mario salas and those few police critics who have an agenda in keeping the community divided, at the expense of police officers."


He added,

"...Because of these few misguided individuals, they fuel mistrust and hatred toward the police in the community."




Ouch, sounds like the chair of this community-based review panel can't take criticism from critics who think that the process should not be compromised, should be independent and yes, have powers including that to subpoena evidence and witnesses to appear before the body. There's nothing "misguided" or even particularly unique about this, as this dialogue and yes, criticism is taking place from coast to coast involving models of civilian review that are clearly set up to serve more as shiny public relations tools rather than true accountability mechanisms.

Instead of taking it as the criticism against the body's structure that it is, the chair of the civilian panel takes it personally and then uses the police officers as a shield to fault the critics of the panel for "dividing" a community. Problem is, it's words like that used against the panel's critics which divide communities too.

Riverside's own form of civilian oversight struggles over efforts of the city and police department to weaken it and render it effective as anything but a public relations tool. Someone I ran into yesterday provided his observations about the politicization of the Community Police Review in Riverside, the players and why what's going on should have been an election issue, along with the reasons why it has not been. The report card that I posted on the city council's grades that they received in terms of their records with the CPRC should provide an indication why lips have been pretty much sealed on civilian review among different camps in Election 2007.

This individual's observations provided great food for thought which will lead to further analysis here.



The Rocky Mountain News reports that in Aspen, Colorado, the chief of police is harassing the female officers.


Loren Ryerson has been placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation into his behavior. The city manager wouldn't explain why he took this action.


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"It's a personnel matter, and that's all I'm going to say," he said.

However, the Aspen Daily News, citing sources who requested anonymity, reported an investigation was under way to look into allegations that Ryerson has been involved in a pattern of sexual harassment of female officers in the Aspen Police Department.

Ryerson could not be reached for comment tonight.




More abuse of women by law enforcement officers, this time in Albuquerque, New Mexico where a police officer is accused of raping women according to the Albuquerque Tribune.


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Officer David Joseph Maes, 28, was arrested Thursday, Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz announced at a news conference.

"This is a very discouraging incident," Schultz told reporters. "Of course, we hold our officers to the highest standard each and every day."

Police said Maes is charged with criminal sexual penetration of a 25-year-old woman Oct. 4. She had been arrested earlier that day, according to police spokeswoman Trish Hoffman.

Other details of the alleged assault have not been released, including why she was in custody or where she said it occurred.

A judge sealed the arrest warrant, Hoffman said. It is unknown when the warrant might be unsealed and made public.




Probably not. Otherwise the city residents might realize that there's something wrong with how this city handles its police officers if the previous scandals involving this police department's hiring of officers with criminal records and past terminations on their records didn't already make that clear. It hasn't been a good year for Albuquerque.



The news out of Boston on civilian review there is not so good after the police department decided to engage in a tug of war with the civilian review board over its complaints, according to the Boston Globe.


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Under an executive order establishing the board, the department's Internal Affairs Division is required to turn over to the panel any cases it has dismissed that allege serious police misconduct, along with a random sampling of other dismissed complaints.

But none of the approximately 50 complaints dismissed by Internal Affairs so far in 2007 have been handed over to the panel.

Police would not characterize any of the complaints but said that none of the cases involved "serious bodily injury or death."

Police said they have delayed turning over complaints to the citizen panel for nearly three months because a Police Department lawyer and the head of the Internal Affairs Division have been wrangling over the definition of serious misconduct and the proper method for selecting the random cases.

They said they have so far decided that any case resulting in serious injury or death amounts to possible "serious misconduct."



Expect this battle to continue in Boston. Any updates on what happens next will be posted here as part of Civilian Reviw Watch. Two steps forward, one backward.