Here come the straw men
"[k]ids were being beaten. Women were being beaten and raped. Their organs were ruptured. Bones were broken. It was hard cold-fisted brutality by police officers, and nothing was being done to protect their family members,"
---Legal consultant, Bob Mullally who spent 45 days in jail on federal contempt charges after exposing domestic violence in the Los Angeles Police Department
I received the charming note below by someone who claims to be a new commenter but actually reads like a very familiar old one. This particular one claims to be a "loved one" of a cop who finds me disgusting and not one of the "regular" authors. Which if that's true doesn't exactly narrow it down by much does it?
But I believe that I've read this particular individual's comments before, so it's difficult to buy his current identity any more than his previous ones. And the fixation with my mother's birthing process is getting a bit old. Interestingly enough, the title was "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" which reminded me of the "Mary, Mary" reference of address included in the harassing email sent from some unknown party from you-know-where.
Getting hate comments from nameless people is nothing new and most often, they are of course, anonymous. But out of the ugliness and very often the bizarre nature of many of them, come good opportunities to blog about issues that they perhaps inadvertently raise despite themselves. This latest comment provides one of those opportunities.
Some police officers don't like criticism and the only people they hate worse than the public who does so are their own kind. Which becomes a city like Riverside's business when it pays out a fortune in trial verdicts, settlements and retirements as it has done in the cases of current officer Roger Sutton and former officers, Rene Rodriguez and Christine Keers. Because who ultimately pays for these costs that come from telling racial jokes or scratching "bitch" on some city-owned surface among other behaviors in the workplace?
The public.
And so does the law enforcement agency and its officers who aren't running around doing this type of behavior, because that's money being spent on its behalf so to speak for a problem that doesn't go towards creating a new law enforcement position for example or new equipment. How much does a police officer position cost? How much does a new squad car cost including equipment? How much did paying out the Sutton lawsuit cost, not even including litigation expenses?
The same public that includes most of the individuals mentioned in this comment who apparently according to this person don't believe issues like these are a "great concern". Maybe not in their neck of the woods, perhaps. Maybe it's perhaps because they've essentially written off the individuals who criticize them to the point where they actually believe they don't exist like this individual maybe believes.
But then this person or perhaps someone else argued that only about 12% of the people in Riverside actually supported the Community Police Review Commission in response to news that the majority of the city's voters who participated in the November 2004 voted Measure II into the city's charter. Then of course, it was only a handful of people who wanted to control the police department who cared about the CPRC. That's before this individual expressed their major pique with former councilman, Art Gage who they blamed for the CPRC slipping out of their grasp before they perhaps could properly do away with it.
Another individual, perhaps this one, some time ago tried to raise that same point in another comment about how people were more concerned about whether or not their kids' soccer matches would start on time than how well the police department was doing or something of that nature.
The comment was in response to a blog posting on the Rate My Cop Web site and strategies that law enforcement agencies could use to counter the popularity of sites like this one through strengthening the accountability and effectiveness of their complaint systems as well as instituting effective early warning systems that the public would have confidence in. It's also important for officers to dismantle the codes of silence that are entrenched in probably every law enforcement agency in this country. But these steps are difficult ones to take and see through towards progress and most agencies don't take them seriously let alone the need for them until an outside law enforcement agency pushes them in that direction usually through a court-mandated process.
The posting referred to, included blog articles on the issue which were both pro and con for the site and numerous discussions of the issue drawn along similar lines. But then going back and actually reading the links wouldn't be as much fun as engaging in flinging straw men. So get ready to duck because this unidentified individual is quite good at it.
It's hard to tell from Mary's blog where she stands on personal information on law enforcement being public. It's ludicrous. Can you imagine just because of your job, your personal information being made public?
We all know you hate cops, but are you serious? They have innocent family. What GOOD comes of exposing where they live and all their other personal information? Would you like your family exposed?
You argue that there are domestic violence calls that involve cops. Although it may be more prevalent in this occupation, does that justify COPS being exposed as opposed to other "normal" people?
And, really, is it "a great concern" of the public? HARDLY!
The public wants to be able to call their law enforcement people when the alarm next door goes off, when they hear shots fired, when they think they might have a burglar in their house, a loud party in the neighborhood.
Who are YOU gonna call? A couple of bad apples don't spoil the whole bunch girl!
No, I'm not one of your "usual" commentors - just a loved one of a cop who finds you totally disgusting! Imagine your mother being held to a higher standard than other mothers just because she birthed YOU - then you might understand.
This is all very nice and good and someone got something off of their chest once again, but where in the posting was it written that it was about "exposing" police officers who commit domestic violence? The only reference to domestic violence in this posting was in relation to a tactic used by some of those who engage in it which is to utilize professional databases to do exactly what this person states, "expose" the private information of individuals who may be their victims by exploiting these databases for personal use. The link that related to that reference to domestic violence led straight to a well-known advocacy site for victims of domestic violence committed by law enforcement officers that warns site visitors about this popular tactic.
How that equates to "exposing" officers who commit domestic violence is quite a stretch. Perhaps what is known as an ad hominem argument? Unfortunately, what is often the case is that domestic violence in law enforcement exposes itself both because it's more prevalent and because it involves employees in a public service profession.
The only thing this individual got right is that it is more prevalent in law enforcement officers. This study states up to four times more prevalent in police officers than "normal" people. But this individual provided a good opportunity to discuss this issue which isn't properly handled by too many law enforcement agencies.
Most law enforcement agencies by a narrow margin (around 55% in 2000) have inhouse policies for investigating domestic violence, but many of them don't. Do these agencies offer counseling services either through religious chaplain services and/or psychotherapists? And do these agencies treat officers differently or stigmatize them if they utilize these services? How does a department's culture view it? As a "family matter" or a "private matter", perhaps?
Many investigations involving police officers who engage in domestic violence are already treated much differently than those of "normal" people. How? For one thing, through federal law any person convicted of a DV related felony or misdemeanor is prohibited from owning or possessing firearms for at least a period of time. But many police agencies and police unions want law enforcement officers to be the exception to a law that was set up to protect the victims of domestic violence from further violence. They want law enforcement officers who are convicted of DV related crimes to be able to keep their weapons. That's probably not a situation that leaves their victims feeling safer but then the concerns of these particular victims are secondary.
Police officers are treated differently because even if they are convicted of DV crimes, they can remain employed by law enforcement agencies even as they go out and arrest or investigate others for crimes related to domestic violence. In some agencies up to 1-2% or perhaps greater of their officers can be convicted of DV related crimes.
Several years ago, the poor handling of inhouse domestic violence by the Los Angeles Police Department was exposed to the world but the only person who did time was the individual who exposed it although his time was reduced by an appellate court.
(excerpt)
“From day one, I’ve said that it’s a tragedy that Bob Mullally is the one being punished here, when none of the criminal officers he exposed were ever prosecuted, or even arrested.”
The thing is, that often enough domestic violence done by police officers does become a public issue. It became a public issue in Tacoma, Washington when then Chief David Brame shot his wife, Crystal Judson and then himself in a public parking lot. He died pretty quickly while Crystal lingered in a coma for a period of time. The aftershocks of that one incident which was built on top of a series of blunders, mishaps and coverups and then on that fateful day, collapsed like a house of cards, still reverberate years later. The only positive aspect of that horrible tragedy is that the changes that could have saved a life were finally instituted after it had been taken. Often that's how it goes with reform because of the blue wall.
Then there's Drew Peterson, the now former sergeant in the small suburb of Bolingbrook who has had one wife, Stacey disappear without a trace on Oct. 28, 2007 and another wife, Kathleen Savio, exhumed for a second autopsy which revealed that rather than accidentally drowning in an empty bathtub as assumed in 2004, instead she was murdered. Both these two women expressed the fears to other parties before their disappearance and death that something awful would happen to them. Peterson's second wife reported being stalked by her ex-husband and incidentally, one of her boyfriends was murdered too. Peterson's antics before the spotlight that's surrounded him since has shocked many of those who have been exposed to it including John Walsh, who hosts America's Most Wanted and did a feature on Peterson's wives.
Incidentally, Peterson himself was investigated for violating his department's policy of using professional databases for personal use.
Then there's former Canton Police Department officer Bobby Cutts, jr. who was recently convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend and several incidents that recently took place involving off-duty law enforcement officers spraying bullets in attempts to get even with ex-girlfriends for dumping them including Wisconsin deputy, Tyler Peterson who killed six people in a shooting spree including an ex-girlfriend. Peterson, 20, had been employed not by one but two law enforcement agencies without the benefit of any psychological testing because the state of Wisconsin didn't require any to be done. No doubt things will be different now on that front.
Not to mention the New York City Police Department officer who murdered his fiancee after she tried to press him on a wedding date and then blamed his own actions on two Black men. It turned out that his own academy instructor had tried to throw him out of his training class about one year earlier because of a pattern of bad and disruptive behavior but was overruled by his supervisors.
Not to mention one man who was appointed as interim chief of the trouble-plagued Maywood Police Department despite a history which included a domestic violence prosecution among other problems. Oops, and he was gone replaced by another convicted criminal, albeit a thief.
Then is there a correlation between officers who engage in domestic violence in the home and excessive force on the streets? Here is one place that question is being asked. If that's the case that there's a correlation between these two types of excessive force, that wouldn't be very surprising because it would likely indicate an individual who uses force to dominate a situation or a person on and off the job. But if this is the case, then it becomes an issue of public concern as well as an issue of civic liability for the city or county that employs that law enforcement officer. Some experts have used both issues to determine whether there's a gender gap in use of excessive force by officers.
More information about DV involving law enforcement officers is below.
Abuse of Power
Purple Berets
Center of Women and Policing's study on the prevalence of law enforcement DV in relation to general population
Behind the Blue Wall (an excellent online resource on past and ongoing DV cases involving law enforcement and related issues)
Straw man statement number two, which is the following.
We all know you hate cops, but are you serious? They have innocent family. What GOOD comes of exposing where they live and all their other personal information? Would you like your family exposed?
It's not clear where this was pulled out. But since this anonymous "loved one" of a cop who finds me totally disgusting asked, I can answer that question in a different way that perhaps they can understand?
It's interesting that this anonymous person would ask this as if I had no knowledge of what this was about, but I do know. And here are some questions back.
How would you like your family or yourself harassed and threatened by anonymous cowards because you have criticized law enforcement? How would you like filthy comments written about your mother's uterus pecked off of some keyboard because you criticize law enforcement officers? I find these references to my mother birthing me that keep popping up somewhat sick.
My mother, a loved one, wants me to get two or three deadbolts on my front door and to always look through the peephole when someone knocks. Not because she's worried about criminals, but because she's worried about rogue police officers.
So this is an issue I understand quite well because there's some sociopaths out there whoever or whatever they are, who made damned clear that they want me to felt too intimidated and scared to write here, write anywhere and speak out anywhere. Needless to say, I don't go very many places where I don't look over my shoulder for that individual or individuals who's watching me or maybe following me to see what I'm wearing, when so they can spin it into something very disturbing and sick. Whether it's walking down the street or appearing at a city council meeting, which of course is televised.
If it makes you feel more good or more manly to say I hate cops, fine. That's been a useful salve for more individuals than you know. It's also intended to stop someone from speaking out because being called a "cop hater" is supposed to be akin to being called a communist or an "anti-American". The thing is, after the first hundred times or so it starts to lose its impact or its thrust. The other thing, is that I don't hate police officers but that's irrelevant to these folks as well.
And that's not really what it's about anyway.
What it's about is what's called the "all or nothing" rule. The way some police officers obviously see it is that you support them 100% of the time no questions asked or you hate them. It's also called the "you are for us or against us" rule, which is one of the defining laws of their culture. There's no middle ground for these police officers and their "loved ones" like the alleged one above. That applies double among their own ranks as many an officer going back to Frank Serpico and probably before him discovered soon enough when they broke the code and didn't stay on the right side of "us".
I learned fairly early on what happens if you criticize the police about anything. And that includes being interviewed by the federal investigators some years back. Two days after that supposedly private interview, I walked outside City Hall past two police officers with one of them saying out loud enough for me to hear him.
"I'd better not say anything to her or I might get into trouble."
I don't imagine any officers in this department felt comfortable even talking to the same investigators because perhaps they feared retaliation. It was the time to stand up and say something but that's not the easiest thing to do, to step outside of a police culture and tell the truth about what's going on within your ranks. It was only later that State Attorney General Bill Lockyer told the city council that there were Black and Latino officers within the department who would testify and the promise of that apparently was intended to serve as leverage for the settlement which would end with the stipulated judgment in 2001. But the state apparently was also willing to offer something that the federal investigators may have not offered and that's whistle blower protection.
Such status was in fact awarded under the first mandated action in the judgment which was to expunge the personnel record of then Lt. Jim Cannon of a letter of reprimand he had received when he apparently provided information about an investigation involving another whistle blower, former officer Rene Rodriguez to outside parties.
Last year, Cannon quietly retired from the department a captain after over 30 years of service without even looking back. Without even wanting to celebrate his tenure with a party with his colleagues. Another high-ranking man of color who left the agency after being eligible for the 3% at 50 retirement for all their years of service. Where White officers often stay longer, men of color don't seem to do so.
There have been some rather interesting if unsettling interactions.
Some years ago, I once had an anonymous phone caller claiming to be a retired Riverside Police Department officer who was teaching at Ben Clark Training Center who called up the community college newspaper and left a diatribe several minutes long on the answering machine. During his speech, he called the editor and chief by his first name throughout and over and over saying that I hated cops, about a dozen times interspersed with his general commentary including this mantra about how we were being "watched" and "monitored" and that he and his friends had gone to the Board of Trustees to shut the publication down though naturally, that was news to several Board of Trustee members.
The editor in chief was shocked. The advisor wanted to call the FBI. I just shrugged. Just another day.
This unidentified individual who left this comment above made some remarks that implied heavily that I had engaged in this activity myself. When in my experience it's been very much the other way around.
It's not just law enforcement officers who have to worry about reading personal information about themselves online including that which is fabricated. And before the internet became so popular, there was still the spoken word, meaning the police officers who would complain about those who criticize them to anyone who will listen including community members.
Ever since I first started becoming involved in issues of police reform, that has been something that I've had to deal with and when it's law enforcement officers who are mentioned as the sources of such remarks, it's much more difficult than it is when it's a "normal" person who's doing it. Why? Because there's this assumption that with the badge and uniform, that honesty and truthfulness come with it, which isn't always the case at least all the time. That assumption isn't quite the same and certainly not taken for granted with "normal" people.
Let's see if I can recall all the times on my own site that anonymous individuals made references to where I lived.
The first reference was some comment about hoping that I would in a "beautiful example of poetic justice" be the victim of a violent crime "in the 'U' where you lived". Or better yet, a loved one of mine. This was written by an individual who called himself, "Kevin, R.P.D.". It unnerved me quite a bit but some people told me that I should be worried that this person was indeed a police officer who would have a parolee do harm to me or a family member. Most likely he was pimping crime victims to justify his own online behavior much like another anonymous commenter would do so when calling on people to blame me for the death of a 10-year-old boy in 2005 to counter his own feelings of discomfort that his behavior wasn't seen by others the same way that he saw it.
Another unidentified individual using a moniker stated in a comment in May 2006 that I lived in an apartment near UCR. Yet another one stated in the autumn of 2006 that they couldn't say where they were from because Internal Affairs was always watching but that the only thing that mattered was "your name is Mary Shelton and you live in the Eastside".
Unfortunately, I had a car that hit my garage where I do live which did about $3,300 worth of damage to it before taking off without leaving even a note two days after that anonymous posting was left. If this individual hadn't stated that I had lived some place else than I do, I would have probably assumed that the two incidents were possibly related. But when you have individuals who write some of the cruel and sick stuff that I've read while either representing themselves or misrepresenting themselves as law enforcement officers, you can never be entirely sure and comfortable enough in your mind that these types of incidents aren't related. There's never that small amount of peace of mind.
And as for calling the police? If you had an individual who "prayed" for harm to come to your family calling himself a Riverside Police Department officer or another individual claiming he was a police officer with the same agency ranting about how he enjoyed watching you burst into tears out of fear at a city council meeting while speaking about a posting written by again, an anonymous individual who posted where you were when and what you were wearing, would you call them if you didn't know who these individuals could be and who they worked for? And because of state laws passed to protect peace officers, if any are identified as employees, you're not even allowed to know!
Why? Because the privacy rights of officers is more important than your safety and feeling of security.
It might have all been something akin to a circle jerk for the involved anonymous parties but it was no joke to me.
None of these individuals had the gonads to use their real names and actually gonads is probably the best word to use and not just for the again anonymous individuals who posted violent sexual fantasies or that they were ejaculating on their keyboards. These individuals could be anyone. They are faceless cowards, probably getting off on scaring me and making me fear shadows. And what was just as odious were those individuals including law enforcement officers who no doubt silently read these comments when they were being written probably getting their rocks off of it because they hate me so much.
So how do you come to terms with that kind of hatred? You really can't do much about what other people think, feel and fear. What you can do is work harder for the changes that some individuals clearly don't want to take place. But, what you'll find is that there are those probably many more who do want change. There are more who don't engage in this behavior. That reality probably infuriates the minority who do, more than anything else.
I have never asked an officer in any agency where he and she has lived. On the other hand, I have had officers come up to me and ask me if I live in a particular neighborhood including two during a two-day period last summer, who asked me if I lived such and such because another officer had told them so. Naturally, they wouldn't name that officer who told them this. Maybe they didn't actually know. Maybe it had traveled through a series of officers far removed from its original source like the childhood game of "telephone". It's not like that has never happened either.
I was walking past the Orange Street station in 2005 and saw a very short officer with a blue baseball hat look at me, then tall bald officer turn around and look at me and by the time I had walked the 100 feet or so to pass them, tall bald officer was walking parallel to me for several steps glaring angrily before returning to where short officer with a blue baseball cap was standing. It makes you kind of wonder what the short officer with a blue baseball cap told the tall, bald and then angry police officer but given that the tall, bald and now angry officer was expressionless only 30 seconds before, obviously he had said something that the tall, bald and now angry officer didn't like and since the behavor was briefly directed at me, it probably was about me.
What can you do? Shrug and say, well I guess this is what the gossip mill looks like in action and that it's not just about you, it's more about the changes that they don't want that they think you represent. The author of the above comment pretty much states that in the mantra that all the public cares about is X, Y and Z. So basically, leave us alone to our own behavior and stop making us change.
I don't think where an officer lives is my business and I don't care to know. But the police chief once joked that 90% of the 80% of them lived in one particular neighborhood and that's probably the only neighborhood in Riverside I've never been to and will likely never go to.
Even though other publications including the Press Enterprise yesterday morning have mentioned where a former officer has lived and I wonder if that reporter received a similar diatribe from the above anonymous individual about revealing that officer's city of residence. Somehow, I doubt it. Yes, I really do. But then again, maybe the rule is different for female officers than male ones. Maybe it's different for writers who are backed by major corporations.
As far as "personal information", I have had people who worked in local businesses and other people ask me whether or not personal information including whether or not I was abused as a child was true. One told people because I was critical of police, I was responsible for all the crime in Riverside. Why were the people in the neighborhood asking? Because an officer or officers had told them these things while speaking with them. How does one respond when the person who has provided the false information is wearing a uniform and driving a police car? I spent at least two years addressing similar rumors like this one where I lived, possibly spread by police officers who worked there if what I was told is true. It's not easy to explain to a person that just because an officer is supposed to be an honest, truth-telling person that this isn't always the case. But their uniform gave these particular officers a credibility they didn't deserve and their actions paint others that they work with who do not behave in this fashion in a bad light.
Do the vast majority of police officers behave in this fashion? No they don't. There are many good, professonal individuals who do their jobs including in Riverside's police department and would never hold the expectation of 100% loyalty no questions asked over the heads of those they protect and serve. A lot of them are nice and hard-working people who want to see their police department be the best it can be and seem to enjoy working towards that goal. It's really rewarding to see them work through this process as they have been doing. It's too bad that those who don't want progress can't be inspired to work alongside them, but it is what it is. But the people who embrace change in the new Riverside Police Department sure seem a lot happier and more engergized than those remaining who don't.
And I've had a lot of good conversations with officers including about issues in this blog. Which is good because among other things, issues I didn't know much about, I've been able to learn and write about. It's those conversations among with those with other people that have made blogging worthwhile. It is also conversations like these that cause the rants of unidentified jerks like the ones I've seen become less relevant except to provide opportunities for discussions on issues.
The department has come a tremendous distance, which no doubt has individuals either in the department or perhaps public who wish for the "good old days" which are behind this city finally. Somone told me that it's likely that my blog was simply a venue for marginalized individuals who felt alienated by the progress to vent because most of the people around them probably didn't want to hear it anymore. I'm not sure how true that is.
The department also has a ways to go towards progression which is one reason the State Attorney General's office mandated the creation of a five-year blueprint for that progression called the Strategic Plan. But more than a few of those officers and their "loved ones" who find me "disgusting" or worse might be just as antagonistic and hostile towards this progression.
It also reduces the significance of comments written by anonymous people who crawl out from underneath their rocks occasionally to spew like a pus-filled boil, only apparently without the relief that comes when a wound is healing. In a way, they should be pitied.
But they aren't the ones that are being referred to in comments like the ones above, which fire out straw men to avoid dealing with the accountability issues surrounding the law enforcement officers who do engage in this and other types of bad behavior.
So before anyone throws strawmen arguments at me for something I never wrote about the safety and security of officers and their families, all I can say is that there's another side to that and then some.
Former Riverside Police Department officer Laura Digiorgio has been found guilty by a San Bernardino County jury of nine out of 11 counts of fraud, according to the Press Enterprise.
Digiorgio is currently suing the department over a hostile work environment in U.S. District Court.
Beginning this Monday, the Riverside County Superior Court will institute major changes to how it conducts business in hopes of reducing the case backlog in both the civil and criminal divisions.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
The most visible change is a new department in each of the county's largest courthouses -- Riverside, Indio and the Southwest Justice Center in French Valley -- that will review select cases as early as possible to determine if they can be resolved before trial.
To staff each of the new pre-preliminary hearing courts, a judge was taken from a trial department.
"We feel there is greater value for those judges to be working on the settlement of cases rather than being trial judges," Presiding Judge Richard Fields said.
He said the average trial takes about a week of court time. "If they settle one case a week, they have paid for themselves already." Fields said he believes the judges and attorneys they work with will do better than that.
The goal is to "make every appearance in court meaningful," said Assistant Public Defender Robert Willey.
The court also established so-called vertical calendar departments that will handle all the developments in a case except settlement conferences and trials.
Other changes include increasing the number of preliminary hearing courts, where a judge hears testimony, reviews evidence and decides whether a case is worthy of trial.
In Riverside, preliminary hearing departments will go from one to three, with the intention of giving attorneys more time to work the case and talk to defendants.
Dates for preliminary hearings and trials will be tightly controlled. Attorneys seeking delays will have to file documents giving their reasons.
The county has already gone through an arduous and long process trying to address the problems behind the backlog but unless all parties and that includes the Riverside County District Attorney's office takes the situation as one that it takes all parties to address, then any major changes will just be more band-aids in an ongoing crisis.
Cassie MacDuff of the Press Enterprise writes a good column on this ongoing issue and the latest news here.
Better news might lie ahead in the ongoing battle between the freight train companies and the cities over where the two meet, the railroad crossings. This is a serious issue that's been impacting different cities in the Inland Empire including Riverside which lie between the shipping ports of Southern California and the rest of the country where much of the freight that comes abroad is being sent. Estimates are that Riverside's own railroad crossings are blocked up to six hours each day.
The article features a list of all the pertinent crossings in both counties and the bonds set aside to partially pay for the grade separation (either under or over passes) projects for these crossings which will in total, cost much more.
The Press Enterprise Editorial Board admonished the city government in Hemet to be forthcoming about the deal to pay off the departing city manager.
(excerpt)
Given those financial challenges, taxpayers deserve to know how the council justifies spending more than a quarter of a million dollars on a departing city manager. And the council's decision in January to give Davidson a 10 percent pay increase only months after approving layoffs and trimming public services heightens the need for a clear accounting of the council's actions.
Hiding behind confidentiality concerns will not suffice. Davidson's exit creates a large public cost at a time of budgetary distress. The people who will pay that bill should know why that sacrifice is necessary.
Former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona's attorneys are asking a judge to drop most of the charges against Carona.
Black and Missing But Not Forgotton, a site dedicated to bringing attention to Black girls and women who are missing, is blogging about the abduction of three young children by Eddie Harrington, 28 and suicidal. Pictures of Harrington who is their father and the missing children are included with the link as is contact information for the local law enforcement agency if you do see them.
---Legal consultant, Bob Mullally who spent 45 days in jail on federal contempt charges after exposing domestic violence in the Los Angeles Police Department
I received the charming note below by someone who claims to be a new commenter but actually reads like a very familiar old one. This particular one claims to be a "loved one" of a cop who finds me disgusting and not one of the "regular" authors. Which if that's true doesn't exactly narrow it down by much does it?
But I believe that I've read this particular individual's comments before, so it's difficult to buy his current identity any more than his previous ones. And the fixation with my mother's birthing process is getting a bit old. Interestingly enough, the title was "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" which reminded me of the "Mary, Mary" reference of address included in the harassing email sent from some unknown party from you-know-where.
Getting hate comments from nameless people is nothing new and most often, they are of course, anonymous. But out of the ugliness and very often the bizarre nature of many of them, come good opportunities to blog about issues that they perhaps inadvertently raise despite themselves. This latest comment provides one of those opportunities.
Some police officers don't like criticism and the only people they hate worse than the public who does so are their own kind. Which becomes a city like Riverside's business when it pays out a fortune in trial verdicts, settlements and retirements as it has done in the cases of current officer Roger Sutton and former officers, Rene Rodriguez and Christine Keers. Because who ultimately pays for these costs that come from telling racial jokes or scratching "bitch" on some city-owned surface among other behaviors in the workplace?
The public.
And so does the law enforcement agency and its officers who aren't running around doing this type of behavior, because that's money being spent on its behalf so to speak for a problem that doesn't go towards creating a new law enforcement position for example or new equipment. How much does a police officer position cost? How much does a new squad car cost including equipment? How much did paying out the Sutton lawsuit cost, not even including litigation expenses?
The same public that includes most of the individuals mentioned in this comment who apparently according to this person don't believe issues like these are a "great concern". Maybe not in their neck of the woods, perhaps. Maybe it's perhaps because they've essentially written off the individuals who criticize them to the point where they actually believe they don't exist like this individual maybe believes.
But then this person or perhaps someone else argued that only about 12% of the people in Riverside actually supported the Community Police Review Commission in response to news that the majority of the city's voters who participated in the November 2004 voted Measure II into the city's charter. Then of course, it was only a handful of people who wanted to control the police department who cared about the CPRC. That's before this individual expressed their major pique with former councilman, Art Gage who they blamed for the CPRC slipping out of their grasp before they perhaps could properly do away with it.
Another individual, perhaps this one, some time ago tried to raise that same point in another comment about how people were more concerned about whether or not their kids' soccer matches would start on time than how well the police department was doing or something of that nature.
The comment was in response to a blog posting on the Rate My Cop Web site and strategies that law enforcement agencies could use to counter the popularity of sites like this one through strengthening the accountability and effectiveness of their complaint systems as well as instituting effective early warning systems that the public would have confidence in. It's also important for officers to dismantle the codes of silence that are entrenched in probably every law enforcement agency in this country. But these steps are difficult ones to take and see through towards progress and most agencies don't take them seriously let alone the need for them until an outside law enforcement agency pushes them in that direction usually through a court-mandated process.
The posting referred to, included blog articles on the issue which were both pro and con for the site and numerous discussions of the issue drawn along similar lines. But then going back and actually reading the links wouldn't be as much fun as engaging in flinging straw men. So get ready to duck because this unidentified individual is quite good at it.
It's hard to tell from Mary's blog where she stands on personal information on law enforcement being public. It's ludicrous. Can you imagine just because of your job, your personal information being made public?
We all know you hate cops, but are you serious? They have innocent family. What GOOD comes of exposing where they live and all their other personal information? Would you like your family exposed?
You argue that there are domestic violence calls that involve cops. Although it may be more prevalent in this occupation, does that justify COPS being exposed as opposed to other "normal" people?
And, really, is it "a great concern" of the public? HARDLY!
The public wants to be able to call their law enforcement people when the alarm next door goes off, when they hear shots fired, when they think they might have a burglar in their house, a loud party in the neighborhood.
Who are YOU gonna call? A couple of bad apples don't spoil the whole bunch girl!
No, I'm not one of your "usual" commentors - just a loved one of a cop who finds you totally disgusting! Imagine your mother being held to a higher standard than other mothers just because she birthed YOU - then you might understand.
This is all very nice and good and someone got something off of their chest once again, but where in the posting was it written that it was about "exposing" police officers who commit domestic violence? The only reference to domestic violence in this posting was in relation to a tactic used by some of those who engage in it which is to utilize professional databases to do exactly what this person states, "expose" the private information of individuals who may be their victims by exploiting these databases for personal use. The link that related to that reference to domestic violence led straight to a well-known advocacy site for victims of domestic violence committed by law enforcement officers that warns site visitors about this popular tactic.
How that equates to "exposing" officers who commit domestic violence is quite a stretch. Perhaps what is known as an ad hominem argument? Unfortunately, what is often the case is that domestic violence in law enforcement exposes itself both because it's more prevalent and because it involves employees in a public service profession.
The only thing this individual got right is that it is more prevalent in law enforcement officers. This study states up to four times more prevalent in police officers than "normal" people. But this individual provided a good opportunity to discuss this issue which isn't properly handled by too many law enforcement agencies.
Most law enforcement agencies by a narrow margin (around 55% in 2000) have inhouse policies for investigating domestic violence, but many of them don't. Do these agencies offer counseling services either through religious chaplain services and/or psychotherapists? And do these agencies treat officers differently or stigmatize them if they utilize these services? How does a department's culture view it? As a "family matter" or a "private matter", perhaps?
Many investigations involving police officers who engage in domestic violence are already treated much differently than those of "normal" people. How? For one thing, through federal law any person convicted of a DV related felony or misdemeanor is prohibited from owning or possessing firearms for at least a period of time. But many police agencies and police unions want law enforcement officers to be the exception to a law that was set up to protect the victims of domestic violence from further violence. They want law enforcement officers who are convicted of DV related crimes to be able to keep their weapons. That's probably not a situation that leaves their victims feeling safer but then the concerns of these particular victims are secondary.
Police officers are treated differently because even if they are convicted of DV crimes, they can remain employed by law enforcement agencies even as they go out and arrest or investigate others for crimes related to domestic violence. In some agencies up to 1-2% or perhaps greater of their officers can be convicted of DV related crimes.
Several years ago, the poor handling of inhouse domestic violence by the Los Angeles Police Department was exposed to the world but the only person who did time was the individual who exposed it although his time was reduced by an appellate court.
(excerpt)
“From day one, I’ve said that it’s a tragedy that Bob Mullally is the one being punished here, when none of the criminal officers he exposed were ever prosecuted, or even arrested.”
---Katherine Spillar, executive director Feminist Majority Foundation
The thing is, that often enough domestic violence done by police officers does become a public issue. It became a public issue in Tacoma, Washington when then Chief David Brame shot his wife, Crystal Judson and then himself in a public parking lot. He died pretty quickly while Crystal lingered in a coma for a period of time. The aftershocks of that one incident which was built on top of a series of blunders, mishaps and coverups and then on that fateful day, collapsed like a house of cards, still reverberate years later. The only positive aspect of that horrible tragedy is that the changes that could have saved a life were finally instituted after it had been taken. Often that's how it goes with reform because of the blue wall.
Then there's Drew Peterson, the now former sergeant in the small suburb of Bolingbrook who has had one wife, Stacey disappear without a trace on Oct. 28, 2007 and another wife, Kathleen Savio, exhumed for a second autopsy which revealed that rather than accidentally drowning in an empty bathtub as assumed in 2004, instead she was murdered. Both these two women expressed the fears to other parties before their disappearance and death that something awful would happen to them. Peterson's second wife reported being stalked by her ex-husband and incidentally, one of her boyfriends was murdered too. Peterson's antics before the spotlight that's surrounded him since has shocked many of those who have been exposed to it including John Walsh, who hosts America's Most Wanted and did a feature on Peterson's wives.
Incidentally, Peterson himself was investigated for violating his department's policy of using professional databases for personal use.
Then there's former Canton Police Department officer Bobby Cutts, jr. who was recently convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend and several incidents that recently took place involving off-duty law enforcement officers spraying bullets in attempts to get even with ex-girlfriends for dumping them including Wisconsin deputy, Tyler Peterson who killed six people in a shooting spree including an ex-girlfriend. Peterson, 20, had been employed not by one but two law enforcement agencies without the benefit of any psychological testing because the state of Wisconsin didn't require any to be done. No doubt things will be different now on that front.
Not to mention the New York City Police Department officer who murdered his fiancee after she tried to press him on a wedding date and then blamed his own actions on two Black men. It turned out that his own academy instructor had tried to throw him out of his training class about one year earlier because of a pattern of bad and disruptive behavior but was overruled by his supervisors.
Not to mention one man who was appointed as interim chief of the trouble-plagued Maywood Police Department despite a history which included a domestic violence prosecution among other problems. Oops, and he was gone replaced by another convicted criminal, albeit a thief.
Then is there a correlation between officers who engage in domestic violence in the home and excessive force on the streets? Here is one place that question is being asked. If that's the case that there's a correlation between these two types of excessive force, that wouldn't be very surprising because it would likely indicate an individual who uses force to dominate a situation or a person on and off the job. But if this is the case, then it becomes an issue of public concern as well as an issue of civic liability for the city or county that employs that law enforcement officer. Some experts have used both issues to determine whether there's a gender gap in use of excessive force by officers.
More information about DV involving law enforcement officers is below.
Abuse of Power
Purple Berets
Center of Women and Policing's study on the prevalence of law enforcement DV in relation to general population
Behind the Blue Wall (an excellent online resource on past and ongoing DV cases involving law enforcement and related issues)
Straw man statement number two, which is the following.
We all know you hate cops, but are you serious? They have innocent family. What GOOD comes of exposing where they live and all their other personal information? Would you like your family exposed?
It's not clear where this was pulled out. But since this anonymous "loved one" of a cop who finds me totally disgusting asked, I can answer that question in a different way that perhaps they can understand?
It's interesting that this anonymous person would ask this as if I had no knowledge of what this was about, but I do know. And here are some questions back.
How would you like your family or yourself harassed and threatened by anonymous cowards because you have criticized law enforcement? How would you like filthy comments written about your mother's uterus pecked off of some keyboard because you criticize law enforcement officers? I find these references to my mother birthing me that keep popping up somewhat sick.
My mother, a loved one, wants me to get two or three deadbolts on my front door and to always look through the peephole when someone knocks. Not because she's worried about criminals, but because she's worried about rogue police officers.
So this is an issue I understand quite well because there's some sociopaths out there whoever or whatever they are, who made damned clear that they want me to felt too intimidated and scared to write here, write anywhere and speak out anywhere. Needless to say, I don't go very many places where I don't look over my shoulder for that individual or individuals who's watching me or maybe following me to see what I'm wearing, when so they can spin it into something very disturbing and sick. Whether it's walking down the street or appearing at a city council meeting, which of course is televised.
If it makes you feel more good or more manly to say I hate cops, fine. That's been a useful salve for more individuals than you know. It's also intended to stop someone from speaking out because being called a "cop hater" is supposed to be akin to being called a communist or an "anti-American". The thing is, after the first hundred times or so it starts to lose its impact or its thrust. The other thing, is that I don't hate police officers but that's irrelevant to these folks as well.
And that's not really what it's about anyway.
What it's about is what's called the "all or nothing" rule. The way some police officers obviously see it is that you support them 100% of the time no questions asked or you hate them. It's also called the "you are for us or against us" rule, which is one of the defining laws of their culture. There's no middle ground for these police officers and their "loved ones" like the alleged one above. That applies double among their own ranks as many an officer going back to Frank Serpico and probably before him discovered soon enough when they broke the code and didn't stay on the right side of "us".
I learned fairly early on what happens if you criticize the police about anything. And that includes being interviewed by the federal investigators some years back. Two days after that supposedly private interview, I walked outside City Hall past two police officers with one of them saying out loud enough for me to hear him.
"I'd better not say anything to her or I might get into trouble."
I don't imagine any officers in this department felt comfortable even talking to the same investigators because perhaps they feared retaliation. It was the time to stand up and say something but that's not the easiest thing to do, to step outside of a police culture and tell the truth about what's going on within your ranks. It was only later that State Attorney General Bill Lockyer told the city council that there were Black and Latino officers within the department who would testify and the promise of that apparently was intended to serve as leverage for the settlement which would end with the stipulated judgment in 2001. But the state apparently was also willing to offer something that the federal investigators may have not offered and that's whistle blower protection.
Such status was in fact awarded under the first mandated action in the judgment which was to expunge the personnel record of then Lt. Jim Cannon of a letter of reprimand he had received when he apparently provided information about an investigation involving another whistle blower, former officer Rene Rodriguez to outside parties.
Last year, Cannon quietly retired from the department a captain after over 30 years of service without even looking back. Without even wanting to celebrate his tenure with a party with his colleagues. Another high-ranking man of color who left the agency after being eligible for the 3% at 50 retirement for all their years of service. Where White officers often stay longer, men of color don't seem to do so.
There have been some rather interesting if unsettling interactions.
Some years ago, I once had an anonymous phone caller claiming to be a retired Riverside Police Department officer who was teaching at Ben Clark Training Center who called up the community college newspaper and left a diatribe several minutes long on the answering machine. During his speech, he called the editor and chief by his first name throughout and over and over saying that I hated cops, about a dozen times interspersed with his general commentary including this mantra about how we were being "watched" and "monitored" and that he and his friends had gone to the Board of Trustees to shut the publication down though naturally, that was news to several Board of Trustee members.
The editor in chief was shocked. The advisor wanted to call the FBI. I just shrugged. Just another day.
This unidentified individual who left this comment above made some remarks that implied heavily that I had engaged in this activity myself. When in my experience it's been very much the other way around.
It's not just law enforcement officers who have to worry about reading personal information about themselves online including that which is fabricated. And before the internet became so popular, there was still the spoken word, meaning the police officers who would complain about those who criticize them to anyone who will listen including community members.
Ever since I first started becoming involved in issues of police reform, that has been something that I've had to deal with and when it's law enforcement officers who are mentioned as the sources of such remarks, it's much more difficult than it is when it's a "normal" person who's doing it. Why? Because there's this assumption that with the badge and uniform, that honesty and truthfulness come with it, which isn't always the case at least all the time. That assumption isn't quite the same and certainly not taken for granted with "normal" people.
Let's see if I can recall all the times on my own site that anonymous individuals made references to where I lived.
The first reference was some comment about hoping that I would in a "beautiful example of poetic justice" be the victim of a violent crime "in the 'U' where you lived". Or better yet, a loved one of mine. This was written by an individual who called himself, "Kevin, R.P.D.". It unnerved me quite a bit but some people told me that I should be worried that this person was indeed a police officer who would have a parolee do harm to me or a family member. Most likely he was pimping crime victims to justify his own online behavior much like another anonymous commenter would do so when calling on people to blame me for the death of a 10-year-old boy in 2005 to counter his own feelings of discomfort that his behavior wasn't seen by others the same way that he saw it.
Another unidentified individual using a moniker stated in a comment in May 2006 that I lived in an apartment near UCR. Yet another one stated in the autumn of 2006 that they couldn't say where they were from because Internal Affairs was always watching but that the only thing that mattered was "your name is Mary Shelton and you live in the Eastside".
Unfortunately, I had a car that hit my garage where I do live which did about $3,300 worth of damage to it before taking off without leaving even a note two days after that anonymous posting was left. If this individual hadn't stated that I had lived some place else than I do, I would have probably assumed that the two incidents were possibly related. But when you have individuals who write some of the cruel and sick stuff that I've read while either representing themselves or misrepresenting themselves as law enforcement officers, you can never be entirely sure and comfortable enough in your mind that these types of incidents aren't related. There's never that small amount of peace of mind.
And as for calling the police? If you had an individual who "prayed" for harm to come to your family calling himself a Riverside Police Department officer or another individual claiming he was a police officer with the same agency ranting about how he enjoyed watching you burst into tears out of fear at a city council meeting while speaking about a posting written by again, an anonymous individual who posted where you were when and what you were wearing, would you call them if you didn't know who these individuals could be and who they worked for? And because of state laws passed to protect peace officers, if any are identified as employees, you're not even allowed to know!
Why? Because the privacy rights of officers is more important than your safety and feeling of security.
It might have all been something akin to a circle jerk for the involved anonymous parties but it was no joke to me.
None of these individuals had the gonads to use their real names and actually gonads is probably the best word to use and not just for the again anonymous individuals who posted violent sexual fantasies or that they were ejaculating on their keyboards. These individuals could be anyone. They are faceless cowards, probably getting off on scaring me and making me fear shadows. And what was just as odious were those individuals including law enforcement officers who no doubt silently read these comments when they were being written probably getting their rocks off of it because they hate me so much.
So how do you come to terms with that kind of hatred? You really can't do much about what other people think, feel and fear. What you can do is work harder for the changes that some individuals clearly don't want to take place. But, what you'll find is that there are those probably many more who do want change. There are more who don't engage in this behavior. That reality probably infuriates the minority who do, more than anything else.
I have never asked an officer in any agency where he and she has lived. On the other hand, I have had officers come up to me and ask me if I live in a particular neighborhood including two during a two-day period last summer, who asked me if I lived such and such because another officer had told them so. Naturally, they wouldn't name that officer who told them this. Maybe they didn't actually know. Maybe it had traveled through a series of officers far removed from its original source like the childhood game of "telephone". It's not like that has never happened either.
I was walking past the Orange Street station in 2005 and saw a very short officer with a blue baseball hat look at me, then tall bald officer turn around and look at me and by the time I had walked the 100 feet or so to pass them, tall bald officer was walking parallel to me for several steps glaring angrily before returning to where short officer with a blue baseball cap was standing. It makes you kind of wonder what the short officer with a blue baseball cap told the tall, bald and then angry police officer but given that the tall, bald and now angry officer was expressionless only 30 seconds before, obviously he had said something that the tall, bald and now angry officer didn't like and since the behavor was briefly directed at me, it probably was about me.
What can you do? Shrug and say, well I guess this is what the gossip mill looks like in action and that it's not just about you, it's more about the changes that they don't want that they think you represent. The author of the above comment pretty much states that in the mantra that all the public cares about is X, Y and Z. So basically, leave us alone to our own behavior and stop making us change.
I don't think where an officer lives is my business and I don't care to know. But the police chief once joked that 90% of the 80% of them lived in one particular neighborhood and that's probably the only neighborhood in Riverside I've never been to and will likely never go to.
Even though other publications including the Press Enterprise yesterday morning have mentioned where a former officer has lived and I wonder if that reporter received a similar diatribe from the above anonymous individual about revealing that officer's city of residence. Somehow, I doubt it. Yes, I really do. But then again, maybe the rule is different for female officers than male ones. Maybe it's different for writers who are backed by major corporations.
As far as "personal information", I have had people who worked in local businesses and other people ask me whether or not personal information including whether or not I was abused as a child was true. One told people because I was critical of police, I was responsible for all the crime in Riverside. Why were the people in the neighborhood asking? Because an officer or officers had told them these things while speaking with them. How does one respond when the person who has provided the false information is wearing a uniform and driving a police car? I spent at least two years addressing similar rumors like this one where I lived, possibly spread by police officers who worked there if what I was told is true. It's not easy to explain to a person that just because an officer is supposed to be an honest, truth-telling person that this isn't always the case. But their uniform gave these particular officers a credibility they didn't deserve and their actions paint others that they work with who do not behave in this fashion in a bad light.
Do the vast majority of police officers behave in this fashion? No they don't. There are many good, professonal individuals who do their jobs including in Riverside's police department and would never hold the expectation of 100% loyalty no questions asked over the heads of those they protect and serve. A lot of them are nice and hard-working people who want to see their police department be the best it can be and seem to enjoy working towards that goal. It's really rewarding to see them work through this process as they have been doing. It's too bad that those who don't want progress can't be inspired to work alongside them, but it is what it is. But the people who embrace change in the new Riverside Police Department sure seem a lot happier and more engergized than those remaining who don't.
And I've had a lot of good conversations with officers including about issues in this blog. Which is good because among other things, issues I didn't know much about, I've been able to learn and write about. It's those conversations among with those with other people that have made blogging worthwhile. It is also conversations like these that cause the rants of unidentified jerks like the ones I've seen become less relevant except to provide opportunities for discussions on issues.
The department has come a tremendous distance, which no doubt has individuals either in the department or perhaps public who wish for the "good old days" which are behind this city finally. Somone told me that it's likely that my blog was simply a venue for marginalized individuals who felt alienated by the progress to vent because most of the people around them probably didn't want to hear it anymore. I'm not sure how true that is.
The department also has a ways to go towards progression which is one reason the State Attorney General's office mandated the creation of a five-year blueprint for that progression called the Strategic Plan. But more than a few of those officers and their "loved ones" who find me "disgusting" or worse might be just as antagonistic and hostile towards this progression.
It also reduces the significance of comments written by anonymous people who crawl out from underneath their rocks occasionally to spew like a pus-filled boil, only apparently without the relief that comes when a wound is healing. In a way, they should be pitied.
But they aren't the ones that are being referred to in comments like the ones above, which fire out straw men to avoid dealing with the accountability issues surrounding the law enforcement officers who do engage in this and other types of bad behavior.
So before anyone throws strawmen arguments at me for something I never wrote about the safety and security of officers and their families, all I can say is that there's another side to that and then some.
Former Riverside Police Department officer Laura Digiorgio has been found guilty by a San Bernardino County jury of nine out of 11 counts of fraud, according to the Press Enterprise.
Digiorgio is currently suing the department over a hostile work environment in U.S. District Court.
Beginning this Monday, the Riverside County Superior Court will institute major changes to how it conducts business in hopes of reducing the case backlog in both the civil and criminal divisions.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
The most visible change is a new department in each of the county's largest courthouses -- Riverside, Indio and the Southwest Justice Center in French Valley -- that will review select cases as early as possible to determine if they can be resolved before trial.
To staff each of the new pre-preliminary hearing courts, a judge was taken from a trial department.
"We feel there is greater value for those judges to be working on the settlement of cases rather than being trial judges," Presiding Judge Richard Fields said.
He said the average trial takes about a week of court time. "If they settle one case a week, they have paid for themselves already." Fields said he believes the judges and attorneys they work with will do better than that.
The goal is to "make every appearance in court meaningful," said Assistant Public Defender Robert Willey.
The court also established so-called vertical calendar departments that will handle all the developments in a case except settlement conferences and trials.
Other changes include increasing the number of preliminary hearing courts, where a judge hears testimony, reviews evidence and decides whether a case is worthy of trial.
In Riverside, preliminary hearing departments will go from one to three, with the intention of giving attorneys more time to work the case and talk to defendants.
Dates for preliminary hearings and trials will be tightly controlled. Attorneys seeking delays will have to file documents giving their reasons.
The county has already gone through an arduous and long process trying to address the problems behind the backlog but unless all parties and that includes the Riverside County District Attorney's office takes the situation as one that it takes all parties to address, then any major changes will just be more band-aids in an ongoing crisis.
Cassie MacDuff of the Press Enterprise writes a good column on this ongoing issue and the latest news here.
Better news might lie ahead in the ongoing battle between the freight train companies and the cities over where the two meet, the railroad crossings. This is a serious issue that's been impacting different cities in the Inland Empire including Riverside which lie between the shipping ports of Southern California and the rest of the country where much of the freight that comes abroad is being sent. Estimates are that Riverside's own railroad crossings are blocked up to six hours each day.
The article features a list of all the pertinent crossings in both counties and the bonds set aside to partially pay for the grade separation (either under or over passes) projects for these crossings which will in total, cost much more.
The Press Enterprise Editorial Board admonished the city government in Hemet to be forthcoming about the deal to pay off the departing city manager.
(excerpt)
Given those financial challenges, taxpayers deserve to know how the council justifies spending more than a quarter of a million dollars on a departing city manager. And the council's decision in January to give Davidson a 10 percent pay increase only months after approving layoffs and trimming public services heightens the need for a clear accounting of the council's actions.
Hiding behind confidentiality concerns will not suffice. Davidson's exit creates a large public cost at a time of budgetary distress. The people who will pay that bill should know why that sacrifice is necessary.
Former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona's attorneys are asking a judge to drop most of the charges against Carona.
Black and Missing But Not Forgotton, a site dedicated to bringing attention to Black girls and women who are missing, is blogging about the abduction of three young children by Eddie Harrington, 28 and suicidal. Pictures of Harrington who is their father and the missing children are included with the link as is contact information for the local law enforcement agency if you do see them.
Labels: battering while blue, corruption 101, judicial watch, mail call, public forums in all places
posted by Five Before Midnight | 8:38 AM
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