CPRC: Election by Teleconference

"The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference."


---Bess Myerson







“...each candidate behaved well in the hope of being judged worthy of election. However, this system was disastrous when the city had become corrupt. For then it was not the most virtuous but the most powerful who stood for election, and the weak, even if virtuous, were too frightened to run for office.”


---Niccilo Machiavelle





"Corruption is authority plus monopoly minus transparency.”


---Anonymous




"If you have to be in a soap opera try not to get the worst role.”


---Judy Garland






"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that."


---The Red Queen (Lewis Carroll)





What: CPRC "Special Meeting"

When: 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Where: River City Hall, Fifth Floor Conference Room








The Community Police Review Commission held its elections for its chair and vice-chair positions at its first March meeting as required. It wasn't quite the train wreck that took place in 2007 or the somewhat smoother process that happened last year. It was something different altogether, something which seemed a bit preplanned... But given the antics which have taken place involving the CPRC during the past year, the results of the election weren't surprising nor was that pervasive sense that it was done by rote.

It's not so much who won and who lost, or who ran and who bailed out, but the process all of the characters of this ongoing story took to get there. And it wasn't until discussing the election and its aftermath with several commissioners after the latest installment,that it become more clear that the commission's has lost most of what made it effective and has become more deeply meshed in the talons of micromanagement by City Hall than anyone could have guessed. What was surprising is that the commissioners who seem the most aware of it aren't the ones you would actually expect. And yet they play along with it even as they grumble about it.

Several do speak out about what's going on but the ones who often have the most to say about what's wrong are the ones who silently and publicly engage in what's wrong as if they are agreeable with it. This dynamic mirrors a certain city department and a certain community. And these two entities are more similar than either knows or cares to admit and if present matches prologue, they might both experience the same fates as their predecessors because history is a patient teacher. When LEPAC essentially disintegrated under micromanagement by City Hall and the police department in the 1990s, the consequences soon became pretty clear. And so might be the case with the CPRC and the newly reformed police department, which is stuck with some of the same issues it faced in the financially lean years of that earlier decade that ended the 20th Century not to mention the revisiting of some old ghosts.

Some of the problems with the police department during the 1990s that wound up defining that decade included the following:




1) The reduction of the staffing of the police department including the supervisory level for budget reasons which among other things, impacted community policing implementation. Also cuts in training programs.

2) Complaints taking a lengthy time to investigate if they were investigated at all. Despite this, the department claimed a sustain rate of about 5% when it provided any figure at all. Internal Affairs was in very close quarters with another police divisions at the Orange Street Station.

3) The hiring of officers who were had relatives who worked for the city including the department or were related to political officials without properly conducting background checks, psychological evaluations or drug testing and cutting corners instead. One of these officers, Adam Brown, was later arrested and prosecuted for multiple cases of child molestation in two jurisdictions. The hiring of questionable laterals without proper screening.

4) The sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation of female officers and civilian employees and the creation of a hostile working environment for women including showing pornographic movies in roll call sessions and having new officers go to female employees for oral sex in the parking lot. Female employees getting fired or retaliated for filing grievances or lawsuits. Female officers being told they had to perform sexual favors to keep their jobs as claimed in lawsuits filed against the city. One officer, Christine Keers, claimed she was first sexually harassed by a supervisor while on probation and raised the allegations listed above. Two of those alleged to have retaliated against her, Al Brown and Ron Adams, received retirements from the city. Incidentally, Ron (brother of city councilman, Steve) still works for the city part-time in its red light camera program.

5) Racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation, which led to grievances and lawsuits mirroring those filed in other city departments. Hostile work environment including racial comments and jokes. Black officers told they had to get along with others and not complain.

6) Increased filing of civil litigation and payouts either in settlements or trial verdicts in employee racial and sexual discrimination cases, wrongful death cases and excessive force/rape under the color of authority cases. Problems with the city maintaining an insurance carrier, having to be "self-insured".

7) Revolving door of police chiefs with three chiefs serving the department during the 1990s and increased litigation filed by the Riverside Police Officers' Association and/or the Riverside Police Administrators' Association.

8) The weakening of LEPAC over the decade.






These were some of the serious problems alleged to be faced by the Riverside Police Department that were detailed in civil litigation filed against the department through its indemnity with the city. Several of them were also identified by federal and state investigators who came in to do pattern and practice probes after the fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998.

Many of them were remedied by the reforms imposed by the State Attorney General's Office from 2001 to 2006 and hopefully these problems are gone for good and don't return. But given the insulated environment from an increasingly less transparent police department, it's difficult for the public to know for sure. After all the police department has refused for several years to release to the public a traffic pretext study that the city's residents have paid with their tax dollars. Was it because it didn't like the numbers or the analysis?

Some others listed clearly are no longer trends including the revolving door for police chiefs given that the current one has been in his position since autumn 2000 and his current contract doesn't expire until late 2013.

Some like the department's staffing levels in both the civilian and sworn divisions and including at the supervisory level became enough of a concern that in June 2008, a consultant hired (and summarily brushed off) by the city warned the city to immediately examine that issue because if unchecked, it had the potential to jeopardize the department's continuing reform process. But it quickly became a numbers game with different figures cited by different parties and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis claiming that the department was "fully staffed".

Others, like what kind of environment the department creates and maintains for men of color and women in all of its divisions including that overseeing its volunteers are less apparent to the public. And unfortunately, most often if there are serious issues in these areas, they're not known until the filing of a major class-action lawsuit in the millions of dollars alleging serious problems with race and/or gender in a police agency. Riverside's own department learned that with the filing of lawsuits by Keers and male officers of color, former Officer Rene Rodriguez and Roger Sutton. All three were either settled or decided at trial and all involved the transfer of significant funds from the city to the involved plaintiff. The settlement in the Keers case which the city didn't spend much money litigating was in the generous six-figured range while a trial jury awarded Sutton $1.64 million in 2005 for allegations of misconduct that allegedly continued through 2004.

The firing of a newly hired female officer (who had filed a complaint of sexual harassment in the academy) on her first day of field training in the summer of 2005 was not a promising sign. Nor was the city's decision to settle that case very quietly within two months of being served. It makes you want to ask what were they afraid of given that most labor-related lawsuits are dragged out and litigated by the city for years before settling or being decided at trial. Sutton's case took over five years to reach resolution and the Black employees who sued over a hostile environment in the corporate yard waited nearly eight years.



Not too long ago, the Human Resources Board tried to get the city to provide statistical information on both grievances and lawsuits filed against the city by its own employees including those in the police department. Interestingly enough, the complaint and grievance (according to MOU) statistics were readily delivered by City Hall. Not so with the same information pertaining to lawsuits. In fact, Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout told the board that this information (which even at the specific case level, is public record) was outside the purview of the board to receive. That's about the time that the board found out that its power to investigate as provided by the municipal ordinance which governs it was essentially erased by the city council in 2006. Or so the city council (and city manager's office) might have believed. The Human Resources Board's members aren't nearly as politicized as those on the CPRC and there's not a puppet in the lot so they're pushing back against the city including the city council.

At least one city employee said that the reason why the city doesn't want to release this information or allow its release is because, "there's a lot of lawsuits."

But it remains to be seen whether the police department will stay its course even as the form of civilian oversight suffers the same fate as LEPAC. But what's interesting about the relationship between the police department and the CPRC are these portraits pointed in assorted meetings by those who claim they have been supportive of it.

Last week, Chief Russ Leach stood before the audience at a community/police forum in Orangecrest saying that his relationship with the CPRC had initially been strong then had deteriorated. But former (and now current) Riverside County Superior Court judge, Dallas Holmes might laugh ruefully at that, considering some statements he made at a crucial motion hearing in the lawsuit, Ryan Wilson v the City of Riverside. He had read a deposition submitted by Wilson's attorney that had been done with Leach where Leach didn't appear to be all that favorable towards civilian review and at one point, said he would join in with "my police association" to get rid of one member, Sheri Corral for comments she had made three years earlier during review of Wilson's fatal shooting of Summer Marie Lane which came to a head in late 2005. Interestingly enough, not long after Corral got wind that Leach had made these comments, she began her 180 degree shift in her stance on the commission that has many people shaking their heads today.

But anyway, Holmes had shaken his head at the attorneys for both sides and said, Leach sounded like a police chief and he had yet to meet one of those who supported civilian review. And Holmes certainly had a point there. No police chief really does because most of them don't want outsiders overseeing their departments.

But even past the chief, it's interesting to observe perceptions being shaped and being expressed though not necessarily in public.



I had a conversation with an individual who had been on the receiving end of gossip going around about what happens to the CPRC meeting and by the time it reached this individual, it was like the game of "Telephone", you know the one that kids play where a message is passed along from one party to the next and as such, loses its form and then its content as it moves along. Well grownups in the city play telephone too, and on this particular occasion, the individual had heard some information coming out about a CPRC meeting (from someone who probably attended) some time ago that was quite detailed yet quite slanted in a way against the commission. This individual could have participated in the Telephone game but chose not to, and instead merely asked what had actually happened. And then this individual took the initiative to go back to try to find out the truth for him/her self and is to be given a great deal of credit for doing so, because that's a much better alternative than playing Telephone. It's that type of independence and initiative that provides some hope that the culture in the department might be changing. The unwillingness to buy into Telephone, to be part of what one hopes is a crowd decreasing in size and to question a Telephone "call".


This election carried with it a first, the first appearance and first vote cast through teleconference in the entire eight year history of the commission. Never before had a vote been cast by a commissioner who wasn't in attendance and allowed to be counted. It's not clear that other boards and commissions were afforded that same courtesy. The Human Resources Board had its elections recently and none were cast through teleconference. They either all attended to vote or forfeited that chance.

That action as one commissioner said later, was the first sure sign that the election had been rigged by City Hall because such a courtesy had never been afforded absent commissioners in the past when they were unable to attend commission meetings where elections take place. All the cards fell into place right after that and as some of them said, the writing was on the wall.


Another commissioner said, "Once they made the telecommunications call to Santore, I knew this election was set up, a done deal. They knew without Santore there, it would be a 4-4 result, which wasn't what they wanted."


One said that Hubbard himself had given it away when he made his pre-election speech by saying that he agreed pretty much with everything Commissioner Sheri Corral would say so that's when it became clear what the results would be and that everybody knew it. Remember Hubbard? He's the one with ties to a company that has a public safety contract with the city.

With all that drama, the vice-chair contest was up at bat first, with the chair competition on deck.


The first announcement was that Commissioner Jim Ward had withdrawn his name from consideration. When asked why, he just shook his head and said it was a long story. The next, was that Commissioner John Brandriff had jumped ship from the chair race to run for vice-chair.


Hubbard didn't really give a pre-election speech. He said that he and Commissioner Sheri Corral had spoken previously and were coming from the same place. It appeared at first as if they were running tandem and if so, surely City Attorney Gregory Priamos would jump in and tell them that wasn't allowed. After all, when the Human Resources Board had held its election earlier this month, Priamos had issued an admonition through the board chair that the officers had to run separately. He didn't in the case of the CPRC but Corral and Hubbard did wind up running for their respective offices separately.

Originally, Brandriff was going to run for chair but he dropped out and instead ran for vice-chair. During his speech, he mostly endorsed Corral as the more seasoned contestant in this game show.

The decision was strategic, because it was widely known that Corral had enough votes to win the chair position but since her attendance record is the poorest among the commissioners, that has thrust more importance on the vice-chair position. Brandriff and his supporters clearly thought if he won this position, then he would be chairing more meetings than she would. But unfortunately for this political strategy, they clearly underestimated the ability for some to do as one commissioner said afterward, rig the election.

But Hubbard, who went on to win the vice-chair contest, also has a relatively poor attendance record in the past. So it's not clear who will chair the meetings when he and Corral are both absent which has happened on several occasions. Maybe they should create a vice-vice chair position and reconvene elections to fill it.

Here are how the votes broke down. No real surprises if you've been following this sudser since it underwent a change in direction several years ago.



Vice Chair:


Hubbard: (votes tallied)


Ken Rotkers

Art Santore (via teleconference from Florida)

Sheri Corral

Peter Hubbard



Brandriff: (votes tallied)


Chani Beeman

John Brandriff

Jim Ward

Brian Pearcy

Robert Slawsby



After the dust settled from that contest, the chair race took place and given that Brandriff had withdrawn his nomination for what he hoped were easier and greener pastures, Corral ran unopposed despite Commissioner Chani Beeman's attempts to put two nominations on the floor. First she nominated Brandriff who declined, then she nominated Ward who also declined.

Corral collected the most votes, 7 with both Ward and Beeman submitting "no votes" in protest. Brandriff rolled over and didn't join them but went with the majority.

As one commissioner said later, these election results had been foreseen and the city had set all its ducks in a row to achieve the results that it wanted, including through the appointment of new commissioner, Robert Slawsby, its Ward Four representative. Even though he's only attended several meetings he's clearly made some kind of impression on some of his fellow commissioners and one commissioner sighed, saying that it's clear someone explained the procedure to him early on.


The first meeting chaired by Corral resulted in the quick death of public comments at "special" meetings. Even though previous chair, Pearcy had allowed public comment on nonagendized items, the "public comment" item was actually missing from the meeting's agenda for its 5:30 p.m. session. Which was rather odd considering at the time that the agenda was created, Pearcy still served as commission chair and he had usually allowed it whereas Corral clearly showed that she opposed it. So why was it deleted this time around, Beeman asked during the meeting.

CPRC Manager Kevin Rogan used a statement that he's used before, claiming it was "an oversight". That and $3.00 might still get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, the ones that haven't yet closed down yet anyway. City Attorney Gregory Priamos said that the placement of public comment on nonagendized items for "special" meetings was optional under the Brown Act.


After public comment was quashed, the members of the commission resumed discussion on the drafting of the Joseph Darnell Hill public pamphlet.





It's official. The city council has voted to approve a plan which will demolish the downtown library and eventually rebuild it as soon as the city can afford it. However, city residents might have to through property taxes pay up to $50 million of the costs if a ballot initiative passes. A difficult sell during the worst recession in recent memory.




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The biggest decision for the council was whether to expand the 60,000-square-foot Main Library or demolish it and build a 100,000-square-foot facility that blends in better with the surrounding historic buildings.

Gardner said the library doesn't even have windows, except in the basement and at the entrance.

"I think we end up with a far better building if we start over," he said.

Among the groups supporting the Hudson proposal were the Committee to Renew the Library and the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce.

Gardner and Councilwoman Nancy Hart said a ballot measure could win voter approval provided the economy turns around.

"All you have to do is prove to the people that their money is going to be well spent," Hart said.

Residents will have many more opportunities to be involved in the library design process, Hudson said. The council vote authorized up to $50,000 for library architects to come up with several designs for consideration.






A former Riverside code enforcement officer has been charged with taking bribes to overlook code violations.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Prosecutors believe the trio is responsible for scamming at least seven property owners who were being investigated for code and building violations.

A district attorney's statement said Hernandez would contact property owners with repeat violations and refer them to his daughter and her boyfriend for property work.

District attorney officials said repairs were rarely completed and the property owners were still charged for the work. The trio is accused of taking more than $13,000 during the period of less than a year that Hernandez worked for the city.

Riverside Assistant City Manager Tom DeSantis said the city notified Riverside police when they became aware of the accusations. He said there have been no further instances of impropriety since the investigation began.

All three defendants are scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Superior Court in Riverside. District attorney's officials are asking that any additional potential victims call 951-955-5430.

Adolfo Hernandez faces up to 12 years and eight months in prison if convicted. The other two defendants face up to seven years in prison.




If you too have been scammed by Hernandez (or any other code enforcement officer), there's a number included in the above excerpt that you can call and report it.





The debate continues among fourth ward candidates in San Bernardino.






Another hefty lawsuit filed against the Oakland Police Department.



(excerpt, Oakland Tribune)


Amaro's mother, Geraldine Montoya, 62, and his sister, Stephanie Montoya, 23, of San Leandro, said Amaro went to a medical clinic on three occasions over the next month, but died April 21 of pneumonia caused by fractured ribs and a collapsed lung, according to a coroner's report.

The lawsuit follows revelations last month that the FBI is conducting an investigation of the incident, including the role played by then-Lt. Edward Poulson, who was later promoted to captain and became head of the department's Internal Affairs Division in 2008. Poulson was placed on paid leave Jan. 22.

Attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin said Amaro was the victim of excessive police force, but also said that a number of officers conspired to cover up the facts surrounding his death, and to conceal information from Amaro's family and the public.

"The one group that did not know, who had the most vested interest, was the family," Burris said. "No one ever said to the family that, 'We now believe that officers wrongfully killed your son, your brother, and have not come forward.'

Amaro, then 35, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to purchase drugs from an undercover police officer March 23, 2000. Poulson used excessive force during the arrest, including kicking Amaro in the rib cage while Amaro was on the ground, the lawsuit says.

Amaro suffered five broken ribs and a lacerated lung, among other injuries, the lawsuit says. He was not provided medical treatment and instead was taken to jail after his arrest, the lawsuit says.

"There's nothing in the world that can bring my son back," Geraldine Montoya said. "Nothing. Nothing can ever bring him back. "... Why should we have this in Oakland? Why should we have this cover-up?"

A detective in Madera County was arrested for spousal rape.




In Jacksonville, there's skepticism by a police review board in relation to an officer's account of an onduty shooting.



(excerpt, Jacksonville.com)



The Response to Resistance review board recommended that Sheriff John Rutherford send the case of Detective Marva Watkins to internal affairs for further investigation. Rutherford has the final say on any discipline.

The board voted the situation may not have escalated to the point where she could legally use deadly force. The board found inconsistencies between Watkins’ written statement after the shooting and what she told the panel of five high-ranking officers Wednesday morning and “I still don’t know why you shot at him,” Lt. Russ Nader told Watkins in the hearing.

Watkins, who works in the department’s fugitive unit, had been briefed about Jacksonville detectives and the U.S. Marshal’s Office looking for Michael Christopher Jones. Jones had a warrant auto burglary, but police wanted to talk to him in connection with some shootings and a possible murder.

Watkins, who was off-duty at the time, ended up following a tip to try to talk to Watkins at the LaVilla Sportsman Club. Watkins did not tell any on-duty supervisors or officers what she was going to do, according to her testimony at the hearing.




Another police chief, this time in North Carolina, who is uncomfortable with civilian oversight of his department. You see it's not just Riverside.



(excerpt, The Herald-Sun)




The Chapel Hill Town Council decided Monday to ask the N.C. General Assembly for enabling legislation that would make it possible for the town to create a citizen committee empowered to investigate complaints against the Police Department. Curran said his department is taking the community discussion that has resulted as an opportunity to review existing internal affairs review procedures.

He's concerned that under the civilian review process, officers' fears of being second-guessed by the public would lead them to "fail to act or hesitate when they should."

"My feeling is that a citizen review board tends to be a community response when you have a Police Department that is showing some systemic problems," Curran said. "We don't feel that we're in that boat. We're not perfect, but we feel like we have a Police Department that is pretty responsive to the community."



For those interested in accessing a copy of the proposal for the police auditor submitted to Fresno's city council, you can get a copy of it here.







For a brief time, the man who shot and killed eight people and himself was employed as a police officerz.

The Odd Couple: Internal Affairs and the NPC North

Felix Ungar: In other words, you're throwin' me out.

Oscar Madison: Not in other words. Those are the perfect ones!


---Odd Couple





Reports came in that an inmate escaped from a work crew on Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside. The article didn't state when he first split but stated that a fire captain noticed that he was absent at about 2:50 pm. Did someone do a head count and notice one missing or did someone report it?

Would that inmate be part of about a dozen of them with vests on who were watched by only one California Fire Department employee while working on Mt. Rubidoux? Several other fire fighter employees were seen standing near where a fire truck and two work vans were parked in the lot next to Carlson dog park.

While hiking Mt. Rubidoux at around that time, I encountered about a dozen of them with colored vests and I didn't know where they were from but they were supervised by a single fire department employee, who had his back turned to them a lot of the time from about 20 feet away while they were sitting near some trees adjacent to the roadway about two-thirds up the gradually sloping route up the mountain. I remember thinking that they couldn't be state prison inmates because of the lack of security, but assumed they were under the custody of the Riverside County work detail program for people who work off their jail sentences because those inmates usually are not overseen as closely as prison inmates would be. But they were from the men's prison facility in Norco.

I remember once working a checkpoint in a road race near Pigeon Pass Road and a female Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy dropped off a work crew of about a dozen men where I was standing by myself except for runners passing by during the marathon and half-marathon races. She left but not before telling me to tell her when she returned if they misbehaved or did anything wrong. I thought that was odd as well but the men cleaned up debris from the street which is what they were ordered to do and there were no problems.

Because having spent several years living and attending school near a state prison and amid a population of about nine prisons (and that number has grown since), I thought it was odd to see any type of work crew without a corrections officer. It's difficult to explain what it's like to live in a prison town, which was born after one of its earlier generations power players made a pivotal choice. After helping some powerful politicians win the battle to make their city the state's capitol, they gave the movers and shakers of this smaller town a choice. Did they want a prison or a university as their reward? They of course chose the prison because prisons provide cheap labor. And cheap labor can be used to dig roads, pave streets and build towns from the ground up or make them bigger.

People in these towns like the inmates live their lives not just by the clock but by the prison horn, which blares on a normal day about four times, during lights on, meals, work stoppage and lights out. Then there are the less than ordinary days when it blares because an inmate has escaped or in some cases wandered out of the prison. Sometimes more inmate than one left in the case of power outages which sharply reduced the security of the electric fences and gates for even maximum security facilities. That happened once during an outage that hit the women's prison and according to one student's mother who worked as a guard, they just wandered out of an open gate.

Problems plaguing a newly built medium security prison just outside the town's limits led to numerous escapes. It took awhile for the superintendent of the prison and other employees to figure out how their inmates were escaping. Until they did, the horn blared at least once a week, outside its regimented schedule. The prison administration was so embarrassed, it tried to downplay these escapes even as they continued.

Most of the inmates headed for some reason into the mountains, never mind that at night the temperatures might reach below freezing. They didn't seek civilization out, they tried to run away from it but invariably they wound up being rounded up suffering from hypothermia trying to trek through the unforgiving mountain ranges which surround the valleys which house the prisons. Some of them were ready to go back to prison.

That happened once to serial killer Ted Bundy when he fled his jail for the first (but unfortunately not the last time) and wandered around for nearly two days around Aspen until he was finally caught in the freezing cold while trying to hot wire his vehicle of choice, a Volkswagen Bug.

The second time he escaped, he had a longer head start and picked a warmer climate as his destination. His attempts to disappear into his favorite haunts, which were large universities was undermined when he continued his killing spree in the town he hid in, after borrowing the identity of a college track star.

I once warned a friend of mine to not spend the weekend at her family cabin with her dog because an inmate had escaped on one such cold day which led to a colder night and I had a bad feeling even though her cabin was a small dot in a formidably large mountain range. She heeded me, stayed home and the inmate was eventually surrounded and apprehended about 200 yards away from her cabin.

In prison, these things like freezing weather and rugged mountains might be forgotten and the mind might lose track of the real world. And occasionally one would head towards a populated area.

One prison inmate who had been incarcerated for at least 10 years had wandered into town in uniform and was arrested while asking someone for the time on the street. Another was treed by a dog in someone's yard. And the students in my dormitory spent one night barricading ourselves in our rooms while an escaped convict wandered the halls of the building in bare feet after coming inside the building through an unlocked door. That was after probably wandering from the prison which was several miles away through snow drifts left by a recent storm.

The police showed up after about 40 minutes and apprehended him. I later found out that the bad feeling I had to leave the bathroom before I had finished brushing my teeth might have prevented me from encountering him in there.

Of course, the rules in prison towns are kind of strange. No black lunchboxes allowed on the city's main streets because only prison crews were allowed to carry them. No prison uniforms including employee uniforms allowed to be donated or sold to or by thrift stores for obvious reasons.

So my experiences led me to assume that the inmates on Rubidoux couldn't be prison inmates because surely, they would be better supervised if they were.

Some of them were a bit crude in behavior. After a group of women jogged by and I walked behind those women, one guy said something and then the others laughed from where they were sitting. But being a woman means being subjected to the crude behavior and most women stick close to Rubidoux because numerous women have been attacked while running or walking on the bike trail. The fire captain then led them as they walked single file down a dirt trail that leads back to Mission Inn Avenue, stopping occasionally. He did keep a closer eye on them while they went down that trail. And there were a bunch of other work crews repaving portions of Mt. Rubidoux' roads with even Park, Recreation and Community Services Director Ralph Nunez making an appearance.

The inmate who escaped was to be paroled in December 2010 after serving a sentence for auto theft and burglary was last seen by someone running in the direction of the bus terminal. Speaking of which, comes the next subject.



As you may know, the North Neighborhood Policing Center has now set up shop in the downtown area, sharing a building with the Greyhound Bus Lines. It also shares space with the police department's Internal Affairs Division which also resides in that cramped space.

After the fire department moved its administration quarters out of the terminal building, the police department moved its Internal Affairs Division out of rented office space on Central Avenue near the 91 Freeway and into the fire department's old digs. That was in December 2008

According to the General Services Division, its employees received a scant two weeks notice that the Internal Affairs Division would be vacating its old office when its lease expired last Dec. 31 and consequently, the space in the bus terminal which was to house that division was ill equipped to accommodate it. There were problems with the exterior of the building which is shabby due to the city's apparent neglect of a building it owns (and leases space out to the Greyhound Bus Lines, which is currently set to vacate the premises and possibly the city limits this summer)has led to a shabby appearance and the building lacked any signage indicating that the police department even had a division occupying that space.

Instead, there was one locked sliding glass door which showed an empty lobby with a counter, some complaint brochures and a desk sign reading "Internal Affairs" which was highly visible if you had 20/20 vision or better. This was in late January, over a month after the Internal Affairs Division moved into this space as its employees had packed up and moved over in approximately mid-December. If the city was moving the Internal Affairs Division because as some say, it suddenly discovered that it was paying a big chunk of money on its lease, then one would think that its management would be organized enough to provide more than two weeks notice to those assigned the responsibility of preparing the facility for the arrival of this new tenant. At least, one would think but clearly that didn't happen.

As stated, no signs were present, not even temporary ones. Explanations ranged from City Manager Brad Hudson apparently believing that the facility was "horrible" for signage to some statement about the Internal Affairs being a "private" division, apparently meaning that the public wasn't even supposed to know it was there, despite some sort of effort to make it appear to be a public facility by putting complaint forms in the lobby, right in front of the sliding glass door.

Not only did people not know that that there was a police division in that building but apparently there were some confused individuals who believed that this was the Greyhound Bus Station.

The day after meetings took place with some city council members, the renovation of the new facility space and the building which housed it was bumped to a much higher priority and employees from General Services appeared at the facility and explained the attempts to get signage (which did happen within two weeks except for replacing the cement fire station sign in the north parking lot) and the water blasting which was schedule to give the older building a more spiffy appearance. Also interior renovation was to be done, as there had been issues with equipment and wiring as well. That was to be repaired and problems resolved according to the General Services Division.

However, one of the most critical issues that arose from moving the Internal Affairs Division to the bus terminal was the fact that it was to be sharing space and rather close and cramped space at that with a field operations division. This created the concern about whether the Internal Affairs Division would be sufficiently separated from uniformed police officers as it had been when it was transferred out of the also-cramped Orange Street Station after the city entered into its five-year court-mandated stipulated judgment with the office of former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer. In fact, Lockyer was a strong advocate of creating geographic separation of this division from the other divisions of the police department and Chief Russ Leach said publicly on different occasions that he agreed with this assertion.

Concerns were raised about how investigators in that division would bring in complainants or witnesses who were part of their complaint and internal investigations into the facility for interviews without them being seen by or coming into close proximity to officers including uniformed officers working outside the Internal Affairs Division. But the argument against this was that people had problems locating the division at its prior location inside a corporate building near the Riverside Plaza and that it would be easier to find it at the bus terminal building. Also, that many interviews took place at locations away from the division's headquarters anyway. If that's the case, that's truly fortunate because as it stands, the division is practically sitting on top of the NPC division, despite the adequate physical separation that was assured by a city council member and pledged by members of the police department's management.

Concerns were raised about whether or not the division was properly equipped and whether or not this equipment was working properly so that the division could perform its duties. As stated in previous postings, the division was forced to relocate amid a tremendous investigation backlog stemming from the influx of internal investigations, which naturally impacted complaint investigations.

The backlog was enough of an issue (as it has been for years) to necessitate the transfer of a lieutenant from the Office of the Chief to the Internal Affairs Division last autumn for a period of time to address it. But it's been an ongoing issue going back to at least 2002 and probably even before a CPRC existed. After all, the very first complaint processed by the CPRC involved a complaint that it took 150 days for an investigator to even begin an investigation which involved among other things, investigating himself for allegations of misconduct. Oh, the days. But Lockyer swore on several occasions that those days of self-investigation were truly done. But according to the CPRC's annual reports, it took a couple years after Lockyer made these statements for them to actually approach reality. But even after it did, the lengthy time it took to investigate complaints still remained a serious issue. One that both city residents who filed complaints and police officers complained about.


Statistical figures for the average time it takes for both the CPRC and the police department to process complaints are available both monthly and annually through written reports also available online. The figures for the police department are calculated using the date the complaint is initially filed until the date it reaches the CPRC.


Monthly Report Index

Annual Report Index



If you access these reports and read them, you'll notice that the average times that it takes complaints (of which there are two major categories) from the time they are assigned to departmental investigators until the time they reach the CPRC is significantly longer on average for the most part than the length of time for investigation suggested in the guidelines below.

And what are those guidelines and where are they found?


If you access any of the annual reports (i.e. the most recent, 2006), you'll find if you scroll down the pdf document to the index, a policy submitted by the police department titled, #4.12. This is the police department's complaint policy, which was thoroughly revised after it entered into its stipulated judgment in 2001. Contained in it, are written guidelines for how long it should take for complaints to be investigated from the date assigned, under Section D: 5,6.

The nuts and bolts of these guidelines as stated in this provision of the policy are the following:



For Category One (which is the more serious allegations including excessive force and criminal conduct), the guidelines recommend 60 days.

For Category Two (which are the less serious including improper procedure and discourtesy), the guidelines recommend 30 days.






If more time is required, authorization must be sought from a Personnel Services/Internal Affairs Commander. The completed investigations are then forwarded to the CPRC in addition to the other appropriate channels within the police department's own structural hierarchy.


While the Internal Affairs Division was trying to adjust to the challenges of its new location and the city was grappling with figuring out how to put up signage, the next police division relocated from Lincoln Field Operations Station (which housed both the North and East NPCs) to its current location in cozy quarters with the Internal Affairs Division.

In the lobby now, parked alongside the counter with the complaint forms and the "Internal Affairs" sign are two Segways used by the field division's officers. Which kind of symbolizes the closeness of a field operation division with the division that according to Lockyer and Leach, needed to be separate. But what's puzzling about this newest NPC headquarters or station is its locked doors. Why would anyone open up a new neighborhood policing center and then keep its doors locked?

Yes, there's a doorbell. One assumes it must work but you would think that in a police station that is built on the community policing philosophy and serves the city's residents, the doors would be unlocked at least if not open.

Occupying forces lock doors. And if a police department puts a facility that includes the word "neighborhood" in its title and then locks the door, the message it's sending is that the police force in that area is more along the lines of an occupying force. If you've been to the nicely built and kept (and recently renovated) Magnolia Police Center and Lincoln Field Operations Station, their doors are unlocked and there are people at the counter there to assist visitors and answer questions. These elements of police stations help make them user-friendly and part of the area which is served and protected. What would have been nice is if the city had held a small ceremony officially opening this new facility as it had done for its other field operation stations when they were first opened or opened after being renovated. On a much smaller scale due to the budget crunch, but it would have been nice or would be nice to see some event like that scheduled.

Nothing like that exists at the little station called the NPC North station. Which makes it wonder if it's just there so police squad cars can be parked around it or drive through it, to serve as the "visible deterrent" to a property labeled a crime magnet? Is it there to provide uniformed police officers to serve as "bodyguards" to the Internal Affairs Division's own employees which include police officers? And if this latter argument is the true one, what does that say about the Internal Affairs Division's ability to remain unbiased and objective in its investigations of uniformed officers if it feels that it needs their protection while it's housed at the terminal?


Is the building there locked up tight because the officers there are frightened of working so closed to the already defamed Greyhound Bus Lines station (which was labeled as attracting criminals whereas most of them spent time in the RTA outdoor section of the terminal property). If they are indeed locking the doors of that facility because they're scared to be there then why are they there?


No division should have been moved in the terminal without having a facility prepared to house it, whether it's the NPC station or the Internal Affairs Division and the city should had ample time to figure out the logistics of both moves (and the problems of moving these two divisions on top of each other) and be able to plan accordingly. Do they not believe that the civilian and sworn employees that staff these divisions are worth that consideration, let alone the members of the public that use these facilities?





More updates on the recall efforts against a Lake Elsinore city councilman.





One of Riverside's top companies, Fleetwood Enterprises files for bankruptcy.



Temecula seeks the return of its youth court program.






Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco still has enough prosecutors left in the office to designate some of them top in their respective award categories.




More controversy involving ratemycop.com, this time from Portland involving the police department there.

Rate My Cop Web site includes this page on the Riverside Police Department. It's modeled after the RateMyProfessor sites used by millions of college and university students to rate instructors.






In a city in Michigan, the police department's internal affairs is under scrutiny.






The mayor of Fresno has announced the creation of a police auditor's office. Civilian oversight was something that many people in Fresno wanted over the city's police department for years but until now, there weren't enough elected officials who were responsive to their constituents to move forward. But the political climate mostly because of the election process has started to change.





Police Brutality: Deal with it, an article written by former Seattle Police Department Chief Norm Stamper addresses among other things, the videotaped incident involving the 15-year-old woman getting assaulted by a King County Sheriff's Department deputy inside a jail cell.


(Huffington Post)

So, how do we prevent this kind of behavior in the future?

Please don't say through (1) more thorough screening of law enforcement candidates, or (2) better training. They're both important, of course. Critical, in fact. But law enforcement, for the most part, doesn't pick bad apples. It makes them, and not through academy training.

Forty-three years ago I was an idealistic, vaguely liberal 21-year-old when the San Diego Police Department hired me. The last thing on my mind was taking to the streets to punish people. And lest there be any doubt about the department's policy, the police academy, even then, drove it home: excessive force was grounds for termination.

So, why did I abuse the very people I'd been hired to serve?

Not to get too psychological, I did it because the power of my position went straight to my head; because other cops I'd come to admire did it; and because I thought I could get away with it. Which I did--until a principled prosecutor slapped me upside the head and demanded to know whether the U.S. Constitution meant anything to me.

It comes down to this: real cops, those with a conscience, those who honor the law, must step up and take control of the cop culture.







The SEIU (Southern California Public Service Workers) 721 are holding
the SEIU 721 ENDORSEMENT TOWN HALL meeting for Riverside City Council Wards 2, 4, and 6

Saturday, March 14 at 1:00 p.m.

at the Riverside Union office, Board Room, 4336 Market Street, Riverside, CA 92501

CPRC: The tail wags the dog again.

"I was a hard-working cop. I never hurt anybody. I never kidnapped anybody. ... I never did any of this."


---Ex-NYPD officer Louis Eppolito told U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein while being sentenced to life in prison.






It's been over a month and still no news from the Governmental Affairs Committee as to when the proposed meeting between city employees and community members addressing the changes in investigation protocol involving the Community Police Review Commission, will take place.

The committee including Chair Frank Schiavone and members Steve Adams and Andrew Melendrez (who substituted in for Rusty Bailey) voted on Feb. 4 to have Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis organize and convene this meeting but as of yet, no one has been notified of whether or not this meeting has been scheduled and if so, when it will take place.

It's not clear whether anyone on the Governmental Affairs Committee including Schiavone has conducted any followup with DeSantis to determine why this simple task hasn't been accomplished. This silence on the issue from City Hall continues even as Riverside Police Department Chief Russ Leach (one of those expected to attend this meeting on behalf of his department) made comments at the Community/Police Summit that was held in the East Neighborhood Policing Center last week that it was he and Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco (after a series of alleged conversations between the two men last year) who clamped down on the CPRC's investigations after Leach allegedly had read a statement made by CPRC Chair Brian Pearcy in the "local media" that set him off in this course of action.

That meeting was the first time that Leach ever blamed Pearcy for his own actions regarding the CPRC and it's likely in response to criticism of why the city including Leach waited so long to object to the investigative protocol used by the CPRC for six years and 11 officer-involved death cases. It was also the first time that Leach took credit for what became the Hudson directive-turned-protocol.

And what are the 11 officer-involved deaths?

They are the following:


Anastacio Munoz, 2002

Michael Wetter, 2002

Robert McComb, 2003

Volne Lamont Stokes, 2003

Rene Guevara, 2003

Summer Marie Lane, 2004

Todd Argow, 2005

Terry Rabb, 2005

Lee Deante Brown, 2006

Douglas Steven Cloud, 2006

Joseph Darnell Hill, 2006





This revelation by Leach (who's offered this argument several times last year and this one but never admitted taking action involving the CPRC's investigative protocol) kind of contradicts claims by city employees and a city council member or two that a realization hit them apparently like a lightning bolt (both in its profoundness and suddenness) in June 2008 that the CPRC lacked a written protocol for investigating officer-involved deaths. It would take months for this stunning flash point of realization to be revealed to the public as having actually taken place during a month, June 2008, when not a peep actually came out of City Hall on this issue.

Then a month or so later, the city council insisted it had one in the CPRC's own policies and procedures, then they said that this provision didn't apply to officer-involved deaths but it could be used to do so. Yes it could, then no it couldn't at least not by a commission trying to write policies and procedures on investigating officer-involved deaths because the bylaws had to be rewritten first. But if the city council and direct city employees are already able to order the bylaws and policies and procedures to be written a certain way, then state law's as explained by ACLU lawyer, Pete Bibring has already been essentially rewritten. Bibring might be one attorney and a young one at that, but he's not in the position of representing the city every time it gets sued over an officer-involved deaths and it's paid out at least $1.5 in settlements so far in the last couple of years. That's the position that the city's own attorney, Priamos, sits in and he issues legal rulings to the CPRC, sometimes contradicting himself on the same legal principle, accordingly.

But the ongoing saga involving the CPRC and its investigative protocol has brought moments of clarity and confusion, only at least on the part of city residents it's fallout from a badly organized agenda carried out by individuals at City Hall that's clashing with a similar but slightly different intended agenda carried out by city and county law enforcement bodies who apparently forget to check if their own plans were clashing with their employers at least at City Hall. Either that or the entire issue is so bankrupt with anything remotely resembling accountability let alone transparency that the key figures involved in this mess are merely making up a new explanation every time their current one falls flat.

For months, the public had been led to believe that the investigation process was being temporarily shut down through a directive sent out via memo from the office of City Manager Brad Hudson who had left the decision making on what incustody deaths could be investigated by the CPRC and when they could initiate them up to City Attorney Gregory Priamos who was given the purse strings to the CPRC's budget to withhold from its members, apparently with the blessings of several members on the city council.

As you recall, the Governmental Affairs Committee received this report from Hudson's office which included three recommendations that the Committee could choose from to adopt, one of which Hudson spent five pages arguing in favor of which was to ban the CPRC from conducting its investigations or from accessing money from its own operational budget to do so until the police department had completed its own investigation. There have been four incustody deaths and the CPRC has voted to initiate investigations into three of them but they were stonewalled by Hudson, Priamos and CPRC Manager Kevin Rogan who each provided their own reasons.

But still silence from the Governmental Affairs Committee, even while the CPRC struggles to write its bylaws and policies and procedures involving its investigative protocol for officer-involved deaths. But it's likely that an assortment of roadblocks will fall in any serious attempt it makes to do so that favors the continuation of the protocol it followed successfully from 2002-2008 without a single complaint from anyone of the cast of characters crying foul now.

It's not even the first time that members of the city council issued a directive through majority vote to Hudson's office to carry out where he apparently turned around and changed the terms of the directive. In March 2006, the city council voted 7-0 during a workshop on the police department's Strategic Plan (and how it would implemented post-stipulated judgment) to hire a consultant to do quarterly audits of the department's implementation of the Strategic Plan. Some say that instead Hudson spent the summer trying to low ball the consultant into walking away (and then going back to the city council to say the city couldn't afford him) by changing the terms of the directive issued by the city council from a two-year contract to a single year contract worth considerably less than the city council had authorized Hudson's office to spend. In fact, the initial figure was about the amount that Hudson wouldn't have to even bring to the city council for a vote.

That is, back in the days when the city council still cared enough about accountability and transparency to bring transactions especially those involving transfers or "loans" between different funding sources to the city council for an examination and vote. You know, back when the city had a government which actually ran...the government. Those days have been relegated to the past. If something like that had happened now with the Strategic Plan implementation, it probably would have been so far below the radar that even those who keep the police department on their radar would have missed it.

It's still not clear whether Hudson's actions contradicted the orders of all seven city council members who voted to move forward with an oversight mechanism (granted much reduced from the stipulated judgment) or whether he was directed to do so from one, several or less than the majority of the city council to follow a different set of orders once public attention fell off the issue as it did in early summer 2006. But what they did was to send the police department in a direction which would have been detrimental to it if it had continued up to this day because unfortunately in some ways, the department fell off the wagon after its court-mandated reform ended.

Even three years later while it has made progress in some areas (and regained progress in others), there are still some areas where it continues to struggle including its handling of its own complaint process which has become a logger jam of backlog now forcing complainants and officers to wait 100 days or longer (on average) to hear back on the outcome of complaints from the city.

Whether or not this ongoing issue causes the department's complaint process to collide with Governmental Code 3304(d), there's not much discussion of that issue in a public arena but probably a lot privately. This law sets a 12 month statutory limit on disciplining officers for sustained allegations from the time they are first reported or misconduct is suspected depending on which version of the interpretation of that law that Priamos is providing to the CPRC at a given time.

But the complaint process is currently a mess in terms of its timeliness. People counter any concern voiced about this by saying that it's better to have investigations be thorough than timely and there's some truth to that but these investigations take so much longer than the guidelines set by departmental policy #4.12 that they're not even in the same stratosphere. Even if they're thorough (and if you examine trends involving them included in the CPRC's annual reports, this isn't always and has not always been the case), some of them take so long to complete the entire process that the importance of this is somewhat diluted particularly involving sustained allegations.

Created in part by a similar backlog in internal investigations (which apparently increased in number last year and necessitated a temporary transfer of a second lieutenant into Internal Affairs last autumn to try to catch up), this situation not only apparently hasn't improved but could only have been worsened by a last-minute (with only two weeks notice provided for General Services to prepare the facility) and last-ditch move of the Internal Affairs Division from its comfy digs near the Riverside Plaza to the downtown bus terminal building which wasn't quite ready for this division's arrival both inside and out.

Now who cares about Internal Affairs? Practically no one but if it's the city's decision to further burden an overwhelmed division by moving it to a building not ready to equip it, then it's enough of a concern to question the ability of those making these decisions to make them. If you had seen the condition of the building which housed the Internal Affairs division in December and January, it would appear that the city and department didn't care much about it either. By February, the newly created North NPC division had moved in practically on top of the Internal Affairs Division, apparently believing that they were there as its bodyguards.

Which makes you wonder if the city values its newest NPC.

But police department issues of today aside, once concern was raised including in this blog (which as it turned out was read by individuals in the State Attorney General's office when this was going on for whatever reason) and other places by Hudson's failure to follow the directive issued by the city council enter into a contract with the consultant during any meaningful period of time, several city council members most notably Schiavone did involve themselves in trying to rectify the situation and get their direct employee to carry out what he had been ordered by the city council to do and to negotiate with an independent contractor in a respectful manner as would be expected by a professionally acting city management employee. But he should have been doing that from the beginning and was he?

In the meantime, the police department ran into assorted problems including the lack of forward movement by a unified management (which is similar to problems the Los Angeles Police Department also faced in the latter years of its consent decree). Not to mention that Hudson and others had locked the police union out of contract negotiations after the police union criticized them for unfair bargaining practices after Hudson and his associates brokered contracts with two of the city's bargaining units by promising them that they would receive the same benefits that the police union would receive (while still in active negotiations with the police union over these benefits). Crowds of employees including police officers came to City Hall to object to this way of handling contract negotiations introduced by Hudson and DeSantis. It wouldn't be the last time that city employees including those from the police department crowded the city council chambers while Hudson and DeSantis have been managing (and some say micromanaging) city departments. The last time probably won't be the last time either.

It's pretty much a given that DeSantis is not going to convene the meeting as ordered to by the committee unless the majority of the Governmental Affairs Committee stands over him and/or his boss, Hudson and enforces its own vote which given that two of the Feb. 4 committee members are facing reelection bids, isn't going to happen. If he had any initiative within him to carry out a simple task, he would have done so by now. Still even with the history of that office, it's more than likely that DeSantis hasn't scheduled a meeting because he's not getting consistent direction from the Governmental Affairs Committee.

After all, all three permanent members including Schiavone, the chair support the changes implemented by Hudson, two of them signed an op-ed piece to that effect in the Press Enterprise. Since they've already succeeded in implementing these changes, it's most advantage to their position that the issue of the CPRC's investigative protocol doesn't reach the full city council where what support it has is more contingent on an interpretation of a section of the CPRC's policies and procedures which they've been falsely led to believe applies to officer-involved death investigations as well as complaint investigations. The only sure way to keep the issue of the protocol from going to the full city council is to let it "die" in committee, a practice that the Governmental Affairs Committee has used before to great effect. It appears that is what the Governmental Affairs Committee has done and again, perfect strategy during an election year where the campaign issues haven't been fully defined yet.

But the city council lacks the assertiveness and confidence of true leadership to do such a thing. Rather it's becoming more and more clear that the tail (which is the city manager's office) is wagging the dog (which is its employer, the city council). If this issue isn't addressed during the political campaigns ahead by the various candidates, then those who call themselves the "watchdogs" of city government really aren't fulfilling their responsibilities in this area.





Parking meters were the focus of an election of sorts held downtown to determine which one will be installed to replace the highly unpopular Smart Park.

If you haven't voted yet and fervently wish to do so, the election polls will reopen Tuesday, March 10 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Sixth and Main.







Bye Bye furloughs. So says, San Bernardino's City Hall after it decides to rescind them.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The council voted 5-1, with Wendy McCammack dissenting, to accept the concessions, rescinding a week-old order that required officers to go off duty one hour early. Officers will go back to their regular work hours today, interim City Manager Mark Weinberg said.

Officials are trying to erase a $9 million deficit in the $150 million general fund by June 30, the close of the fiscal year.

The new agreement will save San Bernardino $2.7 million over the next 16 months, according to a staff report.

Police union members agreed to give up their uniform allowance for 2009 and 2010. Starting March 16, they'll also pay $400 per month apiece toward health insurance.

In return, the City Council agreed to extend the union contract, which was due to expire Dec. 31, for another year.

In exchange for their concessions, officers will accrue four additional hours of leave time per week.

That could reduce officers' working hours substantially, retired police Lt. Roger Poyzer said.



The vote by the city council had some immediate impact but elicited some responses as well.


(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)



The only council member not to vote in favor of the agreement Monday was Seventh Ward Councilwoman Wendy McCammack, who abstained.

"No one can quantify how much money that actually saved the city," she said after the vote. She said the city essentially borrowed money it will have to pay back in 2010.

The vote does not, however, stop a lawsuit filed by the Police Officers' Association over the city's decision to furlough officers, an action they argue violates the city charter, the union's contract and California's bargaining procedures.

City Attorney James Penman briefed the council on the lawsuit's status at a
Advertisement
closed session before they voted on the concessions packet.

"We're still going forward," said union president Rich Lawhead.

"We're trying to get our furlough time back," explained Dieter Dammeier, an Upland attorney who represents the union.






But bad news in Colton. It has laid off 19 employees to balance its budget.



(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)

"I wish that we could have avoided layoffs," said Mayor Kelly Chastain. "In looking at everything there was no other option. ... Everybody's feeling the pain."

Nineteen layoffs were effective Monday from the Public Works, Community Service and Community Development departments, Parrish said. All those employees will receive a severance package worth two weeks of pay, which is a city policy, Parrish said.

The Community Development, Economic Development and Administration departments will be combined into one entity that is tentatively being called Development Services, Parrish said.

Eleven open positions will remain vacant for an extended period and 16 employees have accepted early retirement benefits known as a "golden handshake," including the two top ranking officials in the Community Development Department, Director David Zamora and Planning Manager Andres Soto, Parrish said.

The construction of new buildings at UC Riverside has halted because of cuts at the state level.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Also affected are:

The $27 million renovation of two science buildings, Webber and Boyce halls. Bids were awarded and construction was set to start when the freeze was announced.

An $18 million environmental and health safety building. It was being designed when the freeze was announced.

The $15 million Culver Center of the Arts, a former department store in downtown Riverside being renovated into classrooms, exhibit and performance space.

Construction of the Culver Center has been slowed and could stop in late May if state money is not available, said Don Caskey, associate vice chancellor of design and construction.

The project is funded with money from the state, city of Riverside and private sources, Caskey said. City and private money is expected to run out at the end of May, he said.

Perhaps most disrupted are the 15 earth science faculty members, who remain in the Geology building. About 70 percent of the $18 million renovation was complete when work was stopped.

Sections of drywall in hallways remain cut for electrical sockets, but there are no sockets.

Office numbers are printed pieces of paper attached to doors with blue tape.

A hallway leading to one wing of the building ends with a plywood barricade plastered with a "Keep Out" sign.

More importantly, the faculty members -- who study everything from wildfires to earthquakes to climate change -- don't have a fully functioning lab in the building, said Mary L. Droser, dean of the Earth Sciences Department.

"Our problem is it is affecting our research and teaching day-to-day," Droser said. "The irony is that the research we do is so significant to the state of California."

Baldwin, the dean of College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, which includes the Earth Sciences Department, is worried that faculty members won't be able to complete millions of the dollars of research projects, funded through highly competitive grants.

He's also concerned the grants won't be renewed.

"It's more than just unfortunate," Baldwin said. "It's a disaster."





Temecula replaces some of its department heads.



A busy week for New York City.


A Latino group of men that beat up a Black man while yelling racial slurs included included an off-duty New York City Police Department officer as a member.


(excerpt, New York Daily News)



Police Officer Juan Nunez, 32, of Freeport, was one of four Hispanic men charged with assault following the attack on 52-year-old Daryl Jackson of Roosevelt.

Jackson was waiting to use a pay phone outside Midway Deli on Nassau Rd. in Roosevelt about 8:10 a.m. when the group surrounded him, police said.

After a brief argument, the men pummeled him with their fists and one bat, causing head and neck injuries, said Nassau County cops.



A former ex-officer from the NYPD busted for corruption shot and killed his girlfriend.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



Jerry Bowens, 43, who had been considered armed and dangerous by police, was arrested near the 120th Precinct on Staten Island before dawn.

He was later moved to a local hospital for treatment for an injury that he sustained before he arrived at the precinct, a police source said. It was not clear how he was hurt, but the injury was not considered life-threatening, the source said.

Bowens' apprehension was little comfort to the father of Catherine Donofrio, 28, who was slain in the bloody confrontation in Greenpoint.

"He killed my daughter," said John Donofrio, who said his daughter had been studying to take the LSATs and become a lawyer. "She was a very beautiful girl, very smart."



Then there were the two ex-officers sentenced to prison for involvement in mob hits.


(excerpt, Associated Press)



Eppolito, 61, and Caracappa, 67, had worked as partners on the police force and logged a combined 44 years on the job. They were found guilty of secretly being on the payroll of Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso starting in the 1980s.

Prosecutors said the pair used their police credentials to make traffic stops that ended with the driver killed. They also said the officers kidnapped a man suspected in an attempted mob hit against Casso and turned him over to a mobster responsible for 36 slayings.

The former detectives also were accused of providing bad information that led to the mistaken-identity murder of an innocent man killed as his mother washed the dishes following a Christmas Day family dinner.




Chicago's police officers need to be studied. That's what a researcher at a university wants to study.



(excerpt, Chicago Tribune)



Dennis Rosenbaum, a criminology professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wants to find out what exactly happens over the course of a career that makes an officer good at the job. He believes a variety of factors can be influences, from training to home life to bosses.

He is hoping a new $2 million grant from the National Institute of Justice will help in figuring out how much each of those factors influence good policing, and how they can be emulated.

For three years, researchers will study police departments across the country, including Chicago, other major cities such as Boston and Los Angeles, and some suburban towns.

It will take Rosenbaum and his researchers deep into the realm of police work through interviews, surveys and observations.




It sounds like it's a revolving door with this position in Eugene, Oregon but the city is hiring a police auditor. Here's a warning to those who apply. There are power struggles going on in that city over civilian oversight but then that's true elsewhere.







CITY OF EUGENE, OR

POLICE AUDITOR

(Population: 153,690)

Salary $86,715 to $108,056. Oregon's 2nd largest city, Eugene is an
attractive community with quality schools, a beautiful environment, a
temperate climate and a diverse, dynamic culture. The Police Auditor was
established in 2005 and reports to the City Council, and is responsible
for receiving and classifying complaints, monitoring or participating in
internal investigations, and preparing reports on complaints trends and
police practices. The Police Auditor promotes organizational changes to
improve police services and community relations by identifying,
analyzing and making recommendations regarding complaint investigation
process and policies, practices and training. Requires bachelor's
degree and 5 years of progressively responsible experience overseeing
administrative investigations and performing program development,
analysis, and complex professional staff support, preferably in the
public sector. A JD is preferred. Interested candidates may apply for
the position and find additional information at
www.allianceresourc econsulting. com
by March 26, 2009.
Questions may be directed to Eric Middleton at (562) 901-0769, or
emiddleton@alliance rc.com.

Election 2009: The gates have opened and they're off!

In Riverside, the deadline for filing to run for city council in the even numbered wards has passed and the candidates for better or worse have been listed. Which means the city's now past the "put up or shut up" phase of Election 2009 and is heading on down the campaign trail.


Here is a breakdown of the city council races:


In Ward Two, it looked for a brief spell like Councilman Andrew Melendrez would be facing off against two lessor known Democrats including Ahmad Smith which made this political contest ripe for a Republican to crash and that's what had happened the previous two cycles. Was it going to happen again? Now, we know the answer to that question.

Ruben Rasso's name was batted around a bit but his camp was fairly quiet which is par for the course until the final weeks or even the final hours before the filing deadline. Now it's official, he has tossed his name in the ring for another attempt to win the council seat which has elevated this contest up to the top of the list for its competitiveness. Mainly because the reason that he's not sitting on the dais right now is that he's been a lousy runoff candidate. If someone reminds him that the election doesn't necessarily end when he leads the first round, he could pull off a victory but this time it looks tougher because Melendrez is more popular now than he was when he first ran in 2005. He's probably the most popular city council member on the dais. Some even think he could be a future mayor especially considering that the voters at the ballot box abbreviated the next mayoral term. But you need to be cautious when flirting with that dream, as two former councilmen could tell you what happens when you start running for mayor as if your reelection to a council seat is a done deal. If you engage in such folly, you often receive a pink slip from the voters instead.

Not known is how the change in the election schedule including the addition of the mail-in only preliminary round and the lengthy period of time between that round and any runoff elections will impact the Ward Two race.


In Ward Four, it's down to two candidates. Incumbent Frank Schiavone and challenger, Paul Davis. Davis has already been campaigning and getting out in his ward including at events for several months now and Schiavone's been raising a ton of money and has the advantage of being able to campaign off of city council votes. Schiavone's proven his vulnerability by failing to win a single precinct in his ward during his ill-fated run for supervisor just last year but he's been busy since then trying to mend his bridges in several key areas of his ward. The only problem is that he's focusing his campaign efforts in the areas of the ward he favors and neglecting other key portions, something not lost on the residents living in those latter areas.



In Ward Six, Ann Alfaro is back along with challenger Bill Scherer but it's likely that the election for incumbent Nancy Hart will be a short one.


Even if the city council elections are all decided by June, there's still another election to look forward to this November and that's the mayor's race. The filing deadline for that contest is still months away so it's a bit premature to name candidates though former councilman, Art Gage has been thinking about it but is waiting to see how many candidates express an interest in running before making any formal decisions. There's still plenty of time for any prospective candidates to decide whether or not to run so they can preside over city council meetings, travel and cut ribbons.




And before the ink even dried on the final list of candidates, one politician's camp began its campaign here.




If you look online, you can find the citation for the lawsuit filed by Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Wayne Guillary here. It's filed against the City of Riverside, Chief Russ Leach and Officer Carlos Vazquez. The filing date was Jan. 28, 2009.




Someone's tracked down the links to Measure C and Measure R, the growth-control initiatives passed by votes several decades ago.







A lot's been going on in the political arena in Canyonlake as of late but now one of the councilmen may be cited for hosting a male exotic dancer show at his restaurant. Never a dull moment in this quiet little berg.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

A letter dated Friday from City Manager Lori Moss -- penned by City Attorney Elizabeth Martyn -- to Martin Gibson rebukes Gibson for the performance by Seduction: The Exotic Men of Magic.

Gibson said Friday he came into his restaurant, Pepe's Mexican Restaurant and Cantina, from outside, one and a half hours into the two-hour show. He said the act "had gotten a little further than I wanted." He said he gave the performers three minutes to "clean up" the act or threatened to shut it down. The ABC representative then halted the performance.

An undercover deputy from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department monitoring the event confirmed that performers "simulated sex acts, displayed their buttocks and touched and fondled patrons and themselves." That violated an agreement between Gibson and the city, signed the day before the performance, that forbids such activities, the letter states.

"The city worked with you in good faith to allow your event to go forward based upon your representations and because ... the city works hard to support and encourage all of its businesses," the letter states. "It now appears that your representations to the city and in the newspaper were false.

The fallout from the revelation that one of the Bio-Tox laboratory technicians had admitted lying hundreds of times while testifying in trials out of state continues with a Riverside County Superior Court judge ordering the District Attorney's office to notify defense attorneys of cases handled by them where this employee testified.



The Press Enterprise Editorial Board praised both the city of San Bernardino and the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association for coming to agreement on the department's budget.



(excerpt)

Police officers, however, this week approved a package of concessions worth $3.3 million to the city. That step offers significant progress toward closing the budget gap, and removes any need for furloughs. So the council is scheduled to vote on rescinding the furloughs on Monday.

Budget shortfalls can provoke tense times at city halls, as saving money often means trimming employment. But San Bernardino is better off with a plan that cuts spending while preserving the city's police protection -- even if getting that result meant traveling a rocky road.

San Bernardino has begun the process of laying off 55 of its employees but it could take months.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

Tom Ramsey, supervising labor relations representative for the city's general employee union, said it's a very tense and painful process. The union, with 569 members, represents city workers who are not management executives, police officers or firefighters. Many are clerical employees.

"You'll get people who have known each other for years having to decide whether to bump their friends," Ramsey said. City employees declined to be interviewed.

On Feb. 19, at a meeting where the City Council formally declared a financial emergency, some did speak. City officials are citing the emergency to eliminate a $9 million deficit in their $150 million general fund budget by June 30.

Darren Hall, a plan checker on the layoff list, took the council to task for the 14 jobs cut in the development services department.

"Why not make it even across the board? We are the largest revenue-generating department in City Hall, and just to let you know, if you cut those positions, you're going to stop progress," he said.

A grand jury is expected to convene in the case of a New York City Police Department officer accused of raping a woman. There's also conflicting accounts of whether one of the officers turned in the other.

Did he or didn't he? It depends on who you talk to.



(excerpt, New York Times)

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said on Wednesday that the officers remained on desk duty

Officials said that neither officer had given a formal account of what occurred — to either the Police Department’s internal investigators or to prosecutors in the district attorney’s office.

Following policy in such matters, police investigators have not compelled the officers involved in the encounter with the woman to answer questions, to prevent any possible defense claim of coercion should either of them eventually go to trial.

Asked about a report that Officer Mata had turned on his partner and had told investigators about what he saw, Mr. Browne said: “I can’t vouch for any other reporting. I would double-check everything you are reading.”

Edward J. Mandery, a lawyer for Officer Mata, said, “My client has not admitted to investigators that his partner raped somebody and he has not admitted he shamefully stood by. He denies committing a crime or participating in a crime.” He added: “It is our position that a rape is a crime and he did not participate in a crime or see a crime.”

Mr. Mandery declined to comment on whether Officer Mata spoke to anyone else about what had occurred since Dec. 7.

In Philadelphia, a woman filed a lawsuit claiming that she was groped by a narcotics officer during a raid.



(excerpt, Philadelphia Daily News)

The lawsuit echoes a Feb. 23 Daily News article detailing Gonzalez's allegation that a cop groped her while other officers stomped around on the second floor.

Filed in federal court on behalf of Gonzalez, the lawsuit claims that an officer named "Tom" pushed down her jeans, exposing the crack of her buttocks, then lifted her shirt and bra, forcibly touching and rubbing her breasts. She feared he'd rape her, the lawsuit claims.

The suit names Officer Jeffrey Cujdik and eight other cops, including two with the first name "Thomas," who participated in the raid at Gonzalez's house on Thayer Street, near Jasper.

The suit seeks more than $600,000 in damages and attorneys fees. It is the first civil lawsuit filed in the wake of a series of Daily News articles, beginning last month, that raised questions about Cujdik's relationship with his longtime informant, Ventura Martinez.

In an exclusive interview, Martinez alleged that Cujdik sometimes lied on search-warrant applications to gain access to suspected drug homes. The allegations prompted federal and local authorities to form a task force to investigate.

Investigators with the FBI, the police Internal Affairs Bureau and the District Attorney's Office are scrutinizing hundreds of criminal cases involving Cujdik and the officers he worked with on the Narcotics Field Unit.

A flurry of activity nationwide involving civilian oversight.




The Chesapeake Police Department needs more oversight.


(excerpt, Virginian-Pilot)



Such boards don't supplant the need for internal affairs staffs. They do, however, give citizens the assurance that an independent body is reviewing a department's actions. In the past, the Chesapeake branch of the NAACP sought establishment of such a board.

Of course, if a department is generally open and transparent with residents, there's little need for such bodies. Police Chief Kelvin Wright, on the job less than a year, has communicated with residents and the media much more than his predecessor did.

Wright, however, has declined to say much about what the completed internal probe found in the Shivers case. He said through a spokesman last week the investigation looked at "the actions of our personnel, in which case privacy rights attach."

Can't names be redacted, if that's a concern? Couldn't an executive summary be released? The department executes dozens of drug raids each year successfully. It's critical for the public to know exactly what went wrong in the Frederick case.

The department said last year that besides equipping special investigations section officers with more protective tactical vests, there would be no changes to policy.

That's a response, but not a satisfying one. Nor will it reduce the cries to set up a police oversight board in Chesapeake.





After 10 years, mixed views expressed about the civilian review board in Las Vegas.Some feel that there needs to be an additional audit committee to view past investigations where complaints arose of investigators failing to interview all witnesses and asking leading questions which shouldn't be all too unfamiliar to the members of the CPRC in Riverside who expressed similar concerns in their annual reports.



(excerpt, Las Vegas Review-Journal)




The Las Vegas Police Protective Association has advised its members to not cooperate with board inquiries, and the state Supreme Court in 2006 reaffirmed the board's authority to subpoena officers after the union challenged the board's power in District Court and lost.

"I don't know that it (the Citizen Review Board) does any harm, but, in my opinion, it certainly doesn't do any good," said Detective Chris Collins, executive director of the association. "Just because you don't like the outcome of a (internal affairs) complaint doesn't mean the case was not adjudicated properly. I don't think you should get a second bite of the apple at the Citizen Review Board."

While the Las Vegas population has skyrocketed, and police department staffing has increased more than in any previous decade, the number of complaints filed with the review board has hovered between 80 and 120 a year.

Year after year, the review board has seen only 10 percent to 15 percent of the complaints filed with the Internal Affairs Bureau, which means the people filing the complaints are not also filing them with the review board.

"Either people don't know who we are, so they are not filing complaints with us, or Metro officers are doing a great job and there is nothing to complain about," said Beckman, the only administrator in the board's history. "My concern is that the Citizen Review Board cannot determine if there are patterns of misconduct, like we saw with the pattern of unlawful searches and of detaining people during traffic stops, because we are seeing only a tenth of the complaints being filed with internal affairs."

Beckman last month embarked on a bold proposal, not seen in many departments across the country, which could open up to outside scrutiny past internal police investigations and help the board identify such patterns of misconduct.

Beckman is proposing that the review board establish an "audit board," consisting of a handful of board members, to randomly review past internal investigations.

The intent would not be to reopen past probes, revisit findings or revise disciplinary measures already doled out. Names of officers or their accusers would not be released, she said. Instead, the audit board would review random investigations to see how they were handled, identify problematic patterns in investigations and make recommendations for improving department oversight of officer misconduct.

For instance, Beckman said, the board might review whether all witnesses were interviewed, or whether investigators asked officers leading questions, as the review board found last year after a jogger complained that an officer harassed him during a traffic-safety stop.

The disparity in the number of complaints concerns review board members and supporters, especially considering research has shown that the public is more comfortable lodging police complaints with a civilian panel than with the police department itself.

"If there is something amiss, it should be looked into," said Dick Geyer, a six-year member who was one of the first appointed to the review board. "The review board should be aware of what's being filed with internal affairs. If the board is only seeing 10 (percent) to 15 percent of the complaints, I don't feel it is fulfilling its mission to investigate these internal affairs complaints in a thorough manner."






In North Carolina, a state bill is being introduced that could bring more transparency to police actions. It's being introduced by a legislator from Charlotte which has faced problems with its police department. But it has some opposition.



(excerpt, Charlotte Observer)




Sen. Ed Jones, a former state trooper and police chief from Enfield, questioned the need for the legislation and worries that it would increase the SBI's work load.

“I don't know if we're treading on something here where we don't have the resources to do it,” said Jones, a Democrat.

Alexander is a freshman legislator, which means he wields limited influence. While any House member can introduce legislation, it advances only if legislative leaders get behind it. In the 2007-08 session, for example, nearly 5,000 bills were introduced, but fewer than 900, about 17 percent, passed. But Alexander does have some support. Two other Mecklenburg House members, Rep. Tricia Cotham and Rep. Nick Mackey, both Democrats, signed on as co-sponsors to Alexander's bill. Sen. Dan Clodfelter, also a Charlotte Democrat, said he'll push the bill in the Senate.

House Speaker Joe Hackney, a Chapel Hill Democrat, said Alexander's bill would go through the appropriate committees.

“It'll get a good, fair workout,” Hackney said.





Still, the Beaufort Observer supports it.


(excerpt)



Yes, we respect the privacy rights of those who might be involved in such investigations. But when you balance that interest against the interest the public has in knowing whether "the system" is working the way it should we believe the public's right to know trumps the privacy right of commissioners or police officers.

This is a good bill and it should be passed without delay. But we would contend that the bill should be expanded beyond investigations of fatalities caused by police action. We believe any time a public official or public employee does something that warrants an investigation that the results of that investigation should be made public.

The various reports we frequently read from around the state and nation about teachers who are accused of improper behavior with students being allowed to "resign" but not prosecuted is sufficient justification in and of itself for this public policy to be changed. If a public official or employee is indeed innocent we trust that the facts brought out in the investigation will show that and that if there is reasonable doubt the public is wise enough to decide for themselves. If they are not we may as well do away with public trials and the jury system and return to the medieval Star Chamber system of justice. In many ways that is precisely what we have these days.

If you wish to read more about how this bill originated a story in Saturday's Charlotte Observer shows this.




Progress Illinois writes about the city of Chicago backpeddling from its refusal to obey a federal judge's order to turn over a list of its officers who have five or more complaints. They city's agreed but with a caveat attached.






Upcoming Meetings:



Tuesday, March 10 at 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at City Hall: City Council/Redevelopment Agency meeting. Here is the agenda. The meeting doesn't appear to be a very lengthy one but it includes this public hearing at 7 p.m. on the expansion and renovation process for both the downtown library and museum. If you've been following along, there's been a lot of twisting and turning on this process by the city. One of the more recent additions is included on page 1 which states that a "community-based effort" is to be launched to the voters to contribute $55 million to this process of making Riverside the "Arts and Culture Capital[sic] of Inland Southern California". Remember when people asked how much that adoption of that title (before anything had actually been done) was going to cost people and the city said, "oh, nothing"? It remains to be seen how voters will respond to such a ballot measure in the midst of a recession.



Wednesday, March 11 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, Fifth Floor Conference room: CPRC special meeting with this agenda. The information on the investigation into the shooting of Joseph Darnell Hill which will be discussed for the purpose of drafting a public report is here. Of course as you know the Hill case unfortunately as become a landmark case because it's likely to be the last officer-involved death investigated by the CPRC for quite a while, possibly years unless you really believe that the four cases that will show up a year or so from now before them will actually be investigated. Most people know how useless it is to initiate investigations six months, a year or longer after a criticial incident and those in power who act like they don't know or believe this to be the case really do know as well.

Why it's important for the CPRC to initiate these investigations will be the subject of future postings here pertaining to several cases that it has investigated including that of the 2005 incustody death of Terry Rabb.

However, it is important to attend the earlier 4 p.m. "closed session" for case review meeting because that's when they're holding the elections for the officers of the commission. As stated, Commissioners John Brandriff and Sheri Corral are running for chair and Peter Hubbard and Jim Ward for vice-chair.