Hiding in Plain Sight: When the wind blows

The rainy season is beginning in earnest as the first substantial rain will be recorded during January for the first time in two years. Some weather forecasters have been surprised by the strength of the storms so far in this, a La Nina winter.



The storms might postpone construction on several Habitat of Humanity houses in Temecula but only temporarily until the clouds clear.







The past three entries in this blog have addressed the issues impacting women in policing including the recruitment and retention of women and sexual harassment. And how in some cases, reporting on sexual harassment has intertwined with whistle blowing on other misconduct including corruption inside law enforcement agencies. There's a lot of interesting information available on these and related issues online.

It's the beginning of a new year and maybe changes when it comes to how these issues are addressed. One can always hope after all and remaining hopeful yet vigilent is the key.






Part One

Part Two

Part Three





Los Angeles, California

Rampart Division

September 2000




Here is the recruitment page for the Los Angeles Police Department. During the 100 hours spent on the Human Relations portion of the academy curriculum, the issue of sexual harassment is covered. It's a minuscule portion of the hundreds of hours each cadet at Los Angeles's own police academy spends being molded into a police officer out of the raw material of youth.

And Los Angeles's police department like others has had a problematic history to say the least regarding sexism including sexual harassment in its ranks. As much so on how to address corruption in its workplace as history has shown.

In the mid-1990s, Officer Sonni Roby, a female officer of color, worked in the LAPD's Rampart Division on the eve of a scandal which would rock the department, the city and would lead to the investigation of over 70 officers. In 2001, the city would enter into a consent decree with the Department of Justice to reform its department and repair the damage caused by what was simply called, the Rampart Scandal.

But this took place some years earlier, when Roby broke the Code of Silence on misconduct that occurred in Rampart, when she was participating in the corruption that was taking place as a newly hired officer fresh off of the academy assembly line. Like on Oct. 3, 1996 when she was a rookie officer out being trained in what it meant to be an officer in the LAPD by a senior officer. Field training officers have been called, "ambassadors" to a law enforcement agency's culture and so, Roby was being introduced and some would say, indoctrinated.

For her, it was a traffic stop that didn't rise to the level of "probable cause" yet her training officer told her to create a story on her police report that the involved car had tried to hit them. So she did what she was told.



(excerpt, CNN)



She said she did not protest to her training officer.

"It was almost as if... you're ordered to say this and you dare not say anything else. At that point, I knew it was wrong, but the fear was there. I was intimidated. I was afraid to say anything else," Roby said.





Roby had a difficult time living with what she had just done, so she reported it to supervisors who ignored her. The officers around her did not, and engaged in harassment against her bad enough to force her first to transfer and then ultimately leave the department. Like Daisy Boria of the New York City Police Department who blew the whistle, Roby had become a "rat" which was as you recall, one of the worst of all possible things to be.

Soon after she reported the incident, her training officer, John Bertino's name came up again in further discussion. He was one of the senior officers listed by soon-to-be-disgraced officer, Rafael Perez as a police officer who was perfectly willing to engage in illegal conduct. Soon the world would come crashing down on the LAPD. Not exactly a reference that you would want on your resume.


Roby's name came up again in 2004 when the California State Assembly tried to pass A.B. 1331 which would make retaliation against a whistle blower a misdemeanor. Yet today, it remains difficult for police officers who challenge the thin blue line in their law enforcement agencies to come forward without experiencing severe ostracizing and mistreatment by their peers and usually supervisors as well. This is a behavior that still exists in many places. Tell on your fellow officers and you will pay the price.


While Roby was providing her account, the police department which employed her and other women was at the center of controversy involving how it treated its female officers.



In 1996, former police chief and founder of the National Center for Women and Policing, Penny Harrington testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights at a panel covering racial and gender bias in the LAPD. She commented on the findings by the 1991 Warren Commission that there was tremendous gender bias against women in the police department. Five years later, that bias still remained despite hiring goals set in 1992 that would be 43.4% female, according to the city council. A 1981 consent decree would settle for a department that was 20% female and the LAPD came closer to realizing that figure, which is comparable to the percentage of women currently in the New York City Police Department for example.

The LAPD does have a percentage of female officers that is somewhat higher than the national average for law enforcement agencies around its size. About 18% of its officers are women, whereas nationwide, the figure stands at about 14% for the larger agencies. This higher percentage came about largely because of an already mentioned federal consent decree in the early 1980s, which isn't to be confused with a much more broader consent decree the city of Los Angeles entered into with the Department of Justice in 2001, which was aimed at reforming the pattern and practices of the city's police department. The LAPD would find itself infiltrated and surrounded by outside intervention into its innermost workings.

Consent decrees directed at the hiring and retention of women and also men of color have been implemented at law enforcement agencies across the country. Usually, being installed after numerous law suits have been filed or complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have been filed.


In her testimony, Harrington also noted the strong relationship between how the treatment of female officers by male officers from the management level on down with how the police department treats women in the communities it polices. That's an important correlation.


(excerpt, testimony)


When disrespect for women in the police workplace occurs and no action is taken by police management, the message to all officers is that women are not valued and it is acceptable to treat them with disrespect.

When those officers are then dispatched to help women in the community, their attitude toward women affects the way they do their job and, therefore, the safety of women in this community.

When policies and procedures of the Police Department are biased in favor of men, it re-inforces the opinion that women have no place in policing.

When the Chief of Police, the Police Commission and the top management staff of a police agency say that they value women in the workplace and that they have a "zero tolerance" policy regarding harassment and discrimination, yet their actions or failure to act shows those statements to be untrue, no woman will step forward and endanger her safety and career to make a complaint about unfair treatment.




It's almost as if the management of the departments are setting women up. They dangle the promise of a policy and procedure with some teeth that promises a fair and just process into addressing allegations of sexism including sexual harassment. Yet, in reality what most often happens is that it turns out that these procedures are not worth the paper they're printed on unless female officers want to get run out of the agencies they work in, their careers in ruin sometimes even before they get started. Over and over and over again, it's the female complainants who are treated as if they have done something far worse than the allegations they've made against male officers, they have committed the true betrayal of going against the culture of the department and they are the ones who pay the price accordingly.



Around the time that Harrington testified, the city of Los Angeles paid out $430,000 to a Black female officer who alleged that she was racially and sexually harassed.


Janine Bouey, said that she had even received a calling card from the Ku Klux Klan according to the New York Times.


(excerpt)


Officer Bouey, a four-year veteran, who is half French and light skinned, said she was repeatedly advised by superiors to avoid difficulties in the department by not listing herself as black on personnel records.

When she was still at the police academy, she said, a personnel officer told her that black women were the most discriminated against group on the force. Trying to be helpful, she said he told her, "You could pass for Polynesian, Hawaiian or even Caucasian."

Officer Bouey said she was first confronted with a racial slur on her first day of duty in 1987, when she went on patrol with a white officer in the Foothill Division, the home station of the officers in the King beating.

Unaware that she was black, she said, her partner said at one point, "Did you see that tar buddy run across the yard?"

"I said, 'What?' " Officer Bouey said. "He said: 'Tar buddy. You know, nigger.' "

During her years on the force, she said, she heard similar remarks repeatedly. Shortly before the beating of Mr. King, she said, she heard officers in another division saying, "Who wants to go on a monkey hunt in the jungle?" Report of Klan Calling Card

Officer Bouey said her most unsettling experience came when another black officer found a Klan calling card in the locker room of the police station, which he said he believed was intended for Officer Bouey.


It was around this time that former Det. Mark Fuhrman was involved with what was called "Men against Women" or MAW and it was coming to light in a very public way.




This research paper on women and policing detailed the challenges faced by the LAPD including the revelations about Fuhrman and the members of his version of the "he-men women-hating club".



(excerpt)



Known as Men against Women (MAW), the informal organization inside the LAPD formed in the mid-1980s after a federal court ordered the department to hire more women. The tapes originally surfaced during the O.J. Simpson murder trial and were used by the defense to demonstrate racism in the LAPD. They recorded Fuhrman's conversations with aspiring screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny between 1986 and 1994; since then, he has said he exaggerated the truth when he spoke with her.

When Americans see the transcripts regarding this club, they will be truly shocked at the level of hatred toward women in this police force. The transcripts will also give credence to the widespread stories that have been heard from women for decades in police forces ... [but] to which people have responded.

According to the transcript-based news report, MAW had 145 members in five of 18 police divisions during the mid-1980s. It is also revealed that it held mock trials of male officers who were accused of fraternizing with women. Such tribunals often occurred after midnight in parking lots where participants would drink beer and sentence fellow officers to silent treatment and other means of ostracization.

Because of such complaints, and bolstered by today's revelations, the National Center for Women and Policing is joining with the Feminist Majority Foundation in calling for an independent probe of gender bias within the LAPD. They want more funding for an independent inspector general who reports to the Police Commission.



It makes you wonder how many unofficial clubs or fraternities centered around the hatred and resentment of female police officers exist inside law enforcement agencies in this country?


1996 was also a pivotal year for the Riverside Police Department which was struggling with sexism and sexual harassment within its ranks to the extent that pornographic films were shown in the roll call room after the promotions of male officers and male rookie officers were receiving sexual favors from female civilian employees in the parking lot of the police station.

These incidents and more were detailed by former sergeant, Christine Keers who sued the department and the city in 1996. The city settled the law suit several years later after spending about $19,000 litigating it.

Reading Keers 30+ page law suit, one is not left with the feeling that women were more liked in this agency than they are in the LAPD. Name a gender slur and it was either said, written on the bathroom wall or displayed on a bulletin board. The venom of the comments seemed to rise the more successful she and other female officers became.

Riverside's police department beginning in 1999 would turn itself over to the point where today, about 80% of its sworn division is relatively new. But are the attitudes toward women in its ranks new as well, as in newly enlightened and progressive? It is hoped so.



The LAPD continued to struggle with the issue of sexual harassment. The latest but not the least involving one of its former deputy chiefs who had once been in charge of the department's internal affairs division. He's currently a police chief in another state







San Francisco, California

2005


In San Francisco, a blue-ribbon panel was convened in 2005 to focus on creating recommendations for reforms to be implemented in the troubled agency which would address racism, sexism and homophobia as well as issues pertaining to using force.





(excerpt, San Francisco Chronicle)


Supervisor Jake McGoldrick said The Chronicle series did not convince him that San Francisco police are worse than other departments when it comes to use of force.

But he, too, said the issue is important, and he called on Newsom to investigate.

McGoldrick noted that Newsom last year promised to name a special blue-ribbon panel to probe sensitivity issues at the department after officers were found to have participated in the filming of videos that mocked gay people, women and members of racial minorities.

The allegation of widespread police brutality is more important and needs to be resolved, he said. He urged the mayor to appoint a similar investigative panel to "give us a real good, honest report, not a spin game, but sitting down and going case by case, officer by officer" to examine use of force issues.

Up to now, McGoldrick contended, Newsom had tried to finesse the excessive force issue, demanding reform at the department while also giving a vote of confidence to police Chief Heather Fong, who has insisted that the problem is overblown.

"The deal here is to face reality and not just try to spin away and deflect away a problem that's probably not unique to San Francisco," he said.




And what happened in San Francisco's police department?


Video-gate.


This began in 2005 after it was discovered that police officers from the city's department were creating racist, sexist and homophobic videos for entertainment purposes, or as one video "producer" and his captain called it, to improve morale.



Hillgirlz blogged about the video scandal and what it meant for San Francisco.


(excerpt)


The longer term implications of these videos, and the culture that made them seem OK to produce, are going to be more problematic. The Mayor is appointing a Blue Ribbon Panel to look into the inner workings of the SFPD. I hope they bring their lunch, and possibly dinner as well.

Initially deciphering, and ultimately developing recommendations to change the culture of an institution such as the SFPD is a daunting task. To do so without totally demoralizing the nearly 2,000 sworn officers, in a climate of budget deficits and stretched resources, surrounded by a highly charged, and sometimes self-serving, political climate is something that may not have ever been attempted in San Francisco.

I think it can be done and that changes can be made. I just don’t think changes will come easy, be accomplished quickly or completed without sacrifice or pain.

While this panel of Blue Ribbons is doing its work, wherever Blue Ribbon Panels do such work, there are also many more mundane issues at the SFPD that must be addressed. We have a severe shortage of sworn officers in the department, somewhere between 265 and 500 short. Recruiting is becoming more and more difficult and a large number of veteran officers are approaching retirement age. Community policing is being touted by neighborhood and political leaders all over the City as possibly a significant deterrent to the homicide crisis currently in the Bayview/Hunters Point, Western Edition, Visitation Valley and the Mission.

The logic makes total sense if we had the resources to implement it. People would like to say we do but we just don’t, not and continue to do everything else expected of a post 9-11, big-city police department.



Other blogs contribute to the discussion including, The Bay Area is Talking and Inside the SFPD more recently.


So what does it say that videos that were allegedly filmed to "roast" a White male captain at a dinner party are instead actually derogatory against every demographic except the White heterosexual male? It sounds like another example of bonding over the telling of jokes and the use of slurs and stereotypes that demean the "others" in police culture which are those who aren't White, straight or male. That's one of the most common questions that is asked. Why is it that there is case after case of largely White male police officers engaging in such banter? What makes racist and sexist jokes not only so acceptable but so funny?



There's no easy answer to that question, except to say that these behaviors are symptomatic of the racism, sexism and homophobia that is still steeped in many police agencies. This reality becomes abundantly clear when it's witnessed how the management and supervisors of these agencies handle or more accurately many times, don't handle this type of misconduct in their midst.



Even as far as the local governments who oversee and are ultimately responsible in a fiscal sense for these agencies pay scant attention until they are forced to do so by a scandal like Video-gate in San Francisco. Even Mayor Gavin Newsome in San Francisco promised to convene a blue-ribbon panel, then dragged his feet for a while.



In Riverside, the department has dealt with this issue as well when it comes to racist and sexist comments and humor. During the civil trial stemming from a law suit filed by Roger Sutton, a Black police officer, officer after officer testified about the practice of telling jokes and making comments in the police department. Sometimes in groups. What was interesting is that it was the White officers who were more quick to say, yes there were jokes said. When? I can't recall, years ago. Did you participate? No, or I can't recall.



The officers of color who testified were a bit more reticent about answering questions about the joke telling than their White counterparts. But then if you've learned that at the time when jokes were being told in and out of the roll call room that reporting it wasn't worth your career, it's not surprising. It's likely that in the past at least, you could talk about racist and sexist jokes, even make them. You just couldn't complain about them. Different dynamic, hopefully different than what exists today.










Year of plenty or famine?



During the next several months in Riverside, the city's departments will be submitting their operations budgets for the 2008-09 fiscal year and so far, it looks like at least some of the departments will be taking a 15% cut. Anticipate vacant city staffing positions being frozen for a while and city services to be impacted by the anticipated budget cuts. It looks like the years of plenty as they've been called, have ended or at least been put on hold. At least when it comes to the city's infrastructure expenses. These expenditures and their likely cuts impact the day to day lives of city residents so it's important for city residents to pay close attention to what happens in the next few months when the budget is drawn up.

Not to worry about Riverside Renaissance and its future which is based on, gambling over "futures" as the civic leaders interviewed for the dualing articles in the Press Enterprise on the Riverside Renaissance: One year later have assured the populace. As those at City Hall have said, there's allegedly revenue available to pay for the projects included in its umbrella, as representatives from the city manager's office have said. But expect the projected 15% in budget cuts to be widespread.

Several of the city's labor unions have contemplated reopening negotiations on their contracts but it looks to be a barren year for the city, in that regard.

As for the renaissance, the city has started a Web site so that residents can track the progress of each project under the five-year, $1.9 billion and counting plan.


Riverside Renaissance is the site which will provide up to date information.


If you're interested in perusing through Riverside's annual budgets, go here. They are all pdf files which require preferably Abobe Acrobat Reader 7.0 but earlier versions should work. You can check out whatever fiscal year you choose or all of them and the different city departments.


For example, this is the annual budget of the city manager's office for 2007-08.





Bonus question: Who said the following, "you couldn't even get Betro back in office" and to who was this said to?







Although he's just been indicted on corruption charges by a federal grand jury, Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona will be returning back to work.


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



After pleading not guilty to the charges in November, Carona announced that he would take the paid leave "in order to devote my full time and energy toward battling the untrue and baseless charges made against my wife, Debbie and me."

His attorney said the sheriff has been working diligently on his defense during the last two months. Some members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors criticized Carona's decision to take a leave of absence, saying it amounted to an abandonment of his duties.

Supervisor John M.W. Moorlach had proposed giving the board the authority to remove Carona or any indicted elected county official from office, a step supervisors did not take.

On Thursday, Moorlach and Supervisor Chris Norby said they still believed the sheriff should step down. The union that represents Orange County sheriff's deputies has also called on Carona to resign.

"When you're distracted, it's really hard to do your job," Moorlach said. "So we're not going to get a full sheriff while he's in the middle of this process."




State Attorney General Jerry Brown is also looking into a complaint that legal defense funds may have been improperly donated according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


The challenge, brought by political gadfly Shirley Grindle of Orange, questions whether Carona can accept the services of two nationally known attorneys on a pro bono basis.

Attorney Brian A. Sun, who won a settlement with the federal government in the case of former Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of being a Chinese spy, has volunteered to lead Carona's legal defense team in his fight against federal corruption charges.

John D. Cline, who represented former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and retired Marine Col. Oliver North, also volunteered to help defend Carona.

Mike Schroeder, Carona's political advisor, called Grindle's accusations "pure twaddle."

"She has a long history of filing frivolous complaints of what she would like the law to be. However, the donation of volunteer time has never been considered to be a contribution or a gift," Schroeder said.

Carona's current defense attorney, H. Dean Steward, will remain as part of the legal team, Schroeder said.

Cline could not be reached for comment.



Grindle said she researched the issue including discussing it with several lawyers before contacting Brown's office. But she's still a "gadfly" or viewed as a "pest", something I'm sure is perfectly fine with her.





A Fresno Police Department officer who will be facing misdemeanor charges in relation to hitting a pedestrian with his car is back at work.