The $800,000 shooting: Three men and a car

Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise examines the impact that the foreclosure crisis has on furniture stores in the region.



Why is Hemet losing its city manager? That's the question being asked by everyone.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


Hemet City Manager John Davidson, on the job for just over a year, is out effective Tuesday, with no one saying if the departure is voluntary.

"All I can say is John is leaving," Mayor Marc Searl said Wednesday.

He declined to elaborate on Davidson's departure, saying a press release with more details would be issued at the City Council meeting Tuesday.


"The city manager is departing March 11 in mutual and amenable terms with the City Council," Deputy City Manager Mark Orme said.

Davidson could not be reached for comment Wednesday.


So has Davidson been "fired"? Stay tuned for further developments in the case of the departing city manager.



Mark June 3 on your calendar if you're from Colton because that's when the mayoral recall election has been scheduled.



Grade separations to ease train congestion are coming to Banning. They were coming to Riverside but so far only one, Jurupa's, has made it.





The Community Police Review Commission in Riverside has been investigating the fatal officer-involved shooting of Douglas Steven Cloud but it wasn't until 18 months and one $800,000 settlement later, that it was briefed by its investigator, Butch Warnberg. There were eyewitness accounts from Riverside Police Department officers who were arriving at the scene of the car dealership where Cloud's car had crashed after he had sped away from a nearby Home Depot after an attempt to steal a paint spraying device was thwarted.


The accounts of events below are from Warnberg's report.



The Other Officers





Officers mentioned in Warnberg's report which did not have interviews included in it were Jeffrey Putnam at the Home Depot location and Canine Officer Michael Mears at the Acura Dealership.





Officer Alfonso Navar was traveling in a squad car with his field training officer, Jeffrey Derouin. It was day two in Navar's career at the Riverside Police Department and both officers were traveling west-bound to Lincoln when the robbery was reported over the radio by Putman



The two officers arrived at the scene and Navar saw the vehicle that had crashed resting on the sidewalk in front of the Acura of Riverside dealership. Navar left the car and began to approach the vehicle from the front. Several officers at the car had their weapons drawn and were struggling with the driver who was Cloud, trying to pull him out of the vehicle while the engine revved. Navar heard the gunshots being fired when he was about 10-15 feet away from the car. He saw the officer who had struggled with the driver lean back away from the car and fire a single gunshot which may have hit the driver in the upper body or head. After Navar took cover, he heard two more gunshots.





Another new officer, Nay Mann was working his or her first day at the department assigned to Field Training Officer Bryan Crawford. Mann heard the 211 broadcast over the radio and when the two officers arrived at Indiana Avenue, they saw the crashed vehicle, with its engine running and the tires spinning.



Mann saw three officers shouting at Cloud and trying to pull him out of the car. After Mann took cover behind a squad car, he or she saw an officer fire three to four rounds at Cloud.







Derouin said that he had heard the 211 call and a description of the vehicle and its last known direction that it had been traveling in, but there was no description of any weapon. He saw the vehicle, "a tangled mess" with its engine revving loudly and three to four officers on the driver's side of the window. Their weapons were drawn and they were trying to pull a person out of the car. Derouin ran to the car and when he got within 10-15 feet, he heard four shots being fired. There was a slight pause between the first two shots fired and the last two, and to him, it seemed as if two officers had discharged their weapons.





When Officer Eric Meier arrived at the scene in his squad car, he saw Officers Nicholas Vazquez and David Johansen pointing their guns at Cloud while standing outside the driver's side window. Meier ran toward the car and when he reached within 60 feet of the car, he heard three to four shots being fired.

Afterward, some of these officers and others participated in a "clearing" or "K-9 arrest team" after the car's engine had stopped revving including Vazquez and Johansen. To Meier, both officers appeared shaking and traumatized after the shooting.

No weapon was ever reported as being seen and none was found.


The commission will begin discussing this shooting case later this month, even as its members had few questions for its investigator. Given that the litigation filed in the case (which provided a potential time wavier for G.C. 3304 (d)) has been settled, any discussion of this case's outcome is academic. Which goes back to what columnist Dan Bernstein has said about the city, the CPRC and the relationship between the two entities.





The prosecution's expert witness admitted on the witness stand that she failed to take proper precautions when processing evidence at the scene of the fatal shooting of Sean Bell in New York City.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



Detective Ellen Friedman, who specializes in finding guns concealed in cars, said she was not wearing protective gear - except for rubber gloves - when she used a screwdriver to pry open a door and remove an air bag.

She did the search before crime scene investigators finished searching Bell's SUV.

"I didn't take any precautions as to contaminating any bloodstains or any other evidence in the vehicle," Friedman said, adding that she saw two spent shell casings beneath the driver's seat during her search.

Friedman's testimony was supposed to buttress prosecutors' contention that Bell was killed on his wedding day by three trigger-happy detectives who fired 50 shots without letting the targets know they were police.

Instead, it laid the groundwork for the defense to argue that anything found in the car should be thrown out because proper procedures weren't followed to protect the evidence.


During the trial of three New York City Police officers charged in connection with the shooting, the property inventory of Bell was listed.


Valerie Bell, mother of Sean Bell, spent her 52nd birthday listening to testimony in court involving the death of her son and three of the officers who killed him.



The New York Times's analysis of the proceedings is that it more resembles a public hearing than a criminal trial.






Milwaukee will no longer pay its fired police officers charged with serious crimes. So says this article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.


(excerpt)



Passage of the police pay bill, by a vote of 95-0, marked a breakthrough for those who wanted to end the practice to protect Milwaukee taxpayers and a setback for the police union that fought some of the changes.

Under current law, fired officers are paid until their appeals are exhausted, a process that can take months or even years. Under a deal reached last week, pay would stop for officers who are fired and charged with felonies, Class A misdemeanors or Class B misdemeanors. Officers fired for rule violations would continue to be paid until their appeals are heard, something Democrats wanted to end as well.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who has pushed for the bill for years, said it solves the problem of ending pay for officers who have been charged with crimes.

"This is a huge victory for the taxpayers of Milwaukee, this is a huge victory for the excellent police officers who work for the Milwaukee Police Department, and it's a huge victory for the department overall," Barrett said.



The police department's labor union's leadership said that the bill shouldn't include misdemeanor offenses.




Does the city attorney in Los Angeles have a conflict of interest when it comes to billboards? Would he be aware if he had one?



Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca wrote this article in the Los Angeles Times about criticism being part of the price for innovation.

Portland: The battle over civilian review

“I mean, I would not be a good auditor if I did not say there’s always room for improvement in my office as well as everywhere else,”


---Portland Auditor Gary Blackmer to Portland Local News Daily last August.





“I am disappointed in this report. I wanted fresh insights and strategies to help us improve but this report doesn’t move our system forward,”


---Blackmer, on Feb. 28, 2008






Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise addresses the budget crisis hitting the Riverside Unified School District and the closure of Grant Elementary School which has been protested by its students and their parents.



In the meantime, City Hall is putting a proposed rezoning on hold which may help Jack Harris, 83, keep his birds to the delight of many who have enjoyed visiting them. The city's proposal to change the zoning rules led to some major protesting by city residents which halted the plans to do so in their tracks.



In other cites, budget cuts but no job losses are planned for Redlands while in Rialto, the city is trying to figure out how to do more developing in its downtown area.



Was Mira Loma sold out by the recent vote by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors or was it a clerical error? A perplexing vote taken by the majority of the board (but apparently not Supervisor Bob Buster) was roundly challenged by the Press Enterprise's Editorial Board.






In Portland, Oregon there's been a lot of discussion about the roles of the Independent Police Review, the Citizen Review Committee and a report evaluating both which was drafted by consultant Eileen Luna-Firebaugh about a month ago.


The latest news being that Mayor Tom Potter has taken control of the IPR away from the city's auditor, Gary Blackmer. There are those who are happy about that and there are those who are not.



(excerpt, Portland Mercury)



Potter's announcement followed a protest at city hall last Thursday, February 28, over the mayor's decision to delay a public hearing on the report until after March 18, when council will hold a work session on the report.

"I do not believe the mayor's office is the proper, permanent home for IPR, but it is the most appropriate during this review," Potter wrote in his statement.

"It's clear from Blackmer's response to the consultant's report that Blackmer is not the person to be the running the IPR," says Dan Handelman of activist group Portland Copwatch. "I think he showed at the very least he doesn't understand what the community wants a citizen review board to do, and at worst he showed contempt for the citizenry."





Yes he did and his removal from the process albeit temporary is an interesting development in this ongoing situation. Tension between Potter and Blackmer may have preceded the hiring of Luna-Firebaugh to do an analysis on the IPR and CRC.


But last August, Blackmer's attitude was much different about the prospect of a review being done on the IPR.



(excerpt, Portland Local News Daily)



On a more personal level, it could put Blackmer, the mild-mannered, bespectacled government official who enjoys good relations with other elected officials, in a spot he doesn’t much care for — the spotlight.

Luna-Firebaugh, who staffed civilian police oversight agencies in San Francisco and Berkeley, came to Portland last month and hauled away boxes of documents provided by IPR staff. She also met with rank-and-file cops and their supervisors, as well as cop-shop critics who routinely pan IPR’s work.

Asked whether it is an interesting feeling to have the program he designed scrutinized, Blackmer appeared to choose his words carefully.

“We’re always open to constructive recommendations,” he said.

OK, but is it an interesting feeling to have your work scrutinized?

Blackmer laughed and said: “Yeah, well, sometimes surgeons must undergo surgery. And what they hope is that they have a very skilled surgeon who will not slip. And in the same way, I think we all hope that when we have someone evaluating us they are doing so in a thoughtful and methodical way.”

His office already undergoes peer reviews by other auditors. “There is a certain anxiety,” he said.

The difference, he said, is that unlike audits, which are conducted according to government rules, the consultant’s performance review does not have to follow standards.

“You’re just going to have to accept that you’re going to have an opportunity to look at the report and comment on it, and you kind of cross your fingers,” he said.



One of the ongoing issues has been Blackmer's objection to providing the CRC with more power. That sentiment is shared by the current director of the IPR, Leslie Stevens. But they're not the only ones who would like to maintain the status quo of the current IPR being placed under Blackmer.


The action of moving the IPR to Potter's office has also angered the leaders of the Portland Police Bureau's labor union.



(excerpt, Portland Tribune)



Activist Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch, when told of Potter's statements, said, "That sounds like what we've been saying. I think that's a great idea."

In an interview with the Portland Tribune, however, King cited statistics showing that police shootings are down substantially in Portland, and so are citizen complaints. He said Potter "must fundamentally misunderstand how successful we've been in Portland. I guess nothing positive about the police would ever satisfy him."

King suggested that Potter is acceding to Handelman’s criticism of IPR. “I’m guessing he plans to give it to Dan Handelman,” King said sarcastically. Many cops do not like Handelman, a frequent police critic.

King noted that in many other cities' cop watchdog units that have had a more empowered citizens role, the units have been hampered by strife and litigation. In California, civilian oversight agencies can no longer hold public hearings about disciplinary matters due to a police union lawsuit.

"Everywhere else in the country it gets ground to a halt by grievance and lawsuit and maybe that's what he needs here," said King of Potter.




What King neglects to mention is how much more powerful the law enforcement labor unions are in California than they are in Oregon and consequently, they have more power and more funding to engage with civilian review mechanisms from San Diego County to the Bay Area and back again. What King neglects to mention that often this "strife and litigation" happens when labor unions don't like the involvement of citizens where they believe it doesn't belong.

There are no updates on whether or not the city government will take King's suggestion and hand off the IPR to Handelman.

King should by all means start providing "what he needs here" which no doubt in a city like Portland will bolster the position of civilian review at a time when it's needed. Any action by his union is certain to add to the debate not detract from it by again, building the argument of why the IPR and CRC are important, necessary and yes, need to be improved and more accessible to the public.


A lot of people watching this might throw up their hands and yell "conflict", "division", "strife" and other words but what's taking place is likely a long overdue discussion on the role that civilian oversight should play in Oregon and what role it is playing and the expanse that lies between the two. It's a very important discussion and even if it's contentious to some, the process can't really proceed foreward in a meaningful way without it.

Watching from Riverside which undergoes its own similar process about every 10 years or so, has been interesting. Riverside is different than Portland in political climate but also in the sense that its city government does anything that it has to do to avoid any dialogue remotely like what's happening in Portland on any issue. When over 300 people answered City Manager Brad Hudson's challenge to pack the chambers of City Hall on the issues related to the renovation of the library, the city officials appeared indifferent about the opinions expressed, making it appear that they had made their minds up already.

Perhaps if it were an election year.

At any rate, there's been discussion in various places involving civilian review and related issues in Riverside for the past several years whether City Hall has provided the venues for those discussions or not. Just like there's discussions that take place on other issues such as the city's fiscal budget picture. Among the same populations that issued pink slips to two city council members and nearly a third one during Election 2007 in part because many people do not feel that their opinions even as voting residents matter as much as the opinions of those who pay money into the campaign coffers of elected officials. After it became clear during the summer of 2007 that there would be four runoff elections involving three incumbents, there were more efforts especially visible ones to solicit input from city residents on various issues including park renovation.

The Northwest Constitutional Rights Center, which was one of those organizations that was derided by Blackmer as not being "community" has some recommendations about what it thinks should be done with Portland's oversight mechanism which is a hybrid model with the IPR and CRC being implemented in 2001.



(excerpt)




One of the main concerns is whether the IPR is actually independent of the Police Bureau. For example, the NW Center is concerned that investigations of police misconduct by the Bureau's Internal Affairs Division are not reliable and may result in biased findings.


Portland needs an effective oversight system that:


(1) is independent of the police,

(2) uses un-biased, independent investigators,

(3) whose findings about individual officers' conduct are binding,

(4) has the ability to make policy recommendations,

(5) is an effective oversight mechanism that is accessible to the community.





The NW Center's major goal for the police accountability project will be to reform the IPR/CRC system by advocating for key changes to the system. The priority changes should include giving the CRC:


(1) the ability to conduct independent investigations of allegations of police misconduct;

(2) the power to compel civilian and police officer testimony and evidence;

(3) the power to make binding decisions on whether or not police misconduct occurred.



The recommendations indicate that this organization wants the CRC to operate more like a review board than in its role in terms of overseeing the IPR. By providing the abilities to do independent investigations, issue subpoenas and release findings on complaints, that would provide the committee with some of the tools to perform that role. However, the city itself seems quite a ways away from implementing anything similar to that at this point in time.

Like the Community Police Review Commission in Riverside, the CRC has nine members serving on it. However, unlike Riverside, only one of those serving has a law enforcement background. Currently serving on the CPRC are three commissioners who are current or former law enforcement officers. Two others have immediate family members serving in law enforcement including in the Riverside Police Department. For most of its history, the commission has consisted of at least half of its members being current or former law enforcement officers. The CRC on the other hand seems more indicative of tapping into a cross-section of a city's population.








Links:


IPR FAQ


What needs to change about IPR





Sandy Banks, columnist for the Los Angeles Times takes on the Los Angeles Fire Department in the wake of recent payouts in connection with racial and gender discrimination cases.












WWSB ABC-7 covered this story about the police chief's decision in Brandenton to overturn a recommendation made by the department's internal affairs division involving an officer.




The role the federal agencies played in addressing the problems going on in Milwaukee's police department made a lot of difference according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.




(excerpt)


They said Milwaukee police couldn't be trusted to investigate their own, the district attorney worked too closely with the department to do the job, and the city's Fire and Police Commission just shipped complaints back to police.

But the federal Frank Jude beating trial demonstrated a lesser-known but powerful option in pursuing civil rights complaints against local police: the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office.

After state prosecutors failed to convict anyone for Jude's beating, the FBI launched its own case that ended with seven former officers being sent to prison, the three primary culprits for more than 15 years each.





The Jude case not only highlighted the potential for federal civil rights action, but is helping to change how the district attorney and the Fire and Police Commission handle complaints.





The officers had their badges out, a New York Police Department officer claimed while testifying during the trial of four officers charged in connection with the 2006 fatal shooting of Sean Bell and the wounding of two of his friends.


However, the officer who testified said that he hadn't arrived onscene until after the 50 shots had been fired at Bell's car.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



One of the detectives "had his shield out around his neck and he was holding it in my direction," Maloney said. "He had a firearm in his right hand. It was pointed down."

Maloney, the first regular police officer on the scene, said one of the undercovers told him, "I'm from narcotics, we have two perps shot."

Maloney said that an agitated crowd had gathered nearby, at the corner of 94th Ave. and Liverpool St. About 10 to 20 men and women were "crying and screaming and wanting to know what was going on," he said.

Maloney's testimony came a day after NYPD Lt. Michael Wheeler, who also was called as witness by the prosecution, testified he did not see any visible police identification when he encountered Detective Marc Cooper - one of the cops on trial.

The lieutenant in charge of the undercover team, Gary Napoli, has said he did not hear the detectives identify themselves as cops.

The question of whether detectives Cooper, Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora identified themselves as police officers before they opened fire on Bell's car is key issue in the case.

Show me the money: City Hall, the CPRC and the settlements

Some city council actions took place at last night's meeting. The coverage of these meetings has pretty much been reduced to briefs. More wheelchair ramps are being built courtesy of Jon Lonsway's lawsuit which forced the city to either build new ramps in the intersections or redo the faulty ones it had already constructed.

Earlier, the city said it was building the ramps because it's the right thing to do and besides, they had won every lawsuit filed against him by that troublemaking Lonsway, but if they had been interested in doing "the right thing", they wouldn't have been sued and lost a lawsuit over a simple thing like installing wheelchair ramps so that those who use them don't have to risk their lives and safety navigating the streets because they couldn't access the sidewalks.

Thank you Lonsway.





The report that is an analysis of the operations of the Community Police Review Commission is still in progress until a final draft will be released. Between the politicization of the appointment process and the dilution of its effectiveness by City Hall, the word "community" has pretty much been as absent from the city's vernacular from it as it's missing from some of the signs on the sixth floor of City Hall. All this is going on while the city's paying out quietly on at least three wrongful death lawsuits involving fatal officer-involved shootings.

Here are the payouts so far:



Summer Marie Lane (December 2004): $395,0000



This shooting death received a sustained finding of a violation of the police department's use of force policy from the CPRC, but the officer involved, Ryan Wilson, was exonerated by the police department, a finding upheld by the city manager's office which left the final decision up to the police chief, according to a declaration released by City Manager Brad Hudson in the case of Ryan Wilson v the State of California.

Douglas Steven Cloud (October 2006): $800,000


The settlement involving the Cloud shooting, which is one of the largest amounts paid out by the city on a wrongful death lawsuit in recent history, was being finalized even before the CPRC received its initial briefing on its own investigation by Butch Warnberg last week. It likely would be the first time the CPRC deliberated over an officer-involved death that was already paid out by the city. By its actions, it appears that the city didn't want to wait to see what would happen once the CPRC released its finding, let alone take the case to trial in U.S. District Court.



Lee Deante Brown (April 2006): TBA

The settlement is still being ironed out on the lawsuit filed in relation to the Brown shooting case. It's expected to be less than that paid out in both the Cloud and Lane cases, but the question is as follows.

Why is the city paying out a dime on a lawsuit after both the CPRC (minus one commissioner) and police department have exonerated the actions of the officer involved? Why indeed?

So when all is said, done and paid out, it didn't matter in the end except perhaps in the dollar amount with the Brown settlement that City Hall took the actions regarding the CPRC that it has done in the past two years. If the commission sustains an allegation of excessive force against an officer for a fatal shooting, the city pays out. If it doesn't, the city pays out. If it hasn't had an opportunity to determine either way, the city pays out.

The city just pays out.

Perhaps the turning point could have been the tremendous $1.64 million the city was forced to pay out when it got its ass handed back to it by a jury on a plate during the trial involving Officer Roger Sutton's racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation lawsuit. The city had multiple opportunities to settle that case or even to pay out a 2004 arbitration award that at $200,000 was much smaller than the eventual payout.

That was one of the few personnel lawsuit cases involving the police department that became a lawsuit which the city didn't pay out, a decision it no doubt regrets.

It's particularly interesting in the case of Cloud, which already has sparked concerns about how the situation was assessed and ultimately how it was handled. How police officers could arrive at a scene in large numbers, guns drawn after receiving a radio call that a robbery was in process. However, when several of them take a closer look at Cloud in his vehicle, they approach it and attempt to remove him with one officer serving as "lethal cover". Then that officer apparently admits in his own interview that even though he had taken a protective position for the other officers who couldn't do so while they were busy trying to remove an injured Cloud through a car window, he had holstered his weapon to assist in that ultimately fruitless effort which led him to say, "it wasn't working".

Which of course left the situation without a backup officer in case it needed one.

This just moments after 11 officers in six vehicles had arrived within seconds of each other after being radioed that a man was fleeing in a car of that description from a robbery. Each of the four officers who stood next to Cloud's car was asked what they thought was meant by the robbery call over the radio and they said that they believed or it was implied that a weapon was involved, likely a gun. One officer, Brett Stennett, said that he believed he was in "mortal danger" when he struggled with pulling Cloud out of the car, yet he had no "lethal cover" part of that time.

It also might have increased the probability that a tragedy would have occurred and who it would have impacted would have depended on whether Cloud had been armed with a gun or not especially considering that the fact that there were officers with body parts in and out of Cloud's vehicle. These officers could have been startled by a sudden rev of the vehicle engine that could just as easily occurred when they lost their grip on his body, it fell back in the seat and his foot possibly on the accelerator given that it was still revving after Cloud was shot five times. It didn't necessarily mean he was trying to flee the scene in a car that was essentially pinned to a downed palm tree and badly damaged by the collision. It just meant that his foot was on the pedal.

Cloud wasn't armed so he was shot and killed in a sudden discharge of bullets, but if he had been armed and able to get to his weapon and it had been a gun, it's more than likely that one or more of the officers who tried to pull him out of the vehicle could have been shot and killed especially after Vazquez had holstered his own weapon. That's something for those on the CPRC to think long and hard about before refusing to "look back in hindsight" using much more time than the officers involved in the shooting incident took. Examining an officers' actions and yes, judging them is something some of the more recent appointments especially appear loathe to do but if this is a situation where the officers themselves may have used tactics that put themselves at risk, do the rules change or remain the same? If they're loathe to examine an officer's actions more carefully when a member of the public is killed, will they still hold the same attitude when officers' actions might have played a role in endangering themselves if the situation actually had been what they had said in their interviews that they believed it to be?

It's never clear how the department approaches these issues including the use of tactics because almost all of its process is internalized and hidden from the public by a shroud of confidentiality laws. However, if it's indeed true that the investigators were telling at least one witness at the struggle at Home Depot involving Cloud and some other individuals is true, then it doesn't inspire much faith in that process. According to Warnberg's report, one of the eyewitnesses, J. Taliaferro said that when investigators from the Officer-Involved Death Team interviewed him, they had said that Cloud "pulled a shotgun and is now under a sheet".

Say what?

As it turned out, there were no weapons found at either location linked to Cloud. No weapons, let alone a shotgun were ever reported being seen by any officers who were pulling Cloud out of his vehicle and Cloud never pulled a gun or a shotgun on any of those officers nor did he branish one. It's not clear why investigators would make a statement like this which was not the truth, but it creates concern and probably perceptions that from day one that there were efforts to write this shooting off as justifiable. It's hard to read it any other way especially since it wasn't based on truth or any evidence uncovered in the investigation as far as can be seen.

Hopefully, the CPRC will further research this issue through the interviews of this witness and the Officer-Involved Death Team's investigation to see if this statement actually was made by investigators and if so, why. If it was an attempt to illuminate the situation, it couldn't succeed. It's hard to picture them giving much thought to the issues arising from a shooting if they would even say that a shotgun had been involved in the absence of any evidence supporting that contention.

At any rate, statements like that if they are made don't exactly present a good picture of an investigation that is going to do much to illuminate any issues that might arise with tactics including officer safety. But this is yet another reason why the power to investigate officer-involved deaths was included in the ordinance which created the CPRC and is now included in the language which placed the CPRC in the city's charter in November 2004 if the city's still scratching its head wondering why it happened. The city can dilute the ability of the commission to utilize this power as it sees fit but it hasn't yet been able to erase the need for such a power to exist because it's too busy building the argument of why it's so necessary in the first place.

The other threat illuminated by the officers more so in the original briefing given by the department in November 2006 to the CPRC, was that the car was going to hit them, which is why they had fired their weapons at Cloud.

However, according to his statement, Officer David Johansen approached the car by walking in front of it even though he said the engine was running at the time. Both Officer Bryan Crawford and Officer Brett Stennett were filmed walking around in front of the Toyota Celica to get to the driver's side by a surveillance camera. This was done within seconds of the actual shooting yet like in the Lane shooting, the officers shot from the side of the car into the driver's window.

There are contrasting accounts of exactly when the engine was running or started running during the incident by different eyewitnesses and police officers and it appears from Warnberg's report that all of the officers except Vazquez who either were involved in the shooting or witnessed it (as opposed to just hearing the shots) gave multiple voluntary interviews to investigators. Stennett was interviewed both on Oct. 8, 2006 and July 5, 2007 for example.

One of the most interesting aspects of the officers' interviews involved that of Crawford who was asked what he would do if he had been the first officer at the scene of the crash. He said that if he knew there was a suspect in the car, he would have approached it as a "high risk" stop.

This is described in a footnote included in Warnberg's report as a "tactical method trained upon and utilized by police officers to enhance safety for themselves and the public during the stopping, approaching, removing and disarming of suspects in vehicles". Was this done or directed by Vazquez who apparently along with Stennett was the first officer on the scene? That may be one issue that's examined further by the CPRC during its review.

There will be more developments in this shooting case ahead as the CPRC has just begun its review of it even as it's clear that the city's about to close the book on Cloud.

In San Bernardino, Cassie MacDuff, a Press Enterprise columnist, writes a man that lost a portion of his property to street widening without even being notified about it let alone compensated.



(excerpt)



One day last summer, Lawson got a phone call from a Matich Corp. official saying his driveway would be blocked beginning the next Monday to install curbs and gutters.

Lawson protested that he had not been notified and needed access for the tractor-trailers that use his yard daily.

The Matich official seemed sympathetic and invited Lawson to company headquarters. But once there, Lawson said, company officials' attitude changed. They shouted him down and told him the work would begin regardless.

Matich Corp. President Stephen Matich didn't return my call seeking comment Monday.

When the work began, Lawson said, his mailbox was knocked over and left on the ground, the driveway had to be graded and other damage fixed.

Worse, losing 14 feet from the front of his property has made it difficult for truck drivers to get into the yard because their trailers hang out into the street when they stop at the gate to use the security keypad.

IVDA executive Don Rogers and counsel Tim Sabo on Monday morning blamed the problem on an overzealous contractor and admitted work shouldn't have been done before the agency bought the land from the property owners.



A San Bernardino County Sheriff deputy has been charged with extortion in connection with a man from the San Manual Band of Mission Indians.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



On Jan. 15, Ray Carr Green, a 45-year-old Lake Arrowhead resident, contacted sheriff's officials and said that Laurent tried to extort him during an on-duty contact, Beavers said.

Laurent promised not to pursue criminal charges against Green in exchange for money and property, Beavers said.

Beavers would not specify the crime being investigated by the deputy, the amount of money or the nature of the property.

As detectives with the sheriff's Specialized Investigations Division looked into the felony allegations, Laurent was placed on paid leave.





As payouts in racial and gender discrimination lawsuits in the Los Angeles Fire Department increase, the bias office which investigates these types of complaint is having its budget cut. It would make sense to address the problem rather than just to cut the operating budget of the division set up to handle the complaints.




The Albany Times-Union Editorial Board takes on both the city and county law enforcement agencies for how they conduct bodily searches. It stated that both the city council and county legislatures as well as the county prosecutor had to provide an accounting to the public about the practices of the involved law enforcement agencies.

Why? The editorial provided two examples.




(excerpt)



One case involves a man with a record of drug convictions who was stopped by investigators from a special sheriff's department detail that had been keeping an eye on Albany's downtown bus terminal. It happened two years ago, when the suspect, Tunde Clement, got off the bus one Monday morning in March. Before long, he found himself handcuffed, charged with resisting arrest, and on his way to a station, where he was stripped and searched for drugs. Then, without bothering to seek a warrant, deputies took him to Albany Medical Center Hospital where he was forcibly sedated by doctors, while his rectum and digestive system were examined. No drugs were found.

The second case involves a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena who was stopped one evening by officers of the Albany Police Department's Street Drug Unit as she drove through West Hill to pick up a friend. The woman, Lisa Shutter, was ostensibly pulled over for a traffic infraction, but says one of the officers told her that she fit the "profile" of a drug suspect. Her vehicle was searched, her cellphone seized and private numbers searched. She was subjected to a body search on a public street. She claims one of the male officers slid his hand inside her underwear. When she later complained about her treatment, she says she was told to refer her allegations to the department's internal affairs unit rather than the city's civilian police review board.

What makes these two cases even more outrageous is that they are far from isolated. Civil rights advocates and defense attorneys have been complaining about the sheriff's department unit for years, and seven years ago the state's highest court condemned the search tactics as it overturned the conviction of a bus passenger arrested for possessing three ounces of cocaine.






The city of Atlanta is looking for an executive director to oversee its civilian oversight mechanism. Given the corruption uncovered in that city's police department that's been commented on by the United States Attorney's office that is currently investigating it, any civilian oversight mechanism will have its work cut out for and that goes double for its executive director.



The Executive Director will be responsible for the development,
implementation and management of a comprehensive oversight of law
enforcement strategy aimed at successfully supporting the CRB. The
Executive Director will work closely with members of the CRB and
supervise investigative and administrative staff responsible for the
intake, dissemination and administration of citizen complaints and
investigations of law enforcement officers. The director will
facilitate all aspects of public hearings, make findings and
recommendations to the CRB regarding disposition of the complaints and
assist the board in developing policy recommendations to law
enforcement agencies.

The director will be responsible for developing
and managing a budget for the CRB and will serve as the CRB's liaison
to the City of Atlanta Administration.


$76,873.00 - $117,945.00


Web site






In New York City, Police Detective Hispolito Sanchez spent his second day on the witness stand as his 911 recording where he yelled "shots fired" several times was played in court.



(excerpt, Newsday)



Prosecutors played the recording during Sanchez's second day of testimony. The detective was heard telling the operator he was an "undercover police officer" but didn't appear to have a fix on his location, saying only that he was "around the corner from the Kalua Club."


On direct examination, Sanchez described how he heard shouted commands, followed by a crash and then gunshots on Liverpool Street, where Bell was shot dead by police. His description of commands was at odds with that of Lt. Gary Napoli, who testified last week at state Supreme Court in Kew Gardens that he heard none before the shooting began.

Sanchez, who didn't see the shooting, said that it might have taken about six seconds without a pause. Earlier prosecution witnesses said Bell's car collided with a police van before the shooting began.



Also testifying was Lt. Michael Wheeler who arrived at the scene after the shooting and was told by Det. Michael Oliver who is on trial and who had fired his gun 31 times that he couldn't remember if he had fired his gun or not.



The New York Daily News relates the confusion that erupted after the shooting through the 911 phone call made by Sanchez.



(excerpt)



Chaos and confusion were evident in the back and forth with the female operator, who kept demanding a clearly unprepared Sanchez for an address and one point asked him for no apparent reason, "Are you a male black?"

"We're at 143rd, on the corner," Sanchez was heard saying. "I'm an undercover police officer. Shots fired. Shots fired. I'm around the corner of Kalua strip club."

"143rd what?" the operator demanded. "143rd place? 143rd street? 143rd Avenue? 143rd and what?"

"Kalua Club," Sanchez replied.

Unable to wrest an exact location out of Sanchez, the operator then asked, "Who shot them?"

"Is an MOS (member of service) involved?" she asked, using the radio handle for cops in the field.

"I don't know at this time," Sanchez replied.

Seconds later, Sanchez came up with what turned out to be a wrong answer: "You have two perps shot."

While Sanchez was heard asking somebody for a cross street, the operator again asked Sanchez again for information he still could not provide.

"Sir, in order for me to help you, you have to have an address," she said. "Who's down? Is an MOS down?"

"I don't know at this time."

"Sir? You don't see a building number or anything?" the operator said. "Who's down? Is an MOS down?"

No cops were down. Bell was dead and his two friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were badly wounded.

Sanchez's 911 call was played after he said the gunshots were "continuous but sporadic."



After the shooting, the police frantically searched for a gun in Bell's car. It's known now that they never found one.




Errol Lewis, columnist with the New York Daily News discusses all the trial's ghosts.




The same day as the second week of the Bell trial, was the day that two other New York City Police Department officers plead not guilty to charges stemming from an alleged incident where they handcuffed a 14-year-old boy, then beat and kicked him.




The Voto Latino blog reflects on Maywood's police department, otherwise known as the "second chance" agency.



This article discusses the relationship between corrupt local governments and how that can seep into law enforcement agencies as happened in Maywood, California, Kandleton, Illinois and in West Hackensack, New Jersey where the county prosecutor wound up seizing control of the police department.

Riverside Renaissance by the numbers

Tuesday, means another city council meeting and here's this week's agenda. You can either attend in person and experience the full ambiance of the meeting or you can watch it on Charter Communication Cable live on Tuesdays or rebroadcasts during the week or through web stream on the internet.

At other venues, you have the comforts of the couch and the pork rinds (as one of my anti-fans has stated) or another snack (and popcorn appears to be a popular one) and you can watch the actions of your city government. If you appear in person, you'll get the experience and see the nuances that the cameras don't capture but you have to risk being insulted by one or more elected officials who's piqued at something and then get a barrage of hate rantings during the weeks afterward through the internet. And so on.

Since most of the business it seems is conducted at City Hall way before it gets to the city council, the meetings have a feel of a staged production rather than a governmental affair. The meetings which are the most important to attend such as city council subcommittee meetings are either scheduled when most of the public can't attend or it's not invited to attend because these meetings are behind closed doors. That's the sentiment of a lot of people when asked about the city council meetings even those who don't attend regularly or have never attended them but watch them at home.



It's too early in this latest rendition of the city council to come up with any particular quirks to look at let alone set up rules for the city council drinking game.

If you do attend a meeting, here are some tips.


Bring a book, because the one thing this city council likes to do is take breaks. Lots of them to break the meeting into manageable chapters and to usher as much of the audience as they can before the public comment period. Public comment is actually fairly late in a meeting that runs long but can come up quickly if it's one of those meetings that's over in a few blinks of an eye and early enough for everyone to hit the social hours at nearby food and drink establishments afterward.

Bring some liquids for hydration as the city's water cooler in the chambers doesn't always come with cups and every once so often, the meetings last longer than 45 minutes. Between the length and the bright lights, it's important to remember to drink your water. Some light snacks until the city gets smart and puts out one of those mobile coffee and hot dog carts outside the chambers can also provide some energy for you to get through a long meeting.

Bring a sense of humor, because there will be a day when you've pushed the button of an elected official, whether it's on the expenditure of Riverside Renaissance, the cuts on city departments' budgets or the passage of Measure II by the voters and they will dash off some quick retort to make some points with the viewing audience at home. Just smile, tell them how much you appreciate what they've said (even if it's that you lied which happened several times to speakers), say thank you to the rest of those on the dais who don't engage in that form of behavior and show them through example how they themselves should be behaving.

Sit in on some Early Childhood Development Study classes because what you learn there will definitely help you at the podium when addressing some of those sitting on the dais who have a hard time listening without engaging in an assortment of behaviors like eye rolling, discussions amongst themselves or paper flipping along with grimaces, grunts, sighs, snorts and other verbal and nonverbal expressions.

If you have a blog, be sure to let the city council know about it, so one or more of them can provide a public service announcement during the meeting about it. It's a boost to readership to be panned by elected officials so don't despair if it should happen to you even if you do get a barrage of hateful rants including ones with your photograph on them. It's not clear what impact it might have on your readership if city officials praise it.

If you're elderly and female, bring bail money because most of the people who the police officers have been ordered by the city council to escort from the podium or eject have been elderly women. It's called Gadflying While Elderly. No one's been arrested yet but one 89-year-old woman had to tell two police officers that they would have to carry her out of the chambers during one of the city council's crackdowns on uppity elderly women at a city council meeting in 2007. Another was removed by an officer from the podium for exceeding the three-minute speaking limit in 2006 while talking about damage a city-owned pipe had done to her property when it ruptured.


Any rumors that the consultant who's teaching dais decorum to the elected officials down the road in Colton might sit in on a meeting in Riverside are just wishful thinking.

The agenda's not packed but includes some interesting items, most of which won't be discussed because they are on the consent calendar and as you might know, members of the public have been barred from pulling items off the consent calendar for discussion since July 2005. Included on the consent calendar are often some hefty priced items including those involving Riverside Renaissance. The reality that it's expected by those who set the agenda each week that these high-priced ticket items wouldn't elicit any discussion or questions from elected officials is somewhat disheartening in terms of having an open and democratic local government.


A city employee, George Valencia, has a worker's compensation case which will be discussed by the city council in closed session.


One of the items in the discussion calendar will be this update on the implementation of the recommendations for Fairmount Park's renovation. These recommendations were made by the task force that was assigned the task of addressing what to do with Fairmount Park.

Projects that have been implemented is the dredging of two of the lakes which doesn't seem to bother the ducks at all. The beginning of that activity to restore the lakes to their pristine condition was celebrated through a luncheon ritual that included on its guest list, city officials and city employees who dined while watching as icky looking stuff was sucked out of the lake. It's not known yet whether this will be an annual event.


The episode with the Fairmount Park Task Force played out last summer when it took front and center stage not long after the first round of elections which resulted in a runoff between incumbent at the time, Dom Betro and newcomer Mike Gardner for the seat in Ward One where Fairmount Park resides. If you care about the present and future of Fairmount Park, it's important to keep yourself informed on this ongoing issue and if the city takes the proposal in some strange direction or implements what it wanted but yells "no money" when it comes to implementing recommendations made by the city residents, pack those chambers before the city manager's office dares you to do so as it has on several occasions on other issues according to community leaders and speak on these issues.


Earlier in the city council meeting will be the latest report on Riverside Renaissance. The one program in the city that will be moving forward despite the budget cuts because the city manager's office and city council have said that no general fund money is used to finance it. Actually, the correct term is that no general money directly funds it.



On page 2, the report on the renaissance kindly outlines several reasons why the cost has inflated from the initial $750,000 to nearly $2 billion (although the report states a price tag of $650 million less). Refined estimates and the addition of other projects were two of the causes.


Here are some interesting statistics on Riverside Renaissance from the report.




The Top Five Project Categories:





Public Utilities: $658,648,000



Transportation: $211,185,000



Sewer: $183,895,000



Grade Separation: $182,311,000



Park, Recreation and Community Services: $180,905,000



Redevelopment: $135,495,000









How Riverside Renaissance is funded (according to the city):





Certification of participation proceeds: $ 115,934,000



County/state federal (including anticipated grants): $353,384,000



Development impact fees/Other city funds: $147,681,000



Electric, water and sewer rates: $778,556,000



Land sale proceeds: $33,890,000



Private: $59,950,000



Redevelopment Agency bonds sales or land sale proceeds: $238,667,000



Unfunded: $52,300,000



The above statistic is important because it's clear who will be paying the tab on the renaissance and that's the city resident especially property owners and public utilities consumers not to mention future generations. Many of the projects under the renaissance have been worthwhile, overdue endeavors but there's been lots of concerns expressed no matter how unpopular it is during meetings at City Hall to do so about where the money's coming from. How much of it's borrowed. What will be used to pay off borrowed money plus the interest. What the city's current credit rating is. That's for starters.


Not to mention that redevelopment probably shouldn't be getting a dime but that's another topic. But it's important because occasionally the Redevelopment Agency has to get bailed out (but never completely so because then it couldn't really exist) and it's important to pay attention to where this money is really coming from.

These concerns have increased during these fiscally difficult budget times that are expected to last for several years. If you're concerned about the city's budget, it's important to pay attention to how it plays out during the creation of the budget for the next fiscal year which begins July 1. Already cuts are anticipated in most if not all city departments, from the 5% to 15% range, with positions being left vacant and promotions frozen.

The police department for example had a deputy chief position frozen when that individual took another job and given that the current assistant police chief has been out for a while due to serious illness (and hopefully will have a good recovery and be back so keep him in your thoughts), that leaves one deputy chief filling those management responsibilities.


Coming off a month break, will be the finance committee on March 10 which of course is scheduled at a time when no one can attend. It' s chaired by Councilman Chris MacArthur and includes Council Members Nancy Hart and Mike Gardner as members. A formal agenda hasn't been announced yet but the talk all over the place right now is the city's annual budget both for the remainder of this fiscal year as well as the next one.





Riverside Unified School District says it won't be cutting 154 positions that it had planned to cut. The news isn't clear yet about Alvord School District.






Colton will vote on whether or not to recall the mayor on June 3.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


Financially, the June 3 date is a bargain. The city can combine the recall election with the statewide primary at a cost of about $22,000, according to a staff report. If the council does not approve the June 3 date and submit its plan to the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters by Friday, a special election would be required at a price tag of more than $96,000.

On the ballot, voters will be asked if Chastain should be recalled from the office of mayor, City Clerk Caroline Padilla said in the report. Those who vote yes will then choose one person from a list of candidates.

After the election date is set, any registered voter in Colton can obtain papers at the city clerk's office to run for mayor. Candidates need to collect 20 valid signatures, Padilla said.

Chastain was elected mayor in December 2006 to a four-year term. She previously served three terms as a councilwoman.

She said she is frustrated by the recall.

"I have a lot to do," Chastain said. "I'll continue to do the work of the city, but now I have to work on a campaign, and this is no ordinary campaign."

She said she will fight for her seat and expects the campaign to "get down and dirty. I really hope it doesn't. I'll plan for the worst and hope for the best."




Dana Parsons, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times ponders what qualities he'd like to see in the Orange County sheriff.





The San Francisco Chronicle published the latest development in a court case that could impact how police officers are disciplined in several major cities.



(excerpt)



At issue is how a state law governing police officer rights is being implemented by the Los Angeles Police Department and, by extension, San Francisco's, with its similar police disciplinary system.

So far, three state appellate court rulings have sided with Los Angeles officers, who said their rights were violated when they were not told of the specific penalty they faced when charged with misconduct.

The courts have tossed out their discipline as a result, putting as many as 30 similar San Francisco cases at risk.

"This is a potential tragedy for police accountability," said Police Commissioner Joe Alioto Veronese.

Mark Schlosberg, a police practices expert with the ACLU, called the prospect of the high court upholding the appellate court rulings "very troubling."

"The potential impact ranges from a whole bunch of cases being dismissed to some other outcome," he said. "But we just don't know."





The latest development in San Francisco's so-called "Fajitagate" case is playing out at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.






(excerpt)



The officers - Matthew Tonsing, David Lee and Alex Fagan Jr., son of then-Assistant Chief Alex Fagan - denied attacking the two men and were acquitted of criminal charges. But a Superior Court jury found in 2006 that Fagan and Tonsing had used excessive force and awarded $46,000 in damages.

Snyder and Santoro also filed a civil suit against the city, claiming that a Police Department habit of condoning excessive force had led to their injuries. They cited police records showing that Fagan Jr., as a rookie officer, had used violence in 16 incidents in the 13 months before November 2002.

His supervisor had proposed counseling in September 2002, saying Fagan showed a "lack of anger management" and refused to follow orders, but the department had not carried out the plan at the time of the brawl, the plaintiffs noted.






The medical workers who tried to save Sean Bell's life testified at the trial of three of the New York City Police Department officers who shot and killed him November 2006 outside of a nightclub in Queens.



(excerpt, New York Times)



One technician administered C.P.R. while a paramedic leaned into the back seat and reached over with an air balloon to try to resuscitate him.

On cross-examination, the paramedic, Lt. Elise Hanlon, testified that when she arrived on Liverpool Street shortly after receiving the call at 4:14 a.m., there was another ambulance parked roughly in the area where most of the 50 police shell casings would later be found. The defense is expected to raise the possibility that the scene was contaminated, and that evidence was moved and jostled in the hectic moments after the shooting.

“As you were walking by, did you notice any ballistics evidence in the street?” the defense lawyer James J. Culleton asked. Lieutenant Hanlon said she did not.

Firefighter Mark Massa, an E.M.T., helped treat Mr. Benefield, who had run from the car during the shooting, fleeing south on Liverpool before he fell or was stopped on the sidewalk. As they placed Mr. Benefield in the ambulance, a crowd gathered, he said.

“They had a phone, and they wanted to let Trent speak to his mom,” Firefighter Massa said. He held the phone as Mr. Benefield spoke, he said.





An undercover detective said that Bell and one of his friends had mentioned getting a gun before going to their car, according to the New York Daily News.


(excerpt)


Detective Hispolito Sanchez said Bell and Joseph Guzman confronted a man in an SUV outside the Jamaica strip club where they just finished a bachelor party.

"(Bell) said, 'Let's f--- them up,'" Sanchez, 36, testified. "(Guzman) said, 'Yo, go get my gun.'"

Sanchez, the first of the detectives who had been inside the Kalua Cabaret to testify, said Bell and Guzman walked away when the driver put his hands in his pockets as if he had a weapon.

The pair returned moments later and repeated the same threatening comments, Sanchez said.




Also in New York City, a body that monitors the city's police department for corruption approved of the department's overall performance but criticized it for not disciplining its officers properly, according to the New York Daily News.


(excerpt)


The commission examined nine cases of off-duty misconduct involving firearms and found that the penalty imposed was too lax. For example, two off-duty cops who waved their firearms at civilians without justification were each punished with a loss of only 20 days of pay.

The commission also criticized the NYPD for failing to determine whether the incidents involved alcohol.

The commission examined 48 cases in which cops were involved in domestic disputes. The incidents ranged from disputes involving verbal threats to physical assaults to violations of orders of protection.


Nine of the cases involved cops with prior, substantiated allegations of domestic incidents.

Two of those cops were put on an unknown period of probation. One retired. In the six remaining cases, the cops lost vacation days or were suspended.

Out of 22 officers who falsified department reports, only two were fired. The commission determined that three other officers should have been terminated.





The police department is also examining how it handles stop and frisk stops.




(excerpt, New York Daily News)




"The department is currently examining ways to implement all of the recommendations, including ways to flag anomalous stop patterns by individual officers," said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne.

In recent years, blacks and Hispanics have made up a greater share of the stops than their percentage of the general population, prompting charges of racial profiling. The department has denied racial bias, saying the stops were based on descriptions of crime suspects, a large majority of whom were described as black or Hispanic.

The NYPD, which stopped more than 500,000 New Yorkers in 2006, commissioned the Rand Corp. to perform the review. It concluded that the NYPD's tactics were race-neutral.

Rand researchers called it "problematic," however, that 15 cops stopped substantially more minority pedestrians than other officers and suggested tracking individual cops.





New York City's government is asking questions about how the police department handles mentally ill individuals.



(excerpt, NY-1)



"When there is time to negotiate, take all the time necessary to ensure the safety of all concerned," said NYPD Chief Robert Giannelli. "Deadly physical force will be used only as a last resort to protect the life of the persons present."

However, council members say more can be done. They say police need updated computer and tracking systems when responding to calls where someone may be emotionally disturbed.

"They have no way of knowing the history of this person, if they have been violent in the past or non-violent," said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. "That is for two reasons. One is that police technology is not up to date."

The second reason, police say privacy laws make it hard to get medical records. Others believe police need to call mental health experts to the scene.

"They should be involved whenever possible," said Councilman Oliver Koppel. "We do have cases where the police may have acted improperly, where the police, because they don't understand the condition of the person that they are approaching, may have over reacted."

"We believe crisis intervention teams are the solution," said Lisa Ortega, an advocate for the mentally ill. "There has been resistance from the NYPD to implement anything other than the military style they have of circling and apprehending people."



The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on how the handling of complaints against police officers is going to change in the wake of a federal trial.


(excerpt)


"This is extremely important to the Department of Justice," said Richard Ruminski, head of the FBI's office in Milwaukee. "(Police) have a tremendous amount of trust. You can't have individuals betraying that trust. People depend on police and other public officials to serve, and when they violate that trust, it requires a response."

Ruminski and Biskupic cautioned that they can't take on every complaint against Milwaukee police or any department. They don't have the people to do it, plus there are few federal laws to prosecute police, with the burden of proof high.

Federal authorities typically monitor such cases and get involved if there isn't a satisfactory outcome, as happened with Jude, Biskupic said. They reserve the right to get involved in any case at any time, but focus on the major cases, he said.

"The Jude case was not something close to the line," Biskupic said. "Nobody wants to be in the business of second-guessing a police officer breaking up a fight. That is not what the Jude case was or the cases that we are looking at. I hope the good cops know that."






Support remains strong for the family members of Stacey Peterson who hasn't been seen since last Oct. 28. Her husband and former Bolingbrook Police Department sergeant, Drew Peterson remains a suspect in her disappearance.

The Santa Anas are back again

The Santa Anas paid another visit to the Inland Empire yesterday, leaving clear blue skies and an impressive view but causing power outages and knocking over big rig trucks and trees from one end of the region to another.


At Zacatecas in the heart of the Eastside of Riverside, community leaders and members threw a party and said farewell but not goodbye yesterday to former Riverside Police Department Deputy Chief and current Palm Springs Police Department Chief Dave Dominguez.


Attending from City Hall were Mayor Ron Loveridge, Ward Two Councilman Andrew Melendrez and Ward Four Councilman Frank Schiavone as well as representatives from the Riverside Unified School Board, Latino Network, Riverside Community College District Board of Trustees and other organizations.

Representatives from the police department who attended were Lt. Darryl Hurt, Lt. Tim Bacon and Det. Steve Shumway.


Dominguez said he was overwhelmed by the gathering and that he was at a loss for words, which isn't a common state for him to be in. In 1994, he had arrived in Riverside's "closed shop" as a lieutenant. His former boss from the Sheriff's Department offered to keep a job open for him if he wanted to return.

And about two months and 28 days into his job, he asked his wife, what the hell have I gotten myself into. Not long after he was hired, he was at a meeting in Casa Blanca with 100 people in attendance not long after one of the police helicopters had been shot down while flying over the neighborhood. People who attended that meeting said that it was very emotional.

The meeting was contentious, and Dominguez said that he had been scared. However, he was going to hold to the adage of treating everyone with dignity and respect and to work very hard in the community. It was about being out in the community when people didn't want you to be there. And the city's always sent a mixed message in how it expects its police officers to engage with community and whether it really supports community oriented policing or not. One of the ironies will always be that what separated Dominguez out from other candidates who wanted to lead the police department in the popular desert city was his record in his relationships with the community. A quality never really appreciated by some of those in positions of power as it was in the communities.

Others spoke, illuminating chapters in Dominguez' history with the Riverside Police Department.


Former Asst. Chief Mike Smith, who now head the investigations division in the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office, told the audience that he remembered when Dominguez had been hired as a lieutenant from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.



In 1998, when Smith was a captain, Dominguez had worked under him as an administrative lieutenant during one of the most turbulent times in the city's history after the fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller by four police officers. Structurally, the department was very different with only one captain overseeing 300 officers, most of them in the field division. But Dominguez was an asset to dealing with implementing change including the hours spent meeting with representatives from the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, the United States Attorney's office and the State Attorney General's office.


"It certainly has changed the city. It certainly has changed the community. It certainly has changed the police department," Smith said.



When Smith left for San Bernardino, Dominguez moved up in the ranks. Smith wished Dominguez luck with his new job.



"Those four stars on your collar look very good being there," Smith said.






Mayor Ron Loveridge said that in 1994, it had been very rare for higher ranking officers to be hired from outside the department. Former Chief Ken Fortier had only brought in two of them and one was Dominguez.


"What we've seen in the past 14 years is change," Loveridge said.


When Dominguez had applied to be the next Palm Springs Police Department chief, he faced competition from 80 applicants. What gave him the edge was the same thing that wasn't always appreciated in Riverside, and that was dedication to community service. The quality which city leaders praise even as behind the scenes it's made cuts to the department's community policing and services division consolidating it under the Special Operations Division. When it came to making budget cuts, this office was apparently one of the first things to go.

Not much different than life only one decade and a few years ago when community policing was also a quick casualty in fiscally difficult budget years.


Woodie Rucker-Hughes, who is president of the Riverside chapter of the NAACP, said that Dominguez was a person who lead by example even in difficult times.



"We have lost a good police officer in Riverside, not that there aren't other, " Rucker-Hughes said, "But these will be tough shoes to fill."





Melendrez said that it's unlikely that different people would define leadership in the same way but that they would recognize leadership qualities when they saw them. He praised Dominguez' work with Latino youth.



"He's a community leader who empowers other people to lead as well," Melendrez said.



Sue Rainey, the superintendent of the Riverside Unified School District said that Dominguez had instituted a "brownbag with cop" lunch program while working with the school district. He had wanted students to get to know police officers so they wouldn't be afraid of police cars. Rainey said that initially the officers appeared to be more apprehensive at lunching with the students than vice versa.

So Dominguez leaves, taking a piece of the police department's soul with him. And Rucker-Hughes is right, these will be big shoes to fill in a city that often sends mixed messages in its commitment to community policing.




Former Riverside Police Department Officer Jose Luis Nazario has his preliminary hearing today in U.S. District Court in connection with his indictment on manslaughter charges in connection with the killings of two Iraqi detainees in Fallujah several years ago.




The trial of the three New York City Police officers in connection with the Sean Bell shooting resumes today, with the following question awaiting further answers as to whether or not the officers identified themselves before shooting.


(excerpt, Newsday)


Though the detectives have long maintained that they opened fire only after one of them identified himself as a police officer, their commanding officer testified that he never heard his men yell "Police!" or "Stop!"

On Monday, when the trial is scheduled to resume, it is likely that the question of whether the officers identified themselves will lie heavily on the court proceedings



Lt. Gary Napoli's testimony was the first from a police officer to echo what other witnesses had said _ that on a confused Nov. 25, 2006, when 23-year-old Sean Bell was killed in a 50-bullet barrage, the detectives who opened fire outside the Kalua Cabaret never identified themselves.


Det. Hispolito Sanchez, who participated in the undercover activity at the Kalua Night Club in Queens is set to testify today.


(excerpt, New York Daily News)



Sanchez told investigators he was one of the two detectives close enough to overhear Joseph Guzman threaten the SUV driver in an angry faceoff, saying, "Yo, get my gun," according to a police report written the day of the shooting.

The detective was steps behind Isnora as he tailed Bell's group from the club, down Liverpool St., and to their car just before the 23-year-old groom-to-be fell in a 50-bullet barrage.

Sanchez was the first undercover to enter Kalua, about 1 a.m. It was his job to scout out patrons who might recognize Isnora from his prostitution bust at Kalua the week before, a police report said.

Sanchez fired no shots that night, because he had left behind his gun, his badge and his bulletproof vest in order to enter Kalua undetected, his commanding officer testified last week. He faces no charges.




The New York Times also addresses the significance of Lt. Gary Napoli's surprising testimony.







In Orange County, its former sheriff, Michael Carona wants the judge to suppress the tapes


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)


Taped conversations between Carona and Don Haidl, a wealthy businessman who was once a member of Carona's top command, support two witness-tampering charges in a 10-count corruption indictment against Carona, his wife, Deborah Carona and attorney Debra Hoffman, Carona's long-time mistress.

Prosecutors have released transcripts of about 20 minutes of conversation between the men at the Bayside Restaurant in Newport Beach on Aug. 13, about two months before a federal grand jury issued the indictment.

Carona and Haidl discuss the need for both of them to stick to a single story while talking to federal prosecutors. They also assure each other that their dealings left no money or paper trails.

In one exchange, Haidl says, "... whatever we did, as long as our stories are straight, I'm OK, as long as I know there's no trail anywhere."

Carona responds, "No trail anywhere ... period. In fact, not even close to being a trail."


Oh but there was, straight to the federal courthouse where Carona finds himself now.

Portland and Riverside: Discourse on civilian review

Riverside's ball fields at Orange Terrace Park have opened.



The Press Enterprise's Editorial Board also liked the upgrade of traffic signals to accommodate emergency vehicles.


(excerpt)


The Fire Department and ambulance service in Riverside still face delays in responding to emergencies, particularly from train traffic. If proposed grade separation projects win funding from Prop. 1B, the state transportation bond voters approved in 2006, emergency response times could improve significantly over the next few years.

The intersection projects, in contrast, should be finished within a few months. It's a welcome safety improvement for emergency crews, other drivers, and those who need help in a hurry.




Riverside's ownership of land in Colton is causing some consternation.

Riverside officials have said they want to be kept in the loop.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Three property owners -- the city of Riverside and two family trusts, Roquet Family LLC and W & P La Loma Hills Inc. -- control 80 to 90 percent of the site, Colton officials said.

During a specially called Colton council meeting on the Pellisier Ranch Specific Plan, Riverside Councilman Mike Gardner expressed disappointment that Riverside officials haven't been kept in the loop. He asked the council to delay action for two weeks.

Suchil countered that Colton doesn't always know what is going on in Riverside, even when Colton development officials seek information.

"The secrecy needs to end," Suchil said. "We need to work together -- we both have an interest in this area -- and that needs to start today."




And Riverside also wants whatever project increases the land's value. Will this work with the plans already made by Colton? You can't blame Riverside for looking for higher land value which could if sold, provide revenue for Riverside Renaissance because it's looking at the issue not simply as a public agency but a property developer.


(excerpt)



In August, Riverside officials made it clear to Colton that they want to see the land developed in a way that increases the property's value.

"It was also made clear that we want to see the area developed in such a way that it adds value to the surrounding area, while maximizing the value of our property," the unsigned memo reads. "We are approaching this project as a responsible developer -- not just a public agency."

In an interview, Gardner said he preferred an option that would have designated most of Riverside's land for a business park. Land zoned industrial carries almost as much value as residential property but with less traffic, he said.

Colton did not sign off on that option.



That's not the only upheaval going on in Colton. There's much more of that and probably much more to come.






The struggle is heating up in Portland, Oregon over who controls the debate over the future of the Independent Police Review. Mayor Tom Potter has announced that at least temporarily, the IPR won't be controlled by the city's auditor, Gary Blackmer according to The Oreganian.



(excerpt)


Potter said he was frustrated that an outside consultant's report on the effectiveness of the Independent Police Review Division had led to a quarrel instead of meaningful debate.

"I think lines are being drawn up on both sides. The auditor made it clear he will only make the changes he deems appropriate," Potter said. "I think the whole issue is becoming adversarial."

Community members have been quick to embrace the consultant's findings, saying the report supported much of what they've been complaining about for years -- that the public lacks confidence in Portland's police oversight, and the police review division's lack of transparency contributes to community distrust that complaints about police misconduct are seriously addressed.

But Auditor Gary Blackmer, who oversees the process, released a lengthy critique of the report Thursday, challenging many of the findings and rejecting some of the recommendations. He said he's disappointed in the report, saying it wasn't worth $60,000 and contained "a lot of mistakes" that his office wouldn't produce.



Potter plans to ask the city council to pass an ordinance to place the IPR under his own office. No doubt that has Blackmer more than a bit miffed.




Community members including members of several watchdog organizations have made it clear that they intend to be part of the discussion whether or not the city government invites them or not. Earlier, a city council workshop on the issues raised by consultant Eileen Luna-Firebaugh in her report was going to be held but wasn't taking public comment. Earlier, both Blackmer and the director of the IPR had challenged Luna-Firebaugh's findings and rejected some of her recommendations.

That workshop was ultimately canceled, news which didn't stop the community from holding its own forum right where the one that had been denied them was scheduled to take place.



Portland bloggers took note that actor Tim Robbins had appeared at the public forum but no one was sure why he was there.



Commissioner Randy Leonard through an email to Potter which was published in the Portland Mercury. The email was CCed to city council members and Blackmer.


(excerpt, email)


Early on in the analysis being prepared by Professor Luna-Firebaugh, Auditor Blackmer met with me to discuss some concerns he had with the methodology being employed by Professor Luna-Firebaugh in developing her analysis. Auditor Blackmer also shared with me his concerns that Professor Luna-Firebaugh was restricting her community input to those who are critical of IPR while minimizing contact with those who may have a different perspective. As an example, he told me that while Professor Luna-Firebaugh met in person with various community groups for discussions relative to IPR she only conducted a five minute interview via the telephone with Portland Police Association President, Robert King.

Given those concerns, my office tried to set up a meeting with Professor Luna-Firebaugh, Auditor Blackmer and myself.

Professor Luna-Firebaugh refused to meet with me if Auditor Blackmer was present.

I went ahead and met with Professor Luna-Firebaugh. During our meeting I expressed disappointment that she would not meet with me if Auditor Blackmer was present. I explained that having them both in the room discussing their different perspectives may have allowed us to resolve any misunderstandings that may have existed between her and Auditor Blackmer.

She responded that Auditor Blackmer was not her boss, as she was under contract. I explained that my goal was to clear the air between them so that we could all move forward and focus on the work. As quoted in notes taken at the meeting, Professor Luna-Firebaugh told me that she had to draw the line somewhere as to who she would meet with and that if she had agreed to my wanting Auditor Blackmer present, she would be obligated to meet with all of the other Commissioner’s Offices with Auditor Blackmer present. She said it would be a waste of her time when she preferred to focus on policy.

I really did not know how to respond to that.




In a memo that he wrote that was included in the linked article above, Potter appeared to have supported Luna-Firebaugh's methodology and listed five recommendations that the city council should give immediate attention to at the workshop that ultimately didn't take place.


Politics especially involving those at City Hall have surrounded the civilian oversight mechanism in Riverside as much as that in Portland. Portlanders have said that the city wants the image of civilian review and not the reality itself. A local columnist in Riverside believes that the city has pretty much the implementation of civilian review that it wants. Community input seems to be very much a secondary consideration in both cities. After all, some of Blackmer's comments since the release of the report in Portland are very similar to what Riverside community leaders and members have been hearing for the past two years.

It certainly is the case in Riverside where community leaders met with city management employees in early 2007 to try to find out why former executive manager, Pedro Payne had resigned.

One religious leader had said that City Manager Brad Hudson had told them that they'd fill the city council chambers with 35 or so people and then what?

It's also interesting to compare and contrast the role that the mayors played in both cities regarding civilian review mechanisms.

Portland has a stronger mayoral system than does Riverside. In fact, Potter, a former police chief of the Portland Police Bureau, is also the commissioner of public safety. In contrast, Mayor Ron Loveridge holds his position in a city that's based on a council-management system where the mayor has few powers.

What's interesting is that Loveridge rarely even threatens to veto and doesn't do it. The exception came in June 2004 when he allegedly was going to veto a motion made by then Councilman Art Gage to defund the Community Police Review Commission by up to 95% if it passed by four votes. The threat of a veto from Loveridge would have been more than enough to stop other members of the then GASS quartet from supporting Gage because they lacked a fifth vote which would have been necessary to override the veto.

That was Loveridge's one major action involving civilian review in Riverside, though he did formally endorse Measure II which was the initiative to put the CPRC in the city's charter which strongly indicated that Loveridge was aware of how those on the dais and their supporters were using the CPRC as a "political football".

Potter's main action lately was to remove the IPR from the office of the city's auditor as stated above and put it under his office. This action paralled that of Loveridge only in the latter's case the body involved was the Human Relations Commission.

The HRC noted that it began having problems with holding onto its staffing after it had sent a letter off to the city manager's office asking questions about the ethnic and racial makeup of the city's work force including at City Hall after the demotions, terminations and resignations of several Black and Latino management employees. Today, the HRC is no longer under the city manager's office but instead Loveridge's office oversees it. Still, there's plenty of boards and commissions left for the city manager's office to play with. The two to watch carefully in the next few months are the Board of Library Trustees and the Metropolitan Museum Board for obvious reasons.

It will be interesting to see if Portland's City Hall ever has a dialogue with its constituents even those who it doesn't view as being representative or part of "community" because they don't toe the party line. One thing to admire is that Potter does engage with the toughest critics of both the PPB that he used to lead and the IPR which is now under his purvue. Riverside? It pretty much just wants to deal with those who agree with its platform, which pretty much places it in the same camp with Blackmer.

That's why even an analysis of community sentiment on one single issue is filtered through the words of others looking at community. This is true at City Hall and it's true involving the CPRC as well. That's why Portland's much closer to seeing the civilian review that it wants while Riverside will have to settle for the civilian review it deserves.







All the links to Luna-Firebaugh's report and the responses from Blackmer and the IPR director are here




Portland CopWatch on why the IPR sucks.