The Robert Forman Trial: He said; She said and Joking about Women's Lingerie

Testimony continued in the ongoing trial of former Riverside Police Department officer Robert Forman who has been charged with three felonies of sexual misconduct under the color of authority. Riverside County Superior Court presiding judge, John Molloy apparently recovered from his illness convened court for the first time in a week. The court days are already cut shorter than usual because the trial is taking place inside the old civil courthouse and it's judges who are assigned to civil cases who are presiding over the trials. Which means that they hear a civil calendar until mid-morning and then switch over to conducting a criminal trial. Not exactly how they conduct business in most counties but then this is Riverside.

And sure enough on the tables, there aren't placards that read prosecution and defense but plaintiff and defendant. The jury seats are slightly more comfortable and the design of the courtroom is much different with fewer seats for the audience and no adjacent holding facilities for incustody inmates like in the newer building.

Not that this trial has exactly been packing the seats but a few people have dropped by to observe the proceedings of the latest trial involving a former law enforcement officer who is being prosecuted for alleged onduty crimes that took place between February and April 2008.


Sitting in the back of the room were Internal Affairs Division sergeants, Pat McCarthy and John Capen dressed in business suits along with Investigations Lt. Mike Perea who sat in for a while, as witnesses testified for the prosecution in this case. The presence of the Internal Affairs sergeants was duly noted by some of the parties in the case although the two sergeants remained silent during the proceedings even as people talked about them and pointed them out to the jury. Given how backlogged Internal Affairs is with its investigations, it's significant that the division is having two of its five sergeants spend the entire day sitting in a courtroom to testimony by several of the department's officers although it's probably a given that they're going to hang out at any venue where a police officer is providing a statement or being interviewed about an incident even if it's at the witness stand at a criminal trial. They weren't sure whether or not they'll be back on Monday.

And so with all that, another day of testimony began in the case of the People of the City of Riverside vs Officer Robert Forman.

The Ex-Trainee

Former officer, Megan (Edwards) Meyers took the stand and continued her testimony, much more composed than she had been a week earlier when she broke down on the witness stand and cried after three hours of testimony between lawyers from both sides who switched back and forth through out the afternoon as her account of the incident unfolded. Though it seemed that an admonition by Molloy about her testifying style set her off, she had been getting increasingly agitated and impatient as the day went on.

Meyers testified that she spoke with the reporting party and discovered that this individual had erroneously or falsely (and she was asked both during her testimony as if they were interchangeable) reported the call as a home invasion robbery. Meyers said she didn’t consider the victim in this case, a victim of a criminal action or involved in criminal behavior herself but somewhere in the middle. As such, she also testified that she didn’t hear anyone else threaten to arrest the victim at any point nor did she do it herself. Among the officers in that reference were Officer William Zackowski and Sgt. Paul De Jong.

At some point, some officers were standing near a dartboard in the living room posted by the kitchen door about eight feet away from Meyers and the victim. And so her testimony began about what's becoming the infamous lingerie incident. Not in itself a crime but something that took place only several hours before a crime was alleged to have taken place. An example of sexist behavior by officers on the scene of a crime just hours before an alleged act of sexual assault under the color of authority and thus testified about during the trial. At times, the testimony particularly by the current and former police officers seems to resemble an administrative proceeding of the lingerie incident as much as it does a criminal trial about an alleged sexual assault by a police officer.

As it turned out, it didn't appear that Meyers approved of this behavior by some of the male officers on the scene judging from comments that she made during her testimony even as she had some recollection issues.


“I saw lingerie on the dartboard,” Meyers recalled, “But I didn’t see who placed it.”


She said that she overheard an officer ask out loud if the lingerie belonged to the victim. Saying something like “Oh are these hers” in a joking fashion.


“I remember hearing them joking but I don’t remember who said it,” Meyers told the jury.



She said she remembered thinking that these guys are being “immature”. Fortunately, she apparently wasn't the only officer in the room who felt that this behavior was problematic as it turned out.

She was asked if Zackowski put the lingerie on the dartboard and she said she didn’t know who did it nor did she remember if he spoke with the victim. Under redirect by the prosecutor, Elan Zekster, she was asked about the relationship between Forman and Zackowski and she said she thought they were “pals” and that “they talked a lot”. Something Zackowski would later modify in his own testimony by saying that the belief existed that the two men were closer friends than they actually were.

Zekster asked her about when she, Forman and Zackowski had left the scene. One of them had gone back to the victim’s apartment to retrieve something and she said she wasn’t sure which officer. She just remembered walking with only one officer and then the second one coming back. Zekster made a reference to an interview she had given to police detectives where she had said her memory was fuzzy but when she thought about it later, she had believed it was Forman who had gone back to the apartment. Testimony which as it turned out would be contradicted by one of the other officers who had left the apartment with her.

Meyers was questioned a lot about why the victim, who was on felony probation for drug possession hadn’t been arrested for violation of probation when the drug paraphernalia was found in her closet. She said that she had approached Forman about whether or not the victim would be arrested.



“He told me we wouldn’t be arresting her,” she said, though he didn’t explain why, “I didn’t pressure him no.”



The police did seize a computer tower for investigation on suspicion that a check fraud or counterfeiting operation was being done inside the victim’s apartment. But they didn’t arrest her on the drug charges because they had asked the victim if the hypodermic syringes they had found in her closet were hers and she said no.


“End of story,” Zekster said.

“Yes,” said Meyers.



Meyers was asked if she would lie for Forman and she said no.


“I would never lie for anybody,” she said.


That's what every officer or former officer who testified said in one form or another even as they contradicted each other in several key areas of the testimony including whether or not anyone or who returned to the apartment to retrieve a forgotten item as the officers left the scene and what happened involving the aforementioned lingerie incident. There's the spirit of the words and the letter of them because the combined testimonies don't come together well to create a single portrait of the events which took place in the early morning hours of April 18, 2008 but a variety of different ones. So which one is the truth, or is it a combination of different accounts that is indeed what happened? And what is or is not attributed to memories fading and recollections becoming weaker during an 18 month period or was it the Thin Blue Line at work?

The Senior Officer

Next up on the witness stand was Zackowski who said that he had been a police officer for 15 years and with the police department for 11 of those years. During his tenure with the department, he had taken drug recognition classes, arrested over 500 people for methamphetamine offenses and also was very familiar with search terms for parolees and probationers including through his involvement with the department’s Parole and Corrections Team (PACT). He had known Forman for his entire tenure at the department and had ridden with him 2-3 times. In April 2008, they had both been assigned in separate vehicles covering the University Avenue corridor area during the graveyard shift.

On April 18, 2008, Zackowski said he was responding to a home invasion call of an uncertain location so he went to the general area and saw a parked car with people inside parked on the street in the general area near where the report originated. He shone his spotlight on the car and about 3-7 officers including Sgt. Ruddy, Sgt. Dan Russell, De Jong, Anthony Watkins, Forman, Vivian Tate and Forman’s trainee (Edwards) responded to the scene. Zackowski testified that a woman, the victim, came out and said she owned the residence. The police ran a search on her at some point and discovered she was on felony probation.

Because of the nature of the call, several police did a protective sweep of the house to uncover any potential threats and secure the residence. Once they accomplished this, they began a secondary search. What they uncovered is that the victim had said some individuals had come to her house to use their computer and overstayed their visit. Based on the probationary status of the victim, the police decided to search the house.

Forman who had responded to the call because he had a trainee took over the scene once he had arrived with Edwards assigned the task of writing the primary police report. Zackowski who brought a wealth of experience with probationary searches due to his PACT history searched the bedroom and during the search found several syringes in a dresser drawer. Knowing that they posed a hazard to himself and other officers, he confronted the victim as he should have to ensure the safety of the officers in the apartment including himself.

He talked to the victim in the bathroom, with her sitting on the toilet and him standing by the sink in a stern manner asking her if there were other syringes that might create a safety issue for him and other officers while searching. He told her that he didn’t want to be stuck with needles because several of the syringes had blood on them.

He told her if she didn’t cooperate with him, he would violate her probation, arrest and send her to jail if they found any more needles which they did in a bag inside her closet which contained between 20-30 of them as well as a used syringe sitting outside the bag on a shelf in the closet. Zackowski said he also found a spoon which had methamphetamine residue on it. He called over Meyers and explained to her what he had found, what the spoon was used for, that it contained drug residue and what it meant so it would help her recognize similar things in the future as she gained experience in her career as a police officer in the department.

Zackowski testified that he did tell Forman about the syringes at some point but wasn’t sure whether he did it separately or whether he showed him all the syringes together. He said that he believed that eventually the evidence including the syringes would be collected and processed in an evidential fashion. When asked if there was enough evidence for him to have arrested the victim, Zackowski said yes and when asked what that evidence was, Zackowski said it was the syringes.

Then Zackowski was asked about the lingerie incident.

Zackowski testified about seeing lingerie around the bedroom and that at some point he had picked up a pair of underwear and placed it on the gun belt of Officer Anthony Watkins. It appears that the intention behind the action was that the officer wearing it wouldn't be aware of it at first and then the others watching would laugh at him as a joke. Only the joke isn't on the officer, it's on the woman whose lingerie is being used in this manner by professional police officers assigned to the Riverside Police Department while no less than three field sergeants were somewhere onscene during the incident involving what was originally a home invasion call. It's also a joke on the officers in the police department who do not act in such a matter when responding to calls for service or interacting with the public, while wearing their badges and uniforms telling everyone where they work and what they represent.

When Zackowski was asked about it, he admitted what he did and when asked if he had regrets, responded that yes he did. Maybe on his part it was an impulsive act without clear thought until after. But this wasn't one of the police department's highest points in its history and it's only come to light because of a criminal case that's held in a public forum known as a courtroom.

Watkins then walked out of the bedroom with the lingerie on his gun belt into the living room and that it somehow wound up on Officer Lonnie Battest’s gun belt. Battest then took the underwear off his gun belt and put it on the dart board, according to Zackowski who said that Battest hadn't seemed happy with what the officers had done.



“He wasn’t entertained by it,” Zackowski said.



He said he couldn’t recall if the victim had been in the area where this was taking place but that she had been sitting in a chair near the front door and he wasn’t sure she could see what was on the dart board. But Edwards had already testified that she had been seated at the chair by the table near the dartboard for reasons of officer safety while the officers were inside her apartment including when they were conducting the search. Still, Zackowski said he wasn't sure of where she was at the time of the lingerie incident.



“I didn’t look at her,” Zackowski said, “At that point, I wasn’t happy myself.”



If that's the case, then at least Zackowski admitted it. There's actions and then there's reactions to actions, even if it takes time for them to catch up with what's been done. And the fact is that playing and joking around with a woman's lingerie in her own home under the color of authority sends the message that the police department views women not as victims, perpetrators or even that "in the middle" that Meyers testified to, but as objects to be used for entertainment or to alleviate the boredom that might arise from spending hours in the earliest hours of morning when most of the world's asleep, dealing with a crime scene.

After he left with Forman and Edwards, Zackowski said he didn’t remember anyone going back upstairs to the apartment while they were leaving. He said he drove back to the Orange Station but didn’t recall going to the jail nearby although he was told that he was taped by a surveillance camera while he was there. He did recall being with Forman in front of the station and must have had a conversation with him but that he didn’t recall Forman saying anything about going back to the victim’s residence. He remembered what he had talked about with Forman but not what Forman had said to him. A lot of his recollection appeared to come from reviewing interviews.


Johnson cross-examined Zackowski and asked him why the two Internal Affairs Division sergeants were sitting in the back of the courtroom or whether he was ever notified that they would be present during his testimony. He responded no, to being notified that they would be showing up at the courtroom. Johnson asked Zackowski if he been put on notice about the department not believing that he didn't remember or did remember things that happened.

And that 20 minutes of missing time has been called into question by the department's investigators because he couldn’t recall where he was during that time in interviews with them. He was told that he had come back to the Orange Station about 45 minutes before Forman had and Zackowski said he had a vague recollection of a conversation with Forman about his personal life.

He had been interviewed twice by investigators about the incident in the summer of 2008 and after the first interview was told by a sergeant that “they don’t think you’re funny and you need to go back after lunch”. The concern by investigators had been over why he remembered specific details about the home invasion robbery call but not after that incident.

Zackowski told the jury he would never cover for another officer. He also related an incident that happened when he was out at the movie theater and received a phone call from Forman’s investigator when he hadn’t given the number out and he had asked the investigator how he had gotten his number. He had told the investigator he had not planned to cooperate with him and said that the investigator told him that he might have to work with him in the future. Zackowski took that as a threat he said, because the man worked for the law firm that represents the Riverside Police Officers’ Association and thus him as an officer. An allegation was made through questioning during his testimony that he had said that most attorneys who were ex-police officers were fired from their jobs.

He was excused subject to recall. He seemed to be relieved to be off the stand.

The Camera Man

Lonnie Battest testified next and said he had responded to the home invasion robbery call to take photographs of areas and items that other officers told him to document, usually arriving after searches had already been conducted. He saw the victim in passing and to him she didn’t seem very upset. He said that during the 30-45 minutes he had been at the scene, the atmosphere was normal and relaxed.

At one point, he looked down and saw a pair of pink underwear on his gunbelt. He didn’t think it was funny and knocked it off of his belt. To his best recollection, he said, he didn’t put it on the dart board. He didn’t see putting it on his belt or the dart board as appropriate conduct and said he conducted himself in a professional manner at the scene.


“From what I remember, I knocked them off my belt and continued walking,” Battest said.


When he left, he saw that several officers remained including Forman and Edwards at the time he had left after knocking the underwear off. What was interesting about his testimony was that he had been adamant in his testimony that the underwear on his gun belt had been pink while the victim had mentioned that it had been black. Was Battest confused about the color? He seemed absolutely set in saying that it was pink. Or was there more than one pair of underwear involved here? The questions continue as the testimony does.

It's interesting watching the legal strategies unfold by both the prosecutor and the defense attorney but curiously enough, the defense counsel seems to be assisting the prosecution more with its case than with its own. It's not clear if Forman is planning to testify in his defense but in most of these cases, police officers don't take the stand. They usually hope that their attorneys will try most of their own case through cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. In many cases involving police officers this has been enough, given that juries are reluctant to convict police officers for on and off-duty crimes and the alleged victims in these cases often have criminal records which are used to impeach them.

But the defense attorney is making it seem like Forman wasn't in the apartment at all by side-stepping his client's actions or inquiries about what he was doing while focusing on those of the other officers, which will leave the jury with the tendency of wondering why this is so and asking themselves why there's so little mention of the leading character in this ongoing story that is unfolding in front of them. What exactly was Forman doing in the apartment while the police officers were there investigating the home invasion call? It's much more clear at this point in the trial where every other officer at the scene was positioned, when and what they were doing at the victim's apartment than is the case with Forman whose actions actually matter most. The jury's biggest questions running through their heads at this point in the trial surely must be where was Robert Forman when all this was going on and what exactly was he doing inside the victim's apartment? And most importantly, did he return later?

The Detective

Linda Byerly has been a detective in the Riverside Police Department for seven years and employed as an officer for about 20 years. Currently, she's assigned in the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit and has been assigned to this case. She spends the days at the trial sitting in the role of assigned investigator at the prosecutor's table. She testified after Battest had been excused (and he actually was, not just subjected to recall like everyone else) and her testimony seemed to set some foundation on evidential issues involving the use of the police department's Honeywell security cards.

She testified that security cards were required to obtain entrance at both the Orange Street Station and the Lincoln Field Operations Station and that the department kept records on each officer's use of the cards at the different facilities.

She testified and reports of card activity were produced that showed that the actions of both Forman and Zackowski were highlighted, showing that Zackowski returned to the Orange Street Station at about 7:18 a.m. and Forman a bit later, at 8:10.40. am. The issue of the time cards was raised in earlier testimony including the fact that Forman and Zackowski went to the jail to book a woman from the residence into jail for a felony violation but Zackowski returned to Orange Station about 52 minutes before Forman did. Unless Forman testifies, his lawyer has a couple of choices which is to discredit an electronic security system or to have other witnesses besides Forman account for the time he spent missing from Orange Street Station.

One of the biggest issues at the trial has been where was Forman during this time period and how much did he say or not say to Zackowski about where he was going and what he was doing at the point where they parted ways. And whether or not this officer is aware that his former colleague seems intent on selling him out down the river which is odd behavior from an innocent man. Of all the witnesses so far, Zackowski seems to be the most caught between a rock and a hard place, stuck answering difficult questions 18 months after the alleged criminal incident in front of Internal Affairs sergeants. Is he testifying honestly and are his gaps after the home invasion robbery car genuine or is he covering up for another officer and if so why?

And what is he thinking in that Forman's lawyer is trying to make it seem like he's the one who acted suspiciously that day? Whether it's making innuendos that he was the officer who returned to the victim's apartment and had more contact with the victim than Forman did or even trying to make it appear as Zackowski was involved in misconduct, it seems clear that for whatever reason the defense strategy is to place Zackowski in a particular role, probably not one that fits him. If Forman was indeed his friend, there's a saying about that. But Forman's in the fight of his life and his freedom playing a role inside a venue that he never expected to be. Everyone else is supporting characters.

Perhaps Zackowski's refusal to help the defense team or be interviewed by them is a reflection of his realization that something's not quite right. Because after all, there's something stronger than the Blue Code and that's self-preservation. But Zackowski's been the hardest testimony to watch because he's an officer who put in 11 years in the department and probably accomplished a lot during his tenure and made a difference in the city who sat on the witness stand looking like he's watching his career is slipping away.

Testimony is set to resume on Monday morning.



Does blogging about the Forman case make a person popular? Not exactly and apparently it hasn't in some circles on this case either. When I first wrote about Forman's arraignment last year, I received the following comment on Inland Empire's Craigslist.




So now Shelton follows one of RPDs officers through the courthouse? Sits close and eavesdrops on a handshake between a prosecutor and the officer?

Sick.

Her true intentions ring out again. She is infatuated with the thought of an officer being charged with sex crimes. "This cop abused his authority," she screams. Just like he (that authority figure from her past) did to me!" Oops.

You might ask why. We have a hunch. Maybe she's reliving her Army days? Yeah we know all about that. Don't act surprised.

Sick, Shelton. You really ought to get some help with your spirits of the past. oh and get some clean clothes and get yourself clean. Your disgusting.

Eh whatever. And you of course, are cute and sexy even if you can't spell. You might want to shave once in a while though.






How the political ambitions of one key player in the San Jacinto scandal led to his downfall as the tendrils of the latest political scandal to hit the Inland Empire expands ever so outward from its epicenter.




What's going on with those red light cameras in Riverside?

Local Political Buzz

Yes, the Riverside Ward Six election is nearly four years away but there's already buzz that one candidate, Frank Corral is running for office in that ward when that seat is up in 2013. Never too late to plan ahead.

And the usual rumors about everyone and his mother planning to run in the mayoral election in 2012, the first without incumbent Ron Loveridge in the running. At least eight names have been tossed about in speculation.

Rumors are too that Ward Seven incumbent, Councilman Steve Adams might try his hand at running for the state assembly seat again which he attempted to do but failed to make it out of the Republican Primary. Perhaps he believes the second time is the charm. Probably not. It's like moving up from little league to the pros.

The Orange County Sheriff's race which takes place next year is heating up. Like both Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, Orange County has an appointed sheriff rather than an elected one. All three counties are set to hold elections next year.

Riverside: City of Arts, Innovation and...Nazi rallies

"The Holocaust also shows us how a combination of events and attitudes can erode a society's democratic values."

---Tim Holden



"The Nazis victimized some people for what they did, some for what they refused to do, some for what they were, and some for the fact that they were."


---John Conway

"If you look at the election of the first black president and the state of the economy being what it is today, with unemployment at an all-time high, these types of things are kind of a perfect storm for these feelings to foment and for white supremacists to feel validated."


---Joanna Mendelson, Anti-Defamation League

"Have you noticed that everyone has the freedom of speech except any white group. If it was not for the white man no one would care to live in the US, because it would be just another crime infested country. They have rights to speak out. Sergio Ramos says that they don't have the right to be here. Since when. It is Mr.Ramos who does not have the right to be here."

---Anonymous commenter at PE.com.

Images of the Holocaust




The Press Enterprise wrote this article about the decision of local members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) to hold a rally in Riverside, California as part of a day of similar rallies countywide held at areas where day laborers congregate. The response to this article in the comments section was pretty immediate and prolific.


(excerpts)



Holy Smokes. Riverside is the headquarters for the California branch of this group? Maybe the Chamber of Commerce should host a counter-rally as well. I can't think of anything more degrading to a city than to host these creeps.



Other cities/counties have peace marches and rainbow coalition fairs, but not here. Here in Riverside we host the NEO NAZIs. What is with this place? If want Riverside to be a great place for all then we need to do something about these Neo Nazis who want to make our county it's base! People, wake up!



The Inland Empire...nazi rally, statewide nazi office for California....hate-mongers hired by Neil Derry & paid by the County Citizens.....I have a great idea for a border fence: a huge one surrounding San Bernardino, Riverside, Redlands to keep all of the whackos contained inside of it!




No, I get out a lot.
My point in saying it was, that it's right in Casa Blanca.
And they are NOT moved by any authorities what so ever.
There is a constant presence at that corner.
There is also another just like it, when you make the connection from old Magnolia in Corona going east, right at Home Gardens.
Either way, loitering is a code violation.
Don't see why it is not dealt with.

And they really are no different then the prostitutes.


.
Selling your services, per use of your body.





"The movement supports the expulsion of all nonwhite immigrants."

This doesn't sound Nazi to you? LOL

So its ok for an Irish illegal immigrant to seek work at Home Depot...but not a Mexican illegal immigrant? Nazi's are so silly.

I'm not saying either is right....illegal is illegal. But no one can deny the racial undertone (errr overtone...its so obvious) to this protest.

They are trying to come across as being concerned citizens by ostensibly leading a protest against illegal immigration. You are naïve if you think that is the only reason, that they hate Latinos is an added bonus for them.

Don’t forget these are the same people that won’t think twice about putting their steel toed boots to somebody’s head because they are not of the Aryan race. So for that I hope they’re confronted with an army of concerned citizens, who don’t need their kind of hatred in our community.

Let real citizens protest illegal immigration. Not a bunch of skin-headed hoodlums.

"Hall said armed movement members regularly patrol the California border with Mexico..." Wow. Y'all need to find a hobby. Needlepoint is very calming.

What do Nazis look like? They look like a lot of different people wandering around society. They're White because after all, it's a White Supremacist movement. Most are men though there's some women and a lot of them shave their heads and wear steel toed boots and black tee-shirts with some Nazi insigna on them. But when they're not playing Nazis, they go about their lives like most anyone else, hiding in plain sight.

Until Saturday morning anyway.


The NSM as its members call themselves issued this press release about its decision to launch a county-wide protest in the Inland Empire. Last year a chapter started in Riverside which represents the state but it's not clear how many members have joined up. Several agencies and organizations including the United States Department of Justice and The Anti-Defamation League have been monitoring the situation particularly in the past couple of weeks when news apparently got out that a Nazi rally had been planned.


In the Nazis' press release, they offered themselves up for interviews with the local media and said that anyone who wanted to do a "ride along" with them as they patrolled this country as part of their efforts to build their drive to be the largest pro-white national socialist group in America. And yes, they will be bringing the Nazi flags to fly alongside the American flag. Actually, the flags themselves are a curious marriage between those two flags.

And to say that this group is just about celebrating White heritage, or a White Pride movement or being against illegal immigration, read their 25 points of NSM and see you still believe that.



(excerpt)



25 POINTS OF AMERICAN NATIONAL SOCIALISM

1. We demand the union of all Whites into a greater America on the basis of the right of national self-determination.

2. We demand equality of rights for the American people in its dealings with other nations, and the revocation of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the World Bank, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle surplus population.

4. Only members of the nation may be citizens of the state. Only those of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Non-citizens may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly, no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.

5. The right to vote on the State government and legislation shall be enjoyed by citizens of the state alone.

We therefore demand that all official appointments, of whatever kind, whether in the nation, in the states or in smaller localities, shall be held by none but citizens.

We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of filling posts merely in accordance with party considerations and special interests-without reference to character or abilities.

6. We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population, foreign nationals (non-citizens) will be deported.

7. All non-White immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Whites currently residing in America be required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force.

8. All citizens shall have equal rights and duties, regardless of class or station.

9. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash within the framework of the community and be for the common good.

We therefore demand:

10. The abolition of incomes unearned by work The breaking of interest slavery.

11. In view of the enormous personal sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We therefore demand the ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

12. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).

13. We demand economic reform suitable to our national requirements;

The prohibition of pro-marxist unions and their supplantation with National Socialist trade unions;

The passing of a law instituting profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises;

The creation of a livable wage;

The restructuring of social security and welfare to include drug testing for welfare recipients;

The immediate discontinuation of all taxes on things of life's necessity, such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine etc.:

The replacement of the current tax system with a flat-rate tax based on income.

14. We demand the treasonable system of health care be completely revolutionized.

We demand an end to the status quo in which people die or rot away from lack of proper treatment due to the failure of their medical coverage, Health Maintenance Organization, or insurance policy.

We further demand the extensive development of insurance for old age and that prescription drugs be made both affordable and accessible.

15. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, the immediate communalizing of big department stores and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small trades in the placing of state and municipal orders.

16. We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, that shall be twofold in nature:

The primary land reform will be to ensure all members of the nation receive affordable housing. The party as such stands explicitly for private property.

However, we support the passing of a law for the expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation when deemed necessary for land illegally acquired, or not administered in accordance with the national welfare.

We further demand the abolition of ground rent, the discontinuation of all taxes on property, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

The secondary land reform will be to ensure the environmental integrity of the nation is preserved;

By setting aside land for national wildlife refuges;

By cleaning the urban, agricultural, and hydrographical (water) areas of the nation;

By creating legislation regulating the amount of pollution, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases , and toxins released into the atmosphere;

And for the continued research and development of clean burning fuels and energy sources.

17. We demand the ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, usurers, profiteers, race traitors, etc. must be severely punished, whatever their creed or race.

18. We demand that Roman edict law, which serves a materialistic new world order, be replaced by Anglo-Saxon common law.

19. The state must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education with the aim of opening up to every able and hardworking American the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement.

The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life.

The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the state of the nation through the study of civic affairs.

We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the state.

20. The state must ensure that the nation's health standards are raised by protecting mothers, infants, and the unborn:

By prohibiting abortion and euthanasia, except in cases of rape, incest, race-mixing, or mental retardation

By prohibiting child labor and ending the rudiments of child abuse, alcoholism, and drug addiction.

By creating conditions to make possible the reestablishment of the nuclear family in which the father works while the mother stays at home and takes care of the children if they so choose.

By taking away the economic burden associated with childbirth and replacing it with a structured system of pay raises for those that give birth to healthy babies, thereby returning the blessing associated with children.

To further ensure that the nation's health standards are raised, legislation shall be passed promoting physical strength and providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.

21. We demand the right to bear arms for law-abiding citizens.

22. We demand the abolition of the mercenary army, the end to the over-use of our military as a 'Meals-on-Wheels' program in foreign lands of no vital interest to our nation; and the formation of a true national service for the defense of our race and nation. One that excludes: non-Americans, criminals, and sensitivity training.

23. We demand legal warfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the press. To facilitate the creation of a national press we demand:

(a) That all editors of and contributors to newspapers appearing in the English language must be members of the nation;

(b) That no non-American newspapers may appear without the express permission of the State. They must not be written in the English language;

(c) That non-Whites shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing American newspapers, and that the penalty for contravening such a law shall be the suppression of any such newspapers, and the immediate deportation of the non-Americans involved.

The publishing of papers which are not conducive to the national welfare must be forbidden. We demand the legal prosecution of all those tendencies in art and literature which corrupt our national life, and the suppression of cultural events which violate this demand.

24. We demand absolute religious freedom for all denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence nor offend the moral feelings of the White race. The Party combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common good before self-interest.

25. To put the whole program into effect, we demand the creation of a strong central national government for the nation; the unconditional authority of the political central parliament over the entire nation and its organizations; and the formation of committees for the purpose of carrying out the general legislation passed by the nation and the various American States.

The leaders of the movement promise to work ruthlessly-if need be to sacrifice their very lives-to translate this program into action.



And they probably wouldn't mind taking a few (non-White) lives with them during this "work". After all, Tom Metzger, the leader of a White Supremacist organization in Fallbrook was linked to the murder of an Ethiopian man who was killed by members of his racist organization and ultimately held liable at least in civil court. Yet, for a time Metzger was in the mainstream winning the Democratic Party nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980. His party responded by endorsing the Republican who ran against him.

Randall Bowen was attacked and wounded by a mob of Western Hammarskin skinheads in 1999. Two of his attackers went to prison and four others in the mob took plea bargains involving jail time. Metzger sat in the courtroom during several of their court appearances.

Reading the list of "points", it looks like it's adopting positions on issues from several different political issues and some of them are the hot button issues of this time. But what's clear is that these benefits are for Whites only because their version of the United States is very limited in who will be afforded citizenship.


Affordable housing, affordable health care, things that appeal to a lot of people especially right now, but only Whites (and "pure" ones at that) are allowed to live in their vision of the United States. Perhaps and it's scary to think so, they'd actually attract more recruits if they emphasized these two areas, rather than immigrant (and they don't really like non-White legal immigrants much either and have no problem with White undocumented immigrants) bashing.

So as you can see, it's not "illegal immigration" that is their main thrust, but that's the group of people and sentiment they are trying to attract because according to their own "points", anyone who's not White, heterosexual and Christian is essentially an "alien". In Riverside, that means that Councilman Andrew Melendrez is an "alien". It means that Asst. Chief John De La Rosa, Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel and Lt. Larry Gonzalez, all Latino officers from the Riverside Police Department all of who attended the rallies as part of their jobs are all "aliens" as were some of the police officers who showed up to protect the Nazis' right to exercise the First Amendment. None of them would have a right to live in this country under those 25 Points, certainly not as citizens. Even Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco would be an "alien" and subject to deportation and most of all the residents of the neighborhood that the Nazis chose for their protest.

So it's not about citizens having more rights than legal immigrants and especially undocumented ones, it's about skin color and religious ideology and sexual orientation serving as the criteria regarding who would be a citizen in their United States. Oh and you can't be disabled, nor can your children.

That's why you don't see the NSM up in Portland, Oregon for example where 75% of undocumented immigrants are from European countries especially the former Soviet Union. Even though the Northwestern part of the United States has attracted racist ideologists, their focus has been on people of color because those individuals are included in the list of people who wouldn't be allowed to have citizenship in the United States, Nazi style.

But then again, you don't see the Minutemen up rallying up there either. The ones from there come down to California and Arizona to rally against brown undocumented immigrants. The Nazis do turn out at the Minutemen's protests usually hanging out with the guys who fly the Confederate flags. And it's not like the Minutemen chase them off or tell them to leave because they don't want to be associated with their kind.

No, you see the NSM folks rallying further south where stronger concentrations of undocumented immigrants are brown. They chose a neighborhood to rally in that is predominantly Latino and Black, rather than White even though everyone knows that most of the White Supremacists ("groups" because they're hardly ever called "gangs") hang out in the southern areas of Riverside. If you go up to the Mission Grove Plaza, you can see men with shaved heads and "White Pride" tattooed on their arms and if you go on a bus, you might sit down next to a man wearing twin lightning bolts (which is associated with Nazism)
on his arm. It's pretty shocking the first time you see it, but then you get more jaded each time.

Rumors are that White-Supremacist gang members have beaten up Guatemalan immigrants but these immigrants never report it and why should they, now that the police department which is supposed to protect the public is teaming up with the U.S. Border Patrol? Why report a beating when you might get detained and deported after being handed over to Border Patrol? And it's no idle fear as one of the fastest growing categories of hate crimes in the Inland Empire are against Latinos who are either undocumented immigrants or perceived to be because people who are physically violent and hateful towards particular racial groups probably aren't going to ask first. Not to mention that the raids of the day laborer site which was the epicenter of the Nazis' rally started around the same time some border patrol agents in the Riverside office began complaining about being expected to meet arrest and detention quotas or else.

The Riverside Police Department has done some really good work helping undocumented women who are victims of domestic violence (and several federal statutes give these women access to Visas) and treating them as victims or survivors, not as criminals. That's the type of policing that needs more support because for one thing, what if there's a violent crime and your only witnesses are too afraid to come forward because they're undocumented?

The one thing that's clear is that there are hate gangs (and that's what they are under the legal definition) that are attracted to the Inland Empire including Riverside and there are hate groups like this local chapter of the NSM (which haven't been associated with violence locally)that are as well.

And why would the Nazis want to set up a chapter in Riverside anyway? That question is both simple and complicated to answer.

Three Rallies, Different Messages

Saturday morning broke and the Nazis, all nine of them, came and rallied in Riverside. Apparently, their leader Jeff Hall who runs their local office couldn't make it to push their numbers into the double digits because his car broke down en route.

They congregated at the Home Depot on Indiana and Madison but didn't stay there very long before being confronted by several hundred counter demonstrators who apparently grabbed some Nazi flags, ripped them up and chased them back into their cars by about 10:45, just before I arrived. A Press Enterprise photo on its Web site did show two groups of people jostling with a man with the silver cross tattooed on his arm grabbing someone else's arm. It's hard to believe that someone who would tattoo something like that on his body (and experience some degree of physical pain in the process) would not know the horrible history that this symbol represents. Or even worse, he wouldn't care.

The Police Department dispatched riot police and the METRO squad team out to do crowd control and a helicopter flew overhead. Most of the demonstrators who protested the Nazis in Casa Blanca were from outside the neighborhood. Most of the people who lived in the neighborhood who were in the area just watched them rally and didn't join in, some of them wondering why they were protesting the Nazis when they couldn't even see them. and why they had come to Casa Blanca in the first place.

Confronting the Nazis the way that these counter demonstrators did brought increased police activity into the predominantly Latino neighborhood that has long struggled with its relationship with the police department especially considering that one police officer stationed there gets probably more complaints made (but few filed with the CPRC) than any other police officer in the department. He didn't appear to be there but over a dozen other police officers were there to address a situation where a confrontation had taken place and some of them remained even after the demonstrators had moved on.

It's interesting how police administrations believe that there are two classes of protesters. Those who have to be protected by police from others and those that others have to be protected from. The anti-war demonstrators who protested both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in 2001 and 2003 often felt the police were there to protect other people from their protest even as they were getting egg thrown at them, shot with a flare gun, shot at with a real gun, stabbed by skinheads and in the case of a young woman, hit in the eye with one-inch bolt and losing sight in that eye. By the time someone fired a gun at a group of them near Starbucks on University and Iowa, they had stopped calling police and when the police found out, they got upset at them for not calling them about it. But at that point, these activists didn't feel like they could. After all, when one police officer pulled his car over in front of them, he laughed at them and cracked a joke about what they were doing so people viewed the department as not responding to them because it disagreed with them about the war. After having a long discussion with the police department, there was a greater police presence at subsequent rallies and the peace activists felt more along the lines that the police were protecting them and not others from them. But that conversation had to take place first and often it's communication that makes changes that both the communities and police can live with.

Protesting isn't always safe in Riverside.

So you can argue that the Nazis needed to be protected from harm while they protest because of people's reactions to them based on the history of that ideology and what it's done to people. Six million and more dead in concentration camps, as part of a government eugenics program. Why would anyone want to be associated with that kind of past? Why would anybody want to bring those values back?

Nazism and its symbols invoke strong emotional responses in people who are confronted by it, both in its small and larger displays. Even as Germany spent decades after World War II being split in two by two different political ideologies and governments, a reunified country grapples with its own history of Nazism. And exactly how much free speech and expression given to those who are trying to bring it back.

The United States own history with Nazism and fascism in other countries has been complicated and murky in its own way. After all, many of the major businessmen in the United States brokered deals with fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and sold steal to Italy so it could build its ships and tanks which would later be turned against the United States. Antisemitism was rampant in the 1930s during the Great Depression because it's during the toughest economic times that philosophies like fascism, communism and Nazism take root and grow. Millions of people were killed under the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Josef Stalin and other dictators.

But Mussolini was such a great guy at least for a while according to business men in the United States and who's that standing in the photo with him in the above link? The one with the Charlie Chaplin mustache?


(excerpt)




Before that, though, in the 1920s and even into the 1930s, many leading Europeans and Americans paid honor to the Duce as a wise leader. When Mussolini waged terrorist war against Libyan nationalists in 1927, Winston Churchill said he rendered a service to the whole world. Richard Washburn Child, a novelist who was American ambassador to Italy when Mussolini took power, later ghostwrote Mussolini’s “autobiography,” praising him in the book’s preface as a man who, like few in history, had created a new state with a dynamic program.

Mussolini was not the only dictator of his time. In his Europe, in a time of worldwide economic depression, a whole series of governments were run by “strong men.” Besides Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany, there were authoritarian regimes if not dictatorships in the 1930s in Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. There were Blueshirts in Ireland, Blackshirts in Britain, and Vidkun Quisling’s followers in Norway. At the eastern end of Europe lay the greatest dictatorship of them all, Stalin’s Soviet Union.




But that was then, and this is now, the day that the Nazis have decided to hold their rally in Riverside, the All-American City, the Most Livable City, the City of Arts and Innovation and so forth and now, the host of the state office of the nation's largest neo-Nazi organization. None of the city's political leaders commented publicly on this situation nor did any of them attend the counter-rally in downtown Riverside just outside the building where most of them have offices. And it appears that the aforementioned Chamber of Commerce didn't send representatives either. After all, if Riverside hosts the state-wide chapter of the Nazi Party, does that make this city more business friendly or less? Perhaps they think if they ignore them, then that sends a statement that they oppose their ideology and presence in this city. But some people have often said that silence equals complicity and they are right. Others feel like they're not voicing their objection to Nazism and other hateful philosophies unless they do it more forcefully but if they do that then they're just acting more like...Nazis. Both groups feel like there's only one proper way to respond. To either ignore it and hope it goes away or to stomp out any sign of it, before it can grow.

Believe it or not, there's plenty of room in between to respond to Nazis coming up and trying to set up roots in what they believe is fertile ground in Riverside. There were several hundred of those who did peacefully protest their presence and didn't run up to them and rip Nazi flags and tear them apart. First of all, doing that sends the message that the counter demonstrators are violent which played into the Nazis' hands and 2) the people who are doing it are doing it in someone else's neighborhood. So those that do things like that might feel good believing they've stomped out Nazism, won the game so to speak, when they hop on the 91 Freeway and go back home to your neighborhood or your city but what about the neighborhood they've just left?

Casa Blanca And Day Laborers

The issue of the day laborers is very complicated in Casa Blanca where many congregate at some business areas including McDonalds and Home Depot. It's been an issue that has been debated and discussed at many community meetings including those held by the Community Action Group. Casa Blanca, one of the city's oldest communities has always had a wealth of leaders invested in the many different challenges that it's faced since the days when its residents served as an active labor force for the region's then vibrant citrus industry. But not everyone in the neighborhood agrees on the issue just like any place else.

The community has also engaged with the city council though they had difficulties with their past councilman, Frank Schiavone in terms of getting him involved in the issue. There were many discussions held out whether or not to put up a day laborer center or not and if so, where and how. Other organizations including one at the University of California, Riverside have been involved in the day laborer debate.

The police department met last year with representatives from the local office of U.S. Border Patrol to discuss their efforts at detention and identification of the nationality of people detained. Not long after that beginning in January, both agencies swept in and did arrests and people of mainly Guatemalan backgrounds looking for construction jobs were detained, arrested and some deported. For a while, the police department's leadership was somewhat vague both on these raids and its relationship with Border Patrol, even when pressed. And when the National Day Laborer Network submitted a California Public Records Act Request to the police department asking for data on arrests and detentions of individuals, they received scant information from the department which met their request. The Network then sued the department and the city in the Riverside County Superior Court and a tentative date for a status hearing was set for November.

It's difficult to sum it all up in a few words or catchy slogans in a community filled with diverse opinions on those issues which is one reason why the message that these demonstrators were sending didn't appear to appeal much to people in Casa Blanca. It's always like that when you go into a neighborhood unannounced without talking to anyone who lives there about what their feelings are, including about having Nazis within their boundaries and that's something that should always come first.

Nearby, a long-time Press Enterprise reporter was on his cell phone sounding a bit piqued saying that they would have had to zoom way in to maybe get a picture of the Nazis before they fled the Home Depot. He said that the only thing going on right now was that there were about a hundred of people congregated across the street from Farmer's Boys shouting across the street from where he stood. They were at that time standing near an auto parts shop in a large group. A couple street vendors were selling ice cream and drinks on the very hot day. The riot police and SWAT team were strung out across the driveway and into the drive-thru area of the Farmer's Boy restaurant across the street.

There's some pictures below in this blog that you won't see in the mainstream media like the Press Enterprise because they don't involve people confronting each other and ripping things out of each other's hands. On the Press Enterprise site, there weren't any photos of the demonstration downtown nor were there any photos of the protest that took place after the Nazis left. As far as the newspaper was concerned, the whole issue was settled when the Nazis fled in their cars as if that were what the issue was all about when in reality, it's about Riverside and why they decided to set up their state office here in the first place.

[Over a hundred individuals congregate near Indiana and Madison in Casa Blanca to counter-demonstrate against a Nazi rally going on behind a police barricade at Home Depot.]








[People demonstrating against the Nazi rally that took place at Home Depot in Casa Blanca]

Asst. Police Chief John De La Rosa stood next to Lt. Larry Gonzalez who heads the department's SWAT and Aviation units and one of his sergeants, Eric Charrette who oversaw the action at the site. They seemed pretty calm and most of the police officers were getting into their cars and leaving at this point. Two officers in a patrol car remained parked in one of the driveways to Farmer's Boys which was nestled in between the 91 Freeway and a set of railroad tracks.

Home Depot's head of security, Joe Vazquez also stood in his uniform observing as well. Only about a month ago, Vazquez had been interviewed by the city council for the Ward Two position on the Community Police Review Commission. His security company has contracted with Home Depot and provide security at many of its stores in Southern California including the one on Madison Avenue. His form of security specializes in handling what are called "day laborer issues".

The protesters in Casa Blanca dispersed soon after, leaving the neighborhood they had borrowed as their canvas for a day to go back to its life. Are the Nazis gone for good when it comes to protesting in Casa Blanca, or will they back bolstered by their national headquarters? That remains to be seen what the future holds.


Someone who claimed to have a police scanner commented at the Press Enterprise site on the demonstration.



There was a confrontation and the NSM members left the rally. Some counter-protesters grabbed the NSM flag(s?) and ripped it up and there was some name calling and yelling. I think someone maybe followed the NSM members because later on my scanner someone reported a group of people canvassing a neighborhood door to door looking for Neo-Nazis.


---"Citizen22"

Apparently, information about the founder of the local chapter of the NSM had been passed out at one or both of the rallies and some of the people wanted to protest in the neighborhood where the head Nazi lived. As long as people are peaceful, remain on public property and obey all laws, it's legal to demonstrate in neighborhoods but most people do believe it's an invasion of privacy and it's not the best place or time to protest a philosophy. Even if people in the neighborhood didn't know they had a Nazi living in their midst, they might find visits by counter demonstrators alienating them rather than educating them.


Updates about the rallies were posted at Los Angeles Indy Media here and here mostly relating about how they chased the Nazis out of Riverside. But it remains to be seen if that's the case or whether or not they galvanized other chapters of the NSM to get involved or have helped plant a seed for it to grow. After all, the Nazis got away and they were able to make hay to the press about how they were forced to leave their demonstration and how the police department failed to protect them. This can only help their recruiting cause to get to go to the local media and talk about how they were attacked for exercising their First Amendment rights. After all, they had expressed this reservation that something might happen before they even demonstrated, setting the situation up for a physical confrontation.

After all, hate groups and gangs aren't like most other organizations. Violence or any physical force against them even minor galvanizes their recruitment efforts as they seek out other like-minded individuals during a time in this county's (and country's) history when there's a very unemployment rate and fewer jobs within the city and county. This leaves most parents commuting to their jobs in other counties and their kids home with their computers. Metzger and the heads of other White Supremacist groups and gangs were able to recruit young people in the commuter-heavy cities of Murrieta and Temecula. And in Riverside, another neighborhood that empties out during the day (hence the spikes in burglaries) is Orangecrest, another place of White Supremacist activity.

Gangs exist because they fill voids in young people's lives when there's nothing else to fill them. The same thing is true of White Supremacists including Nazis. You provide them a fertile ground for recruitment and they'll make the most of it.

City Hall Rally under the shadow of King

Meanwhile, in downtown Riverside about 100 people met to rally against the Nazis under the shadow as one speaker said, the Martin Luther King, jr. statue. Access to this rally was somewhat tricky because construction was taking place at City Hall blocking access to most of it. One construction guy joked to another that he had left him in charge for a minute and suddenly all these "squatters" had shown up.

These "squatters" were members of different churches and community organizations who met there to try to show that Riverside is really not about promoting hate. Speakers included a woman who had lost her entire family in the concentration camps during Nazism in Germany. Others said that it was urgent to act to help save others because if you don't, by the time you need saving, there's no one left.

People listened to the speeches while grabbing whatever shade they could find and applauded each speaker as they finished. The Brown Beret representative's speech was bumped up earlier in the program because he and his fellow members were going to go to the rally that was taking place in Casa Blanca. In fact, even though these demonstrators from two dozen organizations meant to send a message in a different way that they wouldn't tolerate intolerance, there was very little mention of them in the daily newspaper and no photographs. In fact, this might be the only photo that you'll see.

[Another 100 or so people rallying at City Hall in Riverside against the Nazi rally taking place several miles away]

The people and organizations who organized the City Hall rally didn't want to engage with the Nazis any more than the Nazis wanted to engage with them, which is one reason why they opted to release the news of their planned location ahead of time. But since they didn't want to engage the Nazis, they weren't going to get the press coverage.

They stood not far away from where demonstrators had stood 10 years earlier protesting the shooting death of Tyisha Miller and where candle light vigils had taken place protesting the firings and resignations of African-American and Latino employees from City Hall, along with lawsuits filed by other Black and Latino workers from various city departments.

To protest in the pedestrian mall these days, you have to purchase insurance and an expensive permit. Whether or not that was a change that came with its renovation or as part of the direction towards enhancing public expression in the vicinity of the city's governmental building isn't clear. But downtown's a location where there's never been a shortage of things to protest. Business owners who were pushed out of downtown by Eminent Domain including many that were owned by Asian-American and Latinos including some who had immigrated to the United States. City Hall is in close proximity to the downtown bus terminal where Greyhound Bus Lines and its 88,000 passengers annually were left in limbo as the passengers found themselves labeled as gang members and parolees even though most of them were seniors, disabled, military personnel, students and poor families who don't own cars.

Ironically the bus terminal used to be a favorite recruitment spot for Tom Metzger and his White Aryan Resistance organization which is based in Fallbrook. He and his associates used to go there on Sunday mornings to hand out racist literature to people. Just down the street as commercially developed Market Street transforms into tree-lined Magnolia, a Chinese-American family was forced to give up their dream and a small market that had stood on the corner of Bandini since World War II was knocked down, primarily because the predominantly White residents of that neighborhood didn't like the predominantly Black residents of several apartment complexes walking down their streets to go to the market.

The people who met in downtown like the people who met in Casa Blanca were trying to defuse the message that was sent by the Nazis and both sides declared their own rallies a success. But what happens the day after?

That's the question that needs to be answered next.

Did Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco retaliate against one of his prosecutors?

"Eileen, people make choices everyday-yesterday, today, tomorrow- and there are consequences for your choices. So remember that,there are consequences for your choices. I hope you make the right choice."


---District Attorney Rod Pacheco to Eileen Hunt when she declined to endorse him for the elected position, according to a lawsuits she filed against him.





"Come on. You can figure it out. Rod told me to set you up so he could get rid of you."


--Former Asst. District Attorney Randall Tagami to Hunt when she asked why her previously excellent performance evaluations weren't so excellent after she declined to endorse Pacheco for office, according to her lawsuit.




"It takes a good prosecutor to convict a guilty man. It takes a great prosecutor to convict an innocent one."


---A much quoted comment that Rod Pacheco allegedly made while delivering a speech during his service in the state assembly. He was appointed as minority leader but was soon removed by members of his own party from that position.



"He's one of us."


--Pacheco about a prosecutor he wanted promoted (amid great resistence) who had lied to supervisors, allegedly violated Brady on a felony case and engaged in sexual harassment.








The recent lawsuit filed by former prosecutor Eileen Hunt alleging that she was among other things retaliated against by her boss, D.A. Rod Pacheco for not endorsing his run for office in 2006 is very interesting reading. She sued him for violating her civil rights, for violating labor codes and for gender discrimination as the once highest ranking female prosecutor in her division was ultimately forced out of her job, according to her complaint filed in Riverside County Superior Court.

Hunt was a very well-known prosecutor who worked extensively on child abuse cases and won awards including one for Felony Prosecutor of the Year. She was promoted to higher positions and given more responsibilities as she built a reputation for herself within the office and within the county.

Apparently that all ended when she declined to endorse Pacheco for the top spot while he was still an assistant district attorney contemplating a run for office in the 2006 election.

The lawsuit makes some serious allegations and mentions a case where she had gone to Pacheco on the disclosure of information to the defense under Brady. In one case, she tried to get Pacheco's authorization to do that in a case where an investigator lied about interviewing a witness in one case. Pacheco said, he didn't believe that was a Brady issue. She pressed him to do that and soon enough, other concerns began to be raised over the same investigator. For what? Lying about interviewing witnesses she had never interviewed.

The concern she had raised onto why this information needed to be disclosed in a number of cases to defense counsel was because one of the department's investigators was under investigation by the FBI and the United States Attorney's office.


Soon after she pushed Pacheco on this issue, she found herself reassigned to the department's Indio office, which is the equivalent of being exiled by the powers that be within the D.A.'s office. Hunt felt this reassignment was an attempt to force her to resign because Pacheco knew it would subject her to a daily five-hour commute to and from her job. She finally agreed and bought a house and had her relocation expenses paid for by Riverside which is required by an MOU between her union and the county.

Soon after, Pacheco informed her he was transferring her back to Riverside. Pacheco was also elected D.A. replacing Grover Trask and the investigator that caused all the controversy was gone. However, Pacheco still insisted that the issue surrounding that investigator's conduct was not a Brady issue. Her evaluations from her supervisor, Sue Steding began to be less glowing and Pacheco met with his upper level staff telling them that they needed to keep information under wraps from media outlets doing coverage on the disgraced investigator who had been investigated for criminal behavior by several federal agencies.

Hunt wound up moving three times in 20 months and faced a three-hour commute to work when she was relocated to Riverside. No D.A.'s office employee had ever been moved around so much in different assignments.


Then another complaint emerged about how a "junior" prosecutor had lied to his supervisor and to Hunt about how he handled a felony child homicide case by reducing it to a misdemeanor without authorization by his supervisor, as required by departmental policies. The prosecutor claimed instead the judge reduced the charge. An investigation substained a detective's allegation that the prosecutor had indeed lied. That didn't seem to matter much to the upper management including Pacheco.

In January 2008, the lying prosecutor, his direct supervisor Hughes and Pacheco made a video where they spoofed Batman and Robin and then sent it out to all the employees through email. The case of child homicide was later dropped because the office didn't feel they could get a conviction while it was at the misdemeanor level.

Hughes then said that she couldn't do anything with the prosecutor found to have lied because it wasn't her jurisdiction even though Hunt was Chief Deputy of the division. She was also forced to reduce the evaluation of an employee in her division from "exceeds expectations" to "meets expectations" or face a charge of insubordination.

Later, she told Hughes she obviously wasn't wanted to serve in management because she hadn't endorsed Pacheco and he told her she needed to "get on the bus". She then started receiving chastizing notices including that she wasn't meeting work hours and she had to do that or face discipline. She said she was being discriminated against because she was a woman because there were male prosecutors who didn't work their full hours with shorter commutes than she had to make on a daily basis.

She then felt pressured to quit her job, but didn't want to because she had spent 19 years working as a prosecutor in the D.A.'s office and things only began to go sour after she refused to endorse Pacheco for election. She told them just to terminate her without cause because she refused to quit.

After that, she received written discipline for dismissing the misdemeanor case that had reduced by the prosecutor who later lied about it. She said that the policy manual had upheld her dismissel of the case and that she had been entitled to an independent investigation from the Human Resources Department and that procedure hadn't been followed. The hours she spent working became monitored even as the male prosecutors didn't face such treatment.

Does Lying to Supervisors (and engaging in sexual harassment) Win You Promotions in the D.A.'s office?

She had difficulty getting promoted but ironically (or not) the prosecutor who had been found to have lied on several cases of felonies getting reduced to misdemeanors and had violated Brady on a felony case was up for promotion too. Nobody really wanted him to get promoted and in fact, those involved in the process voted 28 to 2 recommending that Pacheco not promote him.

However, one person did want this promotion to get through and that was the person encharged to make the final decision. Rod Pacheco allegedly convened an emergency meeting of his managers and demanded to know why this prosecutor wasn't promoted, calling him a "great deputy". Even when information came up that this prosecutor had not lied, had not just withheld evidence violating Brady on a felony case but had sexually harassed other employees, what was Pacheco's response?


"He's one of us."


Pacheco later took this prosecutor on a walk and told him how much he had reminded Pacheco of himself and that he would get his promotion. And sure enough he did, on Jan. 1, 2009.

At that point, Hunt gave up and on March 24, 2009, she tendered her resignation after nearly 20 years as a prosecutor in Riverside County. She filed a claim by the county but it was rejected and she received a right to sue letter from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

It will be interesting to see how this case proceeds in the very stagnated civil court system in Riverside County. Will it be settled by the county behind closed doors or will it proceed to trial? It's probably a good bet that it will be the former as if there's any dirty laundry to be aired out in Pacheco's office, there's no way the county will let that happen in an open forum like a courtroom.




Two more red light cameras in Riverside's intersections. The new ones will be at Arlington and Indiana and Canyon Springs Parkway and Day Street.

Snapshots of a City

[The railroad crossing at Magnolia near Merrill which is set to have ground breaking on a long-awaited grade separation project. In the background is a vacant lot which once was the home of several vibrant city businesses forced to relocate their operations.]








[One of Riverside's lessor known historical landmarks, the Sire's restaurant was oft-rumored to be the unofficial meeting place of city council members who allegedly conducted a lot of business deals and other civic work there.]

Candidates debate at a Public Forum in Norco

Norco's city council race heated up when candidates disagreed about how to generate local revenue.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Candidates' ideas on how to accomplish that varied as they spoke to an estimated 100 people at the forum at Sizzler restaurant in Norco.

Sullivan supported bringing large chain stores to the city, but Bash supported preserving small businesses. All candidates agreed on selling Norco as a destination spot, developing several areas of land to hold events spanning several days to attract visitors and boost hotel tax and business for restaurants.

MacGregor and others suggested developing projects such as Silverlakes -- a 122-acre planned equestrian and sports park that should begin construction this year while Bash pushed hard on the idea of selling Norco's unique rural lifestyle and capturing business from students at the Riverside Community College Norco campus. Bash also suggested buying land from the U.S. Navy to develop. Voters also asked candidates whether they supported building low-income housing next to animal-keeping properties.

"I will never vote to allow one as long as I'm on the council," said Sullivan about apartment complexes. "We're a unique animal-keeping community. ... We don't want any apartments.






The governor up in Sacramento has vowed not to close any state parks. Hopefully, this would include Riverside's Citrus Park which was looking at possible closure due to budget cuts up at the capitol.




No city council meeting next week in Riverside as it's a fifth Tuesday.

Hiding in Plain Sight: Female officer retention and the blue wall of silence

Recently, there was a summit held by the Russell Sage Foundation involving the newly created Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity which is an organization of five law enforcement agencies which are committed to addressing the issues of racial and gender equity in policing at all levels including at the very top. The summit was held in Denver in conjunction with the International Association of Police Chiefs Conference.


Law Enforcement agencies which are cooperating with consortium:


Denver Police Department

the Toronto Police Services

Houston Police Department

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department



Interested law enforcement agencies include the following:


Chicago Police Department

Edmonton Police Department

Denton (TX) Police Department

Las Vegas Police Department

Milwaukee Police Department

Newark Police Department

Nashville Police Department

Portland Police Bureau

Salt Lake City Police Department

San Jose Police Department

Seattle Police Department

Toronto Police Department

Virginia Beach Police Department




How serious these police agencies are in terms of either participating or in declaring an interest remains to be seen and it's healthy to remain skeptical in light of law enforcement's dismal record in addressing racism and sexism not only within their ranks and their management but down to the roots of their police culture. Still, it's an exciting development in the field of law enforcement indicating the continued relationship between policing and sociology. The potential is always there but the reality? That still has yet to be written.


Where does the Riverside Police Department fit in all this? The answer is, it doesn't. Not only is the police department not participating in this summit or foundation, but it's apparently not interested in even talking about serious issues remaining involving its retention of male officers of color and female officers. In fact, at the moment the police department's management probably wouldn't have the time to go to the conference because it's too busy hiding from a much smaller and more local entity, the Human Resources Board.

Yes, it's true.

When the Human Resources Board asked the police department to brief it on the retention of female police officers in the department, the department stated in writing that it couldn't do so because it was too low on staffing to be able to send someone over to give the presentation. It can't find an officer that's at the lieutenant level or higher including officers in the Personnel Division to spend 10-15 minutes at City Hall sharing this information with the board. Nor can it find the time (and maybe the paper) to submit a written report on the issue.

Why is that?

When it comes to some areas, the police department has shown it can lead the profession in innovation, but one of those areas clearly isn't in its ability to retain female officers. While the recruitment and hiring of female officers has increased, the retention rates even by Chief Russ Leach's admission, continue to be poorer and lower than those of male officers. As time goes by, information is filtering in on possible reasons why the retention levels of female officers continue to tank and if the retention levels are indeed tanking, there appears to be some reasons why. And maybe it's time to start blogging more about them.

But City Hall once again has stepped forward not to enlighten but to obstruct the gathering of information about one of its departments. Using not just one player, but two of them in its list of performers.


The first line of defense: City Attorney Gregory Priamos

The Human Resources Board first raised the issue of receiving a presentation from the police department on the retention of female officers late last year. They submitted this request through Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout to ask for information first about an internal audit allegedly being done by the Audit and Compliance Panel. Priamos couldn't show up or send a deputy city attorney to provide an answer so he had Strout serve as a conduit for him and she said that the police department couldn't talk about its audit because it was confidential under state law even general statistical information generated from it. When the board changed its request to ask for information on female retention apart from the supposed audit, the answer still remained no until finally someone decided it was okay. The Police Department was provided an invitation to come present to the board in January.

Fast forward to March's Human Resources Board meeting with still no appearance from the police department. Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel told me that he hadn't heard that the Human Resources Board was interested in receiving this presentation but that the board should contract the Personnel Division which is headed by Capt. Mike Blakely. He even asked if the board wanted him to do the presentation himself and seemed interested in doing so. If that's the case, more power to him. But when it comes to making decisions in this police department about who exactly does what including in terms of releasing public information to this city's residents including those who serve on its boards and commissions, no one seems to be able to figure out how exactly that's worked out. What with so many cooks in this kitchen.

Human Resources Board Chair Erin House said that he had contacted Esquivel lately and asked him about it. Esquivel gave him the name of a captain of personnel to contact and that turned out to be Blakely. But did the police department receive this request and decide to send someone to a board meeting to do a presentation addressing the retention of female police officers?

Well, no.



The second line of defense: Police Chief Russ Leach

Somehow, the request for the personnel division to send a representative to the Human Resources Board must have reached Leach because Leach sent a response in writing back that they couldn't afford to spend time having or spare any employee to come to the meeting and give a presentation on female officer retention.


"They're short on people and can't spare anyone to answer our questions," House said.


This ticked some members of the Human Resources Board right off the bat. Kind of like raising a red flag in front of a bull. Or at least, seven bulls. And it's all a bunch of bunk, because the department has personnel in its well, Personnel division who aren't paid over-time who could spend 2o minutes giving a presentation at City Hall about three blocks away from the department's administrative headquarters. The department used the same excuse to avoid giving training to the CPRC not too long ago, before finally buckling and sending personnel out to provide that commission. The officers who give the presentations or the training seem fine with being there, but they don't make the decisions on whether they're authorized to do so or no. The management does and if it doesn't then it's left to the micromanagers.


"What do we do," House said.


Woodie Rucker-Hughes, the president of the local chapter of the NAACP had something to say about that.

"Ask them again," she said.



Then Vice-Chair Ellie Bennett who just has to be one of the most kick-ass members of any board and commission in the city chose her words well when she was asked by House to write a letter to the city council to "clarify" this issue. This woman is no one's puppet.


"Wait until tomorrow. If I write it tonight, I might make the front page," she said.


Bennett continued by saying that they didn't want a relationship or to take them to dinner, they wanted the facts. Just the facts. But in this city if the facts aren't pretty, Priamos won't let you see them. The information on the retention of female officers after all isn't the only public information being denied the board and this isn't the first letter that the Human Resources Board has written asking for more clarification from the city council on why they're being denied public information from a city department head. But maybe in this case, it's all about confusion. Maybe in this case, the Governmental Affairs Committee needs to create a top-secret ad hoc committee to "clarify" what the words "female officer" and "retention" mean.

Another board member asked if the police department and City Hall were blowing the board off. Why in a matter of speaking, yes. But this board should consider itself fortunate that it's just being blown off and not neutered and spayed as Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein puts it about the CPRC. But perhaps if the board gets too uppity, it will suffer the same fate as the CPRC. Still, it takes time to come up with a micromanagement plan and even more time to manipulate the ward representation requirements to reconfigure a board or commission to City Hall's liking so this board still has at least a year to remain independent and yes, occasionally uppity.

The reaction of the Human Resources Board to being roadblocked by the city and at least one department head is an interesting contrast to the behavior shown by the Community Police Review Commission when facing the same situation involving pretty much the same individuals.

The Human Resources Board gets fired up while the CPRC for the most part finds some place to hide. What a difference between a commission that is micromanaged by City Hall and one that's not, at least not yet and to have board members who actually engage in independent thinking rather than march lockstep behind City Hall.

But anyway, so the police department doesn't want to go to the Human Resources Board to brief it on the retention of its female officers and that's what it really comes down to, is that the management doesn't want to do so or the management's management doesn't want it to do so. Maybe Priamos doesn't want them to do so. Sometimes it seems like the police department is being run by committee these days and it's not always clear who's sitting at the head of the table.

At any rate, it seems that the department should be more willing to assist the Human Resources Board in its fact finding involving the retention of female police officers in the department and why it remains fairly poor. But the police department through its chief nixed this opportunity in the bud. And instead of pushing attention away from this issue in the police department, it's piqued the interest of those on the board who were rebuffed. Which almost certainly is not what it or the City Hall which directs it intended.









More statistics from the Human Resources Board meeting were provided by various employees of the Human Resources Department which even though there are only eight layoffs of full-time employees in the entire city, according to that department its staffing levels have fallen by about 45%.

The department stated that there were seven positions frozen with four layoffs and three transferred either to another position or to a lower level classified position. Of the four laid off, three of them took early retirements. But what's annoying is when city department heads and city council members keep comparing Riverside to Corona claiming that the latter city has laid off 10% of its employees but if you read the Press Enterprise article which detailed what's going on in Corona, you will discover that the statistic reached for Corona included full and part-time layoffs as well as frozen vacancies for both categories. And these figures are obviously not included in Riverside's own assertion that it's only laid off eight employees. But on the bright side, is that at least you don't have city officials claiming that Corona has laid of a quarter of its employees as was the case last year.

The vacancy rate city wide is about 13%. The police department currently has 64.25 vacancies which is about 10% rate for the police department. About 25 of these positions are believed to be sworn officer positions at various ranks from officer to deputy chief (which is classified as a captain's position).


"This is grim," House said about the vacancy figures and percentages.


Others on the board agreed and some asked how much money was being saved by freezing positions. Rucker-Hughes asked where the money went from these "funded" positions. Strout said that it would remain with the position until it was official frozen after about a year and then be returned to the city's general fund. Strout did say about the police department that it has never been fully staffed.

Uh oh, she better not let her bosses City Manager Brad Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis hear that! Because in June 2008, DeSantis assured the city council that the police department was fully staffed after it received an audit from police consultant Joe Brann urging the city to address staffing issues involving the police department.

Grievances for the first quarter of 2009 were at 10 filed including two from the police department and 50 leaves of absences with 19 of those being from the employment ranks of the police department.


The city council is set to vote on applying for grant money under two federal stimulus packages which together could help them fund 15 sworn positions for three years and three civilian positions.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The nearly $5 million grant would cover salary and benefits for 15 officers over three years. The Police Department will pay for uniforms, training and equipment for the officers. In addition, the grant requires the city to retain the officers for a year after the three years has ended at a cost of $1.9 million.

Later this month, Doke is planning to apply for another stimulus package grant for $928,874 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. That money could be used to buy marked police cars, motorcycle units and possibly fill three civilian positions.

Both federal programs have been revived by the stimulus package.

Capt. Michael Blakely said the officers would help bring the agency closer to normal staffing levels. The department has 13 sworn position vacancies that the city previously funded and 10 more that are not funded. In addition, they have 30 civilian positions open.

The Police Department is authorized to have 405 sworn officers.





The Human Resources Board also voted to submit its letter of "clarification" on asking the city council for guidance in instructing Priamos to release the statistical information related to law suits filed against the city by city employees.

Here are the current odds on that outcome.


City Council through mayor or mayor pro tem says it has "received, reviewed and filed" away the report. 1:9

City Council takes any other action: 15:1

City Council actually instructs Priamos or designee to hand this public information over to the Human Resources Board: 150:1


Speaking of hiring, Riverside just hired yet another employee from City Manager Brad Hudson's old haunt, the Economic Development Agency, in Riverside County.


Two dais mates react.

(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Gardner and Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge said the economic downturn makes it urgent for the city to have a first-rate development director striving to keep businesses in town or to help them expand and to lure new businesses to Riverside.

"We need to work harder at these times," Loveridge said.

Lorson's economic development work won't necessarily yield projects right away, Gardner said, but could position the city for the time the economy turns around. "You're lining up projects that could take two to three years to come to fruition."







Riverside County's executive officer Bill Luna wants a raise while telling everyone else they've got to cut their budgets. So when is he going to take his act on the comedy club circuit?




Coming soon: The Perris vs Menifee smackdown!






The Press Enterprise Editorial Board praises Perris' efforts to organize its public records.


(excerpt)

And setting out clear rules for preserving records, and vesting that authority in one office, would be a big improvement over past habits. City clerks traditionally used their own discretion about which items to keep and how long to retain them. Some clerks saved everything; others did not.

That haphazard practice has left the city clerk's office scrambling to find records. Some files apparently have disappeared: destroyed by water damage, lost in one of the office's many location changes or simply tossed out. The city has found numerous duplicate files, along with outdated material that no longer has value.

Such disorganization is unacceptable. Perris residents have a right to know what their city government is doing, and the city should not let disorderly record-keeping hinder that prerogative.

A Los Angeles Police Department officer was arrested in Texas for alleged sexual assault.

Silvio Sam Filipovich, 43, was the name of the officer arrested after an incident in a motel in Travis County.


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)

According to authorities, Filipovich asked a female motel employee for a crib for his infant child around 10:30 p.m. Friday. He then allegedly pushed her into a closet and tried to fondle her before she fought him off and called for help.

Filipovich could not be reached for comment.

If you're wondering if this was the first sign of problems by Filipovich, it turns out that if the allegations are true, they might be the latest incident in a pattern and practice of disturbing behavior.

(excerpt)


Records obtained by The Times show that the 21-year LAPD veteran has had a history of misconduct allegations.

The records, which date to 1995, show that department officials had recommended discipline of more than 100 days for alleged offenses by Filipovich, including trying to improperly convert an on-duty contact into a social relationship, making a discourteous remark and being discourteous during traffic stops.

In one case, records show, department officials alleged that while off duty, Filipovich "inappropriately exposed [his] penis in a public place." It was unclear from the records what, if any, discipline he received.





That's probably because he didn't get any discipline. After all, the LAPD have been sued and has settled or lost cases at trial filed by female officers alleging similar type behavior by male officers among other things.



Controversy has arisen involving the La Habra Police Department after its officers were involved in a collision with a vehicle, which resulted in the death of a couple whose daughter is challenging the police department's version of events.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



Just after 5 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of Euclid Street and La Habra Boulevard, the two cars collided. Susanne Antuna, 55, died at the scene. Charles Antuna, 54, died early Monday at UC Irvine Medical Center.

The officer, whose name was not released because of an ongoing investigation by the California Highway Patrol, was taken to the same hospital and treated for soft tissue injuries.

Within hours of the crash, the parolee, Roary William Gorbea, 27, had been arrested on suspicion of indirectly causing the couple's deaths by leading police on a pursuit. The next day, the Antunas' daughter Andrea was disputing reports that the patrol car's lights and siren were on when it entered the intersection.

Witnesses told authorities the patrol car had its lights and sirens on at the time of the collision, said Officer Ray Payton of the Westminster office of the California Highway Patrol. There is also preliminary evidence that the victims were not wearing seat belts, he said.

But Andrea Antuna told television station KABC that witnesses told her there were no sirens. "They take that officer to the hospital right away, and she's fine, but my dad is gone, and now my mom's gone," she said.






Mail Call:


Dear City of Riverside:

I am writing to inform you that I'm being driven around without my dash cam that the city's residents paid money out of the general fund to equip me and my fellow squad cars with. I'm so jealous to see the other shiny police cars have cameras and I do not. Please help. If the city's broke, can we take a collection?


Thanks in advance,

Squad Car #3329

North NPC station

Greyhound Bus Terminal





Coming soon:

The Riverside Film Festival: April 19-26