Last chance to file to run for city council today!

Today's the filing deadline at Riverside City Hall if you intended to run for office in the even-numbered wards in a mail-in election that takes place in June. If you still haven't gotten your papers filed with the city clerk and you really want to run, better get a move on.

If there are multiple candidates and none of them receive more than 50% of the vote, then the next round is in November. That doesn't appear that it's going to be quite the issue that it was in the last city election two years ago, given that two of the wards appear to have only one candidate in them.

There's not been much written in here about the election lately because unless a candidate announces they're running, there's a great deal of uncertainty about who's actually running until after the deadline passes for filing papers. Even down to the final hour ticking off the clock until the process is closed as several candidates have taken out papers and still have some time to return them.

The two candidates who formerly declared were Ahmad Smith who will run against Ward Two incumbent, Andrew Melendrez and Paul Davis, who will run against Ward Four councilman, Frank Schiavone.



More information on the challengers in both wards are below.


Smith for City Council

Twitter with Smith






Davis for City Council



Ward Six might have multiple candidates running against Councilwoman Nancy Hart but some might be filing while others might have decided not to run. Previous candidates Ann Alfaro and Penny Mayer might be back.

David Martin took out nomination papers in Ward Four and it's not clear whether this is the Martin that works for the Riverside Police Department as an officer who lateraled in several years ago from Long Beach's police department and was the subject of some discussion by anonymous individuals during the Riverside Police Officers' Association election in 2005. If he does run, let's hope that Officer Richard Aceves' discussion with him about Muslims back after 9-11 (which he explained here) made a lasting impression.


Several former employees from the city's fire department who were thinking about running including Dave Austin perhaps had second thoughts.


Looking at the candidates so far (and this is very much subject to change), it looks like the most contentious council race will be in Ward Four and expect some serious fund raising and even more serious spending to be done in this election contest. Davis spent the last few months before the filing deadline appearing at many events which is important to be able to meet people, hear about issues and gain name recognition, something that so far Smith is struggling with a bit in Ward Two as many voters in that area aren't yet sure who he is and unless they can access his Web site, what he represents.

Ward Four is the city's largest population wise, currently being at least three times larger in the number of city residents living within its boundaries which consequently, will cause its area size and its composition when the ward lines are redrawn after the 2010 census. It's also got the highest voter participation except for the dismal turnout in the runoff elections for city council four years ago. The blame was actually cast if you can believe it by some individuals on the city not sticking to mail-in ballots only. But many Ward Four residents stayed home because they couldn't decide who to vote for in the runoff.

I attended the community/police summit meeting at the beautiful and spacious Orange Terrace Center and yes, it's a great facility, but it's far larger than many of the older community centers in this city which while great for Orangecrest, kind of sends a message that some areas in Ward Four are more special than others and that some communities deserve the best and others, well don't. But seriously, Ward Four has many different neighborhoods and for those running for political office really need to remember that. This may be the ward where that's the most important thing to keep in mind. That can be daunting, because in terms of physical size and number of households, Ward Four is formidable campaigning territory indeed.

In contrast, Ward Six for example has lower voter turnout and campaign fund raising and spending tends to be lower in that area. Hart has had an easier time of it because since she defeated incumbent Terry Thompson eight years ago, she hasn't faced a heavily financed challenger. Even though she might face up to three challengers, unless one or more of them lobby a serious challenge, her election will be done by early summer.

It's interesting how these elections appear to already be in contrast to those two years ago where several wards fielded larger and more financially heeled candidates. All four of the contests went to the election finals in November (and two took longer than that to decide) and all four fielded at least one candidate and in one case, two that came in with incredibly strong campaign chests.

You don't see that and you probably won't this time around although the anti-incumbent sentiment which defined the election in 2007 (and led to the ouster of two councilmen and nearly a third) is still prevalent. It could be that the current recession and its tripled effect on the Inland Empire and Riverside has thinned out the fields and kept some strong candidates from running this time around. That might impact voter turnout as well.

And it's likely that the real impact of the economy both nationally and locally won't hit Riverside's governmental coffers until later this year after the election is over. It's anticipated that the city's financial picture in the next fiscal year will be considerably less rosy than it is now compared to other cities, many of which are taking their blows now to get them over with and trying to shore up for the next couple of years that minimally are necessary to ride out of the recession that started in the Inland Empire with the housing bust.




With over 650,000 jobs lost, President Barack Obama addressed the graduates at the police academy in Columbus, Ohio. The 27 officers were laid off several months ago due to budget cuts but were rehired after the department received funding to pay their salaries for one year courtesy of the recently passed stimulus package.

The Riverside Police Department seems a bit wary of that stimulus money for sound reasons, being that the money to pay the salaries won't be provided long enough for the region to come out of a recession that will impact it for a longer period of time than it will most of the rest of the country. Hiring new officers and getting 1-2 years of salaries subsidized might mean laying off or furloughing those same officers within a few years if the city's general fund still isn't solvent enough to continue paying for those positions.







Defense Attorneys in Riverside County including the Public Defender's office have been notified that a laboratory technician for Bio-Tox Laboratories has admitted to lying in hundreds of cases out of state. Aaron Layton who was also a registered sex offender was involved in the handling of thousands of cases within the county.

Bio-Tox is standing by its man despite the fact that under his own admission, he's committed the cardinal sin of expert witnesses. He's a liar.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

The district attorney's office notified Bio-Tox on Jan. 21 that prosecutors would not be able to use the results of any test Layton conducted or use him as a future witness, but did not indicate the reason.

District attorney's officials said Bio-Tox was not aware of the investigation into Layton or his background until the lab was subpoenaed Feb. 19.

The statement from Bio-Tox expressed confidence in Layton's work in Riverside County.

"Our work experience with Mr. Layton was that he was reliable and knowledgeable of his work," Stangarone said. "While we are deeply disappointed by this discovery, his history from years ago does not match the type of employee he has (been) while at Bio-Tox."

Riverside County Supervising Deputy District Attorney Elaina Bentley said prosecutors conduct background checks on people who may affect the outcome of a case if there is a question about their credibility.

District attorney's spokesman John Hall said his office has to rely on agencies that employ expert witnesses to ensure they are credible.

Perris has barred its own employees from speaking to the media.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




City department heads have been instructed to direct all media requests to the city's public information officer, Joe Vargo.

The change comes after an article published in The Press-Enterprise last Saturday outlined how the city allowed an unpermitted utility to continue operating for nearly a year without penalty or fine.

Following an interview and public records request from The Press-Enterprise last month the city discussed the matter again with utility company Henkels & McCoy and resolved that by March 31 the company must vacate premises across from the Perris Valley Airport on Goetz Road.

In an e-mail response to questions about the new media restrictions Vargo said "no one incident prompted this arrangement."

"The City of Perris has for the first time hired a public information officer to work with the media and who has been designated the first point of contact for media calls," Vargo wrote.

Vargo was hired as the public information officer in September.



And what's the biggest irony in this story? Before working as the public information officer for Perris, Vargo worked as a reporter for the Press Enterprise.






In San Bernardino, City Hall and the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association have had a meeting of the minds and entered into a contract.


(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)



In a Wednesday night vote, 195 members of the Police Officers' Association approved a concessions packet that avoids layoffs and furloughs yet provides the city its requested $3.3 million from the union.

"We continued to work through this until we could find a happy medium. I'm very proud of our members and their generosity to help the city," said union Vice President Travis Walker. "I'm glad we can get on dealing with the bigger issues, like what led to this fiscal crisis."

Mayor Pat Morris said he is "delighted" with the agreement and grateful that both sides remained focused on budget issues.

Under the agreement, officers lose their uniform allowance and will begin paying $400 of their own monthly medical benefits.

In return, police will accrue an additional week of vacation time and bank an extra four hours in time off per week. Their contract, which was set to expire in December, has also been extended for another year.

"I'm very grateful for the memberships' approval of the contract extension, which includes the concessions," said interim City Manager Mark Weinberg. "I think it validates their claim that they were sincere about wanting to contribute to resolving the city's financial crisis."

Union leaders have said all along that officers are willing to make sacrifices to improve the financial status of San Bernardino, but lambasted city officials for not being upfront about the exact savings they sought.

"They kept changing it up on us. If they had actually come to us and bargained with us instead of trying to force what they wanted down our throats..." said union President Rich Lawhead. "This goes to prove that the cops all along wanted to give.






In San Bernardino, the city attorney is advising the government that it can access special use funds to alleviate its budget woes. Mayor Pat Morris is freaking about a bit but City Attorney Jim Penman insists it's doable.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

City Attorney Jim Penman acknowledged that Prop. 218, approved by California voters in 1996, prohibits San Bernardino officials from using funds for refuse, sewer and water utilities to pay general city expenses.

But a legal study by one of Penman's senior deputies shows that City Hall might have some latitude to borrow against those funds, he said.

As an example, Penman said officials might be able to borrow against the $18 million reserve in a sewer fund for up to two years interest free, provided they can show a source to repay the money.

Mayor Pat Morris called the plan "fiscal insanity."

"The basic rule is, when you're in a hole, stop digging," he said. "Look at our condition. There is no way in God's green world we could repay such an obligation."

Could the chief of the Chicago Police Department be jailed for contempt of court? A federal judge threatened him with that for refusing to turn over the names of police officers, by his own admission thousands of them, with five or more complaints against them.

Ironic, considering that Chief Jody Weis stumped himself as intending to reform a scandal-ridden department where officers beat patrons in bars, coerce people into false confessions and have been involved in scandals involving torturing people. The sad thing on top of this is that few people in Chicago view this department as anything but a den of corruption and an embarrassment.


(excerpt, Chicago Sun-Times)



U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman ordered Weis to be in court Monday if he does not intend to turn over the lists by 8:45 a.m. that day. Weis and the city could face fines -- and he could even be jailed -- if he fails to comply with the order.

"We are very heartened by Judge Gettleman's strong reaction to Weis and the city's continuing lawless conduct and his finding that their conduct is directly contemptuous of the federal court," said Flint Taylor, one of the lawyers seeking the lists.

"We expected, based on the circumstances, this was a possible outcome," responded Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the city's Law Department. "We are working with Supt. Weis and the Police Department to determine how we will respond."





In St. Petersburg, Florida one officer is accused of assaulting another one. The alleged assault didn't come as a complete shock because the officer's temper had been a source of concern by his colleagues for a while.



(excerpt, St. Peterburg Times)


Sgt. Ron Kempienski, 56, is accused of assaulting officer Darin Oakes on Jan. 23 at the Department of Veterans Affairs Bay Pines campus, home of the nation's fourth-busiest veterans hospital.

The VA would not release details of the incident or what the altercation may have been about. The St. Petersburg Times confirmed the incident with Pinellas prosecutors, who were called by the VA.

Oakes, 43, who declined to comment on Monday, is out on disability leave because of minor injuries he reported sustaining in the assault, which did not involve a weapon.

Kempienski has not been charged criminally, said Pinellas prosecutor Robert Bruce.

Bruce said on Monday he was told the VA first wanted to investigate allegations itself before making a decision on whether charges should be filed.

John Pickens, a regional VA spokesman, said a special Bay Pines administrative board will soon convene to take testimony and investigate "a number of allegations involving various police officers" at Bay Pines.





Another videotaped incident in New Orleans is raising questions. A couple videotaped what they said was a beating of a handcuffed man. Police reports said that the man had pulled out a gun and then ran.


(Times-Picayune)



The couple who shot the video said they don't know what preceded the man's capture, but say they saw police hit the man at least 20 times. They believe he was in handcuffs during the beating.

Six police vehicles eventually arrived, they said. And at one point, the couple claim, officers positioned the man in the street and a police vehicle sped up beside the man, its door swinging open and slamming into the man's body.

"He kept yelling, 'Please don't hit me anymore,' " said Handyside, who is 26. "But they kept hitting him in the back of the head. They beat the hell out of that guy. You could hear the hits."

The beating lasted five minutes and the man was placed in the back of a police car, the couple said.

The officers gathered around and chatted. Kiser said an officer yelled into the car minutes later: "You want another five minutes?"

"Then they stood in a circle and had a casual conversation, like they were at a bar, like they were in high school," Kiser said. "We were surprised at the language they were using."

Kiser put the video on his computer and wrote about the incident on his Web log. Kiser said he had not filed a formal complaint with police because he thought it ineffective to complain about the police to the police. The couple said they don't know the officers, nor the suspect, but felt the beating they witnessed was way out of bounds.

"They were unprofessional, swearing every other word, taunting the guy," Kiser said, adding that some officers mocked the man's screams.




What happens when the CHP and the U.S. Marines get together and run a DUI checkpoint.




The 10 foods you either love or hate
which can't overshadow the 10 top foods of the 1980s.

NPC East Forum: Community policing, Strategic Planning and putting CPRC Chair Brian Pearcy on the spot

I don't know, I'm making this up as I go.


---Raiders of the Lost Ark but in Riverside, this statement might have an entirely different meaning.






The Riverside Police Department hosted its Community/Police Summit for the Neighborhood Policing Center eastern area at the expansive Orange Terrace Center in Orangecrest to a pretty good-sized crowd of a bit more than a 100 residents from the different neighborhoods in this policing region. Homemade baked goods, water and coffee were provided for those in attendance.

Chief Russ Leach hosted the session and assisting him was NPC Commander Larry Gonzalez as both spoke on different issues impacting different neighborhoods and answered questions ranging from addressing problems in houses in neighborhoods to the future of the police department's Strategic Plan after the current one expires in December.

In attendance were Councilman Frank Schiavone (who issued a statement), Councilman Andrew Melendrez (who did not) who are two of the four city council members whose wards are included in the policing center. Ward Four candidate, Paul Davis also attended as did quite a few members of the police department's civilian and sworn divisions from communications to gangs to personnel and training.

NPC Commanders Lt. Vic Williams (North) and Lt. Bob Williams (West) also attended along with Capt. Meredyth Meredith (who's the highest ranking woman and only the second female captain in history) who oversees the Central/West NPCs and representatives from many of the police department's divisions.


Leach and Gonzalez said that crime was down 2.2% but spiking in several areas of the city, including nine shootings in three months in the Eastside and burglaries in Mission Grove and Orangecrest. Some women talked about their new program to be the "eyes and ears" of neighborhoods. Others spoke about crime issues in their neighborhood including one woman whose family lived near a drug and prostitution house and when some of them had complained, her neighbor's dog was beaten to death. She said the police had called it an accident and was about to move out of the city.

Other people spoke about issues with parking in garages backing alleys and the new skate park.




Leach said that the Strategic Plan which was required under the 2001-2006 stipulated judgment with the State Attorney General's office is set to "sunset" by the end of the year but hopefully, the Audit and Compliance Bureau will have created and implemented a similar plan for the next five years. The chief will go out to "focus groups" including businesses to solicit information on what the strategic plan should detail.

In drafting its next plan, the department will have to factor in the impact that the economic situation has had on the freezing of positions inside the department on both the civilian and sworn divisions. While the department has avoided the layoffs in Hemet and San Bernardino (not to mention the furloughs) and other places, it's in a hiring freeze with positions not being filled after they are vacated. Leach said that the department is still staffing its shifts with the same number of officers it did 2-3 years ago and "maybe one or two extra". But there are still four vacancies at the supervisory level in addition including sergeant positions vacated by Kevin Stanton (retirement), Lisa Williams (transfer to newly created position) and Leon Phillips (promotion), not to mention a lieutenant position (Paul Villanueva who retired) and deputy chief position (vacated by retirement of Dave Dominguez).


The department quietly without press releases (perhaps because it had laid off its public information officer in December) filled three sergeant positions with three detectives, all of whom had lateraled a few years ago from Oceanside's police department, which led to some interesting and mixed reactions in the police department.




Interesting comments from Leach to inquiries about the Community Police Review Commission and he told the audience that the CPRC had planned to respond to the scene of an officer-involved death which would have been a change of protocol for the board. He based this assessment on some statement that Leach said was made by CPRC Chair Brian Pearcy that was quoted in the media last year. It was the first time that Pearcy's name had been invoked as a catalyst in this entire train wreck that began last August as being responsible for Leach's campaign to change the protocol of the officer-involved death investigations done by the CPRC. It's a good bet that Pearcy has no clue that he's being blamed for actions taken by Leach. That's how healthy communication between different entities in this city has become in the last few years.

According to Leach, Pearcy had allegedly said that the investigator had to rush to the scene to preserve evidence. Leach didn't elaborate when exactly this statement had been made and it's not like a look can be taken back to easily find when it was made because at the time it was made, Leach apparently hadn't raised any objection to it at least not in a public forum or the Press Enterprise. And if there wasn't an objection made by Leach either to the CPRC or in a public forum (and why not given how much communication between Leach, the members of the Governmental Affairs Committee and in some cases, the CPRC has taken place in the Press Enterprise's news or opinion pages) until weeks or months after this alleged statement by Pearcy was made, then why did it take Leach so long to object?

Because the first date that Pearcy's name was paired with any such statement was Wednesday, Feb. 4 at about 8 p.m. PST. And if he made any such statement, it wasn't anywhere near this date and time. It had to be at least seven months ago.

It's not that concerns, real concerns, about invading crime scenes when the tape comes down is not an issue worthy of discussion or action if the crime scenes have actually been breached and Leach made it clear that this would not be allowed to happen with his statements at the meeting.

Which takes care of even a potential problem so that it can't become a real issue. But that's so easily done that it makes this hand wringing about this faux crisis including planting the idea in forum and meeting audiences that it's already been done, so ridiculous, but also calculated in its intent to take reality and change it to promote an agenda that in all likelihood probably isn't owned by Leach.

Leach didn't mention if he had gone to Pearcy or the CPRC to ask for further information about this statement if it had concerned him so much that he then initiated discussions with Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco to join in him in saying that the CPRC would not be responding to the crime scenes of officer-involved death cases.

Talk about responding in force to a non-issue.

Which is interesting considering there's never been a breach of a crime scene involving an officer-involved death in the history of the CPRC so why is there a need to make a joint statement especially since Pacheco's never done so in public involving the CPRC and incustody death investigations?

There's never been yellow tape that's been stepped on, evidence that's been removed or trampled. But that doesn't matter, if you can in front of an uninformed audience act like it has happened. Because after talking to people who attended the forum, it was clear that some of them interpreted Leach's words to mean that the CPRC had actually breached a "crime scene" in one or more of the incustody death cases. That never happened yet even as some of these individuals quietly (and in Leach's case at a near whisper at the Feb. 4 Governmental Affairs Committee meeting) admit even as they more loudly make insinuations that it has happened.



Leach invoked the rather confusing term of "parallel criminal investigations" which Manager Kevin Rogan had mentioned on Feb. 4's meeting and later clarified as meaning administrative investigations waiting until the criminal review period has passed, and said the CPRC would not be allowed to conduct one. It's unfortunate that this very misleading terminology is apparently circulating through City Hall like a bad cold because it's just adding to the confusion of the situation. But then again, most of this confusion is being generated by those who don't want people to see what's happening with perfect clarity from City Hall.

Also confusing is this insistence suddenly that the CPRC commissioners are serving as criminal investigators. And that it's only a few commissioners trying this and "a few others", according to Leach. And that's the big problem right there with Leach is that every time he speaks on this issue, his account changes a little bit. He either adds to it like he did with this time with the Pearcy angle(which leaves a strong impression that information is being instructed to him to give out piecemeal) or he shifts the blame. Which makes you wonder if he even knows what he's saying from one meeting to one interview with the Press Enterprise to the next meeting and so forth. He's the bewildering piece of this entire puzzle, the one surrounding City Hall's micromanagement of the CPRC, in the wake of both the dissolution of the consent decree in 2006 and the passage of Measure II in 2004.

But there's this sudden admonition against the CPRC doing "criminal" investigations or "parallel criminal investigations."

Well, that's perfectly well and fine because the CPRC has never, ever conducted a criminal investigation of any form because that's outside its purview including on officer-involved deaths. The only existence of parallel criminal investigations is in cases where there are investigations being conducted by different law enforcement jurisdictions such as in the 1998 fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller which was criminally investigated by the Riverside Police Department's Officer-Involved Shooting Team as well as the FBI.

The CPRC's investigation is to determine whether or not the department's use of force policy (and sometimes secondary policies in terms of drafting policy recommendations) was followed or violated by the officers involved in the incustody deaths and to recommend a finding and issue policy recommendations. It is a fact-finding (read investigation) and a hearing (investigation and review) body.

Not whether the officer violated any provisions of the state penal code.

A potential wrinkle to that involves the CPRC's ability to investigate/receive/review complaints which include allegations of criminal conduct by police officers. Given that the CPRC by charter is allowed to investigate complaints as well, if they decided to do so in one of these cases.

Consultant Joe Brann who issued a report including recommendations on the CPRC mentioned the "review" of complaints and investigations where officers potentially face criminal charges, a concern that came out of the review (but not the investigation) of the Summer Marie Lane shooting case in 2004. He didn't issue any recommendations for the investigative process except in addressing the issue of whether or not to institute a pool of investigators to be hired by the CPRC for its investigators.

There may indeed be "confusion" or "miscommunication" involving this issue as claimed by Schiavone and other at City Hall or in the police department but the confusion appears to be on the city's end more than anywhere else because none of those raising the alarm can even come up with one cohesive argument in which they agree (and aren't contradicting each other on) and if there's miscommunication, it's difficult to believe that this isn't a deliberate action on the city's part.



Jim Garrison: "Dave, I find your story simply not believable."

Dave Ferrie: "Really, which part?"


---JFK



More blood letting at the Press Enterprise as it prepares for the next round of layoffs which are to be announced by Belo Enterprises. This publication which hasn't generated a profit for Belo Enterprises (as it's located in ground zero of the current recession) is expecting hard hits.

Leaving the newspaper soon will be Riverside City Hall beat reporter, Doug Haberman who's switching careers. As newspapers including the Seattle Press-Intelligencer, San Francisco Chronicle, Rocky Mountain News and even the Philadelphia Inquirer are either closing shop or in danger of closing up, others are losing their more experienced reporters to buyouts or layoffs.





Dan Bernstein (who lost his Tuesday column when the newspaper reduced the days of publishing multiple zone editions) from the Press Enterprise broke the story of how Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco slashed $22,000 from his annual budget in response to the current recession and resultant budget crises.


(excerpt)


Cuddles, the old softie, has already slashed his budget -- by $22K! He disclosed the cuts in the February issue of the RivCo Sheriff's Association newsletter.

But lopping 10 percent off his $67 million budget, as ordered by RivCo CEO Bill Luna? Why should he? The DA suggests RivCo's top budgeteers are, well, unbelievable!

"A couple of years ago," he wrote, "they underestimated by more than $100 million in (projected) revenue in one year ... they have (also) tended to overestimate costs ... In bad times, errors in 'projections' can give the impression of an accounting trick with very real and dire human consequences."

Bill Luna and his budgeteers a merry band of tricksters? Ray Smith, speaking for the county, says recent revenue projections have been conservative -- and still too low. "So the trick isn't in accounting, it's in doing the work to make sure you know what you're talking about."

Methinks he just poked Cuddles!




Riverside County Sheriff Stanley Sniff hasn't been fund raising for his election bid that long but he's already raised nearly $100,000 to put in the campaign kitty.

Donating $10,000 was the Riverside Sheriff's' Association, the labor union for many of the sworn employees. But there were other donors with department connections.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

Sniff said that, unlike his predecessor, none of his executive staff is involved in his campaign activities. That removes any perception of favoritism or conflicts of interest, he said.

Some of the department's highest-ranking members are among Sniff's contributors, the records show. They include Assistant Sheriff William DiYorio ($1,000), Assistant Sheriff Craig Kilday ($100), and Jerry Gutierrez, who was named the department's first-ever correctional captain in July 2008 ($500). Sniff also received contributions from several lieutenants.

Asked whether receiving contributions from department personnel could still create perceptions of favoritism, Sniff said it wouldn't.

"Individuals have the right to contribute to whatever they want," he said, adding that individuals' decisions to contribute or not to contribute to his campaign have no bearing on promotions or transfers. Plus, senior staff make those decisions, he said.

Sniff also received contributions from Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco's campaign ($1,000), Riverside County Chief Probation Officer Alan Crogan ($350), former Riverside County Sheriff Larry Smith ($1,000), and Riverside County Superior Court judges Robert McIntyre ($250) and Paul Zellerbach ($125).

Not surprisingly, the comments thread is very illuminating.

(excerpts)



Go Stan Go - No plan stan needs to go.

Is anyone REALLY suprised by who and how was "contributed"???? A bail bonds company that gets business from the county, a tow company that get business from the county, pacheco well that is a slippery slope. The cylones contributed??? That should be raising an eyebrow or three. I didnt vote for him in the last election - I Certainly will NOT be voting for him AGAIN in the next election. He has done NOTHING for the department, He ahs no direction no plan that wasn't handed to him.

I do not trust him - he pays that same game he accused Sheriff Doyle of, he finally terminated Therone, a Doyle supporter, he "promotes" that whiner hill. She is just plain embarassing and has set female presence in law enforcement back many years.

Wonderful =



Mr. Quan should have researched and published the Sheriff Select's comments from his public interview at the Board of Supervisor's meeting. Where he stood up and said he would not take any campaign contributions from employees. Come on Stan, who are you fooling. You were fired for the right reasons! You are the Sheriff-Select because the Board of Sups., DA and union needed a puppet. Now you have O'Reilly scripting for you, you are a sad and lonely man!
Stay tuned for more to come...





A firefighter in Murrieta pleads not guilty to sexually assaulting a teenager.



Canyonlake has put aside some of its recent city council controversies to pass an ordinance protecting the hillsides.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The City Council, as it did at a meeting in February, voted 3-0 to adopt the ordinance, which takes effect in 30 days.

As in recent proceedings, two council members, Martin Gibson and Jordan Ehrenkranz, did not participate.

Gibson is one of the owners of Goetz Hill, and Ehrenkranz awaits a decision by the state Fair Political Practices Commission to determine if he is disqualified from voting on Goetz Hill decisions because of possible financial conflicts of interest.

The ordinance will define what can be developed on hillsides with a 25 to 50 percent slope and prohibits development on hillsides with slopes of 50 percent or more.

Grading within 100 feet horizontally or 50 feet vertically of any of the ridgelines protected under its provisions would also be prohibited.

As at previous meeting, opponents and supporters weighed in on the new rules, which would limit development on the top of the city's tallest ridgelines, including Goetz Hill, where a proposed development has been the subject of months of controversy in the gated community.



The recall efforts against a Lake Elsinore city councilman continues.




The San Bernardino Police Officers' Association gave up $3.3 million in benefit concessions.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Officers, who began voting Monday, wrapped up the vote Wednesday evening, union President Rich Lawhead said.

The 195-51 vote "shows the membership wanted to give. Had the city negotiated in good faith from the start, we wouldn't have gotten to where we are," he said.

Lawhead said Interim City Manager Mark Weinberg changed the city's negotiating position during talks and refused to consider requests for concessions, including binding arbitration in some labor disputes, that would have cost the city nothing.

Weinberg said he sought to limit discussions to budgetary matters and felt he bargained in good faith.

"We're gratified by the result of the vote. We think it's ratification of the fact that the (union) membership is absolutely sincere in its stated attempt to help the city resolve its financial crisis," he said.

The City Council voted 4-2 on Feb. 19, with Esther Estrada absent and Wendy McCammack dissenting, to order officers to work one less hour per shift, the equivalent of a 10 percent pay cut. The furloughs began Sunday.




Two criminologists hired in San Bernardino County which was under a deep freeze.



And in Colton, the city's offering golden handshakes to some of its employees.



In Hackensack, New Jersey, allegations of harassment rock the police department there.



(excerpt, Hackensack Chronicle)




According to records, an initial round of 25 disciplinary charges was filed against Viola on Jan. 6 for having her driver’s license suspended several times while serving as a police officer and driving a police car. Viola was then hit on Feb. 2 with 19 more administrative charges tied to her license problems.

In the letter, Burden noted that Viola once had a two-year relationship with Deputy Chief Frank Zisa, Chief Zisa’s brother. Burden went on to state that the charges are a reprisal for Viola’s complaints about her supervisor, as well as for her finishing the relationship with the deputy chief.

"These charges are outrageous and, by virtue of discipline sought, Chief Zisa is openly abusing his power in an effort to end Officer Viola’s employment with the Department," Burden wrote.

Copies of the letter have been sent to City Attorney Joseph Zisa, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli and state Attorney General Anne Milgram. A copy was also sent to State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), a longtime political rival of Chief Zisa.

Zisa denies allegations; prosecutor’s office reviewing letter

Chief Zisa stated that the allegations detailed in the letter are untrue, adding that his department’s internal affairs officers acted in concert with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office on the case. Zisa added that he was not a direct participant in the investigation.

"Her allegations are false, and I can only assume that she made those allegations to gain leverage in her case," said Zisa in a previously published report, noting that additional administrative charges have been filed against Viola. "I’m not going to respond to each one individually, but I can tell you the allegations are false and that her slanderous comments toward me will be dealt with in an appropriate form at the conclusion of her case."




The Office of Police Complaints in Washington, D.C. may be expanded by actions taken by the city government. Ironic considering that most governmental entities try to weaken civilian oversight in their midst not beef it up.



(excerpt, Washington City Paper)




Earlier this month, three D.C. Councilmembers—Mendelson, Cheh, and Bowser— introduced legislation that would significantly beef up the oversight powers of the Office of Police Complaints. The bill would expand the authority of the Police Complaints Board to monitor complaints filed with D.C. Police and Housing Authority cops. The bill would remedy the on-going problem of the D.C. cops investigating their own without much if any kind of outside oversight. The OPC was so elated with this bill, the agency wrote a press release.

This is big news. The D.C. Police have always shielded its investigations into misconduct from FOIA laws, claiming these investigations as work product. I addressed the issue years ago in a piece about four Sixth District cops with a stack of citizen complaints. This bill may finally shine some daylight on police-led investigations of excessive force.

The bill states that the board “shall have unfettered access to all information and supporting documentation of the covered law enforcement agencies…”

Seems like the bill has teeth. Expect a huge fight over the unfettered access line.

OPC Executive Director Philip Eure sees the bill as necessary. “The upshot is we are trying to update the authority of our agency to be able to provide even more effective oversight of police complaints,” he says. “We want to promote greater police accountability….We need to know how MPD deals with citizen complaints.”






A police chief in Massachusetts isn't going to prison despite his criminal conviction.



(excerpt, The Boston Channel)




NewsCenter 5's Steve Lacy reported that a Norfolk Superior Court judge sentenced Cachopa to a probationary sentence Thursday following the conviction and also ruled that he must serve 1,000 hours of community service.

"He allowed his personal feelings to interfere with his public and his professional responsibilities," said Judge Janet Sanders, who also ordered Cachopa to submit to a mental health evaluation.

Prosecutor George Jabour told a courtroom packed with spectators that Cachopa had committed an egregious abuse of his power as the head of the Stoughton Police Department, which has been rife with discontent in recent years.

"He did nothing less than distort and obstruct a very serious investigation into very serious conduct that no one with an ounce of moral fiber would have done," said Jabour, who asked Judge Sanders to issue a nine-month jail sentence to the ex-police chief.

Cachopa was convicted for his participation in a 2007 crime, in which Stoughton Police Sgt. David M. Cohen placed a former Stoughton businessman in handcuffs while attempting to collect a $10,000 debt owed to a friend, according to the Patriot Ledger. A third officer was acquitted of charges in the case.

Defense attorney Robert George argued during the sentencing the Cachopa will be unable to earn a living to support his family, and will have difficulty finding work in any of the fields he would be qualified for.

"He is 57 years old in the worst economy anyone can remember," said George. "He has no ability to get a job in most of the professions he could get a job in because he's a convicted felon."






Ward Two City Council candidate Ahmad R. Smith will be speaking to the Friday Morning Club on March 6 at 10 a.m. at the Janet Goeske Center at 5257 Sierra Street.


More information on Smith and his campaign platform is available here.







From the corner that makes you go, "crikey dick!" or "get off the grass" but apparently, it's dinkum not bunkum.

In what can only be considered a travesty on the global scale, a mall in Christchurch, New Zealand is playing Barry Manilow music to scare off teenage loitering at its biggest mall which is actually more of a shopping district with hundreds of shops than a mall.

First of all, Manilow's not that bad in all situations and that mall's always been noisy. It's outside after all and a nice place to shop. But then Christchurch, a city that once was the same size of Riverside is actually a much better designed city in many ways. The garden city.

The only thing that's tricky to figure out are the round-abouts.



But in the truly doormat category is Molly who became Jason's pick after he dumped his pick, Melissa on television. Here is the last email exchange between Jason and Melissa after he dumped her on the air of the final episode of "Bachelor" to hook up with Molly. Why do they have shows like this one again?

Molly dear, give it a couple weeks and Jason will have to "find himself" again and he'll dump you for the next thing and leave you confused just like Melissa.

And Rihanna, once a batterer always a batterer, run do not walk away.








For a donation of $5 per plate we will be serving you a PANCAKE BREAKFAST:

Pancakes
Eggs
Sausage
Coffee
Juice


Please join us Saturday, March 7, 2009 from 8 to noon

at the Community Settlement Association, located at 4366 Bermuda Avenue, in Riverside


All proceeds will go toward REWARD MONEY for material information or evidence, which leads to the identity and conviction of any person or persons responsible for the deaths of Ramiro Sanchez and Salvador Solis.

Thank you for your help!

Links and things from sea to shining sea

Another month, another letter in the Press Enterprise by retired Riverside Police Department Det. Granville "Bud" Kelley who despite despising the Community Police Review Commission and calling it a variety of colorful metaphors in his letters and calling for its disbandment has applied to serve on it several times. He's also been a member of Chief Russ Leach's Advisory Board.

The possibility that untrained people tromping around an officer-involved shooting site could contaminate evidence may be "nonsense" to Chani Beeman, of the Community Police Review Commission, but as a former homicide investigator with the Riverside Police Department, I can tell you that it could be a reality ("Key term in board issue unclear," March 1).

Investigations are better left to the professionals. There is sufficient time later for the review commission to look into the matter. Beeman's suggestion that a commission investigator sit in during Police Department internal-affairs interviews also lacks common sense and smacks of interference.

The commission has been an albatross around the neck of the Riverside Police Department since its inception and should be voted out by the residents of Riverside, just as it was voted in during a time of mass hysteria.

GRANVILLE KELLEY

Riverside

Interesting letter, but all reports indicate that no crime-scene trampling CPRC investigators have ever been seen at any of the 12 investigations, preliminary or complete, conducted of officer-involved deaths from 2002-2008. And there are currently no reports of any crime-scene trampling investigators in the vicinity at the moment although City Hall and Police Chief Russ Leach are apparently ringing some alert that this is a serious problem as all the parties in this controversy return to addressing each other not directly but through the local media, in the wake of the Governmental Affairs Committee which ended in a stalemate on Feb. 4.




The Riverside City Council met and conducted some business. Most of which as usual was on the consent calendar of its agenda and not up for discussion.




A controversial ordinance limiting picketing was finally approved by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The ordinance, supported by Supervisor Jeff Stone and representatives of the Church of Scientology, prohibits protesters within 30 feet of the property line of a residence they are targeting in unincorporated Riverside County. The rules are scheduled to go into effect in 30 days.

"I can't support this ordinance," said Buster, the only supervisor who voted against it. "I hope you can clarify it if it does go into effect, because it seems to me it is going to be really a problem for everybody to try and interpret, and eventually you are going to spend a lot of money in court."



New Menifee mayor pro tem, Darcy Kuenzi has created a committee of people to figure out how to be a city.




San Bernardino County is planning to trim its budget again.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



San Bernardino County supervisors approved three cost-cutting programs Tuesday that trim the workweek of the county's administrators and offer cash incentives to employees to retire before the next fiscal year.

The ordinance signals that county negotiators will seek similar concessions in coming contract talks with the unions that represent county employees, authorities said.

"We want to set the tone," said Andrew Lamberto, head of the county's human resources department. "We are prepared to take these cuts as a ... group."

Lamberto said formal talks with the San Bernardino Public Employees Association would open in late March.

The union represents more than 12,000 county employees. As well as possibly asking for a cut to workers' hours, county negotiators may request that employees forgo a 2.5 percent pay raise scheduled for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

"We haven't asked anything like that formally," Lamberto said. "The county has a menu of cost reductions (to choose from)."

Bob Blough, general manager of the employees association, said he hopes that county negotiators are open to exploring a full range of options, which do not include layoffs, as the county grapples with a roughly $80 million budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year.





More on the case involving the videotaped beating of 15-year-old Malika Calhoun by King County Sheriff's Department deputies. I've gotten some emails on this one including links to different blogs and articles.


You can read the transcript of her interview where she talks about what happened to her. The deputy who was videotaped throwing her around and on the ground and then punching her appeared in court to plead not guilty to an assault charge.



(excerpt, Huffington Post)

CHEN: And then what was the exchange going on between you and the officer in the cell during the beating?

M. CALHOUN: He first, when he first came in, where I kicked the shoe off at him, and I was about to take my other one off, he said, you know, it's assaulting an officer. And that's when he charged in and started beating me. And I was yelling. I was like, this isn't -- I'm not resisting. I'm not resisting. And he said, whether you're resisting or not, that was assault.

Then he just kept doing it and kept going and going.

CHEN: Why did you kick the shoe off at him?

M. CALHOUN: Because my arms were folded, and I was upset with the way he was talking to me. And I was talking back to him. And I just took it off. And I was ready to take off my other shoe, and then that's what happened.

CHEN: Did the shoe hit him?

M. CALHOUN: No, it didn't hit him at all. I was standing in the inside of the door, and he was standing holding the door open. Didn't hit him, and he was saying that it made blood pockets and stuff, and it didn't even hit him at all.

CHEN: Tell me about the beating. How hard was it?

M. CALHOUN: It was horrible, like my head hit the wall when he first came in and kicked me. And then my head hit the wall in the back. And then he kept -- threw me to the ground, was pulling my hair constantly.

And it was just horrible.

CHEN: Were you screaming for him to stop?

M. CALHOUN: Yes. I said, I'm not resisting. I'm not resisting.

CHEN: And what did he say?

M. CALHOUN: He didn't say anything back until after, when I was like, I didn't resist. And he said, well, it was still assaulting an officer.

Resetting expectations in the Malika Calhoun case from Injustice in Seattle who's written on this incident since it unfolded.




An update from Behind the Blue Wall on the situation involving the woman who blogs on law enforcement-related domestic violence who received threatening emails allegedly from a West Palm Beach Sheriff's Department deputy a while ago.


Another blogger harassed which was read by nearly 8,000 people just accessing that link during the first few weeks it was posted here after being linked at a variety of other blogs.

She filed complaints with that agency, Tacoma Police Department and the FBI and received a letter from the city of Tacoma that no charges will be filed in that case. The Blue Wall of Silence prevails again.





In New York City, a former military veteran is applying for a spot in that police department but has a felony conviction in his background.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)




Spec. Osvaldo Hernandez earned a 98.235 on his June test - which includes a 5-point credit for his military service in Afghanistan, lawyer James Harmon said.

That places Hernandez 25th on the list of applicants.

"He got a very high score. He's a thoughtful guy. He's an intelligent guy," Harmon said.

"We expect that Hernandez's number will come up for selection consideration in the coming months."

Hernandez, 26, of Corona, Queens, has been determined in his pursuit of an NYPD badge, although he was sentenced to eight months in jail after a 2002 bust for carrying a loaded gun in his car.

NYPD policy bars police brass from hiring applicants with felony convictions.

In November, the decorated soldier - who served his country with the 82nd Airborne Division - convinced the judge and the prosecutor who put him behind bars he was a changed man.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron granted Hernandez a "relief of civil disability" certificate, restoring Hernandez's right to carry a gun.




A jury awarded $3 million in the case of a mentally ill man who was tased 18 times by police in Texas.



In Minneapolis, a tasing of a man there was ruled a homicide.



(excerpt, Star Tribune)



Quincy DeShawn Smith, a former radio DJ, died around 12:45 a.m. Dec. 9 after a confrontation with officers who had been called to the 1000 block of Knox Avenue N. on a report of a domestic assault involving a man with a gun. He struggled with officers as they tried to arrest him and was Tasered.

Shortly after Smith was subdued, he experienced a medical problem and later died at Hennepin County Medical Center.

The cause of death released by the medical examiner Wednesday was "cardiorespiratory arrest complicating physical exertion with law enforcement subdual and restraint." While the manner of death was listed as homicide, medical examiner Andrew Baker cautioned that the definition of homicide is not tantamount to murder. "In the medical examiner world, it simply means that other people were involved in the individual's death," he said. "It doesn't imply that it was murder or malfeasance or acting outside the scope of professional conduct."

The medical examiner's release did not say whether the Taser shock was a factor in Smith's death.




Officers were arrested, fired and/or charged with sexual offenses in North Carolina,San Jose,Florida and Georgia. Some people might say it's mentioning cases like these that are the problem but I think most of us would agree that it's officers who engage in this misconduct who are the problem.



A court in Nebraska upheld the firing of a state trooper because he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.



(excerpt, Associated Press)




Justice John Gerrard wrote that Robert Henderson voluntarily associated with an organization that uses violence and terror to oppose the state's founding principles of equality and tolerance.

Henderson, a trooper for 18 years, was dismissed in 2006 after the patrol discovered he had joined a racist group. He told an investigator he joined the Knights Party - which has described itself as the most active Klan organization in the United States - in June 2004.

An arbitrator said Henderson was wrongly fired, but Lancaster County District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront overturned that decision.

Henderson's attorney, Vincent Valentino, argued to the high court that arbitrators, not judges, have the final say.

Gerrard wrote that while it's not the role of a court, generally, to set aside an arbitrator's decision, it is permissible for a court to "refuse to enforce an arbitration award that is contrary to a public policy that is explicit, well defined, and dominant."

Justice Kenneth Stephan wrote in a dissenting opinion that the courts overstepped their bounds by overturning the arbitrator. Stephan said Henderson had kept his beliefs well hidden while on the job and there was no evidence those beliefs interfered with his impartial enforcement of the law.





A New York City Police Department officer has been indicted after being caught on video camera assaulting a handcuffed man last July.



(excerpt, Newsday)



Officer David London used his baton during an encounter with Walter Harvin, 29, who "did not pose a physical threat" to the cop, Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said in a statement. Landon has 15 years on the force.

Harvin, a U.S. Army veteran, suffered multiple cuts and scrapes, prosecutors said.

London, 43, was arrested Wednesday and pleaded not guilty in State Supreme Court in Manhattan to charges of felony assault, falsifying business records and offering a false instrument for filing, as well as making a punishable written statement, a misdemeanor. He was was released without bail and told to return March 5

London was placed on modified duty 10 days after the July 28, incident at West 93rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

The officer charged Harvin with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. Prosecutors dismissed the charges after a probe revealed the officer falsified details in the criminal complaint filed against Harvin, authorities said.

London said in the complaint that Harvin was physically aggressive against him and London's partner, prosecutors said. A New York City Housing Authority surveillance video contradicted the officer's account, prosecutors said.

London faces up to 7 years in prison if convicted on the felony assault charge alone.



Some police officers working in different agencies in New York were caught up in a shoplifting sting.



(excerpt, Mid-Hudson News)




Two of those arrested are police officers.

Computer software, razors, and other items of small size but high retail value, including flat screen TVs, were taken.

"Our surveillance indicated this was almost a nightly event in the past several months," said District Attorney Frank Phillips. "We've got two small truckloads of property that was seized as a result of search warrants that we are in the process of inventorying and securing."

On Tuesday, November 4, investigators from the Orange County District Attorney's Office, members of the Walmart Investigations Team, and police from the towns of New Windsor, Newburgh and Montgomery executed seven search warrants at several locations and recovered large amounts of stolen goods. A large amount of the stolen property had been sold on eBay. eBay officials cooperated in the investigation.

Charged were Bryan Dunn, 36, of Maybrook; Kevin Burchell, 27, of Montgomery; Clifford Barber III, 41, of Walden; and LaQuionus Pressley, 29, of Newburgh.

Burchell is a Village of Tuxedo police officer. Barber is a town of Montgomery police officer.



A police officer in Massachusetts whose assault of a man appeared on YouTube was suspended for conduct unbecoming of an officer.



(excerpt, The Boston Channel)



The investigation found that Puleo was justified in making the arrest because Travis Markarian ignored repeated warnings to disperse after downtown bars closed for the night. However, the report calls Puleo's actions "improper and intemperate."

The video, which had been viewed more than 55,000 times on YouTube, shows Puleo walking across the street, pointing at Markarian and yelling "Get the (expletive) out of here now!"

As a woman attempts to pull Markarian away, Puleo grabs him by the throat and pulls him to the ground.

"The force used in this case, while not excessive, was certainly not proper and customary," Capt. Paul Tucker wrote in his report. "The (profane) language used has no place in a professional police agency."



The New York City Police Department hired two female officers who are identical twins.




During an NTSB hearing on the Metrolink train crash in Chatsworth last year, the text messages sent and received by the engineer killed in the crash were released.

The trials and travails of boards and commissions continues

The Human Resources Board of Riverside met at City Hall and was to discuss the letter it was sending to the city council regarding actions taken by the dynamic duo to block their receipt of statistical information involving lawsuits filed against the city by its employees. It's a head scratcher why the duo would even try to block the board from accessing statistics which are based on information in the public record but then again, this is Riverside. And Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout reported back several months ago that the duo determined that the request made by the board for this information was not within the purview of the board. That statement should sound familiar if you've been to meetings of the Community Police Review Commission where the dynamic duo has also made its presence felt and known in recent months and years.

Still, the members of the Human Resources Board remained determined to press on with their efforts to circumvent the efforts of the dynamic duo to block them from receiving the data and to do what the CPRC had done before it, which was to take their concerns to the city council. Even though they know that like the CPRC, it's entirely probable that they too could receive in response, a "received, reviewed and filed" form letter in dismissive fashion, they have been making the effort to have Chair Erin House and member, Rosetta Runnels draft the letter and bring it back to the entire board at their public meetings for reviews, responses and revisions. At last month's meeting, House was asked to make substantive changes to the current draft of the letter and to bring it back.

But the letter never made it out of the Human Resources Department or to that department and then back to the board members so it was tabled until next month for further discussion because members of the board including Runnels hadn't seen the latest draft.


The Riverside Police Department was to have presented information on the attrition and retention levels of its female officers in comparison to their male counterparts to the board after it learned that the department's audit and compliance bureau was conducting a related internal audit. However, the board's efforts to obtain a presentation on this issue was blocked, by City Attorney Gregory Priamos (according to Strout, who's the missive sender for both Hudson and Priamos apparently) who said that the board wasn't privy to information from internal audits due to the enforcement of police personnel privacy laws. The board took this as a sign that it wasn't to receive any information from any source from the department about its situation involving its female officers. However, House decided to try to contact Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel to ask him if the board could receive a presentation on this pressing issue at a future meeting. But no presentation date has been set yet.

Why the retention of female officers is what it is (and has been for years) most likely has been and remains a complex issue with many areas that need further examination and looking at several "areas" meaning both geographical and substantive. Why do the women get hired and then quit or "fail to make probation/meet standards"? Even some of the women who've been hired and done quite well have quit after about 2-3 years. Is it because to prove themselves and to get through the program women are given extra tests to pass or fail that men are not? Is it because even "passing" these these tests doesn't change anything because if it did, then these tests wouldn't exist in the first place?

These questions are asked because they appear in some form or another in many law enforcement agencies which struggle with the same issues that the police department in Riverside does.

That was a problem with several other law enforcement agencies, with cultures not particularly friendly and welcome to women where women have been given "pro quo" tests. Unfortunately, these tests are so part and parcel of many law enforcement agencies which grapple with sexism within their ranks including those where multi-million dollar lawsuits have been settled with cities and counties that when female officer retention is poor, it is one item on a list of them that needs to be investigated. But it hardly ever is, because it's almost as if it is, then the act of investigation will cause it to exist.

Which is why in other agencies with similarly low success rates with retaining women as officers, it must be asked as well. Presumably it has been investigated as part of any closer examination into what's going on with any law enforcement agency's female officers. Has it been asked and examined in the Riverside Police Department as well?

As stated earlier, if so, it should have been done first.

The department including the police chief have said that attrition rates are higher for female officers and retention rates, lower. This has been an ongoing situation for at least the past eight years. Even when higher rates of women were hired by the agency because of more energetic recruitment, the retention rates remain low. Hopefully, some of these issues will be presented to the Human Resources Board by the police department at some point.



The Human Resources Board also held its chair and vice-chair elections and reelected Erin House and Ellie Bennett respectively with no other nominations submitted.


The CPRC will be holding its own elections during its first meeting this month. Nominations to fill both the chair and vice-chair positions were submitted at its Feb. 25 meeting.

Submitting nominations for the chair position are John Brandriff and Sheri Corral. Nominations for the vice-chair are Peter Hubbard and Jim Ward. The candidates will be allowed to issue brief statements about themselves and the votes won't be secret ballot but the public will be able to know who voted for who. As if we couldn't figure that out ahead of time! The election results will be posted here as soon as the votes are counted.


The chair and vice-chair upon election will inherit the difficult situation thrust upon them by factions of City Hall which last year, issued a directive from City Manager Brad Hudson's office to change the protocol for the CPRC's investigation of officer-involved deaths which it had followed since its investigation into the fatal shooting of Anastacio Munoz in 2002. Hudson's directive as it became called, also forbade the CPRC from using any of its investigative budget to launch investigations not cleared by Priamos first.

The commission became divided by whether or not to follow its former protocol or to adopt the Hudson directive. Still, the majority of commissioners present at several meetings voted to initiate independent investigations into the officer-involved deaths of Carlos Quinonez, Martin Sanchez and Marlon Oliver Acevedo. Investigations which were never launched after Manager Kevin Rogan said he would not call the investigators on retainer by the commission to initiate these investigations.

Those investigations and the death of Russell Franklin Hyatt (in which no investigation was formerly initiated by the CPRC by vote) are now trailing up to six months from the dates they happened with no investigations conducted.

It's unlikely this status quo that the City Hall has in place will change especially given that the Governmental Affairs Committee took no formal action at its last meeting except to suggest that a meeting be set up from city employees and community members to discuss terminology which most likely was intended for city employees to tell community members how these words including "investigate" were to be defined. Which is ironic since it's City Hall which seems to be the most confused about not only how investigations are defined involving the CPRC but how the officer-involved death and/or shooting investigations are defined including the department's own parallel investigations into these critical incidents.


It's not likely that the Governmental Affairs Committee will take any action. Two out of three of the members of the standing committee for the discussion of the CPRC's investigative protocol which took place on Feb. 4's meeting are up for reelection this year. It's more than likely that there won't be any decision on protocol and that the Governmental Affairs Committee will simply through inaction allow the Hudson directive-turned-protocol remain in place and thus the political candidates, Council Members Frank Schiavone and Andrew Melendrez won't have to be concerned that the CPRC issues will impact their reelection campaigns.

The odds that this instructional or clarification meeting will be called between city employees and community members are only slightly lower than those set that the Governmental Affairs Committee will on public record, take responsibility for sending a recommendation to the city council on the CPRC.

In the meantime, the CPRC is through its Policies, Procedures and Bylaws Committee is beginning the process of drafting its own written guidelines. It's doing so because it's been led to believe that the issue of investigative protocol stems back to the June 2008 lightning storm of realization that there was actually no written protocol in place (which makes little sense since city council members including Schiavone were promoting Policies and Procedures Section VIII B as the written protocol beginning in August) governing the CPRC's investigative protocol for incustody deaths. All this writing of history and rewriting of it by the city to fit each new explanation as to why it's so critical to micromanage the CPRC, it just gives you a headache trying to keep up with all the Teflon throwing going on.

Odds are highly in favor that forces within City Hall will (and indeed already have) tried to impede the action of the CPRC's creation of its investigative protocol. Odds are also high that these actions will continue.

Let's just hope that the fervor over the rampage of crime scenes purportedly done by CPRC investigators is given a rest for at least a little while. If not, there are plenty of further examples in pop culture to help illuminate this hysteria that has seized some players at the 'Hall.





The Riverside Unified School District is scaling back its spending.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



District administrators on Monday recommended the reduction of more than 80 jobs in district offices, the adult education program and alternative schools. The school board reviewed the proposal into the late evening on Monday.

The proposal would eliminate management positions in the human resources, education alternatives, instructional services and facilities offices. The proposed district-level cutbacks also include the loss of staff development specialists, math coaches, maintenance workers and clerical staff.

"These will have direct and significant impacts and will change the way we serve and support schools around our city," Deputy Superintendent Mike Fine told the board.

District administrators have not given final recommendations for how many teachers could lose their jobs. Fine said the administration will ask the board to vote Monday to determine how many teacher layoff notices must go out to meet a March 15 deadline set by state law.





Is a cooperative relationship between U.S. Border Patrol and local law enforcement agencies fostering distrust towards both?




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


Riverside police conducted a Jan. 29 sweep of an area where laborers wait for work after they received complaints from residents about the workers, said Riverside police Lt. Bruce Loftus. Police called Border Patrol to identify 12 men who did not have identification cards, and 11 were detained on immigration charges.

Velez said the Border Patrol always provided some help for law-enforcement agencies and hiring of additional agents in recent years allows the agency to assist more often.

Loftus said that in the past, the Border Patrol had typically spurned police requests for help with identity verification and translation, saying agents were unavailable.

That changed in November when Ramon Chavez, the head of the Riverside Border Patrol office, held a meeting with senior Riverside police officials to offer assistance, Loftus said.

Loftus said he has told Chavez that if Border Patrol agents translate for victims, they should not ask about victims' immigration status. Chavez agreed not to do so, he said.

But Velez said that in the absence of such a request, Border Patrol agents ask victims about immigration status if the agents suspect they are illegal immigrants.

"We have a duty to do so," he said. "We have an authority and mandate from Congress to implement and enforce immigration laws."

Velez said he does not know how many crime victims have been asked their immigration status and what happened to those who were identified as illegal immigrants.





The mayor of Beaumont is stumping for his city's stimulus plan.




The judge has spoken in San Bernardino County Superior Court, refusing to stop the implementing of furloughs of police officers by San Bernardino. The San Bernardino Police Officers' Association had filed a lawsuit to stop this practice that was initiated in response to the city's budget crisis. The same day, that city's governing body voted to keep Chief Michael Billdt and his assistant chief in power.



(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)



The court decision happened first. Judge W. Robert Fawke denied the Police Officers Association attempt to block council-approved furloughs during a morning court hearing.

"I don't see that I actually have the power to step in and take over the legislative process under these particular circumstances," Fawke said in San Bernardino Superior Court.

The legislative process was at play later in the day when the council voted in favor of a plan that would allow Police Chief Michael Billdt and assistant chief Mitch Kimball to stay with the city as contractors.

Billdt and Kimball had technically put in for retirement before the meeting, during which Capt. Ernie Lemos was serving as acting chief.

Seventh Ward Councilwoman Wendy McCammack opposed the decision to keep Billdt aboard as an hourly employee, and suggested that if Lemos is qualified to run the department for a couple days, he can run the organization for a couple weeks or months.

Billdt and Kimball did not speak at the meeting, but interim City Manager Mark Weinberg said the department would be better served by keeping Billdt, who has experience as chief.

The vote was 4-2 to rehire Billdt as a contractor. McCammack and 1st Ward Councilwoman Esther Estrada voted against keeping the chief and Kimball.



Some of the opposition to Billdt's and Kimball's rehiring as contract employees called it "double dipping".




In San Bernardino's Ward Four city council race, there are a number of candidates to consider before voting.





A top-ranking police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department hierarchy has died at the age of 53. He was also the agency's second highest ranking Black officer.


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Kenneth Otto Garner, who played a central role in helping diversify the LAPD, improve the agency’s ties to minority communities and stem crime in South L.A., died unexpectedly at home early Sunday. He was 53 and had spent nearly 32 years in an LAPD uniform.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Department has not determined the cause of death, although people close to Garner said they believed it to be heart failure.

Police Chief William J. Bratton praised Garner’s service, highlighting his work as commander in charge of recruitment at the start of the department’s ongoing push to increase its ranks, as well as his efforts since taking over the LAPD’s South Bureau a year ago. Garner largely will be remembered, Bratton said, for his success in improving the relationship between officers and the black and Latino communities they serve, which for decades had been strained by distrust and fear.

After holding an array of positions in the department, including command posts in the Foothill area of the San Fernando Valley and on the city’s Westside, the assignment to South Bureau marked a return to the streets where Garner had grown up.

“He grew up at a time when the department he loved so much wasn’t loved in these neighborhoods,” Bratton said. “He committed his professional life to changing that.”

Also in Los Angeles, the city's department nears its goal of 10,000 officers.

CPRC: Watch out! The crime-scene busting investigators are coming...

***UPDATE*** San Bernardino County Superior Court judge declines to block furloughs involving the city's police officers.




"The crime-scene trampling investigators are coming!"


This mantra has been sounded so many times of late by assorted characters in the story of Riverside's foray into civilian oversight that this posting will begin with a tribute to the pop culture examples which represent the latest chapter of what's going on with the CPRC's investigative protocol involving officer-involved deaths.


A cry sounded out from downtown Riverside to La Sierra, from the Northside to the Eastside that the CPRC had dispatched an investigator to invade the crime scene of an officer-involved death to stomp on evidence, trample over the yellow tape and contaminate witnesses!

So a troupe of police department representatives, City Manager Brad Hudson and the Governmental Affairs Committee has climbed up to the tippy top of Mt. Rubidoux to set up a special warning light to be seen across the land to warn of the invasion of the crime scene busting investigators from the CPRC.




"One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore (of the Santa Ana) will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Riverside neighborhood and ward,
For the city folk to be up and to arm."

Because those crime-scene trampling investigators are coming...

---Henry Wadforth Longfellow (if he had witnessed the ongoing travails of the CPRC vs City Hall in River City)




They came in the dead of night. Innocuous puffs of wisps falling from outer space to take root and grow amongst us all, creating pods which would transform every person while they sleep into a crime scene busting investigator!

Here's an eyewitness account from someone who actually saw this take place.



"It started - for me, it started - last Thursday, in response to an urgent message from the city manager, I hurried home from a city council meeting I'd been attending. At first glance, everything looked the same. It wasn't. Something evil had taken possession of the town. One of those crime-scene trampling CPRC investigators!"



---If Invasion of the Body Snatchers became "Invasion of the CPRC investigators".




But it didn't stop there, they came down to Riverside to invade it in ships from the sky as well...

An astute narrator reports:



"The Crime Scene Trampling Investigators had calculated their descent with amazing perfection and subtlety. As more of their cylinders came from the mysterious depths of outside River City, their investigations, awesome in their power and complexity, created a wave of fear throughout the 'Hall."


---"War of the Crime-Scene Trampling Investigators"---H.G. Wells followup to his immense hit, War of the Worlds. The radio version of the sequel to Worlds created panic through the halls of Riverside's City Hall but left others shaking their head at the sight.





An airplane passenger (played by William Shatner) was trying to conquer his fear of both flying and crime scene demolishing investigators when he happened to look out of his airplane window and saw the sight of what else? A crime scene trampling investigator in the process of manhandling of a crime scene.


He tried to warn the others.


"There's a crime-scene trampling investigator out there."


---Williams Shatner after seeing the investigator trample the crime scene outside his airplane window on Twilight Zone.

The Crime Scene Trampling Investigator caught in the act of taking evidence

Yes, the whipped up frenzy involving the crime-trampling investigator working for the CPRC has reared its head again. It of course has never happened but that's beside the point. It serves as a convenient and readily used tool to use especially in the media.


So how did it transpire this time? Read below.



The latest article on the changes made to the investigative protocol that the Community Police Review Commission has used for eight years involving its probes into officer-involved deaths brings back allegations made by "city officials" that the CPRC is asking or trying to get an investigator "within the confines of the yellow tape" at a crime scene. It's always interesting to watch city officials and representatives of the police department make allegations about something that has never happened and changes in protocol which were never suggested let alone mandated and actually practiced by CPRC commissioners.

After all, if the truth doesn't quite work for you, make up your own and market myth as reality and hopefully, some people will buy it.

At no time has the CPRC ever sent one of its investigators to the scene of an officer-involved shooting when the tape has been down or within two days of when a critical incident has taken place. At no time, did the CPRC ever say or state that it was going to change its protocol to engage in these actions let alone go to crime scenes when the tape was down and pick up items of evidence. At no time from 2002-June 2008 did any city officials or police department representatives including Chief Russ Leach, City Manager Brad Hudson or Councilman Frank Schiavone express any complaints about the investigations conducted by the CPRC actually contaminating or endangering the department's own investigations. Something that several individuals at least have the decency to admit.

Baker Street Group investigator, Butch Warnberg said in the article that he had never been at a "crime scene" on the day of an incustody death incident. And he's right, yet his reputation and those of other investigators in his group has been slammed by insinuations that investigators are trampling over the crime tape, stomping on evidence and contaminating witnesses on behalf of the CPRC.

In fact, if you read the lawsuit filed by the Riverside Police Officers' Association that was filed against the city in 2003 up to its settlement in May 2005, you would conclude that the only thing endangering these investigations conducted under departmental policy #4.8 would be the City Hall and the police department, the two parties complaining now. You know back in the days, when City Hall spent thousands of city residents' tax dollars defending itself in this litigation by arguing that the officers weren't subjected to a criminal investigation but were crime victims submitting crime reports just as they would be reporting any other incident where they responded as police officers. That the only criminal investigation in the cases of officer-involved shootings and/or incustody deaths was against the person shot or killed. If that were the city's position back then, then it's indeed interesting to see them take such a 180 degree turn including inside the city attorney's office. As vehemently as the city now insists it is a criminal investigation of the officers (rather than a deceased individual who can't be charged with any crime) is how vehemently they were stating in responses to a lawsuit only a few years ago that it wasn't.

That's just one of many reasons why this ranting about compromised investigations and trampled upon and contaminated crime scenes is puzzling when you get away from the static and put your thinking cap on for a moment.

Leach is the most puzzling but that's not exactly unusual. He said he became concerned about some "media reports" about the CPRC trying to expand its scope in its officer-involved death investigations some time last year yet never mentions ever conversing with the CPRC or communicating with it or its members in any fashion to find out first-hand what the situation was. He laments his deteriorating relationship with the CPRC but doesn't mention what he himself has done to improve on it because as most people know, it takes two parties to make or break relationships between them. Then he makes this rather interesting statement which was supposed to support his earlier statement about his "concerns" but instead, undermines it.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

Leach said the Police Department will never allow the commission's private investigator to collect evidence, such as blood or gun casings, at the scene.

"If they door knock and try and find witnesses, that's not up to me," he said.

Gee, it seems that the problem's been solved. Not that the CPRC investigator has ever tried to collect evidence, whether it be blood, gun casings or any other physical traces left at the scene of an incident, but in case it's ever happened he would prevent it. Currently, officers are assigned to the scenes of officer-involved death incidents within minutes to provide perimeter security and anyone who visits the crime scene has to sign a log sheet documenting their arrival and their departure from that crime scene. Since the majority of witnesses in at least several cases often are confined by officers inside a crime scene (i.e. as in the case of the Welcome Inn of America tenants in the Lee Deante Brown shooting case), this means that any investigator would not be able to access these witnesses anyway.

Yet Leach and Hudson and occasionally a council member or two rail on about crime scenes being compromised by investigators trampling through them unchecked. Yet when asked to name an incident where this has taken place, none of them have ever been able to do so. The reason why isn't chance nor is it providence. It's because the CPRC has taken great care to avoid doing so by not dispatching investigators to those crime scenes and waiting at least 48 hours before even canvassing for witnesses. In some cases, the CPRC investigator even located new witnesses.

And Leach's also said that if they interview witnesses, they don't need his permission to do so and that appears to include the timing of any such interviews. So it appears on some level that Leach has raised his issues and then resolved them in his further comments.

At any rate, this drama and the invasion of the crime scene trampling investigators will likely continue so much more to come.







The Press Enterprise published this article on how merchants and others in Riverside feel about the multi-million dollar renovation of the downtown pedestrian mall. Views are mixed but you'd never know that by reading the headline.




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Some merchants welcome the project as a needed enhancement of the 42-year-old mall while others say they are not thrilled with the way it's shaping up.

CeeAnn Thiel, owner of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle's gift shop, said so far work crews have taken out several scrawny palm trees that used to stand in front of her shop. Now it's easier for people to see her window displays.

"More visibility is positive," Thiel said.

Joel Udayke, owner of Flowerloft International, said he is unhappy that so many trees have been removed from the Mission Inn block and that the artificial creek will be replaced with a new creek, when he would have preferred a fountain with Spanish-style tiles in keeping with the look of the Inn.

"There's no historical value in the design," Udayke said.

He believes the city missed an opportunity by not holding a design competition, he said.
"We are stuck with this design for the next 40 years," Udayke said.





However, the downtown clock that was struck with calamity will be fixed. But where will it wind up?




Did two city council members in Canyonlake violate the Brown Act?


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


Several city officials, including the city attorney, believe the councilman who disclosed it, Martin Gibson, is overplaying the incident for political purposes.

"It was an accidental violation and it was corrected," City Attorney Elizabeth Martyn said. "It was not as big of a deal as it is being made of."

Gibson defended the disclosure as being in the public's best interest.

"I disclosed the truth, period," he said. "I am stunned that anyone would think that any violation, minor or otherwise, is acceptable."





An investigator hired by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to probe into the turmoil involving the Assessor's office may report his findings before the board this week.



(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)




In late January, the board hired Hueston, who successfully prosecuted key figures in the Enron scandal, to help build a case against Postmus in order to fire him with the least resistance. But on Feb. 13, Postmus resigned.

With Postmus gone, Hueston's investigation has been suspended until his findings and recommendations are made to the board. It remains unclear if the county will continue to retain his services.

"We're still asking (Hueston) to come back with his findings and make a determination on how to proceed," 2nd District Supervisor Paul Biane said.


He also said Postmus' resignation may remove the necessity of having such a high-priced attorney investigate the former assessor.



Are local U.S. Border Patrol agents racially profiling Latinos?



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




In the Jan. 29 sweep, citizens and legal residents were stopped along with illegal immigrants, said community activist Jennie Rivera, who alleges racial profiling.

Two days later, U.S. citizen Armando Salazar said he was grabbed by a Border Patrol agent as he was leaving a convenience store near a Moreno Valley day-labor site.

Hispanics should be happy to be stopped by Border Patrol agents, because it combats illegal immigration, said Raymond Herrera, national rally spokesman for the anti-illegal-immigration Minuteman Project and a Victorville resident.

Not bothered

Herrera, who is Hispanic, said he was not bothered when he was briefly stopped at a rest stop near the Mexican border last year.

"The people who are complaining are the ones who play a heavy race card," he said.

Espinoza, 22, said he was offended the Border Patrol stopped him and asked for identification.

"They're just wasting my time, and it's not right," he said.

"I'm a U.S. citizen."

Espinoza and his brother Francisco, 26, both Lake Elsinore residents, said they get nervous when they spot a Border Patrol vehicle.

"It makes everyone uncomfortable," said Francisco Espinoza.

"I guess they assume everyone who is brown is an illegal alien."

In 2004, Temecula-based agents, who patrol Lake Elsinore, viewed speaking Spanish as a reason to suspect someone of illegal status, according to internal Border Patrol documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

"I spoke to them in English but they responded in Spanish," one arrest report said. "Because of this I questioned them about their citizenship."







The Riverside Community College District might have to pay more of the cost for its new aquatic center.





The tasing of a 12-year-old autistic boy in Hawthorne is being questioned.



"This is a question of common sense. . . . You don't discharge a Taser at a child, absent the most extreme circumstances," said Michael Gennaco, a former federal prosecutor who now monitors internal discipline of deputies for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

A Hawthorne police spokesman said the department launched its investigation in response to a complaint by the boy's parents days after the Sept. 23 incident. He said department officials are reviewing the incident to determine whether the officer followed the agency's rules on using Tasers.

The U.S. Department of Justice's research arm found that studies on the effects of stun guns might not be applicable to small children. The Police Executive Research Forum has discouraged officers from using Tasers on young children and other vulnerable people, such as pregnant women.

Some law enforcement agencies, including those in New York City and Las Vegas, have restricted the use of the weapons on minors. Los Angeles Unified School District police officers do not carry Tasers, a district spokeswoman said.

The Hawthorne Police Department's policy says that officers "may consider other options" before deploying Tasers on juveniles but does not otherwise limit their use on children.





Two New York City Police Department officers has been placed on modified desk duty after allegations arose that one of them raped a woman while onduty. An inspection of their lockers uncovered heroin in one of them. So now they're in trouble.



The Los Angeles Times outlines its endorsements for the Los Angeles city elections. Yes, there is an election going on but except for antics in the fifth district race, it seems a lot quieter than the previous one.







A man wanted for robbery was arrested but when did that take place? When he showed up to take a test to become a police officer.

His primary concern while being arrested was whether or not he would still be able to take the exam.