Riverside: Click your heels three times and racism's gone.
It was only a matter of time before Press Enterprise columnist, Dan Bernstein addressed the conversion of classrooms into courtrooms in order to clear the backlog of civil trials in Riverside County. Naturally there's some unannounced new rules.
(excerpt)
This is a huge breakthrough. Judges finally found a place unsuitable for criminal trials. Maybe that will keep the DA at bay. But I hear there are strings to this rental arrangement with the Riverside school district.
In addition to saying, "All rise!" bailiffs will now instruct lawyers, "Listen quietly while others are speaking and keep your hands to yourself."
Time-consuming recesses will be replaced by 15-minute "snack times".
The lunch menu will consist of mini corn dogs (Monday), cheese pizza and corn niblets (Tuesday), waffle sticks and wild berry juice (Wednesday), beef ravioli and orange smiles (Thursday) and Lunchables (Friday).
Judges and lawyers must take monthly proficiency tests as required by No Courtroom Left Behind. (The DA could seize a failing courtroom.)
In accordance with school district policy, law books will be replaced by colorful anthologies highlighting important legal precedents ("An eye for an eye," "The early bird gets the worm," etc.) in an move backlogged cases along.
If RivCo justice proves to be this portable, the next courtroom move is obvious: portables.
Bernstein is good at finding humor in even dire circumstances. Sometimes you have to laugh to avoid crying. He takes on the broken down Riverside County Superior Court again, here telling the tale about a man serving life in prison is being prosecuted for misdemeanor indecent exposure.
(excerpt)
Convicting Collier of misdemeanor indecent exposure would be a tiny building block. If he did it again, he'd be charged with a felony. A conviction, coupled with his attempted murder rap, could stretch his life sentence another six years. Talk about a deterrent. (Or not.)
Assistant DA Sue Steding called Collier's behavior "obnoxious," a "huge nuisance" and "abusive to staff." The People were bent on sending a message to Collier (stop it) and to prison staff (you don't have to put up with this). The judge said The People could proceed.
The People called at least 16 witnesses, some of whom drove from Chuckawalla and back, racking up as much as $64 per hour in overtime. Fill-ins at the prison received overtime, too. Staffing the courtroom (lawyers not included) cost $2,700 a day.
Deborah Clark-Crews, whose son-in-law is a cop, got picked as a juror and was "blown away that they were asking us to give up seven workdays for this case." Some jurors thought Collier "should get slammed and that we should rally around this DA." But Clark-Crews called the trial "a phenomenal waste of taxpayers' time, and I'm not the only person who felt that way." Collier was never portrayed as aggressive or threatening.
Verdict: One count was dismissed "in the interest of justice." Collier, who served as his own lawyer, won a not-guilty verdict on another charge, eliciting chuckles from defense attorneys. But the jury convicted him of one count even though, said Clark-Crews, witnesses observed his bunk-bed behavior from about 60 feet away. Turns out there's no such thing as "personal space" in prison.
One shocking note is that despite the work of the judicial "strike force", which consists of judges from Los Angeles and Orange Counties, the felony trial backlog has actually increased to over 2,000 cases. But since the "strike team" by itself isn't a systemic fix of a broken down system, it shouldn't be any more surprising that the backlog of felony trials is growing along side that of those in civil court.
The Santa Ana River trail from the mountains to the sea is moving closer to being reality according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
On Thursday, the California Coastal Conservancy board of directors awarded The Santa Ana River Trail and Parkway Partnership $2.75 million in state funds for the project.
The money comes from the passage in November 2006 of Prop. 84, which set aside $45 million for the trail.
"This is huge," said Patricia Lock-Dawson, the project's chief strategist and a consultant to Riverside and Riverside County. "It means you will be able to get on your bike in Redlands and ride to the coast."
The money will support planning, environmental and engineering work for about 29 miles of trail -- 22 miles in Riverside County, four miles in San Bernardino County and three miles in Orange County. That money will also be used for signs and to create a more accurate map of the trail, Lock-Dawson said.
The entire trail, a $100 million project, is expected to be finished in 2012. Forty-three miles have been paved; some portions will remain dirt.
There was a wonderful Christmas party hosted by the Community Action Group in Casa Blanca, which as you know is located inside the boundaries of Ward Four. Attending were neighborhood residents who brought a lot of food and desserts to eat, after they conducted their monthly meeting. In attendance, were representatives from the police department, several other city departments and one councilman, Andrew Melendrez who said he was born and raised in the neighborhood. Where was Councilman Frank Schiavone? You'll have to ask him. He did donate $500 to Casa Blanca's school supplies funds which is generous but he also missed some great company and great food.
I received questions and comments there and elsewhere about his comments and even the postings on Craigslist that featured my photograph and titled me, "Riverside's most prolific racist". Some interesting conversations resulted, about racism, past and present in Riverside including among the ranks of its employees. Many of then said the attitude expressed by the anonymous poster is not an uncommon made by individuals who do not want to even admit that racism exists, let alone confront it in this "All-American City" became "The Most Livable City" turned "City of the Arts".
What was interesting about the latter is when it came down to the city council meeting spent crowning Riverside, the "City of the Arts" how little representation there was in the list of speakers and in the audience as to this issue. There's a wealth of art, in all its different forms and genres, in this city as there is in many cities in this country. Yet, there were few Black artists. Few Latino artists. Few women of any ethnicity and race. Few younger people.
At this point in this writing, my latest anonymous poster would jump in and yell, "she's dividing the races again" but one of the sponsors in attendance at the night Riverside became the "City of the Arts" was the Greater Chambers of Commerce, to which many businesses in this city belong.
What's interesting is that before I had even come along with this blog and attended city council meetings to be a "racist" or "divide the races", there were already several different similar chambers which included business people as their members. A Black Chambers of Commerce. A Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, for example. This anonymous individual might then say, that's divisive and that's racism. Why can't we just have the Greater Chambers of Commerce? The response to that, is that was once the case, but what often causes different racial groups to create their own chambers is racial discrimination or even outright exclusion from those organizations. They might create their own chambers to provide networking opportunities that may not be available to them in the one-size-fits-all chamber of businesses.
Considering Riverside's history, it's probably a combination of these two reasons and others as well. After all, Riverside was a city where Birth of a Nation, one of the most racist films ever made was premiered at a theater here. There were rallies involving the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and a mayor backed by the Klan was on the ballot.
African-American residents spoke of being chased or having their family members some times in fields by mobs of White men, fearing for their lives. Latinos were beaten by Riverside Police Department officers, as former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said once during a speech in San Diego.
Racist housing laws and racist laws mandating segregation of schools and other public facilities including swimming pools existed until the late 1960s. The Riverside Unified School District became the first to voluntarily desegregate in the country in the late 1960s and two schools were burned down to the ground.
One Latina in her sixties shared her experiences with me some time ago, about attending a public school where any time Spanish was spoken, the student had their mouth washed out with soap and how she and her siblings were banned from using public facilities including swimming pools because they were not White. What many people don't know is that racial segregation by law didn't just happen in the Deep South. It happened in the south-western region of the country including Riverside, city and county.
A former White minister in Riverside told me he had marched with others against the war in Vietnam and how city council members long ago used to gather and tell racist and sexist jokes in local bars and restaurants.
Some might read this and say it's all in the past. That was yesterday or a million years ago, let's focus on today. Everything's better now, right?
The problem with that is that even the past history has been glossed over and some say, white-washed by people to the point where it's told that Riverside was founded by abolitionists, there were great orange trees, and we all lived happily ever after. Now it's time to release the doves and sing. But this city including its leadership has only owned up to the part of its history which is nice, pleasant and most of all doesn't require much close examination not just of what's past but of the roles played by people involved.
No doubt, this city has a really rich history, that's unique to it while sharing common elements of other places. But when you talk to long-time residents about the history of this city, often it's the Whites who get nostalgic about the "good old days" of growing up. For men and women of color, it's a mixed bag. There's a lot of good there, if you read the histories left behind by members of some of the earliest Black and Latino families to come to Riverside. But then there are the stories of running for your life across a field in the 1950s while being chased by a mob of angry White men. Of being called racial slurs while at school or walking home. Of being members of the races which were the butt of jokes told by politicans and those they cracked deals with including later on, developers because they existed before the latest Renaissance, jokes meant to solidify the bonds between those who would laugh together and keep out those who couldn't.
Remember, history is often defined by the person who holds the pen and writes it though other stories about what happens are out there, if not as easy to find and even more difficult than that to hear. That's part of the problem here, because if you can't face what you've relegated to the past, how can you learn from it?
And this city really hasn't.
The one positive thing that came out of the Schiavone incident was that I heard more stories about what life is like in this city for many of its residents than I would have, if it hadn't happened. I have heard many stories already through the years, but this week, it's like a different river that threads its way through this city than the namesake which is almost dried up, flowed a lot faster. All because of the few words uttered by one councilman that elicited some laughter from some women standing in the back of the room.
But it's like someone once said, you have to look at the glass, half-full rather than half-empty and this is the good of what happened, were through learning even more about what was going on in my city and talking about it with other people, including some I've never met.
More stories of racial and/or gender discrimination in housing, education, police, local businesses, disparate treatment at Riverside Plaza and University Village by young people, employment, racial profiling and others. Both past and present, what about the future? It hasn't been written yet, but it doesn't look promising.
The Riverside's work force has struggled with issues of racism in much more recent years and it's important to note this as if Riverside has racial issues with its own employees, then the communities of Riverside won't fare any better. In 1991, Black and Latino employees representing different departments including public works, streets and maintenance and public utilities met with city officials including representatives from the city manager's office.
In 1997, with little accomplished by the city, about 17 of these employees filed a racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit in U.S. District Court. The city's response wasn't to remedy the problems in what is called, the Corporate Yard, including racist graffiti, feces smeared on equipment used by Black employees and effigies of Black dolls, but to hit them with as much paper including motions to dismiss that its legal department could throw at them. The plaintiffs even received letters from their own lawyers, who worked for a firm in Los Angeles, to dismiss their cases lest they be hit with the city's attorney fees if they lost at trial. This wasn't the only time that city employees filing discrimination law suits faced these actions.
It wasn't even the only discrimination claim or law suit faced by the city at that time. In the police department, Sgt. Christine Keers filed her sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit in Riverside County Superior Court. Three men of color who were sergeants, filed a complaint with the EEO alleging racial discrimination in the promotion process. One was Black, one was Latino and one was American Indian.
Oh wait, someone might say just by mentioning these historic events in the city's labor forces that doing so is racist, dividing the races, promoting a racist agenda and so forth. But these events were already taking place. The allegations of racism and sexism were being made by those compelled to make them by what they faced in the workplace in this city. It was the city's behavior that was fostering the "division" by setting up different standards on how to treat its employees based on race.
This was about three years before Officer Roger Sutton who is Black filed his own racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation in the county courts. He was awarded first, $200,000 in arbitration. Then his case went to trial even though both sides had to waive dismissal because the case had hit the five-year point since it was filed for different reasons including at least two shutdowns of the civil courts in order to reduce the backlog of criminal trials.
Sutton received $1.64 million from his jury. Keers received a six-figure settlement and retirement. And about five of the original 17 plaintiffs on the 1997 law suit settled their cases out. Former officer, Rene Rodriguez settled out his claim as well and received a retirement.
Still, at about that time, candle light vigils were being hold by city residents who watched as Black and Latino management level employees in this city were demoted, fired or "resigned" from City Hall. All of them serving under the management of Brad Hudson.
One of them, Jim Smith, who is Black, was told to stand up during a city council meeting by an elected official as "proof" that he couldn't have made it up to the interim assistant city manager level if not for the city council. Many African-Americans find that behavior very racist and offensive to be put on display as proof that an individual or entity is not racist. Some have said it doesn't get much worse than that.
Anyway, for Smith, this kindness shown to him by the city council as it was called and his honeymoon wouldn't last long. He was unceremoniously demoted to his old job and the White man he once supervised was promoted to the permanent assistant city manager where he would join two other White men. Smith was good wherever the city put him so it didn't take him long to get a job in a bigger city.
Only several men of color at the management level remained that had held their positions before the changing of the guard. And one of them, Deputy Chief Dave Dominguez, is leaving in February to serve as the chief of Palm Springs Police Department.
Hired by the police department in the early 1990s under then Chief Ken Fortier, Dominguez came to the department as a lieutenant. He leaves the agency having built strong relationships with community members and being involved in community organizations, as well as having good relationships with police officers.
Last March, several representatives from the Riverside Police Officers' Association came to a community meeting to defend Dominguez' use of another action besides arrest for four people including a 90-year-old woman from a city council meeting in late February. They spoke highly of Dominguez and spoke of how hard the city tried to find police officers and even prosecutors at the Riverside County District Attorney's office to take action against these individuals. What Dominguez showed during that episode is a reflection of the officer and the person who he is and any agency will be lucky to have him lead it with those skills. The city residents who knew about the chain of events recognized it as did these officers, but the city didn't. This episode happened shortly before the whole "at will" situation brought a bunch of people down to City Hall.
And as for Riverside, it's this city's loss and it's notable if ironic that Dominguez placed the highest in the pool of applicants for that job because of his community involvement. The community supported him right back amidst a city climate that didn't appreciate Dominguez as it should have. Even though he's leaving for a really good job, it's too bad that politics and other things worked the way that they did, because the losers are the communities in this city even those which wish him well in his new endeavor.
The department is seeking a new deputy chief and at least one captain or two. Testing for the captain's position vacated by Jim Cannon earlier this autumn, has begun. It's hoped that it will be the police chief that is picking these positions, because it's his responsibility. And as stated before, the deputy chief position must remain classified as a captain's position and not become an "at will" position in the sense of termination rather than demotion if there's a new chief who picks someone else to fill the deputy chief position.
Part of what was really disturbing about the whole "at will" positions episode was its timing. Why was it done when there were two Latino deputy chiefs with a third one about to join them and one of the original ones moving up?
News about overtime being slashed without new positions being added in several departments kind of makes you wonder why money spent on several housing projects while housing nation-wide is heading into a slump that may last until 2012 is being spent so much more readily.
In New Orleans, there's an ongoing attempt to redevelop and gentrify New Orleans in the wake of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Community residents have been protesting this even trying to block the demolition of public housing which will be replaced by mixed-income housing.
(excerpt, NOLA.com)
Opponents, though, say HUD's $600 million redevelopment plan is worse, and would reduce availability of public housing by 80 percent and freeze people out of the city. They also argue the plan is ill-conceived because New Orleans is gripped by a post-hurricane shortage of cheap housing.
Social workers say the number of homeless has doubled to about 12,000 and will grow in coming months as disaster housing assistance vouchers run out.
"It makes absolutely no sense to have those vouchers run out and bulldoze 4,500 useable units," said Jeff Connor, a United Methodist pastor, as he participated in a rain-dampened protest Wednesday night that temporarily blocked demolition at the B.W. Cooper development. "Open the housing now and let people stay in their homes."
Using a natural disaster which cost over 1,000 lives to gentrify New Orleans is deplorable. But for other areas across the country which didn't experience disasters so traumatic on a human scale, these same principles of displacing poor communities, the majority of whom predominantly count African-Americans and Latinos as their residents.
Seattle's police department is moving its internal affairs division out of the station according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
(excerpt)
The department's Office of Professional Accountability, which fields complaints against officers and investigates allegations of misconduct, plans to move into a new office in July in the Seattle Municipal Tower, across the street from police headquarters.
Internal affairs investigators have worked from a small, ground-floor office in the administration building at 610 Fifth Ave. for the past few years.
Some community groups asked for the relocation, arguing that people with complaints -- especially if they are from a minority community -- are often intimidated by the police station.
"The community concern is that there is a chilling effect of having to come into a police department to file a complaint," said John Fowler, the OPA's associate director.
Several years ago, the Riverside Police Department moved its internal affairs division out of its administration headquarters on Orange Street in downtown Riverside to an office building adjacent to the Riverside Plaza on Central Avenue.
In Bolingbrook, former sergeant Drew Peterson has shut down his legal defence fund Web site not long after he started it, according to ABC-News.
(excerpt)
The site was shut down Wednesday, and his lawyer, Joel Brodsky, told ABC Chicago affiliate WLS that they had already achieved their short-term goals from the site.
He wouldn't say, however, how much money they might have raised in the time the site was in operation.
The site, which had contained an emotional plea for financial support from a man who said he felt victimized by police pressure, and a media witch hunt, now simply says, "This Domain (defenddrew.com) Has Been Disabled."
Peterson has repeatedly denied involvement in his wife's disappearance. He has said that he believes that Stacy left him for another man. Legal experts called the online defense fund highly unusual, if not unprecedented, because the former police officer has not been charged with a crime.
Brodsky told ABC News' Law & Justice Unit the cyberplea for support was needed.
"Drew is not a rich man, and this case will be expensive," he said.
Peterson who appears to have a lot to say, told the Chicago Tribune that his wife, Stacey, who's missing accidently fired a gun he gave her.
(excerpt)
Drew Peterson on Wednesday said a gunshot in his home in the summer resulted from his wife, Stacy, accidentally firing the handgun he gave her as a present. "It was an accidental discharge -- in my home by Stacy," Peterson said in an interview at their Bolingbrook home. "She had a fascination with guns. I bought her a Glock for Valentine's [Day] -- because nothing says I love you like a Glock. That was our joke."
Peterson, 53, has been named a suspect in the Oct. 28 disappearance of his wife, Stacy, 23. He has not been charged with any crime.
On Tuesday, Stacy's younger sister, Cassandra Cales, told the Tribune Stacy had said she went to get a soda from a refrigerator in the garage at Drew's request. While there, a shot allegedly rang out from their bedroom over the garage, piercing the ceiling and striking the floor near her.
But Peterson said he and his wife were together in the bedroom at the time. He speculated his wife may have told her sister that he fired the gun because "she was embarrassed about it."
Standing in the garage, Peterson pointed to a hole in the ceiling several yards from the refrigerator that he said was caused by the bullet.
"Once that bullet goes through all of that, it loses its velocity," he said, adding the bullet probably just fell harmlessly to the floor.
Peterson told the Chicago Sun-Times that Stacey "dolled up" before visiting the minister who came forward and said she had told him that Peterson had killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
He also disputed an account by another ex-girlfriend that he had stalked her.
(excerpt)
Drew Peterson also took issue with a former fiancee's account of how their relationship ended. Kyle Piry of Joliet has accused him of following her, stalking her and harassing her with bogus tickets -- charges he denied.
He said Piry is bitter over being spurned. After their engagement, Peterson said, he found out Piry not only was seeing an old boyfriend but was also dancing at bachelor parties.
"She became somebody I really didn't want to be married to," Drew Peterson said.
Piry called Peterson's version "all lies."
"He's an idiot," she said.
The Oakland Police Department is being sued again. This time by ten men who allege that illegal strip searches were conducted on them. This law suit joins similar ones filed recently.
(excerpt, Associated Press)
In their complaint against the city of Oakland, the plaintiffs claim that officers pulled down their pants on city streets during incidents from 2003 to 2007.
The $10 million federal civil rights lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco.
(excerpt)
This is a huge breakthrough. Judges finally found a place unsuitable for criminal trials. Maybe that will keep the DA at bay. But I hear there are strings to this rental arrangement with the Riverside school district.
In addition to saying, "All rise!" bailiffs will now instruct lawyers, "Listen quietly while others are speaking and keep your hands to yourself."
Time-consuming recesses will be replaced by 15-minute "snack times".
The lunch menu will consist of mini corn dogs (Monday), cheese pizza and corn niblets (Tuesday), waffle sticks and wild berry juice (Wednesday), beef ravioli and orange smiles (Thursday) and Lunchables (Friday).
Judges and lawyers must take monthly proficiency tests as required by No Courtroom Left Behind. (The DA could seize a failing courtroom.)
In accordance with school district policy, law books will be replaced by colorful anthologies highlighting important legal precedents ("An eye for an eye," "The early bird gets the worm," etc.) in an move backlogged cases along.
If RivCo justice proves to be this portable, the next courtroom move is obvious: portables.
Bernstein is good at finding humor in even dire circumstances. Sometimes you have to laugh to avoid crying. He takes on the broken down Riverside County Superior Court again, here telling the tale about a man serving life in prison is being prosecuted for misdemeanor indecent exposure.
(excerpt)
Convicting Collier of misdemeanor indecent exposure would be a tiny building block. If he did it again, he'd be charged with a felony. A conviction, coupled with his attempted murder rap, could stretch his life sentence another six years. Talk about a deterrent. (Or not.)
Assistant DA Sue Steding called Collier's behavior "obnoxious," a "huge nuisance" and "abusive to staff." The People were bent on sending a message to Collier (stop it) and to prison staff (you don't have to put up with this). The judge said The People could proceed.
The People called at least 16 witnesses, some of whom drove from Chuckawalla and back, racking up as much as $64 per hour in overtime. Fill-ins at the prison received overtime, too. Staffing the courtroom (lawyers not included) cost $2,700 a day.
Deborah Clark-Crews, whose son-in-law is a cop, got picked as a juror and was "blown away that they were asking us to give up seven workdays for this case." Some jurors thought Collier "should get slammed and that we should rally around this DA." But Clark-Crews called the trial "a phenomenal waste of taxpayers' time, and I'm not the only person who felt that way." Collier was never portrayed as aggressive or threatening.
Verdict: One count was dismissed "in the interest of justice." Collier, who served as his own lawyer, won a not-guilty verdict on another charge, eliciting chuckles from defense attorneys. But the jury convicted him of one count even though, said Clark-Crews, witnesses observed his bunk-bed behavior from about 60 feet away. Turns out there's no such thing as "personal space" in prison.
One shocking note is that despite the work of the judicial "strike force", which consists of judges from Los Angeles and Orange Counties, the felony trial backlog has actually increased to over 2,000 cases. But since the "strike team" by itself isn't a systemic fix of a broken down system, it shouldn't be any more surprising that the backlog of felony trials is growing along side that of those in civil court.
The Santa Ana River trail from the mountains to the sea is moving closer to being reality according to the Press Enterprise.
(excerpt)
On Thursday, the California Coastal Conservancy board of directors awarded The Santa Ana River Trail and Parkway Partnership $2.75 million in state funds for the project.
The money comes from the passage in November 2006 of Prop. 84, which set aside $45 million for the trail.
"This is huge," said Patricia Lock-Dawson, the project's chief strategist and a consultant to Riverside and Riverside County. "It means you will be able to get on your bike in Redlands and ride to the coast."
The money will support planning, environmental and engineering work for about 29 miles of trail -- 22 miles in Riverside County, four miles in San Bernardino County and three miles in Orange County. That money will also be used for signs and to create a more accurate map of the trail, Lock-Dawson said.
The entire trail, a $100 million project, is expected to be finished in 2012. Forty-three miles have been paved; some portions will remain dirt.
There was a wonderful Christmas party hosted by the Community Action Group in Casa Blanca, which as you know is located inside the boundaries of Ward Four. Attending were neighborhood residents who brought a lot of food and desserts to eat, after they conducted their monthly meeting. In attendance, were representatives from the police department, several other city departments and one councilman, Andrew Melendrez who said he was born and raised in the neighborhood. Where was Councilman Frank Schiavone? You'll have to ask him. He did donate $500 to Casa Blanca's school supplies funds which is generous but he also missed some great company and great food.
I received questions and comments there and elsewhere about his comments and even the postings on Craigslist that featured my photograph and titled me, "Riverside's most prolific racist". Some interesting conversations resulted, about racism, past and present in Riverside including among the ranks of its employees. Many of then said the attitude expressed by the anonymous poster is not an uncommon made by individuals who do not want to even admit that racism exists, let alone confront it in this "All-American City" became "The Most Livable City" turned "City of the Arts".
What was interesting about the latter is when it came down to the city council meeting spent crowning Riverside, the "City of the Arts" how little representation there was in the list of speakers and in the audience as to this issue. There's a wealth of art, in all its different forms and genres, in this city as there is in many cities in this country. Yet, there were few Black artists. Few Latino artists. Few women of any ethnicity and race. Few younger people.
At this point in this writing, my latest anonymous poster would jump in and yell, "she's dividing the races again" but one of the sponsors in attendance at the night Riverside became the "City of the Arts" was the Greater Chambers of Commerce, to which many businesses in this city belong.
What's interesting is that before I had even come along with this blog and attended city council meetings to be a "racist" or "divide the races", there were already several different similar chambers which included business people as their members. A Black Chambers of Commerce. A Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, for example. This anonymous individual might then say, that's divisive and that's racism. Why can't we just have the Greater Chambers of Commerce? The response to that, is that was once the case, but what often causes different racial groups to create their own chambers is racial discrimination or even outright exclusion from those organizations. They might create their own chambers to provide networking opportunities that may not be available to them in the one-size-fits-all chamber of businesses.
Considering Riverside's history, it's probably a combination of these two reasons and others as well. After all, Riverside was a city where Birth of a Nation, one of the most racist films ever made was premiered at a theater here. There were rallies involving the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and a mayor backed by the Klan was on the ballot.
African-American residents spoke of being chased or having their family members some times in fields by mobs of White men, fearing for their lives. Latinos were beaten by Riverside Police Department officers, as former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said once during a speech in San Diego.
Racist housing laws and racist laws mandating segregation of schools and other public facilities including swimming pools existed until the late 1960s. The Riverside Unified School District became the first to voluntarily desegregate in the country in the late 1960s and two schools were burned down to the ground.
One Latina in her sixties shared her experiences with me some time ago, about attending a public school where any time Spanish was spoken, the student had their mouth washed out with soap and how she and her siblings were banned from using public facilities including swimming pools because they were not White. What many people don't know is that racial segregation by law didn't just happen in the Deep South. It happened in the south-western region of the country including Riverside, city and county.
A former White minister in Riverside told me he had marched with others against the war in Vietnam and how city council members long ago used to gather and tell racist and sexist jokes in local bars and restaurants.
Some might read this and say it's all in the past. That was yesterday or a million years ago, let's focus on today. Everything's better now, right?
The problem with that is that even the past history has been glossed over and some say, white-washed by people to the point where it's told that Riverside was founded by abolitionists, there were great orange trees, and we all lived happily ever after. Now it's time to release the doves and sing. But this city including its leadership has only owned up to the part of its history which is nice, pleasant and most of all doesn't require much close examination not just of what's past but of the roles played by people involved.
No doubt, this city has a really rich history, that's unique to it while sharing common elements of other places. But when you talk to long-time residents about the history of this city, often it's the Whites who get nostalgic about the "good old days" of growing up. For men and women of color, it's a mixed bag. There's a lot of good there, if you read the histories left behind by members of some of the earliest Black and Latino families to come to Riverside. But then there are the stories of running for your life across a field in the 1950s while being chased by a mob of angry White men. Of being called racial slurs while at school or walking home. Of being members of the races which were the butt of jokes told by politicans and those they cracked deals with including later on, developers because they existed before the latest Renaissance, jokes meant to solidify the bonds between those who would laugh together and keep out those who couldn't.
Remember, history is often defined by the person who holds the pen and writes it though other stories about what happens are out there, if not as easy to find and even more difficult than that to hear. That's part of the problem here, because if you can't face what you've relegated to the past, how can you learn from it?
And this city really hasn't.
The one positive thing that came out of the Schiavone incident was that I heard more stories about what life is like in this city for many of its residents than I would have, if it hadn't happened. I have heard many stories already through the years, but this week, it's like a different river that threads its way through this city than the namesake which is almost dried up, flowed a lot faster. All because of the few words uttered by one councilman that elicited some laughter from some women standing in the back of the room.
But it's like someone once said, you have to look at the glass, half-full rather than half-empty and this is the good of what happened, were through learning even more about what was going on in my city and talking about it with other people, including some I've never met.
More stories of racial and/or gender discrimination in housing, education, police, local businesses, disparate treatment at Riverside Plaza and University Village by young people, employment, racial profiling and others. Both past and present, what about the future? It hasn't been written yet, but it doesn't look promising.
The Riverside's work force has struggled with issues of racism in much more recent years and it's important to note this as if Riverside has racial issues with its own employees, then the communities of Riverside won't fare any better. In 1991, Black and Latino employees representing different departments including public works, streets and maintenance and public utilities met with city officials including representatives from the city manager's office.
In 1997, with little accomplished by the city, about 17 of these employees filed a racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit in U.S. District Court. The city's response wasn't to remedy the problems in what is called, the Corporate Yard, including racist graffiti, feces smeared on equipment used by Black employees and effigies of Black dolls, but to hit them with as much paper including motions to dismiss that its legal department could throw at them. The plaintiffs even received letters from their own lawyers, who worked for a firm in Los Angeles, to dismiss their cases lest they be hit with the city's attorney fees if they lost at trial. This wasn't the only time that city employees filing discrimination law suits faced these actions.
It wasn't even the only discrimination claim or law suit faced by the city at that time. In the police department, Sgt. Christine Keers filed her sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit in Riverside County Superior Court. Three men of color who were sergeants, filed a complaint with the EEO alleging racial discrimination in the promotion process. One was Black, one was Latino and one was American Indian.
Oh wait, someone might say just by mentioning these historic events in the city's labor forces that doing so is racist, dividing the races, promoting a racist agenda and so forth. But these events were already taking place. The allegations of racism and sexism were being made by those compelled to make them by what they faced in the workplace in this city. It was the city's behavior that was fostering the "division" by setting up different standards on how to treat its employees based on race.
This was about three years before Officer Roger Sutton who is Black filed his own racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation in the county courts. He was awarded first, $200,000 in arbitration. Then his case went to trial even though both sides had to waive dismissal because the case had hit the five-year point since it was filed for different reasons including at least two shutdowns of the civil courts in order to reduce the backlog of criminal trials.
Sutton received $1.64 million from his jury. Keers received a six-figure settlement and retirement. And about five of the original 17 plaintiffs on the 1997 law suit settled their cases out. Former officer, Rene Rodriguez settled out his claim as well and received a retirement.
Still, at about that time, candle light vigils were being hold by city residents who watched as Black and Latino management level employees in this city were demoted, fired or "resigned" from City Hall. All of them serving under the management of Brad Hudson.
One of them, Jim Smith, who is Black, was told to stand up during a city council meeting by an elected official as "proof" that he couldn't have made it up to the interim assistant city manager level if not for the city council. Many African-Americans find that behavior very racist and offensive to be put on display as proof that an individual or entity is not racist. Some have said it doesn't get much worse than that.
Anyway, for Smith, this kindness shown to him by the city council as it was called and his honeymoon wouldn't last long. He was unceremoniously demoted to his old job and the White man he once supervised was promoted to the permanent assistant city manager where he would join two other White men. Smith was good wherever the city put him so it didn't take him long to get a job in a bigger city.
Only several men of color at the management level remained that had held their positions before the changing of the guard. And one of them, Deputy Chief Dave Dominguez, is leaving in February to serve as the chief of Palm Springs Police Department.
Hired by the police department in the early 1990s under then Chief Ken Fortier, Dominguez came to the department as a lieutenant. He leaves the agency having built strong relationships with community members and being involved in community organizations, as well as having good relationships with police officers.
Last March, several representatives from the Riverside Police Officers' Association came to a community meeting to defend Dominguez' use of another action besides arrest for four people including a 90-year-old woman from a city council meeting in late February. They spoke highly of Dominguez and spoke of how hard the city tried to find police officers and even prosecutors at the Riverside County District Attorney's office to take action against these individuals. What Dominguez showed during that episode is a reflection of the officer and the person who he is and any agency will be lucky to have him lead it with those skills. The city residents who knew about the chain of events recognized it as did these officers, but the city didn't. This episode happened shortly before the whole "at will" situation brought a bunch of people down to City Hall.
And as for Riverside, it's this city's loss and it's notable if ironic that Dominguez placed the highest in the pool of applicants for that job because of his community involvement. The community supported him right back amidst a city climate that didn't appreciate Dominguez as it should have. Even though he's leaving for a really good job, it's too bad that politics and other things worked the way that they did, because the losers are the communities in this city even those which wish him well in his new endeavor.
The department is seeking a new deputy chief and at least one captain or two. Testing for the captain's position vacated by Jim Cannon earlier this autumn, has begun. It's hoped that it will be the police chief that is picking these positions, because it's his responsibility. And as stated before, the deputy chief position must remain classified as a captain's position and not become an "at will" position in the sense of termination rather than demotion if there's a new chief who picks someone else to fill the deputy chief position.
Part of what was really disturbing about the whole "at will" positions episode was its timing. Why was it done when there were two Latino deputy chiefs with a third one about to join them and one of the original ones moving up?
News about overtime being slashed without new positions being added in several departments kind of makes you wonder why money spent on several housing projects while housing nation-wide is heading into a slump that may last until 2012 is being spent so much more readily.
In New Orleans, there's an ongoing attempt to redevelop and gentrify New Orleans in the wake of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Community residents have been protesting this even trying to block the demolition of public housing which will be replaced by mixed-income housing.
(excerpt, NOLA.com)
Opponents, though, say HUD's $600 million redevelopment plan is worse, and would reduce availability of public housing by 80 percent and freeze people out of the city. They also argue the plan is ill-conceived because New Orleans is gripped by a post-hurricane shortage of cheap housing.
Social workers say the number of homeless has doubled to about 12,000 and will grow in coming months as disaster housing assistance vouchers run out.
"It makes absolutely no sense to have those vouchers run out and bulldoze 4,500 useable units," said Jeff Connor, a United Methodist pastor, as he participated in a rain-dampened protest Wednesday night that temporarily blocked demolition at the B.W. Cooper development. "Open the housing now and let people stay in their homes."
Using a natural disaster which cost over 1,000 lives to gentrify New Orleans is deplorable. But for other areas across the country which didn't experience disasters so traumatic on a human scale, these same principles of displacing poor communities, the majority of whom predominantly count African-Americans and Latinos as their residents.
Seattle's police department is moving its internal affairs division out of the station according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
(excerpt)
The department's Office of Professional Accountability, which fields complaints against officers and investigates allegations of misconduct, plans to move into a new office in July in the Seattle Municipal Tower, across the street from police headquarters.
Internal affairs investigators have worked from a small, ground-floor office in the administration building at 610 Fifth Ave. for the past few years.
Some community groups asked for the relocation, arguing that people with complaints -- especially if they are from a minority community -- are often intimidated by the police station.
"The community concern is that there is a chilling effect of having to come into a police department to file a complaint," said John Fowler, the OPA's associate director.
Several years ago, the Riverside Police Department moved its internal affairs division out of its administration headquarters on Orange Street in downtown Riverside to an office building adjacent to the Riverside Plaza on Central Avenue.
In Bolingbrook, former sergeant Drew Peterson has shut down his legal defence fund Web site not long after he started it, according to ABC-News.
(excerpt)
The site was shut down Wednesday, and his lawyer, Joel Brodsky, told ABC Chicago affiliate WLS that they had already achieved their short-term goals from the site.
He wouldn't say, however, how much money they might have raised in the time the site was in operation.
The site, which had contained an emotional plea for financial support from a man who said he felt victimized by police pressure, and a media witch hunt, now simply says, "This Domain (defenddrew.com) Has Been Disabled."
Peterson has repeatedly denied involvement in his wife's disappearance. He has said that he believes that Stacy left him for another man. Legal experts called the online defense fund highly unusual, if not unprecedented, because the former police officer has not been charged with a crime.
Brodsky told ABC News' Law & Justice Unit the cyberplea for support was needed.
"Drew is not a rich man, and this case will be expensive," he said.
Peterson who appears to have a lot to say, told the Chicago Tribune that his wife, Stacey, who's missing accidently fired a gun he gave her.
(excerpt)
Drew Peterson on Wednesday said a gunshot in his home in the summer resulted from his wife, Stacy, accidentally firing the handgun he gave her as a present. "It was an accidental discharge -- in my home by Stacy," Peterson said in an interview at their Bolingbrook home. "She had a fascination with guns. I bought her a Glock for Valentine's [Day] -- because nothing says I love you like a Glock. That was our joke."
Peterson, 53, has been named a suspect in the Oct. 28 disappearance of his wife, Stacy, 23. He has not been charged with any crime.
On Tuesday, Stacy's younger sister, Cassandra Cales, told the Tribune Stacy had said she went to get a soda from a refrigerator in the garage at Drew's request. While there, a shot allegedly rang out from their bedroom over the garage, piercing the ceiling and striking the floor near her.
But Peterson said he and his wife were together in the bedroom at the time. He speculated his wife may have told her sister that he fired the gun because "she was embarrassed about it."
Standing in the garage, Peterson pointed to a hole in the ceiling several yards from the refrigerator that he said was caused by the bullet.
"Once that bullet goes through all of that, it loses its velocity," he said, adding the bullet probably just fell harmlessly to the floor.
Peterson told the Chicago Sun-Times that Stacey "dolled up" before visiting the minister who came forward and said she had told him that Peterson had killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
He also disputed an account by another ex-girlfriend that he had stalked her.
(excerpt)
Drew Peterson also took issue with a former fiancee's account of how their relationship ended. Kyle Piry of Joliet has accused him of following her, stalking her and harassing her with bogus tickets -- charges he denied.
He said Piry is bitter over being spurned. After their engagement, Peterson said, he found out Piry not only was seeing an old boyfriend but was also dancing at bachelor parties.
"She became somebody I really didn't want to be married to," Drew Peterson said.
Piry called Peterson's version "all lies."
"He's an idiot," she said.
The Oakland Police Department is being sued again. This time by ten men who allege that illegal strip searches were conducted on them. This law suit joins similar ones filed recently.
(excerpt, Associated Press)
In their complaint against the city of Oakland, the plaintiffs claim that officers pulled down their pants on city streets during incidents from 2003 to 2007.
The $10 million federal civil rights lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco.
Labels: battering while blue, Black city employee watch, business as usual, Latino city employee watch, public forums in all places
posted by Five Before Midnight | 2:04 PM
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