As time flows through the hourglass

In the wake of the DHL disclosures which provided most of the drama at the weekly city council meeting, there was other business conducted by the city government in Riverside. However, the latest chapter of the episode involving the relocation of the Greyhound bus station has been postponed to a future date.


Greyhound wants to move to the transit center where the Metrolink commuter trains and the RTA buses will reside. But there's a bit of a tussle about alternative locations for the bus depot that no one in city government seems to want to be faced with. One location was on Enterprise Street, the other at a location in the Northside for the bus service which sells about 200 tickets each day. So where will Greyhound go? That has yet to be decided upon.




Will University City be part of Riverside? There's a critical vote that takes place today. The major point of contention in whether or not the residents are willing to be annexed is who will pay for a new sewer.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Some residents say an agreement from 1960 guarantees that homeowners would have to pay only $100 to connect to the city's sewer system.

Scott Barber, director of the city's Community Development Department, cut short any discussion of the issue.

"The city of Riverside is not going to be providing sewers for University City," he said.

His statement upset some in the crowd.

"What are we here for?" several shouted angrily.

Kevin Akin, a 33-year resident who has helped organize opposition to the annexation because of the sewer issue, said it shows the city doesn't keep its promises.

"I believe the city will feel free to break any promises," he said.

Barber said the matter was resolved in court in the city's favor.

Some residents said it was time to end the discussion about the city owing the residents sewers.

"I'm all sewered out," said Mac McEntarfer, a 32-year resident who said he strongly favors annexation.






The Community Police Review Commission met on Wednesday but there was very little on the agenda for this general meeting that wasn't housekeeping duties. There were none of the usual representatives from City Hall or the police department in the open session and as far as commissioners? Barely a quorum.

This contrasted with the past year or so where City Attorney Gregory Priamos was a regular, as were Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis and representatives from both the police department and the Riverside County District Attorney's office.

Of course, that might change when the next officer-involved death comes on deck for discussion beginning with a briefing from the CPRC's investigator working on it. Will they complete the next shooting investigation before they settle the accompanying law suit in court?


Status of two law suits filed in relation to officer-involved deaths:



Summer Marie Lane

Lee Deante Brown




The commissioners did receive an update on the proposed for the time lines into two ongoing officer-involved death investigations, that involving the fatal shootings of Douglas Steven Cloud and Joseph Darnell Hill. Both of these shootings occurred in October 2006 and have yet to be even discussed by the CPRC with both of its own investigations into the deaths not completed. Executive Manager Kevin Rogan said that the CPRC's current investigator, Butch Warnberg was set to brief the commission on the investigation into the Cloud death, but that he was still awaiting or facing an issue with the coroner's report. The one that is nearly 15 months old.

The coroner's report is an important piece of evidence in the Cloud case because hopefully, it provided some insight into whether Cloud was injured or not when his vehicle struck both a truck and a small palm tree, knocking it down. And if he was injured, how seriously? If the investigator ever gets the coroner's report which is done by the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner's Department. So Warnberg's briefing on the case has been postponed until probably the end of February.

The investigation into the fatal shooting of Joseph Darnell Hill will likely be discussed after the Cloud case. Rogan told the commissioners that the issues of that particular case are less complex than those involving Cloud.



Time elapsed on the three fatal officer-involved shootings of 2006:


Lee Deante Brown: April 3, 2009: 561 days

Cloud: Oct. 8, 2006: 443 days

Hill: Oct. 19, 2008: 432 days




A law suit was filed in the Cloud case in U.S. District Court and the city council met in closed session in relation to that case.



I received an interesting email from the director of the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission who also serves on the board of NACOLE, the national organizations of civilian mechanisms of oversight. He was conducting a survey of how different city and county forms of oversight came into being, whether through ordinance, executive order or charter. There are many different roads to the same destination, only Riverside's journey has had different stops along the way.

I responded and shared the history of civilian review in Riverside, at least through the creation of the CPRC through ordinance in 2000 and the placement of the commission in the city's charter through the election process in 2004. In return, he shared some of the experiences in his city which paralleled those in Riverside. Which have paralleled experiences in other cities and counties as well when civilian review comes to town.



The Riverside Municipal Code ordinance includes the language that was passed by the city council in 2000 to create and implement civilian oversight through the Community Police Review Commission.


In November 2004, a ballot initiative passed by the voters put the commission into the Riverside City Charter.






The Editorial Board of the Press Enterprise is taking on the Riverside County Superior Court and its handling of criminal and civil trials.

The board is much more cautious on where to lay the blame than other circles, preferring to take a "let's-see-what-the-other-guy-is-doing approach" but in the courts, it appears that the parties involved are pointing fingers everywhere.



(excerpt)



The result has been long and costly waits to resolve malpractice claims, business disputes, challenges of questionable laws and other civil cases. Adding cases about adoption, child neglect, child custody, wills and guardianship to the list of delayed justice would further undermine the public right of access to the courts.

Nor is such a step necessary, as the experience of other California counties illustrates. Other counties' courts do not have to put civil trials on hold to handle criminal trials, nor does any other county face the large backlog of criminal cases that Riverside County does.

Riverside County cannot point to a high crime rate to explain the deluge of criminal cases. Nor is Riverside the only California county where the number of judges has not kept pace with population growth; San Bernardino County judges, for example, generally have heavier caseloads than Riverside County jurists.

If other counties can keep the courts functioning smoothly even under adverse conditions, so can Riverside. County judges and attorneys should be inspecting the practices of other California courts for ways to ease the bottleneck.

And those solutions need to restrain criminal cases from usurping even more courtrooms, not expand that trend. The county cannot create a better-functioning system by further eroding the courts' promise of justice for all.








Controversy erupts in San Bernardino over the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association's decision to hire Joseph Turner as a "consultant", according to the Press Enterprise. Turner is from that organization, Save Our State and also ran for city clerk while being endorsed by the police union. The heads of the police union insist that they're interested in consulting Turner for advice on "policies" and an "outreach program".

This seems odd given that there's a whole range of consultants who can provide assistance and information in both of these areas, besides Turner. His focus seems to be much more narrow and very specific. It's hard to believe that's not what he was hired to provide the members of that union.


Oh and by the way, there's some beachfront property available in Kansas for sale as well.





In the Los Angeles Times, Tim Rutten issued a sharp but interesting rebuke towards the Los Angeles City Council to stop interfering in the federal consent decree directing the ongoing reform of its police department. The good news Rutten thinks, is that it's entirely possible the five-year consent decree which in June will enter into its eighth year might be dissolved within one more year.

The particular component of the consent decree in question is the requirement of officers assigned to special gang and narcotics units to disclose financial information, beginning two years after this reform is enacted. There's been back and forth about this issue among the Police Protective League, the Los Angeles Police Commission and other folks adding their opinions to the discussion.



(excerpt)


Here, however, are a few points Weiss and his committee might consider, if they're not too tired from spit-shinning the league's shoes.

The City Council already has approved this reform. On Nov. 2, 2000, it voted to ratify the consent decree as negotiated. Paragraph 132 of that document states: "The LAPD shall require regular and periodic financial disclosures by all LAPD officers and other LAPD employees who routinely handle valuable contraband or cash."

In other words, the city is only being asked to make good on its word. How could the supervising federal judge regard failure to do so as anything but evidence of recalcitrance and bad faith?

The hysteria the league has tried to whip up over this reform is worse than absurd. Does anyone on the council seriously believe that officers' safety will be endangered because personnel information will leak to criminals, as the league alleges? If the LAPD is such an incompetent custodian of its personnel records, then perhaps officers should be allowed to keep their home addresses private as well. That's a matter of physical security, after all. Moreover, after several calls to Parker Center, nobody at LAPD headquarters could recall a single example in which personal information concerning any officer leaked from there to a criminal.

Finally, and most absurdly, the fact of the matter is that the LAPD already requires that applicants to its academy disclose nearly all this information and agree to undergo a credit check. This reform simply would allow the department to update that information, if and when officers moved into certain specialized units.

Meanwhile, as Weiss and his council colleagues fiddle, it's not hard to imagine Feess sitting in the federal court doing a slow burn. His day job in recent weeks has been presiding over the trial of LAPD officers accused of participation in disgraced cop Ruben Palomares' gang. They wore their uniforms and drove black-and-whites to the homes of drug dealers whose cash they allegedly stole and whose dope they allegedly lifted and resold.

Weiss and his colleagues ought to go play politics somewhere else, and leave this serious business to a chief and police commissioners who finally are doing the hard work of reform the council so long neglected.


What winds up happening isn't clear yet, but there will be more discussion and debate on this controversy to come out of Los Angeles.





Some Orange County Sheriff's Department correctional deputies who were caught on videotape tasing an inmate about 11 times are facing allegations of excessive force according to the Los Angeles Times.



(excerpt)


The grainy but graphic images from 2006 show Matthew Fleuret, 24, being put into a holding cell at Orange County Jail and held on the floor by at least five deputies, one of whom pulls Fleuret's arms back and sharply up toward his head while others repeatedly shock him with the Taser over a period of about 13 minutes. Fleuret's lawyer says he was hit 11 times with the stun gun during the incident.

In internal sheriff's reports obtained by The Times, deputies said they had to use force because Fleuret was intoxicated and uncooperative, and had resisted their efforts to further search him. The deputies can be heard telling him to stop resisting.

Experts on the use of force interviewed by The Times suggest the deputies violated widely accepted standards. "It does not look pretty," said Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminology professor who has studied the issue for about 25 years.

Some of the Fleuret tapes are from stationary cameras that have no sound. A deputy shot another tape with a hand-held camera. In many instances, the cameras show only one angle.

Basing conclusions on tapes shot from a single angle can be "tricky," said Alpert, but he added that the deputies had "no apparent reason" to shock Fleuret with the Taser.





While the Sheriff's Department is addressing the incident in its jails, the interim sheriff who was appointed to replace Sheriff Michael Carona who resigned to focus on his criminal case, is now facing a state probe for an appearance he made in uniform at a governmental meeting.




(excerpt)



During a council meeting in November, shortly after Carona was indicted on corruption charges, Anderson, then an assistant sheriff, told the council members that Lt. Bill Hunt was not qualified to serve as Orange County sheriff.

Anderson has since announced his own desire to be the full-time sheriff. Hunt and several others also are considered candidates for the job.

Timothy R. Whitacre, a Hunt supporter during the 2006 sheriff's election campaign, filed the complaint with the attorney general's office last week. He alleges that Anderson violated a state law prohibiting non-elected law enforcement officers from appearing in uniform during political speeches.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department disputes that Anderson violated any laws and says that when he addressed the San Clemente council it was a matter of public policy, not politics.

Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Gary W. Schons said his office would review the complaint but declined to discuss the allegations.









In Schenectady, New York, community members testified about serious problems in the police department, according to the Times-Union.



Schenectady's police department had been the subject of a federal probe according to this letter from the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.






Lykens Police Department Police Chief Chris Wade has been accused of lying and stealing evidence.


His firing spawned reaction.



(excerpt, WGAL )



County brass said they were shocked by the allegations.

"I put a lot of faith in Chris. I thought he was a good officer and did a lot of good for Lykens Borough," Claudia Maffei, president of the borough council, said.

Other people said they weren't so shocked.

"Couldn't happen to a nicer person, he was a dirty cop. He should have never been hired here," said Lykens resident Jody Miller.









Milwaukee Police Department has had three of its officers commit suicide in a matter of months, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.



The suicide rate for police officers is two to three times the national average but many police departments either hide information about them or try to classify them as accidental deaths.



(excerpt)


Bob Douglas, a retired Baltimore officer who founded the National P.O.L.I.C.E. Suicide Foundation in 1984 after a fellow officer, one of his best friends, killed himself, said police suicides were among the lesser-known risks of the profession.

Douglas and his associates train 3,500 officers a year in suicide prevention. Kurth went to Douglas' seminar in Maryland for training in October.

Statistics compiled by the FBI show that police officers are six times more likely to kill themselves than average members of the public -- 60 for every 100,000 people each year, compared with 10 for every 100,000. That figure more than triples for police officers who retire. Officers who are disabled are 45 times more likely to commit suicide than the average person, FBI statistics show.

"This is an epidemic, not just a problem," Douglas said.

Mental health experts said police officers were more inclined to commit suicide because of the tremendous stress of their jobs and the pressure to maintain a cool demeanor.

"We're not supposed to cry," Douglas said.

But police officers are more than twice as likely to be involved in domestic disputes. They also have higher incidence of divorce.

"We are taught to be controlled," Douglas said. "We know how to intimidate and manipulate. But we don't necessarily know how to communicate."








In Queens, New York City, that is where the trial involving the police officers who shot and killed Sean Bell in 2006 will stay.


Bell's fiancee had asked the appellate court to keep the trial in Queens.




Also in New York City, the investigation of a large number of the police department's narcotics officers means that more than 150 drug cases might be compromised.







This photo from Mars taken by a NASA probe has created controversy. Rock, optical illusion or official welcoming party?


And not that this is a related topic, but I've heard the mayor in Riverside is giving a really big speech today and lots of people are going to pay money to eat, listen and be seen at the Riverside Convention Center. The event begins at 11 a.m.