Election 2007: Coming down to the wire
EARLY ELECTION RETURNS from Riverside County Voters' Registrar as of 12:30 a.m.
Art Gage's making up a little bit of ground, but Rusty Bailey and Chris MacArthur are widening their leads.
But look at Terry Frizzel in Ward Seven, coming up like Silky Sullivan, down by only several dozen votes.
Oh but what a difference one precinct makes. Mike Gardner has just passed incumbent Dom Betro and taken the lead by only four votes with about 100 ballots left to count.
Frizzel is only 32 votes behind Adams.
Riverside City Council - Ward 1
23/23 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - DOM BETRO 2,099 49.95%
NP - MIKE GARDNER 2,103 50.05%
Total 4,202 100.00%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riverside City Council - Ward 3
23/23 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - WILLIAM ''RUSTY'' BAILEY 2,594 56.77%
NP - ART GAGE 1,975 43.23%
Total 4,569 100.00%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riverside City Council - Ward 5
22/22 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - DONNA DOTY MICHALKA 1,453 42.29%
NP - CHRIS MAC ARTHUR 1,983 57.71%
Total 3,436 100.00%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riverside City Council - Ward 7
19/19 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - TERESA R. ''TERRY'' FRIZZEL 1,210 49.35%
NP - STEVE ADAMS 1,242 50.65%
Total 2,452 100.00%
William "Rusty" Bailey, neophyte and "team player" unseats incumbent Art Gage in the Ward Three election only to find out that much of his "team" are fighting for their political careers in nail-biting races. Maybe BASS quartet members and the Press Enterprise Editorial Board wanted a "team" but it's clear that enough of the voters don't to send a strong message in at least three of the races. Even if Mike Gardner and Terry Frizzel don't get in, winning an election by as few votes as the incumbents might is nothing to jump up and down about. In addition, Dom and Steve Adams have shown that bringing different factions together isn't their strong points. In fact, their behavior usually leans the other way, a huge reason why both struggled so much this round.
The Betro camp will surely blame his narrow win or loss on what they call negative words against their candidate, but the reality is that Riverside is split in half. It's split in half on issues such as Riverside Renaissance and Redevelopment and it doesn't seem highly favorable to the use of Eminent Domain. It's split in half in terms of whether it wants the emphasis on ward representation from its elected representatives or whether it wants them to emphasize city-wide issues at the expense of the wards.
That's why the "team" concept isn't getting such high marks in the form of its members sweeping to big leads and winning races by landslides. Betro for example struggled to win in 2003 and he struggled even more so this year, showing that as far as he thought he'd come in four years, it wasn't nearly far enough.
Already probably out of the running is Donna Doty Michalka in Ward Five.
Michalka was an add-on team player after aspiring politician, Harry Kurani didn't get the votes he needed to move onto the finals. Pulling ahead of Michalka is Chris MacArthur who tried to run his campaign by whipping up xenophobia in Ward Five. Still, his stance against using Eminent Domain to aid private developers might have played a stronger role in his lead.
Gage once tried to use eminent domain against a neighborhood of houses in order to provide land for Doug Jacobs to use to create new office space. That decision even when rescinded probably hurt him in his reelection bid.
Currently, in Ward One, Councilman Dom Betro leads challenger, Mike Gardner by about 43 votes. Even more dramatic, is the tooth and nail fight in Ward Seven where challenger and former mayor, Terry Frizzel made up a huge deficit of votes and is closing in on incumbent Steve Adams. At 11:30 p.m., she was only 36 votes behind.
What's amazing is how much Gardner and especially Frizzel were outspent by their rivals. Frizzel was outspent by her rival at least 15 to 1.
The election results made it clear that even as supporters of the incumbents tried to turn "divisive" into a four-letter word, the city clearly is split in half nearly across the board. Except perhaps for Bailey, none of the incumbents have won outright and with Gage done and Betro behind in the votes, it remains to see if the dais will have more new faces than old ones.
If you've been talking to people in this city during the past couple of months, none of this is surprising.
“If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.”
---Nelson Mandela
“An election tells how many of your supporters are alive, and a war tells how many are willing to be dead.”
---Anonymous
"Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote."
-- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
It's election day!
Really. That exercise last June was simply the preliminary rounds. Now, it's the finals. Hopefully by midnight, we'll know who's going to be on the dais for better or worse during the next five years.
If you're reading this blog, it's hoped that you've already been to the polls! In Riverside, odd-numbered ward residents are voting to elect their city council representatives for the next four years. Those who live in even-numbered wards, you haven't been left out of the fun. Voters city-wide still get to vote for members of the school boards for both unified school districts.
No endorsements on this site for any political candidates. Let the voters decide for better or worse.
Councilmen Frank Schiavone and Art Gage, who don't get along very well, have informed me that the city will review an incident that took place at the Brockton rail crossing about 6 p.m. last night, which began when a Union Pacific freight train stopped on the tracks for about 10 minutes.
The train blocked both Magnolia and Brockton Avenues and although it's not clear whether any emergency vehicles were impacted, there was one fire truck with sirens that was eastbound on Jurupa and turned left onto Magnolia.
Right behind the Union Pacific Train which remained parked on two crossings, was a spotlight that was difficult to identify in the dark. When looking head on at it, it was difficult to tell whether it was moving and if so, how fast. It stopped very closely behind the freight train. Soon after, the freight train began moving to clear the Brockton rail crossing. After it had done so, the crossing guards went up even as the spotlight moved closer.
The spotlight, as it turned out, was Metrolink train #857 which was eastbound towards the downtown train station. It was moving fairly slowly towards a crossing where the guards were up. Several motorists saw the guards rise and headed on through the crossing ahead of the approaching train.
Fortunately, as the train was about to cross onto Brockton, the guards went down. But it appeared to be an unusual and potentially dangerous situation, what with the two trains sharing a track and being close together and the crossing guards rising between trains. Freight trains serve an important purpose but if the railroad tracks are so overcrowded to the point where potentially dangerous incidents like this take place and the traffic flow of this city is greatly impacted, then the issue deserves much more attention.
Schiavone stated that the crossings involved have video cameras installed which will make the review process easier.
The Human Resources Board received a presentation from Deputy Chief Dave Dominguez of the Riverside Police Department, which provided a portrait of where the department is at and where it's hoping to go.
Dominguez told the commissioners that the days when lieutenants left their shifts at 5 p.m. and turned over the responsibilities to sergeants were past. That process changed when the police department entered into its five-year stipulated judgment with the police department and then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer decided that lieutenants need to serve as watch commanders 24 hours a day. In part, Lockyer mandated this because there was a shortage of experienced supervisors working during the late night and weekend shifts.
He added that about 90% of all the supervisors and 95% of the current lieutenants in the department were promoted to that rank by Chief Russ Leach. Currently, the department was offering testing for all the ranks, from detectives to captains, with at least one captain, lieutenant and two detectives retiring at the end of the year.
There were 248 line officers and all the department's ranks had received additionally staffing.
"We're very fortunate to have support of the city manager's office and city council," Dominguez said.
On the recruitment side, Dominguez said that the department was working towards having a police department which better mirrored the community it served. This objective, from the police department's strategic plan, has always been been difficult for the department to achieve.
About 39 officers, including 29 trainees from academies have been sworn in, Dominguez said. The department has increased its recruiting efforts involving female officers and men of color. He said that the training class at Ben Clark's Training Academy included four women hired by the police department and an earlier class included several women including one who was in the top 3 out of 80 members of the class.
Usually if cadets could make it through the first 30 days, they would complete the academy. Before that, there was a high attrition rate of cadets whether they dropped out in the first week or the first day. Dominguez said the department's pre-academy, which is a two-week session to prepare its hires for the rigors of the academy helped reduce the number of prospective officers from dropping out of the academy.
The department has worked harder at trying to attract more female applicants, by attending special events tailored to women interested in law enforcement. Coming up was a symposium, Women in Leadership Positions in Law Enforcement.
"It's very hard to get high numbers of females," said Lt. Mike Perea who works in the department's personnel and training division.
It's even harder to get them to stay.
In early 2006, the department had hired nine female officers. Six weeks later, all of them were gone. Most of them dropped out during the department's pre-academy phase and two at the academy. The explanation as to why the department lost women at the pre-academy phase was because like the men who also dropped out, they lacked physical fitness to do the callistetics and the physical drills.
And of course, if you support more women in policing, some troll will come along and claim that you are forcing the police chief to go out on the street and kidnap unsuspecting women to force them into service as police officers, thus endangering all the men they work alongside and ruining the world as we know it. Some field training officer will tell people that he doesn't like female officers and doesn't believe they can ever be as good as men as was reported several years ago. Some female officer will be so embittered by a couple of years, she won't trust anyone.
Dominguez told the board members that he did outreach himself, telling candidates what important qualifications and traits were needed to be a Riverside Police Department officer, what is called "the best of the best".
"It's important that they have role models," Dominguez said.
The police force remains young, with the average age of officers between 25-26 and about three years on the force. The trend towards youth continues upward through the ranks of the supervisory levels into management. Dominguez said that this was a reflection of how much the department has changed since he was hired which was about the early 1990s and the average age of patrol officers was somewhere in their late thirties.
This trend also is a byproduct of the tremendous turnover the department experienced after the exodus of officers that took place after the fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998 and the resultant investigations by outside agencies. About 80% of the department's officers resigned or retired within several years and entire divisions including the special operations and the field training officers' divisions had submitted letters of resignation which were denied.
Experts say that a department filled with young officers with only several years of experience in the field along with young supervisors should be closely watched by the agency's management for spikes in the use of excessive force by these officers as they come out of the academy and have to learn how to apply their training skills to the professional environment. Yet, according to statistics released by the department when it exited the stipulated judgment last year, there was less than a handful of these incidents each year.
That's why what is coming out of the Eastside lately about the experience that a disabled young man of color had with one of the city's police department officers is so disturbing. The incident involved allegations of excessive force and is currently under some form of administrative investigation by the department. It allegedly happened in a community which officially files no complaints with the police department nor the Community Police Review Commission, according to statistics provided in the CPRC's 2006 report which is hot off the press. But just because a community files no official complaints, does that mean that nothing's happening?
Some might say so, most notably representatives of the police department though there are several who after a year of sitting in various meetings listening to these Eastside complaint statistics, have said they have some that contradict those numbers. But as of yet, those alternative statistics haven't been produced.
Some say the department and community leaders use an informal complaint process that is mutually satisfactory to both the department and the parties who have complaints. Yet, what's missing in this process is any written accounting of "informal" complaints or any auditing of this process. In addition, there's apparently been no outreach because many people including residents of the Eastside have no knowledge of any informal complaint system. If one exists, then that needs to be done to keep the proper amount of both accountability and transparency intact. Otherwise too much potential exists for the department to encounter the same problems with its complaint system that got it into trouble in the first place.
The number one given reason for residents not filing complaints in the Eastside is fear of retaliation against them and their families. Whether this is what's real or what is perceived, it remains a major problem and should be addressed by among other entities, the Community Police Review Commission and the Human Relations Commission. Some of the things reported have been spotlights shown on their houses after filing complaints. Relatives being stopped by police officers, sometimes more than one in one week. If this is real, how can it be addressed? If it's perceptions, how can they be changed?
Others in the Eastside and other communities don't have faith in a commission that they feel represents the police department more than it does them. Comments like those made by Community Police Review Commission members like Chair Brian Pearcy and Peter Hubbard during the discussion of the Lee Deante Brown shooting case doesn't do much to change that.
But for a young man who until two weeks ago, was apparently thinking of being a police officer and after his experience is rethinking that, this all might simply be academic. What's next, for accountability and justice in his case? The ball is in the police department's court. If the department wants individuals and communities in this city to trust the investigations of its personnel, here's a perfect opportunity to show that it's worthy of that trust.
Dominguez said something that's critical and bears repeating.
"It's important that they have role models," he said.
Exactly.
In Orange County, Sheriff Michael Carona and two other defendants have plead not guilty to corruption charges in federal court, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Apparently negotiations had been ongoing between Carona's attorney and prosecutors before the indictment was released.
(excerpt)
Last month, attorneys for both sides failed to reach a deal on an offer by prosecutors that would have resulted in Carona pleading guilty to fewer charges and a counteroffer from Carona's attorney that the sheriff would resign if prosecutors dropped the case, said a source familiar with the talks who asked to remain anonymous.
Prosecutors wanted Carona to plead guilty to corruption and obstruction of justice. In exchange, the government offered not to charge Deborah Carona and to file lesser charges against Hoffman, the source said.
The government's offer "simmered for a few days" before Carona's lawyer offered to have him resign in lieu of prosecution, a deal prosecutors rejected, the source said.
Prosecutors, the person said, countered with an offer for Carona to plead guilty to a tax evasion count, admitting that he received money from former Assistant Sheriff Donald Haidl and failed to report it on his income tax return.
Carona's lawyer came back with an offer to have the sheriff plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count instead, the source said. This too was rejected by prosecutors.
Last week, Carona was indicted on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and tampering with a grand jury witness.
More on the "American Sheriff".
The Press Enterprise's Editorial Board provides its list of endorsements for the Inland Empire elections. Check them out. As you can see, for Riverside, the board is very supportive of the strengthening of the BASS quartet.
An excellent letter here in the Readers' Forum about how the author tried to move away from the endless late-night(and early morning hours) parties thrown by students at the University of California, Riverside who think it's their birthright to move into neighborhoods, party into the wee hours of the morning and when people complain, their collective response is that you chose to live next to a university, what did you expect? We need our parties! We're university students! We're stressed! It's our right to party!
This strong sense of entitlement by the UCR students who have made the lives of those who live around them into a nightmare led to over 450 calls to the police departments involving loud music and loud party complaints.
People are being tricked into signing a form supporting civilian oversight in Ft. Myers, Florida, claims the leadership of a local police union that doesn’t want oversight, according to NBC2-TV.
(excerpt)
Cecil Pendergrass, President of the Police Benevolent Association, says that police officers are being wrongfully accused of crimes. He says Citizen's for a Better Fort Myers are calling cops "murderers" and accusing them of beating people.
"The citizen's review board would separate the officers from the community," said Pendergrass.
Pendergrass says voters are being lied to.
"Oh definitely they are being misled. We already have a complaint filed in Tallahassee about this," said Pendergrass.
Community activists say this is just a ploy to stop civilian review.
(excerpt)
But community activist Anthony Thomas defends Citizens for a Better Fort Myers.
"I have asked the Fort Myers Police Department to provide evidence to show allegations that we have made are incorrect," said Thomas.
Thomas says hundreds have signed the petition saying they want a review board. He believes the police are just trying to stop that from ever happening.
"There are going to be people who don't like democracy. They don't want to hear the voters be heard," said Thomas.
Also vetoing civilian review is Ft. Myers civilian review board. Not giving up are community members in that same city.
The NAACP in Yonkers and an organization of Black law enforcement officers stand united to push for reforms in that city’s police department according to the Journal News.
(excerpt)
Representatives of the Yonkers chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Westchester County chapter of the National Black Police Association want city officials to put cameras in squad cars, officers' names on police badges, create whistle-blower protections for officers, establish a civilian complaint review board and diversify the police department's racial composition.
"I haven't turned over complaints in months because you can't rely on them to investigate," said Yonkers NAACP President Karen Edmonson, referring to the Yonkers police's Internal Affairs Division, which investigates misconduct allegations against city officers.
From the blog, Reappropriate, comes the following.
Do United States Border Patrol officers blow the whistle on the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants in their facilities?
This one did.
Art Gage's making up a little bit of ground, but Rusty Bailey and Chris MacArthur are widening their leads.
But look at Terry Frizzel in Ward Seven, coming up like Silky Sullivan, down by only several dozen votes.
Oh but what a difference one precinct makes. Mike Gardner has just passed incumbent Dom Betro and taken the lead by only four votes with about 100 ballots left to count.
Frizzel is only 32 votes behind Adams.
Riverside City Council - Ward 1
23/23 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - DOM BETRO 2,099 49.95%
NP - MIKE GARDNER 2,103 50.05%
Total 4,202 100.00%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riverside City Council - Ward 3
23/23 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - WILLIAM ''RUSTY'' BAILEY 2,594 56.77%
NP - ART GAGE 1,975 43.23%
Total 4,569 100.00%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riverside City Council - Ward 5
22/22 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - DONNA DOTY MICHALKA 1,453 42.29%
NP - CHRIS MAC ARTHUR 1,983 57.71%
Total 3,436 100.00%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riverside City Council - Ward 7
19/19 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
NP - TERESA R. ''TERRY'' FRIZZEL 1,210 49.35%
NP - STEVE ADAMS 1,242 50.65%
Total 2,452 100.00%
William "Rusty" Bailey, neophyte and "team player" unseats incumbent Art Gage in the Ward Three election only to find out that much of his "team" are fighting for their political careers in nail-biting races. Maybe BASS quartet members and the Press Enterprise Editorial Board wanted a "team" but it's clear that enough of the voters don't to send a strong message in at least three of the races. Even if Mike Gardner and Terry Frizzel don't get in, winning an election by as few votes as the incumbents might is nothing to jump up and down about. In addition, Dom and Steve Adams have shown that bringing different factions together isn't their strong points. In fact, their behavior usually leans the other way, a huge reason why both struggled so much this round.
The Betro camp will surely blame his narrow win or loss on what they call negative words against their candidate, but the reality is that Riverside is split in half. It's split in half on issues such as Riverside Renaissance and Redevelopment and it doesn't seem highly favorable to the use of Eminent Domain. It's split in half in terms of whether it wants the emphasis on ward representation from its elected representatives or whether it wants them to emphasize city-wide issues at the expense of the wards.
That's why the "team" concept isn't getting such high marks in the form of its members sweeping to big leads and winning races by landslides. Betro for example struggled to win in 2003 and he struggled even more so this year, showing that as far as he thought he'd come in four years, it wasn't nearly far enough.
Already probably out of the running is Donna Doty Michalka in Ward Five.
Michalka was an add-on team player after aspiring politician, Harry Kurani didn't get the votes he needed to move onto the finals. Pulling ahead of Michalka is Chris MacArthur who tried to run his campaign by whipping up xenophobia in Ward Five. Still, his stance against using Eminent Domain to aid private developers might have played a stronger role in his lead.
Gage once tried to use eminent domain against a neighborhood of houses in order to provide land for Doug Jacobs to use to create new office space. That decision even when rescinded probably hurt him in his reelection bid.
Currently, in Ward One, Councilman Dom Betro leads challenger, Mike Gardner by about 43 votes. Even more dramatic, is the tooth and nail fight in Ward Seven where challenger and former mayor, Terry Frizzel made up a huge deficit of votes and is closing in on incumbent Steve Adams. At 11:30 p.m., she was only 36 votes behind.
What's amazing is how much Gardner and especially Frizzel were outspent by their rivals. Frizzel was outspent by her rival at least 15 to 1.
The election results made it clear that even as supporters of the incumbents tried to turn "divisive" into a four-letter word, the city clearly is split in half nearly across the board. Except perhaps for Bailey, none of the incumbents have won outright and with Gage done and Betro behind in the votes, it remains to see if the dais will have more new faces than old ones.
If you've been talking to people in this city during the past couple of months, none of this is surprising.
“If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.”
---Nelson Mandela
“An election tells how many of your supporters are alive, and a war tells how many are willing to be dead.”
---Anonymous
"Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote."
-- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
It's election day!
Really. That exercise last June was simply the preliminary rounds. Now, it's the finals. Hopefully by midnight, we'll know who's going to be on the dais for better or worse during the next five years.
If you're reading this blog, it's hoped that you've already been to the polls! In Riverside, odd-numbered ward residents are voting to elect their city council representatives for the next four years. Those who live in even-numbered wards, you haven't been left out of the fun. Voters city-wide still get to vote for members of the school boards for both unified school districts.
No endorsements on this site for any political candidates. Let the voters decide for better or worse.
Councilmen Frank Schiavone and Art Gage, who don't get along very well, have informed me that the city will review an incident that took place at the Brockton rail crossing about 6 p.m. last night, which began when a Union Pacific freight train stopped on the tracks for about 10 minutes.
The train blocked both Magnolia and Brockton Avenues and although it's not clear whether any emergency vehicles were impacted, there was one fire truck with sirens that was eastbound on Jurupa and turned left onto Magnolia.
Right behind the Union Pacific Train which remained parked on two crossings, was a spotlight that was difficult to identify in the dark. When looking head on at it, it was difficult to tell whether it was moving and if so, how fast. It stopped very closely behind the freight train. Soon after, the freight train began moving to clear the Brockton rail crossing. After it had done so, the crossing guards went up even as the spotlight moved closer.
The spotlight, as it turned out, was Metrolink train #857 which was eastbound towards the downtown train station. It was moving fairly slowly towards a crossing where the guards were up. Several motorists saw the guards rise and headed on through the crossing ahead of the approaching train.
Fortunately, as the train was about to cross onto Brockton, the guards went down. But it appeared to be an unusual and potentially dangerous situation, what with the two trains sharing a track and being close together and the crossing guards rising between trains. Freight trains serve an important purpose but if the railroad tracks are so overcrowded to the point where potentially dangerous incidents like this take place and the traffic flow of this city is greatly impacted, then the issue deserves much more attention.
Schiavone stated that the crossings involved have video cameras installed which will make the review process easier.
The Human Resources Board received a presentation from Deputy Chief Dave Dominguez of the Riverside Police Department, which provided a portrait of where the department is at and where it's hoping to go.
Dominguez told the commissioners that the days when lieutenants left their shifts at 5 p.m. and turned over the responsibilities to sergeants were past. That process changed when the police department entered into its five-year stipulated judgment with the police department and then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer decided that lieutenants need to serve as watch commanders 24 hours a day. In part, Lockyer mandated this because there was a shortage of experienced supervisors working during the late night and weekend shifts.
He added that about 90% of all the supervisors and 95% of the current lieutenants in the department were promoted to that rank by Chief Russ Leach. Currently, the department was offering testing for all the ranks, from detectives to captains, with at least one captain, lieutenant and two detectives retiring at the end of the year.
There were 248 line officers and all the department's ranks had received additionally staffing.
"We're very fortunate to have support of the city manager's office and city council," Dominguez said.
On the recruitment side, Dominguez said that the department was working towards having a police department which better mirrored the community it served. This objective, from the police department's strategic plan, has always been been difficult for the department to achieve.
About 39 officers, including 29 trainees from academies have been sworn in, Dominguez said. The department has increased its recruiting efforts involving female officers and men of color. He said that the training class at Ben Clark's Training Academy included four women hired by the police department and an earlier class included several women including one who was in the top 3 out of 80 members of the class.
Usually if cadets could make it through the first 30 days, they would complete the academy. Before that, there was a high attrition rate of cadets whether they dropped out in the first week or the first day. Dominguez said the department's pre-academy, which is a two-week session to prepare its hires for the rigors of the academy helped reduce the number of prospective officers from dropping out of the academy.
The department has worked harder at trying to attract more female applicants, by attending special events tailored to women interested in law enforcement. Coming up was a symposium, Women in Leadership Positions in Law Enforcement.
"It's very hard to get high numbers of females," said Lt. Mike Perea who works in the department's personnel and training division.
It's even harder to get them to stay.
In early 2006, the department had hired nine female officers. Six weeks later, all of them were gone. Most of them dropped out during the department's pre-academy phase and two at the academy. The explanation as to why the department lost women at the pre-academy phase was because like the men who also dropped out, they lacked physical fitness to do the callistetics and the physical drills.
And of course, if you support more women in policing, some troll will come along and claim that you are forcing the police chief to go out on the street and kidnap unsuspecting women to force them into service as police officers, thus endangering all the men they work alongside and ruining the world as we know it. Some field training officer will tell people that he doesn't like female officers and doesn't believe they can ever be as good as men as was reported several years ago. Some female officer will be so embittered by a couple of years, she won't trust anyone.
Dominguez told the board members that he did outreach himself, telling candidates what important qualifications and traits were needed to be a Riverside Police Department officer, what is called "the best of the best".
"It's important that they have role models," Dominguez said.
The police force remains young, with the average age of officers between 25-26 and about three years on the force. The trend towards youth continues upward through the ranks of the supervisory levels into management. Dominguez said that this was a reflection of how much the department has changed since he was hired which was about the early 1990s and the average age of patrol officers was somewhere in their late thirties.
This trend also is a byproduct of the tremendous turnover the department experienced after the exodus of officers that took place after the fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998 and the resultant investigations by outside agencies. About 80% of the department's officers resigned or retired within several years and entire divisions including the special operations and the field training officers' divisions had submitted letters of resignation which were denied.
Experts say that a department filled with young officers with only several years of experience in the field along with young supervisors should be closely watched by the agency's management for spikes in the use of excessive force by these officers as they come out of the academy and have to learn how to apply their training skills to the professional environment. Yet, according to statistics released by the department when it exited the stipulated judgment last year, there was less than a handful of these incidents each year.
That's why what is coming out of the Eastside lately about the experience that a disabled young man of color had with one of the city's police department officers is so disturbing. The incident involved allegations of excessive force and is currently under some form of administrative investigation by the department. It allegedly happened in a community which officially files no complaints with the police department nor the Community Police Review Commission, according to statistics provided in the CPRC's 2006 report which is hot off the press. But just because a community files no official complaints, does that mean that nothing's happening?
Some might say so, most notably representatives of the police department though there are several who after a year of sitting in various meetings listening to these Eastside complaint statistics, have said they have some that contradict those numbers. But as of yet, those alternative statistics haven't been produced.
Some say the department and community leaders use an informal complaint process that is mutually satisfactory to both the department and the parties who have complaints. Yet, what's missing in this process is any written accounting of "informal" complaints or any auditing of this process. In addition, there's apparently been no outreach because many people including residents of the Eastside have no knowledge of any informal complaint system. If one exists, then that needs to be done to keep the proper amount of both accountability and transparency intact. Otherwise too much potential exists for the department to encounter the same problems with its complaint system that got it into trouble in the first place.
The number one given reason for residents not filing complaints in the Eastside is fear of retaliation against them and their families. Whether this is what's real or what is perceived, it remains a major problem and should be addressed by among other entities, the Community Police Review Commission and the Human Relations Commission. Some of the things reported have been spotlights shown on their houses after filing complaints. Relatives being stopped by police officers, sometimes more than one in one week. If this is real, how can it be addressed? If it's perceptions, how can they be changed?
Others in the Eastside and other communities don't have faith in a commission that they feel represents the police department more than it does them. Comments like those made by Community Police Review Commission members like Chair Brian Pearcy and Peter Hubbard during the discussion of the Lee Deante Brown shooting case doesn't do much to change that.
But for a young man who until two weeks ago, was apparently thinking of being a police officer and after his experience is rethinking that, this all might simply be academic. What's next, for accountability and justice in his case? The ball is in the police department's court. If the department wants individuals and communities in this city to trust the investigations of its personnel, here's a perfect opportunity to show that it's worthy of that trust.
Dominguez said something that's critical and bears repeating.
"It's important that they have role models," he said.
Exactly.
In Orange County, Sheriff Michael Carona and two other defendants have plead not guilty to corruption charges in federal court, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Apparently negotiations had been ongoing between Carona's attorney and prosecutors before the indictment was released.
(excerpt)
Last month, attorneys for both sides failed to reach a deal on an offer by prosecutors that would have resulted in Carona pleading guilty to fewer charges and a counteroffer from Carona's attorney that the sheriff would resign if prosecutors dropped the case, said a source familiar with the talks who asked to remain anonymous.
Prosecutors wanted Carona to plead guilty to corruption and obstruction of justice. In exchange, the government offered not to charge Deborah Carona and to file lesser charges against Hoffman, the source said.
The government's offer "simmered for a few days" before Carona's lawyer offered to have him resign in lieu of prosecution, a deal prosecutors rejected, the source said.
Prosecutors, the person said, countered with an offer for Carona to plead guilty to a tax evasion count, admitting that he received money from former Assistant Sheriff Donald Haidl and failed to report it on his income tax return.
Carona's lawyer came back with an offer to have the sheriff plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count instead, the source said. This too was rejected by prosecutors.
Last week, Carona was indicted on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and tampering with a grand jury witness.
More on the "American Sheriff".
The Press Enterprise's Editorial Board provides its list of endorsements for the Inland Empire elections. Check them out. As you can see, for Riverside, the board is very supportive of the strengthening of the BASS quartet.
An excellent letter here in the Readers' Forum about how the author tried to move away from the endless late-night(and early morning hours) parties thrown by students at the University of California, Riverside who think it's their birthright to move into neighborhoods, party into the wee hours of the morning and when people complain, their collective response is that you chose to live next to a university, what did you expect? We need our parties! We're university students! We're stressed! It's our right to party!
This strong sense of entitlement by the UCR students who have made the lives of those who live around them into a nightmare led to over 450 calls to the police departments involving loud music and loud party complaints.
People are being tricked into signing a form supporting civilian oversight in Ft. Myers, Florida, claims the leadership of a local police union that doesn’t want oversight, according to NBC2-TV.
(excerpt)
Cecil Pendergrass, President of the Police Benevolent Association, says that police officers are being wrongfully accused of crimes. He says Citizen's for a Better Fort Myers are calling cops "murderers" and accusing them of beating people.
"The citizen's review board would separate the officers from the community," said Pendergrass.
Pendergrass says voters are being lied to.
"Oh definitely they are being misled. We already have a complaint filed in Tallahassee about this," said Pendergrass.
Community activists say this is just a ploy to stop civilian review.
(excerpt)
But community activist Anthony Thomas defends Citizens for a Better Fort Myers.
"I have asked the Fort Myers Police Department to provide evidence to show allegations that we have made are incorrect," said Thomas.
Thomas says hundreds have signed the petition saying they want a review board. He believes the police are just trying to stop that from ever happening.
"There are going to be people who don't like democracy. They don't want to hear the voters be heard," said Thomas.
Also vetoing civilian review is Ft. Myers civilian review board. Not giving up are community members in that same city.
The NAACP in Yonkers and an organization of Black law enforcement officers stand united to push for reforms in that city’s police department according to the Journal News.
(excerpt)
Representatives of the Yonkers chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Westchester County chapter of the National Black Police Association want city officials to put cameras in squad cars, officers' names on police badges, create whistle-blower protections for officers, establish a civilian complaint review board and diversify the police department's racial composition.
"I haven't turned over complaints in months because you can't rely on them to investigate," said Yonkers NAACP President Karen Edmonson, referring to the Yonkers police's Internal Affairs Division, which investigates misconduct allegations against city officers.
From the blog, Reappropriate, comes the following.
Do United States Border Patrol officers blow the whistle on the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants in their facilities?
This one did.
Labels: Backlash against civilian oversight, City elections, civilian review spreads, public forums in all places, recruitment, retention and diversity
posted by Five Before Midnight | 11:39 PM
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