And the winner is...what did I win?

**Update**Former Canton Police Department officer convicted of murder gets life sentence.




The city council interviewed two applicants to fill the Ward Five vacancy on the Community Police Review Commission after another one, William Warrick dropped out of contention deciding that he actually did not have enough time available to serve on the commission.

First on deck to a full house that included the city council, Mayor Ron Loveridge and City Attorney Gregory Priamos, was retired Air Force Officer Kenneth I. Rotker who seemed very well prepared having reviewed the CPRC's library of materials including consultant Joe Brann's recent report on its operations.

Rotker said that he wasn't bringing an agenda either way to the process but that it was important for the commissioner selected to exercise mature judgment and integrity while serving on the panel.

Rotker insisted he was not a "torchbearer" for either side of the issue.



"I am not that guy," Rotker said.




He added that he believed that law and order was important but that civil rights and due process were as well. One of the major issues with the CPRC in his opinion, was its outreach or rather shortage of it.

The members of the commission weren't "judges" but "nine people trying to improve a city".




Rotker is well known already on another front. Last year, he was the one who was very vocal on complaining about the electric rate hikes that had been passed by the city council in 2006.




Next up was former Corona Police Department officer and current Riverside Police Department volunteer, James T. Mott.

His focus was on "bringing a line officer's perspective to the commission" and giving commissioners some idea of what goes on in the streets, apparently not knowing that the commission includes one active police officer, two former law enforcement officers and one former corrections officer.

He believed that the commission existed to serve as a "buffer" between the city's residents and the police department and as a "neutral" body.


After he left, the city council and Loveridge cast their paper votes with no discussion and voted 8-0 to appoint Rotker to fill Jack Brewer's vacancy on the commission. Pending a background check, he will be the newest addition to the CPRC.






The Community Police Review Commission finally gave its long overdue annual report. If you remember all the way back to March of 2006, then you will remember the last time this commission appeared to the city council to give its annual report on its activities of the past year.

Chair Brian Pearcy presented the report for both 2006 and 2007 before the city government, including several who would ask him questions. He praised his fellow commissioners singling out Jim Ward, the commission's only African-American, for praise while at the same time making it appear as if his views were "controversial". If that's the case and it's needs to be noted that he's an "other", then it portrays the rest of the commission as more homogeneous in its thinking which may or may not be the case.


Pearcy said that complaints had decreased in 2007, numbering 45 with about 94 different allegations filed.

He also pushed for more officers to embrace their digital audio recorders as important tools to exonerate them from false allegations and to provide further evidence in many complaints where it often became a "he said, she said" situation. He even encouraged possibly expanding the policy to include recording more professional contacts with the public and at least, for the department to encourage its officers to use the devices more often.

Pearcy said that the training of sergeants outside the department's internal affairs division needed to be more consistent when it came to investigating complaints filed with the CPRC and the department. The commission had stated in numerous annual reports that the investigations conducted by field sergeants included some problems including the tendancy to ask leading questions in their interviews with officers.


Goals for 2008 included expanding outreach and hopefully, receiving more staff support from the city.


"We'll go if we're asked. Come if we're invited," Pearcy said.




After talking about this, Pearcy attracted a great deal of attention and interest when he moved on to his next topic, which was to encourage creating a commission which truly represented the diversity of the city it served. Pearcy said that the perception was that gender was well represented as was "sexual preference" but that the ethnic and racial identity was not perceived as being representative of the city's demographics by community members who addressed the commission.

But Pearcy, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer, said that there was another area of diverse representation that needed to be addressed and that was the balance of law enforcement currently on the commission. He said that only two out of nine members on the commission had no law enforcement connections or background experience. This led to the perception that the majority of the commission was "pro-police" or connected with law enforcement. He asked the city council for future commission appointments that more reflected the diversity of Riverside.


Here's the current breakdown of the CPRC:


By ethnicity/race and gender:


One African-American man

One Latina

Five White men

Two White women




By law enforcement background/connections:


One current police officer

Two former law enforcement officers

One former corrections officer

Two members with immediate relatives in law enforcement including one with a relative in the Riverside Police Department

One member who manages a company with a public safety contract with the city.



His comments were quite a turnaround from the rebuking that's been given out by several White commissioners to any comments about the commission's diversity or lack of it in several areas. A bit surprising to say the least but the commission's become less ethnically and racially diverse than the police department.


Pearcy's comments are sure to elicit some discussion and it's been the first time that the commission has publicly said that the representation of law enforcement on it is overrepresented. But as long as the city council and mayor lean towards interviewing candidates from law enforcement backgrounds and fewer candidates of other backgrounds, then the odds go up that the candidates with law enforcement backgrounds will continue to get the edge. And as long as this happens, community members will say that there's not much difference between the commission of mostly current or former police officers making the decisions and the police officers inside the department.

One council member, Nancy Hart actually asked who else would be qualified to serve if they didn't have a law enforcement background, but the answer to that are people from a wide variety of backgrounds including business, educational, legal and medical as well as others. The commission is supposed to be reflective of the community it serves and the city of Riverside includes people from a wide variety of backgrounds by race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, economic status and careers. It's nice to see that the commissioners realize that as well and that the chair was willing to say it in a public forum.

Anyway, the commission is asking for diversity in terms of ethnicity and race and aside from law enforcement. What it received yesterday was a White man but at least his background's a bit different.





The fallout continues in the wake of an incident where Colton City Manager Daryl Parrish and one of his assistants denigrated members of the Chambers of Commerce calling them "chamber monkeys".



(excerpt, Cassie MacDuff's column, Press Enterprise)



At last week's council meeting, several people offended by the e-mails demanded the resignations or terminations of Parrish and Assistant City Manager Mark Nuaimi, who also wrote a derogatory e-mail.

Both men apologized publicly. But that didn't put the matter to rest.

Longtime Chamber of Commerce ambassador Fred Cordova said he and his wife were personally offended and wanted personal apologies.

Others suggested the officials' pay be docked.

The council agenda called for a closed-session discussion of Parrish's performance and the discipline of a public official.

Councilman Richard DeLaRosa promised the two managers' improper e-mails would be dealt with that night.





St. Cloud, Minnesota has named its appointments to several of its boards and commissions including the Police Citizen Review Board.







Cincinnati Police Department officer, William Simpson has admitted to two counts of sexual battery.


The incident began when Simpson responded to a domestic violence call.



(excerpt, WLWT)



By the time Simpson arrived, the man had left, and investigators said the officer took the woman to the clerk’s office to file burglary charges against her ex-boyfriend.

Simpson told the woman he would photograph her injuries, and authorities said the woman asked Simpson to find a female officer to take the photos.

Simpson refused, took the photographs, made sexual comments to the woman, held her wrists and sexually assaulted her, according to investigators.








The Derry Journal did this story on the issue of using CS spray in Derry, Ireland which is becoming more frequent during arrests.





Baltimore's police department might stop its practice of releasing the names of police officers involved in onduty shootings, according to the Baltimore Sun.



(excerpt)



A police spokesman had said in an e-mail to The Sun over the weekend that the policy change would be formalized soon. But after The Sun confronted Mayor Sheila Dixon about the issue yesterday, her staff said she had not been briefed on the matter. Her aides said the change is not imminent and would be thoroughly vetted.

In an interview, Dixon said: "I will follow the lead of our Police Department. I think the police officers have to protect themselves."

Last year, police officers shot 31 people, killing 13. This year, police have shot three people, killing all of them. Police had declined for weeks to release the names of officers in two of those shootings that occurred since Jan. 30. Clifford released the names Sunday, saying it would be unfair to impose a new policy retroactively.




While the decision that might change the way information is released has elicited a lot of attention in Baltimore, the Riverside Police Department's decision not to release the name of an officer in a recent nonfatal shooting was a lot more quietly done. This latest procedure contradicts the fanfare made by the department after two fatal onduty shootings by officers in late 2006 and a nonfatal shooting last year that in the interest of transparency, it would be releasing the names of the officers involved. Publicly saying one thing and quietly doing another.




This in from the City of Cincinnati.



The Cincinnati Police Department has requested the assistance of the
Citizen Compliant Authority (CCA) in looking for a law enforcement
agency with a policy that addresses officers asking passengers for
identification during routine traffic stops outside the realm of
Terry v.Ohio. This policy will be tailored to the specific issues
involving our community. The Rand Corporation (3rd annual report can
be viewed on CCA's website) has been working with our community for
three years and in its' third annual report made the following
recommendation:

Specific guidelines be developed to determine when officers should
run ID checks on vehicle passengers who have not, themselves, been
observed violating any law. We also suggest that these guidelines
reflect the inconvenience to law-abiding passengers that result from
an ID check, as well as the low proportion of arrests that can be
attributed to these checks(p. 61-61)

I thank you in advance for any help that you can provide.

Ken Glenn
CCA Director
(513) 352 1600
kenneth.glenn@ cincinnati- oh.gov










In New York City, Sean Bell's father testified in the trial of the four men charged in the shooting death of his son.



(excerpt, New York Times City Room)



William Bell had joined his son at the strip club, Club Kalua, for the bachelor party, and left between 3:30 and 3:45 a.m., he testified under questioning from Charles A. Testagrossa, an assistant district attorney. Sean Bell was killed around 4:15 a.m.

The father went back to the family’s home in Far Rockaway, Queens, but received a call a short while telling him that his son was at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. He quickly left for the hospital, arriving around 5 a.m. It was not until six hours later that he finally saw his son — dead — in the hospital morgue.

Under questioning from Anthony L. Ricco, a lawyer for Detective Isnora, Mr. Bell said he went to the club to keep his son company at his bachelor party, and that it was not a place he would usually go to.

Asked if he had planned to leave quickly, William Bell replied: “I didn’t leave as fast as I thought I would. I was spending time with him.”

Mr. Ricco asked William Bell if, upon parting ways with his son, he had thought it might be the last time he’d ever see him.

“No, you never think that,” the father said.



How much alcohol did Bell drink that night? This question and others were asked witnesses who worked in the night club where Bell attended a stag party just before being shot and killed.



A New York Daily News columnist writes about the trial by judge taking place with the Sean Bell case.



Proof not passions must determine the outcome of the Bell trial, states the New York Daily News Editorial Board. Another columnist from that publication asks whether a jury is necessary for justice.


Louis ponders all the conversations he's had with the principals in the case since five officers shot and killed Bell in November 2006 as he was leaving a night club in Queens with two friends who were injured.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



My colleague Juan Gonzalez broke the story of police conducting raids all over Queens in a frantic attempt to find a mysterious "fourth man" with a gun whose alleged presence with Bell, Benefield and Guzman was supposed to have justified the shooting.

That phantom gunman turned out to be a friend of Bell's named Jean Nelson - unarmed like Bell and the others - who stopped by the club and ended up running for his life when the plainclothes officers began firing.

"I thought they were trying to kill us all," he told Gonzalez.

The cops took some unfair hits, too.

Malik Zulu Shabazz, a press-hungry provocateur from Washington, led a band of angry, undisciplined followers from his New Black Panther Party to confront cops and shout obscenities at them. It was a bit of cathartic nonsense that accomplished nothing.

Oliver, the detective who fired 31 shots on that terrible night, was lambasted in the press for having a big night on the town, racking up a $4,200 dinner bill for a party of four shortly after learning he would be indicted. That extravagant personal decision has absolutely no bearing on whether Oliver should be sent to prison for manslaughter.

Tomorrow, in a courthouse on Queens Blvd., the next act of the drama will begin when Justice Arthur Cooperman gavels the trial to order.

Out on the boulevard, the jury will be watching.