Did Preece sell out a fellow cop?

After reading depositions given by three of the officers involved in the killing of Tyisha Miller, in relation to a federal law suit, I saw the following chain of events coming, so when I found this excerpt on Bill Barnett, taken from the site of the publishing company that printed Sgt. Preece's memoirs:

Preece's memoirs


Bill Burnett, who chaired the Riverside County Civil Grand Jury when it investigated the RPD, made the following comments online about Sgt. Gregory Preece(ret.) and the actions he took upon arriving onscene right before Tyisha Miller's death, at the hands of four officers.:

"When the Sergeant arrived, he saw another SWAT trained Corporal on scene and believed that HE would have stopped any poorly planned tactical maneuver, before it was put into place. He didn't and he was not punished by the police chief."

Bill Burnett(Chair and co-author with Gregory Preece, "Justice for None"

Preece's latest fall guy for his own misconduct at the scene of the Miller shooting, is Corporal Ray Soto, a 20-year veteran currently assigned to the Canine unit.

So, we have a sergeant who is the assigned supervisor for all these cops, showing up at a scene where something is going down, and he yields his command to a corporal?! No offense to Soto who did have 18 years on the force at that point including SWAT experience and training, but he is not the one in charge. The sergeant is in charge! RPD policy states that the sergeant is in charge, not the officer with the most years of experience! Not the canine officer, whether or not he has been trained in SWAT tactics! Soto arrived not too soon before Preece did, and probably did not have time to take control of the situation.

Blame Soto for his own actions including his decision to entertain the troops at the GIB with "banned in the U.S.A." shooting videos from his own personal collection only if what the officers said in their depositions were true about the tapes in question being his personal property.

After all, what better way for officers to bond after a shooting than to sit together and watch police officers shoot people, usually people of color, on the tube. If you couldn't cheer or hi-five at the scene of an actual shooting, why not do so viscerally at a video-taped one? It was a way for the Tyisha Miller killers to feel like part of the club. Any doubts they had that what they had done was murder, would be washed away clean by the baptism of officers sitting together and watching shooting videos. Others would reminisce about their own shootings, if they were lucky enough to belong to that esteemed club.

But Soto was not the designated supervisor onscene that night. He was a good soldier. He did not mention anything about the behavior of Preece and the other officers after the shooting, for whatever reason. He praised Preece greatly, in the index of Preece's memoirs. I wonder if after realizing that Preece built him up as the fall guy, Soto felt like taking that all back.

Preece was the sergeant onscene, and he failed to supervise properly. In fact, he led the officers in racist behavior after the shooting. And when he covered up the beating and near drowning of Jose Martinez , was Soto standing around for him to blame for that? Of course not. Blame the supervisors who wrote their misgivings about Preece's ability to supervise on his annual evaluations but still dispatched him out in the field as...a supervisor.

Sorry Bill, but Chief Carroll fired Preece because of violation of several RPD policies including the failure to adequately supervise the other four officers. Soto played no role in that process because he was not the onscene supervisor, nor is there any evidence presented by anyone that he participated in making racist comments during or after the shooting, ergo the lack of disciplinary action taken against him.

The Sutton files: the RPD post-911

The RPD since 9-11

With all the scapegoating and hatred vented towards Muslims and Arab-Americans after the 9-11 attacks, one would hope that the LE forces would not add to the hysteria around them. That hope was squandered on a select group of RPD officers, who couldn't put their racism aside while offering their 2-cents on the issues:

Let's start with Officer Deborah Foy probably one of the most emotionally questionable officers out on the streets today, based on the behavior she exhibited when she had a meltdown at a public event held on June 30, 1999. Foy rose into prominance that infamous day, when she tailed and attacked a man who was circulating fliers critical of the police department. She just grabbed them right out of his hand, and when he protested, poked her finger in his chest and said "I will do what I wish." A chief from another agency had to intervene, and when he saw Foy and six other officers including Jon Start standing around the man, he whipped out his cell phone to call former Chief Jerry Carroll to tell him, an officer had lost control. Carroll sent then-Lt. Jim Cannon out to handle it.

A complaint was filed, which was investigated by then-Det. Skip Showwalter and then- Sgt. Meredith Meredyth.

After an arduous I.A. investigation, one allegation was sustained, the other not sustained and she received no discipline, according to her words in a Dec. 27, 1999 Press Enterprise article. Interestingly enough, when I went to the station for my interview on the IA investigation in connection with Foy, I encountered a woman who was there to file a complaint against Foy, for stalking her, she said. She was sued as well, by the man who filed the complaint and when his lawyer, Mark Blankenship, talked to Chief Leach, and he said that Leach admitted to him that he thought Foy was a "horrible officer."

Not horrible enough to be kicked off the force, or persuaded to take an early retirement from the job.

Still, Foy was Public Safety officer of the month of May in 1999. By that time, she had at least five personnel complaints filed against her, according to individuals who came forward after her exploits at Wednesday Night hit the pages of the Press Enterprise. So someone's pulling for her despite her vices.

Foy apparently doesn't like Muslims or Arabs/Arab-Americans very much.

Here are her alleged words, according to a deposition given by Roger Sutton as part of his law suit, Roger Sutton v the City of Riverside scheduled to begin trial at a courtroom near you.

"What are you going to do if a towel head sits next to you" --Officer Debora Foy to her daughter as related to officer Derwin Hudson. (source: Sutton vs the City of Riverside(RIC346348) deposition of Roger Sutton, 11/1/02)vol: 2, pages 252-56)

"Those people need to just go back home"--Officer Debora Foy"
"This is their home"----Roger Sutton
"No it's not. They need to go back to their own fucking country." --Foy(source: Sutton vs the City of Riverside(RIC346348) deposition of Roger Sutton, 11/1/02)vol: 2, pages 252-56)

The irony of Foy's comments is that they were made in the breakroom, which is adjacent to the roll call room, recently wired for video feed to the Chief's office and I.A. Why is it wired? Because Atty General Bill Lockyer ordered the department to do so b/c of the proliferation of racial and sexual comments in the roll calls, not just by rank and file officers but especially by the sergeants who, you know, are supposed to serve as role models for the officers.

Another officer with strong biases against Arab-Americans and/or Muslims according to Sutton's deposition,is Offr. David Martin, an 11 year veteran from the Long Beach Police Department(the bastion of tolerance for people of color---NOT!) who had also served in the military overseas as a reserve.

"20 million Muslims aren't worth one American." --Officer David Martin to Officer Richard Aceves(source: Sutton vs the City of Riverside(RIC346348) deposition of Roger Sutton, 11/1/02)vol: 2, pages 252-56)

in other words, Muslims=NHI...Paging Offr. David Hackman, from Orange County....

"We need to drop a bomb and blow up all the Muslims"--Martin to Richard Aceves(source: (source: Sutton vs the City of Riverside(RIC346348) deposition of Roger Sutton, 11/1/02)vol: 2, pages 252-56)

Why is it when cops threaten people, it's a joke? Anyone else does it, it's a violation of PC 422?

Why is it during a time period when Riverside Muslim Centers were threatened with violence, is an officer allowed to run around advocating violence against Muslims?

And Hudson, Aceves, Yo! Why aren't you reporting these racist remarks? Why the silence? Did you join a law enforcement agency just to become one of the boys? Tittering quietly at the racist and sexist jokes, knowing the price the department and the community paid for the same behavior after the killing of Tyisha Miller?

Another enlightning comment on people of color came courtesy of Officer Chris Lanzillo, as he drove his squad car down University Ave on March 19, 2003. Lanzillo, who is fond of heckling at protesters and trying to provoke confrontations with them, pulled his car up to a group of protesters from RCC, and made the following comment, using his fingers to demonstrate bombs falling.

"It's too late to protest. The bombs have already started to fall, ha ha" --

Then, after he was done harassing peaceful demontrators and instructing the probational officer under his supervision, Lanzillo drove off quickly. He is never one to stick around when he harasses people, a tactic he no doubt passes down to the officers he trained. Several demonstrators later said that he had made it a routine to stop his vehicle at University and Main sts. every Wednesday night to provoke them. In fact, one of the concerns expressed by the demonstrators to a member of Chief Leach's advisory committee addressed Lanzillo's antagonistic behavior and his tendacy to act out like a teenage boy. By this time, I had received another reminder of what they meant.

Some people obviously never grow up, and when they are assigned power and equipped with weapons, it's no joke. And if they are acting out just to get attention, that changes little in that equation.

But still, their jokes are not to be messed with by outsiders.


Don't take our jokes away from us! We do love our humor! We think it's funny when people of color die, or get killed!

Wonder what their attitude would be if officers told jokes about 'white' bullets...'Beverly Hills' death wails, Fourth of July celebrations spent throwing whites into lakes, or hanging up fliers which state, be the first honkey on the block to own........never mind that would never happen.

Were any of these comments ever investigated? Of course not. Sure, perfunctory investigations(wink,wink) were done by I.A if even that. Of course, nothing is ever meted out...well a promotion or two maybe. I.A. has only two purposes:

1) protect crooked cops
2) punish cops who whistleblow on 1.

That's it.

Sgt. Bruce Blomdahl did not find the last comment made by Lanzillo offensive or prejudicial at all. Of course, he was too busy waving the pom-poms during the investigation to actually do any actual...investigating.

Alas, such is the life of a field sergeant assigned to investigate one of his brothers. Tough indeed.

The RPD goes to Court: Cast of Characters

Just in case, the law suit, Roger Sutton v the City of Riverside goes to trial inside a courtroom in Riverside County Superior Court any time soon, here are some production notes including a partial listing of the show's cast of characters.


Bill Burnett:
Served as the chairman of the civil grand jury from July 1999 to May 2000. He undertook an investigation to study the administrative review and morale of PD including complaints of racial discrimination. Internal Affairs provided files and documents relating to complaints of racial comments by RPD officers to civilians and members of the grand jury including Burnett would pick them up.

~October 1999, Burnett went to the RPD to pick up documents from I.A. As he left, Lt. Robert Meier came out of his office and added a manila envelope to the rest of the documents, and said, “you might find this interesting.” Upon returning to the office, Burnett opened up the envelop and found a copy of Roger Sutton’s file. It included his entire disciplinary actions and grievances as well as a detailed list of complaints, inquiries, incidents and investigations involving Sutton.

“I was puzzled and did not understand why we had been given the documents regarding Roger Sutton because they were not related to the issues we were investigating and to my knowledge, they had never been requested.”

Soon after, Burnett asked Meier why he had given him the Sutton file even though it was not requested nor was it related to the investigation. Meier said that Sutton was dating a white woman who was the sister of John Tavaglione. Meier said that Dana had supposedly made a racial comment to her about her relationship with Sutton. The comment might cost Dana his job. Meier refered to Sutton as a “troublemaker.”

“the occasion on which Robert Meier gave me a copy of Roger Sutton’s file was the only instance in which I was given documents by the RPD that were entirely irrevelent to this particular grand jury investigation.”

Although considering that Bill Burnett was not only the Chair of the Riverside County Grand Jury, which investigated the department(see report on link list)but also an author, it is questionable where his allegiance lies. Especially when you considered that the book he authored, was called Justice for None and was co-authored by none other, than former RPD sergeant, Gregory Preece.

Gregory Preece's Memoirs

Lt. Alex Tortes
long-time officer, who joined in part because of the way officers treated people in the Eastside neighborhood where Tortes grew up. He was promoted to lieutenant with Ron Orrantia and Meredyth Meredith in 1999, which led to a furor among nine White male sergeants who naturally thought the promotions were theirs. Their temper tantrums led to them filing grievances with the city. And did the city fight their allegations of reverse racial and gender discrimination just like it fought the racial discrimination experienced by minority employees? Of course not. Behind closed doors and out of earshot of then Chief Jerry Carroll, the city council negotiated with the sergeants to promote three of them and pay the rest of them off. When the community found out and opposed these actions, the city council backed off the negotiations, which caused the sergeants to sell their tale to the U.S. District Court. The city, however, ultimately settled with the disgruntled White sergeants, because as it knew, the truly oppressed person in society is of course, the White male.

1/30/2002

(Rene Ramirez made allegations of racial comments)

1996-97: Tortes and Ron Orrantia and Darryl Hart filed a racial discrimination claim with the EEO board.

When Tortes and Orrantia were promoted to lieutenant in April 1999, the command staff did not attend their ceremony. Tortes received negative treatment and feedback through emails and other means. No positive feedback from Deputy Chief Audrey Wilson and other command staff members. He had no problems with the rank and file. He is still receiving negative treatment as of January 2002. He was put on night shift even though that’s supposed to be by seniority. Told he lacked experience. –told by Audrey Wilson.

He asked to go to school b/c they paid for one lt. to attend and was repeatedly told to “pay your own way. You can’t go” by Audrey Wilson. He felt excluded, not allowed to participate in decision making or to provide imput. He and Darryl Hurt had both experienced what they call the “exclusionary rule.”

New Captain Dave Dominguez allowed him to do things. Tortes’ first positive experiences were with Dominguez.

Ron Orrantia was forced to retire by Audrey Wilson his direct supervisor and others.

“I’m finally referred to being the last of Jerry’s kids(by other lieutenants). We were promoted. I’m the last one.”


Sgt. Ed Blevins, Internal Affairs

His only investigation involved Rene Rodriguez.

He had received a memo from Lt. Jim Cannon who had met with Rene Rodriguez about perceived treatment that Rodriguez had experienced.

Rodriguez said his mistreatment had started at the academy. Poor grades on written product, and no recommendation for hiring.

Other allegations included:

FTO Dave Ruddy made him eat at a separate table during lunch breaks and taught him racial filing of Mexicans by telling him that Mexicans didn’t have licenses. Black officers were not allowed to work together or sign up for shifts.

Mike Andrews(FTO) taught probational officers how to racially profile black motorists with cornrows or jerrycurls.

Carl Turner said that the officers should turn their radios on to rap stations in honor of Tyisha Miller.

Tattoo references, were they swastikas? Not sure, long sleeves in summertime.

Hackman, Preece and Brown admitted to making the comments. Hackman was suspended. Brown was suspended. Preece was fired.

Bryan Dowell, made comments about Blacks, n-words, Blevins said he didn’t like to hang around him b/c he didn’t care for Dowell.

Cheryl Tavaglione:

Told Jay Theuer who was a friend of hers. Richard Dana came to Tava Lanes w/ Mike Smith one day. Dana was a family friend but stopped coming by after her husband died. She told him she ha a boyfriend, but didn’t think anyone would go with her b/c of her family.

Dana said, “if I had known you were going to start dating, I would have found you a brown haired browneyed, olive-complected man to go out with?"

When Cheryl told Sutton, he was furious about it. Bob Arnold snubbed him. She also said that Sgt. Darryl Hurt said that it was going to make it tougher on all of us, in regards to their relationship with “all of us” referring to Black officers.

Commander Richard Dana

Racial comments were Al Brown, Bill Rhetts and Dave Hackman.
Brian Money was married to a Black woman and was upset when Rodriguez made the allegation that he couldn’t tell anyone about his wife.

Aaron Perkins put the stink bomb in the car. Got a written reprimand b/c the act was not determined to be racist and he had put stinkbombs in other cars.

Al Brown was suspended for his comments that he admitted

Bill Rhetts was not disciplined b/c they considered comment inappropriate but not racist.

I.A. determined that Rodriguez had not experienced worst treatment on the basis of race.

Investigated Jim Cannon for leaking memos to Ameal Moore, Lee Wagner, Mike Smith and others. He was investigated by Lt. Meier, the same officer who leaked Sutton's entire personnel file to Barnett(see Barnett and Sutton declarations).


Hall who advocated for Sutton said he would drop the complaint against Dana if he was restored to the canine unit.

Lt. Jeffrey Collopy

believed Sutton should have been dealt with or terminated a long time ago.

(Maybe that's why during the Motion for Summary Judgement, Collapy(sitting with his officer son)smirked at the few parts of Judge Richard Field's decision that backed the department then looked upset when Fields upheld the majority of Sutton's case.)

Sgt. Skip Showalter
Present during interrogations of Rodriguez.

“He never wanted to own up to the fact that he had made his own mistakes and then maybe that’s the reason why but he seemed to be focusing on the fact that people were harassing b/c he was black.”

Showalter had reason to be bitter. His coworker and friend, Bill Rhetts was one of the officers being investigated for allegations of racist comment, because of Rodriguez.

Rhetts' homophobic, racist Web site, IPOC Ministries, still hosts an essay written by Showalter as it had in 1999. His essay is not racist or homophobic, or offensive, but the site that hosts it is both of these things. When I asked Showalter about this in 2000, he simply said he wrote the essay and put it out there for anyone's use. Showalter's essay being posted on Rhetts' site led to then Chief Robert Luman's decision to investigate the Web site.

Interestingly, Showalter and other IA personnel investigated Rhetts for several different internal investigations for 18 months and did not sustain one of them. Rhetts eventually took a stress retirement.

Showalter's essay

Frank Patino, Field Training Officer:

upset that he was alleged to teach Rene racial profiling of Hispanics. Why would a Hispanic officer do this?

Lt. Darryl Hurt

Second highest-ranking African-American officer and close friend of Gregory Preece. Hurt's advanced up the administrative ladder by playing it safe, which has brought him criticism, most notably his decision to testify on behalf of Preece during his arbitration hearing. For a man who wrote in Preece's memoirs that he dislikes racial politics, he's not above using them himself. He's come a long way since the frustrated officer who filed a claim with two other officers in 1997, protesting the promotional practices of the RPD. Would he recognize his former self, some have asked.

Heard probably more than a dozen racial comments. Last time was late 1980s. Comments were made in groups, parties, getogethers, choir practice(post-work drinking parties).

“You can’t be thin-skinned to work in LE.”

There is a lot of things to put up with. Do you go around crying or do you suck it up? Said you would be at a disadvantage if you reported comments.

links on Sutton case:

Judge refuses to dismiss Sutton suit

disparities in handling of law suits by race

City appeals Sutton's $200,000 award

Exhibit C or Humor, RPD style?

Sitting on the desk is Defendant's Exhibit C, used in the case of Roger Sutton v the City of Riverside (RIC346348)which is scheduled to begin trial on Monday, June 27, at 8:30am. In all liklihood, the trial will either be postponed to the fall or the law suit filed by the former RPD officer will finally be settled by both parties in lieu of putting the beleagured police department on trial.

Regardless, Exhibit C consists of a piece of paper that was put on display at several police facilities during 2001 and 2004, according to Sutton's law suit. In 2001, it hung on the Field Training Officer's division's bulletin board inside the Personnel and Training officem, which was housed along with the other administrative offices at the Orange Street Station. First spotted by Sutton in January 2001, it remained in place, through the months which immediately preceded the city's decision to enter into a stipulated agreement with the state to reform the police department. According to his deposition, Sutton tried to address the issue of the flier, but no one would listen to him. Not the police chief who's office was down the hall, nor the deputy chief, who occupied an office next to that used by the police chief. Internal Affairs, which back then also occupied space on the second floor of the Orange Street Station paid no heed either, according to Sutton. On March 6, 2001, the day the stipulated agreement began, the document still hung on the bulletin board at the Orange St. Station, as it would until it was finally removed two months later.

Homeboy Nyte Lyte flier


It disappeared for a while, before resurfacing last spring, this time at the Lincoln Field Operations Station, according to Scott Silverman, Sutton's attorney.

What is on this flier that made it so objectionable to Sutton, if not to the administrators who occupied the second floor of the department's administrative headquarters? The flier is a spoof of a newly designed night sight(or Nyte Syte as spelled here)because according to the Museum of Hoaxes Web site, the Birdman Weapons Systems doesn't exist.

The flier caused a stir in several places before it was determined to be a fake.

Gag that Faked out Town

Excerpts in italics


Before realizing the HoMeBoY apparently isn't an actual product, Loupassi, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, was outraged.

"I believe that is indefensible, and I'm part of the pro-gun lobby," he told a reporter.

Before discovering he and others had been fooled, Loupassi was going to contact state and federal agencies to investigate Birdman Weapons Systems.

Bill Dunham, agent in charge of the Richmond office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said his agency has been familiar with the Birdman site for some time. He said it's believed to be a satire, in part because it doesn't give prices or any opportunity to buy weapons.

He said some of the weapons described could not be made legally. He also found the site's high number of "hits" - more than 100,000 in the past year - a bit disturbing.

"It puts ideas in people's heads," Dunham said. "We don't need any more creative weapons than there are."

Of additional concern to many people, was the racism implied in birdman's products, particularly against African-Americans.

He noted other night sights are available, and Birdman suggests they be used for shooting people, particularly young black males. "This gun show was held within a mile of predominantly African-American communities," he said.

Discussions of what happened took place at forums including Free Republic

Rightwingers comment on Birdman controversy

***caution, racist text at site***

The flier caught the attention of at least one RPD officer, and his name was printed on top of the flier that eventually became evidence in Sutton's law suit. The file name was DaveSmithHomeboy.jpg. In his deposition, Sutton mentioned that there was a Dave Smith who worked at the department as a detective. Whether or not, he put the flier on display at the involved facilities is unknown. All that is known is that he did not create it on his own. Sutton explained in his deposition that he was offended by the flier's use of venicular and spelling that he said was derogatory towards African-Americans. In a department with a history of racism, which inevitably spilled over into the jokes officers told one another, this flier was a reminder of how the past continued to rule the present, despite the state's oversight over the department.

It's ironic that the flier ended up displayed on the bulletin board provided for the Field Training Officers, of the department, given that after the firing of the four officers who shot and killed a Black woman in 1998, almost all of them submitted resignations in protest.(see link on Riverside County Grand Jury's 2000 report on RPD)

How many trainees of all races and genders walked into the P & T office and saw this flier hanging on the board? How many officers working at Lincoln Field Operations saw this flier hanging last year? Was this really the portrait of the new, improved, racially sensitive RPD that politicians and police administrators have been working so hard to paint?

If the city doesn't settle the case and instead fights it inside the courtroom, a jury of 12 people will pass judgment on all the elements of this case, including Exhibit C, which was actually submitted by the defendant, the city of Riverside, during its deposition of the plaintiff, Sutton. Ironic, that after four years of turmoil that stemmed from long-denied racism inside its police agency, that the city would want to use as its alleged trump card, a flier that has already been criticized for being racist against African-American men elsewhere. So much so, that its author, the elusive birdman, had to issue a statement on it.

Birdman's comment on racism of ads at Free Republic:


" I certainly hope that nobody out there really thinks ANYTHING on my website is "racist" or advocates that one race is better than another. If anything, the opposite is true. I don't think any particular race is any more stupid than another. Many times people are way too fast to play out the race card when they don't have all of the facts. This is an easy way out of having to use their brain. In Richmond VA, this is the obvious case ...and that is a true shame. All I did with this website was to make something that nobody would really know how to categorize, and also point out a few areas in mankind's psyche that need some serious work.

Given that this flier has been displayed at several facilities owned by the city of Riverside, Birdman just might have a point here, if he includes the officers at the RPD who believe that a faux weapon designed to hunt African-American males is humor worthy of being posted at their workplace. There most definitely are a few areas in mankind's psyche that need some serious work.

Another bounty paid

It's all happened before. White officers kill African-American, and win lucrative life-long retirements from the city of Riverside.

Paul Bugar
Daniel Hotard
Michael Alagna
Wayne Stewart
and now....
Tina Banfill Gould.

Banfill Gould retired last March, receiving a workman's compensation package which will probably allow her to pick up a paycheck for a portion of her salary for the rest of her life. We've seen it before. Officer shoots Black person. RPD flubs investigation. Controversy erupts. Officer gets paid off afer some undisclosed injury pops up after the fact. At least during the Tyisha Miller shooting and its aftermath, the city fired them first.

Banfill Gould's parting words for the African-American community of Riverside were through her union lawyer, Michael Lackie, that she didn't believe that the details of the incident were anyone's business but the police department. With those words, she slapped thre faces of everyone who agitated for justice after Miller's killing in 1999.

Of course, she had reason. Because she had apparently made several crucial tactical errors when she approached the car where sitting inside, was the man she would shoot to death in less than four minutes time. She approached him alone, without calling for backup and did not run his license plate first.

It's tough to blame her, because she's not speaking as an individual, but as a member of a larger department. Part of the RPD police culture, which believes that it is above reproach any time one or more of its members takes a human life. The life of a person of color, particularly an African-American is even worthy of a public accounting. Remember, as former officer David Hackman said, NHI, meaning they aren't really human. Has that attitude changed in six years?

Probably not. No federal, state or county, or city agency can change a racist culture. No department can or even wants to change that culture from within. So what happens?

The city buries its head in the sand. The department pays an "expert" on policing to spin data that points to racial profiling being done by RPD officers into something called, criminal profiling instead. A sleight of hand which fools only those who don't even believe racial profiling ever existed, or those who did, but want so much to believe that the RPD has evolved through their efforts into a success story of sorts. But the success is only in their heads which of course are also buried in the sand.

The OIS Team skirted off with only a hand slap from the CPRC, and nothing from the department, just as it always has been. Just as the department did, when two investigators on the OIS team changed accounts provided by witnesses in another officer-involved shooting, to boost the defense given by the officers that they were in fear for their lives when one of them shot at a moving car. That's a story which deserves its own entry. Suffice it to say that it is truly amazing(not) that the OIS team can botch up, deliberately or through negligence, more than one officer-involved shooting in a year. And these are the ones where the potential misconduct is public. Makes you wonder what it is going on that you don't know. Makes you wonder what will happen when Bill Lockyer uncuts the strings tying his office to the department next March.

But at least one thing resonates true in this latest debacle involving a dead African-American brought to you, courtesy of the RPD. It's beginning to make sense now why so many strict laws were passed restricting access to information pertaining to law enforcement officers and how those laws are used to restrict even further what little information the public can receive. It's got nothing to do with protecting privacy and everything to do about hiding the truth.




Banfill doesn't talk, wins retirement package

The Selling(Out) of Project Bridge

It all looked good at the Finance Committee meeting where three city council members listened as over a dozen people spoke in support of the popular gang intervention program, Project Bridge.

How quickly things change.....

Last Friday, a group of non-profit representatives gathered together at the Youth Services building on Magnolia around the bed where Project Bridge remains on life support, with only six months left to live. They agreed that they would have to pull the plug on the program to save it, then change it into a new organizion which would be independent of city funding and interference.

Chief Leach loves or hates Project Bridge depending on who he talks to. He loves it when he talks to community members. He hates it, when he presents the police department's annual proposed budget to the finance committee with the majority of the police union board sitting behind him. He loved it last year, when he told the council, to fund it or close its doors in six months. He hated it, when the PE reporter who wrote the latest status report, asked him his opinion on the thorny subject. The cops don't like it, in popularity it's on par, perhaps with those damn digital audio recorders, and at this point in Leach's tenure, they run the show.

However he feels about Project Bridge, Leach isn't above using the preventive componants that define it to make the department eligiable to apply for a multi-prong and highly competitive state grant, which would give the department's gang suppression unit, 2/3 of the $500,000. The strategy being, that the preventive elements of the gang issue are fine, but only as long as we can use them as carrot sticks to beef up the suppression componant of gang control.

In the meantime, gang-related shootings rock the neighborhoods of both Casa Blanca and the Eastside, in recent days. Black on Latino and Latino on Black, since most gang violence is racially based, and has little to do with fighting over turf. With kids now looking at these gangs, and having little else to do, gang violence which is often cyclical will continue. The preventive elements which cost money now, save much more money later on, when it comes to gang suppression, an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. If the preventive programs that are in place disappear, then the city will not be able to finance all the officers that will be needed in coming years, and Sgt. Pat McCarthy and his successors at the helm of the RPOA and Dan Bernstein will have to turn their ride-alongs into a regular practice to apply pressure on the city to increase the number of officers it hires and deploys.

Suppressing young Black and Latino men has been a regular pasttime for RPD cops. Putting together preventive programs that involve interaction with the younger kids, does not come as naturally to a police force, that is predominantly white and at the end of the day, retreats to all-white enclaves in southern Riverside, or when they earn enough money, south-western Riverside county.


to be continued....

Project Bridge has now been incorporated into the Park and Recreation Department and is part of the latest Eastside Strategic Plan. It is no longer on life support.


summary of Project Bridge from Riverside police department:

Project Bridge - $861,28
The Office of Justice and Juvenile Delinquency Planning (OJJDP) continues to provide funding to support the very successful Project Bridge program. Project Bridge is a collaborative effort between the Department of Human Resources, the Department of Juvenile Probation, the Riverside Police Department, and the University of California at Riverside. The goal of this program is to provide youth with positive alternatives to gangs and to foster and strengthen healthy lifestyles for children and their families. The OJJDP is working closely with the city of Riverside to make Project Bridge a nationally recognized model gang prevention, intervention, and suppression program.

links:


The saving of Project Bridge?

Project Bridge is falling down

Driving While Transgender

I came across this article on a Web site where Sgt. Steve Johnson addressed the transgender community. A transgender once told me of a bad experience with the Riverside Police Department which he felt kept harassing him because they sensed something "different" about him but couldn't identify what it was, but it attracted them to him like bees. Very unfortunate for him.

Some excerpts of the article:

"The nature of our business dictates that not all contacts [with the Police] will be positive". And, he admits, "There has not been a lot of training on [transgender issues] in the Police Academy.... Police Officers are human. Some of us are going to respond properly, some not." But a greater sensitivity on the part of Crossdressers to the difficult job police face can go a long way towards disarming a potentially tense situation.

In other words, excuse officers their bigotry. Bigotry is only human, whether it's towards race, sexual orientation or gender identity. Crossdressers have to be sensitive to bigotted cops, but cops can just do as they please. The elements of Community Policing in action, folks.

Many crossdressers worst nightmare is a traffic stop or other detention by a Law Enforcement Officer. Many feel they cannot tell the truth about their situation, for fear of harassment or embarrassment. "But cops are the wrong people to lie to....The worst thing you can possibly do is lie," Officer Johnson stresses. Police are trained to look for "Red Flags" when they stop an individual. For example, multiple ID cards are one. What activity would you be involved in that would necesitate changing your identity?

You have the choice to lie, or tell a cop you're not really a woman, or a man? Considering that transgenders have been beaten by cops just for being transgenders, it's a tough choice. What is the cop going to do with the truth? Let you go, or mistreat you, b/c he or she's only "human" and doesn't get the appropriate training on transgenders.

Moreover, "The majority of transgendered people I come into contact with are transvestite prostitutes on University Avenue," he candidly admits. Many of them have drug habits and carry concealed weapons". Many police by instinct assume any crossdressed person is one of these. And, unfortunately, "It does you folks an injustice".

By George, Steve Johnson, you've got it! Transgenders are prostitutes! Just like all Black people are criminals, because a few of them are. Only Whites are allowed to be judged as individual people by cops. Instinct is just another word added to a long list of words to substitute for prejudice and bigotry.

It was suggested that Police Academy training include sensitivity training on Transgender issues. But, Officer Johnson admits, "They go thorugh such intense training, I don't know if they'd even give you a day". The P.O.S.T. system (Police Officers Standards Of Training) has a very rigorous procedure to add anything new to their curriculum. There are also budget and time constraints as well.

We're too busy and have too many important things to do to learn how to treat you as human beings, and not either street criminals or sexual deviants.

Police oficers are trained to have a COMMAND PRESENCE, a necessary tool in confrontations. This is often mistaken for hostility. But remember, "Your behavior dictates how I will respond. If you're low-key, professional and dignified, I'll act the same way".

Confrontations? How come cops don't call their interactions with white straight non-transgendered people, "confrontations"? No matter how low-keyed, professional and dignified a transgendered person acts, if he or she is dealing with a bigotted, ignorant cop, his or her dignified person can still get mistreated or even beaten.

Transgenders: Another "criminally profiled" group...






Transgenders according to Sgt. Johnson

The computer generated cop speaks out!

HOST: Good evening, ladies and gents, welcome to our show...Our guest once again is Officer "Hands Tied", who was the center figure in a high-priced political campaign by the RPOA Political Action Committee against Measure II. Though given the success of the campaign to place the CPRC in the city charter, speculation has been raised among several circles that Officer "Hands Tied" was really working for the other side.

Now upon the revelation by the Washington Post that the source "Deep Throat" who exposed Watergate, is really an ex-#2 man in the FBI, Officer "Hands Tied" was contacted by this show to provide expert analysis.



HOST: Is that true, Officer?

OFFICER: Hell no, I could get my brand new BMW convertable keyed for that!

HOST: What do you think of Deep Throat?

OFFICER: Hell of a flick. Got the unrated DVD.

HOST: I mean the former FBI agent who just admitted that he was the source of the information Woodward and Bernstein received for their stories on Watergate.

OFFICER: You mean the snitch? If he'd worked for us, we'd put dead frogs in his car, stink bombs..that kind of stuff. You have to send the right message to these traitorous malcontents.

HOST: Some might look at him as being a hero. There was some bad stuff going on at that hotel.

OFFICER: Is Benedict Arnold a hero? You can't be telling the world our business.

HOST: Okay, gotcha. So....what do you think of the State Attorney General?

OFFICER: You mean, the carpetbagger from the North. *shrugs* Next year, he's gone and we are going to paaaaaarty.

HOST: What about the kinder, gentler police department?

OFFICER: Reform is for wusses. Sure, we got us some nice toys, except for those dang audiorecorders. Of course, that's nothing that a good elbow block won't fix. But the tasers are kind of coool.

HOST: So no racial profiling?

OFFICER: You mean criminal profiling, of course. That's good police work. Community policing and all that. Some people complain too much. We listen to them a few years, but then it's back to business. We've got stuff to do. We can't win everyone over. *shrug*

Who's Watching the Hen House?

After reading Liz Venable's good review of the CPRC in the May 24, 2005 issue of the Highlander, it made me reflect on the past five years that Riverside's choice of civilian review mechanism has been in place. I have a unique perspective on the issue and what became its reality, because unlike the vast majority of residents in Riverside, I have attended a CPRC montly meeting. Numerous monthly meetings, something other civilian review board watchers in this city can not claim. I am the only person who does not watch the CPRC from afar. Most of the community it serves, for a variety of reasons, stays away.

That is why it was interesting to read Venable's take on the issue of the number of complaints filed against police officers which has decreased since last year. There was really no answer to that question. Was it more efficient training, as implied by Chair Michael Gardner, and other city people? Was it disillusionment with the process? No one would come out and say that on record. Although one person did ask the question, of whether that could be the case, and whether the decline was as welcome as it appeared to many folks.

The true answer, is probably both, though improved training probably has not made quite the impact yet that it would, on complaints. It takes years, for improvements in training to be felt first among the rank and file officers, then through trickle-down affect, the communities they serve, particularly the policed ones.

Gardner, said further in a Press Enterprise article by Sarah Burge not long ago defended the CPRC's low sustain rate on complaints by saying that most of the complaints did not happen, or the police officers were merely doing something to the persons that they did not like. Otherwords, the majority of complaintants are either liars or malcontents, who were probably doing something wrong when they crossed paths with the officers. Per usual, I am scratching my head at Gardner's reasoning, just as I did when he ran for city council in 2003 and tried to get an endorsement from the RPOA, but I can make one prediction for the future....

The number of complaints will most certainly decrease markedly this year...

After all, if the CPRC, the mechanism that is supposed to restore the community's trust in its police agency doesn't believe the complainant, who will? Who is there left? And with a complaint sustain rate of a whopping 10 percent, is this the body that will provide the trust between the two entities, or is it there to install a false sense of trust on the part of the community, while for the department, it's just business as usual. The CPRC could have cruised happily for its five year history, if the department had a police union whose leadership was smart enough to realize that it was the best thing that ever happened to them. The department's brass has just figured that out in the past several months, and has put that knowlege to good use.

After all, in the application, a negative contact with police, or what Councilman Ed Adkison refers to as, "Being in trouble with the law" is probably an automatic disqualifier. However, you can be a cop, an ex-cop or a badge bunny, and you'll get on the board much easier, like you are on the express line.

So the deck is stacked against the communities the commission was established to serve.


So unless you want to start over from scratch, what you have is what you have. Accountability and truth, will have to wait.





review of CPRC

Gregory 2, RPD 0

Daxius Gregory is an African-American man who lives with his family in the Eastside community of Riverside. As a resident of the Eastside, he is property of the Riverside Police Department, to be subjected to search and seizure at their whim. And there's been a lot of whim on the part of several of RPD's finest.

Last week, Gregory, who has a propensity for serving as his own lawyer in court, took his second criminal case filed by the RPD to trial, and within 43 minutes of when the jury began deliberating over his case behind closed doors, he was acquitted of the misdemeanor charge of possessing less than an ounce of marijuana.

This incident stemmed from a Jan. 8 traffic stop conducted by Traffic Officer and RPOA board member Brian C. Smith. Smith had stopped his car behind that driven by Gregory's friend Jemal Lilly, and stated in his report that he had witnessed Lilly turning left in a "no left turn zone" on Lemon Street towards University Ave in downtown Riverside. The way the street is designed, is that since it is a one-way street, there are two left-turn lanes and one straight lane. Smith followed Lilly's car until it crossed Market Street, then pulled it over.

Immediately, he focused his attention on Gregory who he said was trying to hide something in his shoe. He asked Gregory to get out of the car, so he could search his shoe. First, he handcuffed Gregory for the duration of the search. Smith then told Lilly he would search the car for marijuana and he allegedly found 0.5 gram of the stuff inside a small bag underneath one of the seats.

Interestingly enough, Smith said in the statement which accompanied a motion filed by the Riverside County DA's office, that he identified Gregory, yet he does not explain how. Gregory did not say anything. Lilly was asked to produce a license to ID himself, the details of that process outlined by Smith, yet nothing on Gregory. Even more interesting, Gregory had recently changed his name to Ankhenaten Ra El in honor of his Moorish roots.

Smith cited Gregory for PC11357(b) and released him.

When he was being sentenced for his PC 148 conviction on the earlier case with the RPD, Judge Robert Spitzer asked him if he wanted to toss in a guilty plea to the marijuana case alongside it. Gregory said no, he intended to fight the case.

It turned out to be the right decision for Gregory, once again...



More about Gregory:

racial profiling at Bordwall Park

Gregory 1, RPD 1

Gregory picks jail over probation on COC charge

Why is Detective Miera under investigation?

An interesting case from the Riverside County Superior Court criminal case files....

Dione Mckinnon, a long time member of the 1200 bloc gangster Crips, according to police detectives, was sitting in a car close to five to eight Black male juveniles. Police officer Joshua Ontko was driving with his field training officer Michael Stamps, on June 26, 2004, when they received a complaint from a woman in the Eastside who said that she saws the teenagers loitering near a motel, and that she believed a drugs transaction was taking place. Although still a probational officer, Ontko was finishing up his final rotation in the training program, and Stamps was dressed in plainclothes as he evaluated Ontko's job performance.

They pulled up at the motel and got out of the vehicle to deal with the five young men loitering, allegedly up to no good. Their attention did not stay on the young men long, because Stamps recognized McKinnon who was sitting in his vehicle, apart from the other men. The two officers ordered him out of the vehicle, he left and began to return to it, when they ordered him out again. Ontko then grabbed him with assistance from Stamps and they assisted him(job venicular for using force to put someone in the position of complying) in sitting down on the curb. Of course, in the preliminary hearing after Mckinnon was charged with various offenses, Ontko testified that Mckinnon resisted and he had to push him down on the curb, but what's two different versions of the same event from one officer anyway? Business as usual, because recollections change and events change, and Ontko is the student here. Whether another reality will exist for new officers in the future, still is uncertain.

They released Mckinnon, and went on their ways. It's unclear from police reports exactly what became of the five loitering juveniles who had been the initial focus of the call to police.

Two days later, Ontko visited Mckinnon at his home to see how he was doing. Ontko admits doing so, but can not recall the address he visited, nor can he recall under cross-examination at the preliminary hearing, whether he had also asked if Mckinnon was okay, or shook his hand. The response, "I can not or do not recall" has to be taken with a grain of salt, because it is the stock answer law enforcement officers give on the stand when they don't want to tell the truth, or, when an officer says these words, they might really not remember but the blurring of failure to remember and failure to tell the truth has made it difficult to know which is which at this point. Hopefully, the truth is what prevails on the stand.

Fast forward to July 14, no wait, July 13 when Sgt. Frank Assuma, who heads the gang unit, and Mark Rossi, another officer, said they were were shooting the breeze with Mckinnon who was bragging to them about all the people he could have killed and did not. Assuma claimed he had issued a citation to appear in court. To this day, this citation has never been filed in court, nor has it surfaced in any court papers at all. Mckinnon's attorney alleged that it was never written at all. It turned up, but isn't making threats against an officer of violence, PC 71, and thus an arrestable offense?

The next day, Det. Joe Miera, a gang unit member, was scoping out some Black men, allegedly gang members including Mckinnon at Bobby Bonds Park. Not wanting to face all of them while he apprehended Mckinnon, he chose to follow Mckinnon to Thrifty's at Townsquare and arrest him there. When Miera searched a secret compartment in Mckinnon's car, he allegedly discovered an ounce of rock cocaine and a handgun. Mckinnon is arrested and charged with crimes in relation to the search as well as the incident with Ontko and Stamps in June.

Six months later, something unexpectantly happens, according to a Pitchess motion filed on Mckinnon's behalf by the Public Defender's office.

Mckinnon, while in jail, tells his attorney that the lieutenant from Internal Affairs has come to talk to him because the division is conducting an internal investigation of Miera. Mckinnon's lawyer calls I.A. to check this out and Sgt. Vic "Women are my punching bag" Williams, who is a member of the "cops in cuffs" brigade, confirms that the investigation is being done.Why a man with domestic violence in his background would be working I.A. is a whole issue in itself. Williams said to the attorney that a Pitchess motion would be needed to uncover any details of the investigation of Miera's conduct. Otherwise, anyone who comes in contact with Miera must remain in the dark about the ongoing investigation and any potential misconduct which has now apparently been the focus of some inhouse attention.

Most likely, any investigation has been completed.
What were the results?
Were any allegations sustained?
Was there any criminal conduct involved?
What was Miera's fate?

More questions generated by a department that can not or will not provide any answers.

San Bernardino PD's war against pet owners

Just to the north and east of us lies San Bernardino, which is Riverside without the layers.....


Inside U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin's courtroom during a recent trial, there was a running joke between himself and the plaintiff, Shirley Goodwin.

Timlin called the retired San Bernardino County Sheriff Department sergeant "Dorothy" several times in court instead of her own name.

Goodwin said she finally told Timlin that the reason he called her Dorothy was because they were in Oz. However, it was not the Emerald City that was on trial, but the city of San Bernardino, courtesy of a civil rights law suit filed by Goodwin.

Central to the trial were two of San Bernardino's most ardent activists, both of whom have spent time in county jail for exceeding the three-minute speaking limit at San Bernardino City Council and San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors meetings. Both activists spent years speaking against corruption in San Bernardino County, a place which has seen more than its share of elected officials and law enforcement officers investigated or indicted by various agencies, including the United States Attorney's office and the State Attorney General's office.

Because of their activism, Goodwin and other activists were arrested and sentenced to jail, often for months at a time for allegedly disrupting public meetings. In response, the California First Amendment Coalition, a governmental watchdog organization, presented the city of San Bernardino five years ago, with its annual Black Hole award in commemoration of the actions the city and county have taken against residents trying to address or criticize their elected officials at public meetings.

Recently, Goodwin had sold the house she had spent most of her life in and left San Bernardino for more peaceful pastures outside the reaches of its police department, which had seemed more concerned about her pet violations, than with the city's astronomical violent crime rate, among the state's highest according to annual statistics from the Department of Justice.

First, however, there was still her long-awaited day in court.

On May 12, closing arguments were presented by both parties in this case which began with an incident between Goodwin and San Bernardino Police Department officer Joseph Shuck in 1997. Shuck had allegedly come to her house in San Bernardino to assist an animal control officer in issuing a $35 ticket to Goodwin for owning a fourth dog, and two that were unlicensed. Minutes later, Shuck was inside her house, had grabbed Goodwin by the wrists and pulled her down to the floor, before handcuffing her. Photographs presented in court showed her injuries including a bruised wrist which had resulted from the tightness of Shuck's grip.

"We can all agree that something went horribly wrong on June 27, 1997," Goodwin's attorney, Andre E. Jardini said to the jury, "A 51-year-old former sheriff deputy with a love for animals suffered from the actions of an inexperienced officer who acted improperly and with anger."

Shuck sat in the courtroom, next to his attorney Joseph Arias, looking arrogant one minute, nervous the next, depending on which side was addressing the jury. Goodwin sat the entire time in her chair, her back to the officer who she was putting on trial. Her eyes remained riveted on the nine-member jury, which would decide the fates of both parties behind closed doors after the lawyers were finished talking. This court date had been a long time coming for Goodwin. She had already faced criminal charges in relation to the incident which were dismissed in court as well as a prior civil trial in 2003 that had ended in a deadlocked jury. Hopefully, this time there would be a better ending for her.

Not surprisingly, Arias had a different view of the incident, which he presented to the jury during his own argument.

"Nobody is above the law," he said, adding that in society, laws are what keep things in order. In both the city of San Bernardino and its county, many residents have wondered if this group of people included either elected officials or law enforcement officers. Electronic diaries known as blogs abound on the Internet discussing various allegations against and investigations into misconduct involving many in local politics from former county supervisor Jerry Eaves, to former County District Attorney Dennis Stout, to the entire San Bernardino Police Department.

Arias, who has long represented San Bernardino and its agencies in civil litigation, still contended that if there were any lawbreakers, they included people like Goodwin, who subjected people in her neighborhood to the possibility of a bite from a rabid dog. He said he could think of nothing more painful than suffering from rabies after being bitten by a loose, unvaccinated dog.

"What is this case about," Arias asked, "A hard-headed, obstinate woman named Shirley Goodwin who flaunted city laws again and again."

Arias said that Shuck was a police officer trying to do his duty, and that the injuries Goodwin suffered at the officer's hands were due to her failure to sign a citation. After all, Shuck had testified during the trial that "when she struck me with the(front)door, that was the straw that broke the camel's back", so Shuck was not responsible for what happened inside the house.

However, Jardini argued that Shuck did not belong inside the house.

He outlined the incident, calling Goodwin's arrest illegal, because Shuck had no probable cause to enter her house and reminding them that Shuck had changed what probable cause he did claim, several times under oath during his deposition and at trial.

"We all want to believe a police officer," Jardini said, "The truth is police officers are just people. They're human beings. They get angry. They act inappropriately. They can be vicious. Thank goodness that's not the norm."

Shuck had entered the threshold of Goodwin's house, while she was on the phone with a relative, who though hundreds of miles away, overheard the whole incident after Goodwin dropped her phone. Also present was the animal control officer, who had stood behind Shuck, but had testified at the trial that no assault and battery committed by Goodwin had taken place in her presence.

After arresting Goodwin, Shuck had called his supervisor, then Sgt. Ernest Lemos to come to the scene, to discuss what criminal charges to use for probable cause for entering Goodwin's residence, Jardini said. Jardini told the jury that Lemos and Shuck had most likely decided that the pet violations were not sufficient enough cause for the arrest to have taken place. The alleged violations did not occur in Shuck's presence nor did they constitute a public offense. At some point, the decision was made to use PC 243(b), battery of a peace officer committed when a screen door allegedly struck Shuck while he was forcing his way in the house. Shuck had testified under oath during an earlier deposition that this was the offense he had intended to arrest Goodwin for committing.

"The screen door is an after-the-fact justification that he works out with Sgt. Lemos," Jardini said, "which comes down to maybe the screen door touched me."

But the animal control officer had also testified that she did not remember seeing the screen door, Jardini said. Shuck had testified that it was Goodwin who had tried to close the screen door to prevent him from coming in the front door, although his body stood between her and the screen door handle.

Jardini added that even several of the department's witnesses including a San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department captain admitted on the stand that they would never have gone into Goodwin's house or arrested her for such a minor thing. So, Jardini said, it later became all about obstructing or delaying a public official or peace officer outside the residence, meaning that Goodwin failed to cooperate with the animal control officer who was issuing her the citation. In fact, he said while the police department and the city had constantly changed its version of events including the intent behind Goodwin's arrest over the past eight years, Goodwin herself had remained consistent with her own account.

"It really mattered to her," Jardini said.

Arias said during his argument that Shuck had only called for Lemos because all acts of force had to be reported to an officer's supervisor under departmental policy. Arias repeatedly reminded the jury of how disturbed he was at the implication that pet violations were minor problems and unimportant.

"These laws were all designed for the public good," Arias said.

After her arrest, Goodwin was taken to a hospital, where Shuck left her chained to a gurney while he went back to her house, for undisclosed reasons. She was later charged battery of a peace officer, a misdemeanor which was later dismissed by a judge who ruled that Shuck was not legally authorized to enter Goodwin's house. Goodwin had received a citation through the mail from the animal control agency regarding her dogs and had taken care of it after she left the hospital.

It was not the first time that Goodwin had been arrested by San Bernardino Police Department officers where a charge of battery of a peace officer had been dismissed due to illegal behavior by the officers. In July 2002, San Bernardino County Superior Court judge Kenneth Barr had ordered that a search warrant in that case be quashed and suppressed after finding that a police detective had altered it, after it had been signed by a magistrate, according to transcript records. A year later, the case was dismissed in the interest of justice, according to court records.

As a result of all she had faced, Goodwin said she left San Bernardino and lives in a more remote region, with vacant land all around, where no one can say that she or her animals are bothering anyone.

Jardini finished his closing argument to the jury by saying that the jury needed to send a message in its verdict that this behavior by police officers is not appropriate.

"It's a small step, but an important one," he said.

However, after two days of deliberation, it is a small step that will have to wait for another day. The jury returned to the courtroom, hopelessly deadlocked. Goodwin's fight would once again have to wait until another day.

Money, Money, Money

The PE ran an article, one of those get-to-know-me, feel-good pieces on economic crime detective, Brian Money. Before you get put on the cops beat, you are told to write soft pieces, or profiles on police officers to keep your sources that you need so badly for stories happy enough to keep giving them to you. In reality, however, you most often get the best story ideas from cops when they are unhappy.

It was a pretty good article, on a pretty level-headed officer who except for carrying more meat on his frame than he did several years ago, and wearing the long-sleeved sky-blue shirts which dominate every detective and DA's closet, showing a bit more wear on his face, might be the same officer who got himself in a bit of a pickle when one of his trainees blew the whistle on the police department. Uh-oh!

Former RPD officer Rene Rodriguez trained with four senior field training officers during his short stint with the RPD. Frank Patino, Mike Andrews, Dave Ruddy and Money. Two of them, Andrews and Money, had something in common. They were White male officers married to Black women in a police department which according to a law suit filed by another officer, African-American Roger Sutton, was not very enlightened about interracial relationships.

The reason the commonality between Andrews and Money came to the center of the controversy regarding Rodriguez's claims of racism within the department was because one of those claims was that a White male field training officer had told him that he was married to a Black woman but that he kept that fact a secret from the other White officers. This White male field training officer, along with the others, also allegedly taught Rodriguez how to racially profile Black and Hispanic motorists, or how to work as a patrol officer in the Riverside Police Department. This same officer later denied he had said any of these things when Internal Affairs, and then later the Press Enterprise newspaper started trying to chip away at Rodriguez's credibility and his allegations.

The officer who denied the allegations made by Rodriguez in a 2000 PE article was never named, but several people talked about who it was, and how what he had said, saddened them. Because they thought they knew him.

Sutton, in depositions he gave in his civil law suit Sutton v the City of Riverside said that when he dated several White woman, other officers would tell the girlfriends(but never him)that they did not like or approve of the relationship and the women should break them off. Another Black officer, Mike Carroll allegedly told Sutton once according to Sutton's deposition that Sutton should not push his relationships with White women in the faces of the other officers. Nothing was said or stated in Sutton's law suit about the situation in reverse, White male officers who dated or married Black women.

Well, except for his allegation that when he had spoken one time to Andrews, the other officer had come up to him and said, "What's up, my n____r?" Sutton said in his suit that he was fairly sure Andrews meant the comment as a joke, but that did not make it funny.

This officer's defection after Rene Rodriguez's allegations of racism in the RPD came to light is an unforgivable sin to some people. I consider it expedience. After all, if you want to get promoted in the RPD, you can't mention racism. I don't know if it's true that you can't mention interracial marriage, but it doesn't seem to put you on the upward track to be associated with it. But that's simplified.

Are officers keeping interracial relationships and marriages in the closet in the RPD? Only those inside the blue wall of silence know, and if it's an intolerable environment for racial intermingling, then only those in the relationships know. If they have to be told like Sutton that merely going public in an interracial relationship is shoving it in the faces of white officers' or even worse, being done to deliberately provoke White officers(who are of course, blamelessly racist if they're upset), then no wonder they would remain silent on the issue. Hopefully, that's no longer the case.

I remember talking to a White woman who was involved with a Black man, who died and was being investigated as most Black murders are in Riverside, by the minimum assignment of two homicide detectives. I had recently uncovered in Sutton's law suit an allegation that one of the White homicide detectives involved in her ex-husband's case had made a comment to a White girlfriend of Sutton's who was a former city employee. He had told her that the officers disapproved of the relationship and to break it off. If that is indeed true, then how does that affect how this detective investigates the homicides of people who are intimately involved in interracial relationships?

But then again, another homicide detective was alleged to have stuck his fist out of the window of his squad car and yelled "White Power" at Rodriguez right when he was dealing with a motorist yelling racist slurs at him. Money was present with Rodriguez according to the state complaint, when that incident allegedly took place. I wonder what his version of the events would be, back in 1999 and now.

Apparently, if Rodriguez's allegations involving his field training officers are true, they including Money and Andrews were left with difficult choices, when the spotlight turned unwelcomely on them. Patino, for one, was quoted in a PE article as being upset and offended by Rodriguez's allegations pertaining to him. He was Hispanic himself, so why would he teach other officers to racially profile Hispanic motorists?

In my opinion, the involved officer had told Rodriguez about racism in the RPD while training him, not knowing that his words would ever spread outside their conversations, let alone to administrators who run that same department that has the racism talked about. So next thing, he knows is Rodriguez has gone to Internal Affairs! Eek! What else can an officer in the hot seat do but deny the statements he made to Rodriguez? He sits and watches Rodriguez get driven off of his job to unpaid leave by the wrath of the vengeful officers. Does he want to suffer the same fate? No sane person would want to follow in Rodriguez's tracks so he denies his words, thus in some eyes discrediting Rodriguez and his words. The only problem is with his jumping onto the "Rene is lying" bandwagon with his peers is that Rodriguez was not the only one that this officer had talked to about racism in the RPD. He gave identical accounts of its activities to other people, as he did to Rodriguez and so far has not recanted those accounts. But, the people who remember his words expressed disappointment in them, and in him. He copped out so to speak when it counted. Everyone's career advanced as expected of those who keep quiet. Andrews and Patino remained as field Training Officers. Money was promoted to detective after being placed on the Attorney General's Task Force and life went on.

But, it makes it impossible to take a White officer at his or her word when they talk candidly about racism within their ranks, if that were ever to happen. The moment the heat is on them, they forget they have ever said a thing. After all, would Money be standing in that PE photograph, hands on his hips, looking determined, if he had said to the department in 1999, yeah there's racism here in this agency if that's what he believed. Probably not. Would any of the others who were included in Rodriguez's complaint? More likely, the community would have had to agitate on behalf of two officers instead of one, because if the officers of the RPD are unwilling to respond to 11-10s sent by officers who talk about racism, plenty of people in the community will do that in their stead. But none of the training officers who Rodriguez alleged had taught him racial profiling 101 or how to treat people of color in Riverside stood up to be counted, when it counted. What are they teaching now?

After all, good things were said about Money at least and how he said he viewed the issues of race and racism but if things changed in the heat of an investigation, well then that's something to cry over. Andrews was alleged to have made that racial comment to Sutton, in his law suit. Unfortunately, being in an interracial marriage by itself does not make you immune from racism.

Rodriguez was eventually given a stress retirement after much agitation by the community and eventually hired by Lance Gilmer at UCR. The RPOA tried to block his hiring by UCR but failed. Other officers told Gilmer that they couldn't protect his life from other officers if he hired Rodriguez. But Gilmer hired Rodriguez and they worked together until a detail from 15 years earlier in Gilmer's life leaked out myseriously and he lost his job because he falsely claimed an academic credential he did not have. But, he does still have his life. How his distant past came back to bit him remains one of those mysteries in life.

As far as Money is considered, history is still fresh enough in this person's mind to gaze at his picture and ask, was it you?

link to article:



Money

Rodriguez whistleblows

The Dognapping Caper

The Dognapping Caper
 
First of all, this tale has nothing to do with kidnapping dogs. It has to do with false arrests, and using police powers to politically retaliate against another person. It's another sordid chapter from Riverside's history....told by one of its most ardent activists...

Letitia Pepper is a long-known community activist for parks and other vital city services. She is a well-known attorney with no criminal record. She ran for the mayor's spot in 2001 and has been heavily involved in other successful political campaigns for current city councilman Dom Betro and current county supervisor, Bob Buster. Herego lay the problem....Both Betro and Buster won their respective elections by narrow margins, and not everyone was happy about that!

Last Spring, Letitia was arrested for the first time in her life, for conversion of stolen property and obstructing an officer. She spent a lot of her spare time involved in animal rescue, reuniting lost animals with their owners. One day, she found a lost golden retriever, and posted notices for the dog, for weeks, without any response. She spent over $300 in vet bills because the dog had been hurt when she found it. One day, she received a call from a man purporting to be the dog's owner, but he couldn't provide much information about the dog, so she asked for some proof of ownership. Instead, he allegedly called the police on her, and FIVE squad cars showed up at her house demanding the dog back. She asked if she was arrested or detained, and Offr. Rod McMillan said no, so she stepped to go in her own house, and two officers grabbed her, cuffed her and put her inside a squad car for three hours. They then took her to the station, for processing and released her. She later asked Lt. Ken Carpenter(freshly promoted out of a stint in Internal Affairs) for a complaint form, and he said no, you can't have one because this isn't something you can file a complaint on. Later, she asked newly assigned I.A. head, Lt. Meredith Meredyth for a complaint form, and got one mailed to her. The case was then forwarded to the D.A.'s office.

I first heard about this incident through email from Letitia and friends. It came up again at a March 17 CPRC meeting where Chief Leach was addressing commissioners' questions. He joked about the 'dog caper' as if it were a funny event. If he knew the truth about it, humor would be the last thing on his mind.

After talking to Letitia about why she was subjected to spending five hours in handcuffs and put on display in front of at least a half-dozen officers, for what basically was a civil tort issue, Letitia provided her own explanation as to why she felt she was targetted. The following describes her story.

You see, Letitia had worked on Betro's campaign as one of his main supporters. She had worked on Buster's campaign. Both won, narrowly and both ran against candidates fronted(financially and otherwise) by the Riverside Police Officers Association. Against Betro, the RPOA had fronted prosecutor and home owner-turned-renter,  Paul Fick. Against Buster, they had run the widow of a deceased sheriff deputy, Linda Soubirous, whose main platform not surprisingly, was law enforcement and keeping welfare recipients from obtaining plastic surgery. Letitia's contact information was on the fliers she distributed city and county wide during those elections, so her enemies knew where she lived. Her arresting officer, McMillan, is a member of the RPOA board, and was probably like his fellow board members, devastated when both of the choice candidates lost their elections. Somebody had to pay, one would think. Did anyone perhaps consider Letitia an easy mark? It wouldn't be the first time.

(later overheard conversations by a source reported against Letitia belied claims that none of the RPOA board members and officers involved in her arrest knew who she was)

But the D.A. declined to file charges, most likely to prevent embarassment if Letitia took the case to trial and any unsavory information came up involving one of its own employees, Fick or any of its favorite cousins, from the RPD. But it still might see its day in U.S. District Court b/c Letitia filed a law suit against the city of Riverside and its police department.

Alas, the city "investigated" Letitia's complaint that she filed with the police department and exonerated all of the officers involved including a lieutenant who initially refused to allow a complaint to be filed. The fact that the original recording of the incident differed from the copy Letitia received when she subpoened the city for the evidence, failed to move either the CPRC or the city to investigate the department, to determine why that was so. To determine why Offr. McMillan was heard saying "yes you are" to Letitia's question of whether or not she was being detained, on the copy, but alas, not on the original.

Huge shock there, what with the liability issues and all that the city wouldn't want to serve as an accomplice in a law suit filed against it by Letitia, who though living in fear for a while after this embarassing use of police power against her, has lived to fight more battles on behalf of the city's residents. But was she right? Did her arrest by the RPD have little to do with stolen property and more to do with her political activities?

When "road rage" is a job requirement

The latest of the ongoing "cops in cuffs" series stars current RPD officer Aaron Perkins, convicted of Disturbing the Peace and Vandelism.
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The city became $50,000 poorer when it paid that much out to Jason Gambill, who last year, was the victim of a brutal assault by Aaron "road rage" Perkins. But the residents of this city have lost so much more than that, because we're the ones in danger with this loose cannon running around the streets doing god knows what b/c Chief Leach was too chicken to fire him.

The city attorney said that the city settled with Perkins because of the outcomes of both the criminal prosecution(slap on the wrist) and internal investigation(ditto) didn't favor them, and because Perkins had apparently identified himself as an RPD officer while battering Gambill and brandishing a firearm, that the city might be liable for damages as a result of Perkins' actions.

The sweetheart deal with the D.A. to drop the battery charge against Perkins ensured that he would remain employed by the RPD as an officer. After all, a battery conviction carries a firearm prohibition that lasts 10 years. It wouldn't do for poor Aaron to be fired, now would it? Better to have him armed and angry on the streets of Riverside, with only the thin tether of three years of unsupervised probation to keep him in line.

So once again, Aaron Perkins is approximately 29 years old, 5'11, 195 pounds, white, with brown hair, blue eyes, armed and potentially very dangerous. If you see him in your rear view mirror, pray to the diety of your choice. It's the only hope you've got.

Perkins, who is currently assigned to grave yard shift, b/c the powers that be believe it's easier to hide him in th cover of darkness, is one of the military laterals who slipped into the department, riding the coattails of his mother, the former deputy chief. He's a military(army) lateral hire, who was stationed at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and Ft. Benning, Georgia during his stint. These two qualities probably worked in his favor when he was hired, in terms of ensuring that he would not be properly screened for psychological problems. Is the rest of society going to have to pay for his uncontrollable anger?

A promotion to sergeant is probably part of this young man's bright future....

A tale of two lies

Someone once was arrested during a protest while wearing a button which read, "Cops lie too" on his shirt. The photo of him being pulled out of a group of people, a look of panic on his face, filled the front page of the Metro section of the Press Enterprise, on Nov. 16, 1999.

a group of white activists tsked tsked over his selection of a button to wear during the protest. Instead of criticizing the police action, they criticized the button. Either because cops don't lie, or because even if they do, we should not say so in public lest the conservative majority take offense at our words.

But yes, they do lie. And this is a tale of two lies, told by two Riverside Police Department officers in two different incidents which occurred the same year. The fates of both were determined by the same arbitrators.

The first lie was told by Officer Eric Feimer who was involved in an arrest in 2001, where he used force but when asked about it, failed to report it. He failed to report it in his written account of what happened, failed to report it later to both his supervising sergeant and the area commander.

Feimer probably wishes he never met the man he arrested, furthermore known as S/Elliot. He arrested him, and left him with abrasions and bruises on his face. His report was short and to the point.

"I put suspect in handcuffs" is what it stated.

Something must have struck the attention of his supervisors because Sgt. Paul Villeneuva asked him over the radio, did you use force during the arrest?

Feimer answered back, "negative."

Lt. Jim Cannon, the area commander, asked him if he used force, and at first Feimer told him the same account, but the next day, he came in to talk to Cannon and provide further details about his encounter with Elliot. HE said that he wanted to change his statement to add significant details including the fact that the suspect(Elliot) had struck at him twice, so he brought him down to the ground with a bar hold.

Well, if that is so, why not mention it in the original written report? All acts of force are supposed to be reported according to the department's policy, and that certainly includes the bar hold.

An internal investigation was launched by Internal Affairs and after its completion, Feimer was found to have violated several departmental policies including

1) failure to report force to a supervisor
2)failure to document injuries

Chief Russ Leach terminated Feimer's employment on Dec. 13, 2001. Feimer decided to fight his termination, through arbitration. His arbitrator was Alexander Cohn. Cohn took testimony from both sides, and decided that Feimer's firing was improper. Instead, he ruled that a suspension without loss of seniority was proper. So Feimer was reinstated back on the force.

Cohn's ruling was based on his belief that the city did not prove that Feimer was willfully dishonest. He did violate policies but not willfully. His lie about his use of force against Elliot, wasn't really a lie. It was not really the truth. Cohn chose instead to blame the policy(9.1(b)) calling it "vague."

The city appealed the arbitrator's ruling in Riverside County Superior Court but lost.So did the residents of Riverside, but the residents have never really been all that important.
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The second lie, or series of lies was told by former officer Derek McGowan, to several of his supervisors in 2001 concerning his whereabouts while he was supposed to be onduty. Sgt. Tim Bacon, Sgt. Guy Toussaint and others heard varying stories from McGowan concerning his whereabouts. He was undergoing SWAT training, when he was supposed to be working on several robbery investigations, in that division after he had been transferred to Robbery from his stint in the Traffic Division.

On Aug. 8, 2001, he allegedly went home without being released by Toussaint. On that date, McGowan had allegedly told Sgt. Hoxmeier that Toussaint had excused him because he was ill. On Aug. 9, he was absent one hour when he shifted his work schedule without prior approval. Different sergeants received different accounts from McGowan regarding where he was, and what he was doing. No one seemed sure which versions were true.

Officer Christian Dinco, who was on the SWAT team with Toussaint and McGowan said at one point that the two men were at odds over SWAT techniques and that he believed that Toussaint might lie, but that McGowan would not. He also said that Toussaint was furious at McGowan and had made some comment that Dinco took to mean that Toussaint would "get" McGowan, but he did not report him.

(hopefully Toussaint would not "get" McGowan with his bare hands because Toussaint's hands cost the city over $1 million dollars in the Derek Hayward wrongful death case)

When the dust settled, and an investigation was done, McGowan was fired by Leach on April 25, 2002. McGowan appealed that ruling and the case was arbitrated once again, by Cohn, who decided this time that it was egregious to lie to three sergeants because that did harm to the police agency and whether or not it could be trusted. McGowan appealed that ruling in Superior Court and lost again, last year.

So when is a lie, a lie?

When it is told to three sergeants about one's whereabouts, but not when it involves the omission of an act of force against a member of the public? Is not the image of an agency harmed when it has to reinstate an officer who has lied about an act of force committed against the member of the public?

But then again, who knows what happened?

The firing of Feimer and McGowan is only known because the minute the two arbitration findings by Cohn were appealed, the firings and the details leading up to them, became public information. If it were not for the appeals, no one would know that either of these two officers had been fired, and why. If officers are lying to their supervisors, that information should be public, because if they lie to their supervisors, then that probably means they lie on the job, in other ways.

Do they lie when they write their reports?
Do they lie when they testify in court?
Do they lie when their supervisors check on them?
Do they lie about evidence, or probable cause?
Do their supervisors lie for them?
Do they teach lying?

Scary, indeed.

Culture, what culture?

Racism.
Sexism.
Homophobia.
Antisemitism.

Every police department has the above problems within its ranks. Each one of them is part and parcel of the overall police culture within each law enforcement agency. If you are white, male and straight, then for the most part, you have a ticket in, once your brothers learn you can be trusted. If you do not are not a white straight man, then you will never fit within the brotherhood, no matter how hard you try. Yet, many still try.

The main underpinning of the police culture is to trust no one outside the brotherhood with anything. If asked, do not tell. If your brother needs you to cover for him, you cover. If he needs your 11-10, then you give him that, no questions asked. Not that you would receive any answers.

There are two forces in the world. US and THEM. The blue brotherhood consists of US. Everyone else, even civilian supporters(and it would pain them to know this) are THEM.

When THEM, is not the enemy, THEM is not the friend. THEM is why even when you walk down the street, your head involuntary flinches at any movement behind you, or why you don't sit with your back to the doorway, unless another brother covers you.

The one thing that's funny in a not so humorous way is how people will talk about police culture in hushed whispers but no one wants to get involved in any substantive discussion of such a thing. Just keep the whispers flowing in hushed tones, while pasting a smile on faces to reassure people that all is well. But the topic itself, remains taboo.

Here we are, in May 2005, with 10 months remaining until the state attorney general's office goes away, and for better or worse, the city of Riverside once again has full control of its police department.

The police department has checked off a list of reforms, it negotiated with the state, and apparently did them well, according to the state's representatives, not that they have any basis of comparison as Riverside Police Department was the first and remains the only law enforcement agency placed under consent decree by the state attorney general's office.

Yet, people have asked, what of the police culture, which is what really needed to change...beginning with the racist sexist behavior shown by five officers which led to them shooting 12 bullets into Tyisha Miller's body, all in the rear, and then celebrating their feat afterwards. A few really bold people say that nothing has changed. If it had, then the same issues would not be revisited over and over and over again...five years after they had been brought forward for not-the-first-time-but-let-us-do-the-new-slate-thing.

People have responded, why not focus on the PROGRESS made by the police department during the past four years? Be careful of how you talk about the bad stuff, even when it's happening around you because you'll dampen the parade. Usually, it's progressive white people leading this charge. They appear to be the only folks who get upset when there's too much focus about remaining problems in the RPD.

What's frustrating is that the people who could have the biggest influence in reform have settled for merely following the list given to the agency by the state, and have neatly sidestepped the more thorny issues involving prevailing and pervasive attitudes which collide and collude to make up the police culture. On March 6, 2006, maybe they'll be part of some class photo, beaming over the completion if this arduous period of Riverside's history, but out there, it will be business as usual. They'll move on to the next cause, and once again, the police department will be left to its own devices.

The four officers standing yesterday morning in the Orange St. Station's parking lot are most likely counting down the days and hours until their cuffs are removed by the state, and they can as they've said often enough, return to business as usual. Police culture is at work, when one says something to the others and without thinking, they react to what's been said despite what their own experiences have told them.

Bicycling while Black

While surfing through cases for a research project, I found this interesting one. The name of the officer, Michael Cupido, award recipient and currently #1 on the list of officers with the highest number of incidents involving resisting arrest and battery of an officer.

In 2004, Cupido was one of 18 officers who recieved a "10851" award from both the CHP and the Automobile Club of Riverside for recovery of at least 12 stolen vehicles, including three with occupants inside.

More on topic, Cupido was also a motorcross rider. And this story involves a man on a bike named Steve Jackson. Jackson, who was Black and on parole, was riding his bicycle down the middle of Franklin street, which runs through the Eastside neighborhood. Michael Cupido, a White officer, was in his squad car when he saw Jackson and decided to pull him over, because riding a bicycle in the middle of the road was a violation of Riverside Municipal Code, 1-64.330. So Cupido tailed Jackson until Jackson stopped his bike at the residence where he lived. From that point on, the stories told of what followed, differed.

According to Jackson's statement presented as part of a Pitchess motion in his criminal case, Jackson stopped his bike and Cupido yelled at him to come on over to talk to him. Jackson said he had not done anything wrong and that Cupido was harassing him. He yelled back, "You can't tell me what to do" as he ran into the house. Cupido then pulled his weapon and told Cupido to come out of the residence. Since Jackson had relatives who were in law enforcement, he exited. He then pulled up his shirt and raised his clenched fists.

"All I have is these," he said. "bring all the cops you want. It's not going to change things."

Cupido lowered his gun when Michael Stamps arrived. He asked Stamps if he had a taser, and Stamps said no, so Stamps pulled out his baton and began hitting Jackson in the ankles, feet, legs and knees after saying that Jackson, "took a swing". Stamps then hit Jackson on his back while he was on the ground with closed fists. Jackson stated that while he was being handcuffed, he asked why he was being arrested but received no answer.

In police reports submitted as part of the Pitchess motion, Cupido said that Jackson tried to hit him on the head. and that his shin was kicked. He suffered a sprained thumb. The lawyer for Jackson, a public defender named Richard Verlato, argued that there were no documented records of Cupido's injuries. Two witnesses to the incident filed complaints with the CPRC.

Cupido said in his police report that he had done a bicycle stop with Jackson, and said that he became violent and struck him. A meth pipe and marijuana cigarette were taken in as evidence. Jackson exhibited "objective" signs including dilated pupils, extreme profanity, high heart-rate, loud repetitive talking and he was excited. His pupilometer reading was only 4.5 mm, which is within the normal range. Dilated pupils measure 6.5mm or higher.


Cupido wrote that he had pulled out his gun, because Jackson was leaning against the building, his right side hidden. He was trying to jump the fence behind the property, when Cupido and Stamps caught up to him. Outgoing lateral, Keith Zagorin, participated in the arrest, but submitted no report. Originally assigned to the North side of town, Zagorin spent a very eventful night in Casa Blanca on Oct. 23, 2004 when he and fellow officer Daniel Floyd, were accused of using excessive force on a woman and her two teenaged sons, 18 and 16, during a traffic stop.

The department recommended the filing of multiple charges including being under the influence of meth, posessing the paraphanlia, battery of an officer with an intent to inflict harm and felony resisting arrest.

After the D.A. took the case, they only filed on the resisting and battery charges. The fate of the drug charges remains a mystery. Usually with parolees, any criminal charges are a slam dunk and even a negative test would not provide much of an obstacle for a return to jail card. But, for whatever reason, the DA opted to prosecute only on the contempt charges.

Oh well, it wouldn't be the first time an RPD cop was SO sure a Black man was on meth, until the blood tests came back negative...for the fifth time. And Jsckson had several convictions for posession of a controlled substance and DV.

Verlato's Pitchess motion was granted by the court, and an encamera hearing was heard on the personnel records of Cupido and Stamps. All information involving personnel complaints was handed to Verlato. Then the minute record was sealed, because peace officers are the only employees with the right to privacy.

Driving while Black
Walking while Black
and now....
Bicycling while Black.

How many white kids or men drive down the middle of the street, or on the sidewalks, while police cars drive on by? But if you're Black, even in your own neighborhood, different story...Whether parolee, or neighborhood kid, Might as well stay at home, under house arrest.