City Council: Talking while elderly

The intrigue surrounding the placement of the Colton Police Department's police chief on administrative leave continued.


Cassie MacDuff, a Press Enterprise columnist writes about it here, providing an outline of recent events leading up to the controversial decision to place Chief Ken Rulon on leave, while an investigation into allegations of misconduct is ongoing.

Those allegations were listed in an anonymous letter that was sent to the Colton City Council. Rulon also faces a law suit filed by four officers who alleged that they were denied promotions and experienced retaliation against them.



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Rulon won't comment, referring calls to his lawyers.

Randal Quan, a lawyer representing Rulon on administrative action the city takes against him, said his client's reputation has been sullied by being removed from office.

"To suffer such embarrassment, as far as I'm concerned, is intentional infliction of emotional distress," Quan said.


There were also allegations that the law suit filed by these officers was in retaliation for discipline given to officers and that Rulon was being punished by Colton's city manager for reporting the conduct of a former city councilman, Ramon Hernandez to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office. But then Colton has had several corruption scandals involving its elected officials including charges against four previous council members for accepting bribes on development deals that it's hard to see how the problems involving yet another one would raise an eyebrow in that city. Still, tit for tat, is not a strategy that goes totally unused by elected officials throughout the Inland Empire.

More coverage of the situation in Colton can be read in this article published by the Los Angeles Times.

It will be interesting to see if this situation will be the straw that breaks the camel's back in a city that is pretty thick with wrongdoing conducted by its elected officials. Has there been wrongdoing also conducted by its employees, be it Rulon or City Manager Daryl Parrish? Has the relationships between the city council and its city manager, and the city manager and his police chief been compromised and if so which of the two?

If the police chief is suspected of misconduct of any form, then it's the city manager who must act, but if the city manager is acting on behalf of his boss, the city council, is it for reasons that are honest and promoting accountability of his department heads, or is it for retaliatory purposes under direction of his employees, the city council?

There are already so many circumstances in this case as there is with the history of Colton to be concerned about, in terms that due process and an honest redress of grievances will be followed involving Rulon, Parrish but also those in the department who made allegations against Rulon. The residents of Colton should demand no less.

Is a city manager beholden to the city council or the truth? And what's to be done if the two come into conflict which may be the case here.

Meanwhile, the discussion continues on the Press Enterprise's letter page about the expulsion of four city residents from a Feb. 27 city council meeting in Riverside. On that day, Councilman Frank Schiavone had invited speakers to provide evidence that the city had ever taken single-family residences through eminent domain. Justin Tracy who was expelled wrote a letter about the incident, and what individuals are already calling the new quartet on the city council. This quartet called BASS, which is Ed Adkison, Dom Betro, Steve Adams and now Schiavone has become increasingly displeased with what city residents have been saying at the city council in recent months especially pertaining to the thorny issues of development, redevelopment and eminent domain.


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Schiavone asked whether anyone in the audience knew of any home that the city had taken by eminent domain. This question was poor judgment on his part, if, in fact, he really did not want anyone to respond.

What caused me to stand and speak to the council on my way out of the chamber was the rudeness of Adkison declaring Marjorie von Pohle out of order and requesting a police officer to have her removed.



Van Pohle is 90 years old and is what Tracy called, a "matriarch". In fact, she has her own seat in the city council chambers with a plaque honoring her commitment to attending meetings, awarded to her by a city council from a different era.

She told the two officers who came down to escort her out that they would have to carry her. Ultimately, the city council allowed her to remain in the chambers. Van Pohle wouldn't be the first elderly woman that the city council had ordered police officers to escort from the chambers.

Last year, Adkison yelled "point of order" and ask the police officer to escort another elderly woman from the podium because she had exceeded the three-minute limit rule. The police officer did but looked extremely embarrassed to be doing so. What was the woman speaking on that led her to go over her time limit? She actually lived outside the city limits by a few feet and a pipe belonging to the city had ruptured, flooding her property. She just didn't know what to do about it so she came down to City Hall to address the city council about it. Since she wasn't actually from Riverside and had never attended a meeting, she didn't know about the speaking rules.

Chances are, she'll never be back even if the city causes some other damage to her house.

The compassionate and prudent thing for the city council to have done was to tell her to talk to the relevant city employee about it and then designate that city employee to talk to her, as it has done in other occasions. But this city council, at least these four members of it, are behaving in a fashion which is too emotional and egocentric at the moment to be prudent, let alone compassionate.

Contrast the behavior of these four with the conduct of their colleagues, Andrew Melendrez, Art Gage and Nancy Hart who have not engaged in this behavior. One of them, Melendrez, also cast the sole nay vote against a proposal by Mayor Ron Loveridge to allow the governmental affairs committee to push for more restrictions on the code of conduct. Gage has also promised to vote against any restrictions that come back from that committee as he has in the past.

And who is on the governmental affairs committee? Three out of the four members of this new quartet that has decided it doesn't want to listen to any complaints the city residents have about the development projects in this city, even those that violate voter-approved growth control laws. It's interesting to notice that two of the members of BASS and the governmental affairs committee have already endorsed their fellow member, Betro in his upcoming election.

Salvador Santana also wrote a letter on the issue which was published.


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What has been taking place lately at the Riverside City Council meetings, where disturbances have affected the normal procedures?

There are existing rules and a code of ethics proclaimed in council resolutions 21247 and 20987 that regulate and determine how the business of government must function in an efficient and orderly fashion. Such provisions apply to the public and to officials as well. There have been infractions from both sides during recent City Council meetings.


Santana had been nearly escorted from the podium by the police after Adkison yelled "out of order" at him and ordered a police officer to escort him away for talking on a subject not under the city's jurisdiction. Santana had been talking about the national elections.

The city council has also been sending out letters through registered mail to an increasing number of people for violating the conduct code and the letters state that if they do it again, they may be arrested. The letters are signed by City Attorney Gregory Priamos so the individual never learns which elected official made the complaint since in most cases, it's probably not the entire city council advocating that the letters be sent. Most likely, it's the same people who are yelling, "out of order" each time they get criticized.

After the expulsions, Yolanda Garland and Van Pohle received "repeat offender" letters, this time through the regular mail from Priamos.

The particular use of "out of order" which is most currently favored by city council members is applied under a section of the conduct code which prohibits addressing city council members individually during a speech, but it's not uniformly enforced. For example, if you praise a city council individually, you probably won't be interrupted by an "out of order" retort, but you will if you are criticizing that elected official and that indeed has been the case. This provision of the code of conduct is unconstitutional, both on its face and in its selective enforcement.

In a recent Press Enterprise article, Councilwoman Nancy Hart said the city council members should calm down and not let themselves be undone by two or three people living in a city of 300,000.




And speaking of the city council, one of the items under the closed session's agenda for next week was the discussion of the personnel grievance arbitration of two police officers, Emilio Angulo and Juan Munoz. Arbitration is the process used by the city to protest decisions or resolve disputes between the city's employees and their employers just as it's also used in other cities and counties. The city council will be receiving legal counsel from its attorneys to determine how to proceed with this matter.

Agenda #10-Emilio Angulo and Juan Munoz v the City of Riverside

Reviews and recommendations

A recent series of officer-involved shootings in Eureka, California has its neighbor, Arcata considering the issue of civilian review according to an article published by the Arcata Eye.


Police reviewer addresses ACLU


Barbara Attard, who is currently the auditor of internal investigations in San Jose spoke to local supporters of civilian review in Humboldt County including members of the local chapter of the ACLU. She told them that although it was difficult to set up review boards, ultimately they proved to be good for both communities and police departments.


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The audience, made up mostly of members of the event’s sponsors, the Coalition for Police Review and the local ACLU chapter, was told that civilian oversight is hard-won. “I know it’s hard, I’ve been working in this business for 25 years and it’s difficult for the politicians to take a stand, to say, ‘there should be civilian oversight’ or ‘these policies should be changed,’” said Attard, adding that police have leverage due to the nature of their work and government leaders don’t want to test it.

“They and all of the communities that they represent depend on the police and they don’t want to – for lack of better words – they don’t want to piss off the police department, they want them on their side,” said Attard. “So political will is important.”



The local government in Arcata has objected to the creation of a civilian review board saying that the general law structure of the city forbid it. However, the city's general plan includes a recommendation to implement civilian review.

Attard told the audience that there were ways to address those issues successfully and many at the meeting seemed to take action at bringing their vision of civilian oversight to reality.

Eureka's residents are also interested in implementing civilian review in the wake of three fatal shootings in eight months in a city of about 30,000 people. Several grass-roots organizations are actively working towards those ends.


Eureka's fatal police shootings:


Cheri Moore

Christopher Burgess

Jonni Kyoshi Honda





Colton Police Department chief Ken Rulon was placed on administrative leave while being investigated for threatening officers who worked for him and breaking rules, according to the Press Enterprise. The investigation began after city officials began receiving anonymous letters containing the allegations. Apparently, the mail system is the method of communication in the Colton Police Department and not the fax machine which is the tool of choice by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department when it comes to alleging misconduct.


Colton police chief accused


But Rulon's lawyer said that his client was not guilty of anything.



His attorney, Randal K. Quan, of Los Angeles, said he is disappointed with Parrish's decision to put Rulon on leave before the investigation is complete.

"We believe this is a political tactic to sully the reputation of Chief Rulon and to put the city manager in a better light when in fact he should be the one investigated," Quan said.


That would be Daryl Parrish, who had been upset when Rulon had gone to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office with information that Councilman Ramon Hernandez had made unauthorized charges on his city-issued credit card. Hernandez was charged with 24 counts of misusing public funds, but has plead not guilty.

The city promises that the "review" of Rulon will be done swiftly, but the only way a situation like this one can be resolved quickly is if the job isn't done correctly and it's just about burying problems underneath the carpet. So it remains to be seen whether this will be an investigation looking into allegations of serious misconduct and misuse of one's position or whether it's an ongoing power play between a police chief and his boss who was trying to protect one of his bosses, or in the worst of all possible worlds, both.

The dynamics of city councils, city managers, police chiefs all the way down the hierarchy has attracted a lot of attention and interest in several different cities in both Riverside and San Bernardino County. In Riverside, the city council seemed more intent on trying to micromanage former city manager, George Carvalho, even though there's an amendment in the city charter that prohibits what is defined as administrative interference.

Yet, this city council appears to have a hands off approach with current city manager, Brad Hudson, arguing against, yes, administrative interference. Even when concerns have been raised about the firings, demotions and resignations of Black and Latino employees in management positions at City Hall, and the influx of replacements from the employment ranks in Riverside County that are handpicked by Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis. DeSantis himself was handpicked by Hudson to replace one of the departing Black employees who had been an interim city manager who after DeSantis' hiring was demoted to serve a short stint as the city's budget director.

Even when labor negotiations with the city's six unions during the contract process were the most contentious they had been in recent history. Even when the city manager launched a "Riverside Renaissance" project which involves the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars from one account or fund to another so quickly, your eyes will get too dizzy to keep up and the city appears to have little intention of ensuring that its labor force grows with the population of this city. Even then, few questions appear to be asked by those sitting on the dais, probably because their eyes are so wide with the promises of what Hudson can give them through his plan for the renaissance.

Several cities in Riverside County have recently fired and hired new city managers. Several cities in San Bernardino County including Rialto and San Bernardino have replaced police chiefs. There's a lot of turmoil going on in the Inland Empire.



The county of San Diego has finally found a replacement for its outgoing executive officer of its civilian review board, according to a press release from that office. John Parker retired this month, necessitating the search. For those who are familiar with Parker, they will remember that he appeared before the committee that was set up in Riverside to evaluate different forms of civilian review mechanisms. That committee came out of a recommendation given by the Mayor's Use of Force Panel.



NEW EXECUTIVE OFFICER NAMED FOR CLERBS

An Diego attorney Carol A. Trujillo has been selected as the executive officer of the County of San Diego's Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board.Ms. Trujillo, a 1992 graduate of the University of Arizona College of Law,has worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the General Crimes Section of theUnited States Attorney's Office, Southern District of California. She also has served as the Council Liaison, Equal Employment Opportunity Manager, and Assistant to the Chief of Police at the San Diego Police Department under Police Chief R. David Bejarano and Interim Police Chief John Welter.

As a Deputy City Attorney for the San Diego City Attorney's Office, she was a prosecutor in the Neighborhood Prosecution Unit and a police legal advisor in the Employment Services Unit. Ms. Trujillo also holds a master's degree injournalism and worked as a general assignment reporter for The Dallas MorningNews and a sports copy editor and reporter for The Arizona Daily Star. Sheand her husband reside in Ramona. Their daughter will graduate in May 2007 from San Diego Christian College, and their son, a Navy corpsman, will deploy to Kuwait in March 2007.

Ms. Trujillo replaces John Parker, a nationally recognized authority in law enforcement oversight, who will retire on March15, 2007, after serving 10 years as the Board's executive officer.


Katie Greene wrote a really good letter that was published in the Press Enterprise here. She laid the blame for the recent expulsions of four community members from the city council chambers on the elected officials. After talking with many people including those who witnessed what transpired on Feb. 27, I discovered that every person agreed with Greene's viewpoint on the situation.


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I admonished the mayor that if 90-year-old Marjorie von Pohle ever were dragged out of chamber by the Riverside Police Department that I would go out, flailing, with her. The mayor assured us that no such thing would ever happen.


Greene is a member of the Group, which is an organization of African-American women that addresses issues in the city including those at City Hall.



Councilman Ed Adkison's response


Here's the final paragraph from Adkison's letter, which I actually agree with what he said.


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Each council member is elected every four years, and this year four City Council seats are up for election. I suspect "Replacing City Hall" should begin with a pledge by council candidates to represent all the people and not just a few.



I wonder if Adkison would believe that elected officials are supposed to represent all of their elected constitutents and not just the few who are development firms from Orange County. Marjorie Van Pohle, Yolanda Garland and others are speaking up for those in this city who oppose uncontrolled development that doesn't leave room for the city's infrastructure to keep up and that is done while circumventing voter-approved growth control laws including measures C and R.

The city council strikes back, part three

Doug Haberman of the Press Enterprise wrote a brief about the city council's decision to post additional police officers at the city council meetings. He sees it as providing extra security to counter the recent incidents of people "speaking out of turn" at recent meetings.


Additional police stationed at city council meetings


Yolanda Garland, who is one of those women, called it differently at last night's city council meeting. She said that the city council had been ordering the police officers assigned to the chambers to eject elderly women.

One of those women was Marjorie Van Poule who is 90 years old. Van Poule and Garland received a second round of letters from City Attorney Gregory Priamos telling them they were "repeat offenders" of the code of conduct rules when they had disrupted the city council meeting. Only as usual, the letters didn't explain how they were disruptive.

Garland was allegedly disruptive first for trying to give a speech in a calm, even tone about how the ethics complaint process which handled the complaint recently filed against Councilman Dom Betro was a "kangaroo court". Right after she said those two words, Betro yelled out of order after Councilman Ed Adkison chimed in, the meeting was shut down so the city council could confer with Priamos in the conference room, not exactly in accordance with the Brown Act's rules about closed sessions. The meeting soon resumed and Garland was able to pick up where she left off.

During the afternoon session in question on Feb. 21, Garland walked to the podium to respond to Councilman Frank Schiavone's challenge to name a single-home property that had been seized by the city through eminent domain. She barely got one word out before Adkison who was holding the newly purchased gavel as the mayor pro tem of the moment, yelled out those trendy words, "out of order". The police were then ordered to "escort" Garland, Van Poule and two other people, but they did not arrest them and credit for that on their end was given to Deputy Chief Dave Dominguez.

So in response to all this, Councilman Steve Adams followed by Mayor Ron Loveridge decided to move the issue to the governmental affairs committee which is heavily stacked by councilmen who are most in favor of placing more restrictions on public comment. After all, Loveridge would not send it to that committee in a way that would cause him to look ineffective in public, so it's likely that the proposed changes have the votes needed to pass and be placed in effect.

More restrictions have been included in Loveridge's report for proposed Code of Conduct changes, including plans to split public comment by limiting comments at the beginning of the meeting to items on the consent calendar and placing public comment on all other topics at the end of the meeting.

His reason for doing this is clearly stated in his report. It was intended to "lessen their use to advance highly personalized and political platforms." For one thing, during an election year, it's only the incumbents who can use their positions on the dais to advance their political platforms, and it appears that they've been advancing some highly personalized platforms of their own.

Loveridge also added that public comments cut into the time of the very valued discussion calendar. Yes indeed, this calendar of items is so important, the list of items on it has gotten much, much smaller since the city council passed restrictions on July 12, 2005 to bar city residents from pulling items from the consent calendar. So that explanation doesn't hold much water although both mayors have been bumping public comment further and further down the agenda in recent weeks. Most of the items these days that wind up on the discussion calendar are actually presentations of reports and updates on earlier reports which don't foster much deliberation and discussion among the city council or mayor.


Councilman Art Gage who has voted against similar measures in the past said he planned to do so this time as well. He added that he didn't think it had the votes to pass because several council members had told the mayor not to take it back to the governmental affairs committee for review. When this came forward, it was Councilman Andrew Melendrez who stepped up to the plate and cast the sole nay vote. Afterwards, Betro and Adkison ran up to the mayor to talk to him and it would be interesting to know how that conversation went and what was said.

So once again, the conduct code is off to governmental affairs, a stacked process if there ever was one. The only reason community members should attend that meeting is to watch a discussion take place among elected officials who already have their minds up.


The mayor did helpfully add in his report that the willingness to stay for the entire meeting is a litmus test for how dedicated you are to the issues that you are speaking on, but he's a guy and he's got a car and for women, that answer may be a different one.


Speaking of which, one woman walked home from a public meeting at night having missed the last bus(which for most bus lines, leaves at about 7:30 pm) and was heading down University Avenue where a man in a car followed her which frightened her. Then the man parked his car and walked up to her and asked her if she would come off with him for $500 to do bondage. Her instincts told her that he was bad news and that he intended her harm as well as a man parked nearby in another car. What she did say, was how frightened she was and this woman doesn't scare easily.

She did report it to a police officer and from what I've heard, they thought it was a funny story and when it got back to her on the rumor mill, her feelings were hurt and she felt violated, twice. She believed it had been a waste of time to report the incident to the police, when the reality is that the officer she spoke with obviously wasn't grown up enough to take what she said and her fear about it seriously. Because the only thing that joking about these incidents reveals about a person is that they are still operating at a junior high school level, which is very unfortunate considering that police officers are entrusted to take reports on this type of behavior.

It's probably a good bet that she won't report an incident like that if it happens again. She's just been given a lesson on why it's important not to. It's hard to see that as being a good thing.

Boys will be boys and this is yet another reason to have more women in law enforcement because men do not get these things at all and they probably never will the same way that women understand, since most women have stories just like this one. And yes, more than a few of us have encountered male police officers who appear to think these incidents are funny.

But I always remember the words of one male police officer who did not.

He was a veteran officer with the University of California, Riverside Police Department who I filed a report with several years ago, involving a man who followed me in a car trying to get my attention. At first he did by trying to act like he was lost and needed directions, so I looked his way and he exposed himself. I reported him to UCR's police department since it happened near UCR and it's not the type of thing that women feel comfortable reporting to police officers especially when hmm, you are asked to describe certain body parts that are usually covered with clothes. But this officer put me at ease and after I had the difficult conversation involved with reporting the incident, he thanked me and said he knew it was not an easy thing to do, but that it was critical for women to report these incidents because very often, this type of behavior evolved into those which were more serious crimes. That's the type of police officer that every women should be able to report an incident like this to.

His words have been echoed by other veteran police officers, male and female, who know better. The only advice I can give women in this situation is to keep reporting it until you encounter one of these individuals, because what you report may protect a woman or even save the life of one down the line.

In Riverside if you're a pedestrian, it's hard to get through a month without running into this behavior. It's impossible to go down University Avenue without being propositioned or asked to get in a car, for "a date" or to help them out and it's been like that for years. And in the past year, that behavior has spread out to neighboring streets like Magnolia, 14th Street, Chicago and so forth. You can be propositioned on Seventh Street, across the street from Longfellow Elementary School or near Starbucks in the University area. Now, however men are driving around propositioning women on Jurupa and Magnolia and even near the new Magnolia Plaza mall.

Just being a woman walking down the street is enough. And for many women in the Eastside especially in recent months, this experience has become more common in the past year especially in different areas of the city outside of University Avenue. Several "sting" operations conducted in the area reduced the number of what were referred to as professional prostitutes in the area, but did little to address the behavior of their customers. Or maybe they did and these men are just driving around the city of Riverside in a really confused state. They've been coming down here from as far away as Oregon and Arizona, as some women have noted.

Chief Russ Leach told individuals at several forums that the police department would crack down on the johns that hung out in the University corridor. The city would paint the curbs red and they would publish names and photographs of men arrested for soliciting prostitutes. But the only photograph that ever appeared of a "john" in the Press Enterprise was photographed from the waist down and ironically, the photograph of the undercover female officer who was posing as a prostitute revealed more of whom that person might be.

When you report incidents like the above to some male police officers, they say different things like one male officer told me that there was nothing they could do, because it was a free country and men were deviant creatures who can't control themselves and I should know that. Or they do what happened to the woman above, they treat it like a joke.

Not all male police officers treat women who report these incidents this way. Some are very concerned and obviously educated on the issue so they don't need to hide their ignorance with an attitude that comes across as not taking it seriously or worse, treating it as something to laugh about with their buddies later on. Of course, you also have to examine the larger issues of how male officers view women in general. When they go out and interface with the public in their uniforms and driving their squad cars which identify the agencies they work for, do they treat women courteously and with respect, or do they tell them sexist jokes or do as one officer did to one woman working at a local business which is to ask them if they do oral sex in their home country or they tell graphic sexual jokes. It's probably a good bet that individuals who behave in this manner aren't going to take these situations seriously but it's an even better bet that a woman is going to approach or contact an officer who behaves like this to report an experience that happened to her and hope to be taken seriously.

The additional value of evaluating how police officers respond to these reports is that it gives you some insight into the department's overall culture involving women and also race, as many women who experience this are women of color.

The problem isn't that men are deviant creatures, it's that many police officers in different agencies aren't educated on how to handle these issues which combined with their own issues with sexism cause them to resort to making comments such as these ones. Sometimes people joke about what they find funny. Other times they joke about what makes them uncomfortable. Maybe both are factors in situations like these.

These officers are uncomfortable because they haven't been educated on these types of situations and how to handle them, let alone the relationships between what they may see as innocuous even funny incidents like these ones and more serious criminal offenses. Unlike their female counterparts, they might not have personal experiences to draw upon.

However, if that's the case, here's something that might be helpful.

When a woman tells you of a situation like this, just imagine that it's your mother, sister, wife, girlfriend or daughter that is telling the same story and tailor your response accordingly.

Perhaps some of these officers who are having difficulty should go to the same school that the UCR police department officer attended. Oh wait, they did so perhaps there is some other difference.

Perhaps they should hear the story of a young woman I knew who was accosted by two men in another city, including one on the street, the other inside a car. If it weren't for a female teacher who saw what was going on, she might have gotten inside that car, which would have been a bad thing given that the men were Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Bueno.

For those who are unfamiliar with these two men, you can google them and what you find probably won't do much in terms of providing something to laugh about.

Does anyone know what time it is?

Does anyone in the city know what anniversary it is today?


If you ask that question of the Riverside City Council, its members may shake their heads and crinkle their foreheads in confusion. Think, not too hard, but at least a little bit and see if you or they can remember.

For anyone who is trying to figure out what in the blazes I'm writing about, here is a collection of links to keep you occupied in the meantime.

Oh, and there's a hint at the bottom of the page.




The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has filed charges against Los Angeles Police Department officer Sean Meade for assaulting a teenager in an interrogation room and also for writing a false report about the incident.


Officer charged in teen beating


A surveillance video camera captured Meade choking and hitting the 16-year-old Latino who had been arrested for a curfew violation, while he was handcuffed. That camera had allegedly been set up to help the department determine who had been vandalizing furniture in that area, but it caught alleged criminal behavior of another form instead.

There is no shortage of camcorders in Los Angeles as the police department in that city is well aware of by now, but it's unusual for one of the department's own cameras to catch an officer committing an assault under the color of authority. So if you're an LAPD officer with a person in your custody at a station, be on your best behavior because you just never know where a camera may be watching.





Atlanta, Georgia will be getting its civilian review board, after the city council voted 14-0 to approve it, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


City council approves civilian review board


The outcry for civilian review in Atlanta began after the fatal officer-involved shooting of Kathryn Johnston. Three police officers have been told by a county prosecutor to expect to be indicted for murder in that incident. Eight officers in total have been placed on administrative leave.

The process of selecting commissioners is that roughly half of them will be representing community organizations, the other half will be appointed by city officials. The reason, was because community members did not trust the ability of their elected officials to be responsible for all the commission appointments. In fact, several new positions were added to lessen the influence of the individuals who had been selected by city officials.

And yes, the local police union has already threatened to file a law suit against the fledgling body before it even gets out of the gate. But then that's not really news anymore.



And it's decisions like the following that make risk management divisions of cities nervous. A study done has shown that some states put untrained officers onduty . About 30 states allow law enforcement officers to work without having received little or any training.

Fortunately, California isn't one of them. But that just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, only in some of those states that put neophytes onduty, there really isn't much of a waiting period.



The Arizona Republic has been publishing a series of articles on tasers and their usage, including this one that lists every fatality that's occurred after a taser has been used and there has been 167 total within eight years . Coroners have exonerated tasers in 35 of those cases, but for 27 of these deaths, the taser was at least partly to blame or its role could not be ruled out. The newspaper is still awaiting coroner reports in at least 50 cases.



Taser worries have sprung up elsewhere including in Howard County, Maryland, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Taser policy sparks worry


Two elected officials wanted the policy in place to be tightened amidst concerns about several recent deaths involving individuals who had been tased.

Councilwoman Courtney Watson wanted the county's policy on tasers to more clearly mirror the policy recommended by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and asked why there were no restrictions in place regarding the use of tasers on minors and the multiple tasings of individuals.

Police Chief William J. McMahon compared the current taser policy to how the FDA handles the issue of approving new legal drugs.


(excerpt)


"The FDA rarely approves a drug that has no risks," McMahon said. "They approve drugs when the risks are far outweighed by the potential benefits."


And often drugs that have already been approved by the FDA are held up to further examination and scrutiny if any deaths or injuries are associated with their usage. This is one example of a similar process being followed here.



In Houston, Texas, state legislators are considering the passage of bills that would limit taser use, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Checks sought on use of stun guns

One bill would impose a one year moratorium on the use of tasers by law enforcement officers, while the state legislation came up with guidelines governing their use.

Rep. Garnet Coleman is one sponsor of a bill directed at tasers.


(excerpt)


"We need a one-year moratorium on Tasers to ensure the public safety of our citizens," Coleman said. "At times, Tasers have been used improperly by law enforcement officers to subdue individuals who do not pose a serious danger to themselves or others, including the mentally ill."

Provisions in the bills include the following.

(excerpt)


His bills would require police agencies to develop a Taser use policy and to report all Taser incidents; direct the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education to create a statewide Taser training program; prohibit private citizens from carrying stun guns without training and a license; and require medical exams and treatment, if necessary, for Taser victims.




This news just in on the political front in Riverside. Councilman Dom Betro has been endorsed by four city council members and Mayor Ron Loveridge. The council members are Ed Adkison, Frank Schiavone, Nancy Hart and Andrew Melendrez.

The Riverside Firefighers' Association is also endorsing Betro in the upcoming election. Whether other labor unions in the city will follow remains to be seen, as the election season is still quite young.

Information on Betro's upcoming fundraiser can be found here.

There they go in the starting gate

Whoo Hoo!

It's an election season for those living in the odd-numbered wards and for those out there who are hoping to remold and reshape this recalcitrant city council in one direction or another. The rest of the city can sit back and watch what transpires in what is expected to be a series of intense competitions which will result in the crowning of four council members by next November at the latest.

If some producer could come up with a reality show involving politicians and elections, it would probably beat out American Idol.

The following are just to start things going in this new election season with potential match ups.


Will it be Dom Betro v Michael Gardner?


A settled incumbent versus the upstart riding off a successful campaign to push Betro to go retro to save a community park.


What about Art Gage v Rusty Bailey?


A seasoned politician with higher ambitions going against a neophyte who already had the backing of most of the other people sitting on the dais before even pulling his papers. Ouch.


Steve Adams v Steve Adams?

Adams, the aspiring city council incumbent will face off against Adams, the aspiring assemblyman. Whoever wins this battle will probably have a doozy of a battle with former mayor, Terry Frizzel. Just imagining the debate forums involving these two, three candidates is exciting. Bring it on!

Betro v Gage

Oh wait, that's next year, but it seems they've already gotten started.

With not much time left to file papers, the candidates are beginning to show up and the races are beginning to shape up in each ward for the upcoming election on June 5 which will be conducted solely through mail in ballots. If there's no selection that day, then the candidates who receive the most votes will face off again on Nov. 6 at the polls.

At stake are four city council seats including one that is wide open in the fifth ward after incumbent Ed Adkison declined to seek a third term.

What may also be shaping up is the 2008 mayor's race, as two councilmen, Dom Betro and Art Gage were quoted in a recent issue of Inland Empire Magazine as being interested in tossing their hats into that ring. These two elected officials have been engaging in a tit for tat of sorts since the beginning of this year, perhaps in the hope that if one of them doesn't win reelection, then that will dampen his ambitions of going for the big prize next year.

Still, this is iffy given that the current mayor still hasn't officially said or stated that he's retiring from the position that he's held since 1994. After all, when everyone has been so sure he would finally step down, he has decided that there's still so much left for him to accomplish that he just had to throw his hat in the ring again for the good of the city. Not that he's unopposed as the mayor's elections are often the most interesting to follow.

Word is that several other city council members think he's too soft on community members when they come to speak before the city council and they want someone who will run a much tougher floor, in the manner that Adkison ran it during last week's infamous afternoon session. If this is true, it's coming from those who are probably in Betro's corner given his behavior in recent weeks.

Some people including supporters claim that Betro is for free speech at city council meetings, but they have short or selective memories. After all, it was Betro who on July 12, 2005 proposed the motion that favored placing restrictions on speakers at city council meetings. This proposal included banning community members from pulling items from the consent calendar. It was seconded by Councilman Steve Adams and passed 6-1 with Gage casting the sole dissenting votes. The area of free speech is one of the few where Gage has strayed from the city council's usual consensus votes.

Not that other city council members are huge fans of free speech and expression unless it's people coming to the dais to praise them. Frank Schiavone was the latest councilman to complain that he was sick and tired of well being sick and tired of the complaints at the dais before the expulsions began last week. His diatribe followed several others given by other councilmen in recent weeks. They should take their complaints to whomever it was that told them that being an elected official would always be fun and chastise them for false advertising. It's a tough road to travel most of the time and all aspiring politicians should know that going in.

What transpired last week was disappointing behavior out of Schiavone who tries to keep himself to a higher standard of behavior, but it's something that's been going around as of late.

Whining about the downside of being an elected official is the latest thing and it's apparently not going away any time soon. Not even an election can change that, but it can make things interesting especially when all the candidates begin selling to the public, why they are the best people for the job.

Councilwoman Nancy Hart has a simple solution to all this as she told Marjorie Van Poule and other members of the Friday Morning Club months ago. If Hart doesn't agree with the speaker's viewpoint on an issue, she simply stops listening to him or her.

The drama on the dais extends beyond how much speech is too much speech.

Earlier this year, four councilmen joined later by Mayor Ron Loveridge turned on Gage, claiming in a Press Enterprise article that Gage had acted inappropriately when his campaign manager Richard Paul had received city funding to produce television programs including one that starred Gage and aired just before the city council meetings. They also claimed that Gage had leaked confidential information to city residents, most notably about proposed legislation involving animal ownership. Gage denied these allegations and none of his accusers provided any evidence of wrongdoing on Gage's part.

Paul came to a meeting several weeks later and began talking about how he had been visited by FBI agents, but that they had been there to investigate Betro, not him. He also didn't have any proof to back up his allegations. Paul was able to finish his comments unlike community activist Yolanda Garland who has had her speeches interrupted by councilmen including Betro several times in recent weeks. Maybe it's a guy thing.

It's not clear where the next volley will come from as it's been quiet in both camps in recent weeks. One good guess would be that perhaps Loveridge is again rethinking his decision not to run again.


Betro had been one of the heroes who had voted against the firing of former city manager, George Carvalho in 2004, but he hadn't been in office very long at that point. Being brash and bold is what happens in the first year, before you settle down and begin to blend in with the power structure, which is evolving towards a voting bloc more and more in the hands of development firms backing a proposed "Riverside Renaissance" which in actuality, is a house of cards.

Nearly three years after the firing of Carvalho which had probably been done to clear the path for current city manager, Brad Hudson, many people feel like they are looking and listening to someone else. Someone who is still very tied to his core supporters who are mainly the White affluent homeowners and business owners of the downtown area of his ward but is alienated from an increasing number of individuals who initially supported him. His support in the Wood streets as well as the portion of the University neighborhood which falls within his ward is much more shaky than it had been in previous years. If he remembered who he was, that might help.

We hardly ever knew Betro and all I can say is that he's a cautionary note for getting involved in "grass-roots" campaigns. The "old" Betro is probably still in there somewhere underneath the more arrogant and insecure one, but at this point, you will have to dig fairly deep to find it. The "old" Betro used to be feisty and sometimes fearless, and a good listener, but that's changed probably since the developers began knocking his door down as he said at a community meeting last autumn. He commented then that his "allies" had stopped calling him about issues without seeing the obvious connection between the two situations.

His "allies" are finding it harder and harder to even address the city council these days. A proposal to send the code of conduct rules back to the heavily stacked governmental affairs committee will make that even harder, if what Hudson has told several individuals is indeed true.

Last week, Adkison served as mayor pro tem for one meeting and ejected four community members including 90-year-old Marjorie Van Poule from the meeting, in what some witnesses called a team tag effort with Councilman Frank Schiavone during the afternoon session. That's a record it's not likely Mayor Ron Loveridge would ever beat but when taking into consideration the rest of the city council, it's still fairly soft. Apparently members of the city council were calling around town trying to get the four upstarts in the city council chambers at its afternoon session on Feb. 27 arrested and charged but struck out.

During that afternoon incident and its aftermath, it was actually the police officers onduty who showed the professionalism that the city council lacked. Det. William Rodriguez, Sgt. Phil Neglia and Deputy Chief Dave Dominguez were handed a difficult situation to them on a plate by a testy city council over an incident that began when one city councilman asked a question he didn't expect anyone in the audience to be able to answer, and they turned it into lemonade. Whether they will be commended or chastised remains to be seen.

Betro's noted silence on the CPRC has also raised questions in the community, if not among those in his inner circle. Not too long ago, when Gage called it a piece of junk or trash, the "old" Betro defended the body. But lately? Betro's been very quiet on the subject.

Formerly a vocal supporter, Betro appears reluctant these days to even whisper those words, because after all, there's still four days until the filing deadline for his ward and the Riverside Police Officers' Association could still slip in a candidate for this ward to run against him and back him with tens of thousands of dollars like that organization did in 2003 with Riverside County District Attorney's office employee Paul Fick.

Although it's clear that given the current competition in the first ward, if the RPOA doesn't back Betro, it will probably enter its own candidate or sit this ward out. As is usually the case with the developers, they're probably already lining up to submit campaign donations into Betro's coffer, if they are beating down his door the rest of the time. If that is the case, it won't be determined until the early returns of the campaign fundraisers start coming in, which is the funnest part of following the elction process.

Even attempts made by both the city manager's office and the police department to hollow out the beleaguered commission from the inside out hasn't moved him to comment on it, although it has moved one of his colleagues, Councilman Andrew Melendrez, to move the issue to the public safety committee he chairs for discussion. A recent meeting brought out several of the players who had obviously been planning changes behind the scenes and left the community members and commissioners who attended feeling as if they had walked in on the middle of a conversation that had clearly been taking place for a while. That feeling was probably right on the mark.

How extensive that dynamic has become in recent months and its impact on the community will be discussed further in the upcoming installment of "What would Bill Lockyer think" including how Lockyer had pushed for increased communication between the partners of police reform in an environment which at the time, was actively discouraging that form of communication in one very important venue.

The weakest incumbent despite the infighting going on between Betro and Gage is actually Councilman Steve Adams who apparently doesn't know his constituents well enough to be able to appoint one to the CPRC without pulling him off from another commission, in this case the Human Relations Commission. Adams also was ready to jump ship in the middle of his term for greener pastures up in Sacramento, as his recent and brief foray into the state assembly race showed. Chances are, his constituents haven't forgotten that yet.

Adams has been very vocal about his strong and consistent support of the CPRC at recent public meetings. One word of advice, don't eat or drink while he's in the middle of saying his vows involving his continued support towards it, unless you want to risk committing a social gaffe. Maybe it's best just not to serve food and drink to people at campaign events during the entire election season.


The following list of candidates can be obtained at the city clerk's office at City Hall. It is minute to minute and subject to change at a moment's notice.



Ward 1:

Dom Betro(incumbent)

Michael Gardner(former CPRC member)

Letitia Pepper(local attorney)

Derek Thesier


Ward 3:

Art Gage(incumbent)

Rusty Bailey(teacher, Riverside Poly High School)

Peter Olmos


Ward 5:

(open seat)

Harry Kurani(business owner)

Robert Rodriguez

Donna Doty Michalka(Altura Credit Union)

Christopher MacArthur

Jeffrey Pardee


Ward 7:

Steve Adams(incumbent)

Terry Frizzel(former mayor)

Art Garcia




In Schenectady, New York, members of that city's civilian review board made allegations through a letter to the mayor that serious changes needed to be made to the board's operations, according to an article published March 1 in the Times Union.

Police review board seeks changes

Make these changes or else we'll all resign, the letter stated to Mayor Brian U. Stratton.

(excerpt)


"We believe that without a positive ... resolution of the recommendations listed here, we will fail in complying with the ordinance that created this board and defined its mission and, therefore may consider that there is little point for this to continue operating," the board wrote in the Jan. 19 letter.

These changes included speeding up internal affairs investigations, which take about 18 months to be completed by the department as well as allowing its investigator to receive complaints and help find witnesses.

The letter also recommended that the police department interview all the officers involved in an incident separately to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

Its most important recommendation was that the mayor and city council should support the board when its own findings on complaints differ from that of the police department.

(excerpt)


"We are not asking for carte blanche -- we simply need to know that we have the ear and support of the mayor and City Council when a difference of opinion exists or when recommendations are made," the board wrote


Right on, to the Schenectady civilian review board for standing up and saying what needs to be done. Hopefully, the governing body will sit back and listen.

"We're not supposed to laugh but this is so funny."

In Seattle, Washington, about one-third of the officers in the Port of Seattle Police Department are under investigation after exchanging racist, sexually explicit and sexist emails for over two years. During that entire time, other field officers and even supervisors spent hours while onduty reading the emails without a single one of them reporting them.


The Seattle Post Intelligencer wrote this article detailing the emerging scandal which began
after a female officer raised allegations of harassment and when investigators looked at the computer records of her alleged harasser, they found the emails. It turned out that dozens of emails had been sent out which included racist and derogatory comments about African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans and Latinos, not to mention videos and photographs which were also derogatory in nature. Sexually explicit comments and photographs were also emailed involving women which showed them having sex, giving oral sex and defecating on each other.

It was all just for fun, of course, just a few laughs to be shared among friends in an ever widening circle. This is one of the ways that law enforcement officers in several different agencies across the country have been caught having fun in recent years. It's only when the communities they police find out what they have done, then those involved and their employer are put on the spot and left to explain their actions. Usually, the first thing an agency will say is how shocked it is, how offensive the content discovered is and how it won't be tolerated.

However, the involved officers are most often shielded by laws originally set up to protect them from any abuses committed by their departments' management, but that are now also used to protect them from any calls for accountability by the communities they police. And if people of color are less likely to call 9-11 for their assistance and women are less likely to report sexual assaults to police officers who may be among those who circulated pornographic photographs of women, it doesn't appear to matter much to these police departments.

After all, men of color and women aren't really people, are they?


Not to the officers who engage in the misconduct and those who know about it but do or say nothing. Not to their supervisors who not only fail to report it but engage in it themselves. Not to the leadership who publicly issues statements on how they won't tolerate this activity, but in private do nothing or issue wrist slaps like those given in the case in Seattle. As far as any who may care, they traditionally remain very silent on this subject. They might as well not exist as far as the public is concerned, in that their silence causes communities hurt by these racist and sexist behaviors to doubt they do exist. Because if they did exist, then they'd be saying something to condemn it, right?

Well, no.

They don't call it the code of silence or the thin blue line for nothing. Few people in this country do not know what those phrases mean. What they mean in cases like the one in Seattle is that even if a police officer finds out what another police officer is doing that is wrong, whether it is racist, sexist for example, then that police officer is supposed to keep it to himself or herself and not report it. Given that so much of police business is still shrouded in confidentiality, there is no way to know if or how many officers report misconduct they witness or learn about to supervisors and how many of those supervisors follow through on investigating any that is reported say, in any given year. The police agencies don't want you to know these things nor do the police unions(not to mention city attorneys) even if it's just raw numbers of investigations that are initiated and completed.

The situation in Seattle hasn't provided a flattering picture of this process, what has finally come to light in at least one department there. The code of silence certainly is alive and well and it will live on.

But what is at stake as far as agencies like this one are concerned are the feelings of people who don't really matter anyway so there's no need to report this type of misconduct and no real need to hold anyone accountable for it. There also seems to exist a huge disconnect between how these officers police the same groups of people that they are both demeaning and making fun of through these emails and how many of them believe the two realities have nothing to do with each other. The public gets that they do, but many times these law enforcement agencies do not or at least that's what their actions show.

What's also at stake is whether or not people who fall in the groups chosen by the Port of Seattle Police Department to be demeaned, ridiculed and stereotyped will trust those who police them and it's fairly clear that this is also on the bottom of the list of concerns by this agency as well.

Men of color and women are objects to be ridiculed, stereotyped, demeaned, dehumanized and placed in situations where those doing these things dictate who they are and what purpose they fill. Even though men of color and women are also employed by these agencies and this racist and sexist behavior is at least in part, meant to put those individuals who do not fit in neatly to the White male structure that still dominates most law enforcement agencies into their proper places as well.

The situation that recently broke through the media in Seattle isn't any different than its predecessors, say the Videogate scandal that rocked the San Francisco Police Department in 2005. It's simply a racist, sexist culture that overflows the boundaries that usually keep it confined into the hidden recesses and refuges, and comes into the light of public exposure through the participation of a large number of employees in racist, sexist and often homophobic banter, jokes and physical depictions. Instead of these incidents taking place in the locker rooms, in the squad cars, in the field and in roll call rooms, they're taking place using recently developed technology that provides different means for officers to communicate with one another although unlike speech, anything in writing leaves the probability of exposure.



Here are some of the stereotypes portrayed in the emails, which were obtained by the local media.

The following stereotype became more popular after the terrorist attacks of 9-11. In fact, in the Riverside Police Department, Officer Roger Sutton had made allegations that in several incidents he had witnessed after 9-11, officers had made stereotypical comments about Arab-Americans and Muslims including the use of the slur, "towel head".


Arab-Americans are Islamic terrorists


In this case, an email was sent which stated the following:

"The Islamic terrorists who hate our guts and want to kill us, do not like to be called towel heads. From this point forward please refer to them as little sheet heads."

Actually it's the people who write emails like this and find them hilarious who may be the ones wearing sheets over their heads as hoods. This officer is responding to complaints from Arab-Americans, Sikhs and Muslims in general about being called "towel heads", not actual terrorists and joking about it by replacing one slur with another.

Only racism isn't that simple and it's often treated as such, relegated to its most extreme examples. Racism isn't just about people running around in White robes and sheets and burning crosses. That's just how many White individuals define it because then it becomes for many of them an "other" which has nothing to do with them or their actions.

Racism is about circulating emails depicting racist stereotypes, jokes, comments and visual depictions. Racism is about laughing at it and not telling the person who sent it that it is offensive. Racism is about backing up officers who do this type of behavior and punishing those who step forward and report it, whether these actions are being carried out by rank and file officers, supervisors or those at the top of the organizational chart. Racism is about giving a law enforcement agency which employs individuals who engage in this behavior as well as those who know about it and do little or nothing, the power to police these same communities of people without holding them accountable for how they conduct themselves on the job.

What an agency does in this situation is what usually defines it, and there's little that the Port of Seattle Police Department did that defines it as anything but a racist and sexist law enforcement organization. However, the proof which indicts this particular police department is in what it didn't do.

Keeping this behavior to the inner circle is part of the code of silence that permeates many law enforcement agencies including this one in Seattle, but allowing racism to be one of the behaviors protected is racist.

The same rules listed above also apply to sexism and sexist behavior.

This email simply expresses the view that all Arab-Americans and all Muslims are terrorists. It's what is called a stereotype, and that's what all these emails have in common is that they are taking entire racial groups and one gender group and assigning them derogatory stereotypes. Individuals who engage in this behavior use it to bond with one another and strengthen relationships, as if the belief system of "us against them" doesn't go far enough for them.

But if you're among the vast majority of Arab-Americans(many of whom are actually Christian) and Muslims(many of whom are not Arab-American) in this country who do not engage in terrorist activity, why would you want to call the police if you needed their assistance? As reports of profiling have increased after the 9-11 terrorist attacks against those perceived to be of Middle-Eastern background, how do scandals like this one impact how the public views this issue? If you were from a Middle-Eastern background and the victim of a hate crime or incident, would you want to report it to a police department which employs officers who behave in this fashion?

Because African-Americans and Latinos have experienced racial profiling by police officers as well, and have also been the butt of racist and stereotypical humor by law enforcement officers, they know what this is all about. They have also been the victims of hate crimes and would they want to report them to law enforcement officers who behave like those officers did in Seattle?

Here is one another example of that behavior courtesy of an email sent by an officer from the Port of Seattle Police Department.



How to get rid of illegal Mexicans


This was one that was written by Officer Erik Schmidt who through an email sent a video where a narrator "hired" six Latino men whom he called "beaners" and claims are "illegal immigrants". He pretended to take them to a workplace, but instead he drove them to the Los Angeles Immigration office and blows a whistle to draw attention to the men. The six men run off yelling "INS" and the narrator claims he does this every three weeks "just for fun".

Because of course, all "Mexicans", all people with brown skin are "illegal immigrants" and all people of color including African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans are only to be labeled by the use of an assortment of racist slurs. Because of course, people of color exist only to be laughed at, or joked about, or referred to in ways that strip them of their humanity. And of course, this is all in the name of humor, including what is called "gallows humor" and fun and all that. It's part and parcel of the racist, sexist police culture at the Port of Seattle Police Department that allows and even condones police officers to use members of these racial groups in a demeaning and stereotypical fashion in order to have their fun.


Once the Port of Seattle Police Department's management woke up and discovered that it had racist and sexist police officers running amok in its midst, how did that agency respond? There's been a lot of talk in this case as there have been in all the episodes of similar misconduct which have preceded it that this is just a bunch of "rogue" officers, or "bad apples" in the midst of a stellar law enforcement agency.

Of course, with this particular agency, those dusted-off alibis and excuses won't hold up to the scrutiny of most people because in this case, there was a large percentage of its officers engaging in this behavior while hiding in plain sight. And as it turned out, at least in the department's own investigation, not much happened.


Slaps on the wrist


Deputy Police Chief Gale Evans said in lieu of the police chief who had nothing to say about the matter, that the behavior was "appalling...It won't be tolerated". But anyone following this scandal will have to keep their eyes on the situation over a period of time and see if words said to media outlets translate into meaningful actions. You have to watch what the department's leadership does when the media's attention goes away.


(excerpt)

Though some in the department recommended tougher punishment for those caught up in the current case, few of the officers involved were disciplined. Nine got written reprimands, and others who received e-mails, but didn't store or forward them, were let go without punishment.

The accused harasser, Sgt. Jon Schorsch, 39, also was found to have misused the Internet, but he resigned under threat of termination after a judge issued a protection order in the harassment case.


No one, including lieutenants and sergeants, was punished for failure to report the Internet abuse, though failure to do that is a department rule violation.



A zero-tolerance policy against this type of conduct in the workplace which the department heads insisted was in place translated mostly into written reprimands which the department said were "serious" discipline. The department promised to take much stiffer actions against its officers if this behavior ever happened again. It is most likely that it will, given enough time after this current episode, because the department has essentially issued a permission slip to officers in its police department to do it again, only next time don't get caught.

After all, when it did happen, it was treated by slapping some of the involved parties on the wrist and by giving a free pass to the supervisors who are entrusted by the agency and the public to make sure their charges behave themselves. Consequently, it probably will happen again.

What happened to the supervisors when they uncovered the misconduct or in this case received the racist and sexist emails, has been the focus of much of the city's concern. Why did they do nothing?

Maybe several supervisors didn't report the misconduct that happened in their midst because they were too busy sending the emails or laughing at the content themselves. King5.com's article, The email scandal by the numbers , stated that two lieutenant and 12 sergeants either sent, received or stored the emails, which means that about one-third of the officers involved in the scandal were supervisors. What this fact translates into is that once again, this isn't about "bad apples" running amok within the workplace email system, this is about an agency with systemic racism and sexism entrenched in its culture from top to bottom. The reality is that the department itself will be the last to figure that out and it will take even longer to admit it.

The department was also mandating anti-harassment training as part of how it will handle the situation. That's a drop in the bucket in a department with this misconduct going on in its midst.

Besides, hasn't the department already implemented anti-harassment training and policies as law enforcement agencies in most states are required to do? If so, it doesn't look like either had any positive effect in this police department. There's no point in adding more training if police officers especially supervisors in that department have just been given a pointed lesson on how they won't be held accountable for racist or sexist behavior. Who would report it next time, if there was little to no response this time?

Through slapping a few wrists and especially through failing to hold the supervisors responsible, the police department did show that this conduct would be tolerated. If anyone doubts that, just wait a few months, six months, a year and watch what happens to these officers including those who received "serious" written reprimands. Watch to see how many of them get promoted. Watch to see how many of them the department holds up as role models on an awards podium. That will make it clear in a way that mere words spoken in the heat of a breaking scandal just can't.

The proof isn't what you hear today, it's what you see tomorrow. And the day after and so on.


Seattlest.com blogged about this episode and mentioned a prior incident involving pornographic email that was uncovered but in that case, the officer was exonerated although the police chief at the time did say that this incident led to the potential of it happening again.

And then some.



Paula Zahn from CNN discussed the scandal on her show, according to the transcripts here. She had a panel of guests comment on the episode and its implications in law enforcement.

Here are some of the comments from that program.


(excerpt)


"This was active suppression. Seattle Port Authority absolutely knew exactly what was going on with its officers and sought to conceal it."

---James Bible, NAACP


Bible then asks if the Port of Seattle Police Department can treat people of color fairly in communities if they are engaging in this form of racist and sexist misconduct. That's probably the question of the hour as it should be.

It's hard to know from the police department what its answer would be because it isn't responding to the public on these issues and their measures to truly address them. On the other hand, if an agency's actions don't match its words or it chooses to remain silent, then that in itself provides some form of answer.



"Just in terms of the public trust that police officers have to the general public and I think this was somewhat of a break of confidence on our police department."

---Lloyd Hara, Commissioner, Port of Seattle


Yes indeed. Particularly among those who were the butt of racist, sexist and sexual comments, jokes, photographs and videos which were sent through workplace emails. But no matter how many times representatives of these groups that are most often demeaned and ridiculed by law enforcement officers try to explain this to those in law enforcement agencies, these agencies always either act as if it's the first time they've heard these complaints or they turn around and make fun of those who complain about it.


The Port of Seattle Commission strikes back


The Port of Seattle Commission announced in late January that it would be conducting its own investigation into the email scandal in this article by the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The body claims that it was misled by the department and that it obtained nearly all of its information on the scandal from the local press. Adding to that, was information provided by an unidentified source to the newspaper that the number of officers involved in the scandal had been grossly underestimated by the department and in actuality, it was two-thirds of the entire department which was involved. That revelation if it holds up shouldn't be all that surprising at this juncture in time.

An email from someone who claimed to be a police officer from the involved department was also received by Port Commission President John Creighton. It's very telling that the one police officer who has raised an objection to the behavior of others in this agency is keeping his name to himself. Does he or she fear harassment, being ostracized, not receiving backup when needed on the job or being the focus of reenergized internal affairs investigations?

(excerpt)



"It saddens me to say everything in those articles is true," the author said, referring to news reports in the P-I and on KING/5.

"The lieutenants and sergeants involved in the email scandal should have been demoted and suspended," the e-mail writer said. "Our only hope to begin to repair the damage done, to try and reestablish the Port Police's credibility, rests now in the Commission's hands."


The code of silence is clearly alive and well in the Port of Seattle Police Department even in the wake of the investigation of the misconduct. So nothing's really changed and it's business as usual.

This police officer if indeed this is a police officer has clearly lost faith in the mechanisms inside his or her own agency to do the job and is seeking outside assistance, something most law enforcement agencies and officers are loathe to do. As part of this new investigation, the commission will be offering whistle blower protection to any employee of the Port of Seattle Police Department who comes forward with allegations or information in relation to the email scandal.


Members of the Port Commission said that they were upset at the department's lack of disclosure regarding the scope of the scandal.

(excerpt)


"I'm pretty upset that it looks to me that something was trying to be swept under the rug," Commissioner Bob Edwards said Monday.


At any rate, it appears that the commission has little faith in the department's ability to investigate its own officers' misconduct and hold them accountable so now it's stepping up to do so itself.

Even if the sergeants weren't so upset about the emails they may or may not have been reading, they collectively sent a memo to the commission stating that they were upset with other problems involving how internal investigations and disciplinary procedures were conducted and complained that morale was low. It usually is in the wake of law enforcement scandals.

I wouldn't imagine that morale and was any higher in the communities served by this police department. The lack of trust in the communities towards the ability of the police to treat them fairly, during the times when of course they aren't sending racist and sexist emails, is probably much lower and sinking rapidly.

But if you learn anything from this sorry episode, the latest on a list of sorry episodes, it should be two things. One, is that actions speak much louder than words and on its actions is how a law enforcement agency should be judged. The other being is that as the case involving the Port of Seattle Police Department has shown, it's far too often the perception of a law enforcement agency that is perpetuated through the code of silence that matters much more than its reality.






A family who sued after their son was shot to death by a Fontana Police Department officer in 2004 settled out of court, according to the Press Enterprise.


Family receives $1 million from settlement in wrongful death case



This police department had 23 officer-involved shootings between 1996 and 2006, in a city of 175,000. One of those was this one, the fatal shooting of Randy Perchez, Jr. by Officer Richard Guerrero who shot Perchez after the man had grabbed his flashlight according to the police department which supported his actions.

However, a federal judge said that Guerrero had a background of seven excessive force investigations. The San Bernardino County District Attorney's office did not file criminal charges against Guerrero, stating that there was insufficient evidence to prove the charges within a reasonable doubt to a jury, but this office did include this shooting on a curious list it has of shootings it believed to be unjustified. There are five shootings on this list including the 2006 shooting of Elio Carrion by San Bernardino County Sheriff Deputy Ivory Webb, Jr.

Webb became the first law enforcement officer in San Bernardino County to face criminal charges in connection with an onduty shooting and is currently awaiting trial on April 23 on attempted voluntary manslaughter and weapons assault charges.


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"It was a very, very bad shooting," attorney John Burton said. "This shooting stands as close to an act of murder as I've ever seen."




These were the other three shootings that the District Attorney's office believed to be unjustified.

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Jose Luis Perea, 47, died Feb. 9, 2003, after reserve sheriff's Deputy John Monaghan, also a high-ranking Los Angeles County prosecutor, shot him in the neck while investigating a burglary report in Fontana.

County records show Perea's family settled for $450,000.

Evan Scott Smith, 25, died after Deputy Andrew Mathews responded to a 911 call July 16, 2002, that Smith was drunk, tearing up his Crestline home and threatening his wife.
Investigators said no evidence suggested that Mathews was facing imminent death or great bodily injury. Smith's family settled a lawsuit for $530,000.

Sergio Rivera survived a bullet fired by Deputy Donna Wilson on July 4, 2002, during a struggle after she and Deputy Paul Jacome responded to a Muscoy home about a domestic violence call.
Rivera filed a claim but never went forward with a lawsuit, said Ronald Owens, a San Bernardino County liability manager. No payments were ever made.

Lee Deante Brown: The final briefing, part two

On Feb. 28, an investigator briefed the Community Police Review Commission in Riverside about his investigation into the fatal officer-involved shooting of Lee Deante Brown which happened at the Welcome Inn of America on April 3, 2006.

Commissioners listened carefully as Butch Warnberg of the Baker Street Group in San Diego outlined his investigation over a 90 minute period. Unlike his previous briefings involving the shooting of Terry Argow and the incustody death of Terry Rabb not to mention Brown, Warnberg appeared more tentative and particularly cautious about offering any form of analysis of the factual evidence he was presenting.

In recent months, the power of the CPRC to investigate officer-involved deaths has been under much scrutiny by the police department, the city manager's office, the Riverside County District Attorney's office and the city attorney's office. Before the investigation into the fatal shooting of Brown, none of these agencies paid much attention to what the CPRC was doing, nor did any of their representatives attend any of its meetings discussing incustody deaths except for a designated liaison between the police department chief's office and the CPRC.

The lone exception was during the CPRC's investigation into the Summer Marie Lane shooting in 2005. That autumn, representatives from the police department's internal affairs division began attending the meetings. Several weeks after that, the commission voted unanimously that this shooting had violated the department's use of force policy.

Representatives from all these agencies sat in the meeting which attracted attention from both commissioners and community members who sat in the audience. Their attendance simply affirmed that the Brown shooting case is different than all the rest of the cases which have preceded it.

The briefing presented by Warnberg pointed out some of the reasons why.


According to the narrative, the incident began at about 1:26 p.m. when the police department received the first of at least six complaints from city residents who said that engaging in bizarre behavior including jumping on cars, lying in the street, kissing the pavement and removing his clothes.

At 1:52 p.m. Michael Paul Stucker had been driving on University Avenue by the motel when he was flagged down by witness and motel resident Kenneth Williams. Williams told Stucker that he believed Brown was on "water", a name for PCP. Stucker requested backup officers and walked towards Brown who was lying on the pavement in the parking lot of the motel. When Brown saw Stucker, he retreated to the corner of the building and went into an alcove. Stucker removed his M26 taser from his car and walked towards the direction Brown had gone.

When Stucker encountered Brown, he pointed his taser at Brown and issued verbal commands at Brown who was yelling about Jesus, the devil and his daughter, Mariah. When Brown stepped towards Stucker, the officer deployed his taser. Brown fell on the ground, but one of the taser probes had fallen off onto the ground.

At 1:55, Officer Terry Ellefson arrived at the motel and walked towards Brown, who was on the ground. Ellefson told Stucker to turn his taser off so he could handcuff Brown. Ellefson got one handcuff on Brown's wrist but then Brown pushed Ellefson off of his back and got off the ground.


Stucker then pulled his spent cartridge off of his taser and tried to contact stun Brown. Brown grabbed Stucker's arm and at that point, Ellefson tried to deploy his own X26 taser. One probe apparently hit Brown, and the other hit Stucker, who felt an electric shock move through both arms. Stucker turned away to address that issue, his back to both Brown and Ellefson. He pulled the taser probe out of his finger on his left hand and then put his own taser away. When he turned around, he saw Brown squatting or sitting on the ground with the taser in his hands. Ellefson had lost it during the struggle with Brown.

Ellefson stated that he had seen Brown reach down near his feet to grab the taser before standing up and lunging towards Ellefson with the taser in his hands. Ellefson fired two shots from the hip, striking Brown.

Stucker stated that he had pulled out his expandable baton, extended it and hit Brown twice on the left shin area as he squatted or sat with the taser in his hands. As Stucker was preparing to deliver a third strike, he heard the gunshots.

Five of the six civilian witnesses said that Brown was sitting when he was shot and Williams said he was standing. All six witnesses said they didn't see anything in his hands when he was shot.



"So many conflicting statements from the civilian witnesses. From the officers," Warnberg said, "The question is what position was Brown in when he was shot."



The only possible answer Warnberg could provide came from an analysis of three possible scenarios of the shooting, which were if Brown had been standing, squatting or sitting.

According to Doreen DeAvery of Applied Graphic Science, she believed that based on the trajectory of the two bullets that Brown had either been squatting or sitting when he was shot. Ellefson and Williams were the only people present who said that Brown had been standing, according to Warnberg's report.


Both officers had activated their department issued digital audiorecorders at the time of the incident, even though the current department policy did not require them to do so.



"Get on the ground. (Sounds of taser) Put your hands behind your back. Do it now."

---Officer Michael Paul Stucker, according to his belt recording transcript



Warnberg played a portion of the recording taken from Stucker's recording for the commissioners. The recording began when Stucker was issuing orders to Brown to put his hands on the wall, just before he discharged his taser from 10 feet away. After being tased, Brown said, "okay" when asked to put his hands on the wall and turn around. Stucker orders him to get on the ground. At first his voice was even, but further in the recording, it became louder and higher pitched. In portions, what sounded like fear appeared in his voice while he was issuing orders.

When Ellefson arrives, he's also giving commands to Brown before he discharges his own taser. Both officers continue to issue commands, while Brown shouts for one of his daughters.

The last command made by Ellefson on Stucker's recording is, for Brown to put his hands behind his back. His words are followed by two gunshots in quick succession. Ellefson's own recording ended differently, with an unidentified speaker saying, "drop the gun". Warnberg did not address that issue in his presentation until prompted by a question from Commissioner Jim Ward, who was confused by the statement because neither officer had ever called the taser a gun and neither officer had mentioned that they had made this statement in their interviews with investigators.

Afterwards, Ellefson is asked where Brown was shot and he said in the chest and lower abdomen.


(excerpt, transcript from Ellefson's belt recording)


Unidentified Male: ...Are you okay, man?

Ellefson: Yeah, I'm good.

Unidentified Male: Which way?

Ellefson: He came up with the taser and touched me as I backed up.

Unidentifed male: Okay. How many rounds?

Stucker: Two down.

Unidentified male: Two down.



Both officers discharged their tasers but neither had appeared to impact Brown in any way. Stucker had discharged his taser first, but at some point before Ellefson arrived, one of the probes that had struck Brown had fallen on the ground. When Ellefson arrived, he told Stucker to turn off the taser so he could handcuff Brown without getting shocked. When Stucker disengaged his taser, Ellefson had just handcuffed one of Brown's wrists before Brown flung him off of his back, according to Ellefson's statement.

Both Taser International, Inc. and the expert retained by Warnberg advised that one officer should have tased Brown and then the officer should handcuff and restrain Brown while he is incapacitated during the taser cycle. The material provided by Taser International, Inc. which is utilized by the police department to train its own officers calls this the "window of opportunity", with the first tasing being for behavioral change, the second for apprehension.

Marc Fox of the San Diego Regional Law Enforcement Training Academy stated in Warnberg's written report that one officer should apply the taser and one or more should handcuff the individual while the taser is being cycled. However, if one of the probes which had struck Brown had fallen on the ground before Ellefson's arrival, it's not likely that the taser would be effectively cycled again.

Ellefson's taser was not effectively discharged in that one probe had struck Brown, the other had struck Stucker's left hand and lodged into one of his fingers. Stucker experienced enough shock to affect both of his arms, and it's not clear whether or not the electric shock from the tasing had any effect on Brown, but it did not appear to, according to the officers.

Both officers attempted to do contact stuns, which is a means of "pain compliance" rather than a means to incapacitate an individual. Stucker attempted one contact stun with his taser but at the time he tried to deploy it, he had been struck by the errant probe from Ellefson's taser.

Ellefson tased Brown twice, after removing the cartridge from his taser, according to his statement but neither tasting appeared to have any effect. The data downloaded from his taser showed seven cycles in all. The last four recorded occurred within a 28 second period. All of them occurred within 47 seconds.

Williams had said that Brown was on PCP that day and that was why he was acting strangely. Several motel residents said he appeared to be a "51-50" or mentally ill. However, Brown's toxicology tests which were conducted by Bi-Tox Laboratories showed that while he had marijuana byproducts in his system, there was no methamphetamine , PCP or other drugs detected.

According to interviews conducted by Brown's fiancee, he had been diagnosed with paranoia scitzophrenia. He had been prescribed medication to treat this condition but it wasn't clear if he had been taking it regularly. He also had used marijuana and methamphetamine in the past.


Several of the commissioners had questions after the presentation, mostly based on what position Brown had been when he was shot and where he was pointing the taser.



"I don't know where he was pointing it," Warnberg said.



Warnberg said that during Ellefson's interview with the department's investigators he had told them that Stucker had kicked the taser away from Brown after the shooting. Stucker had said in his interview that he hadn't seen the taser after the shooting but that he believed it had been located in Brown's hands which were tucked underneath his body while he'd been lying on his stomach. So much so that he warned both Ellefson and medical personnel about it when they arrived on the scene. The taser was eventually recovered about 20 feet away from Brown's body.


"It was found 20 feet away," Warnberg said, "How it ended up there, we're not certain."



On Ellefson's belt recording, Stucker at one point had asked about the taser approximately four minutes after the shooting, just before the medical personnel were entering the parking lot of the motel.



Stucker: Where's your taser?

Ellefson: Right there.



The CPRC will be drafting its public report next month and will hold further discussions on that process at future meetings. Then it will review the administrative review done by the department before going behind closed doors to render its own finding on whether or not the shooting violated the department's policy.

By this time, the CPRC would have brought in its two new members, Steve Simpson and Peter Hubbard and lost two other members, Bob Garcia who termed out and Bonavita Quinto who declined to be reappointed.




The state court of appeals affirmed a Riverside County Superior Court judge's decision to dismiss two misdemeanor cases earlier this year, according to this article in the Press Enterprise.

In January, Judge Gary Tranbarger dismissed the two cases because he could not assign them a courtroom for trial before the deadline came to dismiss them. The Riverside County District Attorney's office appealed that decision but lost in a higher court. It plans to look into its options to appeal the case.

At the time of the hearing, all of the criminal and civil courtrooms were currently busy hearing criminal trials. There have been no civil trials in several months.

The judges are holding firm behind Tranbarger who supervises the criminal courts.


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When it came to using family law, probate and other courts, Tranbarger also refused, "Because if we go down that road, it is apparently never ending," he said during the January hearing.


As this situation appears to indeed be "never ending", stay tuned for future updates.