Election 2007: Gardner and Adams in the recount
After the recount was finished, it placed Mike Gardner seven votes ahead of incumbent, Dom Betro of Ward one and Councilman Steve Adams about 16 votes ahead of challenger and former mayor, Terry Frizzel in Ward Seven.
It's not clear what will happen next as Betro has suspended the signature check and Frizzel had decided not to do one. Whether any law suits will be filed by either party challenging the results remain to be seen.
(excerpt)
Neither Betro nor Frizzel conceded Wednesday.
Both candidates -- Betro in a statement and Frizzel in an interview -- said there had been many problems with the election and recount process and they needed to decide their next step.
"I'm going to talk to people to see if they're satisfied," said Frizzel, a former mayor and councilwoman for Ward 7.
Betro's statement said in part: "The recount process revealed issues, such as newly discovered ballots, disallowance of numerous challenged votes, and questionable registrations and ballots, that raise concerns about the validity of this election. I will be evaluating these issues and decide what further action, if any, is warranted."
While the ballots were still being fussed over and counted at the Riverside County Voters' Registrar, the city council decorum policy came up for discussion at the city council meeting because in an action that rocked the audience to its foundation, Councilwoman Nancy Hart pulled the agenda item off of the consent calendar.
(excerpt)
The City Council on Tuesday voted for the new procedure, 5-2. Those supporting the rule said it would bring efficiency to council meetings and maintain civility.
"Everyone has the right to address the council," City Attorney Greg Priamos said of the new rule. "It's a matter of individuals acting with a certain level of courtesy."
Details must still be worked out but those who want to speak at a council meeting would have to fill out a form before the meeting or during a recess. Requests won't be accepted during meetings to avoid disrupting them, the meeting rules say.
Most large cities and governmental agencies require the public to fill out forms to speak, Mayor Ron Loveridge said.
The use of a speaker-card system and clarified decorum policies will improve conversation at the meetings, Loveridge said. The new procedure will also eliminate people lining up against the wall to address the council because individuals will be called by name, he said.
Councilmen Art Gage and Andy Melendrez voted against the item, citing that the language used in the ordinance was too restrictive. They wanted the city to be flexible in accepting the cards.
But Priamos said the ordinance allows the meeting's presiding officer to call for a recess to collect speaker cards.
"The intent is to be permissive rather than exclusive," Loveridge said.
But this action is still restrictive against those who listen to comments being made and decide they want to contribute their comments as well, but can't because it's unlikely that the mayor will call a recess during the handling of public comment or an agenda item. People should be able to still submit speaker cards to the city clerk or other designated representative while public comments are still being taken.
Also, there needs to be careful handling of any speaker cards so that cards involving different agenda items don't get mixed up with one another or lost, if a person who intended to speak during public comment instead gets their card misplaced into a collection involving a public comment on a discussion item. Sometimes that happens at city meetings where a card system is utilized.
As usual however, actions spoke louder than words as the votes showed. However, the measure didn't pass 5-2 as stated because only six council members actually voted on the item because the seventh member, Dom Betro, had rolled his eyes during the audience comment period and had stormed out of the chambers. Consequently, unless he phoned his vote in, he didn't participate in that process so the official vote should stand, 4 to 2.
People spoke on the issue to no avail, because its passage was considered a done deal, hence its inclusion on the consent calendar. Melendrez and Gage had both cast nay votes against the item while it was still on the consent calendar and whatever they heard during the discussion didn't convince them to change their minds or their votes. The timing was such that it's clear that it was pulled off of a shelf and dusted off after an eight month period of apparent hibernation after being passed at a March 20 Governmental Affairs Committee meeting.
But what the vote showed, is that the support for these changes to public participation are not as strongly supported as they had been before the election. Hart pulling the item and Melendrez casting a negative vote showed that this council is unsure what its new members think about this contentious issue. It remains to be seen what will happen next.
But for all this talk about decorum, by city council members who roll eyes, rustle papers, talk amongst themselves, grunt, sigh or groan, that is if they can even remain in their seats, the moment which showed a complete lack of decorum happened in 2006 when one of the councilmen who was mayor pro tem ordered the removal of a woman in her late seventies who had come to city council from Woodcrest where she lived, after a city-owned pipe had broken and flooded her property, causing damage.
And why did the mayor pro tem order a police officer to remove her? Because she had exceeded the three-minute speaking limit. The mayor pro tem could have asked a staff member to help her with her problem, instead he called upon a city employee to remove her. The very embarrassed police officer did, carefully pulling her by her sweater without a single city council member challenging the mayor pro tem.
At the time, Chief Russ Leach was unhappy about his police officers being used as bouncers by the city council when they were there to provide security during the meeting. Security from an elderly woman, who was seeking redress for property damage caused by city property?
As for showing a lack of decorum, it doesn't get much better or worse than that.
Some comments I made at the CPRC meeting got me in trouble. I had said that one of the questions asked me by communities members who are considering filing complaints to the CPRC is the racial composition of the nine-member panel. How many Black people? How many Latinos? How many Asian-Americans?
There's not much questions out there about how many Whites are on the commission or on most bodies because the assumption is often that Whites are probably the majority of the members on these bodies and even the assumption among many that this is how it should be.
The truth is from a statistic approach is that the CPRC is less ethnically and racially diverse than the Riverside Police Department. Whereas the police department is about 72% White in terms of the demographic information provided by the city, the CPRC is about 77% White, with one Black man and one Latina. The police department has put efforts into its recruitment and hiring from a more diverse pool.
One commissioner, Chani Beeman, who is a White lesbian by identification, pointed out that there were more forms of diversity than just by race and to focus on one and ignore the others has an effect of negating other forms of diversity. That's true and point well taken and I should have phrased my statement better. I was addressing ethnic and racial diversity because those are the questions that were asked by members of communities including those which are predominantly populated by Black and Latino families.
I'm a White woman and I didn't speak on the issue of gender diversity because although that's a concern raised, it's not to the level in the communities that I spend the most time talking about the complaint system to that ethnicity and race are. As a woman, I'm a minority in a sense not related just to numbers, but even if I am penalized as such by my gender, I still have other privileges and one of the strongest when it comes to society is still, White privilege. White privilege for one thing allows the commissioners to respond in the way that several of them chose to do so.
Commissioner John Brandriff raised the excellent point that the commissioners could be objective and they should pick the most qualified ones. But often that's the first thing said by White individuals when they hear comments about racial diversity and their comments often leave men and women of color thinking, is this person doing what he criticizes by equating "objective" and most qualified with race, meaning with Whites?
When you have discussions with many men and women of color on this issue, they often express that when people make the statements, "we don't look at race. We just pick the most qualified" and then all the people that are picked are White and/or male and/or straight or belonged to what Commissioner Jim Ward called "majorities", that the assumption is that White equals most qualified and most objective and that seems to be something taken for granted as the truth.
I had a conversation with a male Latino officer who had listened when Adams had given this speech at a city council meeting in October 2006 about not looking at race or religion but the most qualified and he laughed ruefully, shaking his head after the fact. At the time, the White officers present had applauded Adams' words but the Latinos had not. There were no Black male officers and no female officers of any race even present.
Also, the "low numbers" issue arose with the lack of ethnic and racial diversity on the commission but first of all the public can't respond to commissioner comments and one three-minute comment would not do the serious issues involved with the current appointment process any justice.
It's interesting to see the discussion come down not to the issues I raised but to avoid addressing them. Instead of watching White commissioners get defensive, it would have been nice to see them actually hear what Commissioner Jim Ward, the only African-American, was telling them and say, okay what can we do to address these issues? How can we look at things a bit differently and be open to perspectives by others when it comes to race and racism? How can we listen to what Ward said about looking as closely at the complainant's perspective as the commission does the officer's or how the discussions on the commission often come down to racial lines?
Some of the others nod their heads at what he says, then they disagree. Then they demonstrate to him how right he was about the point he just made through their own actions. Not out of malice, but because when you're a member of the majority race, your perspective tends to be more narrowed to perspectives from your own race because it's allowed to be. Whites don't have to learn about other races in the same way that people of color have to learn about Whites.
When it comes to activism among different classifications of "minorities" involving police reform and criminal justice system issues, often it's men and women of color who lead the way in the organized movements.
When it comes to straight women working on police issues, women of color are the most organized and doing the most work, because it impacts them much more so than White women. Even when it comes to many organizations involving gays, lesbians and/or transgenders, again it's men and women of color who lead the way when it comes to activism centered on police issues, because race is still a major factor that's intertwined with gender and/or sexual orientation.
After all, where do police officers spend the majority of their time? In White communities? In Black communities? In Latino communities? In interracial communities where most of the residents are Black and/or Latino?
What racial groups are represented disproportionately in traffic and/or stop and frisk stops? Whether you are reading through one of the Riverside Police Department's traffic stop studies, one from San Jose or the stop and frisk study from New York City, the answers will be similar.
Which neighborhoods feel like they are protected and served? Which feel like they are policed, often so that the White neighborhoods are protected and served?
Why this is so isn't the only issue or issues here. The fact that it is so is also important. Most of the people who serve on the commission will run into police officers at social events or even family events rather than being pulled over or having family members pulled over and asked if they are on probation or parole, told to put their hands on the steering wheel, told to get out of the car and sit on the curb, told to get out of the car to be handcuffed and searched or put in a squad car only to be released when the police officer is finished with the stop. Men and women of color are more likely to be treated this way, even if they are elected officials, prosecutors, judges or even law enforcement officers.
In fact in Los Angeles, Oakland and Providence, Rhode Island as well as other medium to large law enforcement agencies, Black officers have been shot to death by White officers who look at them and see a profile, not another police officer.
A Riverside Police Department officer who is a White man testified in 2005 at the trial involving Officer Roger Sutton's racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit. He had a biracial teen aged son because his wife is Black. In his testimony, he spoke of allowing his son to wear cornrows to a certain age. After his son was in his mid-teens, he didn't allow him to do so anymore, the response he gave when Sutton's attorney under cross-examination asked him a question. The officer didn't really explain why but after listening to other portions of his testimony when he spoke not as a father but as a Riverside Police Department field training officer, it became more clear why.
Cornrows worn by a Black man could mean he was a felon or parolee released from a stint in prison to an officer stopping a vehicle to do a pretext stop on its driver and any passengers. That's what officers were taught in the police department even though this officer and others haven't called it racial profiling. I don't believe this officer meant it to be, but his testimony more for what it didn't clearly state rather than what it did, proved to be one of the pivotal moments of the trial and I think struck a chord with the jury. It provided a picture of the police department and how Black men were handled by the police department during the era covered in Sutton's law suit. What it meant when the father of a biracial son collided with what a field training officer taught was for that time period, on trial.
The commissioners will be more likely to have friends, family members or co-workers even who are police officers who will have complaints filed against them, than to be in the position where they will have family members or friends, or neighbors who may file complaints against the city's police officers.
Ward explained that it wasn't enough to have a racially diverse commission unless they were treated as equal and he's right. He's not the only commissioner of color to express that often the commission feels like a good 'ol White men's club, where race is disregarded as often as it becomes a dividing line. That's been said in the past.
What was telling happened when Ward was telling the commissioners about how being a racial minority was not the same thing as being a racial majority on the CPRC and while several were nodding their heads in apparent agreement or understanding, an example of what he was talking about played itself out at the same time.
Pearcy soon after made a rebuttal to Ward's comments about race on the commission but by doing so proved Ward's point for him. He made a comment about how he and Beeman both served on a panel put together by the city to pick the executive manager several months ago. Beeman agreed with Pearcy on one thing that he said about Martinelli being an excellent candidate. But what was forgotten in the exchange by Pearcy is that Ward had also served on the same panel but was apparently overlooked or even forgotten. I noticed that Ward had gone unmentioned as being a panel member that interviewed Martinelli and other candidates and I imagine Ward did too. A White commissioner serves on a hiring panel with both another White commissioner and a Black commissioner and only mentions the one who's White.
That's a dynamic that is often brought up by men and women of color who have been in similar situations, rendered invisible in the presence of White colleagues who share the same experience and see each other as sharing it, but not the person of color who also did.
Tell him one thing. Show him another. That's a dynamic that's seen quite a bit on the commission.
Speaking of the CPRC, its long-time administrative support person, Phoebe Sherron is on medical leave. She's been an awesome presence and hard-worker for the commission since it was created in 2000. Here's hoping her recuperation goes well.
Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco refuses to move his office citing security concerns according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
County Executive Officer Larry Parrish had recommended that the Board of Supervisors delay construction of the 260,000-square-foot building and parking garage in the wake of diminishing growth in property-tax revenues and the possibility of a recession.
The supervisors did not act on Parrish's recommendation. They referred the matter to a subcommittee of two supervisors, law enforcement representatives, architects and facilities managers.
In a letter to the board, Parrish said construction of the district attorney's building could significantly delay other projects such as medical clinics, an animal shelter and the second-phase of a regional hub jail.
The new jail, expected to cost county taxpayers $300 million, is a top priority for county supervisors and law enforcement officials, including Pacheco.
The district attorney's office needs a new building, Supervisor Bob Buster said, adding that he would prefer that Pacheco be given the right building in the long run. Buster said Pacheco should keep the Riverside Centre site as an interim option until the county's economic future looks brighter.
What's interesting in this article is how the county's attitude with development of infrastructure projects in its jurisdiction conflicts with the attitude of elected officials and city management in Riverside who just keep spending, spending and spending more, knowing full well that leaner times are on the horizon.
Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise has a field day with the intrigue surrounding the new building.
(excerpt)
Naturally, the county has a backup plan: Open a temporary DA shelter in a downtown office building two blocks from the Hall O' Justice. Not gonna do it, says RoPac. Vengeful crooks could pick off prosecutors as they walked to and from court.
Actually, prosecutors already walk to and from court. Sometimes, they even dine in restaurants! So do jurors, witnesses and judges. But no doubt about it, two blocks is a haul. Yes, we have a crisis. Solutions, too:
Hire Blackwater to protect deputy DAs. (Then hire the National Guard to protect everyone else from Blackwater.)
Convert courtrooms to prosecutors' offices; make the judges walk two blocks.
Put a DA Wing in new "hub" jail. Ferry prosecutors to court in buses with bars on the windows. Bars in the aisle, too.
Build Rod Mahal with cost-saving "tent-city jail" technology. (Unlike inmates in Arizona's Maricopa County, pink slippers and underwear for prosecutors would be optional.)
Issue prosecutors Groucho Glasses and lapel buttons: "Kiss Me. I'm A Public Defender!"
In Pittsburgh where the department has struggled with decisions by its management to promote officers with domestic violence histories, another officer has agreed to receive counseling in relation to an incident where he assaulted his wife and joked his son, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
(excerpt)
Detective[Brad] Walker, 41, stood before District Judge James Hanley for no more than a minute before committing to the program and signing the paperwork. The district attorney's staff had offered him the arrangement before the judge ever called his case for a preliminary hearing.
Prosecutors could not specify how many counseling sessions he will have to attend, but they said anger management programs typically last for weeks.
Detective Walker is scheduled to appear again in court Jan. 8. His performance in the anger management program will be reviewed then.
Some of the terms used in searches.
"corruption is a way of life in the philippines"
"tasers"
"five before midnight"
"tasers death petition"
"voluntary manslaughter"
"city elections"
"kelsy metzler riverside police california"
"judge jeffrey white"
"police officers wife site"
"how do sexual harassment impact a unit"
It's not clear what will happen next as Betro has suspended the signature check and Frizzel had decided not to do one. Whether any law suits will be filed by either party challenging the results remain to be seen.
(excerpt)
Neither Betro nor Frizzel conceded Wednesday.
Both candidates -- Betro in a statement and Frizzel in an interview -- said there had been many problems with the election and recount process and they needed to decide their next step.
"I'm going to talk to people to see if they're satisfied," said Frizzel, a former mayor and councilwoman for Ward 7.
Betro's statement said in part: "The recount process revealed issues, such as newly discovered ballots, disallowance of numerous challenged votes, and questionable registrations and ballots, that raise concerns about the validity of this election. I will be evaluating these issues and decide what further action, if any, is warranted."
While the ballots were still being fussed over and counted at the Riverside County Voters' Registrar, the city council decorum policy came up for discussion at the city council meeting because in an action that rocked the audience to its foundation, Councilwoman Nancy Hart pulled the agenda item off of the consent calendar.
(excerpt)
The City Council on Tuesday voted for the new procedure, 5-2. Those supporting the rule said it would bring efficiency to council meetings and maintain civility.
"Everyone has the right to address the council," City Attorney Greg Priamos said of the new rule. "It's a matter of individuals acting with a certain level of courtesy."
Details must still be worked out but those who want to speak at a council meeting would have to fill out a form before the meeting or during a recess. Requests won't be accepted during meetings to avoid disrupting them, the meeting rules say.
Most large cities and governmental agencies require the public to fill out forms to speak, Mayor Ron Loveridge said.
The use of a speaker-card system and clarified decorum policies will improve conversation at the meetings, Loveridge said. The new procedure will also eliminate people lining up against the wall to address the council because individuals will be called by name, he said.
Councilmen Art Gage and Andy Melendrez voted against the item, citing that the language used in the ordinance was too restrictive. They wanted the city to be flexible in accepting the cards.
But Priamos said the ordinance allows the meeting's presiding officer to call for a recess to collect speaker cards.
"The intent is to be permissive rather than exclusive," Loveridge said.
But this action is still restrictive against those who listen to comments being made and decide they want to contribute their comments as well, but can't because it's unlikely that the mayor will call a recess during the handling of public comment or an agenda item. People should be able to still submit speaker cards to the city clerk or other designated representative while public comments are still being taken.
Also, there needs to be careful handling of any speaker cards so that cards involving different agenda items don't get mixed up with one another or lost, if a person who intended to speak during public comment instead gets their card misplaced into a collection involving a public comment on a discussion item. Sometimes that happens at city meetings where a card system is utilized.
As usual however, actions spoke louder than words as the votes showed. However, the measure didn't pass 5-2 as stated because only six council members actually voted on the item because the seventh member, Dom Betro, had rolled his eyes during the audience comment period and had stormed out of the chambers. Consequently, unless he phoned his vote in, he didn't participate in that process so the official vote should stand, 4 to 2.
People spoke on the issue to no avail, because its passage was considered a done deal, hence its inclusion on the consent calendar. Melendrez and Gage had both cast nay votes against the item while it was still on the consent calendar and whatever they heard during the discussion didn't convince them to change their minds or their votes. The timing was such that it's clear that it was pulled off of a shelf and dusted off after an eight month period of apparent hibernation after being passed at a March 20 Governmental Affairs Committee meeting.
But what the vote showed, is that the support for these changes to public participation are not as strongly supported as they had been before the election. Hart pulling the item and Melendrez casting a negative vote showed that this council is unsure what its new members think about this contentious issue. It remains to be seen what will happen next.
But for all this talk about decorum, by city council members who roll eyes, rustle papers, talk amongst themselves, grunt, sigh or groan, that is if they can even remain in their seats, the moment which showed a complete lack of decorum happened in 2006 when one of the councilmen who was mayor pro tem ordered the removal of a woman in her late seventies who had come to city council from Woodcrest where she lived, after a city-owned pipe had broken and flooded her property, causing damage.
And why did the mayor pro tem order a police officer to remove her? Because she had exceeded the three-minute speaking limit. The mayor pro tem could have asked a staff member to help her with her problem, instead he called upon a city employee to remove her. The very embarrassed police officer did, carefully pulling her by her sweater without a single city council member challenging the mayor pro tem.
At the time, Chief Russ Leach was unhappy about his police officers being used as bouncers by the city council when they were there to provide security during the meeting. Security from an elderly woman, who was seeking redress for property damage caused by city property?
As for showing a lack of decorum, it doesn't get much better or worse than that.
Some comments I made at the CPRC meeting got me in trouble. I had said that one of the questions asked me by communities members who are considering filing complaints to the CPRC is the racial composition of the nine-member panel. How many Black people? How many Latinos? How many Asian-Americans?
There's not much questions out there about how many Whites are on the commission or on most bodies because the assumption is often that Whites are probably the majority of the members on these bodies and even the assumption among many that this is how it should be.
The truth is from a statistic approach is that the CPRC is less ethnically and racially diverse than the Riverside Police Department. Whereas the police department is about 72% White in terms of the demographic information provided by the city, the CPRC is about 77% White, with one Black man and one Latina. The police department has put efforts into its recruitment and hiring from a more diverse pool.
One commissioner, Chani Beeman, who is a White lesbian by identification, pointed out that there were more forms of diversity than just by race and to focus on one and ignore the others has an effect of negating other forms of diversity. That's true and point well taken and I should have phrased my statement better. I was addressing ethnic and racial diversity because those are the questions that were asked by members of communities including those which are predominantly populated by Black and Latino families.
I'm a White woman and I didn't speak on the issue of gender diversity because although that's a concern raised, it's not to the level in the communities that I spend the most time talking about the complaint system to that ethnicity and race are. As a woman, I'm a minority in a sense not related just to numbers, but even if I am penalized as such by my gender, I still have other privileges and one of the strongest when it comes to society is still, White privilege. White privilege for one thing allows the commissioners to respond in the way that several of them chose to do so.
Commissioner John Brandriff raised the excellent point that the commissioners could be objective and they should pick the most qualified ones. But often that's the first thing said by White individuals when they hear comments about racial diversity and their comments often leave men and women of color thinking, is this person doing what he criticizes by equating "objective" and most qualified with race, meaning with Whites?
When you have discussions with many men and women of color on this issue, they often express that when people make the statements, "we don't look at race. We just pick the most qualified" and then all the people that are picked are White and/or male and/or straight or belonged to what Commissioner Jim Ward called "majorities", that the assumption is that White equals most qualified and most objective and that seems to be something taken for granted as the truth.
I had a conversation with a male Latino officer who had listened when Adams had given this speech at a city council meeting in October 2006 about not looking at race or religion but the most qualified and he laughed ruefully, shaking his head after the fact. At the time, the White officers present had applauded Adams' words but the Latinos had not. There were no Black male officers and no female officers of any race even present.
Also, the "low numbers" issue arose with the lack of ethnic and racial diversity on the commission but first of all the public can't respond to commissioner comments and one three-minute comment would not do the serious issues involved with the current appointment process any justice.
It's interesting to see the discussion come down not to the issues I raised but to avoid addressing them. Instead of watching White commissioners get defensive, it would have been nice to see them actually hear what Commissioner Jim Ward, the only African-American, was telling them and say, okay what can we do to address these issues? How can we look at things a bit differently and be open to perspectives by others when it comes to race and racism? How can we listen to what Ward said about looking as closely at the complainant's perspective as the commission does the officer's or how the discussions on the commission often come down to racial lines?
Some of the others nod their heads at what he says, then they disagree. Then they demonstrate to him how right he was about the point he just made through their own actions. Not out of malice, but because when you're a member of the majority race, your perspective tends to be more narrowed to perspectives from your own race because it's allowed to be. Whites don't have to learn about other races in the same way that people of color have to learn about Whites.
When it comes to activism among different classifications of "minorities" involving police reform and criminal justice system issues, often it's men and women of color who lead the way in the organized movements.
When it comes to straight women working on police issues, women of color are the most organized and doing the most work, because it impacts them much more so than White women. Even when it comes to many organizations involving gays, lesbians and/or transgenders, again it's men and women of color who lead the way when it comes to activism centered on police issues, because race is still a major factor that's intertwined with gender and/or sexual orientation.
After all, where do police officers spend the majority of their time? In White communities? In Black communities? In Latino communities? In interracial communities where most of the residents are Black and/or Latino?
What racial groups are represented disproportionately in traffic and/or stop and frisk stops? Whether you are reading through one of the Riverside Police Department's traffic stop studies, one from San Jose or the stop and frisk study from New York City, the answers will be similar.
Which neighborhoods feel like they are protected and served? Which feel like they are policed, often so that the White neighborhoods are protected and served?
Why this is so isn't the only issue or issues here. The fact that it is so is also important. Most of the people who serve on the commission will run into police officers at social events or even family events rather than being pulled over or having family members pulled over and asked if they are on probation or parole, told to put their hands on the steering wheel, told to get out of the car and sit on the curb, told to get out of the car to be handcuffed and searched or put in a squad car only to be released when the police officer is finished with the stop. Men and women of color are more likely to be treated this way, even if they are elected officials, prosecutors, judges or even law enforcement officers.
In fact in Los Angeles, Oakland and Providence, Rhode Island as well as other medium to large law enforcement agencies, Black officers have been shot to death by White officers who look at them and see a profile, not another police officer.
A Riverside Police Department officer who is a White man testified in 2005 at the trial involving Officer Roger Sutton's racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit. He had a biracial teen aged son because his wife is Black. In his testimony, he spoke of allowing his son to wear cornrows to a certain age. After his son was in his mid-teens, he didn't allow him to do so anymore, the response he gave when Sutton's attorney under cross-examination asked him a question. The officer didn't really explain why but after listening to other portions of his testimony when he spoke not as a father but as a Riverside Police Department field training officer, it became more clear why.
Cornrows worn by a Black man could mean he was a felon or parolee released from a stint in prison to an officer stopping a vehicle to do a pretext stop on its driver and any passengers. That's what officers were taught in the police department even though this officer and others haven't called it racial profiling. I don't believe this officer meant it to be, but his testimony more for what it didn't clearly state rather than what it did, proved to be one of the pivotal moments of the trial and I think struck a chord with the jury. It provided a picture of the police department and how Black men were handled by the police department during the era covered in Sutton's law suit. What it meant when the father of a biracial son collided with what a field training officer taught was for that time period, on trial.
The commissioners will be more likely to have friends, family members or co-workers even who are police officers who will have complaints filed against them, than to be in the position where they will have family members or friends, or neighbors who may file complaints against the city's police officers.
Ward explained that it wasn't enough to have a racially diverse commission unless they were treated as equal and he's right. He's not the only commissioner of color to express that often the commission feels like a good 'ol White men's club, where race is disregarded as often as it becomes a dividing line. That's been said in the past.
What was telling happened when Ward was telling the commissioners about how being a racial minority was not the same thing as being a racial majority on the CPRC and while several were nodding their heads in apparent agreement or understanding, an example of what he was talking about played itself out at the same time.
Pearcy soon after made a rebuttal to Ward's comments about race on the commission but by doing so proved Ward's point for him. He made a comment about how he and Beeman both served on a panel put together by the city to pick the executive manager several months ago. Beeman agreed with Pearcy on one thing that he said about Martinelli being an excellent candidate. But what was forgotten in the exchange by Pearcy is that Ward had also served on the same panel but was apparently overlooked or even forgotten. I noticed that Ward had gone unmentioned as being a panel member that interviewed Martinelli and other candidates and I imagine Ward did too. A White commissioner serves on a hiring panel with both another White commissioner and a Black commissioner and only mentions the one who's White.
That's a dynamic that is often brought up by men and women of color who have been in similar situations, rendered invisible in the presence of White colleagues who share the same experience and see each other as sharing it, but not the person of color who also did.
Tell him one thing. Show him another. That's a dynamic that's seen quite a bit on the commission.
Speaking of the CPRC, its long-time administrative support person, Phoebe Sherron is on medical leave. She's been an awesome presence and hard-worker for the commission since it was created in 2000. Here's hoping her recuperation goes well.
Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco refuses to move his office citing security concerns according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
County Executive Officer Larry Parrish had recommended that the Board of Supervisors delay construction of the 260,000-square-foot building and parking garage in the wake of diminishing growth in property-tax revenues and the possibility of a recession.
The supervisors did not act on Parrish's recommendation. They referred the matter to a subcommittee of two supervisors, law enforcement representatives, architects and facilities managers.
In a letter to the board, Parrish said construction of the district attorney's building could significantly delay other projects such as medical clinics, an animal shelter and the second-phase of a regional hub jail.
The new jail, expected to cost county taxpayers $300 million, is a top priority for county supervisors and law enforcement officials, including Pacheco.
The district attorney's office needs a new building, Supervisor Bob Buster said, adding that he would prefer that Pacheco be given the right building in the long run. Buster said Pacheco should keep the Riverside Centre site as an interim option until the county's economic future looks brighter.
What's interesting in this article is how the county's attitude with development of infrastructure projects in its jurisdiction conflicts with the attitude of elected officials and city management in Riverside who just keep spending, spending and spending more, knowing full well that leaner times are on the horizon.
Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise has a field day with the intrigue surrounding the new building.
(excerpt)
Naturally, the county has a backup plan: Open a temporary DA shelter in a downtown office building two blocks from the Hall O' Justice. Not gonna do it, says RoPac. Vengeful crooks could pick off prosecutors as they walked to and from court.
Actually, prosecutors already walk to and from court. Sometimes, they even dine in restaurants! So do jurors, witnesses and judges. But no doubt about it, two blocks is a haul. Yes, we have a crisis. Solutions, too:
Hire Blackwater to protect deputy DAs. (Then hire the National Guard to protect everyone else from Blackwater.)
Convert courtrooms to prosecutors' offices; make the judges walk two blocks.
Put a DA Wing in new "hub" jail. Ferry prosecutors to court in buses with bars on the windows. Bars in the aisle, too.
Build Rod Mahal with cost-saving "tent-city jail" technology. (Unlike inmates in Arizona's Maricopa County, pink slippers and underwear for prosecutors would be optional.)
Issue prosecutors Groucho Glasses and lapel buttons: "Kiss Me. I'm A Public Defender!"
In Pittsburgh where the department has struggled with decisions by its management to promote officers with domestic violence histories, another officer has agreed to receive counseling in relation to an incident where he assaulted his wife and joked his son, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
(excerpt)
Detective[Brad] Walker, 41, stood before District Judge James Hanley for no more than a minute before committing to the program and signing the paperwork. The district attorney's staff had offered him the arrangement before the judge ever called his case for a preliminary hearing.
Prosecutors could not specify how many counseling sessions he will have to attend, but they said anger management programs typically last for weeks.
Detective Walker is scheduled to appear again in court Jan. 8. His performance in the anger management program will be reviewed then.
He's been assigned to desk duty until the internal investigation by the department is completed, although the director of the Citizen Police Review Board believed that he was prohibited from even working as a police officer in that capacity.
In Bolingbrook, investigators into the disappearance of Stacey Peterson, 23, have said that her body might be contained inside the blue barrel according to CBS-News. Her disappearance was recently classified as a possible homicide, with her husband, former Sgt. Drew Peterson being viewed as a possible suspect.
(excerpt)
Illinois State Police told searchers looking for a former police officer's missing wife to look for a blue plastic barrel large enough to fit the petite woman's body, one of the searchers said.
One neighbor says he helped Peterson haul a large barrel that was warm to the touch in the Petersons' SUV, reports CBS' The Early Show.
Police also told members of Texas EquuSearch, which assisted law enforcement, family and friends in the search for Stacy Peterson, to focus on areas of water in their search for the barrel, Tim Miller, founder and director of the private group, said Tuesday.
"They actually even gave me a picture of what we might be looking for," Miller told The Associated Press. "It was certainly large enough to put her body in, she only weighed about a hundred pounds."
Illinois State Police did not immediately return repeated messages from The Associated Press Tuesday evening.
Even more shocking, a man said he might have unknowingly carried the bin containing the body according to the Chicago Tribune.
(excerpt)
After allegedly helping Drew Peterson haul a large container that was warm to the touch from a bedroom, a male relative of the former Bolingbrook police sergeant told a friend Oct. 28 that he was afraid he had just helped Peterson dispose of the body of his wife, Stacy Peterson, a source close to the investigation said.
The relative was so distraught that he was hospitalized two days later after an apparent suicide attempt, two sources close to the case said. The relative's name is being withheld by the Tribune; he has not been charged with a crime nor named as a suspect.
According to the article, the unnamed relative was with Peterson at a coffee shop and then ordered not to answer a cell phone given to him by Peterson if it rang. While Peterson was gone, it rang and "Stacey" came up on caller ID. Phone records had shown that a phone call had been made from Stacey's cell phone on 9 p.m. the last day she was reported being seen by Peterson. That was during the time period that this relative allegedly possessed the phone he was not allowed to answer.
Later Peterson came back and asked the relative to come back to the house with him where both men carried a blue rectangular plastic container about four feet long out to Peterson's SUV. Then the relative went home and called up another relative, saying the following words.
(excerpt)
"I think I just helped Drew dispose of Stacey".
The box felt warm when he touched it, its weight was approximately 120 pounds. Two days later, the relative was rushed to the hospital after attempting to commit suicide.
Some of the terms used in searches.
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Labels: battering while blue, City elections, City Hall blues, public forums in all places, racism costs
posted by Five Before Midnight | 2:22 PM
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