The cost of racism

$1.64 million is what tax payers in this city will have to pay to cover the expenses that resulted when members of the department's management decided to engage in racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation against one of the department's Black officers.

Jury awards $1.64 million in racial discrimination, harassment and retaliaton case

The jury of two African-Americans, two Latinos and eight Whites deliberated for a day and a half before agreeing in most cases on a verdict. They decided that Sutton was entitled to $140,945 in economic losses and $1.5 million in non-economic losses. The verdict, as juror Charles Espinoza said in the Press Enterprise article, was intended to help take care of Sutton's need but also to send a message to the city of Riverside in the form which would deliver the most impact: Through the city's coffers.

So taxpayers in this city will be the ultimate payers for the "outrageous treatment" which management chose to impose on Officer Roger Sutton when it removed him from the canine unit in 1999, and then engaged in retaliatory behavior against him when he complained of racial discrimination in the department.

Earlier, in 2004, Sutton was forced to take his case to arbitration after the civil court system froze its trial schedule to handle a backlog of criminal trials. After a "mini-trial" lasting several days, the arbitrator awarded Sutton, $200,000, which is peanuts in comparison to the jury's verdict. The city refused to pay chump change to Sutton and the case went back to the courtroom. In 2004, Scott Silverman had said that he felt his client would receive a larger award if a jury heard his case.

And on Oct. 20, he was proven right.

Of course, racism in the RPD is old news by now, what with federal and state investigations done involving the agency. The state's investigation was prompted by Riverside County District Attorney Grover Trask, who though his office decided not to prosecute the four officers who shot Tyisha Miller, was concerned about possible evidence of racial animus in connection with behavior displayed by the four officers and their sergeant after the shooting. The only people still in denial are those at City Hall, who even after this huge indictment by a 12-member jury against the pre-decree RPD's management will continue to bury its head in the sand and will likely opt to take this decision out of the hands of ordinary citizens performing one of the most important civil duties, and place it into the hands of a judge with the Court of Appeals. The city's continued practice of denying culpability in the racism that plagued the police department especially its management for many years, is part of the reason why people have difficulty believing that things have changed. For those who have tried to change the racial environment inside the department including officers, the city's stance makes that courageous task much more difficult.

Although most of the management personnel including former Deputy Chiefs Michael Smith and Audrey Wilson, who contributed to this mess are long gone through timely retirements, two of the principal players still remain. Now, they will not just be drawing high salaries for doing whatever it is that they have been doing, but they will cost the tax payers in another way, through a payout on this costly verdict. Sure, an insurance carrier might pay out the costs above $500,000 but what happens to your insurance policy when they are forced to pay out a claim? The costs of premiums goes up.

And given that other Black city employees have pending trials against the city of Riverside in the more amiable U.S. District Court, it remains to be seen how the huge jury's verdict in this case will impact their legal decisions as well as those of the city's. One thing for sure is this. The emotional impact of racism in the city's workforce has been long known, and often ignored. However, for the first time, this racism's financial costs have also become known, and those can not and will not be as easily ignored. The fact that this new revelation came from a vote of 12 ordinary people who heard all the allowable evidence, rather than from a city quickly settling reverse discrimination claims outside of public scrutiny makes the message that the city received through the verdict all the more clear in terms of race relations among its own employees.

More rain drops in Riverside

Jury deliberation began this morning in the racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation case filed by Officer Roger Sutton in 2000. The trial which lasted nearly a month heard closing arguments yesterday afternoon, in front of an audience of representatives from the department's management.
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Ernest Cohen, who was due to be arraigned on a misdemeanor battery charge on Oct. 17, in Dept. 34 failed to make an appearance, according to court minutes. A bench warrant has been issued for his arrest. Hardly a surprise in my opinion. It's not like he hasn't done this before, in earlier cases. *shrug*

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The city's appeal of the reinstatement of former Det. Al Kennedy has recieved an appeal number. Kennedy was fired by Leach several years ago for having sexual relations with a rape victim whose case he was investigating.

An unpleasant memory returns to town

Adam James Brown returns to Riverside to face over 65 felony charges of child molestation, after a police department launched an investigation in 2004. Brown, who had spent the last 18 months at a federal detention center in Wisconsin has already plead guilty to felonies related to the bust of an Internet child molestatin ring, by the FBI.

Chief Russ Leach said that the only good thing to come out of this appalling situation is that Brown promptly resigned from the department after his arrest, sparing the city and everyone in it the difficulty of firing him. He was right about that.

Still one asks, how did he slip through the cracks? How did a child molester become an employee of the police department? Was he, as a son of a senior management member vetted as properly as he should have been? How does the department uncover a history of child molestation committed by one of its candidates?

Brown hurt his victims in ways that no one can fix. They'll bear the mark of his acts on their souls forever. He hurt the community, he worked in. He made every mother or father of small children who ever crossed his path worry about their kids. And he hurt his department, which has had its share of its own problems to fix during the past five years. Hopefully, he was the only one of his kind in its employment.

Will Brown take a guilty plea, as the prosecutor suggested? Hopefully yes. His young victims have been assaulted already. They don't need to be assaulted again during the criminal proceeding.

Adam Brown transferred back to face charges in Riverside

Storm Clouds on the horizon??

In the midst of a whirlwind of city elections, police union elections and the waning months of the arranged marriage between the city and the state AG's office, comes potential storm clouds on the horizon.

Or at the very least, a potential range war between the Riverside Police Department and the Community Police Review Commission.

Not that the CPRC is a stranger to strife between itself, and factions of the police department. But this one if it erupts could be entirely different.

The CPRC's previous range wars were fought with the RPOA, including a five year battle which culminated in a public vote that placed the commission in the city's charter away from the whims of the city council.

For the most part, the battles between the CPRC and the department's management have been a few relatively minor squalls, under the radar of most city residents. Chief Russ Leach attended a workshop with the CPRC on March 17, 2004 and told them that the CPRC was the most important commission on the city's roster.

Only one week later, two members of the RPOA board came in front of the same commission and unleashed a litany of complaints against the body including the claim that the commission had made some really horrible decisions and most of its cases were thrown out in arbitration, but when asked by the CPRC to provide documentation of this claim, the RPOA demurred. Instead, several of its boardmembers targetted their pique at a commissioner and pushed for her ejection by circulating a letter around City Hall. When that failed, they lobbied one of their council members to push for the disqualification of active(but non-RPD) law enforcement officers from serving on the Commission. This council member, reading me as an anti-cop person, lobbied me for my support in this endeavor and if I had truly been anti-cop, I would have gladly helped him. He guessed wrong.

So we moved on to the city charter amendment, and the resulting campaign.

Then came the whole Officer "Hands Tied" episode where slow response time was not blamed on the shortage of officers(as it is now) but the existance of the CPRC. Dan Bernstein saw the obvious, and wrote it in his column, and the public responded by voting the CPRC into the city's charter. In part, not because they had not heard the RPOA's message(as claimed by its PR representative, Richard St. Paul) but because, as Bernstein wrote, they had heard its message loud and clear.

Measure II probably would have passed without the RPOA's high-priced campaign but every little bit helps.

Calm seas prevailed for a while. Maybe the RPOA's leadership had finally figured out that the CPRC was not the enemy but really the best thing that ever happened to it.

The CPRC once again fell off the radar of most people who returned to taking its existance for granted.

Until revelations about the Summer Lane shooting investigation conducted by the CPRC's own investigator came to light. Revelations which do not match those included in the RPD's report which made it clear as early as a memo written by Sgt. Steve Johnson to Leach on Dec. 7, 2004 that it was a justified shooting, done to deal with the highest level of threat.

That statement was echoed by a memo written by Det. Jay Greenstein to Johnson on Dec. 21, 2004.

"The female suspect hit Officer Wilson with her vehicle three times and was preparing to attempt to run him over again when Officer Wilson eliminated the threat to his life by discharing four rounds [sic] firearm into her vehicle, mortally wounding her,"

In fact when you read the transcript of the interview given by Ryan Wilson to Det. Jay Greenstein and Det. Ron Sanfilipo, by its end, they are telling him what happened in their question including their own perceptions and experiences as police officers, and Wilson's saying "right", "yeah" and so forth.

When they tell him they can tell how traumatized he is because he is still shaking(the interview took place the day after the shooting)Wilson laughs. Then Greenstein congratulates him for surviving a "hair raising ordeal".

Absolutely true words about the ordeal, but words which should have not been said by the two detectives interviewing him as a potential criminal suspect, during the actual interview used as part of an ongoing investigation which will ultimately determine whether or not Wilson ever faced criminal charges. Especially by two hardworking and talented investigators like these two, who are above the mean. It also looks too effusive to be explained entirely away by the team-tagging "good cop"/"bad cop" interrogatory tactics. Perhaps it just means that officers in the department are too close, emotionally and experience-wise, to one of their own to investigate shootings done by their own officers.

So this investigation essentially ended early as all investigations really do when conclusions are drawn and expressed from the beginning, at least as far as the Officer Involved Shooting Team is concerned. The District Attorney's office, as Deputy Chief David Dominguez(who had little else to say) said in the PE article backed them up in its own decision, just as it has in the past.

The Internal Affairs Division refuses to say a thing about the conclusions it reached in the administrative investigation, but it seems safe to say that they did not close the book on the shooting much slower than the DA did.

Usually the CPRC follows stead, and as its chair, Michael Gardener, said in the PE article decides the shootings are within policy. Once, in the Rene Guevara shooting, the body determined that the officer had waited too long to fire his weapon.

This time, however, you have commissioners in public meetings referring to the shooting of Summer Lane, as "an executionary type of shooting. He executed her." and another saying:

"Given what we have in front of us, the D.A.'s office should be the greater concern."

With that comment, hell just froze over, because in the past, commissioners had been reluctant to even mention the words, "DA" and "CPRC" in the same sentence, let alone in this context.

Dominguez, in his lack of comments, seems to be hoping that with time, the commissioners will come around, issue the appropriate ruling and then he can break the department's silence on this shooting. He could be right, as the department's policy on lethal force is quite liberal.

Still, moods would have to change at CPRC meetings inside the city council chambers before they come around as departmental officials likely hope. After all, there is quite a large gap to bridge between these two terms: execution and justified shooting.


Two inquiries two opinions in the Summer Lane shooting death

***registered site***

Book Club Selection

Now, that there are so many people from the Riverside Police Department(which has been monitoring this site for months) showing up at this Web site and some of them breaking their silence, it seems like this would be an appropriate time to announce the Book Club Selection of the Month.

Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of Policing

by Norm Stamper, former lieutenant from San Diego Police Department, and former chief of Seattle Police Department.

Copies are available at Barnes and Nobles, Borders and online for anyone who wishes to purchase it. Some of you out there might wish to some day be promoted in the administration that you are somewhat at odds with today. Do you agree with Stamper's philosphy of police administration, or not?

Occasionally, selections from Stamper's book will be posted here.

Politics as usual at City Hall

The city council minus Frank Schiavone played to a full house last night, as three important items on the discussion calendar came on the plate. Over 100 city residents, police officers and other city employees sat in the audience or spoke on the three items which purtained to the police department.

(Frank despite the annual contribution of $3,000 from the RPOA PAC obviously had better things to do.)

The police administration had very little to say about any of the three items, prefering to take up the half of the front row and sit like bumps on a log. A man with a love for elephants, and an oxygen tank formed the dividing line between the command staff and the RPOA representatives. Once again, the job was left to City Manager Brad Hudson and his assistant Tom DeSantis. No one really wanted to come up to the podium to address the agenda item on recruitment incentives, until Leach came up to say a few words about the "best of the best" and not sacrificing quality in search of quantity. The command staff and Mayor cited "fatigue" as the reason not to respond to the issue of recruitment. With all the city funds that is going to pay all those tired people in the front row, better excuses are needed.

Pat McCarthy, president of the RPOA and clearly practicing his election speech, spoke about how there was a crisis on the frontlines, due to the increased population growth both from migrations and from the city's annexations of several populated areas. Actually, this crisis was there last year, but the RPOA was too busy spending over $30,000 of its dues to fight Measure II, by scaring the voters into believing that if they cast a "yes" vote, the police officers would not be able to respond as quickly to calls for service. But then, the RPOA did not hold elections last year and any opposing candidates were not on its radar.

Steve Adams, playing to his constituents in the front row, blasted anyone who questioned the quality of the department's officers. Most likely, he was not listening or out of the room taking a phone call(as he often is at meetings)when several residents spoke about how important it was not to sacrifice quality, in search of quantity. Agencies in cities like Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Miami among others learned this the hard way in the early 1990s.

Former RSD employee, Ruben Rasso practicing his campaign speech, fresh from receiving an endorsement by the RPOA PAC said that public safety is his first priority. Judging by his appearance at recent meetings and his list of political contributors, it is his own priority. If elected, then, will he jump in with the GASS Quartet(picked by the RPOA PAC, financed by the members of the RPOA) and focus on development over the quality of city services?

With two elections on the city's horizon, politics was an obvious flavor in the background, as people debated over issues impacting the quality of life of those who live in what is sometimes fondly, but often not referred to as RiverCity.

Going public...

When I started this blog, my intention was mostly to store material and articles obtained in research done on the Riverside Police Department since the stipulated agreement began between this agency and the city on March 6, 2001.

This past week, the address of this blog, which previously had been private, was obtained by employees of the police department and one of them posted some disturbing comments in response to one of the entries on this blog. It is not known how employees of the Riverside Police Department obtained the address of this blog, but they have and began posting on this blog beginning with "Kevin" who prayed that in an example of beautiful poetic justice, I or a member of my family would be a victim of a violent crime, then he described the perpetrator of that crime and insinuated that it would occur near where I live. He also stated in his comments that the Eastside, a community populated by Black and Hispanic populations, should be turned over to Animal Control. When he discovered who he was talking to, he backtracked and began explaining away his prior comments. But despite that, I did learn something when I read his comments and if he wishes to continue to share his views, then he is welcome. He has created some fear in my heart towards him, but I am willing to put that aside and allow him to voice his opinions...while exercising precautions of course.

Since he appeared, other people have appeared both in my defense and in opposition, all anomynous. I have appreciated their contributions to this site, even though initially I felt as I would if my kid brother had stolen my journal and was reading it on the playground. But it has been interesting reading their comments. I think it's been educational as well and they also provide an education to other potential readers.

However, now that the blog has been visited by members of the police department and some civilians who have easier access to criminal reports including investigative reports(confidential) than most civilians, it seems that the time has come to go public with this blog so that everyone can read it. Not just members of the RPD and their friends.

With the city and the state scheduled to part ways next March, this blog will continue to be a place where issues pertaining to the department and the stipulated agreement will be discussed. One anomynous poster brought up the topic of the proportion of officers in a particular racial group in the department, which is a topic to be addressed as well. As is staffing issues.

Even union elections.

I will be asking questions of those who respond as well, and it is their decision of whether or not to answer them.

Until March, do we part...

The PE had a fascinating article about whether or not the city and the state were going to end their five-year shotgun marriage on schedule on March 6, 2005.

Will they or won't they?

***registered site***

Interesting study on the characters that populate the fabric which began stitching itself back together after being ripped apart by the tragic shooting of Tyisha Miller in December 1998. The police brass and union so rarely on the same page, or same side of a court battle actually agree on the contention that the reforms are over and done with and it's time for Bill Lockyer and co. to roll up the carpets and head on back North. Fascinating metaphor indeed.

The community members are all on an advisory board handpicked by the chief himself in 2001. All but one says "We have more work to do...but we're done...maybe."

Woodie Rucker-Hughes and Chani Beeman make good points in their comments, but their comments mirror the assertion Beeman made about the relationship between the community and its police force, being "schitzophrenic".

The other, Michael Crichton, a former law enforcement officer, is more blunt with his remarks. He chose to go a different route and say, show me the money, which could be akin to challenging whether the emperor has no clothes! Not an easy choice, but a brave one.

But it has been on the minds of many including those who were not invited to participate in any meaningful way in the department's reform process. Now that the gala is coming to a close, those invites will not be forthcoming. And if you contest the end of the forced marriage between the city of Riverside and the state, well then you are one of two things depending on whom you ask.

1) an igorant person who can not tell the difference between a court-mandated document and a booklet with glossy pages.

****pssst, it has something to do with the Strategic Plan****

2) a chronic liar.

2.5) a complainer who is not doing the work

Words that surely would soothe the minds of those who are not entirely convinced that this marriage of convenience is ready to end? Whether they do or they do not, is beside the point. It matters little what the communities in Riverside most impacted by the problems(sorry Kevin) in the police department express doubts, or want to see proof that change has indeed occurred.

excerpts from the cast :

BRAD HUDSON: views the stipulated agreement as a business deal he does not wish to see go sour.

City Manager Brad Hudson said, "This council and these taxpayers have spent almost $20 million on this. ... We're gonna get better and bigger and do more."

Maybe open up some more franchises of McRPD??? Money matters of course, but this stipulated judgement was about people. That is how it should remain in its waning days and beyond into the future. The future of course remains unwritten.


CHIEF RUSS LEACH:

Police Chief Russ Leach said, "I know there's some well-meaning people in the community who have concerns." But, he added, the consent decree has been a huge investment.

"Overnight we're not going to turn into ... reckless cowboys," Leach said.

Leach said he doesn't expect to continue the annual traffic-stop study, which is used to determine if racial profiling exists within the department, but aside from that, nothing will change.

"How do we convince them that we won't just roll up the carpets and go home?" Leach asked.

His answer: Read the strategic plan, which lays out department goals through 2009.

"People don't seem to understand -- that's a court-ordered document," Leach said. "We didn't just throw a bunch of words out in a glossy little book."

RPOA President Pat McCarthy:

Pat McCarthy, president of the Riverside police union, said it's unfair for people who haven't been involved in the reform process to point fingers.

While the union certainly didn't welcome the consent decree with open arms, McCarthy said, the department has thrived in the years since it has been in place.

"People are gonna cry wolf no matter what," McCarthy said. "I'm ready to move on."

Put it in the history books, the police chief and the RPOA president in agreement on an issue. So maybe after this current marriage is annulled, these two parties will run off and elope. Then the city's residents can wait and see how this pairing works out, before we throw our rice.

Shhhh...don't look!

***This information is not currently accessible by the taxpaying residents of Riverside***

Anticipating the end of its marriage to the State Attorney General's office, the police department has rearranged and reconfigured its management structure. The Field Operations Division now presides over four regions or precincts, North, Central, East and West. The long vacant Captain of Personnel position has been filled by the promotion of John Wallace. The Special Operations Division which includes Aviation, Canine and Traffic, will be overseen by newly promoted Capt. John DeLaRosa.

Hidden in the impressive chart that details the infrastructure of the new, model(tm) department, is one small detail which spells trouble. Buried at the bottom of the chain of command is the Audit and Compliance Division, formerly known as the Attorney General's Task Force. The Task Force was set up by the department in order to implement required reforms and monitor the progress of these reforms. Originally, it was headed by a lieutenant, who presided over a sergeant, a detective, an officer and an administrative assistant. Various officers have rotated on and off the Task Force during the past four and three-quarter years the department has spent under state consent decree.

Out with the old and in with the new, and the philosophy that seems to fit the mood surrounding the cutting of the department's chains with the state, is to forget the old through embracing the new. Meaning that this critical task force is part of the old, and thus has no place in the new, model(tm)agency. Consequently, there will be no lieutenant heading the new, defanged Audit and Compliance unit. Instead, it will be headed by a sergeant, who will preside over a small group of civilian employees known as criminal analysts.

Initially, the city and department had planned to phase out the Task Force completely on March 6, 2006, and this was shown by the lack of budget funding provided for this unit after that date in the city's biannual budget. Obviously that decision has been put on hold, but the weakening of this body just goes to show that the city and the department wish to exorcise their collective memories of bad behaviors including those that reflect the years of gross negligence and incompetance which led to the necessity of the consent decree in the first place.

The philosophy of defanging the Task Force and burying it in its command structure is one that goes to show that the department is operating under the flawed assumption that the reforms under the consent decree were nothing more than a checklist to be completed and chucked aside.

More officers...check.
More supervision...check
More equipment...check
More cool toys...check, check

But what Attorney General Bill Lockyer had in mind when he set his sights on the RPD, was to destroy the department's culture of racism, sexism and paranoia and rebuild it anew.

From San Diego Indymedia:

Lockyer on RPD

"I decided there were systemic problems with the Riverside Police Department," Lockyer said. "There were a lot of instances in which African-Americans were beaten, Hispanics beaten and tossed in the lake, and Gays and Lesbians harassed and beaten. I spent a year and a half negotiating with the Riverside Police Department for such basic demands as psychological evaluations for officers before they are hired, up-to-date training, community relations boards, availability and training in use of non-lethal weapons, TV cameras in the chief's office and the squad room and video and audio recording in police cars."

Here's the kicker:

The intent of these reforms, Lockyer said, was to break the macho culture of the police department and the racism and sexism that went along with it.

Why was it important to file a law suit against Riverside in Superior Court in order to ensure that it would reform its troubled agency in the wake of the shooting death of Tyisha Miller?

Lockyer found that the Riverside City Council balked at signing on to the deal. "They did some things of their own. which they'd done three times before, and each time there had been slight improvements and then things had got worse again," he recalled. Finally I went to one of the Council meetings and said, The choice is, you adopt the reforms or I will sue you and we'll see what the federal courts have to say.? They said, "Our constituents don't like outsiders coming in," and I said, "I've got news for you. All your constituents are my constituents as well."


But it remains unclear whether Lockyer's version of judicial tough love will keep the scandal-plagued department on the straight and narrow. Defanging the Task Force, is not a forward step on that road.


And there lies the danger that always cloaks this type of voluntary amnesia. As well as with the tried and true adage that if one forgets one's mistakes they are doomed to repeat them.

The wrong kind of crime victim, in the wrong place

Meet Officer Paul Stucker, who works for the Riverside Police Department.

Tall, muscular, bald and White, he could be one of many officers working in the Riverside Police Department. But Stucker was the officer dispatched to respond to an assault and battery on Sept. 5, 2005 at 2pm, near the intersection of Market and University Avenue.

A young man had just purchased a computer printer and was biking down University Avenue, with purchase in hand, when his path crossed that of his assailant. The assailant decided he wanted the computer printer, so he jumped this young man, knocked him off his bicycle then began kicking and stomping on him as he lay defenseless in the congested street. Eight shocked motorists jumped out of their cars and intervened in this situation. Three men pulled the assailant off of the victim, while others there tended to his bloody injuries to his face. Two women called 911 on their cellphones. Those calls were routed to the CHP in San Bernardino which added to the delayed response by the Fire Department, American Medical Response Ambulance service and the police department.

Twenty minutes later, the fire and medical vehicles arrived, and those driving them promptly saw to the victim's injuries. One of them, rolled the assailant who was under guard by three male civilians over on his stomach, sat on him and pulled items out of his pocket including a switchblade.

Enter, Officer Paul Stucker, who turned onto University from Market and did a u-turn so he could park on the side where the incident occurred. As Stucker exited his car, he asked the eight good samaritans, "Who saw it happen?" Nine hand went up. Initially, Stucker's name tag was not visible, and when his name was asked, he looked down, then smoothed his shirt and it appeared from behind a crease. Stucker walked to the ambulance, talked to the victim for a couple minutes, then walked back to the samaritans. All the samaritans asked him if they could give their statements, when, if they could get a card from Stucker, or contact information. All emphasized how terrible it was to see a man get brutally assaulted in the street in front of them. Stucker begged off, telling them he had all the information he needed. Earlier, he had put the assailant in handcuffs saying this doesn't mean you are under arrest and placed him in the back seat of the squad car. A short woman had arrived driving a white vehicle with traffic accident investigations written on it. Stucker told her to watch his car while he talked to the man in the ambulance. Then Stucker left, about five minutes after he arrived.

Well, the situation did not end there. The victim's name was Ken Michael Dunn, and his parents are members of the Riverside Coalition of Police Accountability. He suffers from diabetes, notice of which is tattooed on his arm for emergency purposes. He also wears one shoe that is three inches higher than the other to correct a leg length difference.

His case number is: P3-05-248-143

The police report written by Stucker is sparse, with only S1/Cohen hit V/1 Dunn. The suspect by the way is Ernest David Cohen, a short burly White man with a long criminal history in Riverside County which includes three felony convictions, two associated with auto theft and a third with methamphetamine possession earlier this year. Currently, he is serving formal felony probation. But, three days before his arrest, his probation officer Renel Gaines issued a memo alleging that Cohen had violated his probation by failure to show up to a rehab center and undergo mandated drug treatment and failure to report to his probational officer. Despite at least 10 allegations of probation violations filed against Cohen in an assortment of criminal cases stemming back to 2001, Gaines stated in his memo that Cohen simply needed more intensive treatment.

Security Guard Ardell Wallace knows about Cohen and had come upon the incident involving Cohen's assault on Dunn after the fact. He said that Cohen had tried to rob others in the downtown neighborhood, but that the police have not done much about him. He believed that Cohen had jumped Dunn to take his new computer printer.

That would lead one to think that the following felony crime might have taken place:

PC 211. Robbery is the felonious taking of personal property in the
possession of another, from his person or immediate presence, and
against his will, accomplished by means of force or fear.


Did Officer Stucker take Cohen to jail to be booked for attempted felony strong-arm robbery and violation of probation(commission of a crime, possession of a weapon, switchblade knife)?

No, Stucker drove Cohen to some undisclosed location, cited him with a ticket then released him. Then the next day, Sept. 6, Stucker wrote his report, for a PC 242 misdemeanor battery.

And there the fiction writing began...

"Was there a witness to the crime?" NO

NO??????

This revelation would be news to the nine people who witnessed the incident and intervened in the apprehension of the assailant and the treatment of the victim. This deliberate attempt to falsify information by Stucker is a slap on the face to those who not only saw this incident occur, but intervened rather than looked the other way.

Weapons Seized? NO

NO????? Well, okay, after all, Stucker was not even onscene when the EMT pulled the switchblade out of Cohen's pocket as he searched him.

Weapons? Hands

The victim was kicked numerous times and stomped on the chest and head.

As to whether Stucker realized that Cohen was on probation, He checked that box.

Motive: Unknown

Apparently the fact that Dunn was in possession of his newly purchased computer printer at the time never switched a light bulb off in Stucker's head that the assault might have been an attempt to forcibly steal that computer. If Stucker had bothered to interview witnesses, he might have had that bulb switched on for him.

No charges have been filed in this case. The investigations division has no record of it ever happening, nor has this unit assigned this case to any detective, let alone one in robbery or crimes against persons. At last notice, is that this case was sent to the impound division, even though no motor vehicle was involved. Why a criminal case would be sent there inside a "model" LE agency is a question that so far remains unanswered. Perhaps the Impound Division doubles as a "slush pile" for crimes involving victims who in the scheme of things don't really matter.

Victims who are poor, non-white and in this case disabled, will have their cases sent to this slush pile rather than the Investigations unit which serves mainly to build up cases to prosecute poor and homeless people, not look for those who assault them, kill them or rob them.

And so ends the story of the officer who celebrated Labor Day by refusing to do the job he took an oath to do, and the addition of yet another crime to the RPD's new slush pile.

Did Diabetes kill Terry Rabb or was it an accessory?

Terry Rabb is a 35 year old man who is diabetic.

Or he was. Now, he is dead after Riverside Police Department officers responded to a call for assistance with a man who was having a diabetic episode and acting "hostile", according to department officials.

The department has very little to say on the matter, until an autopsy of Rabb has been completed. Still, Lt. Darryl Hurt, himself no stranger to incustody deaths, said that he believed that Rabb died from complications related to diabetes, and not from the brief struggle he had with the police officers. The officers had been dispatched to assist the man, Hurt said. Sgt. Leon Phillips, who heads the Robbery/Homicide Investigations Unit, said that the officers had only grabbed Rabb.

The CPRC, under the city's charter, has the authority to investigate incustody deaths which arise from the direct or indirect actions of police officers. The problem is, that the CPRC may opt to wait until the police department decides whether or not the death of Rabb falls within the requirements set by the Charter. Instead, the CPRC needs to take an active role in its own investigating and begin gathering facts independently which will essentially determine whether or not the death of Rabb falls within their jurisdiction.



Dying While Diabetic

***registration required***

A drop here and there...

The Roger Sutton Racial Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation trial is ongoing...

Trying to get that southern jury

Sutton tells his story

Interesting how a Black officer can be removed from a unit for forgetting his commands, but a White officer can be exonerated for shooting someone to death while apparently forgetting his commands.
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Interesting article by Press Enterprise reporter Sarah Burge, on the police officer shortage:

More cops needed, Mayor promises 50 more cops on campaign trail
***registered site alert***

Interestingly enough, just several weeks ago, as part of the latest Eastside action plan, there was a proposal to work with Human Resources Director Art Alcarez to hire more cops, and to speed up the hiring process. A short conversation with Chief Russ Leach revealed that the area of hiring to be sped up was the background checking. He assured me that doing so would not compromise the quality of officers hired by the department. Famous last words by many a police chief before who did just this, and then woke up one morning to the realization that they had officers out doing home invasion robberies, robbing banks and becoming involved in corruption scandals, ala Rampart CRASHed.

Yes, there is a serious need for more officers, especially with the population growth that comes along with being one of the fastest growing regions in the nation, not to mention several huge annexations that the city has done without of course, ensuring that they had the proper infrastructure in place beforehand. Greed can not be thwarted or slowed by pesky things like details. However, you can not sacrifice quality in the search for quantity. Yet, every department that has tried to quickly beef up its troops in the past has done just this and has paid a heavy price for it, publicly. The community pays the price. The officers and agency plays the price. Hiring a quality cop will take serious money($125,000 or higher) and time, and it will always be that way. Accept it.
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Day 60 in the ongoing quest to obtain statistical information from the police department regarding its internal investigations has passed without no response from Police Chief Russ Leach. It is always a struggle to get information the public is entitled to receive from one of the least transparent agencies in the state. LOL.

It just goes to show when it comes to keeping your agency on the right track in a wide variety of areas, you can never turn your back on it...especially its administration.

Did the RPD amend its version of the Summer Lane shooting?

As stated in the previous entry, a bombshell was dropped by Investigator Norm Wright at the Sept. 28 CPRC meeting regarding the officer involved shooting of Summer Lane last December. But what was downplayed, was the fact that the RPD's version of the incident matched that presented by Wright in front of the stunned commissioners. Even Officer Ryan Wilson's version of events he provided in a statement fit the picture.

Contrast that, with the version of the shooting the RPD presented at a special meeting on Dec. 22, 2004. At that meeting, the police department said that Wilson had been placed by witnesses BEHIND Lane's car, and that he shot at her while she was trying to back into him. When asked by one commissioner if Wilson was on the ground, the department said:

"Yes....We think so..."

You think?????

Looking back, it is crystal clear that the first version, no wait, the second version of the shooting farmed out by the department has no basis in fact, according to the eyewitness testimony provided. Apparently, even Wilson's version, at some point, contradicted the department's version that it presented last December.

So what happened between last Dec. 22 and Sept. 28?

Why was the department providing a version of the Lane shooting that could have been nothing else but the figment of their imagination? At that point in the investigation, the primary interviews of Wilson, the participant and all the civilians standing by and watching, were done. All that was waiting by Dec. 22, likely were more sophisticated toxicology tests conducted on Lane's tissue samples and/or her blood and ballistic analysis and tests done on Wilson's firearm.

Let's look again:

DEC 22, 2004: Wilson was on the ground behind Lane's car and shot at her while she tried to run him over.

Sept. 28, 2005: Wilson walked behind Lane's stationary vehicle, up to the driver's window and shot at her three-four times, without issuing verbal commands, before walking back to handcuff a subdued or unconscious Grotness.

Wilson's statement adheres to the Sept. 28 version, a source has said. All the eyewitnesses stories match the Sept. 28 version, Wright has said.

Again.....

Where did the RPD's version of the Lane shooting it gave in its briefing on Dec. 22 come from?

Can any of the department's brass answer this question, please?

When is an Officer-Involved shooting, murder?

Did Officer Ryan Wilson Murder Summer Lane?

It began on Dec. 6, sometime after 8pm, when RPD officer Ryan Wilson may have crossed the line, into murder if the information provided at a recent CPRC meeting is indeed factual evidence. If it is not murder, the relevations certainly shook the reticent review board's membership to the core, guaranteeing continued discussion and debate among its membership, and possibly a range war with the police department and its membership down the line.

That night, Wilson was dispatched to respond to a call for service from Food 4 Less inside the mall near Chicago and University. A cashier inside the store had called the police department on their non-emergency business line after refusing to accept what was believed to be the cashing of a payroll check by a man, and his girlfriend, Summer Lane. Her boyfriend was heading out of the store, when he was approached and tackled by a security guard to the floor. Wilson then arrived and the struggle continued between himself and the boyfriend in the parking lot outside the store.

At this point, versions of what transpired next differ depending on the source. One participant, Lane, of course was unable to tell her side.

The first blurb from the police department was brief, and filled with holes. It stated that Officer Ryan Wilson shot at Lane's car as she tried to run him over. It also stated that she may have actually struck him once.

The presentation by the department at the CPRC meeting on Dec. 22, 2004 was more lengthy but left a few issues unexplained. Not that it would answer many questions being what Chief Leach once testified in a deposition as being "a very sanitized version of the shooting incident."

The department had said on behalf of Wilson that Lane had tried to hit him with her car several times, and in fact ran over Wilson's left leg two, three, even four times. The department also said that Lane was backing into Wilson while he was fighting with her boyfriend on the ground, when he grabbed his gun and shot into the rear of the window, because he was in fear for his life.

That version of events was allowed to stand unchallenged until Sept. 28, when private investigator Norm Wright, a retired FBI agent, presented his own investigation of the Lane shooting to the CPRC. He agreed with the department's version, up to a point. Then he dropped the bomb shell that shook the CPRC especially its law enforcement booster quartet to the core.

According to eye witnesses, Wilson was not even on the ground when he shot Lane. He had gotten up, walked all the way behind her stationary vehicle, then walked up to her window or just behind it, and shot her four times straight without saying a word. Even though his left leg had allegedly been run over by Lane's car up to four times, Wilson not only did not limp, he walked at a quickened pace all the way to the point near the car where he pulled the trigger.

Lane died of at least one of those bullet strikes on the way to the hospital. Wilson eventually went to the hospital too, allegedly according to early reports with a broken ankle. Then it was reported that although his left leg was ran over by Lane's vehicle up to FOUR times, it was okay enough for him to be interviewed shortly after at the General Investigations Bureau, and even return to duty after the mandatory 72 hour cooling off period. Photographs in Wright's report showed only a couple of small abrasians aka road rash, and perhaps a contusion on Wilson's knee. Miraculous, for someone who had just had his left leg pressed into the ground, up to four times by a 1996 Honda car checking in at over a ton.

The DA after reviewing the investigation submitted by OIS shooting investigator Jay Greenstein declined to file charges against Wilson. The Internal Affairs Division which does not even conduct independent investigations of fatal shootings also pretended it did not see a thing. But apparently, Norm Wright did and through his report, the CPRC did also. Its blinders came off as it saw that life is not as simple as officers always telling the truth and always taking lives in a justified fashion. Real life is much messier, and even the most santitized version of an ugly incident put on display, can reap an awful truth.

The invite list to Sutton's party

After three days, jury selection has been completed. There are 12 jurors and four alternates seated to hear the case. Of the main panel, there is one Black and two Hispanic jurors. Of the alternates, one is Black. The city kicked off at least four Black and Hispanic jurors and the judge called three Wheeler motions.

Over 50 witnesses are expected to testify:

Off. Richard Aceves
Off. Michael Andrews
Carla Aquino
Lt. Tim Bacon
Off. Brian Baitx
Capt. Mike Blakely
Sgt. Ed Blevins
ret. Sgt. Skip Blythe
Bill Burnett
Capt. Jim Cannon
Former chief Jerry Carroll
Off. Michael Carroll
Carl Chapman
Lt. Jeff Collapy
Capt. Richard Dana
Dep. Chief David Dominguez
Mark Elliot
Lt. Pete Esquival
Sgt. Valmont Graham
Penny Harrington
Off. Greg Hayden
Lt. Darryl Hurt
Sgt. Jeffrey Joseph
Offr. Kopkitch
Off. David L. Martin
Lt. Mark McFall
Al Mendoza
Padelford
Sgt. Leon Phillips
Dep. Chief Andrew Pytlak
David Reever
ret. Lt. Wally Rice
Off. Steve Sdringola
Brad smith
ret. Asst. Chief Michael Smith
Off. Roger Sutton
Off. Ray Soto
Off. David Taylor
ret. Lt. Jay Theuer
Lt. Alex Tortes
Ret. Dep. Chief Audrey Wilson

Jury Picking, Riverside style

It was not until the end of the second day of picking a jury in the Roger Sutton case that Commissioner Joan F. Burgess realized that they would run out of prospective jurors in the current pool. At the beginning of the first day of trial, there had been 47 filled seats in Dept. 6. On Thursday afternoon, at 4:30pm, only 12 jurors remained besides the 10 seated in the jury box, and both sides announced that there would be 15 for cause challenges. That, is in addition to the presumptory challenges which remain for both sets of attorneys to exercise which could whittle down the jury pool even further.

Before recessing for the weekend, Burgess finally relented, and decided that 15 more jurors will be sent up from the jury room. It will not be enough.

The vast majority of jurors removed, have been for cause. Anyone who had any contact with anyone who hired, fired, disciplined, promoted, demoted or censored employees was gone by the second day. Anyone who lived in Casa Blanca, anyone who had prior negative contacts with the RPD(which on a bad day can be half the jury pool, this time somewhat less) was also quickly gone. If you were White and thus allowed to be ignorant about race and racism, you stayed. If you were Black or Hispanic and thus not allowed to be ignorant about race, you were gone. And predicably if you were of color, it was the city's stable of attorneys that sent you packing.

The black female juror who said, "I am Black. I can not separate myself from it. I'm for my people", well she will have to endure the entire voir dire questioning process before she's officially removed for cause.

When it came to race, the city was awfully shy about discussing it in public. Instead, they asked Burgess if they could retreat to the confines of her office, and always she agreed. It is one thing to close off interviews with jurors about personal experiences in a semi-confidential environment. It is another to use the guise of confidentiality to hide behind when discussing race and racism in the city of Riverside. Race, after all, being the heart of what this trial is about.

At one instance, Eugene Ramirez, etal retreated into Burgess's chambers, along with Sutton, his attorneys, the court reporter and oddly enough, Lt. Bob Meier, the city's representative in this case. The only time he was invited to chambers was when the city's attorneys aired their views on race in this trial. Why was that?

If you read the witness list or heard it read in court by Burgess, you will notice Meier's name is on it. As it should be, because he was a principal player in this episode. However, not only will he not be testifying, but he has been designated the city's representative in this case. Why is it, that the police department would assign an officer to monitor the case including what goes on in the judge's chambers, who has a vested interest in that case?

Hopefully, Meier was not invited into chambers when a juror was inside talking to the parties of the case about any negative experiences with the RPD. Inappropriate, would not begin to describe that kind of interaction.

But it is typical of the city to make decisions like this one with Meier, just as it is typical of the city to ignore the problems of racism within its employment ranks.

Elections

Mayoral:

 

Ron Loveridge: UCR professor and incumbant

 

Ameal Moore: councilman

 

Terry Frizzel: former mayor

 

Ward 2:

 

Andrew Melendrez: businessman

 

Deen Teer: Retired city employee

 

Gloria Willis: former school teacher, now activist

 

Ward 4:

 

Frank Schiavone: Business man and man of the Developers

 

Debrah Freeman: Works for County of Riverside Human Resources

 

Sam Cardalucci: Owns NEWCO, the city's former private refuge collection contractor

 

Corrine Parker: city employee

 

Ward 6:

 

Nancy Hart: City Council incumbant

 

Ric Costillo: Businessman

 

 

Bits and pieces from here, there, everywhere

On Sept. 2, presiding Judge Joan F. Burgess issued tentative rulings on motions in limine submitted by attorneys for both sides in the racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation case filed by RPD officer Roger Sutton in 2000.

After about an hour of argument had passed and the dust had settled, Burgess decided on all but three of the motions.

IN:

Alleged racist commments witnessed by Sutton, as well as those publicized in the media in relation to the shooting of Tyisha Miller.

Allegations of racist incidents after 1991, and several incidents in the 1980s.


OUT:

Most racist events alleged to have occurred pre-1991

Testimony on a law suit filed against former Chief Sonny Richardson in the 1900s.

Testimony about an incident in 1999 when according to former Riverside County Grand Jury Chairman Bill Burnett, then-Internal Affairs Lt. Bob Meier handed over Sutton's entire personnel file to Burnett, calling Sutton a "troublemaker", at the same time the Internal Affairs Division was purportedly investigating allegations of racism Sutton made against the department.

UP IN THE AIR

Statistical information about racial disparities in the department's firing or suspending of its officers after sustaining allegations of misconduct against them

Tyisha Miller testimony

Testimony in relation to the complaint filed by former officer Rene Rodriguez, with the state's Fair Employment and Housing Office in 1999.

The trial which has been put on hold for nearly five years is tentatively set to begin next week, if the trial which is scheduled to precede it is put on hold, or settled.
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Earlier in this blog, there was an entry about the current status of the city's very own 800 lb gorilla, formally known as the RPOA and how its leadership is isolating itself from the officers they are supposed to represent. It appears that many officers in the rank and file are very displeased with the actions taken by the RPOA's PAC in terms of the candidates it endorses. Most of these officers are not informed or even asked if they believe in supporting the endorsements of the candidates the RPOA PAC selects, most notably in the fourth ward, which makes sense because most of the officers who reside in Riverside live in the "white flight" ward. Frank Schiavone, the current councilmember in that ward, serves first and foremost, the developers who fund his campaign and attend his fundraisers. Police officers, as a profession, comes a bit lower on his list, and police officers who live in his ward and their families come further down, with the rest of us mortals.

Say, you live in OrangeCrest(Riverside's own CopLand)and you have to commute to work on what passes for streets(i.e. Allesandrio is a great example) in this city. Unchecked growth, hopelessly backlogged infrastructure including that which eases traffic congestion may be more pertinent issues to you than whether or not 500 more multi-million dollar estates get approved for development down the street. More traffic and congestion hassles for you, more $$$ for Friends of Frank, and you are voting him into office, why????

Because your union PAC tells you to?

LOL.


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An update on the NARCO-Gate entry as well. It appears that the situation that broke in 2002, after the DEA spilled the beans to the RPD about the conduct of two of its Narcotics detectives, was(at the time) only the latest allegation of misconduct to befall on Kipp.

It seems that closer to the beginning of his career in the RPD(which began on Jan. 2, 1981)Kipp's job was endangered by allegations made against him which led to another internal investigation. If not for assistance he received from an employee in the RPD's brother agency, The Riverside County Sheriff's Department, Kipp might not be with this agency today, sources say.
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NARCO-Gate

This scandal came to you, courtesy of the California State Attorney General's Office. No, they were not involved in creating it, but without this office's presense "in the back pocket" of the police department as one detective put it, this appalling and embarassing episode would have merely been treated as business as usual in the Riverside Police Department and swept beneath the carpet with the rest of the dirt.

The central figure in this sad chain of events is Det. Ron Kipp, a 24-year veteran of the police department, who spent over 18 years of his career working in narcotics.
This officer, who looks like a less washed up Nick Nolte, also had a clean personnel file despite his involvement in an off-duty arrest for assault, multiple nonfatal shootings including one that injured the female passenger in a pick up truck and one fatal shooting in 1996.

The number of years Kipp spent inside the narcotics division without being reassigned should have triggered a red flag. Instead of looking at his long tenure as simply creating a more experienced and seasoned narc, his supervisors should have been looking for signs of trouble. They were just around the bend.

Kipp was busted in April 2001, for telling an informant to sell drugs at a higher price than that authorized by the department and telling him to keep the extra money from the sale. According to a memo he received from then Internal Affairs Lt. Bob Meier, Kipp had violated two sections of RPD policy 2.23. These were:

V. The failure to reasonable action while on duty:

W. Exceeding the lawful peace officer powers by unreasonable, unlawful and excessive misconduct.

He received as discipline after a four month investigation, an eight-month suspension and a transfer to the robbery unit. Another narcotics detective, Roberta Hopewell, who was the initial subject of the allegations made by a DEA agent, was transferred to the Auto Theft Unit. Kipp later accused Hopewell of lying to investigators when she pointed the finger at him for misconduct she had been accused of, in a deposition he gave in relation to a civil law suit filed in connection with a criminal case.

Defense Attorney Andres Bustamonte, who represented a man named Benito Salazar in a felony drug and animal welfare case, deposed Kipp, yet it was the arrival of another attorney, Victor Sherman that turned the deposition into a confessional by Kipp of how the RPD's narcotics division conducted its operations. Kipp, who openly admired Sherman, said that although the department and the Riverside County's District Attorney's office had clashed over the use of "walled off" stings, the prosecutors of that agency jumped on the bandwagon several years before and were more willing accomplices in the process. Even though this type of sting, which involves concealing information or existance about informants from prosecutors and judges, is not illegal, in certain cases such as those described in the deposition by Kipp, the RPD clearly crossed the line.

Barbara Taylor, a deputy prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said in a May 14, 2003 article published by the Los Angeles Daily Journal

"If the informant is a percipient witness, if he watched something go down, then we need to know that because it has to be given to the defense"

The lawyers for Salazer later alleged that there were at least five criminal cases involving the same informant selling pseudoepherdine cases to people to use for meth production, then secretly broke their tail lights from 2002-2003 before leaving them to drive off. A short time later, a patrol car would pull them over on the tail light, do a search and find the drugs. In at least one case, Kipp allegedly tailed the suspects in a gold colored pickup truck with no license plate before the traffic stop. Those officers would then call either Kipp or another detective in narcotics named Danzek and they would come out and handle it. Several of the patrol officers who made the stops are now in narcotics.

According to Kipp's deposition, the patrol officers had no knowlege that he knew beforehand there were drugs in the vehicles and just believed they were conducting pretext stops on traffic violations. Why, any members of the department would set up unsuspecting officers in such a fashion is one only those individuals can answer, though if the officers involved in the stops knew that they were actors in a staged event, then there is still another can of worms to open out there.

Allegations were made against Kipp that he allowed this informant which he hid as part of a "walled off" sting to sell drugs on the side, and if he gave Kipp 4-5 busts a year, "his back was covered." Kipp denied all of them, including those made by the DEA agent.

links on the crackdown at the RPD:

RPD Narcotics operations brought to standstill

scroll down to "It's just Business as Usual".


15 narcotics cases under review



Kipp was deposed by a lawyer, allegedly for a civil case. The city attorney's office did not know about this for several months. A representative appeared from the State Atty General's office and Kipp had believed he was being questioned by him. The AG representative, Michael Stamp, remained silent during most of the proceedings except to prevent Salazer's attorney from asking Kipp questions about the city attorney's involvement in trying to suppress the use of portions of this deposition to gain access to Kipp's personnel records in court.

When Salazer's attorneys tried to uncover information about the informant, nicknamed "El Lobo", they were thwarted for over two years. Finally, presiding judge Edward D. Webster ruled that the prosecutor had to turn over a list of cases where the informant was involved. Webster added that related criminal cases could be overturned on appeal, and civil litigation could be filed against the police department and the D.A.'s office.
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Kipp on the investigation against him: (excerpt People of the State vs Salazer, RIF123653--deposition taken Nov. 18, 2002)

"I think this is why this thing is getting held up is because they are a little afraid to mess with me on this deal b/c it's the way business was always conducted even when he[then Capt. Andrew Pytlak] was sergeant."

Kipp on the reluctance to discipline him:

"Because this is way we've always done it. It's never been a secret."

Kipp on the Attorney General Investigation:

"I don't know what the hell their problem is. I think the big problem is the Attorney General's office. They're so afraid of not looking proper. You know, with the A.G.'s office being in our back pocket and overseeing everything we do. I think that's our biggest problem."

Kipp on fighting his suspension:

"I won't go down for this. They don't want me exposing their administration's policies. Not only can I prove that they lied about their policies, I will do it."


Again, ladies and gentlemen, this latest scandal was uncovered by the State Attorney General's office's presense "in the back pocket" of the RPD. This office will be checking out on March 6, 2005 hopefully taking all of the department's scandals, uncovered and otherwise, with it.

Roger Sutton's day in court stymied again

Today, Commissioner Joan Burgess of the Riverside County Superior Court postponed the set trial date of Roger Sutton v the City of Riverside in deference to several other cases on her civil calendar. The case that was first filed five years ago last month, is once again tabled.

Burgess opened the door to settlement talks, mentioning that some times even the cases where both parties appear the furthest apart in terms of reaching a consensus often settle. The firm shakes of the heads of the attorneys for Officer Roger Sutton, and the city, shut that door quickly. There will be no last-minute meetings held in chambers, it appears in this case. So, Burgess finally scheduled about a dozen motion in limines filed by the city to be heard at 1:30pm on Sept. 6. Both sides agreed to that date, but the actual trial date remains once again, up in the air.

The city of Riverside filed the dozen motions to trim down what it views as the excess material in the Sutton case. What the city objects to as it has in every racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation case filed by a Black city employee, is the evidence these employees use to prove their cases. As far as the city is concerned, at every incident of racism it stares at, it exclaims "Out, Out Damn Spot"!

If all the evidence is allowable at trial, both sides said the case will take between three to six weeks, and over 50 witnesses including past and present members of the RPD brass will testify.

With all the delays, from attorneys donating their kidneys, to the periodic freezing of civil calendars to accomodate Riverside County's criminal trial schedule, the question has been asked, Will this case ever be presented in a courtroom? Will the racial environment of the Riverside Police Department which had brought federal and state scrutiny to investigate its workings, ever be put on trial?

What about that 800 Pound Gorilla?

I was talking not too long ago to a police officer who made a point of saying that although he belonged to the department's labor union, the RPOA, he did not agree with the politics of its current board. The funny thing, is that he is not the only officer who has said this, or who has made it a point to separate themselves from the union. Which makes some sense, after all, because the closer you stand to King Kong when he's out wreaking havoc, the better your odds of being stepped on. The RPOA, is often called the 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about....except apparently some disatisifed officers.

Maybe, it's backlash from that hideous campaign the RPOA ran in opposition to Measure II, where it basically stated that if you did not vote the way the union wanted, don't count on the police responding as quickly to save you from criminals, as it might have, well the day before the election. After all, it was about that time that the whispers started.

Several rank-and-file officers even said that they had stepped outside the official party line and voted in favor of the measure which would place the Community Police Review Commission in the city's charter. Not because they supported the CPRC, but in protest of the campaign the union was conducting, with the union dues they had put in the coffer. Hmm, that's an interesting event, to hear of officers protesting through their vote, the action taken which was payed for by their money. However, in a way it's a brave act of defiance against the RPOA to step outside the official stance. After all, if your actions were uncovered by its leadership, you might find out later how traitorous you are, when you call out for an 11-11, and no one comes to your rescue.

But contrast the anti-Measure II campaign and its lackluster response, at least publicly by the masses who are members of the union, with the 1999 parade of officers, with pale shaven heads reflecting the setting sun, marching two-by-two away from the city council meeting they had just unceremoniously crashed. Something has changed. Still, it is those officers who remember that night with perhaps, wistful nostalgia who are running the show, even one that someday might see its audience dwindle in size.

Maybe, it's the fact that this current union board arose from the ashes of the backlash that occurred after five White officers were fired as a result of their actions surrounding the shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998. A good chunk of the current board of directors consists of former SWAT/METRO team members, which is significant considering that the METRO team was one of the units where its members threatened to resign enmasse to protest the firing of the Riverside 5, as they were called.

Source: Riverside Grand Jury report on RPD under "Findings"

Following the termination, most of the SWAT, Defensive Tactics and Field Training Officer teams offered their resignations to the department. These were not accepted, but many of the officers have requested to be rotated off these duty assignments.

Other members of the current RPOA board were supporters of Sgt. Gregory Preece, including current Vice President Chris Lanzillo, who was quoted in a March 2001 issue of the Press Enterprise newspaper as saying that Preece was the best sergeant he ever had(assuming that meant Preece's supervisory abilities).

Source: March 3, 2001, Press Enterprise

Treasurer Aaron Leigh Perkins(of "road rage" infamy) was once disciplined with a written reprimend for putting a stink bomb in Rene Rodriguez's car.

Source: Roger Sutton v the Riverside Police Department/City of Riverside deposition given by Capt. Richard Dana

Many if not all of the current RPOA board members had been in the forefront of the movement in June 1999 when over 200 officers, mostly patrol officers and detectives, decided to shave their heads bald "in protest" of the firing of the officers in connection with killing Miller. They knowingly, as one former officer-now sergeant said in August 1999, adopted a symbol associated with white supremacism. So much so, that during the officially sanctioned head shaving rally held at Ramona High School on one sunny afternoon in June 1999, some self-identifying racist skinheads were in the area and apparently confused the barbershop session, with a white supremacist revival event.


In contrast, most of the current pool of rank and file officers were hired after that turmoltous time period. Many of them have little to no memory of the Miller shooting and its aftermath. Many only know that they were recruited by a department that had recently entered into a stipulated agreement with the state, as a result, if they knew that much.

Each time, an officer vents about the union that he belongs to, I just say this. I tell him, and it's mostly men who vent, (although you would think it's the women that would feel most excluded from the "He mans women hater club" given their invisibility among its leadership) that he should get either through joining a committee or through running for a position on the board. If you are upset or feel alienated by the current leadership(and let's face it, who wouldn't?), if you don't want to put your career on the line to join a harassment/surveillance exercise against someone that the board members are mad at, especially for something stupid like the color of a police car, if you are partial to your hair and do not consider it a vestige to be sacrificed at the whims of the leadership(who might be worried about their lack of hair):

VOTE THEM OUT

Otherwise, stop complaining because no one really wants to hear about it. Don't play the apathy game and decide not to vote for the leadership of the organization in which your hard-earned money is going, and don't sit on the sidelines looking embarassed if they ever spend your money on another embarassing campaign.

From whence shall come police accountability in Riverside?

The consent decree is set to expire in 192 days, or, six months and 11 days.

With time ticking until the end of the consent decree between the State Attorney General's office and the city of Riverside, this is a question that even after five years still begs an answer...

The answer is, there is no mechanism of accountability in place.

Many people in Riverside, representing all political stripes may disagree with this assessment. But the facts are, is that very little has changed inside the police department since the city entered into a stipulated agreement with the state in 2001.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Then on the Other Hand....

Last night at City Hall, the Executive subcommittee of the Human Relations Commission met to discuss among other things, the recent violence in the Eastside and the police department's response.

Lt. Alex Tortes, who's worked in the Eastside for many years, presented a strategy which he said the department enacted on Aug. 9. That date was in between two speeches given by Acting Chief Andrew Pytlak and Chief Russ Leach, respectively, which presented the "Let's talk tough and get tough" philosophy of policing.

Tortes, who is not a fan of the suppression type of policing that was batted about by some of the department's administrative heads, told the committee that instead of flooding the neighborhood with police officers, the department had put together a task force to cull out the active gang members who participated in the recent shootings, with surgical precision. Take out the scalpal instead of the broad sword, in a matter of speaking.

The task force consists of Tortes, as supervisor, Sgt. Brian Dailey who heads the Police and Corrections Team and Sgt. Frank Assuma, who is in charge of the gang unit. They put together a list of active gang members, including those who were in violation of probation or parole and have active warrants. The shooters involved in 13 out of the 16 most recent shootings were rounded up. Some of them would be prosecuted on weapons charges by federal agencies, so that instead of being sent to serve long prison terms in California's state prison system(inside, are prison gangs calling the shots in the local neighborhoods of many Southern California cities)they will be doing time in federal institutions.

So, why the differences in action plans presented for policing in the Eastside? What was that all about?

Two completely different plans of action, from one department. Does this indicate that there is a struggle within management of how to police in the city of Riverside?



Marchand rally through the Eastside sparks feelings of deja vu

The Latest Round of Occupation in the Eastside

RPD occupation strategy, 2005


It happened in 1997.
It happened in 2002.
It's happening again in the summer of 2005.
The Eastside is being occupied by the forces of the Riverside Police Department.
Chief Russ Leach, at times channeling LAPD Chief William Bratton, told community residents at a recent meeting that it was time to talk tough about crime and the gangsters in the streets.

People agreed. After all, people can not buy gas, pay utility bills, play in their yards, sit in their yards or walk home from a party without getting shot at in Riverside. Violence, including gang violence which plays some role here, is cyclical and it's that time in the biorhythem of life in this city again.

Leach fresh off of his vacation stint in Maui took the reins of the department away from Chief-in-training Andrew Pytlak and appeared before the Eastside Community at a meeting sponsored by current councilman and mayoral candidate Ameal Moore to be blunt, to talk tough. He said his troops were in the Eastside to do arrests, not smile and wave at people.

Smile and wave? Since when have cops done that in the Eastside? That's for functions sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and the Mission Grove and Orangecrest Neighborhood Watches. Cops come to the Eastside to get tough, or they do not come at all. And it's tough to see them smile and wave if they stay inside their squad cars, windows rolled up, until there is someone to chase and arrest.

An interesting idea, proposed by more than one middle-management officer, was to ask police officers to get out of their squad cars, take off their shades and talk to people from one end of a block to the other. Unfortunately, that frightens some of them more than chasing after a suspect. The idea that maybe everyone in a neighborhood isn't a suspect....

Leach continued:

"What are we?," Chief Leach said, "We are an occupying force for a short period of time."

And in between?

"We are going to be here," Chief Leach said, "We are going to stay here."

What he meant was that after the most recent exercise in suppression had ended, the department would go into a maintenance mode. But what is maintenance, a time period when police presense in the Eastside is less, because the troops have been moved to another neighborhood to put out the next fire. Not before scheduling the next return date about two hot summers from now.

This is the state of community policing in Riverside, California, four years, five months and 11 days into the stipulated judgement, with only six months and 25 days remaining until the state cuts our police department's strings loose.
Supression.
Regroup.
Pullout.
Maintenance.
Supression.

For a good definition of Community Oriented Problem Solving Policing(COPS), check out Norm Stamper's book, Breaking Rank:A Top Cop's Expose of the Darker Side of Policing

It makes sense in that it actually involves the community rather than the community standing back while the police come in full force to do their thing, before leaving again to move to the next hot spot. But after spending over $10 million on reforms, and hours spent training officers how to better do their jobs, that concept still has not come to Riverside.

"We are here to make arrests. We are going to get complaints. We are profiling criminals. We have carte blanche within the law."

In other words, accountability be damned. Consent decree be damned. Let's just forget about that now, while we go about and do our business. We never make mistakes. If we do, do not think of telling us so, or we will spend valuable time telling you that you are wrong. And so forth. Read any manual on parimilitary watchman style policing in inner city neighborhoods and these words will start feeling familiar.

It might seem petty, in the face of all the violence, to even talk about the issue of accountability, but it is always an important componant of any police/community interaction, even one that is requested in a moment of desperation. The wise thing to say would have been, our police are coming in, but they are going to be held accountable by their supervisors, watch commanders, everyone up and down the chain, and most importantly, me for what they do. If they do something "over the line" then come to me, come to the area lieutenant(Alex Tortes) and there's the Community Police Review Commission. That would have given evidence that even given the department's decision to send its forces into the Eastside for the umpteenth time, that it at least has learned something in the past five years.

Oh well, maybe by the end of the next consent decree, perhaps...

Interviews involving Norm Stamper and Community Policing

Norm Stamper Q&A on Community Policing

(excerpt)

Does your vision of community policing include a civilian review board?


I am a very strong supporter of civilian review, civilian oversight. In fact, I believe that we need civilian participation in policy making. I have said for twenty years that we are the people's police, that we belong to the communities that we serve. And that means vastly increased citizen participation in virtually everything that we do. That means a review of citizen complaints and allegations of police misconduct. The question is how to structure it.... I am a believer in the need for radical re form, which some would call revolution, and that is not a word that I use lightly. I think it is time for a fundamental, sweeping change in the way that we think about who we are, who we're here to serve, and what we do. For me that means getting out in to the community, talking about community policing and massive community organization and mobilization. I'll take the risk of helping to raise expectations, knowing that if they are not met that the crash, the fall, can be quite damaging. I don't think we have a choice. We have to believe that something can happen in this country. I think we have to believe that police officers and people in the community, including blind-and-loyal supporters, as well as critics and ideological adversaries, can actually find a way to make a difference at the neighborhood level. I believe that people are looking for a method that will allow us to put our best intentions to work. It's absolutely frightening in some neighborhoods to think about what community policing might really mean. Because for me it does mean direct citizen action. And it means a banding together of the disparate and different forces in the neighborhood and the community, all of whom are aligned under a desire for safety and civility and sanity on the streets. I don't care if you are from the far left or the christian right, or any other philosophical orientation, what matters to me is do you reject violence as a way of life. Do you want to make these streets safe for your children and yourself? If you do, let's find a way to work together. Leaders have to be living emblems of what they represent, what they stand for, what they believe in. I have worked very hard in my life to be able to stand in front of a group and say what is in my heart or in my head... I have to believe the same thing about beat cops and detectives, sergeants and captains, and people in the community. If we can create situations in which we can share our visions and not be embarrassed or ashamed of them, and raise expectations in that process, we damn well better get about that business.

Alternet interview with Stamper

Four steps forward, three steps back...

With the chief away, the underling will play, and that is exactly what Deputy Chief Andrew Pytlak has done. Whether it is using the chief's parking spot instead of his own, or rehearsing his role as the future head of the RPD, not a second has been wasted of the last two weeks...

You can have a conversation with people, in the community or from the department, about the future of the department and its next chief, without dropping names most notably Pytlak, quite successfully. Even though Chief Leach has not stepped down, it is already a done deal in City Hall about who will fill his shoes. Someone has spent the past year campaigning for the job very diligently even though no current job opening has officially been announced.

Bad news to the community which has watched and waited for the new, improved police department to emerge from its five-year stipulated judgement.

Bad news for those who were proponants of community orientated problem solving policing, over the older paramilitary style.


For one thing is clear, when it comes to policing, Pytlak is strictly by the book, the dusty worn out guidebook used for years by those in the "Old Guard".

Unpleasant fortune telling aside, it was a busy two-week whirlwind stint for the chief-in-training.

Thrown into his lap has been the strife which has shown itself in the city through a series of shootings, Pytlak appeared at a community meeting at Zacatecas, to present the police department's planned suppression plan. That the Eastside community caught between a rock and a hard place had agreed to enter into, through the Eastside Think Tank's leadership.

His suppression plan included a cop car on every corner, and a combined effort to crack down on the violence, by different divisions including Field Operations, Special Operations, Gang Intelligence and the Police and Corrections Team. The community leaders gave a collective nod, to everything that Ptylak suggested.

Except it turned out that Ptylak had not informed the Eastside Think Tank that there was yet another tool in its arsenal that would be put to use by the department. Not even Lt. Alex Tortes, who has been the area commander of that neighborhood for years.

Instead, it is councilmen Frank Schiavone and Steve Adams who drop this bombshell at the city council meeting on Aug. 9, with the cooperation of City Attorney, Gregory Priamos. The item was placed on the agenda under the emergency exemption of the Brown Act, the one reserved for natural disasters, riots and terrorist attacks.

What was the solution to what everyone can agree on, is a crisis?

SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS

Not just anywhere. Not downtown. Not at the bus terminal(a havin for drug dealers) but University Avenue. Not in Casa Blanca, which has also seen its share of shootings and death recently, which is within Schiavone's ward. It is an election year, and as someone dryly observed, Schiavone would get hung if he tried to push that over there.

Schiavone and Adams however pushed it on University Avenue, long a haven of sex workers, johns, drug dealers and as Chief Leach would put it at a public meeting, "too many pedestrians".

So the city council was about to pass an emergency action to put cameras on University Avenue, when there was no one from the Eastside which University splits in half, to respond on the issue, whether to agree, or disagree.

Several city residents balked, after getting over our initial shock and spoke, urging the council to put the issue to a public forum, in the involved communities. Fortunately, several city council members balked as well, and the body voted instead to create a broader action plan to address the most recent spree of violence within the city's limits. That plan will be put together by the city manager's office.

Pytlak was very disappointed in the vote, and as he stood with Lt. Robert Meier making fun of those who spoke against Schiavone and Adams' motion, he gave a fine example of the philosophy and professionalism he plans to bring to the department when he becomes its next chief.

After the meeting, I went home and after 10pm, when I walked around the block, I saw in the back, a squad car parked with no one inside it. On closer perusal, I saw a young bald White male officer slouched in his seat, so he could not be seen, perhaps taking a breather on a night where there's an officer on every corner in the Eastside neigbhorhood.


Eastside seige

The other alleged RPD pedophile back to work soon?

First of all, this is not a commentary on former RPD officer Adam Brown who plead guilty to federal charges in relation to his involvement and participation in a child molesation ring in Wisconsin.

Before Brown's outing as a pedophile by the FBI, there was former officer Vince Thomas who had been charged by the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office with 33 counts of "lewd behavior" with a teenage girl, who had been living in his home, over a threee year period. Thomas' case was tried twice, and both times the jury deadlocked after considerable time spent in deliberations.

After the second mistrial, the DA declined to retry Thomas, and dropped the charges. Thomas took that as a sign that it was time to go back to his old job as a Riverside Police Department officer.

Prosecutor Laura Robles remains convinced of his guilt, and expressed some concern about him returning back to his career as a police officer.

The status of Thomas's departure from the RPD has caused some controversy. His attorney Grover Porter said that Thomas had resigned before he could be fired by the department. Deputy Chief Andrew Pytlak said that Thomas had been fired and had planned to contest the department's decision through the arbitration process. Since the criminal case has reached its conclusion, Thomas is free to do just that.

Michael Gardner who chairs the CPRC, was asked his opinion on the matter for unknown reasons. A man of considerable understatement when it comes to questioning the integrity of a police officer, Gardner admitted there could be "some amount of community concern" if Thomas returned to work.

"In reality, it may not be fair if the guy is truly innocent," Gardner said. "If he's not, he probably shouldn't be a police officer anywhere."

So should be be an officer, or not?

It's a question the usual cast of talking heads can not or will not answer, because those who can provide those answers without fear are not usually placed in positions of leadership within this city. But for those who called me to tell me that they had allowed Thomas inside their homes to take police reports with their children in the vicinity, how could or would their fears be alleviated if Thomas returns to work? The truth is, they can not be lessened, simply because two juries were unable to reach a verdict in terms of whether or not Thomas had molested a teenage girl, whose care he was entrusted with as her legal guardian, according to civil court records.

A police officer's character and integrity must be beyond reproach. The standards they must adhere to, should be higher than those of civilians because of the powers they exercise and the responsibilities their positions require them to carry. Can anyone in the community look at Thomas, and not think that he may have molested a child, because while his guilt was not proven, his innocence was not either, and there are always some people on a jury who refuse to convict a police officer even if he clearly committed the crime in question. For some people, the mere idea that a police officer could commit so heinous a crime is too far outside the realm of possibility to even allow them to fairly deliberate on a criminal case where an officer has been accused of such a crime.

Thomas's integrity has been tainted, and that extends to his professional life, so he must never be allowed to return to work in the Riverside Police Department.




DA gives up on trying Officer Vince Thomas on molestation charges

It's Raining in the Bucket

More rain drops continue to fall in the bucket....known as Rivercity, even as the annual monsoons that blow through the county have left the city bone-dry.

There has been a recent upswing in shootings involving African-Americans and Latinos in the Eastside neighborhood, the magnitude of which are as bad as those that occurred in 2002. Remember back that year, when civic leaders and community members broke bread in the vacant lot adjacent to where 13 year old Anthony Sweat, a Black teenager, had died after being shot by Latino gang members? The city broke its promise to that community, plus nearly dropped the ball earlier this year when the fate of the city's only gang intervention program, Project Bridge, was on the chopping block once again. Project Bridge, a favorite bargaining chip, or pawn of both the city council and Police Chief Russ Leach could be one of the solutions to the remerging crisis of violence involving youth in one of Riverside's most economically depressed neighborhoods. Will it be allowed to fulfill its mission, or will it be bled dry and neglected by a city council backed by developers who sees the Eastside simply as an obstacle preventing two of the city's prime locales, Downtown and the University areas, from realizing their full potential as tax revenue generators. Is it true instead that the Eastside neighborhood, populated increasingly by Latinos, less so by African-Americans, is being allowed to die on the vine economically and spiritually, so that the city's redevelopment agency(aka the City Council) can come along and pick up the property cheap, or grab it through eminient domain, citing the ongoing problems with "blight" in the neighborhood?

The police department will throw more men at the problem, and likely at some point, the METRO/SWAT team will revisit the area, but in the long term, will things change or merely set up for the next round of an ongoing situation which has stretched out over 15 years, since the "tough on gang violence" laws catalzed a metamorphis inside the street gangs which has caused them to become mirror images of the gangs operating inside the state prisons that according to the police department, are calling the shots(pun intended) in the Eastside.

Time to revisit the adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, certainly it is worth much more than a bad one. Not to mention the adage that all children matter in this world, not just the White middle-class ones.

Project Bridge on the crossroads

Community steps up to save Project Bridge
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The CPRC just received the first excessive force case involving a stun gun in its five-year history. Members of an African-American family alleged that they were assaulted by four police officers, and that one of them, a woman was tased in the breasts twice by Officer Rod Anthony W. Fletcher. According to that woman, Fletcher had held her in a chokehold earlier, telling her he was going to put her to sleep now. Then he had told a civilian to get his taser from the squad car. That civilian ironically, was on criminal probation, while none of the members of the family were, although the fact that the young man was a son of a states corrections official no doubt more than balanced that factor out. The other officers allegedly involved to varying degrees were Sancho Lopez, Nicholas Vasquez, Robert Olsen and Sgt. Patrick M. McCarthy.

Attempts to receive copies of the officers' reports were met with a long wait in the lobby of the Orange St. Station and two different excuses as to why only an abbreviated version of ONE report would be available. One civilian employee said that only the first page of a police report was public information, while a case was "open". Her supervisors said that the officers had not completed their reports yet.
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Former police officer and convicted child molester Adam Brown is back in the local news again, not too long after he plead guilty to federal charges in relation to his involvement in a child molestation and porn ring in the Midwest....


From the Los Angeles Times

IN BRIEF: THE REGION / RIVERSIDE
D.A. Wants Ex-Officer to Face Sex Abuse Charges
From Times Staff and Wire Reports


The Riverside County district attorney will seek to extradite a former Riverside police officer sentenced Friday in Wisconsin to more than 30 years in federal prison for his involvement in a nationwide child pornography ring.

Adam James Brown, 32, pleaded guilty in March to charges of traveling across state lines with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor and producing pornography.

Investigators said Brown also molested four Riverside County boys under the age of 12 during his time as a police officer, leading to a 65-count case.
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Det. Joe Miera, from the gang unit testified recently in a criminal trial involving a man charged with a possession of a gun while a felon. Apparently, this means that the pesky internal investigation that was done involving him, by the Internal Affairs Division, is a thing of the past. Let's hope if that is true, it is for the right reasons, not for the sake of expedience or the wrong reasons.

The news is not as good for the pack of patrol officers who were investigated by the same division for undisclosed violations. Apparently, when that investigation is concluded, Leach will make some sort of announcement about the situation.