Consultants and controversies

"Just because someone believes in White separatism that doesn't make them a racist."

---Joe Turner, Save Our State





"Joe is an innovative, highly educated guy who should enhance our image and our effectiveness," Lawhead said. "I guess you can say he's controversial, but only on the issue of illegal immigration, which Californians have largely supported fighting."


---Rich Lawhead, president of the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association to the San Bernardino Sun. The 15-member board voted "overwhelmingly" to hire Turner as a consultant on "outreach".




"Mexicans are like pigs. They are by far the filthiest f-ing animals. I have also felt like I needed to get into a hot bathtub of water and soap and just soak until the filth comes off me after being near any of them. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!"


---Anonymous SOS Forum member




Someone wrote a letter to the Press Enterprise here about possible initiatives to put on the ballot now that the city is trying to regulate roosters. They all involve the DHL mess, what the writer called a "public nuisance".




The latest tee-shirt being sold by a member of the San Bernardino Police department is the center of controversy coming not long after the police union's decision to hire former city clerk candidate and current Save Our State organizer, Joe Turner as a consultant.

The shirt depicts two buzzards, one with a red bandanna, the other with a blue one and it states, "We're back". Residents say what's been called "gallows humor" by individuals in the police department makes light of the violence experienced by families in the city's Westside.




(excerpt)


Linda Heart, who helped organize a series of community forums that led to that meeting, said the promises don't mesh with evidence of bigotry among rank-and-file officers.

"If you're talking about building bridges, don't burn them down before you build them," she said.

Former San Bernardino City Council candidate Carolyn Tillman said the T-shirt undermines the chief's efforts at conciliation.

"We can stand in a circle and sing 'Kumbaya,' but African Americans remember that historically in this country, there have been officers who belonged to the KKK and other hate groups," she said. "This kind of thing, which mocks and stereotypes people, could lead you to believe those elements still exist."

In a brief conversation outside his home Tuesday, Officer Lyle Reyes, who designed and sold the T-shirts, said he did not have time for an interview. He requested a reporter's telephone number, but did not call. Reyes did not respond to a follow-up telephone call Tuesday evening.



The police union president, Rich Lawhead, said he didn't endorse the tee-shirts and told Reyes they can't be sold at union-sanctioned gatherings but he defended the hiring of Turner, a decision which has also sparked controversy.



(excerpt)


"Name me one thing Joseph Turner has done that is racial," Lawhead said. "Joe's an educated guy who has innovative ideas about attacking problems in this community."

Walter Hawkins, education chairman and first vice president of the Westside Action Group, said the officers' union should consider Turner's public image.

"What you need to understand is, San Bernardino is largely a nonwhite city," he said. "If they want their image to be one of acceptance, of being part of the community, but they bring someone on board who antagonizes the majority of the city's population, that's not solving the problem."

Some officers say activists should address lawlessness on city streets.

"These days, as officers, we're inundated with racial sensitivity training," said Travis Walker, a veteran black detective assigned to the Westside.




What Lawhead doesn't know or maybe he does, is that Turner's organization doesn't turn away White Supremacists or neo-Nazis including several that posed with members of his organization and were also photographed here and here in Laguna Beach and other rallies.

Also, here are some individuals waving Nazi flags with Turner allegedly standing in the background.

Lawhead should also be aware that if an organization posts and marches alongside those who bear Confederate Flags and wear or displays swastikas, then people might have a problem with not defining that organization as most likely being racist or at the very least welcoming racist elements and individuals into its ranks. Lawhead should also be aware that Turner's one of the poster boys revered at Stormfront, a racist internet organization. And here's Turner with some members of another police union in Glendale.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with Turner, Save Our State or their stances on the issues on immigration or their attraction to neo-Nazi and other White Supremacist organizations, then that's how you stand with their positions and the issues. If that's what Lawhead and his officers support or don't support, then it might be helpful if they are clear to the communities they serve about their positions, along with how they reconcile their positions with the hiring of Turner as a consultant.

However, it's disingenuous to claim that you're hiring such a public figure tied so closely with these issues and organizations and claim that your plans for him have nothing at all to do with these issues and his stances on them. Because the fact is, when people think of or hear the name of Joe Turner, it's his organization and his nativist views that come to mind first. Not his "innovative" solutions for communities in San Bernardino, not even his failed attempt to run for an elected position.


After all, there is hardly a shortage of consultants out there including those who specialize in outreach to communities and providing input on policy issues, the two areas which the union has apparently assigned to Turner. It's hard not to believe that his stances on these issues and his nativist views were in fact the reason why he above all the other more experienced consultants out there, got the job to consult for the union.

What are the plans for Turner?

Is the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association going to turn around and push for police officers in its organization to become more involved in doing ICE's work for it, like has happened in other cities particularly those in Orange County? How does that reconcile with their argument that their agency is understaffed and thus having difficulty addressing violent crime in San Bernardino including that which has impacted undocumented residents as victims? They don't have the numbers to patrol the streets but they do have enough to serve as an arm for ICE?

It's a good thing when a police labor association is planning to work on its outreach efforts to the residents who pay the salaries of its membership, through taxes including the decisions made to shop within that city. But if that's what Lawhead thinks that he and his organization's doing by hiring Turner, they're very wrong.

What they might as well be doing is toting around something akin to gasoline because they are contributing to the ongoing problems of strife between the communities of San Bernardino and its police department, which will make it ultimately more difficult for the residents and the officers in the long run. They are splashing salt on a lot of wounds by engaging in this type of behavior. And it's not particularly inexpensive salt at that, because consultants including Turner don't usually come cheap. It's a lot less expensive and more productive to meet with residents of the communities and talk with them, rather than hire a consultant to provide you with solutions.


If this is an individual that the police union's leadership is the best consulting candidate it can find for advising the union on "policy" and "outreach", then that's a really sad state of affairs for that police department, the community it serves and San Bernardino. Perhaps that's what the community reconciliation specialists who work for the federal government should be paying attention to, along with other concerns expressed by city residents. This in an agency where in the late 1980s, an organization called the Brotherhood of Aryan Officers existed that used to place racist and threatening letters in the lockers of Black officers trying to get promoted.

Are those the days that they want to bring back or have they ever left? What is the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association really trying to say? That it cares very little of what its city residents think or feel, is the message that is getting out no matter what its intention is. The police department including its chief insists that it wants to build better relations with its communities particularly its Black and Latino communities, but actions speak louder than words. And this latest action, speaks loudly and clearly, drowning out all words.

What Lawhead has done is make a difficult situation more so for both city residents and the police officers who belong to the union who interface with them on a daily basis. That's all he's done. Only he expects the city's residents to believe differently.

At any rate and at the end of the day, it's this organization's decision to decide who will work for it, how it spends its members' money and who will represent it. However, it's telling if it chooses someone like Turner to do its work for it and it's hard to miss the obvious so Lawhead shouldn't ask people to do that. Hopefully at least, Lawhead will elaborate further on how he believes that Turner will "attack problems" in the community through "innovative solutions" that don't strongly attract neo-Nazis and other racists. Hopefully, he will do so to the community residents that he's allegedly trying to help. Hopefully, San Bernardino won't be seeing Confederate flags and Nazi flags, the symbols which Turner seems to have difficulty strongly disassociating himself from.

Of course, maybe those types of "solutions" that do attract this ilk are perfectly fine for Lawhead and if that's the case, then he and his colleagues should be more forthcoming in simply saying that this is what they support. That would be a very sad day in San Bernardino by the way if that were or is indeed the truth. It would also be a mistake in the longer run in terms of improving police and community relations but that's something the police officers at San Bernardino still clearly need to learn at the community's expense.

in 1999, over two-thirds of the Riverside Police Department officers shaved their heads to protest the firings of four White officers who shot and killed a Black woman, which caused outrage in the Black communities of Riverside and nearby cities. That vote taken by razor at a local high school was actually the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of the federal government's decision to investigate the police department after photographs of these officers' bald heads were sent back to members of the U.S. Congress which then went straight to then Attorney General Janet Reno. What followed was one of the most painful eras in Riverside's history and one of its most expensive ones, mostly through a $22 million and counting reform process mandated by the State Attorney General's office. A time period that lasted much longer than it took for the officers to grow their hair back (which many quickly did).

What will be San Bernardino's tipping point? There's more than a few parallels between San Bernardino today, in 2008 and Riverside before the early morning hours of Dec. 18, 1998.

Still, it's up for Lawhead and his union members to decide which way to go and that path has apparently been chosen.

Just don't go telling people one thing and through your actions, show another until you figure out that you've made a mistake and deal with that.





In this column a Redlands resident urges the Press Enterprise to investigate why the courts are so backlogged with criminal trials. He went further to state that the Riverside County Superior Court judges are too timid to stand up to the District Attorney's decision to overfile cases.


(excerpt)


There is only one real root cause of the problem. The district attorney is overfiling -- excessively charging criminal defendants with criminal violations that are frequently inappropriate under law.

The problem is not a secret known only to a few. All of the judges understand the problem. All of the attorneys, public and private, doing criminal defense work understand the problem. The court's own statistics show an abysmal conviction rate.

As demonstrated by Dana Sutton's letter published Dec. 12, the good jurors understand the problem ("Logjam starts with DA," Your Views).

When I began practicing law more than 40 years ago, the Riverside County Superior Court judges ran their courtrooms with a firm hand and would not have let the district attorney consistently overfile.

Most of today's judges are politically so timid and worried about their next election that they are unwilling to publicly complain. To complain would allow the DA to publicly accuse the complainer, as The Press-Enterprise said, of being soft on crime, which to a judge is nearly as bad as being branded a child molester.



People certainly have been talking about it in the wake of a series of articles on the current district attorney, Rod Pacheco with more articles to come. Rumors have been furious lately that Republican politicians and others in the party are dropping their support of the county's top prosecutor, which is bad news if he wants to seek state office again, but its implications at the local level of politics are less clear.

At any rate, given how quiet the local politicians were when they were asked to comment on Pacheco's first year in office, it's difficult to figure out what's going on at that level. A silence the Press Enterprise attributed to fear but since the politicians in question chose not to respond for whatever reason, that is difficult to determine.






The New York City Police Department opposed moving its emergency command center to the World Trade Center in 1998, according to a report it had released. Then Mayor Rudy Guiliani had opposed the department.



(excerpt)



"Seven World Trade Center is a poor choice for the site of a crucial command center for the top leadership of the City of New York," the Times quoted a panel of police experts aided by the Secret Service as having concluded in a confidential Police Department memorandum which has not been previously disclosed.

The longest of the analysis' nine sections, headed "Explosives," describes a blast analysis of the likely impact of various types of bombs, and concluded that the largest of truck bombs would have led to the building's collapse, the Times report said.

The command center was destroyed during the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center that also destroyed the twin towers in the seven-building complex.

Among the location's vulnerabilities was its history as a target, the report said. One of the World Trade Center's twin towers was attacked by truck bomb in 1993 that killed 6 people and injured more than 1,000.

Giuliani, currently campaigning in Florida for the Republican presidential nomination, has acknowledged some skepticism by the police about the choice, but characterized it as a dispute between government officials and departments, the Times said.

"This group's finding is that the security of the proposed O.E.M. Command Center cannot be reasonably guaranteed," the July 1998 memo to the city's police commissioner concluded.