The Empire Strikes Back: Lessons in tantrum throwing by City Hall

Citizens are wrong if they think this problem will self correct. They are even more wrong if they think the problem is sparse and of little consequence. Be wary of police administrators who tell you they can fix it - some are part of the problem. If self-policing worked, then society would not need the police would we? Law enforcement agencies (as miniature societies) are no different - they cannot police themselves."


----Former law enforcement officer, Karl Monsoor from Blue Must be True





"Retribution has no place in this process."


---Community Police Review Commissioner John Brandriff in reaction to the city manager's office's directive.





"From my standpoint, I am still conflicted."


---CPRC commissioner, Kenneth Rotker




This is certainly in retaliation for the Pablo incident."


---Retired police chief and founding commissioner, Bill Howe




"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."


---Mahatma Gandhi








Where's composer John Williams when you need him? One of his powerful scores is sorely needed as news come out of City Hall about the sequel with no equal, the Empire Strikes Back. No, in this version there's no revelations similar to when Darth Vadar told Luke Skywalker he was his father but there's some dramatics, saber rattling and special effects involved in this chapter of the saga of City Hall's arduous battle against the citizen-inspired police commission.

And it's not exactly the Empire, but the next best thing, the city manager's office with its pistol packing (alas, no light sabers in this rendition) duo, Brad Hudson and his sidekick, Tom DeSantis throwing a whopper of a temper tantrum that's been two years in the making and finally broke amidst news that the Community Police Review Commission had gone off and voted 5 to 3 to carry out its charter-mandated duties and actually initiate an independent investigation into an officer-involved death, that being the Martin Gaspar Pablo incident. Yes, you thought the temper tantrum that Hudson's office threw when he had received that pesky letter from the Human Relations Commission asking him about racial breakdowns in the employees who left City Hall positions was colorful. The Human Relations Commission never really ever received a response to that letter, at least not in writing but as former HRC member and current CPRC member John Brandriff recalled, they were kicked out of his division and lost their staffing soon after. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Not even all the hand ringing by the city manager's office in early 2007 when it tried to obstruct investigations from being initiated by the CPRC back then, equaled the tantrum they pulled by word processor.

As for HRC, the politics surrounding it did attract some attention.


Fortunately, the mayor's office swooped in and saved them from terminal micromanagement and piques of petulance.


There would be no similar save for the CPRC.



For Brandriff who gave a fiery speech about what he called the bad boy/ bad girl spankings they had received from dual corporate punishers Hudson and DeSantis, at least he said what needed to be said for a while now. In addition to being slapped, the commissioners were getting their allowance cut off due to their insubordination they showed by having the purse strings of their budget not in the hands of their executive manager or themselves but City Attorney Greogory Priamos. And if he gets called in by Chair Brian Pearcy upon the wishes of the Seventh Floor for "counseling sessions" to shape up, he won't have been the first commissioner in that situation.


Brandriff pulled no punches as he detailed the sordid history of the CPRC's handling by the city manager and his partner, the city attorney when both engaged in maneuvers to "obstruct and impede" the commission's ability to investigate. Clearly under the direction of other parties who sign their pay checks because it's difficult to believe they are acting alone.

Brandriff raised some obvious points especially to those of us who actually were within the city limits like, when the commission first formed and like, during the commission's first seven officer-involved death investigations. Not like those more recent hires from the county.



"No criminal investigation had ever been jeopardized by a CPRC investigation," Brandriff said.



And he's right. If that had ever happened, there would have been howls from the police department, the city attorney's office only there hasn't been. Instead, they heard Chief Russ Leach say at a 2002 meeting that it was the commission's decision when it should initiate an investigation of a death and since then, lamenting the lack of communication between his office and the commission. So now even though there's been no problems, the howls are coming in full chorus no doubt rattling through back room meetings at City Hall. But then over $1 million in money has been paid out in lawsuits since then. The litigative rate went from 16% for the first six deaths investigated but then leaped up to 80% for the last six.

If Hudson and DeSantis were really so concerned about the police department, they wouldn't be forcing the cutting and freezing of police positions including supervisors and then telling everyone the department is "fully staffed" when it no longer has a Community Services Division and apparently doesn't have POPs officers anymore either. That's the kind of love if I were an officer I could do with a little less of, still the weakening of the CPRC does make a nice consolation prize. But if it's true that an $800,000 settlement came out of a tax payer fund, that money could have been spent on five to six officers or a whole lot of training.

Brandriff called the actions of City Hall, a violation of the commission's policy and procedures, bylaws and the city's charter. He added that the city attorney can only get involved if directed to do so by the city council and that's one of the critical elements of this tale to keep in mind as it continues onward like the train wrecks which have preceded it.


The city attorney? According to the ordinance, he has no more right to legally advise the city's commissions than he does to decide whether or not the complaints will be heard by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. Still, he does both anyway and it's clear that he's getting his marching orders from someone or someones because he knows who signs his paychecks as well. For all this mentioning about how the executive manager and CRPC independent investigators knowing who signs their checks or in one case being told (see below), there wasn't much discussion about how that applied to the city council's more direct employees.

Priamos' response and then later that of the twin city managers to the ACLU's challenge of his legal position against the Community Police Review Commission was not surprising in the least if you've been following this saga since its beginning. That' s when the commission committed the cardinal sin of actually voting that one of Riverside's officers had violated departmental policy involving use of lethal force when he walked up Summer Marie Lane sitting in a car and fired three times killing her. At the time, Hudson claimed he was too new and didn't know what to do, so he did what one councilman called, "punked" the decision and left it to the police department which of course backed its own investigation. Doing what other people called the equivalent of a pocket veto and then when that was done, City Hall set its sights on that troublesome body.

Then the plot began to curtail the investigations of officer-involved deaths by the CPRC after the Lane finding which began with going after the commission's investigation firm, the Baker Street Group. Commissioner Jim Ward said he knew for a fact that the investigative firm based in San Diego had received a phone call from "city staff" who said that although the firm worked for the commission, the city signed the checks and if the firm wanted any more checks signed by the city, it would have to change its form of investigating. This change in style and focus became a bit hard to miss after the Baker Street Group suddenly redid its rather comprehensive investigation of that troublesome (and potentially expensive) fatal shooting of Lee Deante Brown and returned after an unplanned sabbatical with a work product somewhat watered down.

Baker Street Group clearly did know which side of the bread was buttered. Its summary report on its investigation into the death of Douglas Steven Cloud was slighter than Brown I and II and that thin wisp of a document that was presented to the commission several months ago was the summary report for the fatal shooting of Joseph Darnell Hill.

Former commission chair and retired police chief, Bill Howe laid out the history of the problems the commission faced from City Hall. He reminisced about the meetings he had attended with Hudson and DeSantis along with several other religious leaders after the forced resignation of former executive manager, Pedro Payne. He said that after the fuss, the city manager's office had placed its plans on ice for a little while. But not anymore.


"Now the old head is rearing again," Howe said.




Aint that the truth. Howe should know, he's got more experience on the commission than just about anyone else except for the council member who's quoted as trying to broker a conciliation when he should be redirecting his direct employees back to their respective corners for a timeout and allow the commission to do its job under the charter. But then there's been endless debates over freshly baked pies as to whether the city staff directs the city council rather than the other way around.

Howe added that there was a bottom line and that was civic liability faced by the city because of a police department whose wrongful deaths have led to nearly $1.5 million in settlements so far with more cases to go. Nothing would change that mattered until the "officers got better training and correct mind frames in shootings." One litigant, Theresa Cloud pushed hard on that training but the city attorney's office apparently pulled a bait and switch there which just showed that it's too busy paying out settlements than to listen to the families of those who file and improve police practices.


Commissioner Kenneth Rotker said that he had been waiting for the city attorney to respond to the "persuasive argument" on Charter Section 810(d) by ACLU attorney Peter Bibring. If that's what he's doing, he's in for a long wait if he's waiting for something in writing.




"I hope the reponse wasn't the memo," Rotker said, "I'm asking that in good faith."



He also said, again I have not seen that response.




"Here it is", said Howe waving his copy of the directive.



And why were commissioners speaking out? Why have some who had no problem with how the commission conducted over 10 independent investigations suddenly believe it's important to shut down that process now? Where did that 180 degree turn come from and did it begin before or after police officers started attending both open and closed sessions of the CPRC. Why the divide?


This following email was sent by Executive Manager Kevin Rogan to CPRC Chair Brian Pearcy and Vice-Chair Sheri Corral. Rogan clearly knows what side of the bread is buttered and after seeing Payne forced to resign because he refused to cave in on this same issue, it's clear that if you're interested in career longevity that this is the way to do it. It makes me admire Payne all the more to see how the ACLU's involvement in this situation forced City Hall to put its agenda out in public...finally. Now the only thing to do is sit back and watch the hole being dug get bigger. See how much farther City Hall is willing to go to shut the CPRC down and in which ways. Next week, next month it will be something else and they won't explain which weakness in the police department is sparking their next challenge or maneuver against the canary in the mine.

The only applicant who outperformed Rogan in his oral interviews with two panels was Ray Martinelli who knew the score even before he went to that interview. Now, he's one of the investigative firms given what accounts to a restraining order by City Hall unless he wants to work pro bono. So he can't investigate the latest fatality though apparently he has permission to investigate the Pablo incident probably because there's no criminal (or public) investigation connected with that death being done by the department.


So what's this directive? It's not quite as lengthy as some earlier prose that came out of the Hudson and DeSantis offices several years but it's pretty close.




Subject: Protocol Directive

Title: Investigative Protocols


Brian & Sheri,

I just came from a meeting with CM Brad Hudson and ACM Tom DeSantis, and was advised of the following protocol change.

To preclude any possibility that the CPRC review process could in any way jeopardize the criminal investigations undertaken by the police department and District Attorney's office, CPRC investigations will commence only after law enforcement investigations have concluded and the CPRC receives the criminal casebook. This will apply to any future cases involving or possibly involving officer actions (including the just-occurred Yarborough case). The (sic) will not apply to the Pablo case, since CPRC's review has already begun.

In addition, expenditure of city funds will not be authorized to undertake any activities which are deemed by the city attorney to be outside the CPRC's scope of authority.

Brad asked my opinion of the protocol and I believe it's a prudent cause of action. The research I recently conducted about use of investigations indicates this approach is consistent with practices followed by the majority of California community review panels. This also addresses the difficult issue of deciding when, and under what circumstances, an investigation is commenced. I realize this will likely not be your preference and will be a topic of considerable discussion, but I am obliged to give you prompt notice and to comply with the protocol.

Please know that Brad also advised that RPD will be expected to provide prompt public briefings to the CPRC after officer-involved events occur.

I wanted to give notification to you both first, and will advise the full CPRC later today. This bears directly on the Ad Hoc Committee but I will presume they will still convene unless I hear otherwise from you or Chani.

Brad further advised that he is available to discuss the matter with you, if you wish to contact him.

Kevin




It's interesting to watch this all play out because in the end, it's not going to change anything because what it definitely shows is that for whatever reason, the two words "accountability" and "transparency" strike fear in the hearts of employees at City Hall when placed in the same sentence as the Riverside Police Department. One would think that after spending over $22 million on reforms that were mandated by the state attorney general's office that City Hall would be more than willing to allow the CPRC to do its job that the citizenry entrusted it with, not once but twice. In 1999, when they fought to get it in the books and 2004 when they voted it in the city charter.

But City Hall can't do so, because something is stopping them. Is it the settlements being paid out perhaps out of taxpayer funds? Is it that they hold their collective breath whenever the Riverside Police Department is deliberating whether or not to hire an officer who boasted about using excessive force and lying over the fact to a Marine buddy who was setting him up? Does City Hall hold its collective breath whenever someone dies after having contact with the police? What is it so scared of about the police department? There's no problem that department could possibly have that the three partners of co-safety could not together address and remedy. But the city's too busy protecting its civil liability standing to do so just as it's always been, even before the $22 million promissary note that was issued to address decades worth of problems and neglect in about five years.


That's the message City Hall is sending out loud and clear. An officer-involved shooting involving a man allegedly brandishing a shot gun at officers has City Hall so petrified it had to cancel all future investigations of officer-involved deaths. One can only imagine how much the three fatal shootings of three unarmed or initially unarmed individuals must be making them feel. Actually, no all anyone has to do is just watch how they've been acting lately and take notes.


The situation with wrongful deaths in the police department has City Hall's players so terrified of civic liability and more settlements that they have to sit behind closed doors and come up with ways to shut down a voter-sanctioned body trying to fulfill its charter-sanctioned responsibility.

It really doesn't get more pitiful than that, but wait five minutes and City Hall will take the level it has sunk to on this issue and lower it another notch.

In other exciting news, a copy of the CPRC's operational budget has finally been released, before Administrative Analyst Mario Lara's had said it would be scheduled to make its online debut!






Is it the beginning of the end of DHL Express's ill-fated foray into Riverside's airspace. The air freight company announced the cancellation of its long-haul flight from Riverside to Hong Kong.





(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




The German shipping company told the March Joint Powers Authority this week that DHL's flight between Riverside and Anchorage, a route flown by contractor ABX Air and soon to be flown by contractor Polar Air, will fly into and out of Los Angeles International Airport instead, the group's executive director, Lori Stone, said.

The route was considered an international flight, DHL's only foreign-bound flight from March, because it concluded in Hong Kong after connecting in Alaska.

"It was a business decision that we made and in the best long-term interests of the company," said DHL spokesman Jonathan Baker.






The office wars are still ongoing in downtown Riverside as the city laments the loss of prime office space to the Riverside County District Attorney's office.



The current and former elected official representing the downtown area both agree this isn't a good thing for this part of their district.




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The Riverside Redevelopment Agency made the construction of Regency Tower possible and wanted it to fill a need for high-quality office space downtown to bring jobs to the area, which in turn would boost downtown restaurants and shops and generate sales-tax revenue, and to yield more property-tax revenue, said former Councilman Dom Betro. Downtown Riverside is in the ward he represented, and he had pushed for the project.

Betro said if the county buys the building to house the district attorney's office, which is already downtown, some of the project's key goals won't be met.

"This doesn't add a net gain of creating the new jobs and adding new people downtown," he said.

Betro's successor on the City Council, Mike Gardner, agrees that a sale to the county would not be as advantageous to the city as keeping the building in the private sector.

"The downtown is going to lose some benefit," he said.






Also a burgeoning nightmare for business owners in Riverside are those inflating sewer rates. Could this be the season for another flip flop on increases which will show up on public utilities bills as happened the last several years with the infamous multi-tier electric rate increase?





The Press Enterprise Editorial Board has decidedthat civilian juries should not hear cases involving the military. The next case down the pike involves a former Marine who along with others raped a 15 year-old Iraqi girl in front of her family then killed all of them before setting them on fire. If a civilian jury can't understand that such an action has no more to do with enforcing public safety than it would in civilian society than civilians shouldn't be deciding civilian crime cases either.




The latest rumble between the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association and the police chief continues into another day as Chief Michael Billdt confronts rumors that he is picky about which officers he favors.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



n a written statement co-authored by Mayor Pat Morris and City Manager Fred Wilson, the chief said that he has based his leadership on values such as integrity, respect for the law, and accountability.

"Unfortunately, adherence to these values can occasionally cause an officer or employee to disagree or become angry for personal reasons," the statement reads. "While this reaction is understandable, it is unfortunate to see it spill over into baseless allegations and inflammatory statements that are destructive to the department's morale."
Story continues below

The statement follows a call by the city police union at a City Council meeting Tuesday for a change at the top of its department, with union representatives accusing the chief of "autocratic and self-serving" leadership.

Union President Rich Lawhead said union members will meet this evening to weigh the evidence behind the accusations.

Union members also may consider a vote of no confidence in the chief, Lawhead said.






A San Diego Police Department officer nicknamed "" has been charged with tipping off drug dealers.


(excerpt, NBC)



uan Hurtado Tapia was arrested Tuesday by FBI and DEA agents. According to federal prosecutors, Tapia was a patrol officer working with the San Diego Police Department when he was allegedly in contact with drug traffickers who were already under investigation. Through court-authorized wire taps, agents said they obtained evidence of him using police computers to run criminal history checks and then passing on that information to drug traffickers.

On Wednesday, he appeared on a criminal complaint alleging "misuse of his status as a law enforcement officer to obtain and pass sensitive information to associates who were involved in drug-trafficking crimes."

Agents said they learned in May 2008 that people they were targeting in their investigations were in some sort of contact with Tapia.

"We're very disappointed that one of our officers is accused of this kind of behavior" assistant police chief David Ramirez told NBC 7/39.





This isn't the first case of its kind but it could be worse. He could be sleeping with them and protecting them.



Three police officers have been fired in Waterbury.



(excerpt, Republican-American)



McCarty was fired for mishandling a domestic violence complaint
involving a fellow officer, Capt. Michael Edwards — who also was
fired. A third policeman, Sgt. James Cagno, was given a written
warning for his role in the incident.

The behavior of the three officers has triggered some soul-searching
among the leaders of the police department, leading to department-wide
retraining, revisions to policy and a closer look at how the city's
police handle calls that involve their own members.

"If you're not learning from the incidents, you're not doing anyone
any favors," said Police Superintendent Neil O'Leary.






Police officers in Columbus, Georgia are resisting civilian review by signing a petition to get rid of it.






(excerpt, Ledger-Enquirer)



"I feel like we are being singled out," said Police Lt. Charles Kennedy, a 23-year veteran of the department with 388 sworn officers. "That is my personal opinion."

Columbus Councilor Julius Hunter sponsored the ordinance that would change the Public Safety Advisory Commission's name to the Public Safety Review Commission. It would also give the group power to investigate public safety matters only after internal investigations are complete. In an advisory role, the commission may recommend that the mayor or council initiate additional investigations.

Councilor Wayne Anthony supports the changes and pushed for the formation of the advisory group after the shooting death of Kenneth Walker. The unarmed man was shot after the sport utility vehicle he was riding in was stopped Dec. 10, 2003, as part of a drug investigation.

Anthony said Friday that he was not aware of the petition.

"I think there are voices from both sides of the issue -- some opposing it, some supporting it and some looking for common ground," Anthony said.




The ACLU and the first graduate of the Department of Justice's consent decree program, Pittsburgh Police Department, are are in harsh disagreement over how many disorderly conduct citations the police have issued this past year.



(excerpt, Miami Herald)



"Nobody likes to get sworn at, but you can't make it a crime," said Witold
Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Foundation of
Pennsylvania.

The ACLU's request came in connection with a federal lawsuit involving David
Hackbart, who was cited after allegedly making an obscene gesture at another
driver, and then at a police sergeant. In a recent court filing, the city
said the citation was not for Hackbart's gestures, but because he was
blocking traffic.

Walczak told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the city had initially claimed
it had only one disorderly conduct citation involving rude remarks to police
or other people over that period. He called the additional citations
evidence that the department had failed to adequately train its officers.

Walczak said officers were wrong to cite a woman who said, "I'm a
(expletive) passenger," during a traffic stop; a woman who was "swearing
profanities to a companion in front of the Girl Scouts"; and a man who
"engaged in loud noise, racial slurs and pig remarks."



In Philadelphia, a committee is being formed to study the physical effects of being tased.





This entry discussed a survey conducted involving the police culture's code of silence and how and when it's adhered to by officers. The answer is, a lot of the time.




More police training, said the city council in Inglewood.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



"The recent officer-involved shootings have raised important questions and community concerns about the Inglewood Police Department and how officers go about their jobs, especially in cases involving use of force," the council said in a statement. "We will continue to aggressively seek updates ... to ensure that officers are receiving the latest training possible."

The council also directed Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks to consider bringing in personnel from outside agencies while the department evaluates how much training its officers need.

Police spokesman Mike McBride said Seabrooks will respond publicly Friday.

"She'll follow through with the mandates of the City Council," McBride said. "We're all onboard."






More information on the city council's mandate here.

When past meets prologue: Will Jose Nazario be coming back?

""When someone's been acquitted you think they should be given their job back.
But sometimes the departments feel they have an insurance problem."

---Attorney John Barnett who represents police officers




"As far as I'm concerned, under the circumstances he should be back in the position immediately. We want to make sure this guy gets taken care of and pushed through the process."


---Riverside Police Officers' Association president, Det. Chris Lanzillo





"I would think they would look at reinstating him."


----Ward One Councilman Mike Gardner, who said this would apply only if the arrest had been the only cause for termination.




The Police Department considers personnel matters confidential and won't discuss them publicly.


---Riverside Police Department Public Information Officer Steve Frasher to Press Enterprise.






"This man has served his country and received an honorable discharge, awards and passed all requirements to be a police officer at the academy. His only fault is pride. Give his job back NOW!"


----20yrsusmcdad at Press Enterprise Web site




"Yes, he should be a police officer because he already knows how to "beat the (expletive) out of this (expletive) and find a reason to take him to jail."

We need more police like this to protect us from criminals that will beat the (expletive) out of us.

Moreover, as court records show, he also has experience in killing un-armed insurgents. So if he can't beat the (explicative) out of a suspect he can at kill him instead."


---sspeedracer at Press Enterprise Web site





"The modern, progressive police departments and police chiefs are responding more quickly, with more details, to community and media concerns and questions. Departments that do not respond well to these demands are clearly in need of civilian oversight and evaluation of policies, procedures and accountability systems."



---University of South Carolina professor Geoffrey P. Alpert to the Los Angeles Times.




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


---Then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer in San Diego during 2003.






What: The Riverside Police Department

Where: Riverside, California

When: September 2008






When reading the newspaper this morning, I was reminded of something that an Los Angeles Police Department officer who had been assigned to the 77th division told me years ago and that was that Riverside, in fact the entire Inland Empire region was in cowboy country and that as a result, the police departments hire cowboys to police the streets. I thought his comments were ironic at the time considering how many LAPD officers are hired as what's called, "91 laterals" by the Riverside Police Department to police its own streets. "91" being the freeway that splits Riverside in half meaning that many LAPD officers lived out in the Inland Empire and lateraled out of the LAPD after becoming weary of the daily commute.

In 1997, the Riverside Police Department hired its most notorious LAPD lateral, Bill Rhetts who had the distinction at the time of having been involved in two fatal shootings in six months. He also made a list which definitely wasn't the LAPD's honor roll but its Christopher Commission list, meaning that he was one of the 60 or so officers out of about 8,500 who were on former Secretary of State Warren Christopher's version of what's now called an Early Warning System. Rhetts made the list because he had multiple onduty shootings and numerous complaints against him. When he came to the Riverside Police Department, he had one shooting of an unarmed man in a dog house under his belt and was under investigation for comments he made to another officer about how "In L.A, they treat like a King while in Riverside, it's Miller time".

In depositions submitted as part of the Roger Sutton v the Riverside Police Department racism lawsuit, it seemed that this investigation lasted a long time without going anywhere because investigators had no idea what reference to use to place Rhetts' comments. Rhetts would eventually retire after shooting the man along with several dogs and years later, would tell the Los Angeles Times, he didn't believe he should ever have been a police officer.

Some said that other officers considered him a "rogue" after his departure but that's hard to believe considering that when he left, he left as the vice-president of the Riverside Police Officers' Association, an elected position.

Another LAPD lateral who was hired out of the Rampart's narcotics division just before the scandal broke in 1999 that led to Los Angeles' seemingly never ending federal consent decree, lasted for just over three years before being retired out of the Riverside's department. At least two civil rights lawsuits filed against him within nine months of his hiring floated around the U.S. District Court for a while after his retirement.

So it's a bit ironic indeed to hear an LAPD officer refer to officers in Riverside or the Inland Empire as being "cowboys". Most of them aren't but the reputation they garnered in the 1990s and even earlier of being just that has outlasted the careers of most of the officers who inspired it. The majority of the current generation of officers certainly those in patrol came about during the period of time the department spent under its stipulated judgment with the office of former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The majority of the ones who currently work in the department don't harbor any emotional vestige of what was called the Tyisha Miller era. There are many professional, hardworking officers in the Riverside Police Department. At first they bucked the tide, then hopefully they have and will become that tide but that's still off in the future of a police department still in transition.

I thought about that today when pondering the revelation that was aired in today's Press Enterprise that former police officer Jose Luis Nazario was trying to restore the life he felt was taken from him when he was fired last year by Police Chief Russ Leach after the Navy Criminal Investigators unit came looking for him for alleged crimes he had committed two years earlier as a U.S. Marine sergeant in Iraq.


Less than a week after Nazario was acquitted of manslaughter charges by a jury in federal court, he's initiated the process to get his old job back through his attorney. If you recall, Nazario was a probational officer fired by the department last year after being arrested by those same Navy investigators and later indicted by a federal grand jury on voluntary manslaughter charges in connection with the fatal shootings of four unarmed Iraqi detainees in Fallajah during 2004. Three years after that alleged incident, he had been lured to the station just as former officers, Laura De Giorgio and Adam Brown had before him under the guise of attending meetings or to sign performance evaluations only to be arrested instead. In his case, he was handcuffed by either the investigators or officers in his own department depending on whose story it is while leaning over to sign a piece of paper believing it was an evaluation.



After about a year of court proceedings, Nazario was acquitted last week in federal court by a jury which was effusive about its inability or unwillingness to carry out the law required of it because they were civilians and Nazario was an ex-Marine who had been alleged to have committed the actions which led to the criminal charges while in combat. After his acquittal, Nazario walked to the police department's headquarters downtown to ask for his job back.



One problem emerged that might haunt his chances of reinstatement even before the trial started and that involved alleged comments that Nazario had made to a friend of his (who was trying to implicate him of crimes at the time) about how he policed during the year minus several weeks he spent employed by the Riverside Police Department before his arrest.

The news article written by three reporters from the Press Enterprise quoted different players in both city politics in general and about this incident in particular. It does make note of the aforementioned comments allegedly made by Nazario to Marine Sgt. Jermaine Nelson about his stint at the police department at its very end.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



In it, Nazario said working as an officer was like the TV show "Cops," where they ride around in a car and respond to calls.

In the recording, Nazario describes responding to a domestic violence call with several other officers, stating they "beat the (expletive) out of this (expletive) and find a reason to take him to jail."




Earlier last month, the Wall Street Journal had made reference to these comments in its own article.





(excerpt)



In a recent interview, Mr. Nazario said he went to Riverside to raise a family and "protect the people there," which was "a natural extension from my work in the Marines."

During his time in Riverside, Navy investigators arranged a surreptitiously taped phone call between Mr. Nelson and Mr. Nazario, during which Mr. Nazario described his work. Saying his job was much like the television show "Cops," he told Mr. Nelson that he regularly would "beat the s- out of" a criminal, finding "a reason to take him to jail" later, according to a transcript of the conversation.





The department's response to this publication was the same as its response to the Press Enterprise, that it couldn't discuss personnel information. It doesn't really have to, because the communities are filling in that gap that they have left through their silence on the issue. Someone asked me today that after pondering when and if Nazario would return, "so this is the new improved RPD?" That was one community leader's reaction to the situation.

There's been a lot of discussion outside the closed off police department about this situation particularly in the wake of the comments that Nazario made and then backtracked away from when asked about them by the Wall Street Journal.

The information provided in both newspaper accounts differs somewhat. The first account is of a particular incident that Nazario said he and other officers in the department responded to involving domestic violence. Instead of him saying that he beat the shit out of someone, he's saying that "they" meaning he and "several other officers" did it. Then "they" found a reason to take him to jail. In the second account, Nazario allegedly said that "he" would "beat the shit out of" a "criminal" and then would find " a reason to take him to jail" later on. Both sets of alleged comments present problems. They also present problems whether they were the truth or not.



It's not clear whether Nazario was asked to respond to these comments in the Press Enterprise but he was asked to do so by the Wall Street Journal.



(excerpt)



Asked in an interview about the statements that led to his arrest, Mr. Nazario says he didn't understand that Mr. Nelson was referring to a particular incident in Fallujah and that he wasn't acknowledging any crime. He defends his record at the Riverside Police Department, and says he may have been drinking during the call; he describes the conversation as "two guys" who were "talking tough" about "untrue stories."




So which time did he lie? Did he tell "untrue stories" when he made the comments to Nelson? Did he lie by calling what he said "untrue stories"?

Let's take a look at the first account. The one where whether Nazario told the truth or it was what presiding U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson called engaging in "bravado", he detailed responding to a domestic violence call with several other officers and beating the (expletive) out of the (expletive) and coming up with a reason to take this person to jail. At first thought, one would think if it's a domestic violence call and a crime is being committed then the individual could be taken to jail on that or related charges without having to figure out a reason after beating the (expletive) out of this person.

There are two possibilities here. One is that Nazario told Nelson the truth, the other being that he lied or embellished the events that did take place. One obvious problem with doing either in this version of the comments is that he's involving several other officers who exist and have engaged in serious misconduct if it's the truth and who don't exist if it's a lie. But it's not quite that cut and dry, because if Nazario lied about this incident, the officers aren't completely a fictional creation of his imagination. They do exist and they are every officer in the Riverside Police Department who ever accompanied Nazario on a domestic violence (which is a very common call for service) complaint during his tenure there. Because if the Riverside Police Department is a law enforcement agency which is truly accountable to the public it serves, then it already has initiated an administrative investigation or probe into the alleged comments which may mean interviewing officers who worked with him on domestic violence calls.

What if you're a hardworking, honest and honorable police officer who worked with Nazario on a domestic violence call? What if you're one of his field training officers who tried to teach him how to do the job in a professional manner on one of those calls because that's your job? What if it turns out that you're under suspicion because Nazario told one of his "untrue stories" casting you in an unnamed supporting role in some incident that you never played during a domestic violence call that may or may not have ever taken place? And he put you in that position solely for the purpose of "bravado"? What does that say exactly about his concern about the officers he worked with?

The other possibility is that Nazario spoke the truth about this incident. That presents different problems because essentially that would mean that he and "several other officers" did beat the (expletive) out of (expletive) and made up something after the fact. Would this incident if it had happened be within administrative policies and procedures? Would it be a legal use of force under the state's penal code? Would the truthfulness of written reports after the fact meet both administrative and legal standards? Were supervisors given an honest accounting of the incidents involved?

First of all, one would hope that this incident never happened. Second of all, if it did happen, one would have hoped that the accountability mechanisms that are supposed to be in place within the department beginning at the officer level and moving up to the supervisory sergeant level would perform the functions that they were intended to do.

Did they work? Did they fail instead? Do they not apply in this set of circumstances because the incident never took place except as an expression of "bravado"? These questions should be asked and they are being asked outside the closed walls of the police department and no doubt, inside it as well. Hopefully, they're also asking how "bravado" or being brave ever came down to meaning or representing someone who was being abusive and a liar in the first place. Where did that belief system and/or code of conduct come from if that's the case?


Then there's the comments as stated in the Wall Street Journal article which make it appear as if Nazario beat the shit out of people regularly then came up with reasons to take them to jail later. There's no mention of "several other officers" here but there are related issues of whether or not a pattern of excessive force and false reporting of incidents could have happened during Nazario's brief history in the department given that it's not likely the department left him on his own in a squad car with a radio serving both as his connection to the department and as an accountability mechanism for a sizable portion of his tenure there. Most or all of his stint in the police department would have required him working under the supervision of a series of field training officers in its training program.

So what happened? Was he out abusing people on a regular basis believing that a television show called Cops should define the profession and if so, was he alone? Does the fact that he spent most of the time supervised by training officers make it less likely that he could have been a serial user of excessive force and creative report writing? Does this increase the probability that he was making up these "untrue stories"?

There's precedent in the Riverside Police Department for officers refusing to engage in lying and falsifying police reports to justify a use of excessive force by exaggerating the danger and thus ensuring that the individual who was battered by officers faces harsher criminal penalties. One of them took place under the watchful eye of the State Attorney General's office and earned the nickname, the "Pear Blossom Incident".

In November 2004, police officers responded to a call involving a mentally ill Black man who was on a roof of a garage near a residence. On the scene at some point, was a female probationary (at the time) watch commander. At some point during the situation, the watch commander ordered officers to fire over 40 less lethal munitions at the man and fire fighters to spray the man with high-powered water from their hoses.

Later on, the watch commander gathered the officers together and tried to pressure them into lying about the incident to bolster her decision to utilize the level of force that they did. They refused and stood fast until the watch commander's supervisor in management told them they had to do it. At some point, the cavalry of sorts must have ridden in to straighten it all out and in the process, the watch commander was demoted.


The incident merited a brief in the Press Enterprise when it happened and I first read about it and the aftermath here in this blog, not as an example of how awful this is but apparently as a way to prove that female officers were terrible because the individual who didn't identify him or herself felt I was being a meanie against White male officers.


Later on, the incident was explained to me by the state's monitor as an example of what some might have seen as an attempt at insubordination that is done for all the right reasons. That provided an important perspective on a complex sequence of events that began horribly but ended putting the department in a much better place.

So it's entirely possible at least in some circumstances for police officers to challenge bad orders given to them by their supervisors, but it's not clear how long it takes to determine that it's possible to do so. But it's not likely this would extend to probational officers who as said by the Riverside Police Officers' Association president aren't afforded certain job protections enjoyed by permanent employees who pass probation. In fact, in California if you're a permanent officer about the only way you can get fired and stay fired if you appeal through arbitration is to have a felony conviction on your record.

Last year, three officers who worked in Riverside and were fired in 2005 went through arbitration and two of them were reinstated first by the arbitrator and then by the city council (which reversed a vote it took to not reinstate them from the previous week). The other, Chris Gaspard was not reinstated but it's possible that the misdemeanor conviction that he received in connection with an off-duty incident where he allegedly evaded police officers was not the sole deciding factor, because it was a misdemeanor albeit one that involved defying a police officers' directions.

Does this right to essentially commit insubordination apply between probational officers and their field training officers? If a field training officer gives an order which violates a policy or a law, does the probational officer have any right to say no? If a male field training officer tells a female probational officer that if you don't have sex with me at such and such a spot, you won't pass this phase of training and will get a "failure to meet standards" instead, does she have the right to say no or does she kiss her job goodbye? This is an issue commonly litigated across the county in fact and the response to that is mixed.


It's hard to say in Riverside because the only public accounting of a female officer who filed a sexual harassment complaint against a law enforcement supervisor filed it while at the peace officer training academy and she was fired the first day of her field training program at the police department as a probational officer. Like Nazario, her rights as well as her options were very limited after being stunned by a firing she apparently didn't see coming. Unlike Nazario, no one from the department spoke out publicly on her behalf although a police union attorney represented her briefly while she filed a claim for damages against the city according to court records.

The training for new officers emphasizes the role that field training officers play in ensuring that those they train and mold into professional officers don't violate policies, don't put themselves or anyone else at risk and don't violate state or federal laws and that is very important. But the training is dearth in information provided about the options of probational officers who are present or even ordered by field training officers to commit these violations. What options do probational officers have when field training officers give them orders they simply can't follow?

Nazario spent the majority of his time in the police department under the supervision of one or more field training officers. If the events he speaks about are true or if he's talking about behavior he did on a regular basis, then what role would his training officers have in this behavior if it indeed took place? If Nazario is telling the truth about the possibly illegal conduct he engaged in, who authorized it if he wasn't the sole participant? If Nazario is telling the truth about his conduct at the Riverside Police Department then what he's essentially done is tossed a rock in a smooth lake and sent ripples from the center all the way out to its shores because it's hard for misconduct committed by even one police officer to remain isolated for long.

But the constant supervision of Nazario by field training officers could also dilute the veracity of his comments if they operate under the standards of conduct that the department puts in writing governing their behavior. If Nazario was supervised and trained by senior officers who adhered to these strict standards of conduct, then it's not as likely that there would be any or as much opportunity to engage in misconduct on the job.

The problem is that given the insulated nature of law enforcement in general and the Riverside Police Department in particular, it's hard to know which scenario Nazario operated under and how that defines whether or not his comments were true.

On a weekly and sometimes daily basis, I hear or read complaints about the police department. I've attended meetings with different organizations in the past month who are interested in what's going on in the police department and/or its relationships with the communities it serves and protects. At a meeting on Saturday in the Eastside, the regional president of the National Association of Equal Justice in America talked about being stopped by Riverside police officers who wanted to his license and to search his trunk. He said fine to both but when he handed them his driver's license, he included his NAEJA business card and after reading it, the officer suddenly decided he didn't need or want to search the vehicle trunk.

At another meeting, complaints abounded about racial profiling in another neighborhood where one particular officer traditionally receives about 90% of all the complaints and one gentleman said this officer challenged him to a fight in a local park saying he would take his badge off first. That one seemed a bit incredible even for that particular officer but it hits home the point that many complaints center around allegations of racial profiling, excessive force and lying or perjury. True or not, they provide the foundation of the more serious complaints against law enforcement officers.

The responses to these complaints often vary. To communities, they are real; To police departments including Riverside's, they don't have merit given even the commission having a sustain rate of about 3%, which has got to be one of the lowest in the country. So when an officer like Nazario makes these comments even if it's "bravado" ( a value judgment by Larson that itself had no concrete basis), then this gives individuals the evidence that yes, this is something that happens and something the department is endorsing if they know that an officer was saying these things and they hire him back into the fold. The department can make statements claiming it doesn't condone having officers using excessive force and/or lying but through the actions of rehiring someone who himself has claimed to do these things, its actions speak louder than its words. A word is a word, but a picture consists of a thousand of them.

These complaints don't often make it to the avenues provided by the police department or even the Community Police Review Commission. One major complaint is that when complaints against police officers are sent to civil rights organizations in the area, there is no response which might be why newer organizations which have national offices are coming to town looking to set up chapters to address this issue filling an apparent vaccuum. Complaints are also being sent to federal and state authorities and to other organizations like the ACLU, so much so for the latter that the national office sent a representative who specializes in racial profiling to meet with individuals in Riverside. The trend seems to be that more and more people are seeking other options for complaint filing.

It doesn't do much to inspire better community and police relations when people ask questions like if the department is not engaging or encouraging these behaviors then why does it want to rehire an officer who said that he did? It doesn't make it easier to say yes, the department has made progress in such and such an area if what it's actually doing counters that presentation. Chief Russ Leach stated that there's no role for the department to engage in speculation of past, present and future tenures of officers and he's right in that as far as the department's role in concerned but what's not clear is how much of a say the police chief has in making this decision in Riverside. I've never read an email in my history in Riverside where I saw such a large list of individuals that the police chief is deferential to at City Hall. That was very interesting and something relatively new, perhaps about two years old now.



Is the department required to rehire Nazario is another question I've been asked quite a few times. The answer is, no. The police chief has the right to fire any probational employee without naming a cause or a reason even if a reason might appear obvious in particular circumstances. Even an elected official saying that he thinks the officer should be reinstated if he was only fired for being arrested is problematic for this very reason. RPOA president, Det. Chris Lanzillo outlined the situation involving the firing of probational employees fairly clearly in the Press Enterprise article. Even as he voiced his personal preference, he realizes that it's an uphill road towards reinstatement because of the lack of access to any real appeal process including arbitration.


Another common question that I've heard in recent days pertains to civic liability, meaning that if Nazario rightly or wrongly was sued as was the city and his comments about excessive force and/or falsifying information came to light. How much money is the city going to have to pay and where will that money be coming from? The insurance carrier? Are you sure about that?

Given how many lawsuits involving wrongful death the city has settled which currently stands at roughly $1.5 million within the past year, this is a pertinent question. And the fact is that given what's gone down in this situation, if Nazario or the city gets sued over excessive force and/or falsifying information, you might as well hand the plaintiff's attorney the city's check book. But where will that money be coming from?

If Nazario and by extention, the department and city do get sued, let's hope that at least the city's insurance carrier covering civil liability within the police department is in much better shape than it's rumored to be.





The Riverside Governmental Affairs Committee did discuss the ethics code and complaint process for about three minutes. By the time the public arrived, they were almost done with the second agenda item on the allocation of Charter Communications pin money.

What was interesting was when Save-Riverside's member Kevin Dawson who videotaped the meeting pointed out that the annual review was supposed to consist of the mayor, city council and assorted other City Hall personalities but the only talking heads at the meeting were the three council members sitting on the committee. When Mayor Ron Loveridge got wind of this, he was a bit concerned but it's not clear whether or not he'll rectify the situation which violated the standards of how the review is to be conducted and reschedule another meeting to review the ethics process more in line with the rules.

Ward Seven Councilman Steve Adams was his usual self, smirking and shaking his head when Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely of the Group and the chair of the committee to create the ethics code and process outlined the recommendation to have complaints reviewed and resolved by an independent panel possibly of retired judges. She told Adams that she hoped his "smiling" was his intent to follow her recommendations.

After the meeting, Ward Three Councilman Rusty Bailey who's actually got some manners received an earful from individuals attending the reminents of the committee meeting about Adams' continuing pattern of boorish conduct at meetings which even a close call at the polls during Election 2007 not to mention a thrashing in the primaries of a state election have diminished.





In San Bernardino, the police union there wants to oust its police chief amid what it calls an atmosphere of paranoia, favortism and dysfunction, according to the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)



Appearing before the City Council, the San Bernardino Police Officer Association's past president read a statement describing affairs inside the department as "deplorable."

It ended by hinting at what may be the union's next move: taking a vote of no confidence in Billdt's ability to remain chief.

"Over the years I've watched varying levels of decay affecting the mindset of our officers but never rising to the level I am now seeing," said Steve Filson, a 27-year veteran of the city's police force. "Secretive closed-door meetings, interoffice memoranda, which amount to little more than divisive finger pointing, and more."

Billdt was present at the start of the council meeting but had left by the time Filson read his statement. He did not respond to requests to comment late Tuesday night left on his cell phone and via e-mail.





Inglewood's police department is showing how its own code of silence over shootings is upsetting the communities it serves.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



The people in the community are asking what is going on with the Inglewood Police Department," said Donald Nicholson, vice chairman of the city's police oversight commission and a 30-year resident. "I don't have an answer for them. There's nothing from the City Council, nothing from the mayor, nothing from police."


"There's something gravely amiss," Nicholson said, referring to the most recent case in which seven police officers on Sunday afternoon fired at least 40 times at Eddie Felix Franco, 56, a homeless man who police say possessed a fake gun. "Forty to 50 [shots] at a homeless man with his dog up against a wall? To me, as a rational individual, I just don't understand it."

On Tuesday, Inglewood Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks and other department officials did not answer questions about the case. Since then all inquiries about the shooting have gone unanswered.







Stolen campaign signs are a problem in Colton but apparently that's nothing new.



(excert, Press Enterprise)



Petty theft and defacing signs has happened several times during Colton elections.


In June, during the recall election targeting Mayor Kelly Chastain, both sides complained that signs had been damaged, knocked down or stolen.

"It's a crime. If someone steals a sign and a police report is made, we investigate it," Colton police Lt. Bill Burrows said. "During the political season, we get calls where signs have been taken or defaced. We get the most calls on signs that have been put in an incorrect place."

During the 2006 election, City Council candidate Jake Magnant started his campaign with 250 yard signs and ended with 26, said Councilman John Mitchell.

"You've got to remember, sometimes it's just kids," Mitchell said. "Then there are people that really take (elections) personal.

"This last election, with the recall, there was true hatred," he said. "People that feel that passionate will do things."




At least one city council candidate in Moreno Valley can relate.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Mike Rios, a candidate for the 3rd District council seat, said the thefts started July 23.

He said he has filed multiple reports with Moreno Valley police, but cannot understand why he is being singled out.

"I'm virtually an unknown. I've never run in politics before," Rios said by phone. "I don't know why they focus on me. I'm not even the incumbent."

He said six more of his campaign banners were stolen over the Labor Day holiday weekend. On Sunday, at the intersection of Moreno Beach Drive and Cottonwood Ave., he said he filed another police report after someone had covered over one of his 4-by-6-feet banners with a message: "Mike Rios eats babies."

"I'm just flabbergasted. It's getting to the point that it's out of hand," Rios said Tuesday.







The name of the man shot by Riverside Police Department officers several days after allegedly brandishing a shot gun has been named but the officer or officers who shot him have not been named.





Coming soon to a venue near you: The Empire Strikes Back from City Hall.


Well, not the empire but someone close enough.

If you add more water to the Ethics Code complaint process, will it disappear?

The man shot by Riverside Police Department officers in La Sierra Hills has died. This means that this incident will not only be investigated by the police department but will also be under investigation by the Community Police Review Commission which is already either investigating and/or reviewing three cases going back to autumn 2006. Even though the still unidentified man, 48, died one hour after being shot, police officials did not release the news until 1:47 p.m. the next day. It's not clear whether the CPRC has sent out its own investigator to begin its process but its executive manager, Kevin Rogan was quoted in the article as saying that the commission has begun its own independent investigation in accordance with the city charter.

It's also not clear when or if the department plans to address the CPRC with a briefing but then again, the commission is still waiting for the department to do so in the death of Martin Gaspar Pablo, 38, who died nearly two months ago after being handcuffed and detained by police officers. The commission met some resistance in determining whether or not it would even investigate that death from Rogan, from City Attorney Gregory Priamos and even some of its own members. Ultimately, the commission voted 5 to 3 in early August to investigate. It also voted 5 to 3 to invite Police Chief Russ Leach to brief the commission on the Pablo incident but it's not clear whether the department responded any more to this invitation than it didn't to an earlier one that was issued by CPRC Chair Brian Pearcy.

According to the police department, its officers who remain unidentified were dispatched out on an assault call and confronted the man who was armed with a shot gun. After he refused to lower it, they shot him multiple times. Even though the department had released the names of officers involved in two earlier nonfatal shootings upon reviewing a legal opinion on the issue submitted by State Attorney General Jerry Brown some months ago, it hasn't done so in this case so far.






A discussion of the shooting is happening here. It's interesting all around but someone after all this time still can't spell "quarterback" correctly.



The ever elusive Governmental Affairs Committee is set to meet at 3p.m. in the Mayor's Ceremonial Room at City Hall in Riverside. Elusive, because this once industrious committee has only met three times this year. But there's never been a shortage of drama and intrigue with each meeting even as they have become fewer and farther in between.

The planned annual evaluation of the city's ethics code and complaint process will be taking place at the meeting today. There's not much in terms of a written report so it's anyone's guess what will happen at this meeting. Not producing a public report provides the committee's members with opportunities to spring something on those who attend the meeting or it could mean that they haven't decided what action to take in terms of making any recommendations to the full city council. Still, the process has been watered down so much since the code's inception that there's not much left to do to it short of eliminating what is basically a failed experiment. It's much more difficult to actually apply an ethics accountability process to governmental officials than to think about it. Not to mention that an interesting study of applications was put on display showing the huge conflict of interest which arises when you have elected officials policing the behavior of other elected officials. They can't do it on the dais, why would they be able to do so during an ethics process?

Examples take place regularly when elected official #A calls a member of the public a "liar" or "classless" while the rest of the elected officials on the dais remain silent in a way they don't if member of the public #A were to call an elected official a "liar" or said that elected official had no class.

A study was done by a hired professional consultant of the dynamics expressed by Colton's behavior towards city residents who attend its meetings. In his report, the consultant stated that the relationship between the elected officials and the public it served was "dysfunctional" and then listed the behaviors he picked up upon watching which explained why. There wasn't a behavior listed even including facial expressions like eye rolling that he noted in Colton that hasn't been reported in Riverside. Despite all its political turmoil including a scandal here and there, Colton's city government pledged to work harder to improve its interactions with its constituents in public meetings.

Riverside in 2006 and last year orders its police officers at city council meetings to eject or escort elderly women out of the meeting chambers.


Some frequently asked questions and answers about the ethics code and complaint process are located on the city's own Web site here and provide some assistance towards trying to understand it. What's interesting to note is that the process of filing a complaint and the process which handles them is explained in this document.

For elected officials, the instructions clearly state that the City Clerk's office is to receive the complaint and forward it to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee "for review and resolution". However with every single complaint except for one that has been filed against an elected official, the complaints were instead forwarded to the City Attorney's office for legal "evaluation" and in all of these cases except one, the complainant received a letter from that office disqualifying their complaint without it ever crossing paths with the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee which was encharged with the review process.

There's nothing written in the FAQ that the city provides for the public that even mentions the City Attorney's office let alone that it even has a role in the process. Still, the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee which was entrusted to handle this process has opted instead to use its city attorney to serve as a bouncer at the door so it doesn't have to deal with the admittedly unpleasant task of actually hearing and deciding upon ethics complaints involving potential allies on the city council. A barrier between the public including those who file ethics complaints and the committee that was designated to hear them, that's what now defines how this process is handled.

All the best intentions in the world were present among those on the Charter Review Committee when they passed the recommendation to place an initiative on the ballot. And the best intentions in the world were present among the 73% of the voters who passed Measure DD in November 2004. People in this city clearly believe an ethics code and complaint process is absolutely necessary in this city for whatever reason.

But what was intended by these voters was probably not what was ultimately implemented.


Indeed the Ethics Code was passed by voters in 2004 and after an ad hoc committee was appointed to research it (which also had great intentions) and the city council passed it, it was installed in the city's charter. Since then, it's been diluted and watered down with only complaint that was ever filed against a city official ever reaching the hearing and review process in front of the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. The meeting is still available on CD which you can purchase from the city council's office on the seventh floor at City Hall. Listen to it, and you might never even want to file a complaint because it lets you know exactly how well elected officials hold each other accountable and what happens with complainants during the hearing process.

When an elected official acts out on the dais, the other elected representatives never say anything about it, but still have assigned themselves the task of holding each other accountable in the ethics complaint process? There's no realistic expectation that this is ever going to happen and until it does, the occasional complaint which trickles on down from the City Attorney's office will wind up in a hearing process with the complainant being put on trial.

Then again, it really doesn't have to work as an accountability mechanism if you look back at the city's recent political history and the relationship between ethics complaints and the political careers of elected officials who received most of the complaints. Those who received complaints had difficulties getting reelected to office or couldn't get reelected whether the complaints were handled properly through the process outlined in the FAQs or not.

That was what took place during Election 2007.

The number one recipient of complaints was former Ward One Councilman Dom Betro and he narrowly lost reelection last November. The second highest recipient of complaints was Ward Seven Councilman Steve Adams (a member of the current Governmental Affairs Committee) who barely won his reelection by a handful of votes.


What Riverside's voters have shown is that the city council members who act out are the ones who have a hard time getting reelected or don't get reelected at all. This should be no surprise to those who talk to the city's voters especially when it comes to how they view the council members' conduct at public meetings. The elected officials who behave themselves are duly praised and remembered for doing so. The ones who don't? They may face an uphill reelection journey if recent history is any precedent. And often times, they are the last to figure this out if they even do after losing or nearly losing the election.

Even when these council members try to compete for political positions in other venues, they don't typically win the elections. In fact, they don't even get that many votes. One important reason why might because as the number of constituents increases, so does the pressure cookers of government decision making and politics and those with quick tempers and even quicker tongues aren't viewed as having the qualities needed to handle the additional pressures and challenges of these seats. In fact, they might be viewed as not being able to handle it or themselves in those situations.

And throwing money at candidates and spending huge campaign chests doesn't necessarily change this. Neither does diluting what ethics process the city has at the moment.

So to no surprise, the election process might prove to be a more effective accountability mechanism for the ethics of elected officials than a watered down process that serves as mainly a a prop or public relations tool for appearances sake. And has been demonstrated in recent months, it's harder to manipulate the election process even when governmental officials try. Precisely because they are dealing with the same voters.




"Contagious Fire" is a major focus of the investigation into Inglewood's most recent fatal officer involved shooting, according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)



The death of Eddie Felix Franco, 56, was the fourth fatal officer-involved shooting in Inglewood in four months. City officials have repeatedly declined to answer questions about what prompted the shooting, which came occurred about five minutes after officers first confronted Franco. Officials have said he had a fake gun but not whether he displayed it at any point during the incident.

Investigators are looking at the possibility that the shooting was a case of "contagious fire" -- a phenomenon in which an officer opens fire after he hears other officers shooting and misinterprets the shots as being an attack against himself.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said officials are also trying to determine whether the officers were appropriately positioned to avoid firing on civilians.

The shooting occurred near the busy intersection of La Brea Avenue and Market Street, next to a barbecue restaurant filled with patrons. One of the rounds grazed the head of a motorist driving by, and bullet marks could be seen on a wall near the shooting site. Officers also fatally shot a dog belonging either to Franco or another homeless man.




The federal judge presiding over the corruption case of former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona issued a ruling that Carona's girlfriend can't be referred to as his mistress.




A police officer in Yonkers, New York plead not guilty to charges that he slammed a woman around.


(excerpt, Newsday)


The attorney spoke after the defendant, Yonkers Officer Wayne Simoes, pleaded not guilty in federal court.

"While the tape shows part of the story, what it cannot show is Officer Simoes' intent," said defense lawyer Andrew Quinn. "There was no intent to injure."

He predicted a trial in 2009.

The incident occurred March 3, 2007, at a restaurant where Irma Marquez's niece had been hit with a bottle. The video shows Simoes grabbing Marquez by the waist, lifting her and slamming her face first onto the tile floor. Her jaw was broken and she was knocked unconscious.

Authorities said at the time that the officer was trying to keep the woman from interfering with emergency medical technicians.

Marquez was handcuffed and arrested, but later acquitted of an obstruction charge. She is suing the Yonkers police force for $11 million.



In Pittsburgh, the police chief is standing by the officers who tased a man.


(excerpt, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)



Jason Schmidt, 29, remained in Allegheny General Hospital yesterday but was being eased out of his medically induced coma. His father, Bill Schmidt said last night that his son reacted to his presence by sitting up, staring ahead though he still has not spoken.

He was charged with criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in the incident at his friend Andrew Balint's Brighton Heights home. Mr. Schmidt had a seizure and was acting wildly, according to Mr. Balint and a criminal complaint, apparently from a drug overdose.

Three police officers responded to a 911 call from Mr. Balint and officers Kim Stanley and Holly Murphy stunned him a total of four times.

"Our officers did act appropriately," Chief Harper said. "And what appears to be overlooked is the fact that the actor was still very combative at the hospital, and it took eight staff members to restrain him. His coma was not the direct result of being hit with the Taser."





A police officer in Indiana is in trouble in the wake of evidence just disappearing after he's handled it.



(excerpt, The Indy Channel)



City leaders met Wednesday evening to discuss what action might be taken in the case, but those discussions were not made public.

The Indiana State Police are heading up the investigation, which involves evidence missing from the department's evidence room, police said.

"There are lockers and keys, and that will be part of the investigation as to who got into the lockers and what type of evidence," said ISP Sgt. Mike Burns. "We'll probably have to look at the case reports going back quite a ways and what evidence was turned in with those case reports and compare the total number that was turned in with what they have at the station now."

Burns declined to say why the officer's name was being withheld if he is the focus of a criminal investigation.




Can being arrested be lethal?




After being acquitted in federal court of war crimes, Jose Luis Nazario, jr. walked to the Orange Street Station of the Riverside Police Department to get his job back. And as it turns out, the department might be perfectly willing to do so...even as his comments about his first stint there that were written about in the Wall Street Journal go unaddressed.


To be continued...

Decentralizing community policing or a staffing reshuffle?

An officer-involved shooting in La Sierra Hills, Riverside by Riverside Police Department officers has yielded very detailed information.

The man was allegedly shot by police officers after he refused to lower his gun, according to the police department.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"He was hit and then transported to a hospital," Frasher said.

The man's condition was unknown late Monday.

Frasher would not say whether multiple shots were fired, whether the suspect fired at officers or which officers were involved with the shooting. He would not confirm the name of the wounded man.

Several neighbors, speaking under the condition of anonymity because they said they feared retaliation, reported hearing six gunshots. Three were fired in rapid succession, then two and then a final one. Other neighbors said they saw police drag a motionless body from the lawn to the middle of the street.

Police continued to investigate the incident overnight. A police helicopter used a spotlight on the hillside west of the neighborhood in the hours following the shooting. A hoard of detectives could be seen conferencing on the corner of Dole Court shortly after the shooting.




The officers' names haven't been released yet although a recent legal opinion by State Attorney General Jerry Brown mandated this action in most cases.






After laying off its pages in July, Riverside's been filling those positions with volunteers.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Staff also are taking on responsibilities to ensure there is no difference in service, said George Guzman, the library's Administrative Services manager

"It's important the material we have is available to the public," Guzman said. "We are doing that with the help of the volunteers."

The library spread the word about the urgent need for help through banners, fliers, announcements on the city's Web site and e-mail alerts.

The number of volunteers is now at 115, about triple what is was before the pages were let go, Guzman said.

Volunteer David Ruelas, 22, said the library has offered him endless hours of reading and help with school projects, he said.

"They needed help and they've helped me before," he said.

Gretchen Heimlich, 32, said volunteering has brought back childhood memories spent at the library, carrying books piled as high as her chin out the door.

"It's important for the community to have access to the amazing resources we have here," said the UC Riverside student. "I wanted to be able to keep that going."




Those who filled these part-time positions at the library are the latest casualties in the budget cuts. While people joked that it was Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis who told librarians where to shelf the books (especially after the temporary removal of the Inland Empire Weekly in 2007 after its unflattering articles about Riverside were published), these people did important work to help keep the library running.

This week during a meeting in the Eastside, the mystery of the missing community services division in the city's "fully staffed" (as said by DeSantis at a public meeting in June) police department will hopefully be solved. The department apparently has explained this shuffling around on plans to decentralizing community policing. What's interesting about this latest development are two things. One being that there's been no major announcement yet that it's even doing this let alone how it plans to do so. Only quiet little meetings here and there with hallmarks in the city that the department disseminates information to so it doesn't have to call any general town meetings or public forums to do so itself to the masses.

If community policing is going to be changed or reorganized, then Police Chief Russ Leach should be out in the different neighborhoods holding public forums like he did at California Baptist University earlier this year. They usually announce such things with much greater fanfare than this decentralizing of community policing as it's been called has received so far which is interesting.

Instead, it's been very quiet except that community members are asking questions about the fate of Community Services and the officers who were staffed there. Including that the director's position for Crime-Free Multi-Housing is apparently vacant. The citizen academy has been packed into mothballs until further notice. Yet the city insisted that all the programs were in good shape.

The second problem is that one would think that if community policing were to be reorganized, it would have left a paper trail in the city's preliminary budget for 2008-09 which was just passed in June. But has it?



If you want to check out this preliminary budget go to this page and click the most recent link on the left which is the 2008-09 preliminary budget.


If you look at page 49, you'll bump into the line item personnel positions list for the Special Operations division and this division is what houses Community Services under Lt. Ken Raya which you'll find out when you click the link below connecting to the department's current organizational structure. Take a look at the foot notes and what do you see? You see personnel moving in to this division from Field Operations. Six officers, a sergeant, a police program coordinator and the reclassification of an officer position to detective.

Outgoing are two program coordinators to the Park, Recreation and Community Services which now handles the crossing guards. This isn't surprising because since Park and Recreation added community services to its banners, programs from the police department began transferring to it, beginning with Project Bridge, the gang intervention program.

What's interesting about this is that in reflection of this decentralization of community policing by the department, the personnel from Community Services in Special Operations were transferred to the patrol division which is in Field Operations. This trend is the opposite of what the budget actually shows in the category of personnel assignment which shows them moving into Special Operations. So consequently, it appears that the decision to reassign personnel out of Community Services and thus Special Operations was made some time after the budget had been approved by the city council.

On page 84 of the budget, you get a very limited look at the budget for the police department which receives more dollars than any other city department. It's too bad we don't know where it's all being spent. The only category really rising is for personnel, the bulk of the budget but it doesn't tell you why. The biggest cuts are in capital projects and equipment outlay, again without explaining why in any detail. Non personnel expenses were cut about 6% and there are no operating grant figures which there won't be until the adjusted budget is approved and published.

What would be very useful is if the department posted its line item and operational budget online at its Web site. But that's not likely, especially if the Community Police Review Commission's reluctance to even talk about distribution of the release of its own budget which is public information is catching.



This is the 2008-09 organizational structure for the police department. This summary helps explain the department's philosophy as to why it's using this particular structure, which is interesting because the recent budget cuts have placed limitations on some of these "goals" to the point that they no longer exist.


(excerpt)



While the department and community enjoyed many successes with community policing, and remained committed to this model, it became clear that the move of lieutenants from Watch Commanders to Area Commanders created several unanticipated issues with internal accountability and a clearly defined and effective command structure. In an effort to rectify the consequences of decentralization, the Office of the Chief decided to re-establish a lieutenant Watch Commander that would maintain management of a 24 hour system for operational oversight of line supervisors and personnel thereby improving internal accountability and community safety.


As a result, the department command accountability structure was improved by upgrading the Deputy Chief of Police position to that of Assistant Chief of Police, a captain position to that of Deputy Chief of Police, creating two new lieutenant positions as Watch Commanders, and adding three new sergeant positions to provide an officer to supervisor ratio of 7:1, a ratio more in line with police agencies throughout the country.



While the assistant chief position still exists, the deputy chief position mentioned here was frozen by the city after the departure of Dave Dominguez. New lieutenant and sergeant positions have been added but positions vacated by retirements and promotions to fill vacancies in the lieutenant level haven't been filled.


The department's management nor that of the city have provided any time line or future plans for restoring any positions including supervisory frozen due to the budget cuts faced by the department thus far. Neither has been any more informative about this situation in public than they have been about the decentralization of community policing, which is always a good and important goal but as is, seems more tied to staffing changes made in response to deficits in the patrol division stemming from hiring and promotional freezes and budget cuts. It also came not long after warnings during an audit in June that if the department didn't address its staffing issues immediately, it risked undoing all the reforms that it had achieved during its consent decree with then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office.

What's interesting about the freezes is that they are in sharp contrast to the situation in law enforcement agencies in the surrounding areas supposedly more broke than Riverside which are hiring more law enforcement officers (in part to fill correctional officer positions) not refusing applications.

So you have vacancies and freezes beginning this spring, not long after Community Services was consolidated with other Special Operations units and its head, Lt. Tim Bacon was shipped off to field operations. Then you have people concerned about it, whether in the community or in the police department going to various venues at City Hall and expressing that concern but they are pretty much ignored.

Then you have consultant, Joe Brann airing the same concerns in his quarterly audit of the department's implementation of the Strategic Plan in June. But does the city council listen to his words or do they instead hang on to the rebuttal protests of DeSantis who tosses off some ratios without any figures (at least none available to the public which is very convenient indeed) to back them up? The answer is pretty obvious. With the exception of perhaps one elected official, the city council and mayor backed the city manager's position as both did for several months when that office failed to even secure a contract with the consultant in a reasonable amount of time. The minute enough of them finally questioned City Manager Brad Hudson in that situation, that situation changed much more quickly.

More cuts continued, threatening the supervisory ratios. Then suddenly, officers are moved out of Community Services including a supervisor and apparently reassigned to patrol. People start asking questions, again apparently from different corners on different fronts and then voila, community policing decentralization is born.

Community policing decentralization is really one of the most important goals there is in this department as with any other. But is that what is really going on here? And if so, where's the beef?

Only time will tell as it usually does what is really going on here.






Internal changes, not outside help is what Riverside County Superior Court needs to get its act together and reduce its swelling case load.

So states the Press Enterprise Editorial Board.



(excerpt)



Additional judges would help the county avoid the dispiriting need to toss criminal charges, but the state's $15.2 billion budget shortfall makes new judgeships unlikely any time soon. Nor can the county depend on the state to send another strike team of judges here to help out with the criminal caseload, as state Chief Justice Ronald George did last year.

And last month, a panel of judges once again ruled against Riverside prosecutors' request to open family law, probate and other specialized courts to criminal trials. The crush of criminal hearings has already pushed civil cases to the sideline, resulting in costly delays and long waits for justice in civil disputes. Letting the criminal caseload also sidetrack adjudication of adoptions, child neglect, wills and guardianship is not an acceptable solution.

Those factors leave the responsibility for solutions with local judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. But that task is not hopeless: Other California counties with similarly heavy judicial caseloads manage to dispense civil and criminal justice without the bottlenecks Riverside County faces.

Surely Riverside County courts can do the same.





Colton is trying to get on the development train to prove itself as a growing city. What it should do is find a way to market its ongoing political dramas that have impacted City Hall and surrounding departments during the past year.




Will UC Riverside's School of Education become more racially diverse?


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



A coalition of Latino groups had lobbied the school to hire more black, Hispanic and Native American faculty members and to expand the amount of courses and faculty research devoted to difficulties faced by students learning English.

Bossert said each of the new hires performs research related to minority student success.

They are:

Luciana Dar, who studies higher education politics, policy and finance in the United States and abroad.

Michael Orosco, who studies educational equity and cultural diversity with an emphasis on bilingual education and special education.

Sara Castro-Olivo, who studies the academic achievement of culturally and linguistically minority students.

Lindsey Malcom, whose research focuses on higher education access and success for minorities in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.

Malcom said her academic interest stems from her experience as an African-American student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she majored in Earth science with a minor in physics, and CalTech, where she earned a master's in geological sciences.

"I was often the only person of color in my courses and often the only woman as well," Malcom said.





The number of fatal officer-involved shootings by police officers in Inglewood has just increased by one.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



photographer at the scene said the man who was fatally shot was homeless. Local television showed images of an overturned shopping cart filled with soiled clothing said to have belonged to the dead man.

The man was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center at 2:50 p.m., said Jerry McKibben, an investigator with the coroner's office.

"It was an officer-involved shooting involving the Inglewood Police Department," said McKibben, who said he had no other information. The body had yet to be moved from the medical center to the morgue. .

The shooting occurred at the intersection of Market Street and Hillcrest Boulevard.

The Inglewood Police Department had no comment on the incident and refused to confirm that a shooting involving one of its officers had occurred, Lt. Michael Marshall said.



Meanwhile, community activists are pushing for a federal inquiry into the shootings as well as a congressional probe.





As New Orleans battened down its hatches for Hurricane Gustav, its police department will still be operational. Three years ago during Hurricane Katrina, some police officers stayed, many were stranded, many left and others looted.






It's not just in Inglewood where officer-involved shootings have caused alarm. They also have in Prince George County.



(excerpt, Washington Post)



In the most recent fatal police shooting in Prince George's, Manuel de Jesus Espina was killed Aug. 16 in Langley Park by an off-duty county officer moonlighting as a security guard, and the circumstances heightened concerns about officers' use of deadly force.

Espina, who was unarmed, was fatally shot during what police say was an attempt to arrest him after he was spotted with an open container of alcohol. Hundreds turned out last week for a vigil during which civil rights leaders demanded an independent investigation into the shooting.

"We are having too many incidents like this one," said June White Dillard, president of the county's chapter of the NAACP, drawing applause as she locked arms with Latino leaders at the vigil. Residents, she said, "are very familiar, too familiar, with police brutality and excessive force."

Mark Spencer, inspector general for Prince George's police, cautioned against drawing conclusions about the increase in fatal police shootings this year, saying officers are encountering increasingly dangerous situations.


"More people are armed, carrying around firearms, and more willing to shoot at police officers," he said.





It's been recommended that the police officers in Washington, D.C. equip their squad cars with video cameras.


(excerpt, Washington Post)



"In the past decade, several police departments around the country have adopted programs using mobile video recording technology, or video cameras, mounted in their police cruisers," the report said.

"Although the programs initially encountered some resistance as 'big brother' oversight, departments with successful programs report that video cameras have cut down on litigation and liability costs, as well as improved relationships between officers and citizens during encounters."

Maryland and Virginia state police and several big suburban departments in the Washington area have equipped all or many of their patrol cars with cameras. But as the report notes, for a department the size of the District's, with about 750 cruisers, the cost would run into the millions of dollars.

"The cost of the hardware ranges from $3,900 to $6,300 per car for cameras that do not have wireless uploading capability," according to the report. Cameras that are capable of wireless uploading cost $4,500 to $9,000 apiece, depending on other technical features that are included. In addition, there are costs for installation, officer training and data storage.

Over two years after it promised to do so, City Hall has equipped all of the Riverside Police Department squad cars with video cameras to the cost of about $1.5 million.

The San Jose Police Department is being sued for racial profiling, according to the San Jose Mercury.



In Denver, Colorado, a video camera caught an officer pushing a protester.



(excerpt, Rocky Mountain News)



Footage of the incident prompted the city's independent monitor to call for a review and the police department's Internal Affairs Bureau to request a copy of the tape.

Police arrested Alicia Forrest, 24, a Los Angeles resident whom CodePink representatives identified as the woman involved in the altercation, shortly afterward as she was addressing reporters just outside Civic Center.

The arrest - in which Forrest was grabbed and hauled away from reporters - also was caught on camera, and CodePink legal liaison Sally Newman said Forrest was doing "nothing violent at all" to incur the shove or the arrest.

"Horror, shock and total support of Alicia," said CodePink spokeswoman Jean Stevens, describing the reaction when she and other members of the antiwar group first viewed the video. "We wish we could help. We wish we could be with her."

The video shows an officer quickly shoving Forrest with the length of his baton, forcing her to the ground, where she lands with a scream and a loud smack.