Clash of the Titans: The Ethics Review Committee Heads to Governmental Affairs

UPDATE: Jockeys Brawl highlights beginning of Breeder's Cup two-days of racing. Jockeys exchanges fists in winner's circle after first race and jockey room later cleared...




UPDATE: Community Police Review Commission finally posts the investigative report on the Fernando Luis Sanchez Officer Involved Death case after attempts made by Interim Manager Mario Luna to block it as being "outside the scope". View the formerly blocked report completed by Martinelli and Associates. Martinelli has a list of concerns and questions raised about the investigation conducted by the Riverside Police Department including the handling and forensic evidence collection from the handgun and issues with the audio and video recordings obtained, not to mention the two year delay in investigation.




UPDATE: Panel set to interview finalists for CPRC manager position all day today, Thursday, Nov. 4.






"Bell took the lead but we followed."


---Human Resource Board member, Jackie Rawlings during the discussion on the ethics review committee meetings





[The "Three Amigos" as they're called who serve as the management team in the Riverside Police Department have been showing up at public forums to solicit input for the upcoming Strategic Plan bringing some very different styles of conducting meetings.]






The Riverside Police Department has been conducting its public forums on the upcoming strategic plan, two per neighborhood policing center, and have hit eight different venues. Two more forums will be added this month as the police department will also present and receive input at events to be scheduled at Nichols Park and the California School for the Deaf. It's been interesting to watch the very different meetings having attended four of them especially when different individuals from the management team lead them.

Asst. Chief Chris Vicino from the Pasadena Police Department has a more forceful style and appears to try to control the direction of the meetings including while receiving input much more so than Chief Sergio Diaz who actually says very little but does listen carefully to what people are saying which is an important quality in a police chief. Vicino might watch and learn from that considering that of all the management team members, he's viewed the most as a "short timer" meaning he's here to glean experience as a management team member in hopes of parlaying it into a chief's job in his future. He's got a vibrant personality which can be important as well and clearly has a background in strategic planning but with two interim chief stints in his background the guy clearly wants to be chief. Still, he's got some learning to do and this job will provide him with that ample opportunity in spades as well the residents of this city as well as the employees inside his agency.

Because Vicino apparently didn't win many points when he appeared at roll call after being hired and telling police officers there it was time for them to return to work. As if they had ever left work during the tumultuous months that led to and preceded Vicino's arrival. No actually, the police department was still running that entire time and the majority of employees were still doing their jobs in a professional and very effective manner even though there are fewer of them than there should be. It could have been different than that as Vicino probably knows but most of the upheaval at the department in terms of job performance during the first half of 2010 was at its top and at City Hall. Vicino's got talent and he's smart and actually a quick learner on some fronts but he still has to do quite a bit of learning coming into an agency much different than his last haunt. Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer's softer in his approach, sometimes engaging in the "well at the [insert name of department] we did it this way" but actually he's the one to watch especially if Vicino does take another job within a year or two. He's doing the most of what's important at these forums and that's listening to the input which is critical in his role of overseeing field operations and investigations. It's always the quiet ones you've got to watch.

Deputy Chief Mike Blakely's been sitting and listening at the forums as well and he's clearly enjoying the interplay between city residents and the management team. He's watching it all very carefully, always the consummate chess player that he's proven to be.

Diaz hasn't been an interim chief but he can direct the solicitation of input at a public forum without running it. And that's what works for many different people which is why the flow of information at the forum he directed in Casa Blanca had a different feel and yet gleaned out quite a bit of information than some of the earlier ones.

Sgt. Jaybee Brennan did really well at imparting what's essentially her work product in front of the different groups in the different venues. She had worked for months on the Plan while holding three different positions in the Chief's office and was in her second round of being involved in the information solicitation process after what took place earlier this year. She had been shipped to patrol by former Acting Chief John DeLaRosa in the heels of Sgt. Lisa Williams who went back to patrol after her assignment in Communications was transferred from the Chief's office to the Personnel Division. Her successor, Sgt. Dan Hoxmeier was taken off the #2 spot on the lieutenant's list and promoted to lieutenant by Diaz before being assigned to be area commander of NPC Central. Hoxmeier has played an active role at outreaching to residents in his NPC to attend meetings and had attended the first public forum in the Eastside to get a feel for the process before holding meetings in his own area.

Originally it appears that Brennan wasn't even supposed to be at the public forums because she's now a patrol sergeant but she has appeared at the meetings to present on her work product. She went from being omitted from introductions at the first meeting to being mentioned by Vicino as his "partner" in the process. It's very unlikely that Vicino, the new architect of the plan will be redrafting it without her assistance due to her greater familiarity with the history and the process itself. A draft of the latest Strategic Plan had already been written last spring and it will be interesting to see how that version factors into that issued by Vicino and Diaz. But it will be clear when examining the final product, who wrote what so hopefully everyone's contributions will be properly attributed.

It's like a page out of corporate America and it will be interesting to see if it plays out that way as time goes by.

But Brennan's had to be a good sport with being the only officer not introduced at the beginning of the forum at the Caesar Chavez Community Center and then at the forum held at the NPC North at the Marriott Hotel, being referred to by her first name while the male officers were referred to by their rank and surnames. Two women walked out of that forum in protest because both of the behaviors that Brennan experienced are what many women refer to as "dog whistles". A term which is used because the user of such a whistle doesn't hear the sound he or she's making nor do most people, only the dogs that the whistle is designed to alert can hear it. Hence "dog whistles" are more subtle signs of sexist behavior (which the above is, intentional or not) are often missed by anyone except the women in the room.

Something for the department's male management team to keep in mind when engaging in discourse including in public venues.

But with two additional forums being added, the second round of soliciting public input is still continuing but it's been an interesting process to participate in and witness so far. What's going to be done with the ideas presented (which actually closely mirror those in the original court-mandate Strategic Plan) remains to be seen of course as the process is still in its earlier stages once again.

Human Resources Board Grapples with Identity Again

[The Human Resources Board now chaired by Ellie Bennett wrestles with some identity issues at its most recent meeting.]



In the wake of a contentious process hearing its first employee grievance in hears, the Human Resources Board was left feeling that this process needed to be changed which might take place after the Board undergoes its debriefing on it at next month's meeting ir even later after as one board member put it, key players in the process have some time to cool off after another board member said that personal attacks were made during the open deliberation process on the grievance.

Many of its five members who showed up at the Nov. 1 meeting barely making quorum were also discussing what their role would be, whether they would continue with the status quo or make changes to their operations. This arose after a showdown between the Board and City Manager Brad Hudson took place after members of the panel were concerned about the spree of retirements and resignations in the city's Development Department especially of older employees including those who were female. The rate had apparently increased after current director, Deanna Lorson took over the reins. The members decided they wanted a face to face meeting with Lorson and Hudson initially sent a directive towards conduit, Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout but when pressed, did appear at a meeting earlier this year. In a roundabout way, he nixed their request and then rerouted quite skillfully into reexamining the Human Resources Board's mission while making it appear as if it were the Board's idea.

The panelists did that for a little while and the discussion died for a while with summer holidays and grievance hearings but at the last meeting, it once again appeared on the forefront of discussion. But what they need to realize if they don't already is that their panel is just one of several being manipulated by the Seventh Floor of City Hall, along with the Human Relations Commission (which can't even agendize its own meetings without being muzzled by the city attorney's office) and of course, the Community Police Review Committee which has been manipulated by a cast of characters, most lately by interim manager, Mario Lara who's clearly getting his marching orders from someone outside of it.

Commissioner Bob Gordon expressed his frustration with the process of dealing with elements in the city, talking about the lack of transparency.


"We get some transparency," he said, "The door shuts again."




The Human Resources Board had written several unanswered letters to the city council and mayor after being blocked in various areas of doing its job by Hudson and City Attorney Gregory Priamos. Gordon also commented on how it took over a year after they requested the statistics on the retention of female officers in the police department before former Chief Russ Leach showed up in the autumn of 2009 to present on this issue. One commissioner said that the Board needed to have a meet and greet with Chief Sergio Diaz although another said that December might be too early for the new chief to be prepared to present on the police department

Chair Ellie Bennett said that she was concerned about the dynamics of City Hall involving their board as well.



"I don't think we're being heard," she said.




Commissioner Art Butler said he was offended by the control of the grievance processes by some high ranking city employees. while Erin House said he wanted to move toward restoring the investigative powers by the Board which were revoked by the city council about five years ago but wasn't sure how they should do this. It's a good guess if the Board tries to do that, then elements in City Hall will try to stonewall it. Because it often appears that those at the top of the food chain simply want boards and commissions which are window dressing and don't actually do very much. Even as quite a few labor grievances and lawsuits have been filed against the city including by employees in the police department but then the more serious an issue is including those which impact the self-insured city's risk of civil liability, the more watered down the relevant mechanisms of civilian oversight become.

Expect the same with the Human Resources Board which had a pretty active and even proactive year in 2009 but City Hall has reacted and is in the process of pushing it back in its little corner again. It remains to be seen whether the board will allow itself to be subjected to that so easily. There are a mixture of personalities on the panel which should make for an interesting few months watching the board struggle to redefine itself, a mission assigned it mostly to keep it caught up in that so that it can't be spending time doing what it needs to do.

Councilman Steve Adams Ethic Complaint Hearing Rescheduled

[Riverside City Councilman Steve Adams gets a brief reprieve as his ethics complaint hearing was rescheduled away from Election Day to Nov. 10.]




[The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee won't be hearing the complaint against Councilman Steve Adams (center) an elected official most of its members have already endorsed for reelection, until next week.]





The ethics complaint filed by the La Sierra/Arlanza Neighborhood Alliance was originally to have been heard on Election Day but some of the people wanted to changed to another date and at first Mayor Ron Loveridge apparently was a bit stubborn and didn't want to do that but on the day before, an email was circulated to select people by City Hall that the complaint's appearance in front of the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee would be canceled and rescheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 10 at 1 p.m. in the Mayor's Ceremonial Room.


It should be quite the happening event to listen to some elected officials pretend to be unbiased about an ethics complaint involving a councilman most of them already endorsed for reelection. Interesting indeed. But what this sham of an ethics complaint hearing process will most amply show is how ineffective the "fox guarding the hen house" process (as called by one ethics review committee member) has been and hit home the message that a more independent and outside hearing process is sorely needed.

But one of the happening events of all will be the Government Affairs Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 3 when the committee will be meeting to hear and discuss recommendations from the Ethics Code Committee which was created by the city council to examine the process further.

Will City Hall Shut Down Committee's Recommendation for an Independent Hearing Panel on Ethics Complaints?

[The Ethics Code Review Committee met three times to try to discuss and whip out some recommendations to improve the Ethics Code and Complaint system which will be heard by the Governmental Affairs Committee. ]



The Ethics Committee which had been meeting decided that the ethics complaints should be heard by an independent panel and will include this in their recommendations to the Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Nov. 3. This should be the most happening meeting held at City Hall all week and it will be interesting to see what the reaction to the committee's work product will be by the initial committee of city officials who will receive the recommendations and of course comment on them. But will they endorse them to the full city council or will they reject them? Particularly the already publicized recommendation that an independent and outside panel hear and decide on ethics complaints filed against elected officials. This has already been recommended time and time again by city residents including members of the Group and other organizations and it's been rejected by city government in what's turned into an annual exercise of doing so including when the ethics code and complaint process came up for its annual review in September by both the Governmental Affairs Committee and the city council and mayor. The city government flipped its vote the previous years and voted to strike the so-called "24/7" language and for some officials, that vote was clearly more painful than for others.

The members had ultimately decided at the third meeting that the assignment given to it by the city council was just too hefty to be done in three weeks which is precisely why they were given that window of time in hopes that they would spend most of the time (of what was originally only two meetings) engaging in preamble and explanations rather than in discussing the focal issues involving the Ethics Code and Complaint process which is probably one of the most derailed charter amendments passed by city voters in recent history. So it's going to apparently recommend to the Governmental Affairs Committee that another panel be created to flesh out the issues in greater detail.

The Code is weak and the process of hearing complaints was pretty much a joke back when the city council and the mayor decided to have themselves hear and deliberate and ultimately decide on ethics complaints involving its own members. The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee was assigned this role and then if that weren't enough of a conflict of interest, City Hall figured out how to derail the majority of ethics complaints involving elected officials from even reaching its own committee. It did this by funneling complaints not to the appropriate venue (according to the Code's resolution) but to the City Attorney's office for final arbitration by a city employee outside the transparent process required by the resolution. But then it's amazing how commissions get caught violating their own bylaws, city governments violate municipal ordinances as clearly happened in this case with written documentation and sometimes one wonders if the city charter itself is even worth the paper it's written on.


The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee shouldn't be hearing these complaints for two reasons, one that every single complaint filed against one of its members has involved a councilman serving on this Committee at the time and two, most of the members of the Committee including those substituted in to address the first reason have already endorsed the elected official subjected to the complaint for reelection. So everyone but the city council and mayor apparently know this is a joke. But will the legislative body still treat it as an unacceptable option even as many city residents are more interested in farming the complaint process outside the city government. Will these voices be heard and will the response be to take action to accept this recommendation voiced over and over again in different venues? If not, hopefully the city officials won't recycle the same tired old excuses that they've been tossing out at earlier review meetings.




[Councilman Paul Davis circulated a survey to his constituents on the ethics code and process and everyone of the over 100 people who responded believed that the city government officials shouldn't be deciding complaints filed against them.]



Every person of the over 100 constituents that responded to a survey for information circulated by Councilman Paul Davis said that the complaints involving elected officials should go to an independent and outside panel consisting of people not holding elected office at City Hall. The committee appointed by the city council to examine the process came to the same conclusion but again, so have most reasonable people even as that recommendation goes ignored by the city government on an annual basis.

But the election cycle is coming up for four councilmen with the first (and possibly final) round of voting to take place by mail in early June and the upcoming election is on the mind of many of the incumbents especially considering the past year of scandals that have rocked City Hall as behavior that had been going on for years by those at the top of the police department and City Hall finally brought the house of cards that it had built crashing down and the city's still feeling the aftershocks. That and the fact that Santa Scandal still has some left to pull out of his bag of gifts.

The influx of people leaving city employment have included Leach, several members of the police department's management team and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis (who allegedly left for reasons not directly related to any known scandal) and it's been noticed by most everyone which has brought forth an increased concern and interest in all things dealing with ethics including the tepid ethics code and complaint process. The voters' intent when they passed the charter initiative to create an ethics code and complaint process was clearly watered down by City Hall and what's transpired this year goes a long way towards explaining why. And a lot of these voters will be heading into an election cycle where the fates of four council seats and those who currently occupy them will be decided sometime in 2011. And of the four individuals running for reelection, three of them haven't been particularly progressive on this issue since they landed on the dais.

That and the complete lack of any meaningful response to the scandals that broke involving their direct employees last year except by Adams to dismiss several scandals involving unethical and illegal behavior as "old news" will leave its mark on what will unfold next year at that ultimate ethics complaint hearing process, the polls.

The Other 2011 Election

Already showing some activity is the election that will take place in late 2011 involving the selection of the next Riverside Police Officers' Association president, which serves a two-year term. While it's not known if current president, Cliff Mason plans to run for reelection, a handful of prospective candidates has already surfaced though most of those are still in the soul searching process of considering whether or not to throw their hats in the ring including some blasts from the past both here and in outside law enforcement agencies. If people who are thinking about it, say I'm going to do it, it could be an exciting competition down to the wire.

Although it's customary for people to declare and then withdraw to reduce it to a two-horse race as Det. Gary Toussaint did during the 2009 election cycle to support another candidate, that led to Mason seizing the office by a small margin, it would be interesting if three or more candidates did enter the race. Discussions among prospective candidates thinking about it have already allegedly led to some folks thinking about the vice-presidency race instead of the top spot but there's still plenty of time, over a year left until the election takes place.

At the moment, both the president and vice-president Brian Smith are undergoing their sergeants' nine month probational stints, the first such case in recent history, and the association's operations have been more quiet, in the wake of the stalling of contracts among bargaining units because of the lower fiscal spending budget but there's been focus on the 2010 election with the RPOA endorsing Brian Nestande for assemblyman in the 64th district. Also an issue has been increased filing of labor grievances and lawsuits by different members including former president, Chris Lanzillo who filed two retaliation claims and a lawsuit in U.S. District Court which was just recently settled apparently against the wishes of Diaz. He made some comments in a newspaper article about Lanzillo doing "very bad things" without elaborating and criticizing the city's practice of being "soft" on lawsuits filed by employees by settling them behind closed doors. Allegedly Hudson wasn't too happy about that and Diaz was asked by the one of the union board members for an elaboration on his comments.

But Mason parlayed his win into different directions, earning a spot on the panel to interview and recommend which candidate to hire as the police chief and just recently was promoted back to sergeant only 18 months after his demotion. A phoenix rising from the ashes as some have said showing that always in motion is the future.

Plenty of excitement coming up with the election over a year away and all the candidates, aspiring and otherwise sort themselves out with the finalists racing to the finish line.




The testing processes for sergeant and lieutenants with written and orals is finished with 12 candidates being interviewed making a very long day for panelists who at least were fed. New contenders in the lieutenant's process were sergeants, Gary Toussaint, Christian Dinco and Brian Dailey. The lists for whatever they're worth will be completed in a couple weeks. The last promotion off of an expiring list was Sgt. Hal Webb which took place during an impromtu ceremony in roll call last week.



A proposed land swap could hand Chinatown off to developer and popular election campaign donor Doug Jacobs.



Speaking of land, Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein is asking the city what's up with its planned hotel, the Hyatt?

Public Meetings

Tuesday, Nov. 2 at 3 p.m. only, city council chambers, the city council will hold an abbreviated meeting due to elections to discuss this agenda.



Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 4 p.m. in the Mayor's Ceremonial Room, the Governmental Affairs Committee will discuss this agenda in relation to recommendations submitted by the Ethics Code Review Committee which among other things has recommended having an outside panel hear complaints involving elected officials.

Public Service Announcement

Riverside, CA – The Riverside Police Department has made several arrests involving the theft of mail from residential and United States Postal Service (USPS) collection mail boxes in the City of Riverside. Following these tips will help in reducing the opportunities for these thefts to occur.



Citizens are urged to follow these steps to protect your mail:



· Use the interior mail depositories at your local post office or give your mail to a USPS letter carrier.

· If you must use an exterior USPS box, review the collection times listed on the box and drop your mail as close to the pickup time as possible.

· Empty your personal mail box daily.

· Notify your local USPS office when you will be out of town and have your mail held until you return.

· Promptly notify the USPS when you change your address.



If you are a victim of mail theft, call your local police and notify the United States Postal Inspection Service.

Sparks Fly at the CPRC Meeting and Diaz Promotes in Roll Call

[The Riverside Police Department's Aviation Division receives an award on the 40th anniversary of its service]






[The members of the SWAT Metro team which is partnered with Aviation under Special Operations stand up when introduced by the city council.]



The helicopter pilots, mechanics and their chain of command including Lt. Larry Gonzalez, who heads the SWAT/Aviation Unit, Capt. John Carpenter, who heads Special Operations and Deputy Chief Mike Blakely who oversees administration and personnel along with Chief Sergio Diaz were at the city council meeting which honored the 40th anniversary of the police department's aviation unit.

Police Chief Promotes Another Sergeant

During a roll call session on Wednesday, Oct. 27, Chief Sergio Diaz made allegedly his first appearance since his last round of promotions along with his entire command staff to talk about the retirement of Sgt. Frank Patino which is taking place. After that, Diaz pulled a shield out and promoted long-time patrol and Youth Court officer Hal Webb, an African-American to fill the sergeant's vacancy, perhaps the last promotion involving the soon to expire sergeant's list.

Webb and others allegedly were a bit shocked about the surprise promotion. Webb became after Brian Dodson, the second Black employee to be promoted to the sergeant ranks this year after a drought that lasted since 2006. The promotion came in the wake of a racial lawsuit and retaliation claim filed by Sgt. Val Graham who alleged he had been passed over in the promotional process including by Diaz in July despite placing in the top five on that list.

It was an interesting development as Diaz' tenure is still in its earliest months. The testing process for sergeants and lieutenants has been completed, and the detectives list has been posted. Webb was promoted off of the sergeants list set to expire although he had tested for the process this time along.

Hopefully he will have a public ceremony that his family can attend if they choose to do so as in other promotional cases.

Sparks Fly at Community Police Review Commission Meeting

[Interim Community Police Review Commission Mario Lara tangles with some commissioners over some of his recent actions while the city has yet to announce any update on the hiring of a new manager even though applications closed on Oct. 12]





[Riverside City Manager Brad Hudson who oversees Lara wasn't a recipient or even carbon copied in Lara's email missive to the city council about requests made by commissioners.]






Sparks flew at the Community Police Review Commission meeting after it became clear that the interim manager, administrative analyst Mario Lara (in his second stint in this spot) was obstructing the commission's ability to do its job under the city's charter. He began by clashing with several commissioners after it was learned that he blocked the information exchange from the commissioners and their investigators on one of the officer-involved deaths by filtering the information or saying that certain questions or requests for information was "outside the scope" of the commission.

But the bigger exchange of sharp words took place on the outreach item which focused partly on attempts by the commission to attempt to interface with a community outreach worker for the homeless to provide information on the commission and the complaint process for the homeless people impacted by the incident involving the police department where officers allegedly destroyed property at a homeless encampment. Chief Sergio Diaz had said to the Press Enterprise that a witness had come forward and a criminal investigation of the incident had been launched.

There were a series of emails sent by several commissioners including Chair Brian Pearcy to Lara to get this done but no such information was provided to the commissioners on how to provide this information to the homeless individuals or the community outreach worker. Lara then wrote the following email on Wednesday, Oct. 6 to the city council and Mayor Ron Loveridge and carbon copies it to City Attorney Gregory Priamos. But not his own boss, City Manager Brad Hudson.

This is the one where a city employee from Hudson's office pretty much advocates that the elected officials violate the city charter prohibiting administrative experience. One wonders what if anything Priamos had to say about it or what advice he gave to the elected officials on their own response.


(excerpt, emails)



Mayor and City Council Members,

Atttached below for you[sic] informatio, is an email from Ms Chani Beeman suggesting, among other items , that CPRCstaff should contact a person by the name of Ms Ruth Record who was mentioned in a recent PE article (attached) to inform Ms Record of the complaint process. Ms Beeman also suggests that CPRC staff should work directly with city Homeless Outreach team to provide them with complaint forms and information about the complaint process for distribution to the homeless population.

I also received a phone message from Mr. John Brandriff requesting that staff provide Ms Record, the person mentioned in the PE article with complaint forms. I shared with Mr. Brandriff my concerns for reaching out to Ms Record would in effect be soliciting complaints. Mr. Brandriff did not concur with this assessment and I am aware that he picked up complaint forms presumably to distribute to Ms Record and others in relation to this issue.

Please note that since Ms Record has not contacted staff directly and I do not have her contact information, I have not provided her with complaint forms or information about the complaint process as requested by Commission members Beeman and Brandriff.

Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns or would like additional information.



Mario Lara

Interim CPRC Manager



Pearcy then responded to Lara after being pretty much left out of the loop, saying that the complaint forms by Brandriff who had gotten copies of them because he had ran out, had been returned to the office and that the commission's chair and vice-chair needed to be on the email list.

This whole email exchange and what erupted at the meeting as several commissioners pushed Lara on the issue was interesting. Essentially one of Hudson's employees doesn't take any concerns he might have had about what happened to his own direct boss (besides the former assistant city manager who resigned), but to Hudson's bosses the city council and mayor asking them essentially to violate the charter by taking action on his behalf apparently over Hudson's head. It's not clear what the city council or mayor's actions if any or responses might have been but members of the city government would bring some more clarity to the process if one or more of them would step forward and respond on the issue. Because that's a cloud hanging over the situation.

It's not clear why Lara didn't go to Hudson or even Priamos rather than carbon copying the latter on his email to the elected officials.

The whole situation is disturbing because distributing information even to people who don't directly ask for it on the complaint process isn't "soliciting complaints" (a coinism created by Hudson and former Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis that goes back to attempts to muzzle former manager, Pedro Payne), it's called outreach and it's been done by commissioners at meetings with a wide variety of organizations from business, educational and community backgrounds. Even in the aftermath of controversial incidents that have taken place. The commissioners are not telling people to file complaints but they're saying what their options are and providing the information to make that choice themselves. Why that's called outreach with some populations of city residents and suddenly "soliciting complaints" with the homeless, is called discrimiation the basis of economic and residential statuses and it's just odious.

Providing information is to broaden horizons. It's up to these people and it should be left up to them what to do with the information and even complaint forms. The CPRC has done next to zero outreach with the homeless and didn't stock complaint forms in any of the shelters or other places where homeless people might go. Community Centers and City Hall personnel have chased homeless individuals from these facilities or told them to go away because they don't like them there. Yet these same individuals including Lara expect them to come walking into these public-owned buildings to get information and/or complaint forms? It's clear that the city might not want complaints filed by homeless on this controversial incident because perhaps it fears they might get lawyers and sue the city. But blocking commissioners attempts to outreach including providing complaint forums to the homeless even in the wake of a specific incident is discriminatory since the commission has been able to do this with other organizations and groups of individuals. The decision of whether or not to file a complaint should be left to the individual and that would have been the case here as it would be with the Greater Chambers of Commerce, the Rotary Club or the Casa Blanca Community Group or any other.

Lara's actions were completely inappropriate and to knowingly or not push the city officials to potentially violate the charter provision against administrative interference shouldn't go unaddressed. As the attempts to violate the city's charter on the commission's role of providing outreach to all of the city's residents not just a select few. A lot of this might have to do with the fact that the city's been awfully silent on the hiring process for the new permanent CPRC manager (its second since 1987)and Lara has not one iota of experience in this position so perhaps it's not surprising that this took place. But the machination that have been going on with the beleaguered commission since its founding and especially 2006, would fill not only a book but quite possibly a set of encyclopedias.

As for the charter, it's pretty much at this point a piece of paper with writing on it that seems to be very selectively enforced and upheld by City Hall especially the provision on administrative interference.



Members of the police department's management, Deputy Chief Mike Blakely and Capt. Mike Perea along with Lt. Vance Hardin, Sgt. Pat McCarthy and Sgt. Brian Kittinger appeared at the meeting to provide an interesting presentation on the Early Warning System. More about that will appear in a future blog posting.

The commission also as a future item to be put on the agenda to discuss former Chief Russ Leach's comments about racism and sexism in the police department. Expect that item to be quickly vetoed by Hudson and/or Priamos pretty quickly as they've done with contentious agenda items for both this commission as well as several others including most recently the Human Relations Commission.

Casa Blanca Hosts Strategic Plan Forum

[City residents attending a Strategic Plan Forum in Casa Blanca watch a presentation on the process.]




[Councilman Paul Davis sits in attendance at the Strategic Plan forum in Casa Blanca]







[Riverside Asst. Chief Chris Vicino who had been leading the Strategic Plan Forums sat this one out attending a conference.]






[Riverside Police Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer had been attending the forums but wasn't at this one. Deputy Chief Mike Blakely represented the management staff along with Diaz but disappeared when the meeting ended.]





Casa Blanca was the focus of a strategic forum provided by the police department on Monday, Oct. 25 that was this time led by Chief Sergio Diaz whose style of handling meetings is clearly very much different than it was when Asst. Chief Chris Vicino led the meetings. Community residents spoke more on issues impacting the community being given the leeway to do so, including drug dealing and prostitution on Madison, traffic issues and that dispatchers and officers should be courteous and professional.

Two new forums have been added for Nichols Park and California School for the Deaf possibly in November.







Redlands city manager could be going bye bye.




UCR is teaching a class on the county grand jury system.




Hemet city council cuts a deal with the city's SEIU bargaining unit.


One of Temecula's city council members is working in redevelopment in scandal plagued San Jacinto.



The Press Enterprise Editorial Board has been urging the courts to return to hearing civil case and for people to be careful when voting for political candidates without researching them first in the wake of a member of the Nazi party running for water board.


Will voting on measures destroy Murrieta?


Fontana's mayor upset with state.

Charter Review Committee Applications Being Taken

Riverside City Councilman Paul Davis has announced that the city will be seeking applications to fill nine spots on the Charter Review Committee.

The City Charter is a unique document that, in many ways, acts like a constitution for the city adopting it. It can only be adopted, amended, or repealed by a majority vote of a city's voters. One advantage of a charter is that it allows a city to tailor its organization and elective offices, taking into account the unique local conditions and needs of the community.

Nine members will be appointed to conduct a full review of the City Charter and recommend to the City Council which charter amendments, if any, are to be placed on the ballot at the next regular municipal election for Mayor.


For more information and an application for the Charter Review Committee, visit www.riversideca.gov/city clerk or the City Clerk's Office on the 7th floor of City Hall.

Additionally, I am now accepting applications for many of the Ward 4 Commissioner positions that will come available in March 2011. Let me know if you are interested in any of the commissions. Please visit the city web site at www.riversideca.gov.

Paul Davis

Will the City Start Taking Every Police Employee Lawsuit to Trial?

UPDATE: Chief Sergio Diaz promotes Officer Hal Webb, an African-American to sergeant. Webb "stunned" in surprise promotion to replace retiring Frank Patino.



[Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz believes that the city's been "soft" on litigation involving his agency and that he hopes to see more vigorous litigation in the future. City Hall hasn't yet issued a public response.]



Det. Chris Lanzillo vs the City of Riverside

Settlement:


1) $50,000 payment tax-free

2) $40,000 back salary

3) Salaried employee until Jan. 1, 2011

4) Minus 80 hours unpaid suspension





This wasn't exactly news here but the Press Enterprise wrote this article about the city's settlement with former Det. Chris Lanzillo who had been fired by former Acting Chief John DeLaRosa last year about eight weeks after an altercation between the two in a roll call session.

Chief Sergio Diaz who wasn't here when the firing took place but was informed on his case made some interesting comments in the press in lieu of City Attorney Gregory Priamos who usually responds when litigation is filed and when it's ultimately settled as it is most of the time in city employee cases. But it appears that Priamos has been put on ice for at least a while in terms of litigation involving the police department. His feelings on this issue are not known.

Diaz' words came after he and Lanzillo allegedly exchanged some rather sharp words not too long ago, in front of one of the police facilities regarding the lawsuit.



(excerpt)

The fact that Lanzillo is being reinstated might look like an admission that he was fired wrongly, but that's not the case, said police Chief Sergio Diaz, who is new to the department but said he is familiar with Lanzillo's case.

Lanzillo was fired "not because he was a member of the leadership of the (police union) but because he did some really bad things," Diaz said by phone Wednesday. The chief did not give specifics.

Diaz noted that under the settlement, Lanzillo will be on leave and will not be working before his retirement.

Lanzillo declined to discuss the settlement before checking with his attorney.

The settlement says the city will pay Lanzillo $25,000, mostly for his attorneys, and will sign off on industrial disability retirement, which is given when an on-the-job injury prevents an employee from working. The amount of his retirement was not provided.

Lanzillo said he has many injuries, but the biggest problem is his neck, which he said was hurt in the course of his regular duties.

Diaz said from his review of recent claims, he doesn't believe officers have been punished for union leadership positions, and he said the claims have been "largely driven by profit motive."

In a settlement the city reached in April with Lts. Tim Bacon and Darryl Hurt, the men received a combined $550,000 and retirement at top captains' pay. Diaz said the city is not likely to settle easily on some of the pending claims.

"I'm very concerned that cumulatively the impression is given that the city is a soft touch, and I'm very eager to start to reverse that impression," Diaz said. "I'm looking forward to litigating some of these issues."

Now Diaz is correct that the city's settled a lot of lawsuits filed against it and tried very few (with the last police employee lawsuit being Officer Roger Sutton's in 2005). And he's correct in that the city should litigate more claims and lawsuits all the way to trials in front of juries in both federal and state court. My reason for believing this is the case might be different than his because it's past time for the city's residents to know the truth good or bad or both about what's going on inside the police department including its relationship with the city for the past five years or so but most particularly during the past eight months including the time period between permanent police chiefs. Because even though the claims and lawsuits themselves, settled or not, are fairly diverse, they share a defendant or two in common at the current and former upper management level and that's difficult to miss.

Then there's Lt. Leon Phillips who still remains a lieutenant today even though he was nearly terminated, facing demotion to sergeant and somehow managed to turn the tables on the city and those who oversaw the investigation of him. The guy who was painted by City Manager Brad Hudson in the media is the employee who had differences in his accounts while the acting chief John DeLaRosa told a "consistent" story. But Phillips worked his way down from a notice of intent to terminate in June to a demotion to sergeant and two week suspension in July and a written reprimand sometime in August.



If the city's making comments about Lanzillo doing "very bad things" without being more specific, will it even be forthcoming about what happened to abruptly halt Phillips' demotion? Because there were insinuations made about him too, though not by Diaz.

There's a reason why the city didn't go through with its plans to drop him to sergeant after City Manager Brad Hudson, former Acting Chief John DeLaRosa and others tried to paint him as the scapegoat of the DUI incident involving former Chief Russ Leach. And given all that was insinuated but again not said (due to confidentiality laws) about Phillips that he lied and DeLaRosa told the truth, that situation really needs to be explained in its entirety. Since if Phillips lied, then two other officers on the scene who gave similar versions about Leach's intoxication to DeLaRosa lied too and we all realize at this point that they didn't lie.

Meaning that three officers including Phillips said to California Highway Patrol investigators that they were concerned that Leach was intoxicated or a drunk driver and expressed that to DeLaRosa who said he had no recollection of any of that. Yet when it came to Hudson deciding who actually told the truth, management clearly trumped supervision. It had to, because one thing, it was Hudson who had made the decision on who would be the acting chief when Leach stepped down. And if you appointed the man who was tied to the mishandling of the traffic stop, then how does that make you appear? But it appears that management simply believed management over supervision even though in one critical area, the lieutenant, sergeant and one officer shared similar versions against management's single version.

Apparently based on a commonly practiced assumption in that when there's disputing versions of events including alleged misconduct, the word of management trumps supervision trumps those managed and supervised. It apparently plays out something like this, that when a higher ranking employee and lower ranking employee disagree with a version of events in a "he said, he said" situation, apparently the upper ranking employee is the one that will be believed by those investigating each and every time over the lower ranking employee. Maybe that's why when one officer wanted to file a complaint against alleged criminal conduct he witnessed in another officer, he actually opted to try and file it with the Community Police Review Commission, a decision vetoed by Internal Affairs Lt. Mike Cook during the interim period between permanent chiefs. A bit ironic on its face but if this were indeed the case, very revealing as well because if an officer wanted to file a complaint through the CPRC than it might not be the investigation that this person distrusts as much but the later review of it by upper management in the police department which parallels the review (but often not investigative) process of the CPRC on complaints.

That apparently was the case in the high profile investigation conducted by the city this year that management trumped supervision in areas where one of each provided the only evidence. Instead of reaching a "not sustained" finding which in the absence of outside evidence or information involves a "he said, he said" situation, the city repeatedly ruled in favor of management over supervision just as it's probably accustomed together. An independent review of that investigation by a former Riverside County district attorney and current partner at Best, Best and Krieger (the city's number one outside law firm) apparently didn't find this pattern and practice of investigation protocol to be a problem at all. But then that "independent" hire was a partner inside the law firm most deeply entrenched with City Hall. In a city with 350,000 people that still operates using small-town politics.

So somehow in a meeting with Former Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis, Phillips and his attorney were able to turn it around. One supervisor was able to get his demotion and suspension overturned.

Even though Phillips didn't file a lawsuit, it's really the perplexing actions threatened and not ultimately taken against him that tends to make people skeptical that all these claims and lawsuits are truly frivolous, filed by people out to get rich off the city. But if Phillips was able to right a wrong committed against him by individuals who have appeared as defendants on most of these profit-motivated claims and lawsuits, then more power to him. And what he experienced is all the more reason for these issues raised by the lawsuits that were filed to be litigated at trial. Because as Phillips' case has shown, as the Hurt, Bacon and Lanzillo cases have show, there's something rotten in Denmark or in this case, River City. Is what's come out so far the iceberg, or just the visible part of it?


The Press Enterprise has covered these issues well
but they stopped too soon with Phillips. It wrote that he was to be terminated and then that sources said that he was to be demoted but it hasn't written so far that Phillips remains a lieutenant with a written reprimand in his file. Even though it's published press releases where Phillips has been mentioned as a lieutenant.

The claims and lawsuits filed by former lieutenants Tim Bacon and Darryl Hurt as well as Lanzillo all were associated with research conducted by all three individuals into unethical and illegal activities including cold plating vehicles. The involvement of all three former officers and leaders of both police unions were clearly documented in the paper trail they left behind. As were warnings against all three that there would be consequences for those actions. If Bacon and Hurt's motives were financial to get rich off the city, then the residents of this city would have never found out about the guns, badges and cold plates scandals and besides a trial could have resulted in a higher payout anyway. One of the reason the scandals in Bell came to light after the fact was because there were police officers in upper ranks who apparently had received kickbacks not to say anything by Bell's leaders. Thank god, Riverside's not Bell.

Reviewing hundreds of pages of testimony by department employees and some of the most powerful players in this city, was shall I say, very illuminating as were pages of documentation on the illicit weapons sale and the cold plates. Armed with information rather than opting out of reading it, it's clear why these two lawsuits didn't go to trial. They didn't go because there were high ranking city employees and elected officials who had contradicted each other during their sworn testimony in depositions. There was documentation of unethical and illegal conduct taking place in City Hall, and the collective decision to settle by the local government was simply because it decided it was cheaper than to go to trial and risk all this scandal playing out in a public forum and potentially costing the city much more money in a trial verdict. Even if the city had won the trial and not paid out, it would have exposed itself to potentially even greater civil liability through testimony that likely would have taken place in U.S. District Court in April 2010.

This cold plating was done by members of upper management in City Hall and impacted vehicles assigned to elected officials under a controversial program that allowed city officials to have city vehicles to drive. And allegedly Lanzillo had been preparing to depo several witnesses involved in the cold plating of these vehicles including one key witness who would have tied a particular individual who blamed everyone else to the decision to cold plate city vehicles. Remember, where the initial settlement offer involving Lanzillo's office came from before the city council vetoed it in a contentious closed session not long before the resignation of former Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis. Why would that take place, since the city council's apparent response was to veto it?

Why was the origin of that proposed settlement in the city manager's office involving a former assistant city management employee who had just jumped on the grenade for his boss on the cold plates scandal, though that might not have been voluntary.

Okay, it might be "rehashing" history in a whole different way in a climate that sort of frowns on doing that but it might be necessary to put some issues that the lawsuits raise on trial in a public forum with county residents including those living in Riverside to serve on the federal and state juries to serve as the trier of facts. That's essentially what Diaz' recommended actions would lead to, the rehashing of history that he himself didn't experience the first time around, you know before it became prologue.

Maybe it's time to let the city residents in particular serve on these juries and make the decisions at these trials in these two venues. Because what's been revealed from the cases that settled has been bad enough, and has painted a disturbing picture of how business has been conducted at City Hall involving the police department. Using the police department to engage in an illegal weapons transaction, and then having one of those guns (and allegedly a pair of handcuffs) play a starring role in a 911 call for help made by a woman in Hemet during an altercation with DeSantis. These things have disturbed many people.

Yeah, let's see what can come out at trial in cases like these ones that are litigated in front of jury in public when city officials included those elected and higher ranking police employees get on the witness stand. Take former Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel for example, another past employee who's been painted as doing "very bad things" (in different words). Say that's the truth, well if that case goes to trial, how will the city and department then explain his rapid advancement up the ranks of the department including his elevation to deputy chief in 2007, an action that had already been fraught with controversy involving in that case, the "at will" status of his position as well as that of DeLaRosa's.

If this former officer is evil incarnate, then how will testimony and evidence of how he was elevated to the third ranking position in the Riverside Police Department play out in front of a jury? How did an agency which employs the "best of the best" let this happen? If this case goes to trial and Esquivel is painted as evil incarnate, it might be interesting to find out about his journey up to such a high ranking position through those who will testify for either side. Why would an officer who's so awful as he's been painted move up from lieutenant to deputy chief in less than a decade? If that were indeed the case, then yes, it's time for the residents of the city to have answers to those questions.

But nope, no matter what kind of tough talk Diaz and those at City Hall might provide, this case is not likely to go to trial in front of a jury either although it probably should. And it would be a trial that whether the city wins or loses, would put out through sworn testimony involving the assorted characters as to why if Esquivel was so bad or he did very bad things, as stated he worked his way up to the deputy chief position in the police department. After all this press release on Esquivel's promotion to deputy chief stated the following:



(excerpt, RPD press release March 16, 2007)




“Pete brings vast operational depth to the post of Deputy Chief,” said Leach. “His experienced leadership will be invaluable to RPD’s field staff and commanders.”

“The Chief’s selections for Assistant Chief and Deputy Chief will be vital to RPD’s long-term success in carrying out the Department’s Strategic Plan,” said City Manager Brad Hudson. “We look forward to working with the Chief and his team to fulfill the City Council’s vision for proactive public service and accountability.”



Okay so where does it say that he's done really bad things, or was such a bad police officer? Leach made the promotion and his boss, Hudson who has final say approved it as clearly shown here. Actually who actually made these appointments is a subject of much dispute as documented in this blog, but the point here is that there's no evidence in these comments that either Leach or Hudson had anything but positive things to say about their new deputy chief. Yet if he were a bad rogue officer, why would they be lying to the public by making positive comments to offer rationale for his upward career advancement? And it would be splendid indeed for both of them and others to get on the witness stand and explain these comments and provide any evidence that any negative statements were made about Esquivel before he decided to put in an application for police chief in opposition to DeLaRosa?

Can you imagine Hudson hitting the witness stand at the Esquivel trial and talking about this rogue doing very bad things and then having to go back and explain this prior inconsistent statement to a judge and jury? Especially since he's running out of subordinate employees to throw under the bus?

Perhaps the Esquivel lawsuit really is the one that the city would win at trial but at trial's end, it would have probably more explaining to do with this one than the rest. If Esquivel is the rogue he's being painted as now, imagine the civil liability the city would be facing if testimony came out that it knowingly elevated an officer they now say is a rogue up the chain of command almost to its top. What might play out inside are the Esquivel is the good cop retaliated for filing for the chief's position or Esquivel is the rogue cop who somehow advanced to a high leadership position through incremental steps and we just can't explain how that happened. Both of these are very ugly and the testimony whether it supports one or the other will be equally so.

Either way it will really be the department and city that are put on trial in the process of trying to put the plaintiff on trial.

So no, this case probably won't make it in front of a jury in a public forum like a courtroom either.

It's pretty much a given that the city would never litigate any case in a public arena that might prove embarrassing to it when it can always settle it behind closed doors. Which it almost always does within months of releasing an official statement that the claim or lawsuit has no merit and will be litigated aggressively by the city. When the city invariably settles the lawsuit, it then simply states through Priamos' office that it did so to save the money that would be spent litigating it. The strategy of now saying after settling cases that the officers did very bad things is apparently a new one and the city sends a contradictory message of stating well, we're settling this case and we won't tell you exactly for how much but that person that was fired and then unfired and then rehired or reinstated and then medically retired, they did really bad things which we can't say what they are. It's not clear what to think by reading those statements whether there's a divide between Diaz' view of the situation and that of the City Council or City Attorney's office which would of course never hand out retirements to employees who did "very bad things". But this is again, a case where the actions of putting officers (including those fired) on "leave" and then retiring them out speak louder than the words about how they're doing bad things and are out for money.

But if Diaz is saying take it to a jury, then more power to him. Because if these lawsuits get to trial and these issues get aired in a public arena, then maybe the city's residents will get incensed enough as they were during the revelation of guns, plates and badges scandals as well as the DUI incident to demand change. To demand answers as to why the top candidates on the lieutenant's are passed over for those on the bottom, why officers demoted for character misconduct can get repromoted faster than those who failed probation. Also, why again, if an officer is evil incarnate, how can this individual be elevated to such a high rank or climb the ladder so quickly? How can an officer with 17 years of no discipline (including for a sustained complaint I filed against him in 2003) can see his career evaporate about two months after he confronts the acting chief in a roll call and how can an internal investigation involving this individual get bumped to the top of the list within 24 hours of when his allegations about DeLaRosa hit the press while DeLaRosa is still at the helm of the agency? Or did all these individuals suddenly become bad or rogue when they took actions or said words that upset the apple carts of others equal or higher than them in rank in the department or City Hall? Why was it acceptable for a mid-line supervisor to be blamed for the decisions made or not made by his superiors on a controversial incident? Why didn't the city management purchase their firearms from a licensed dealer instead of from an unlicensed police department?

Maybe some of the answers to these questions can only a trial in front of a jury can answer because it will provide everyone involved with the opportunity to talk, voluntary or under subpoena, in a public forum.

Watching these questions get litigated in the assorted trials would have probably been very educational about the part of the police department that the public doesn't see, the huge mess of it whose costs are borne by the part of it the public does see, the officers on the street. Because unfortunately because of their constant interfacing with the public and the uniform they wear, the officers at this level do have the closest contact with the sentiment that arose beginning when the news about Feb. 8 did come out. The management involved as well as that in the department and City Hall involved in the guns, cold plates and badges scandal could and did insulate themselves much better from public reproach.

Ironically this statement about the merit of past litigation came out at the same time that an incident allegedly took place involving a white police officer stopping and ticketing a Black detective who was onduty at the time had taken place. It came days after a former police officer was convicted of six felonies of child molestation by a jury. Two men promoted by Diaz had histories of sexual misconduct onduty, one was investigated for a crime after he allegedly spray painted a wall and one of the officers that he looked up on for advice engaged in the coverup of a crime involving his own boss which for a lot of non-law enforcement individuals would be equated with a criminal violation of delaying, obstructing or deterring an officer or investigation. The officer who confronted that individual is the one who Diaz alleged had engaged in "very bad things" when the attempted covering up of criminal conduct is more forgivable, so much so that this person's worthy of briefing on departmental issues including apparently candidates for promotions. As the promotional processes wind down for sergeants and lieutenants this week, the candidates will be ranked on a list that as shown in July has been rendered absolutely meaningless. The new lieutenant and sergeant's lists seriously shouldn't be ranked by number, but the candidates should just simply be put in alphabetical order.

What else can be said when ranking 12# out of 13 on that list is more likely to get you promoted than finishing #1? Now if the top ranked candidates finish at the bottom of the list this time rather than the top, will they be more likely to be promoted at the bottom than they were at the top?

But anyway, back to Lanzillo and his "very bad things", the ones so bad that there's no elaboration on what he did. The same officer who did "very bad things", so bad apparently the city decided to reverse his firing by DeLaRosa and issue him a medical retirement rather than fight him tooth and nail all the way to trial.

Okay, if the officer had been doing that for most or all of his career, why were those "very bad things" suddenly paramount only after he had that altercation with DeLaRosa? Diaz never met Lanzillo while he was employed, never managed him, never personally investigated him, so he's left to rely on the written record or what is told to him by the two highest ranking individuals who oversee internal affairs who just happen to have been defendants on the lawsuit.

Okay, so the city goes to trial on the Lanzillo case and what's going to be seen? Years and years of "very bad" or progressively "very bad" employment evaluations. A long history of extensive disciplinary action or even what's called progressive disciplinary action. Supervisor after supervisor saying in writing and dated before Feb. 8 that here was an officer doing "very bad things". Activations of the department's Early Warning System tracking this officer because of these "very bad things". Well you get the picture. Will you get that kind of hardcore evidence at trial or will it be another officer placing evaluation after evaluation on the Elmo for display to the jury that meet or exceed standards? Will there be evidence of scant or even no discipline involving Lanzillo during his 17 year career of doing "very bad things" or will there be officer after officer on the clock going up there to testify about these "very bad things" and then under cross-examination when asked why none of this ever appeared in writing will just gaze at the attorney with very little to say that's not on a script.

Because this all happened before in the civil trial involving Officer Roger Sutton, where he laid out his paper trail in front of the jury while officers took the witness stand testifying that he was akin to Satan or at least a very bad rogue officer. But you know what? Juries don't care about all that, they care about what's on paper over a period of years, not what's said about the plaintiff on the witness stand in the matter of minutes all while the officer is looking for prompt by the officer assigned by the city to help it defend itself and then having to be reminded that what they said contradicted what they said in their depositions, oh about a dozen times or so for one witness.

That might sound a bit harsh but that's what happened. And at the end of the day, a $1.64 million verdict for Sutton which apparently for an area like Riverside, very impressive. The jury didn't give that verdict as an act of charity or because it was ignorant, it's because Sutton's attorneys put on a more impressive case with documentation provided to it in some cases by the officers who hit the stand contradicting their own written product. The defense failed to deliver on most of what it promised in opening arguments and that makes a huge difference to jurors who remember, make the ultimate decision about who wins and who loses in lawsuits that go to trial.

And in the meantime, over a five week period, a lot of testimony that didn't have direct relevance to Sutton's legal arguments spilled out in front of that jury including testimony about what was going on at the top of management. Because once you get witnesses on the stand, it's impossible to really control them and an "objection, motion to strike" followed by a "sustained" followed by an admonition for jurors to ignore what they heard as if they were audio recording devices that could simply erase portions of their memories and not human.

Diaz' own bosses apparently engaged in illicit activities or violations of state laws involving a gun sale, the acquisition of flat badges and cold plates not to mention DeSantis' alleged gun brandishing incident. The behavior involving his own employers and even city council members came to light not because the city issued a press release disclosing its own actions but only because of two apparently greedy individuals that Diaz never worked with or managed decided at the end of lengthy careers they wanted to get rich. So he's essentially surrounded or surrounding himself with people who might not be doing "very bad things" but are definitely doing questionable things. Is this all relative?

I'm not sure where Diaz' line of reasoning is coming from but it's time for the public to know what's going on and the public arena of a courtroom's a great place to really get started so we can witness lines of witnesses including city management and elected officials at City Hall and employees from top to bottom in the police department hit the witness stand to testify under penalty of perjury and hopefully without suddenly having personnel investigations opened on them when they leave the witness stand. After all, at least one distinguished career in the Riverside Police Department came to a rather abrupt end after this officer testified about racism in the department's highest level of management where things like "Jerry's Kids" and "exclusionary rule" had entirely different meanings than most people would associate with either term.

Just like happened in the last most expensive Riverside Police Department civil trial in 2005, which also was viewed as being frivolous. The most expensive action ever involving the police department at least in the past 10 years. The only one that actually saw a trial was the one that actually cost the city the most.

So history has shown that Diaz is not correct is that the city's "soft" on these cases that are lacking of merit, because that's not what appears to be the case at all. The city approaches litigation from a risk management perspective. After all, the second primary responsibility for Priamos and his legal team (and any outside team which typically handles labor litigation) behind protecting the city council and mayor is to minimize the risk of civil liability faced by the city. The city has shown that it will vigorously litigate to trial cases it believes it will win like the Sutton case showed, because at the five year mark, the case could have expired back to a $200,000 arbitration award but the city said no, we want a trial and boy, did they get one for the ages. If Diaz' advice is taken, the city will have at least a dozen more opportunities to litigate current claims and lawsuits involving the police department all the way to trial by jury. A couple employees or so will probably have multiple trial dates to book into their schedules when they get subpoenaed to testify in those proceedings.

There's two considerations the city's legal and risk management teams contemplate when making the decision on whether or not to take a lawsuit all the way to trial. The first is whether the city will lose and how much it will lose, the second is that regardless of whether it wins or loses, how much embarrassing and formerly confidential information will be revealed at trial in front of the media and any witnesses because it takes place not behind the blue wall of silence or behind closed doors but inside a public arena.

Diaz made a statement that he hopes the city will change its strategy and start litigating cases to trial rather than settle them to make greedy employees rich. Well it might help if he did his homework to figure out why the city's not done as he suggested, why hell will freeze over first before it does what he suggests and what will happen with again, the dozen or so litigation in the forms of claims and lawsuits in two separate court systems that are "pending" all go to trial.

The city might win some, lose others but what will happen is that the public will learn some good and a lot bad about how the police department conducted its shop. And the negative is the focus here, because cities don't settle litigation to suppress the good news, the positive attributes of a city department (which certainly exist inside the police department in many ways), they do it to suppress the news they never want the public to learn about and the guns, badges, and cold plates is one really good example of what the city wanted to suppress.

Diaz coming from the Los Angeles Police Department which overshadows his new haunt in litigation both filed inside the department (including a round of lawsuits filed by Black officers earlier this decade that were settled) and out of house too including a recent $13 million settlement in relation to the controversial May Day 2007 incident. How many lawsuits filed against the LAPD are taken to trial and if they're being settled as they are here (and many of them are), why is that? Remember, his agency has faced a federal consent decree, the Christopher Commission of the 1990s and other investigations including a blue panel probe of the so-called Rampart scandal. What's the overall impact of the litigation been on the LAPD and what role has it played in the direction of the LAPD? Lawsuits filed by police officers including Sgt. Wayne Guillary and Earl Williams, who after two years of unpaid leave won his board of rights hearing and had 11 charges of misconduct reversed. Williams had been investigated for insubordination to a supervisor shortly after complaining about a noose hanging from his locker at the 77th precinct. Guillary and Williams were listed in this class action lawsuit filed against the LAPD in 2000.

Riverside's own lawsuits are probably drops in the bucket in comparison to those in the much larger LAPD.



If Diaz truly knows Lanzillo's employment history as he states and he's reviewed it firsthand rather than receiving information filtered by others including two defendants in Lanzillo's lawsuit, then Diaz will know what individual filed a complaint against Lanzillo and prevailed in the finding issued by the police department (if not the Community Police Review Commission) against Lanzillo. The only person to ever prevail against Lanzillo in a citizens complaint. He will know that no disciplinary action was given in response to that complaint and that one month after it was adjudicated, Lanzillo was promoted to detective. There's probably readers of this blog who are somewhat surprised that I've even questioned Lanzillo's termination which I have done, considering the history that the two of us have shared which Diaz should be fully cognizant about if his factual information is as correct and thorough as he's said.

But it's precisely that history which has made me view Lanzillo's firing as highly suspicious. Because what's on trial in any type of retaliation case isn't whether an officer is the angel or the devil as the city might think. What's on trial is how that officer was treated during his or her career and whether that changed at any point including after a particular event took place, in this case Lanzillo's altercation with DeLaRosa. If the officer was an angel, was he treated like an angel before and after his altercation with DeLaRosa? How a jury answers that question after evaluating evidence by both sides will determine what happened and how much it will cost the city if anything.

But if an officer was a devil, then was he treated like an angel or a devil before and after the incident alleged to spark the retaliation? It's just as problematic for a devil to be treated like an angel for years and suddenly treated like a devil after the incident that sparked the retaliation claim. Because if the treatment of even the worst officer was positive before the incident that sparked the claim and then it changed to negative after that same incident, the city's just as likely to lose a lawsuit at trial than if the officer was an angel treated the same way. The city erred in a very expensive way by treating Sutton as the devil while giving him years of acceptable or better evaluations in writing and there's enough probability that they would have erred in Lanzillo's civil lawsuit trial as well.

But again, painting an officer as a "very bad" employee at trial through testimony when the paper trail says otherwise will ensure that the city loses again, maybe its shirt, and this city learned not to go to trial twice.


That said, it's that part of his employment history which actually helps prove his case rather than the department and city's case against him. Because the city's most common defense to litigation filed against it by city employees, is to say how bad these employees have been which is easy to do because confidentiality laws prevent exposure of the facts that would prove or disprove these assessments including the police officer's bill of rights, the litigation that officers including Lanzillo fought so hard for to use to keep this information secret. Only to find that the reasons why the bill was first signed into law by former Governor Jerry Brown in the first place has come full circle. That the same law meant to protect rank and file officers against abuses of their rights by management is actually being used to shield those management officials from similar abuses to their officers from public exposure. This is why an officer can be said as having done "very hard things" in the press without any more details provided to know if that's really the case or not.

Whether that happened in this case will never be truly known by the public. Why? Because the city made a decision not to litigate it at trial.

But as stated, the city's number one defense against litigation that's filed by its own employees is to say that this employee has done very bad things, is the "rogue" officer and is the worst of the worst (in an agency that as a motto, says it hires "the best of the best", ironic indeed). It happened to Sutton who was painted as some "rogue" almost criminal officer which was the city's defense against his litigation at trial. Okay, that's one strategy but if there's truth to it, then that needs to be presented at trial to in his case, counter the nearly 10 years of annual evaluations that were displayed as evidence to the jury of where all but once, he either met performance standards or exceeded them. So much for the rogue defense because the obvious question would be, if this officer's truly the worse of the worse, then why weren't any complaints alleging that ever written in a decade of evaluations? The only negative one he received was after the dog bite incident and it would have been odd if he hadn't received that evaluation in that situation by a supervisor examining his work performance.


From a financial perspective, the city would have less of an incentive to settle than an employee who has been fired and may be trying to get income to pay the daily bills, yet the city which has an unlimited expense account it seems to litigate these cases to trial settles them fairly quickly.

That will be the case with the dozen or so of them that are remaining. Because what the city has found out is that when the truth comes out in a public forum rather than remaining hidden behind closed doors, it just proves to be too costly in ways that include financially.

But it's interested after all the admonitions during the Strategic Plan forums not to rehash history involving the police department that the new chief has taken a position on civil litigation filed by his employees that involves doing just that.




San Bernardino County supervisor turning in car after DUI incident.

Public Meetings

Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. The city council meets to discuss this agenda including the lawsuit filed by the family of Marlon Acevedo (who died in police custody on Oct. 31, 2008) in closed session.


Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall Council Chambers, the Community Police Review Commission meets to discuss this agenda which includes processing three officer-involved death cases from 2008 and 2009 as well as a training presentation on the police department's Early Warning System