Oh What Tangled Webs We Weave...The RPD and City Hall's Relationship

"STOP"


---Terse email I received today.










[The statement released from City Hall on the Hudson Probe not surprisingly focused on the police department, not much mention of City Hall which had been cleared earlier through public announcements by Hudson.]

After the State Cuts Its Strings, The RPD Begins to Unravel

A mere four years after the Riverside Police Department severed its consent decree with the State Attorney General's office, it's currently mired in a scandal that has rocked its foundation, one not entirely of its own making. And it's one that's been brewing for a while even as it's being presented as an isolated incident by the Hudson probe, which broke its silence on April 13 with some preliminary findings.

City Manager Brad Hudson released some preliminary findings in his purported "sweeping" probe and has pointed his fingers at the police management. An announcement that really surprised no one, because the evidence being released piecemeal by the city had been painted in neon and pointing at the top of the department's chain of command. In fact, Hudson cleared himself, his office and the rest of the probe fairly early on which only left the police department. But the probe fulfilled its purpose, which was to help ensure Hudson's job security and to try to distance himself and City Hall from the antics of the police department's upper echelon, the house that City Hall built. But then there's no time to think about that now that the probe's preliminary findings have been released. Now it's time to sell them to the public which no doubt will be an active part of the itinerary of some elements of City Hall for a while as the public relations machine is rolled out to make people forget that there was ever any problems at all, let alone a scandal that was some years in the making.

It'd be great to forget everything that happened but what's difficult is to see how the city still hasn't really learned anything. And if you don't learn from your history, then you're doomed to repeat it. Has Riverside learned? It sure doesn't look like it. And people in this city really are much more astute than apparently people like Hudson and others might think.


The response from people so far seems to not be a very happy one mostly because many people have problems believing Hudson's contention that the preferential treatment shown Leach on Feb. 8 was truly an isolated incident without any precedence. In fact, it's hard to find someone who does believe that's indeed the case. At least outside of City Hall, further away from the people who make the decisions, there's disbelief and skepticism about what's coming out of City Hall regarding this inhouse probe. And it's hard to find anyone who really believes that Hudson had no idea what had been going on with Leach the past five years that Hudson's been employed by the city. But then many people understand that the main purpose of this so-called "sweeping" probe is to save Hudson's job as much or more than anything else. And that "sweeping" means diverting people's attention towards one mess which is the actions exercised by an unspecified number of police brass which prevented the investigation of a crime, while the rest gets swept quietly beneath the rug out of view.


And that's what happened here.


While Hudson and others point fingers at the police management which does deserve a fair amount of that, the hopes are that the attention and the anger by city residents which has been brewing the past several months will be focused there and not any amount at Hudson and City Hall. But Hudson and other key players at City Hall played a large role in what the police department became particularly since the bulk of their influence came during the years that the department had been operating without oversight from the State Attorney General's office. And the ink hadn't dried on the dissolution papers when the city council had voted 7-0 to approve a modified oversight program for the implementation of the department's first strategic plan. The legislative body had conducted a workshop to grapple with how to keep the department moving forward without any state oversight for the first time since March 2001.

Its then members issued an order through that vote for Hudson to carry out a plan and as soon as summer distracted them, Hudson changed the terms of the orders that the city council had issued him, nearly grounding the implementation of the strategic plan. The police department faltered heavily during the first months out of the judgment because of Hudson's actions including his decision not to carry out the directive the way it had been issued to him by the city council (the altering in direction possibly spurred with "help" from a council member or two) and also because the department's command staff at the time failed to uniformly apply the management skills they had been trained in during the consent decree and Leach apparently didn't hold them to it. That put the police department in danger of backsliding due to failure of its upper echelon to move the process forward.


At some point, there were different command staff members working not necessarily together and some key areas of the department's forward movement stalled during the first nine months after the dissolution of the judgment. Increasing micromanagement coming from Hudson and DeSantis and Leach deciding to live at Councilman Frank Schiavone's residence for a period of time apparently without invoking an attack of apoplexy in either Hudson or the city's legal eagle, Gregory Priamos. Elected officials including Schiavone, the former reserve officer, who was said to be very much "hands on" with the police department and Steve Adams, the former police officer, began becoming more involved in the department including some alleged with the promotional process at the highest level.


At any rate, the dynamic between Hudson, DeSantis and Leach over the police department began to definitely take an unhealthy turn.


After all, it's a little hard to miss that the relationship between the police department and City Hall began intensifying in terms of issues it faced beginning not long after 2005 when the city council hired Hudson to be its next administrator after ousting George Carvalho in a narrow vote and having Tom Evans serve in the interim position. Rumors about Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis taking a more active role in managing and some say micromanaging the police department began to proliferate not long after their arrival. In fact, it only took several months for that to happen as it turned out that people began to notice.

In 2005, the department faced the final year of its reform mandate and then counted down the months until the dissolution of its stipulated judgment with the State Attorney General's office. Leach would be granted a five-year contract in December 2005 in the face of concerns about what had been taking place on his watch. Not long before the meeting where the city council and Mayor Ron Loveridge voted on that contract, a letter was sent to them by someone with some prior connection with the department.


(excerpt)


Chief Leach has done all he can do for the City and should retire. You see, many present and formers employees of the department know what Chief Leach is - and it’s not a Leader. Over the more than five years that he has been Chief, he has committed acts of malfeasance, and in some cases unlawfulness; has failed to develop leaders capable of leading the department into the future, in spite of the fact that he has promoted the majority of his command and executive staff; has lied and spread rumors about members of the department, has lied to and spread rumors about public officials, including some of you; has caused dissention and dysfunction throughout the ranks; has engaged in unethical conduct unbecoming of a Chief, and has promoted based on favors and friendships rather than merit.





Most of the city officials who served on the dais when this letter was issued have either retired from the dais or were voted off of it. Though Loveridge and council members, Steve Adams and Nancy Hart still remain. It's a safe assumption that if council members or the mayor had received a letter like this when the issue of the chief's contract had been before them, that they would have forwarded these allegations to Leach's boss, Hudson but it's not clear whether or not Hudson ever examined the allegations before the contract moved forward for approval before the city government packed it in for the holiday recess. But at the very least, Hudson should have been served notice that issues had arisen with Leach that needed to be examined closer, which makes it a little less than convincing when he appears to present the picture that he had been in the dark all these years about his employee. I mean, if there were allegations of malfeasance and illegal activity involving the police chief, why wouldn't the city manager's office be all over it, as it's just claimed to have been now through its public announcement regarding its probe. Especially considering that it's all over the police department the rest of the time, but some of the allegations made in this missive apparently weren't just directed at the police chief by himself which might answer the above questions. And it's clear given that the letter was sent not too long before the city council vote, that there wasn't enough time for Hudson to adequately investigate the allegations in the letter, easy to deduce when you factor how long Hudson's office took to do this most recent probe which will have lasted well over two months.

Let's see, over two months to investigate the cover up involving Leach's traffic stop and a handful of days to address the allegations in the above letter. So it's pretty clear that in regards to the allegations raised above, it's more than likely that no action was taken by Hudson's office back in 2005. But it's also clear that because of this, Hudson and DeSantis can't claim to be in the dark about problems with Leach. Not without attracting a few raised eyebrows, etched with skepticism.

Building Your House of Cards

During this time period when the city manager's office became more entrenched in the department's activities, the department had seen some of its command staff members retire and thus actions were taken to fill these vacancies through promotions. Over a period of several years, it carried this out but soon concerns and questions also arose in terms of what process was being used by the department and as it turned out the city as well. In fact, it appeared that Leach had become less and less involved in the promotional process of the officers wh0 would be working the closest with him, his command staff including those at captain and above. At the same time, it appeared that the role played by City Hall had grown considerably in that process. Someone said that part of the idea of reforming the RPD was to install a business culture into its management and in that, they clearly succeeded, because the actions taken in this process rival those of a Fortune 500 company, more than a public agency. It seemed that a bunch of people in City Hall put themselves in the processes. When elected officials weren't calling for "political deployments" of the department's police officers in their wards during their reelection bid, several current and former ones involved themselves in some of the department's other items of business.

In fact, it's rumored that Leach hadn't even been in town when the promotions of his two closest command staff members took place. Legend has it, that Hudson took that role of elevating current acting chief, John DeLaRosa and Pete Esquivel into the positions of assistant and deputy chiefs giving them that pay increase plus a commitment to serve "at will". That got struck down and their promotions stood. Even when it came to promoting captains, it seemed that various parties outside the police department placed themselves in the mix. The promotional processes for both lieutenants and sergeants were changed in the past several years and became more subjective. Even people on the detectives list wondered if their "politics" would hurt them. The lists became dominated at the supervisory levels by experienced female officers even as only one of them, Linda Byerly, was promoted in her case to sergeant. African-American male officers also placed themselves well on lists ranging from captain to sergeant but despite placing high, they weren't promoted either.


Some officers including Leon Phillips didn't have as much trouble. Phillips had been about 11th on his lieutenants' list and was promoted in July 2008 to replace a retiring Ken Carpenter. Beating out Byerly the first round this year, was an officer who had been fired and then reinstated through arbitration. The process left people wondering if it came down to what "team" you were on inside the splintered department. These changes particularly with the promotional processes at the top end influenced the direction that the department headed in until things came falling down on Feb. 8 in ways that will be detailed in future postings.

The Hudson Probe

Hudson stated in his press release that information that he received on the afternoon of Feb. 8 led him to order the criminal investigation be turned over to the California Highway Patrol and directed Internal Affairs investigators to report to him. However, that agency didn't receive notification of that decision until 24 hours later, at about the same time that the media outlets began calling both the city and police department for more information about Leach's accident. The probe initiated by Hudson's office was begun a day after the investigation was handed off to the CHP, again while a firestorm had erupted from the city's residents and Riverside was once again a topic of scorn across the state and country from the erupting scandal.

In fact, on Monday morning and afternoon, there was a lot going on at City Hall but very little in terms of investigation in terms of being accountable to the city's 350,000 residents. No, most of the energy was spent on trying to clamp down on the situation before it broke publicly. The involvement of alcohol in Leach's accident and traffic stop was downplayed by employees at City Hall and the vehicle he had been driving wasn't taken away from the scene as evidence in a criminal investigation but for the purposes of repairing it and removing any traces that any form of accident had taken place. Mayor Ron Loveridge's office had been tipped off by an anonymous caller but there was no city-issued cellular phone activity by Hudson or his assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis until nearly five hours after the woman had called.

DeSantis' phone was used for the first time that day to call Leach just before 2 p.m. on Feb. 8 and Hudson's was activated several hours later to call an undisclosed individual. It's extremely odd some might think that if Hudson and DeSantis had been trying to make all these phone calls to get to the bottom of the situation as Hudson claimed early on and arranging for all these investigations to be handled, the city would have released information pertaining to any involved phone calls made by these individuals.

Hudson did hire Best, Best and Krieger attorney (and former district attorney) Grover Trask to provide "independent oversight" and Trask played a fairly active role but the details of the contract between the two were never discussed or reviewed by the city council nor were the terms of the contract ever released.

Hudson also said that all the evidence was "secured" and delivered to investigative agencies including the "inadequate" police report, audio and video recordings and such. That appears to be the case with the more limited scope covered by the CHP investigation but as far as the administrative investigation goes, very little in the way of proving such has been offered to the public. It's not even clear who actually in Internal Affairs did the investigation given that at least two of the five sergeants had close personal ties to Leach and thus, probably should have been interviewed as part of the investigation rather than assigned to investigate. Given that the Internal Affairs Division operates directly out of the Chief's office, were assignments given out in that division to people with close personal ties to the former chief? One sergeant, Marcus Smail had been called the first known person called by the police chief during the traffic stop but Smail told the Press Enterprise he didn't answer that phone call.

It appears that Lt. Mike Cook who heads the division played a very active role as did Hudson and Trask. But it also appears that Cook has at least political ties to DeSantis having served on the Hemet Unified School District Board in high-ranking positions with him in the past, which is certainly interesting. But at any rate, while it might be less than clear who actually investigated the police department, it's fairly clear that very little investigating was done by anyone of City Hall. After all, the Internal Affairs Division has zero jurisdiction to investigate City Hall for any misconduct involving the police department or any of its employees. So who's left to investigate City Hall? Hudson? Does that include himself? Well then, that takes care of that.

Hudson then said that there was absolutely no obstruction of either the criminal investigation being done by the CHP or the administrative probe being done by his office by anyone. And if that happened, criminal prosecution would have resulted of any such individuals. Certainly interesting information given that it appeared that the police department including its management was more rigorously investigated than any parties at City Hall. And it's difficult to believe that those who placed themselves at the helm of the investigation were investigated thoroughly either by themselves or by anyone paid as an employee or independent contractor through Hudson's office, or even investigated at all. If Leach had so many problems which led to his criminal conduct and a cover up, then right after investigations should have been launched against these individuals, one should have been initiated by the city council against its employee who after all, was Leach's boss for the past five years. After all, who allows the fox to guard the hen house and then have the fox investigate when one of them turns up missing?

The probe was to investigate allegations of the obstruction of a criminal investigation into DUI and hit and run offenses which in itself could have prosecutory ramifications but has not. How can you criminally prosecute an individual for obstructing an administrative investigation when individuals have already been given cart blanche to obstruct and deter through orders issued to do like with a criminal investigation involving Leach's DUI? All this would be more credible coming from Hudson's office if he hadn't already obstructed or prevented any investigation of his own conduct involving Leach, his alcohol consumption and the police department the past five years.

Hudson then goes on to state the obvious about the DUI stop not being conducted in proper fashion and that surprise, Leach was given preferential treatment by officers. He does mention that patrol officers Jeremy Miller and Grant Linhart have been cleared of any misconduct. That should have been done sooner as the two officers stopped Leach, noted "objective" signs of alcohol intoxication and called for their supervisor, thus placing the situation in the hands of the supervisors who showed up.

He mentions that the failure to take reasonable actions occurred exclusively in the management ranks. No, what happened was that the decision making which led to the failure of other officers most notably the two supervisors onscene to take reasonable actions was done by at least one management employee who wasn't at the scene. Two supervisors misbehaved at the scene to some degree. One. Sgt. Frank Orta, did by failure to investigate his boss based on the officers' and likely his own suspicions and then failing to write an "adequate" (and describing the report as "inadequate" is a misnomer if there ever was one) report.

The other, Watch Commander Leon Phillips likely participated in some form of conversation over the decision that was made to engage in a failure to take reasonable actions and thus cover up a criminal act committed by Leach. How much a role he played in that dialogue was not known and certainly not disclosed but Philips probably was issued orders by someone higher up to cover up the crime and take care of Leach and the damaged car. What's wrong with Hudson's statement is that it clearly overlooks probably intentionally the climate produced in the police department by different actions taken including those involving his office which led to a situation where the cover up of a crime could be carried out through a series of phone calls, the extent of which is publicly unknown given that the city engaged in only a partial release of phone records in connection with that very limited time period. There was this sense of entitlement that the police chief deserved a cover up and that the way it was handled, seemed to indicate that there was indeed precedent for it.

The part of the findings which many people seem to have the most trouble swallowing is the part where Hudson insisted that there were no evidence has been identified of any prior instances of preferential treatment. Whether that's specific just to Leach or includes anyone else isn't clear by the press release. But few people buy that "finding" at all, because many of people don't recognize this incident as the first time it happened, but the first time people got caught engaging in this behavior. There's a difference between the two that might be lost on some folks but not on many city residents.

Deputy Police Chief Pete Esquivel Retiring

With the news of the so-called Hudson probe about to break to the Press Enterprise, the retirements began, with that involving Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel, a 30 year veteran of the police department who before all this broke had shown no signs of wanting to depart anytime soon. In fact, "Pete" as he's known inhouse had seemed more energized in recent years. But rumors of his impending departure had been in the air for over a week even though no reason has been given why he has decided to retire.

Esquivel had been promoted into that upper level position in March 2007, a decision that because of the circumstances surrounding it had brought a crowd of officers belonging to both the Riverside Police Officers' Association and the Riverside Police Administrators' Association to a city council meeting at the end of that month. He and DeLaRosa had allegedly accepted their promotions after signing contracts that provided them with an incremental pay increase and "at will" status. The contracts were essentially voided of that requirement after the city gave a panel presentation at this contentious city council meeting on why it couldn't do what it had made it clear that it was going to do. Hudson made his speech and so did Leach, which was surprising because apparently the promotions had been made without his knowledge when he had been out of town. He had been somewhat...piqued when he got wind of what had transpired and some thought, he would call Hudson, his boss on what had been done. Of course now, it's clear that didn't happen. What didn't become clear until later is how Hudson had been able to mollify Leach into playing the role that he played fairly well at that same meeting.

Only weeks ago, Esquivel seemed hardly in the mood to call it quits. He even considered applying for the top spot. But now he's saying goodbye to a 30 year law enforcement career that began after he graduated from the peace officers academy and saw him work a variety of assignments, including many in the community, while moving himself up at a somewhat less than meteoric pace when compared to "Johnny D." who at times seemed more like "Johnny Who" given his rapid ascent from sergeant to assistant chief since Leach's hiring. Esquivel's retirement is the first to arise among the upper management but don't be surprised if it's not the last. Command staffs in scandals like this one have the tendancy to fall like a row of dominoes. It's the nature of the beast, part and parcel of the energy that got them there.

Two RPD Lieutenants Settle Lawsuits and RPOA President Laments Supervisory Vacancies

In the meantime, the city and two Riverside Police Department lieutenants, Darryl Hurt and Tim Bacon are settling their lawsuit which they filed several years ago, alleging that they were harassed and retaliated against for their active involvement in the RPAA, not to mention being denied promotions at the management level of captain even though they tested very well. Their lawsuits that they filed in U.S. District Court are required reading if you want to take a look at some of the serious issues that arose in the department due to problems within as well as out of micromanagement from various elements at City Hall. Issues raised in their lawsuits are relevant in the wake of the situation involving the former chief and its aftermath, and in a way provided some foreshadowing that these problems would come to a head at some point due to the dysfunctional dynamic between City Hall and the police department. Which is what ultimately happened.

Because with that kind of micromanagement being allegedly done by elements at City Hall including a politician or two and the department's internal problems, the situation had really no chance of avoiding some serious consequences. And so what happened? The city bet, the house won and the department's employees and city residents paid the price of City Hall's ignorance or involvement in the issues raised in the lawsuit and other venues. Some serious consequences for the city and the department which could have been avoided, if the red flags popping up all over the place had been heeded.

RPOA President Det. Cliff Mason told the Press Enterprise that there were critical vacancies in the supervisory and management level, which is interesting because usually the rank and file labor unions tend not to be too concerned about a shortage of management but anyway Mason did bring up that there's going to be a minimum of three captain vacancies and six lieutenant vacancies (which puts the rate there at roughly 33%) and then there's the expected 7-8 or more sergeant spots anticipated to be vacant by the end of the year. The level of supervisors in the police department has fallen to the critical level even with the recent rounds of promotions, at levels low enough to cause serious problems in the still primarily very young police department.

These are alarming shortages indeed and promoting will create more shortages including at the officer level, but the department will be at the point where if it doesn't promote lieutenants, it will be short watch commanders, given that the reserve positions in that division are already unfilled. Each rank filled depletes from the one below it, so if the department promotes as it should, then that has to be done so that none of the ranks get depleted to critical levels as a result. For example, filling lieutenants increases the shortage of sergeants which if filled, directly or indirectly depletes officers levels due to the detectives positions being quickly filled due to the MOU between the RPOA and the city. What it boils down to really, is an overall commitment by the city to ensure that the overall staffing levels of the department are built back up to healthy levels where needed to ensure that promotions enhance each levels' numbers along with the accountability factors.






In other news, the RPD brings back the DUI checkpoint.

CHP: RPD Officers Onscene Knew Police Chief Was Intoxicated

***UPDATE****Former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach is a no show at the arraignment on his DUI case but through his attorney James Teixeira pleads guilty to one count of DUI and is sentenced to three years summary probation, first offender DUI class and 30 days in a electronic monitoring program, plus about $2,000 in fines. Texiera said Leach "very remorseful" but no discussion of cover up or preferential treatment,





[Riverside County Supervising District Attorney Stephanie Weissman addresses questions from the media after former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach's guilty plea and sentencing en absentia for DUI accident.]





"I would hope that people in my department would make different choices. For somebody in our position, I think, there's probably a higher expectation."


---Jeff Talbott, Inland Chief, California Highway Patrol, the agency which investigated Leach about the department that didn't.





More information coming out on the investigation conducted by the California Highway Patrol's investigation into the Feb. 8 traffic accident involving former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach. That information includes documents submitted by the CHP who conducted the investigation that the Riverside Police Department had not and recommended that DUI charges be filed against Leach. And on March 22, Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco filed two misdemeanor counts of DUI, nearly two months after Leach's accident. Leach is set to be arraigned in Riverside County Superior Court on March 25.



The Declaration in Support of Arrest Warrant was taken out by CHP Sgt. Lance C. Berns and it related details behind the investigation conducted of Leach and his accident not to mention his subsequent traffic stop in the early morning hours after Super Bowl Sunday.

Evidence examined by the investigators included the following items including several which were made possible by the implementation of several reforms included in the stipulated judgment imposed on Riverside by the State Attorney General's office between 2001-06.



Surveillance video taken from Club 215 in Colton

COBAN video (squad car dash cameras required under stipulated judgment)

Video footage from city's red light camera

Digital audio recordings (equipment required by stipulated judgment) from police officers onscene

Witness Statements

Leach's Potentially Lethal Cocktail

As it turned out, according to the CHP, Leach had apparently consumed a hefty combination of alcoholic beverages and prescription medication before driving to Club 215 as well as while he had been there. These substances rendered him very intoxicated which meant that by the time he left the club just before it closed, he had become potentially a lethal threat to himself and others as soon as he got behind the wheel of his car.

Substances consumed by Leach before his accident (based on his statements and those of others) included the following. Most of the names will sound familiar because these drugs frequently show up in the toxicological screenings performed on celebrities who die of drug overdoses.


At his home between 3:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 7 :


3-4 Miller Light beers

2 Vicodin (like other medications, including warnings not to combine with alcohol)

2 Xanax

1 Flexeril

1 Atarax

Possibly 2 Ambien



According to Leach's fiancee, these substances made Leach "groggy" and unable to safely operate a motor vehicle. But he got behind the wheel of his black Chrysler 300 and drove to Club 215 in Colton. A drive which took at least 30 minutes. About a minute after arriving at the club, Leach ordered his first alcoholic beverage purchased there. More drinks would follow in succession, at least seven more which is at least three more drinks than claimed by both the owner of Club 215 and his attorney not long after the story broke.


Between 9:28 p.m. on Feb. 7 and 1:41 a.m. on Feb. 8 at the Club 21, substances consumed included the following.



7 or more Chivas Regalis (on the rocks)



In total, Leach had consumed at least 11 alcoholic beverages and a variety of medications which prohibit the use of them with alcohol. To violate the warnings endangers the person's life (especially if it decreases the respiration rate) as well as impairs their driving ability. But the evidence of him consuming nearly a dozen beverages makes statements issued by him that he didn't drink and former Councilman Frank Schiavone that he couldn't drink even one beer a bit seem somewhat questionable at best. Schiavone quickly disappeared from where he came after making his brief foray into the press. But given that he's allegedly planning to run for Riverside County supervisor in 2012, it's not likely that the region's seen the last of him in political circles.



Evidence that Leach was impaired that was uncovered by the CHP shows that his driving ability was probably compromised before he even reached Club 215 and indeed surveillance video footage of that club showed Leach as being unsteady on his feet and disoriented according to the CHP. Again this contradicts information provided by the Club 215 owner and his attorney who said there were no visible signs of Leach being impaired on that same surveillance video. One club employee was apparently concerned enough about Leach's impairment to offer to call a cab to take him home, an offer which he declined. Leach then drove out of Club 215 in his own vehicle while intoxicated from alcohol and medications and headed back to Riverside.

Leach then crashed into what the CHP called an "unknown low profile fixed object" and kept on driving clearly impaired to the point where he had no idea what had just happened. He kept driving and ran at least one red light at Arlington and Van Buren, an action which was caught on a red light camera stationed there. He was eventually stopped by two patrol officers from his own department and the dash cams from inside their squad cars showed Leach unsteady on his feet and seemingly unsure of what happened to his car.

RPD Officers Knew Leach was Intoxicated

And then the warrant ends with perhaps the most critical piece of information, which is the observation of the officers who were onscene during the traffic stop.


(excerpt, warrant)


During the enforcement stop, RPD officers detected objective symptoms of alcohol/drug intoxication that included red/watery eyes , unsteady gait, the "strong" odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from his breath, slurred speech, and uncharacteristic repetitive speech. Both officers formed the opinion that Mr. Leach was driving under the influence in violation of Vehicle Code section 23152(a).



From this information which is a terse summary of statements given by Officers Jason Miller and Grant Linhart to CHP investigators, it is clear that officers who responded to 911 calls about the Black Chrysler 300 emitting sparks had done some form of DUI evaluation on Leach while performing the traffic stop. All the signs listed on the warrant as having been noticed by the officers are all those that officers look for while conducting DUI evaluations on motorists they stop. There's even a portion of a police report where there are lists of signs and symptoms of possible alcohol and drug intoxication that can be checked off if noted in a person under evaluation.

So it seems as if the officers suspected that the police chief was under the influence of alcohol and that their checking off the list of objective signs increased that suspicion. So let's see, the two officers suspected Leach was intoxicated and after performing their DUI evaluation, they became even more certain that he was in violation of the DUI laws. So what happened after that? How did the opinions of two patrol officers that Leach was legally intoxicated get watered down to the point where the final disposition for the traffic stop was that no report would even be filed as stated on the CAD incident sheet included in their sergeant's report?

Now there were never any written reports submitted by the primary officers on the scene which were Miller and Linhart. Even though when officers suspect a criminal violation has taken place, they usually write reports about their observations and the actions they take because they know these reports need to be an accurate reflection of what happened in case they're needed to be handed off to prosecutory agencies for evaluation and to refresh the memories of the officers if they ever need to testify on the witness stand in relation to the incident. But everyone in Riverside knows by now that things didn't happen this way. The incident deviated from being treated as a "potential DUI" (as reported to 911) to a "suspected DUI" as noted by two patrol officers and it deviated at some point during that traffic stop into being a "traffic collision" to be "filed" away or perhaps even less than that. Precisely because the two patrol officers didn't submit written reports to be signed by supervisors, but another higher ranking officer who arrived after them did.

The two officers called for a supervisor after they realized that they had the police chief in their custody so to speak and he was in their opinion legally drunk. So their supervisor, Sgt. Frank Orta comes in response with Watch Commander Lt. Leon Phillips on his heels. Orta's a veteran officer who's set to retire by summer and who's been with the department at least 30 years. Actually he was originally going to retire last December but stayed on longer because the department was critically short on front line supervision and he apparently agreed to stay a bit longer. If he had stuck to those original plans, Orta wouldn't have been working that night as the shift supervisor for the Central Neighborhood Policing Center where the traffic stop purportedly took place. But he still was employed by the department and he and Phillips responded to the call for their assistance by the two officers. The officers were caught in a situation where perhaps they were thinking that busting the police chief would be akin to career suicide and they wanted supervisors to decide how to proceed with the delicate situation.

Orta had many years working in the traffic division as a motor officer before his promotion. He was a court recognized DUI expert which means that if the two relatively inexperienced patrol officers recognized signs that Leach was legally drunk, that means Orta almost certainly did as well. Yet if you read his report, there's no references to the signs noted by the two patrol officers or any DUI evaluation being performed by him. There's no sign that Orta ordered or performed a field sobriety test including the use of a Breathalyzer or compelling the production of a blood sample for testing. He certainly didn't write in his report that he conducted any of these tests even though it's more than likely his observations didn't differ much from those provided by the two officers.

It seems more than likely that something transpired that changed Orta's mind, in how his future report would be written. The report that likely he had been ordered to write by Phillips but interestingly enough wasn't signed by Phillips. Someone claimed it had been signed at some point by a member of the police department's management but the copy provided by City Hall didn't include a "reviewer" signature. But at any rate, Philips didn't sign it and even though he was a lieutenant since only about July 2008 (when he was allegedly promoted from the #11 spot on the lieutenant's list), maybe he thought it wasn't wise to put his name on a report that mentioned a motorist having been drinking and suffering memory gaps but who was never given a field sobriety test. And it just doesn't seem likely that he would have made the decision to cover up this incident involving Leach being potentially intoxicated on his own either. But besides Leach, Phillips could be the most likely fall guy in Hudson's probe if it's indeed looking for one.






[One page excerpted from a report written by RPD Sgt. Frank Orta involving Leach's traffic stop. The sergeant might have been directed to write the report by Watch Commander Lt. Leon Phillips but why didn't Phillips sign off on it? As you can see from the bottom of this page, no higher ranking officer did at least not on the copy produced by the city.]




Neither the police department nor City Hall has provided any insight into what's the issue pertaining to Phillips' failure as Orta's supervisor to sign off on his written work product. And if someone else did sign it, somewhat higher on the pecking order than the watch commander, why isn't the city providing that information to the public while it was engaging in the practice of disclosure? But then the city's busy putting its marbles behind City Manager Brad Hudson's "sweeping" probe which is currently killing lots of trees and apparently has gone a bit off-track from focusing on the actual cover up but then what can you expect from an investigation set up by a city employee that perhaps should be scrutinized himself? What's always interesting about self-initiated internal investigations is how often the person who has the most questions to answer is often at their helm. That's just one of the many reasons why few city residents trust this Hudson probe, because if City Hall is investigating the police department then who is investigating City Hall?

It's all well and good for Hudson, the arbiter of the probe, to clear City Hall including himself in such a breathtakingly timely fashion but many people just shook their heads at that revelation which was dropped at several community forums soliciting opinions for hiring Leach's replacement. Fox guarding hen house, that just never works unless you're of course, the fox. But then a serious problem which was created in part due to a lack of accountability isn't going to be fixed by a process that also stems from the same problem. Which the city residents somehow understand even if City Hall is more than one step behind.

City Manager Brad Hudson: He had "grave concerns"

Apparently City Manager Brad Hudson issued some sort of public statement explaining the thought process involving this controversial incident involving one of his department heads. But doesn't Hudson know that many people have "grave concerns" including about his handling of the police department?


So anyway, Hudson explains himself further about how he was concerned that Leach was treated differently than the average person during the traffic stop conducted by his department's officers. That's a very important observation that Hudson has made, given that if he felt passionate enough on the issue of equal treatment for all by law enforcement, he could call up the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and ask why it apparently conducted a rather shallow investigation of a troubling 2007 incident allegedly involving his assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis, a woman and a firearm. Apparently, the Riverside County District Attorney's office never received a report on that case.

But anyway, Hudson's statements did need to be said, though of course it would have been nice to have heard them said before charges were filed when it became clear to most the rest of the city that Leach hadn't been treated the same as mere city residents would have been dealt with in his circumstances. It would also be useful if Hudson was more forthcoming about some of his own actions in connection with Leach and the police department since he arrived in 2005.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

"Primary among my concerns in this matter is that the former Chief was provided treatment beyond what other motorists would be afforded in similar circumstances," Hudson said in a statement.

"I expect all city employees to use common sense, and to provide equitable treatment to all."

Well yeah, Hudson that makes some sort of sense. But most city residents knew that before this announcement was made and probably before Hudson and DeSantis created the policy that required their office to be contacted whenever a "high profile" person had a negative contact with the city's police officers. A policy that both Hudson and DeSantis in tandem insisted was violated by the police department's management on Feb. 8. And it might be true that this happened as so far there's no evidence that they knew about it when it was happening.

Hudson claimed he didn't find out about the incident until the early afternoon hours which is a bit different than earlier comments made by him that implied he learned about it not long after the @9:30 a.m. phone call that an anonymous woman made to Mayor Ron Loveridge's office, reaching his secretaries. Loveridge then said he was notified soon after and he solicited answers from Hudson who after all, was Leach's boss. But morning, afternoon whatever, Hudson's point apparently was that he didn't hear about it earlier in the morning when officers had stopped Leach.

Because Orta wrote the report by hand, it's not clear when it was written which might have been the point of eschewing modern day technology and channeling the olden days when reports were handwritten, before even typewriters were invented. If Orta avoided a department issued computer (which requires login information to gain access according to testimony in a recent criminal trial involving former Officer Robert Forman) or was ordered to do so, he would have done so most likely to muck up the ability to add the report in the appropriate spot of the Leach incident time line. Which makes no sense if the report had been written in a timely fashion after the incident if only to be filed away as a nonissue in some dusty file cabinet in some city owned building.

But it might make more sense if the report hadn't been written in such a timely fashion. Some of us are cynical enough at this point to wonder if there was even a report in existence when Loveridge dispatched Hudson to inquire about what had happened when Leach had crashed his car. Did a report even exist at that time or did Orta have to produce one? I mean what would it look like if Hudson had to push some higher ranking command staff members to search the department high and low for a simple "no crime committed" incident report? It appears that the majority of the command staff didn't engage in this cover up and perhaps were feeling more along the lines of it being "but for the grace of God, go I..." meaning they didn't have to deal with it. But it's also clear that adage probably didn't apply to all of them.

Det. Chris Lanzillo who was president of the Riverside Police Officers' Association until voted out and replaced by former sergeant, now Det. Cliff Mason filed a claim for damages asserting that current Acting Chief John DeLaRosa knew about the incident almost as it was unfolding and was "complicit" in an attempt to cover it up. The claim was rejected by the city in record setting fashion within five days of being filed, which unfortunately sent the message to city residents which many heard very well that the Hudson probe was a bad joke. After all, why not stay any claim alleging a cover up within the department and/or City Hall until after the Hudson probe was completed? To at least show that City Attorney Gregory Priamos and his employers, the city council and mayor are serious about uncovering the corruption which led to this incident in this so-called "sweeping" probe complete with its "independent oversight" in the form of Best, Best and Krieger attorney, Grover Trask.

But poor (and not meaning monetary wise) Trask has to sit and watch along with everyone else while Hudson's cleared City Hall before his probe's even done and involves investigators with no authority to perform an administrative investigation and review of employee conduct outside of the police department. Maybe he's just a rubber stamp to the Hudson probe after all, paid for by the city residents' dime.

Public Reactions

In the Press Enterprise article, there were some comments made by individuals interviewed about how they view this whole mess.

"The credibility of the department and city government is null and void. Their failure to do what they should have done obviously has lost the confidence of the community."

---Retired RPD Lt. Alex Tortes to the Press Enterprise

The incident and its handling led to the cancellation of a planned DUI checkpoint by the department on Feb. 17 and many city residents have raised serious questions about how the department treats regular people in contrast to the kid glove treatment it clearly gave its police chief. But while the department experiences issues of credibility, those in the department and possibly elsewhere who were responsible for the cover up which didn't succeed in insuring that Leach dodge a criminal investigation and possible prosecution remain hidden behind their own version of the code of silence. They could do something to repair the damage they have caused but they remain quiet.






"It wasn't handled properly, I don't think, but this is nothing new in government."



---Community leader Dell Roberts



Now if other community or civic leaders can break their silence and comment on this ongoing episode of corruption in Riverside, it might prove to be very helpful. The city's counting on the carrots it's been dangling in front of the leadership including exclusive spots on the interview panel to help in the hiring process involving the next police chief. Now, Hudson hasn't actually said he plans to include either community leaders or other residents even though he said his phone has been ringing off the hook with people soliciting him for this opportunity. But enough community leaders who are often vocal have been so quiet on this issue, you could hear a pin drop even as city residents have been fairly loud in different forums.

Why anyone would want to be picked to represent "community leadership" on a panel to pick the next police department chief who's more likely than not to be a puppet anyway is interesting. After all, you think they would have learned from the hiring of the executive manager of the Community Police Review Commission. The commission hasn't exactly thrived under his watch and it was interesting to notice that while Manager Kevin Rogan was front and center at different meetings to delay the commission's investigations of officer-involved shootings, he's been a complete no show at two separate public meetings to partially restore that charter power. That's micromanagement in a shell.

Incidentally, Roberts along with Damian Castillo served on a top secret ad hoc committee which recommended delaying investigations when it reported back to the city council and Governmental Affairs Committee in early 2009. That's after community members were not only banned from those meetings, they weren't even allowed to know when and where they took place. Apparently, neither had problems with how government operated then. Like Rogan, neither attended recent meetings involving the CPRC's partial return to being able to do timely investigations.

Still, it's good that Roberts has spoken out now after years of serving on the chief's advisory board, another committee of sorts that meets in total secrecy. That's a place to start.


Hopefully more community and civic leaders will do so as well including addressing the issue of whether or not Riverside needs an independent investigation of the Feb. 8 incident involving Leach and its aftermath.





Press Enterprise columnist Cassie MacDuff writes about her reaction to the filing of DUI charges against Leach.





The Press Enterprise Editorial Board doesn't much like the lawsuits the city of Riverside has filed against the ports in Southern California.

City Employee Layoff Watch

So far, one city employee has been laid off, a communication technician from the Fire Department. Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout still has a few days left to soften up the news before she has to give it at the monthly meeting of the Human Resources Board.




And in the burning question category.....

Who's Left Standing in the Sire's Crowd?

[That other City Hall...]






In Illinois, former police sergeant Drew Peterson prepares to begin his murder trial for allegedly killing his ex-wife Kathleen Savio. His current wife, Stacey is still missing and hasn't been seen for nearly three years.

Riverside Police Department Detective Sues City; Alleges Cover Up of Leach's Crash by Current Acting Chief

A few blog postings ago, there were references to civil actions that would be initiated against the city and the Riverside Police Department and one of them hit the news today.



News came out that Riverside Police Department Det. Chris Lanzillo, a former president of the Riverside Police Officers’ Association has filed a claim for the damages against the city for harassment and retaliation due to his actions taken while he served as union president. The claim was denied by the city on March 9, mere days after it had been filed by Lanzillo as a precursor for a lawsuit to be filed in U.S. District Court. In the past month, I’ve received emails from people including outside the state asking about this situation since it all begun and it's too early to know what it all means. Their impression of Riverside, as a city and one that employs law enforcement has dropped considerably since they've been following this ongoing situation.

What next, they ask about the situation going on with the police department that has taken quite a few serious hits in recent weeks that may have been the inevitable result of more than just an errant traffic stop. They might have been the result of at least several years of questionable conduct from inside the department's management and from City Hall that has severely compromised the integrity of a police department just four years out of a stipulated judgment with the State Attorney General's office when it was run by Bill Lockyer.

It's ironic to write about it and Lanzillo given some unpleasant history I've had with him and the merits and motives of Lanzillo's claims have and will be hotly debated as this saga which some say only was interrupted by Leach's car accident (rather than started by it) continues to twist and turn in the weeks and months ahead.

But Lanzillo's claim does raise some of the same questions about what's been going on in the past several months that have been raised earlier and it serves as another reminder that the City Hall and police department's management have been left very wanting with providing answers to questions being asked over and over and over again by city residents in varying venues. When will this attitude change from these venues? How about never, until there's enough pressure, both external and internal, to loosen those lips? After all, there's a well known adage, pressure on, cover off. Pity, that City Hall has never heard of that as it keeps finding itself in some very embarrassing and troubling situations again and again.

Questions that have awaited answers from city residents during this time and which the city hasn't come close to answering. The claim doesn't answer them either, but it adds to the chorus that some seriously wrong actions have been taken by the city and police department in the wake of the Leach incident. In case City Hall doesn't know this, we the city residents have had these questions and have asked them in one forum or another for weeks without any response except...we'd have to await the outcome of a probe our tax dollars pay for and oh wait, no you can't get the whole truth of what happened, only part of it. Then soon after that, comes the announcement from Hudson that he's cleared City Hall and everyone inside it, which goes to show not only that this investigation is entrenched in conflict of interest concerns but this probe into the Leach incident really isn't all that "sweeping".

The irony of the claim filed by Lanzillo is that through his leadership in the Riverside Police Officers' Association, he and others advocated strongly for more strict enforcement of the Police Officers' Bill of Rights, which was originally passed decades ago to stem mistreatment by management personnel in law enforcement agencies against officers including when corruption reared its ugly head. In fact, one of its biggest proponents believe it or not, was the American Civil Liberties Union, which is at loggerheads against it today as it metamorphosed from countering administrative abuses to shielding officer misconduct investigations and outcomes from the public.

In cases like the Leach incident, this legislation designed to provide such protection has also proven to be quite capable of smothering those it intended to protect under a blanket of corruption when they attempt to address abuses by administration during more recent times. It's proven to be the ultimate double edged sword and has worked against both officers and members of the public who wish to bring such administrative misconduct to light. In cases like this, it works more to protect municipalities such as Riverside from civil liability risk than it has to protect officers' rights to work in an environment free of administrative corruption and/or misconduct. Something which might be coming full circle in the city of Riverside as the department struggles with its worst allegations of corruption in quite a while. Because face it, the only people who benefit from the shielding of the internal probe are the guilty parties (whether they are acknowledged in the probe or not) who are knee-deep in the mess involving the Leach incident. Not the majority of the officers in the police department who weren't involved, not the city's residents who are left with a police department few of them trust to enforce the law equally and fairly. If the city truly cared about reshaping either of these realities, it would have asked outside agencies to come and take a look inside at the department and city and it would have provided a more honest accounting to the city's residents.

While it’s true that the city denies the vast majority of claims for damages that it receives, in this case to do so quickly (and without appropriate public notice) was premature and casts a huge shadow of doubt on the integrity of the “sweeping” probe being done by the police department which will report its findings to City Manager Brad Hudson. The veracity of the claim is one issue to be decided as part of a process but acting on it rather than staying it is a questionable action in that the city has claimed to be doing its, try not to laugh, "sweeping" probe including into allegations that members of the upper management of the police department had played a role in the attempted cover up of Leach's accident and resultant traffic stop. That's not exactly news but it's something that most of the city's residents have pretty much guessed since news first broke out that Leach's traffic stop didn't result in a DUI investigation but a "traffic collision" report to be "filed".

Yes, it's not as if an intense sense of distrust doesn't already exist against this probe and in a sense, City Hall since this scandal first broke over a month ago. How much distrust remains might make things interesting during the next election cycle, but that is then and this is now, and the city has not much time to rehabilitate itself before its first truly public accountability test begins in June 2011.

In his claim, Lanzillo alleged that he was penalized by the department’s management for what he did while RPOA president, a job he held from 2008-2009 before being voted out in November 2009 and replaced by Det. Cliff Mason. Within 30 days of stepping down, he was transferred out of the department’s Vice/Intelligence Unit, a position he had held for over four years and was assigned to another division. The department’s management had also allegedly made the situation difficult for him in other ways since the Feb. 8 incident involving Leach, his crashed Chrysler 300 and a very controversial traffic stop. As well as when Asst. Chief John DeLaRosa took over the helm of the department on an interim basis until a new chief is hired.

Lanzillo also alleged in his claim that DeLaRosa knew almost immediately about the traffic stop involving Leach and had arranged for the cover up including the part where Leach gets a ride back home in the front seat of a police car rather than while being handcuffed in the back seat and taken to jail. He stated that the CHP should have been called in earlier and that the department's management was displeased with him when he brought it up.

Allegations have already been raised that cell phone calls had been made by Leach and others at the scene of the traffic stop to upper management officers in the department who then ordered the watch commander, Lt. Leon Phillips to not order the conduction of a field sobriety test or DUI evaluation. So far, the city has not released a list of phone calls made by city-issued (meaning tax payer provided) cell phones nor has it released the recordings of 911 phone calls coming into the dispatch office involving Leach's accident and subsequent drive through Riverside. What the city released was a handwritten report submitted at some point by Sgt. Frank Orta who supervised the patrol officers who initially stopped Leach's car. A handwritten report which wasn't signed by a single higher ranking officer (at least not on the copy the city released to the public) and that only included a partial CAD incident report completely omitting any portion pertaining to the traffic stop reported at Arlington and Rutland, again without explaining why it did so.

Nor has the city released any information on whether Hudson ordered Leach to be tested for drugs and/or alcohol intoxication pursuant to a city policy dictating testing in Leach's circumstance. The city hasn't released information on whether the direct employees of the city council were honest about the role of alcohol in Leach's crash and whether or not there were attempts to downplay its role inside City Hall. It also hasn't answered any questions about City Hall or the police department's knowledge of prior incidents involving Leach before the accident that was heard or read about around the country. Hudson himself demurred on that question when it was raised in a public forum in Orangecrest when asked by a city resident as to how much he knew about past problems with Leach who after all was one of his department heads since June 2005.

The city hasn't really disclosed much at all about what has happened. Its promises to do so (at least the ones not redacted later by Hudson) have been all words, little action.

So much for public disclosure and rebuilding public accountability, trust, transparency and all those concepts. But it's been that case since the attempts of City Hall and the police department to suppress the events surrounding Leach's actions on Feb. 8 first began. And it will be that way until the demand for a truly independent probe of this mess trumps the current white washing investigation that is currently taking place. But while there's been a lot of complaints about the independence of this so-called probe by city residents, community leaders have been very quiet on this issue, not surprising since over 50 of them are already soliciting places for themselves on any interview or search panel being put together involving the hiring of the new police chief. Which is a shame because if an investigation needed to be shopped around outside City Hall, it's this one. But it seems that no one in leadership wants to risk alienating City Hall when it comes time to pick the latest panel set up to hire a puppet, since the one that picked the latest executive manager of the Community Police Review Commission.

Maybe that should be the next logical step for an outside probe to be launched. It should have been done on the first day, just as the criminal investigation should have been handed off immediately to the CHP.


Lanzillo’s allegations are serious ones indeed to add to the pile of ongoing serious allegations, including those implicating the current acting chief in the cover up of “potential criminal behavior” of Leach but more concern should be generated regarding the city's actions surrounding the handling of this claim. There's a lot of debate about the veracity of them going on but what's interesting is the city's response, in the face of the fact that it's making a big show out of its ahem, "sweeping probe" into this disturbing situation with Leach that put Riverside back on the national news radar in a way that alas, it didn't want. It's hard to keep inventing slogans and logos to reinvent yourself as something positive or economically viable during a recession but these scandals that crop up in Riverside every so often make it next to impossible for visions of Riverside as the city of arts, culture and innovation to stick for long. But Riverside will be revisited by sordid incidents like that involving Leach and any assorted cast of characters which facilitated in the attempted cover up of what happened on Feb. 8 because of a pattern and practice of serious problems within the police department and City Hall as well. Until that's addressed and remedied, nothing will ever change and the only certainty is that another embarrassing scandal will always be come from some corner of the city.

But merit of the claim aside, here are some questions which come to mind.

Why Was the Claim Dismissed so Quickly?

First of all, City Attorney Gregory Priamos said through his office that the city council rejected Lanzillo’s claim which had been filed March 4 in a closed session on March 9. If that’s the case, then call Guinness, because the city council just set a record for the fastest turnaround on a claim for damages which usually take a lot longer to even reach the city council for a discussion and certainly, an action vote. Another problem, is if you remember what was written on that last agenda, you’ll notice that there was no listing under the closed session stating that Chris Lanzillo vs the City of Riverside was coming up on the agenda which would have given the city residents enough notice to be able to know that it had been filed and to elicit public comment on it at the relevant meeting. Priamos said that the city rejected it on Tuesday, the day of the last city council meeting. Did his office reject it or was the city council involved in that decision? Have any members of the city government even read the claim before this decision was made?

It would certainly be hoped that the claim, merited or not, would have been read by city officials before the decision was made to accept or in this case reject it. Especially any of those city officials who are awaiting until the outcome of the Hudson probe to start exhibiting some leadership skills.

Why was the Claim Not Stayed Until the Hudson Probe was Completed?

The claim was denied around the time that Hudson was telling city residents at a public forum used to solicit input from city residents on the next police chief, that City Hall had been cleared from any involvement in the cover up but if this claim was denied in even greater secrecy than it had to be then City Hall has just made a liar out of Hudson through this action.

Does this mean that what’s in the claim is true? All of it? Any of it? It may or may not be and maybe it might take a jury trial to decide whether that’s the case. But at this stage what should take priority is not the veracity of the claim but the fact that it was filed by a city employee in the middle of a so-called “sweeping” probe of the cover up that took place after Leach’s accident purportedly to determine exactly what did happen including behind the scenes. To deny a claim so quickly is to deny its veracity in the interest of civil liability more than in terms of whether it's true or not because the veracity of a claim requires a vetting process where evidence is presented both for and against the allegations raised by the involved parties, which takes a period of time. Because isn't the probe created to address and investigate allegations of a cover up surrounding Leach's crash and traffic stop, including those similar to what Lanzillo alleged in his claim? Is this the city's way of saying that it's already determined that allegations of misconduct by members of the police department's management are unfounded? That's the message the city appears to be sending through its recent actions.

But most claims filed against the city take much longer to adjudicate than the five days between the time this claim was filed by Lanzillo and when it was rejected by the city. So denying a claim that quickly is again more about trying to protect the city's liability than in anything else, because it's too soon to make a determination of its veracity and by doing so, it seems like City Hall has made up its mind about what really happened before its investigation has been completed let alone reviewed by its "independent oversight".

Any reasonable person would understand that it’s premature to accept or deny a claim of cover up while that investigation is still ongoing and that doing so casts doubt on any independent "sweeping" probe that is taking place to ahem, determine exactly what the truth is and who knew about it. That by doing so it sends the wrong message to the increasingly doubtful public that any allegations of mismanagement by management are being taken seriously.

The ethical and sensible action to take would have been to stay the claim and not act on it until the completion of the administrative investigation just as any other claim making allegations involving the situation involving Leach should be stayed until at least completion of the administrative investigation. Being that the claim was only filed several days before it was denied (and was filed well within the statutory limit of 180 days), it’s not pressing to honor any statutory deadlines while rushing through it. In fact, a common strategy utilized by many city legal department is to stall on denying a claim for damages in hopes that the statutory period (most often 365 days) will be exhausted or close to being exhausted so that there’s no time to sue in federal or state court. Yet the city chose to rush the decision on this claim for damages right before sweeping it under the carpet to join all the other dust bunnies that have been piling up there for some time.

And it's not just the reality of what this action taken by the city means, there's the perception sent out to city residents that just days after City Hall through Hudson has cleared itself of any involvement in the cover up but that it's moved on to clearing at least one member of the department's upper management by rejecting a claim which includes allegations made against him.

If the city is denying a claim including allegations of covering up what happened on Feb. 8 while this so-called internal probe (call it white wash) is still ongoing, then that kind of tells you how serious this much touted investigation along with its “independent oversight” really was intended to be. It kind of tells you the whole thing is a white wash to placate the public’s demand for the truth while stringing it along hoping that with time, memories and emotions will fade.

But the decision to reject the claim might instead send it into a more public forum called a courtroom inside the U.S. District Court where it will be litigated much more openly than it would be behind the doors of City Hall. It's the responsibilities of any plaintiffs to prove the allegations that they raise in their civil litigation in a court of law through the process of discovery, deliberations on motions and in some cases, a trial by jury and perhaps that's what will be required in this case. That's the direction in which the city has pushed it towards, having denied the claim. And federal and state court systems tend to be more public forums for issues to be discussed and debated under the rules of law and procedure. That's probably the best place for this claim and any future ones to be sent so that they can be processed more out in the open than they would be if contained inside the boundaries of City Hall and its police department.

Given that this city's residents have just been given a text book example of where all this secrecy can lead.

Will the City and Department Ever Tell the City Residents The Truth?

The answer to this question has already been provided by Hudson and that is, no of course not. Now that this has been settled in that the city residents whose monies pay for the operations of the city will never be told the truth about what happened on Feb. 8, 2010, it's a memory that the city residents should take with them into the next election cycle coming up in 2011. Because if the city residents aren't told the truth about this cover up that took place involving department employees and/or city employees, then they are left to wonder what really happened and the extend of covering up bad conduct in this city by the police department and City Hall.

But City Hall through Hudson has made it clear that city residents will know next to nothing about what happened even as some of the management personnel who have been under the spotlight in terms of community concerns and questions apply for the top spot including DeLaRosa. Why, because the need for secrecy has become more important than the integrity of the police department or City Hall. When that happened, that's when the accountability and transparency of public agencies like the police department and City Hall eroded further, taking along the trust of city residents with it when critical incidents like this one take place. When the truth is that both the police department and City Hall have been in trouble for some time, with disturbing incidents taking place in both, enough so to show that they're far from isolated, but part of a pattern and practice of serious problems within both spheres.

That's what the city and department's combined leadership is showing through actions if not through either their sparse words or their sealed lips.






Speaking of the police department, it just released this latest chart depicting its current organizational structure which includes the current captain (including assistant and deputy chief positions) and lieutenant vacancies.



The Press Enterprise Editorial Board gives a thumbs up to the recent city council vote to partially reverse its 2009 vote which pretty much eliminated the ability of the Community Police Review Commission to investigate officer-involved deaths.




The history of the alleged clashes between Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco and Riverside County Superior Court Judge Gary Tranbarger.

March 6, 2010: What Would Bill Lockyer Think?

An Anniversary Passes...

On Saturday, March 6, an anniversary passed quietly and that was the fourth year that's elapsed since the State Attorney General's Office dissolved the stipulated judgment which existed between it and the City of Riverside between 2001 and March of that year. The focus of this legally enforced settlement of a writ of mandamus filed by that office was the very troubled Riverside Police Department. A department that was determined to be inadequately staffed, poorly supervised and in violation of numerous state laws and the state Constitution. The city denied all the allegations made against it of such violations but settled in March 2001 with the State Attorney General's office to purportedly save money that would otherwise be spent litigating the lawsuit filed against it. After that, it began spending what would turn out to be at least $26 million to this date on reforming the police department as well as modernizing its practices.

Cutting those Apron Strings

Around March 6, 2006, both the city and the State Attorney General's office went to court to dissolve the judgment as it was deemed by former Attorney General Bill Lockyer that the department had satisfied all the terms of the stipulated judgment and was ready to be cut loose from further oversight. Indeed the department had fulfilled the terms of the judgment including those involving improving and maintaining better officer/sergeant (which alas, was converted to supervisor) ratios, establishing community policing as a philosophy and providing new equipment to its officers including digital audio recorders, dash camcorders for its squad cars and less lethal options for its officers. The city council had passed a plan during one of its workshops to continue a reduced monitoring of the police department's implementation of its five-year Strategic Plan through quarterly audits with what appeared to be a 7-0 vote and had appeared to be moving forward.

But then summer rolled around and the city council and mayor had moved onto other venues, leaving City Manager Brad Hudson to change the order he had given to them to hire a consultant to conduct the audits. He unilaterally (or perhaps with some dais encouragement) tried to alter the directive given to the city council, with the plan apparently being that he would lower the terms of the proposal or engage in what is called "low balling" the consultant so that the consultant would refuse and he would go to the council and mayor, toss up his hands and say, look I tried but the guy asked for too much money. Of course, it didn't work out that way and enough city council members were shamed into remembering what they had promised the city's residents and redirected Hudson back to doing what he had been ordered to do.

By the time that was all straightened out, the department had started falling off of its path towards continued reform and its implementation of the Strategic Plan as members of management began to diverge in their implementation of a progressive management strategy and some of them had to be redirected as well. The parts of the department which had ground to a halt included much of the personnel and training division (including the development and implementation of the mental health crisis intervention training) which had been in some turmoil. That should have served as a warning to what lay ahead for the police department without an accountability mechanism attached. Not that the department shouldn't have been able to move forward on its own after a five-year consent decree but it had been divided into too many pieces which were doled out to different people at City Hall. And apparently some from inside it as well which explained the uneven development and progression from the management level of the police department noted in 2006 and early 2007. Some of that may have manifested itself in the department's promotional processes including at its highest levels of command.

The Tale of Two Recessions

In the 1990s, a recession had hit the United States including Riverside and the city had made tremendous budget cuts and laid off many employees. The police department's budget cuts that it experienced during that time period greatly impacted the problems which rose to crisis mode in the early hours of Dec. 28, 1998 when the shots were fired that the world would hear including such far reaching spots on the globe as Russia and South Africa. The number of supervisors had declined sharply and the number of newly hired and inexperienced officers had increased especially on the less than popular work shifts including "A" watch (or graveyard), weekends and holidays. That was countered including through the stipulated judgment by taking different measures, including promoting a number of experienced officers to the detective position but keeping the majority of those promoted in the field to ensure that at least 50% of those working the less popular shifts had at least five years experience. The number of sergeants under the judgment greatly increased to ensure the 7 to 1 (which is an industry standard) ratio in the shifts as well as to increase staffing in the department's Internal Affairs Division. Lieutenants were added to help implement the required mandate to have 24/7 watch commands manned by members of that rank.

Before and after the imposition of the judgment, the department turned over by up to 80 percent as many officers either left or were retired out and not all of them voluntarily. Those positions were filled between 2002-2004 with dozens of new officers and then that process began again after 45 new officer positions were approved by the city council not long before the dissolution of the decree including several new spots in the Traffic Division. Those latter positions for that division were rescinded before they could be filled as were at least 20 officer positions. What happened with all the hiring is that the age and experience level of the rank and file officers decreased even as their numbers grew. Whereas the average age of officers had been at least in the early thirties in the 1990s, it dropped to around 23-24 years old, with about 2.5-3 years experience in the job. The inexperienced officers began to gravitate back towards the less popular shifts. The supervisory levels started to fluctuate. And the number of lieutenant watch commanders at one point who needed their vacations increased at one time last year to the point where command staff members including the chief had met to address providing relief to these lieutenants on watch commands.

Apparently Hudson and his crew were blissfully unaware of all of this happening on their watch or perhaps this was the way they wanted it, as micromanagers of the police department. However, theirs weren't the only hands in the cooking pot of the RPD, as several elected officials might have been involving themselves in the operations of the department which should have raised some eyebrows. It did inside the police department but what about outside of it? That's an important question to ask given the price that's being paid for that system of operation that came in with the latest round of city managers including several who may have some rather deeply harbored yearnings to be officers themselves or at least enjoy some of the perks of the job without doing the actual work. Which wasn't good for the police department as it turned out and the Leach incident itself is but one example of a pattern of the damage inflicted on the police department by the current system of micromanagement which any future chief is probably going to step right into when starting his or her job here.


Budget cuts came along with the latest recession of this decade and wiped out many of the new positions (although six were unfrozen late last year and quickly filled with those officers currently in the academy) not to mention led to supervisory vacancies created through retirements pile up which naturally led to more retirements. Five lieutenant vacancies and at least 12 sergeant vacancies were anticipated by the end of 2010. Until three sergeant positions and one lieutenant position were unfrozen and filled last month, from a list that included three women in the top five positions for the lieutenant spots. But then neither of the last two promotions at the lieutenant level have come from the top five (or in one case) the top 10 list. The promotional process today has become one of the more controversial practices of the Riverside Police Department including its curious dynamic with some elements of City Hall particularly at the higher levels of command.

So much so that it doesn't seem to matter what you can bring to the job at the upper levels, as much as what "team" you're on and who loves or hates you in City Hall. Given that there's been changes in the structures of all the promotional processes except detective since around 2007 when the classified position of captains came up for some fiddling by City Hall including the push by the city manager's office to have several upper management positions including those of assistant and deputy chief be converted to serving "at will" and contract through Hudson's office. Both Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel and Assistant Chief John De La Rosa (who's now acting chief) had apparently signed contracts accepting their positions with incremental salary increases and these newly imposed "at will" conditions. Those contracts were later rescinded when it became clear through a rather boisterously attended city council meeting in March 2007 that this could not be the case for public safety positions.

Hudson had sent me an email before that explaining to me that offering management personnel the option to be "at will" was one eagerly accepted by nearly every other management level employee in the city. Which was difficult to believe because why would any employee set themselves up to be fired in fewer steps? Anyway, it's clear that this assertion had to be taken with a grain of salt especially since one of the people on that "at will" list not including the two police management personnel who accepted the contracts was slated for possible demotion by the city manager's office.

But I no sooner stepped inside the city council chambers at that meeting when Hudson approached me and then said that the city attorney's office had said they couldn't do it, which was later explained as one by one city employees stood before the city council to address the crowd of community leaders and members of two police unions which had gathered there. You would have thought Hudson would have checked the legalities with City Attorney Gregory Priamos before writing up the contracts but then, oh never mind that would have made more sense. Besides after observing Hudson and Priamos through the years, it's clear they're not all that close, with Priamos' pithy response to being mistaken for the city manager at one public meeting, was to say, "I consider it an insult actually."

Ouch. That comment turned a few heads inside that room.

But it seemed that though that standoff ended with the positions remaining what they were, it was one more sign that the power dynamic and some might say struggle that took place over the police department among different elements of City Hall had gotten going in earnest even as budget cuts threatened to whittle away one of the police department's most hard fought gains, community policing.

Community Policing: Gone bye bye?

As for "community policing" that was probably the first casualty of this round of budget cuts just as its burgeoning process had been wiped out by the last round in the 1990s. After all, Lockyer had asserted in his Writ against the city that the department lacked adequate staffing to carry out what limited community policing programs that it had. The Citizen Academy which is still accepting applications here but was disbanded until further notice several years ago with this class being the last one called for since it has disappeared. The term is still tossed about in community meetings once in a while, including at the forum held in the Eastside after the multi-agency raids sponsored by the Riverside County District Attorney's office. Not to mention that Hudson invoked the term several times as a mantra during his forum in the Eastside last week. But budget cuts and other things have pushed the police department's style of policing back into a watchman's style of policing operations, which preceded the evolution of community policing in the past decade or so.

For a while, it looked like the department's POP officers were down for the count in the latest round of budget cuts to impact the police department along with the NPC lieutenants but both have received reprieves although sergeants had been pulled out of the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit and 1-2 out of the Internal Affairs Division, although the recent round of promotions has restored the sergeant in the unit overseeing rape and child abuse cases. Although the next casualty of a loss of its sergeant might be the department's Family Violence Center if the current sergeant departs the department for another job. And two of the department's most important divisions are those that handle the crimes of domestic violence, child abuse and rape so for them to lose their supervisors at any time is fairly shocking to many people.

But all this preceded and has served for backdrop for the incident that put Riverside on the national scope again and that's the infamous incident involving the former police chief's accident, traffic stop and alleged cover up, which of course led to a much poo-poohed "sweeping" internal investigation of a cover up that itself appears to be a cover up and its results will never be released to the public that has just learned that apparently there's an expectation that all people in Riverside might be equal but in the words from George Orwell's Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.

The Double Standard of Policing

What the police department and the City Hall that runs it have taught the city residents in the past month is that there are two standards of policing in Riverside apparently endorsed by people fairly high up in the city and department's food chain of command. One for the city residents and one for the police chief and perhaps others who fit under the "high profile" category designated by Hudson and his assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis. The one that said they were supposed to be notified by the police department's management whenever someone "high profile" including apparently the police department's head had a contact with police officers. This is apparently how it goes, that certain incidents get reported to Hudson or most often to DeSantis (except apparently the "high profile" incident involving him and a woman in a parking lot in Hemet) and then treated accordingly whatever that means because it wasn't fully explained by either Hudson or DeSantis.

Hey wait a minute here, aren't the laws enforced by police officers supposed to apply equally everyone? It appears that Hudson and DeSantis were a bit miffed that they weren't contacted in this latest case involving Leach until quite a ways after the fact and if that's true, it must have been some feat inside the police department's upper echelons to keep it hush hushed around the city manager's office which views the department as its favorite toy to play with and micromanage often to detrimental effect. Because if other law enforcement agencies are called in to investigate them both on a seemingly more frequent basis these days, then there's some serious problems brewing.

But here's about that double standard about being a "potential" DUI, meaning that your errant driving habits are reported to police through 911 calls to the dispatch center. How you are handled might depend on whether you are the police chief or not.

If you get in an accident and try to drive around the city with flattened tires, you will be pulled over by police officers if you're a regular citizen and not the police chief. You will be evaluated for a DUI and if you are shown to be intoxicated through that evaluation or investigation, then you will be arrested, put in the back seat of a squad car in the "cage" and driven to be booked at the county jail. Go straight to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 and all that. At least two individuals in separate incidents discovered that in the past couple of weeks being mere mortals themselves.

But if you're the police chief and you get in an accident and drift off the road, hit a few stationary objects and then drive around on flattened or even missing tires, you may get pulled over by officers eventually but you will not be evaluated for a DUI. Even if you talk nonsense about not being aware of where you are but having some recollection of driving on some dirt road and some field and needing to change your tire. The officers will treat your accident and its aftermath as a traffic collision and nothing else. The proof is in the sergeant's report, like that written by Sgt. Frank Orta in the Leach case. Now contrast that with a summary he wrote on a similar incident involving an average person that was posted in an earlier blog posting. Some difference right in the outcome right?

Your car might be trashed and you might not be aware how much but you will not be evaluated for a DUI nor will you be given a field sobriety test if you're the police chief. The action of your car drifting across a wide thoroughfare across a few pesky yellow lines to the other side? That can be written off as a risky right turn maneuver. An accident followed by a drive through Riverside, not a hit and run but a "traffic collision" to be filed away somewhere, perhaps never to be read or heard from again. And a driver behind the wheel of a car suffering from "major damage" (borrowed from Sgt. Frank Orta's written report) who has no memory of that accident isn't even investigated for a DUI but is given a ride home perhaps in the front seat of a squad car. What a difference a simple thing like an identity makes!

The police chief gets the ride home and a report to be filed away some place while at least two other individuals who drove around Riverside with flattened tires get arrested on DUI and taken to jail in the backseat of the squad car, including perhaps one being driven by one of the officers who responded to the Leach incident. Two incidents handled correctly and through professional behavior by police officers with the other incident not being handled at all.

This not surprisingly hasn't led to good feelings being expressed about the police department and City Hall in many venues including the comment threads of articles published at the Press Enterprise's Web site. But in the case of Leach, the two patrol officers who stopped him were not very experienced officers with one of them being hired after 2007. They did what others might have done in that situation which was to call their supervisor of their NPC to handle the incident. In their case, Orta, the court recognized DUI expert, rolled out with Lt. Leon Phillips who happened to be the watch commander who had been with him at a previous police call.

At some point, the process came to a halt, meaning that this "potential DUI" was apparently determined to be a "traffic collision" to be filed away, all without any form of DUI evaluation or field sobriety test being conducted on Leach. Yet neither Orta nor Phillips provide their reasoning in any written form as to why this wasn't done, because maybe you just can't write the obvious explanation on a police report. That I or we didn't do the evaluation or test because well, it was the police chief involved. Yet all these individuals including any upper management in the police department remained silent on what they called "professional" behavior while city residents pretty much called for the public hangings of the two patrol officers and their supervisor, Orta. They remained silent rather than admit that the decision to give Leach a green light on his accident and traffic stop most likely came from even higher than the watch commander's position. Remained silent while the officers at the bottom of the ladder got castigated when pretty much all they did was call for a supervisor in a difficult situation for new officers to find themselves in.

Apparently most of the command staff played no direct role in the situation with Leach's car accident and stop when it first arose and in fact, may be relieved because for the grace of God go I and all that business. But what would any of them have done who weren't there? What would the captain (if he's still around) who once had to drive in the wee hours of the morning to pick up Leach from some location in San Bernardino County because he was unable to drive home have done? These questions have been asked by many people and they won't be answered not through Hudson's "sweeping" probe when he's essentially cleared City Hall including his own office before he's even had time to let the ink dry on his new contract with his "independent oversight", Best, Best and Krieger attorney, Grover Trask. So much for that probe, meaning that they've done a probe...and they've already cleared themselves! Excellent!

But then you have to recognize the two cardinal rules of any worthy inhouse "sweeping" probe and this is what they are:


1) to shield the involvement of those conducting the probe and select designees in any cover up being investigated

2) to punish anyone who might be undermining the cover up that is under "investigation" or the focus of said probe




These two rules are tried and true, so much so that they are just a given factor in any such "internal" probe. Which is why many of us do not trust or put any stock in inhouse investigations otherwise known as investigating one's self. Fox meet hen house now watch over it, and all that. And this probe if you watch how it plays out (at least what little part that's visible and not swept beneath the nearest rug), it will abide by both of the above rules. There's no other way it can be and really no other outcome. Because remember, the outcome will not be released by Hudson. It will be left for everyone who's paying for this investigation and independent oversight through the city's funding to speculate.

Remember too, the climate that created this situation involving Leach (which he fully participated by getting in the accident and driving off aware or not) is what makes this so. If anyone out there thinks this probe is about uncovering the truth and fixing it, then there's some beachfront property I'd like to show you in Idaho. It's all about self-protection for a group of individuals who would just love it if everyone forgot about it and went away.

As far as the command staff, it wasn't their business so there was no decision for them to make but is that the case for all of them? Are there parties in upper management who did make that decision to have officers give Leach a ride home rather than even a field evaluation test for a DUI and a further investigation of hit and run? A place to start looking is to look at the process instituted by the police department to wait until two days and a lot of heat coming at their door to farm the noninvestigation and "traffic collision" report (to be filed away remember) to the CHP for further investigation and review. Although that agency's job as it freely admitted has been greatly compromised by the passage of time and thus inability to conduct that deferred DUI evaluation and field sobriety test on Leach. It should have been a matter of course once someone at the scene called someone not at the scene for the latter person to say, okay we'd better not handle it, call the CHP watch commander and have him send a crew on down to Arlington and Rutland. After all, isn't the CHP like within five miles of Arlington and Rutland? Yes, in fact it's about 4.3 miles away not too long of a drive at all and the territory of locally assigned CHP officers might be considerable but it wouldn't take them two days to get there.

After all, here is one route the CHP could have taken to get from their Riverside headquarters to Leach's traffic stop. The estimated duration of this trip is around 11 minutes. But instead the report was written up as a "traffic collision" to be filed away as its disposition. That report though unsigned by the time it was released by City Hall (though it's been alleged that a management member of the police department signed it) apparently passed the muster of the police department's command structure until the incident threatened to get away from them by Tuesday, the same time the department surrendered the incident to the CHP in the face of huge criticism and backlash by city residents who were just getting wind that a scandal was once again brewing in River City. Why was a report sent to City Hall in response to the mayor's inquiries that was clearly inadequate? Who in charge made that decision?

There should have been a call for an independent probe from day one by community and civic leaders but except for the city residents lighting up the comments threads of the Press Enterprise and for people sharing their thoughts in different venues. But as for the leadership, you could hear a pin drop. In fact, quite a few pin drops but why that is became clear when Hudson announced that many people had contacted him who wanted to be picked for any selection or interview panel in relation to the search and/or selection of the next chief.

More phone calls from leaders for that reason rather than to seek an independent probe because if they argued for the latter, they wouldn't have a chance to serve on the former. Which is too bad because if they hire the best chief on the planet (which they wouldn't because the best chiefs are difficult to control and this is all about control), as long as the current dysfunctional dynamic is in place involving the police department and City Hall, nothing will change. And the next chief will be a tool of micromanagement as the last one became. To be serving "at will" under the current city management office doesn't really make for much in the way of independent and autonomous (which was Hudson's favorite descriptor for the new chief) department head.

And what the department's done now is place itself through decisions most likely at the top in a situation that mirrors some of the qualities of what it faced just over a decade ago. Increasing civil litigation, complaints, grievances and claims for damages. Massive distrust from large segments of the city's population to the point where the department had to recently cancel a scheduled DUI checkpoint until further notice. Officers getting arrested. And an incoming police chief who will inherit all of these problems left by his predecessor.

In 2010, history has repeated itself and brought the department in some ways, full circle.

The Mysterious Phone Call

I read this blog posting about the mysterious caller who contacted the Mayor's office to tip the mayor off on Leach's car accident and traffic stop. Mayor Ron Loveridge allegedly tried to investigate the allegation through Hudson's office and at some point was given a copy of Orta's "traffic collision" report. But did Loveridge issue a press release alerting the public that this had happened any time on Monday when the incident became known to him? How about Tuesday? How about Wednesday? How about at all? No, Loveridge made it clear through his own actions that while he did the right thing which was to look into the allegation, it would remain strictly within the confines of the glass bubble called City Hall or what one columnist called, the Cone of Silence. The public was never to know about it or what he knew.

The blogger lists different motives behind the phone call including envy and jealousy when the truth is, there's no way to know what the reasoning was behind the phone call. Sometimes a phone call is just a phone call. Sometimes not but it's likely we'll never know. And remember, Loveridge probably didn't want anyone else to know either about what happened so while motives are being questioned, extend that courtesy to Loveridge (who's elected to serve the city's residents) and other individuals at City Hall and the police department's management which is another reason not to farm it out to the CHP the first day.

Help Wanted: A new Chief or Puppet?

Another forum?

City Manager Brad Hudson had begun to take his community forums on the road hitting his first spot in the Eastside at the Caesar Chavez Community Center where he greeted an audience of over 70 people who had shown up to provide their input in terms of the selection process for the next chief.

He will be appearing at his second stop in Orangecrest this week.

To be Continued...

Coming Soon...

The troubled Riverside Police Department and City Hall which controls it will get slapped with more civil lawsuits alleging civil rights and labor violations from several new corners of this picture not heard from yet. Exactly what kind of price is going to be wrought by the problematic practices of the Riverside Police Department? That remains to be seen as are any attempts to seriously address what is going on with this agency, in the wake of the troubling Feb. 8 incident involving former Chief Russ Leach and one of his city-issued Chrysler 300s.

One former officer had called the arrests of at least five police officers (and possibly more), "the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to issues impacting a police department only four years out of its stipulated judgment with the state.







The second grade separation project in Riverside is nearing completion on Columbia Street.


Banning's police department gets a new dispatch center.


Moreno Valley: Epicenter of the housing boom and bust.

Public Meetings

Tuesday, March 9 at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Riverside City Council meets at City Hall to conduct the business contained on this agenda.

Among the items on the discussion calendar is this proposal to partially restore the investigative powers involving officer-involved deaths to the Community Police Review Commission by allowing investigators to be dispatched by the commission 30 days after an incident. It's expected to have enough votes on the city council to pass. Which is a pretty interesting reversal of what transpired nearly a year ago when the city council voted 5-2 to pretty much curtail the CPRC's ability to investigate officer-involved deaths until after the police department finished its investigation. What happened was that there were four fatal incidents within a six month period after the directive had initially been issued from Hudson's office and most of these incidents are between 12-18 months old without having any investigations initiated.


No CPRC Meeting the second week of this month


As you know, the CPRC voted to reduce its meeting schedule by changing its hours so it will meet a half hour earlier so fewer people can come to its meetings, not to mention that there will be no additional "special" meetings scheduled. This is a very critical short-sighted decision by the commission's City Hall aligned majority led by Chair Peter Hubbard and Vice-Chair Art Santore as special meetings become crucial for discussion periods when the commission is reviewing its investigation and the police department's criminal investigation of the officer-involved death and engaging in the drafting of its public report. If there are no special meetings, it's anticipated that the fourth pending officer-involved death public report will be issued sometime in 2013. This is allowing the requisite time for investigation and review and an average of six meetings per public report per death case.

This is actually a minimalist approach as given that there's only three hours set for general meetings (from 5-8 p.m.) and other agenda items including some backed up 3-5 months, so the actual period for each officer-involved death could be closer to a hear which would put the Russell Hyatt case to be completed in 2014.

Something to stand up and cheer about for sure.




Wednesday, March 10 at 6:30 p.m. at Orange Terrace Community Center, Orangecrest is the second of three community forums to solicit input which purportedly will be used in the selection process for the next police chief.

Finance Committee Watch



No meeting has been set for March and in fact, the next one is tentatively scheduled for sometime in April. Once again, this very important subcommittee of the city council has gone back on hiatus.

Riverside County Sheriff's Department Promotes First Female African-American Captain

Shelly Kennedy-Smith received that promotion on March 5.