Election 2009: RPOA Gets Itself a New President

RPOA Holds an Election

The ballots which were cast for the biennial presidential election held by the Riverside Police Officers' Association were counted last week. The election results showed that challenger Det. Cliff Mason defeated incumbent Det. Chris Lanzillo in the final count. This marks the third election in a row where the incumbent's been voted out of office during what some have called the most economically and politically challenging years in the city's history.

Given that an election is a significant event within the police union and the police union plays a large role in the police department, there will be further analysis of this election, its results and what the future holds in future blog postings.

Trial of Former RPD Officer Robert Forman Rests Evidence

The trial of the former Riverside Police Department officer, Robert Forman concluded its presentation of evidence today with the prosecution having Sgt. Julian Hutzler testify as a rebuttal witness, in the wake of Forman's testimony which took up the entire or part of three court days to complete.

Forman's been charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor in relation to three incidents where women alleged he sexually assaulted them while onduty. He testified for an hour or so as both attorneys took turns questioning him. As the re-directs and re-cross examinations continued, the information provided through testimony becomes more fragmented and less of a narrative as parts of information provided in earlier testimony is targeted by either attorney for more scrutiny.

While still under initial cross-examination, Forman testified that he had about a dozen contacts with the second victim while he was onduty. But it was only during the shift when the alleged incident occurred that she rode in his police car. She rode in the backseat where there was a barred separation between that section and the front seat with the doors only able to be opened by a police officer. He was asked if the back seat had ever been referred to as the "cage" and Forman said, he hadn't heard it called that. He did say that the provisions for the back seat which carries people who are being arrested or taken to jail are done for officer safety. Forman however said that he transported people either in the front seat or the back seat for other reasons.

According to the accounts provided by two of the victims, they either rode in the front seat of the squad car or the back seat. The second victim rode in the back seat according to Forman for a specific reason.


"She didn't want anyone to see her in the car," Forman said.


She had asked him initially at the Circle 1 store for $10 and he said he wouldn't give it to her for nothing but would if she gave him information on drug dealers. She got in the car and drove around with him before he dropped her back at the Circle 1 to go to a bank near 14th street and Lime before returning to Circle 1 where in previous testimony he had said he had exchanged a $20 bill for two $10s inside. When asked why he didn't just use the ATM machine at Circle 1 to get the money to give the second victim there, Forman responded by saying he didn't want to pay the fees for using the ATM. When asked why he didn't have the second victim wait inside the squad car while he got money out of the bank's ATM, he said he didn't know and he just dropped her off. After he gave the second victim the $10 for her information, he saw Officer Henry Park drive up.



Prosecutor Elan Zekster listed the parks and schools with grassy areas that were within five minutes of Circle 1 and they included Hunter Park, Bobby Bonds, Bordwell, Patterson and Fairmount Park.

Forman said he had worked in that area of the city which was the University Corridor (near Circle 1) off and on during his entire 11 year career.


The third victim, who Forman said didn't have a beverage in her hand rode in the front seat with him.



Forman's defense attorney then questioned Forman under redirect and asked him if he had chosen to take the witness stand even if he didn't have to do so and Forman told the jury, yes. None of the documents presented on the case were news to him at the time of trial.

Forman said that he thought that the third victim had been in Riverside mostly "partying" and that he enjoyed his conversations with her because they seemed to get along.

He said that the second victim initiated contact when she came up to him and said, "Hey Forman, give me $10." Forman said she had never asked to leave the car. Did she leave of her own free will, Johnson asked.



"After I let her out," Forman said.


On Feb. 15, 2008, Forman said that he had his "seat organizer" in his squad car filled with equipment. In order for someone to sit in the front seat of his car, he would have to move the organizer between the two bucket seats. Otherwise, it would be very uncomfortable for someone to sit on the passenger side of the car.

When asked if he had said anything that was unfavorable to himself, Forman agreed.



"A lot of what I said about myself was unfavorable," Forman said.


Under recross, Forman said that he had called talked to the third victim on his phone when she had called him, a month before he started calling her.



"I never spoke to her again after that night," Forman said.


When asked about why he tried to call her one month after she had contacted him, Forman responded.


"She seemed like a fun person. That's what her attitude was," Forman said, then added later, "I don't know why I called her."



Zekster asked Forman if he thought she was fun even when she was talking about her rape allegation or giving him a false name or after the incident with the angry man. Or for hanging out with a prostitute and drug addict, and he said yes.

Sgt. Julian Hutzler returned to the witness stand after Forman was excused but this happened much later as the court suspended the trial portion of the case and sent the jury on a long recess while two witnesses were evaluated in terms of whether or not their testimony would be admissible to be heard in front of the jury. With one witness, who according to minute records was Federico Mata, who was one of the parties involved with the first victim, there was some concern about whether his testimony would be compromised by possible Fifth Amendment invocation. As it turned out, that was the case. Mata apparently declared his Fifth Amendment rights and didn't testify.

Two oral motions were then made by Johnson to first continue the trial and then second, to declare a mistrial and both were taken under submission by the judge and denied. Before the motion for a mistrial was denied, witness Robert Tufano was asked to testify outside the presence of the jury and then he was excused without providing testimony to the jury.

When Hutzler took the stand, he was asked about the missing media disk from Forman's department issued belt recorder. Forman had been on administrative leave at the time and was supposed to have an escort with him when he visited police facilities but Hutzler said he had been aware of instances when Forman had been escorted and others when he had not been including one incident at the Orange Street Station when he had accessed the email system from a computer in the report writing room.

After Hutzler left the stand, the trial was closed to further evidence. Then started the discussion over jury instructions which appears tedious but actually is a critical part of any jury trial. Most of the instructions are done by the judge, in this case John Molloy but others are submitted by both sides or one side and then both sides present their arguments for inclusion. There was also discussion of lesser included charges which were simple assault, battery and attempted assault. This discussion wasn't completed by the completion of the court day so it is set to resume on Tuesday, Dec. 8 before closing arguments by both sides are presented around 10:30 a.m.

Throughout this trial both attorneys conducted themselves in very civil fashion and even though some criminal trials can be very contentious and have been, the attorneys in this case even when they disagreed, they remained polite without sacrificing their commitment to their task at hand. Such behavior allows for both the prosecution and defense cases to proceed in the manner which they need to in order to have a trial of the facts under the law.




Since blogging about this trial, I've received feedback both negative and mostly positive from different parties including an email I received through the blog from a former Riverside Police Department officer who had worked with Forman some years ago. I was pretty surprised to hear from this individual which just goes to show that life can be both interesting and surprising at the same time.

He stated that he had known Forman for a long time and had respected him but was very disappointed in his conduct. That seems to be a common observation particularly after Forman testified about allegedly engaging in consensual oral sex with one of the victims while wearing the uniform and acting as a Riverside Police Department officer. The people following the trial including police officers have a couple of choices, either to believe what Forman has testified to during his time on the witness stand or to believe that he's guilty of the crimes. And like Forman said in his testimony (as did Johnson), his representation of his own conduct with the first victim who testified left a lot to be disappointed with in terms of what he described. And that's the lesser of the two evils, with the worse being that he committed all three crimes that he's been charged with.

But neither of the portraits of Forman as a bad officer in an administrative sense or as a bad officer in a more criminal sense presents a flattering image of a police officer. It's likely that most police officers wouldn't want to accept either misconduct as appropriate and professional behavior by a law enforcement officer. Forman's entire defense is based on the presentation of himself as essentially a "lazy" and somewhat bad officer and that's not going to win him much support in his profession. Because even with what he admitted to, it's difficult to believe that he could be the good officer he insisted he was when he finished out his first day of testimony. Even his own attorney chastised him for his behavior while questioning him.








Riverside Unified School District cuts over 120 teaching positions while Lake Elsinore plans to cut schools.



Perris Police Department (one of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department contract cities) Capt. James McElvain met with Latino leaders to discuss their concerns about racial profiling. Last year, he met with African-American leaders to discuss their concerns about incidents involving officers including one where a teenaged girl was struck in the face with taser darts.

Why Stating that Gays and Lesbians Can't Lead is Wrong

This blog posting on why homosexuals shouldn't be in positions of leadership
deserves a response because there's much in it that's a generalization on the vile actions of a relative few members of this demographic and it touches on the larger issue of sexual abuse or assault under the color of authority or public trust while completely misstating it as a reason to support homophobia.

Because a minority of gay priests molested children (as did heterosexual priests but heterosexuals are still allowed to be leaders oddly enough and not, sent to their "beds"), an entire demographic that is already persecuted by this society most often in the name of religion is being told they should stay in their "beds" and not be leaders. And this post just about hits on every myth out there about Gays and Lesbians when it defends its points including that they're not people with equal rights or standing but simply faceless entities shaped and defined solely through sexual orientation and how that is identified by others who are not part of their demographic. But to use what's happened or is being misrepresented as happening in the Catholic Church for example as proof that Gays and Lesbians have no "morals" is absurd. It's an issue of engaging in abuse of power, authority and public trust that shows a lack of morals and that's not defined by the sexual orientation of the perpetrator of those violations.

That's what scandals like those impacting religious, educational, political and law enforcement institutions are all about, not sexual orientation. It's about the abuse itself and the code of silence (and some of the religious institutions rival law enforcement in this area) of an institution that is what should receive the attention not sexual orientation of the perpetrators or the victims.

If Forman's guilty, like former Officer Adam Brown was guilty, then does that make all police officers guilty?

Forman is presumably straight. Brown might not have been. But if Forman's guilty and knowing that Brown was, both would have used their authority as police officers while onduty or off-duty to victimize other people and that's a much larger issue than their respective sexual orientations.

But the majority of law enforcement officers like the majority of priests, teachers, doctors and psychologists don't commit these crimes. Just like the majority of Gays and Lesbians or heterosexuals don't commit these crimes. Just like the majority of Catholics or religious leaders don't commit sex crimes.

This is an issue that impacts cases like the Forman trial and impacts the cases of allegations made against religious leaders, school teachers, physicians, psychologists and others who hold positions of authority or trust in this society. In these cases, the issues of control and power are paramount. The issue with this type of crime is not the sexual orientation of the individual who commits it nor is it even the sexual act itself, it's the power and public trust that these institutions hold in various segments of society whether it's one police department or a particular church.

It's highly unfortunate that Gays and Lesbians have to deal with misconceptions and myths being portrayed by them in the media. These myths are hateful and they're destructive. Maybe something a person like Matthew Shepard who was killed of homophobic bigotry could explain better if he hadn't been beaten and left to die on a fence. And then his family had to suffer through having a hateful bigoted self-designated religious leader and his followers threaten to picket his funeral toting "God Hates Fags" signs. But as long as there's ignorance, they'll be bigotry. That's pretty much a given unfortunately.

And let's be real here. When you read about sexual abuse scandals or sexual misconduct scandals, who are the main offenders? Heterosexuals. But there's nothing in this posting about prohibiting them from leaving their homes and becoming leaders in society.

Nor should there be in that case either. The focus on theses cases is the violation of public trust and often that's rewarded by them being cast out of their positions of power by voters or other mechanisms.

My blog might not be as popular with city governmental officials or some of their staff as this other one is, but if intolerance towards Gays and Lesbians is what feeds that, then I'll settle happily for being somewhat less popular among City Hall. This blogger once told me that I was making enemies at City Hall because of my "nasty personality". That might be (as I did once receive a hateful email which originated from a city employee internet network) and people are entitled to their opinion. But if this is what being tight with City Hall is about, stating that an entire demographic can't be leaders because of who they are sexually attracted to (which is the number one trait used to define Gays and Lesbians as opposed to heterosexuals) then that's cool.

This blogger does make some insightful comments in his blog and does bring some issues to the forefront that need it and speaks at city council even when the climate's not warm there. But this, however isn't one of them insightful comments in the least.

Forman Trial: Lessons to be Learned by the RPD

The criminal trial of former Riverside Police Department officer Robert Forman has been progressing during the past month inside the Riverside County Superior Court historic facility in downtown Riverside and has culminated with the defendant taking the witness stand. Forman spent several hours over two days being questioned under direct by his own attorney, Mark Johnson. Of course after that round of interrogation, comes cross-examination by prosecutor, Elan Zekster which is set to continue on Monday, Dec. 7 at 10 a.m.

The case was originally forecasted to be sent to the jury on Thursday or Monday but this trial has seen some delays due to illnesses of jurors, presiding Judge John Molloy and lately, both attorneys handling the trial. So now it's likely that testimony will continue into at least part of this week as well as closing arguments and instructions for the jury to take with them into the deliberations process. Since writing about this trial in this blog, I've had conversations with an assortment of readers including elected officials about what's been going on in the other side of Main Street in downtown Riverside as well as the general issues that have arisen from the trial from how officers conduct themselves in the field at crime scenes to the efficiency of the audio recording and downloading process to the Early Warning System and how or whether it tracks officers in the department who are throwing up a red flag or two, or more.

This trial has people talking and much of it is about the department more than it appears to be about Forman at least in terms of the communities in this city.


And then there's some interesting questions which have arisen through testimony and reports in during the trial.

Who Put the Underwear on the Dart Board?

Forman has been interrogated under direct testimony about the notorious lingerie incident which took place in one alleged victim's apartment while police officers were responding to a call for service and searching it. He said he saw it on Watkin's gun belt but didn't see it put on the dart board and didn't notice the dart board until he saw an evidence photograph of the living room.

The other testimony so far involving that disturbing display of sexism in front of a female victim and a female police trainee has been uneven. The female trainee, Megan Edwards (Meyeres) said she didn't know who put the underwear on the dart board but overheard what she referred to as comments stemming from "immature" behavior.


Officer William Zackowski said that he put the woman's underwear on Officer Anthony Watkins' gun belt saw him put it on Officer Lonnie Battest's gunbelt and that he thought Battest put it on the dartboard. Battest said the underwear was on his gunbelt and he wasn't sure how it got there but that it irritated him as it was "inappropriate" behavior and removed it dropping it on the living room floor. Watkins testified that the underwear was on his gunbelt but that he put on a glove and removed it dropping it on the living room floor. He said he never noticed a dart board and didn't see anyone put underwear on it.

None of them mention Forman as having anything to do with the underwear although the woman said that Forman had been the one who had hung the underwear on the dartboard in the living room. The only officer who admitted to seeing it there was Edwards who said the following while on the witness stand.


"I saw underwear on the dartboard but I didn't see who placed it," Edwards said.


So how is it that the male officers were the ones engaged in playing and joking about a pair of the victim's underwear yet the two woman, one officer, one alleged victim, were the only ones who testified to seeing it on the dart board. The women saw it. The men didn't even notice there was a dartboard in the room, let alone one with underwear hanging off of it that they had just been playing with moments before. Well, except for Zacowski who said that he saw Battest put it on the dartboard, the only male officer who appeared to have been not in a joking mood when it wound up on his gunbelt.

The role of the lingerie incident in terms of what followed can't be ascertained through the testimony at the trial especially when different officers are testifying to different recollected versions of the incident. If Forman played a role, that might be very telling in terms of his attitude towards the woman who would later accuse him of oral copulation under the color of authority. But at the very least, it facilitated a hostile environment for the female trainee and provided a poor example to her of the expectations officers placed on themselves about their behavior and probably became one more reason for any female victim of a sexual assault crime especially if it was an officer who did it not want to immediately report it to the police department.

These officers because they work in the patrol division and thus interact most with the public they protect and serve, are essentially the ambassadors of the police department. And the message they send when they act professionally, is that it's a professional agency that employs them as it serves the city. When they don't act professionally including in a sexist manner, they are sending the message that the agency doesn't expect professionalism from its officers and might itself be sexist. Perhaps these officers don't realize that the power they weld goes both ways. They have rights but they also have responsibilities. They have to if their own written use of force policy states that a uniformed presence is an initial level of use of force, closely followed by the use of verbalization including commands. Forman himself testified under cross-examination to what the use of force policy's lowest levels of force entailed and that the words, "follow me" (which the woman alleges he told her before the crime occurred) can take on a very different meaning when used by a police officer.

But the lingerie incident would be disturbing anyway, even if it's an isolated incident and given what had to happen to find out about this debacle, that's not necessarily a given. Most police officers in the department behave professionally but what about the rest?

Allegations of offensive racist comments and joking wound up defining the incident of the fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998 and the city and department said neither again. Well, that should also apply to sexist behavior like that shown in this case which might wind up defining it in part as well.

Does the Audio Recording Policy Have Any Teeth?

As everyone knows by now, the Riverside Police Department instituted a policy that requires all field officers and supervisors as well as those in the traffic division to activate a digital audio recorder when initiating a professional contact with the public. This policy was enacted as part of the five-year stipulated judgment with the office of former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer and was instituted around 2002. In August 2003, then city manager, George Carvalho declared that a "zero tolerance" enforcement of the policy would take period ending a grace period for officers to adapt to complying with the new policy. The city and department officials including Chief Russ Leach said that more and more officers were complying with the policy because it helped exonerate them against false allegations raised by members of the public. Members of the Community Police Review Commission publicly made similar statements to the public asserting the same thing (though what they said in private was much different). Leach even said that at most a half of dozen officers were out of compliance with the policy several years ago and nearly everyone has said that discipline has been allotted out to officers failing to activate their recorders (absent a public safety exception). But during the Forman trial, you had several cases of officers who failed to activate their belt recordings when required to by departmental policy.

Forman testified that there were times he failed to activate his recorder and other times he deleted recordings from the time the devices were issued out. Dozens of recordings were "missing" meaning either deleted (February 2008) or never downloaded from the media disk (All of April 2008) and the missing recordings continued into May 2008. Now, that's a long time to be out of compliance with a policy that's been in use since at least 2002-03. Forman's excuse for noncompliance was that he was "lazy". But if he was indeed "lazy", what does that say about those in the department who have assured the public that there's no way officers could delete recordings (even with an "erase" button on the device) and get away with it. That if officers did push the "erase" button, then they would get into trouble soon enough. And it's true that there's ways to catch officers who do push "erase" thinking that because a recording shows up as disappearing on the device's external counter that there's no internal record of their action or that the recording ever existed at all.

But if Forman did indeed begin pushing "erase" in 2002, when was he finally caught? Was it while they were investigating the sexual assault allegations in 2008? Was it sooner than that and was any enforcement action taken against him? If that were the case, given that over 50 recordings were missing or deleted in the first few months of 2008, clearly it was ineffective at curbing that behavior, that is if Forman's assertion that he violated the policy over and over again is the truth. He certainly didn't record any self-initiated contacts with any of his alleged victims, even though with two of them, it was required by departmental policy.

Johnson's basing a large part of Forman's defense case on Forman's not complying with departmental policy, which is what Forman testified to when he appeared on the stand. But there's a difference between violating the department's policy by failing to activate one's recording device and deliberately erasing recordings, perhaps believing them to be purged from existence.

There's been much testimony about the use of belt recorders by officers in this case including that to receive a recorder, officers have to read the accompanying policy governing its use before they are given their recorder. But then there's officers who testified who either didn't activate their recorder when required or evidence showed they couldn't possibly have done so. Besides Forman, Watkins testified to not activating his recorder when initiating a professional contact with the second victim who was walking across a road. He initiated the encounter by telling her to get off the road and then a conversation followed.

But his belt recorder wasn't activated during the incident. He later testified to what had taken place during that encounter and had changed the version from what was noted in the defense investigator's summary report. Which was baffling to say the least because you would think that his trial testimony's version of the incident would have been narrated verbatim in the report given that it attributed a possible suspicious motive to the second victim. But there was never any recording and even Johnson was surprised by Watkins' trial revelations and was placed in the unenviable position of having to cast his investigator's reporting in a somewhat negative light.

Then there was the incident where Forman initiated a contact with a man who had been following his squad car. He didn't activate his recorder then and even though the departmental policy requires officers dispatched or responding as backup to a self-initiated contact to activate their own recorders, apparently only two out of five officers (including Forman who was the primary officer onscene) did activate their belt recorders, both of which were played during the trial. Johnson himself used this as a defense by saying that Forman wasn't the only officer who failed to follow the department's policy.

It's not known by the public which officers activated their recorders in that traffic stop (except for Forman who didn't) and which ones did not although one clue is to listen to which officer's voice sounds the most loud and clear on a particular recording given that they are the closest to their recording device which picks up quite a bit of ambient noise. And none of these officers besides Forman who failed to activate their recording device in incidents cited by trial testimony were able to testify to their individual histories of complying with the department's recording policy. It's not clear with even those who failed to activate them if it's an isolated incident or part of a larger pattern of noncompliance. But within this trial is pretty close to Leach's figure cited of a half dozen officers who have been discovered to be out of compliance with that policy. Only it's not six out of about 200 officers equipped with recorders but six out of a much smaller group of officers who testified at the trial. And three of the officers at that traffic stop, were field training officers.


I've received some interesting allegations in my time spent blogging but one of the strangest was one I received in April 2008 about a male officer who had sex on duty with someone he wasn't married to and who had recorded it on his department issued recording device. When I received that, the first thing that struck my mind is that no one could ever do such a thing. Talk about career suicide or fast forwarding yourself towards a job termination. But now after sitting through this trial and watching the foibles of the audio recording policy's implementation even if this is all its problems, it doesn't seem like that a person who did such a thing would ever get caught by the police department. In fact, it's in all probability extremely unlikely.

Even if that person downloaded a recording like that from their recorder, it would likely sit in some database until its purge date unless someone filed a complaint in relation to it.

It's likely that most officers equipped with recorders abide by the policy and then there are those who go beyond it by recording all professional contacts, knowing that it can protect them against false allegations (well, unless you're former Officer Michael Collins). But as long as there are those who don't and the system doesn't pay any attention to officers deleting recorders especially dozens of them until way after the fact, there's a weak link in that accountability system. Because the ultimate question in the Forman case is this, how long was Forman's noncompliance done in the dark until it finally came to light?

And What of the Early Warning System?

The Early Warning System was actually designed and instituted by the police department before it was required to have one under the consent decree. In 1999, the Mayor's Use of Force Panel included the creation and implementation of one as one of its recommendations to reform the department in the wake of the Miller shooting. And so the department did, while working with various parties including the city, department management, the Riverside Police Officers' Association and the Law Enforcement Policy Advisement Committee (LEPAC) a former subcommittee of the Human Relations Commission. In 1999-2000, the committee received regular reports from the department at its meetings.

In 2001, Locker stated in the consent decree that the EWS had to be tightened to two reportable incidents in 12 months (instead of four) and three in 18 months. The department struggled with implementation of its EWS (though not so much as the Los Angeles Police Department which didn't implement its own until about five years into its federal consent decree) because initially almost every officer wound up getting flagged by the early EWS. After the management and supervision personnel became more experienced at noting problematic patterns (as well as more positive trends), the system essentially tracked about a dozen police officers out of nearly 400 at any given time according to several statistical reports given out on its operation during the consent decree. Because the system is internalized and shielded by the state's strict laws on peace officer record confidentiality, the public has no idea which officers are creating enough concern to be tracked. At least not officially because neighborhoods have less official "early warning systems" of their own about officers within their own neighborhoods.

Earlier this year, one of the officers (though he was a distant second to another officer) on the EWS of many people in Casa Blanca was arrested on several armed robbery counts. The officer in that same neighborhood who by far gets the highest number of complaints of all kinds of behavior is very well known as well by both the community and the police department. Which is interesting because there's some police officers who seem to be very well liked who work there or who have worked there. Same situation with the Eastside and other neighborhoods and the officers in any neighborhood who do the most outreach tend to get the most positive reports.

But did the Early Warning System play any role in Forman's policing career and should it have if it didn't? And what role does the EWS play exactly, given the arrests of two Riverside Police Department officers in a 12 month period? That's a question that comes up quite frequently since this trial has begun. And what if the process of handling police officers placed in this system. How does it effectively address problem behavior in a way that prevents it from being more significant? Like in the case of former Officer David Reeves, jr. who was apparently addicted to pain medications for some duration during his employment? At some point in his case, the department asked for a urine sample to test for drugs and Reeves resisted, which ultimately led to him filing a lawsuit against the city not long before he was arrested.

These and other questions have been asked by people who've read this blog or who've been following the coverage in the Press Enterprise. In these cases, these may only be smaller glimpses into the larger picture of a situation but since the public is allowed no explanation or information about how these mechanisms work or how they effectively curb misconduct (or reward exemplary conduct), the public is left with nothing but the negative parts of the situation especially when they overflow into the public arena in what might be an embarrassing or even shocking kind of way such as in the cases of Forman and Reeves.

And what role do supervisors including frontline supervisors play in the EWS when it comes to whether or not officers they supervise getting placed on the list? Forman testified several times at trial that he was used to working alone, due to his three year stint in the POPs division. How alone was he anyway? And was that a good thing?

The RPD's Strategic Plan Survey

It's available online here and it's for everyone to fill out and send in as part of the different methods the department plans on using to obtain input from the public on what they wanted to see included in the next five-year Strategic Plan. The current one in place since December 2004 is set to expire later this month. Some unfortunate static from City Hall apparently blocked the development of this plan for a while but it's on track to go to the city council next year, perhaps March in some format.

If you can't use the online survey, you can pick up a hard copy at the front office of the Orange Street Police Administrative Headquarters on 4102 Orange Street in downtown Riverside.

I'm still doing some research before submitting my suggestions for the survey. Regular progress reports on how the development of the Strategic Plan is going (or not) will be posted on this blog. Unfortunately, due to the dynamics of this city, it's very important to be vigilant to ensure that it stays on track. Lest there be an unfortunate repeat of the derail of post-consent decree 2006.

Economist John Husing defends the cutting of developer fees. Because someone has to do so for Riverside County.



Four San Jacinto city councilmen who were indicted as part of a corruption scandal not surprisingly are facing recall efforts. Two of the defendants charged after a probe of that situation have plead not guilty.


The Press Enterprise Editorial Board explains why when it comes to ethics in San Bernardino County's government, a gesture is not enough.





The people in Menifee have different opinions on how city council people should be elected, as shown by two conflicting petition drives currently undergoing signature gathering. Menifee's not been a city that long and things are already hopping!





How will Colton dig its way out of its financial meltdown?





Corona gets a new police station at last.

Forman Trial: Forman Testifies Under Cross-Examination

Testimony resumed in the ongoing trial of a former Riverside Police Department officer who has been charged with four counts including three involving sexual assaults committed while onduty. Robert Forman had begun testifying on Tuesday before the Wednesday recess and picked up where he left off on Thursday under direct examination by his own attorney, Mark Johnson. In the audience were prosecutors, Forman's family members and Internal Affairs sergeants, John Capen and Marcus Smail along with Sgt. Derwin Hudson.

Interestingly enough, when he returned to the witness stand, Johnson decided to focus on an area of testimony which had curiously not been been addressed the day before (which was addressed here) and that was the fate of the missing media disk from Forman's department issued digital recorder. When he asked Forman what had happened with the media disk, Forman's answer was the following.


"I had no idea until it was brought to my attention," Forman said.


He later testified that he had dislodged his media disk in the past and had broken media disks as well. The problem had to do with the fact that he stored his recorder along with his money clip in his shirt pocket and when he put his money belt in the pocket, it dislodged the clasp on the back that caused the media disk to eject.

After that was settled, questioning resumed to focusing on the first victim. Forman was asked if the victim had been protesting while performing oral sex on him. He responded, no.


"I would never, ever force anyone to do anything," Forman said.



And when he asked if the first victim had consented to the behavior, he said, absolutely.


With that, Johnson finished his direct line of questioning and prosecutor Elan Zekster began his cross-examination of Forman, beginning with the issue involving the still-missing memory disk. Forman talked about his money clip clashing with the recording device. However, when Zekster asked him if he had said anything about the missing disk when investigators had searched his locker and discovered it was missing, it was revealed that Forman had told them that he had no idea where it went.

After the media disk was addressed, the questioning moved on to the third victim who had walked up to Forman's squad car and wound up asking him to take a report on a rape. Forman said he had built a rapport with her and she told him she had been hanging out and partying. He said she was "all over the place" in her speaking and that he said he had his doubts about whether the rape allegation was true. During the time that his approximately 10 minute conversation took place, Forman never saw a man approach him angrily from a nearby parked car during his conversation with the third victim.

She had been with the second victim who had left so Forman had gone with her to look for her friend and as he pulled his car out of the parking lot of the Circle 1, he noticed a car following him. There was some confusion in the testimony exactly when Forman knew who was in the car and whether or not he was being followed. At first he said it was when he pulled out of the lot because of the way the man had backed the car quickly out of the lot and then it was after he had done two u-turns on Eucalyptus street, adjacent to the Circle 1 parcel.

He didn't call for backup and he didn't ask the third victim if she knew why they were being followed. As a police officer, he had commonly pursued other vehicles but had never had a vehicle follow his car.

At that point, more people entered the courtroom and Forman stopped testifying. When he was asked why, he responded brokenly.


"My son just walked in the room," Forman said.


The judge spoke with his son and asked him if he would leave the room voluntarily after he had ascertained that Forman couldn't testify with him present. So his son left the courtroom and testimony continued.

It wasn't until he made the second u-turn with his squad car that he became suspicious and acted on it. He got out to verbally calm the man down and said when he couldn't do that, he called for backup and about five to six officers showed up.

Why was he being followed by the man, Forman was asked.


"I had no idea why he was following me," Forman said.


He parked his car several car lengths behind the man's car and didn't run his license plates. He testified that he wasn't concerned about handling an unknown person by himself saying that during his three years as a Problem Oriented Policing officer he had spent a lot of time working on his own. He didn't ask the man to produce any identification.


"He was upset. He was angry and I wanted to calm him down," Forman said.


The man told Forman that the woman stole $100 from him. Forman denied participating in the theft himself. After the man drove off, Forman later saw him parked near the Circle 1 and told the third victim. He said he was concerned the man would enact his own revenge against her and didn't want to leave her alone there. So they went back to Circle 1 and saw the second victim there. The third victim brings up the rape again and appeared to Forman to again, be in a "jovial" mood.


"She was flighty," Forman said.



They drove to University and Chicago to look for the second victim at a bus stop where she hung out at times. She brought up the rape but Forman said he wasn't sure he believe her. That produced an interesting contrast to his testimony that he had believed her when she had insisted that she had not stolen the man's $100.


"I had no doubt in my mind that she didn't have the money," Forman had testified.



Zekster brought up the fact that Forman had said he didn't believe the third victim about the rape allegation but he did believe her when she said she hadn't stolen the man's money. He said the difference in his mind was her "demeanor". They reached the bus stop and she told him to go to a parking lot and let her out because she didn't want anyone to see her getting out of a police car but they wound up stopping in view of the bus stop anyway. They had another discussion about the rape allegation and he gave her his personal cell phone number.

Phone records had shown that he called her on two separate phone numbers on Feb. 20, 2008 and then called her over a month later.. He wasn't sure whether or not he had stored her land line number (which he said he discovered through Caller ID) in his phone or just remembered it a month later. He couldn't remember why he thought of the third victim that month later enough to give her some phone calls. Forman was asked if he had been attracted to Tessa and he denied it and then was asked why he phoned her on his days off from work.


Later on the same day he had run into the third victim, he performed a traffic stop on a vehicle that did a rolling stop in an intersection. Even though it was self-initiated, he didn't activate his recorder. He didn't remember if he ran any plate numbers on the vehicle which had tinted windows. There were about five people in the car including the third victim. He didn't call for backup. The third victim got out and said, what's up, can I speak with you? He asked her if she was okay in the car with those people and she said yes. She then leaped into his arms.


Forman was then questioned about the first victim whose apartment he went to on April 18, 2008 on a home invasion call. He had been assigned with his trainee, Megan Edwards (Meyers) in the Eastside but had responded to the downtown call on the North (NPC) because it would provide a training opportunity for Edwards. When he got there, other officers briefed him that there had been evidence found of check fraud, syringes, meth baggies and a woman on probation. He went up to the apartment and said the first victim had been sitting in the chair in the living room. He saw different officers including Edwards and William Zackowski talk with her. He asked Edwards to direct Officer Lonnie Battest to take photographs. He did talk to her and asked her what was going on. She could have been high on drugs but he didn't test her.

As he left with Edwards, he told Edwards, I'll be right back. He said he went back to the woman's apartment to get his flashlight. When the woman opened the door, he said he noticed his flashlight sitting on a chair and told the woman that he needed to get it. The woman had asked him several times during the time he had been at her apartment to help her get some unwanted people out of her house and he wasn't sure if he had developed a rapport with her.

Testimony turned to the discussion of the police department's use of force policy most particularly the bottom two levels of force which are a uniformed presence and verbal communication respectively. The statements of an officer alone could constitute the second level of force and Forman agreed with that assertion. He had never arrested the woman or collected the syringes in her closet. He said he had believe her when she said the syringes weren't hers.

He finally left her apartment after two hours spent on that call and went to the Orange Street Station. He and Zackowski then went to the Robert Presley Detention Center nearby to book the woman on felony probation with drug paraphernalia that had been arrested. After that was done, Forman went back to the station and then off to get some food at the Del Taco drive thru on 14th and Brockton. After he left the restaurant, he went back to the apartment.


"I had time to kill," Forman said.


His trainee was working on the police report which might take hours and while still in uniform and onduty, he went to the apartment never telling anyone where he was going. Even though he was potentially going there to confront unwanted parties who were likely criminals. Even though it wasn't his beat and there were other officers who could have handled it.


"I routinely did things on my own," Forman testified, referring to his POPs stint.


When asked if what he was doing could be dangerous, he said there was the potential for danger anytime.


He went back to the woman's apartment and doesn't remember how he identified himself when he knocked on the door. The door opened and man stood there. There were a total of four people inside the apartment and three of them left. The woman said they were gone but said he could check anyway. He did, looking for "drug addict type people". He passed by a bathroom door and said he wasn't aware of a closet door in the living room and went straight to the bedroom.

He had testified that she had closed the blinds when they were in the bedroom making small talk but there weren't blinds on the two windows, there were curtains or sheets draped over them in photographs taken by Battest several hours before. When asked about that, he said that she had been covering the windows. The access to both of the windows was very limited because the bed was pressed against the walls where the windows were located, meaning that to get to the windows to close the blinds or cover them, a person would have to climb on the bed which was filled with clothing. But Forman said there was space between the windows and the bed.

Was he concerned that he was in an apartment with a woman he didn't really know who had locked the front door and now was closing blinds? He said that he wasn't paying attention when the first blinds were closed and it didn't register with him. After she shut the second blind, that's when she told him that one of her sexual fantasies was to "do a police officer".


"At that moment, you must have wanted to get the heck out of there," Zekster asked.

"No," Forman responded.


He said he had laughed when she had said that and had thoughts of leaving but also of not leaving. She told him she wanted to sleep with him but she was on her period. He stayed and he asked about her boyfriend by name and she said he wasn't coming back. She led him to the bed by guiding him with her arm. He sat down and she performed oral sex after she unzipped his pants. She then masturbated herself.

After that, Forman said he left and never returned. Testimony abruptly ended at that point and presiding judge, John Molloy sent the jurors on a break. Court wound up being recessed for the day because both attorneys took ill with the flu and were unable to continue. Testimony is set to resume on Monday, Dec. 7 at 10 a.m.




More information unfolding in the recent indictment of the Mount San Jacinto Community College police chief.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

In one of those arrests, court documents say, Segawa seized ice cream from a street vendor, put as much as he could in his freezer at home and then gave the rest to a neighbor. Segawa called immigration authorities who later deported the vendor, documents say.

McComas is charged with one count of offering a bribe to a public officer and two counts of aiding and abetting the misappropriation of public funds.

Both are scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 30 in Riverside County Superior Court. McComas' attorney said Thursday that his client is not guilty. Segawa could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Court documents say that in 2007, Segawa damaged a police car in an unreported accident and brought the car to a body shop in Riverside owned by McComas.

The shop repaired the car without knowledge of the college, documents state.

The Press Enterprise's Last Stand?

Is this the Press Enterprise's last breath? Controversial decisions out of Belo Enterprise in Texas have editorial content intermarrying with advertising as the corporation unveils new measures to facilitate the integration of business and news which will be applied at all of its publications including the once family owned newspaper in Riverside.


Corporation heads reassure readers that important lines between advertising and news won't be crossed. Yeah right.


(excerpt, Dallas Observer Blog)


Colleagues: Today we are launching a new business segment structure as the next step toward becoming the most comprehensive and trusted partner for local businesses in attracting and retaining customers and continuing to generate important, relevant content for our consumers. To better align with our clients' needs, we will be organized around eleven business and content segments with similar marketing and consumer profiles including: sports, health/education, entertainment, travel/luxury, automotive, real estate, communications, preprints/grocery, recruitment, retail/finance, and SMB/Interactive. Each segment will be led by a General Manager (GM), a newly-defined role, each reporting to Cyndy Carr, charged with analyzing and growing the business by developing solutions that meet consumer needs and maximize results for our clients. Their responsibilities will include sales and business development. They will also be working closely with news leadership in product and content development. In the Sports and Entertainment segments, the senior news editors will report directly to the GM while retaining a strong reporting relationship to the editor and managing editor. These collaborations will bring new products that consumers want to the market more rapidly. We are proceeding knowing and trusting each other's distinct roles and responsibilities in the same way our News leadership and our Publisher have worked collaboratively for years. This business/news integration is a progressive step and is strongly supported by the news leaders of both the Sports and Entertainment segments: "As a segment, we have a lot of advantages usually associated with a start-up," said Bob Yates, deputy managing editor and Executive Sports Editor. "We should be able to move much more quickly to take advantage of opportunities. That comes from having greater autonomy that gives us the freedom to develop both advertising and content solutions."






Riverside needs to keep its power lines to itself. So says Jurupa. But so far, war hasn't broken out between the two parties over this development.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The Human Resources Board is scheduled to meet Monday, Dec. 7 at 4 p.m.

The agenda includes several presentations including from department heads.

The Riverside City Council will be meeting and discussing this agenda on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 3 and 6:30 p.m. This week's meeting boasts a packed litigation calendar, a discussion item that's not really a discussion item and a slew of high ticket items on the consent calendar. Otherwise known as business as usual.



The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee is set to meet on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 2:30 p.m. Here is the agenda.It was scheduled to meet the following week on Dec. 15 to hold the hearing on an ethics code complaint against Community Police Review Commission member Chani Beeman but that meeting might be tabled due to the fact that the committee by scheduling it violated the ethics code by failing to send the complaint for possible resolution to the CPRC chair in accordance to its own resolution passed by the city council governing the process. Committee member and Councilman Andrew Melendrez through email confirmed that the appropriate process needed to be followed and that complaint is now being sent to CPRC Chair Peter Hubbard for handling.


The Transportation Committee will be meeting on Thursday, Dec. 10 at 1 p.m. to discuss the Overlook Parkway. Councilman Paul Davis will be substituting in on the item because it's in his ward.

Here is the report on that item.



The Community Police Review Commission will meet on Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 5:30 p.m. and will discuss this packed agenda.

Finance Committee Watch Continues

The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Monday, Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. as shown here. It's not clear yet if it will actually meet on that day.

Forman Trial: When being a bad apple is your best defense

"guns (like lifted trucks, fast boats, airplanes, and german cars) are not penis substitutes. They are extremely effective TOOLS that men use to entice women into spreading their legs. What is your problem with waving a gun around if chicks dig it ??? Heck, simply using a pair of handcuffs to make that wonderful “ratcheting sound” is often enough to leave a wet puddle on the ground directly below a short skirt.

Use your tools, friend. I am confident that there are dozens of female subjects on the “U” who will respond to your offer of malt liquor and greasy, deep fried fast food. On second thought, why not get yourself a “good payin’ Clintonesque job” so that you can improve your “tools?”???)

Increase the number and quality of your “tools” and even you, the common urban savage, will increase your “slugging percentage.” "



---"anonymous" comment left on this blog in a comment thread in June 2006.






The trial involving a former Riverside Police Department officer charged with various sexual assault offenses including oral copulation under the color of authority culminated when Robert Forman, the man on trial testified in his defense on the witness stand. Currently, he is answering questions asked by his own attorney and has yet to face cross-examination. But the picture he's painting whether truth or fiction is admittedly, very disturbing. And this blog attracted a large amount of traffic yesterday and last night including one unidentified person who was not happy with the coverage of this trial here and left this little note online. It's not in iambic but it's still expressive in a manner of speaking.



(excerpt, Inland Empire Craiglist)



And then there's the one who apparently has nothing better to do than sit at a trial of an accused officer, giving play by play by day, relishing every minute and chomping at the bit to find something to confirm their belief.



Still, those who hate this blog and the coverage of the subject matter of this trial have been remarkably restrained in their unsigned commentary so far but if they want to show their support of the defendant, there are better ways to do that and perhaps some individuals are doing just that.

What can you say about unsigned comments on Craigslist? Eh, not everyone wants people to notice that there's a trial going on involving a former Riverside Police Department officer involved in misconduct. Relishing every minute? Hardly, it's seriously a sad state of affairs and there's very little to be happy about here. Fortunately, most of the feedback I've received from this blog has been positive.



Either Forman was a bad cop or a very bad cop. He finished his testimony by saying that he had been a good police officer right after he painted a portrait that showed him in a not so good light. Whether he did it because he was as he said, taking the opportunity to tell the truth or to try to save himself from being convicted of serious felonies, only he and the three women know for sure.

But the question still remains what is the truth? Is it what he's saying under oath, or is that the lesser evil between fiction and what really happened between him and the three women?

So far, Forman has said he didn't activate his digital audio recording device because he was "lazy" and he deleted recordings for years, also due to laziness. He violated numerous policies like the ones pertaining to the use of informants because he had done so in the past. And there were times when no one seemed to know where he was, while he was working with one of those times while returning to a woman's apartment where in his version of his event, she had given him a blow job voluntarily. When you put his testimony together so far, he's painting himself as a "bad apple" officer, or what's often referred to as a "rogue". Albeit one who has apparently by his own admission been operating what some people call, "within the grey" for years apparently without much interference from the police department that employed him for 12 years until it fired him last November.

Look at him as a cautionary example of what a police officer can become when they become "lazy" is what his testimony appeared to be saying on one level. But if anyone was lazy in connection with him and his trail of misconduct, it wasn't him. Whether or not it was the agency that was supposed to protect the public from officers who aren't there to serve and protect, will be something that the city's residents will never know, given how shrouded all but the criminal case will be from the public eye. Just as they might not know if there are any more of either brand of Forman that's been produced through testimony at this trial inside the police department.

So what we have here based on his testimony appears to be Forman playing the role of some biblical Adam who's fallen from grace and of course, if you have Adam, there must be an Eve in this story somewhere and that role was played in Forman's testimony by the alleged victim who had the strongest case against him regarding criminal conduct. The woman whose apartment had been the scene of officers responding to a home invasion burglary. In Forman's testimony, she wasn't the victim at all, but the temptress which would cause him to fall from grace. Delilah, to his Samson. The woman behind the man whose career is now in tatters. A cautionary lesson to be learned by other police officers who might be tempted to cross that line.

But what doesn't make sense about this particular scenario is that if Forman had decided to engage in a sexual act with a wanton woman at the spur of the moment, then why did he testify earlier that he had intended to only leave the Orange Street Station to pick up a bite to eat at the neighborhood Del Taco (on 14th and Brockton) and then deviated from that plan? Why did he decide he had "time to kill" and head off in another direction that's kind of in a direction that's different than the one he would have taken to return to Orange Street Station to supervise his trainee while she was writing the police report. Why did he ignore the mantra that has no doubt been endlessly drilled into his head about officer safety first, and not get on the radio to tell the dispatcher or fellow police officers where he was going? After all, this woman could have intended him to come back to her apartment for an ambush or to cause him harm or even kill him. And if anything bad had happened to him, the rest of the police department including all its active duty police officers wouldn't know where he was to back him up. So even though Forman testified about how "lazy" he was, it doesn't seem likely that he would have intended to go to the woman's house to perform a professional duty. The point seems to be that his intention for his department not to know where he was and where he was going was tantamount, not his safety.

And that's one major problem with his version of events is that if he had really intended to do what he testified he was going to do and clear unwanted people from this woman's house, he would have probably informed the dispatcher where he was going for his own safety and probably would have called for backup if he really believed that the unwanted people had returned and might cause problems. After all, this was a professional contact, right? Officers risk their lives but when possible, they take stringent precautions first.

Certainly in a department like the Riverside Police Department where officers are surely drilled about the dangers of being ambushed given that two pairs of police officers were killed about a decade apart in ambush situations, with the former being referred to as the "ambush murders". To the point where for a period of time the police department was reluctant to send its officers out to respond to anonymous party calls.

The fact that he drove to her apartment without telling anyone where he was going speaks to something else. It makes you wonder that even if it were true that this encounter had been consensual as far as both parties were concerned, whether it was Forman who had thought about it first rather than the woman.

So what did Forman actually say about the three criminal cases filed against him?

During his direct testimony, Forman denied the criminal charges associated with the second and third victims in the case although they appeared to spend quite a bit of time in his squad car during the evenings in question. As stated above, he had oral sex performed on him by the first victim but that it had been consensual because she had expressed some sexual fantasy about having sex with a police officer. Of course, this happened just after they had come into her house on a call and tossed it up which their job required them to do under those circumstances. And not long after, several male officers had played and joked with a pair of her underwear in front of her which is most definitely not part of the job description of being a police officer.

Forman testifies as if the stage were set up for the major seduction of a police officer by a woman right there an hour or so after he and two other officers had left her apartment. Especially since the sexist horseplay involving these male officers including possibly two field training officers had taken place in front of both the alleged victim and a female police department officer who was also a trainee, neither of them appeared to appreciate it. A trainee who later that year "failed probation" or "washed out" and no longer works there said it was immature. Not exactly the only female trainee to have witnessed such sexual horseplay by field training officers and then later on, failed probation or left. There's more than one way that a trainee may be found to not be "officer material" in a law enforcement agency.

Someone who read the blog postings on this trial in another state asked me if the department had implemented any type of gender bias training which actually came up in a discussion with someone from another police oversight group in another state. I didn't know the answer to that because the development of cultural sensitivity training has been more geared towards ethic and racial identities rather than those involving gender and how it intersects with other identifying factors. I would hope that the officers would be trained to handle themselves with women both inside and outside the department in a professional manner. There certainly are a lot of police officers in the department who do, including male officers but how many of them don't and have engaged in conduct similar to that which took place in the victim's apartment?


Still, Forman in his direct testimony created this setting where he goes to the woman's apartment of course without telling the police department or any other police officers where he's heading and then naturally follows her into the bedroom where she dims the blinds and then expresses her fantasy. The light fades to black and the music plays and she will...gets her fantasy fulfilled and he will have done her this huge favor. It's not an act of sexual assault under the color of authority, it's almost like an act of charity on his part.

But this is a much different story than that related by the victim both to statements she provided for investigators and her testimony on the witness stand. Two other individuals testified that the victim had been upset within minutes of Forman's departure after this alleged fulfillment of a fantasy and had thought she fit the description of an assortment of derogatory terms for women and hadn't even wanted to stay inside her apartment after the fact. A drug counselor who was helping her testified that she had told him about it and he advised her to go to the police to report it. She apparently didn't tell any of these people whether it was minutes after Forman left the apartment or during the hours and weeks that followed, that she had just fulfilled her sexual fantasy. She was likely telling one man who testified at the trial how awful it made her feel before Forman even returned to the police station where his trainee, Edwards was dutifully writing the police report for the home invasion call incident.

But Forman's essentially labeled the three female accusers as liars. He denied ever having any physical contact with two of the victims and essentially said the third asked for it, even seduced him for it. And if these victims are the ones telling the truth, it's difficult to know which is worse, to be branded a liar or a temptress who asked for it. But for all the talk about the lack of physical evidence including traces of DNA left behind to link to Forman, in the end it didn't matter because Forman's sexual contact with the first victim didn't leave any DNA traces or seminal fluid and that was the alleged crime scene that he had the least control over after the fact.

Is Forman telling the truth, or are he and his lawyer trying to keep him out of spending time in state prison if he does get convicted of any or all of the charges. Forman has two strikes against him before he would even go to prison. He's a former police officer and he's been associated with crimes against women, two factors which would make any time spent in prison more difficult for him. In fact, he would have to spend his entire prison stint housed in isolation. The point being that he's testifying to behavior which could forever end his career in law enforcement and cause emotional and financial havoc for his family. Not to mention tarnish the police department and betray his friends including those who testified on his behalf and had testified in most cases to what they had believed was true. And those who themselves might be facing more scrutiny by the department's Internal Affairs Division than they would ever have wanted. There's some sense that the aftershocks of this event that Forman precipitated have only just begun to be felt by those around him still employed by the police department.

It's not been pretty for the department as officers testified to the lingerie incident, documentation and testimony showed that the audio recording policy wasn't always followed and that Forman testified that he himself deleted recordings or failed to activate his recorder for years and it's not clear whether the department initiated any action involving him in response for this huge missing time concerning his recordings which were supposed to capture all of his self-initiated contacts. When his lawyer asked him if doing this made him look bad, Forman admitted that yes, it did.

But is Forman turning his testimony into a confessional of his misconduct as a "bad apple" because it's the painful truth or is it because the truth holds greater consequences for him and in fact, would be more painful for his family, the police department and his friends? The consensus among many people following the case in different corners was that the first victim's case was stronger than the other two and consequently would be much more difficult to explain away. His only real defense was to say that it was not sexual assault under the color of authority but a consensual act between two willing parties. So if it's the truth, it's colliding with the only fiction that can possibly prevent him from going to prison and it will be interesting to see what the jury decides.


As stated above, he denied involvement in the other two cases though both victims spent time riding around the University Avenue corridor in his vehicle according to his testimony. He testified that the second victim had introduced him to the third one who then walked over and made small talk with him before mentioning a rape. He then took his notebook out and she gave information. Only then he testified that as he arrived, the third victim was getting out of a silver compact car where sat a Black man that she had just stolen money from. So she's just stolen $100 from this man, walked away from his car and walked towards a police officer she had never met (and before he was told he was "cool" by the second victim) and then engages in small talk. You'd think that a woman who ripped off an angry man and saw a squad car would head off in the opposite direction as quickly as possibly having just committed theft not to mention prostitution not wanting to get arrested by the officer or assaulted by the man.

Then Forman relates more testimony about how he took this rape report but then it's never clear what the angry man in the car is doing during the entire time she's talking with the police officer.

He never gets out of the car and tells the officer she stole his money and since he was soliciting for prostitution with the money, that might make him more reticent with his anger. Except for the fact that after the third victim gets in Forman's squad car to go look for the second victim, the man follows them in his car and then confronts them angrily at another location which requires backup officers. Forman was concerned enough about being followed that he did several U-turns with his squad car probably to ascertain that he was being followed. The man was certainly upset enough to follow Forman's squad car, confront him and the woman not to mention talking with the backup officers who arrived.

And it's not clear whether the back up officers ever knew that the man had followed Forman and the woman rather than that Forman had been responding to an altercation between the woman and the angry man.

But Forman still faces finishing his direct testimony and then being cross-examined by the prosecution, so in other words, there's still a lot of information that will be provided for the jury which is left with the task of trying to determine whether Forman sexually assaulted three women while he was working as a police officer at the time. Or if he was merely a bad apple who had believed he was a good officer who hadn't gone that far.

Police Officers Don't Get High

When asked if he was high, Forman at one point said something like, It's ridiculous to think I'd be high. I'm a police officer. I'm not sure how aware he is of the irony of that statement given the recent arrest of another (now) former Riverside Police Department officer, David Reeves, Jr. who apparently had a serious drug addiction that the department had confronted him on at some point before his armed robbery spree, even allegedly offering him a stint in rehab which he didn't take. In reality, drug addiction is a serious problem for law enforcement officers, whether the drugs are obtained legally or illegally.



Police officers and drug addiction.


(excerpt, New York Times)

Asked in a police interview whether he had ever taken illegal drugs, he said he replied, ''Of course not.'' A background check failed to turn up anything derogatory and he was directed to report to the Police Academy in January 1984.

Throughout his six months of training, he said, he drank excessively and smoked pot and sometimes, angel dust. Once, he said, he and three classmates who were out drinking decided to get some cocaine. He said they drove to Queens where they purchased a gram for about $100 and snorted it in their car, ducking at one point in panic when a police car passed.

Soon, he said, he was spending almost $500 a week - nearly all his pay - on drugs, mainly for weekend partying. He tried to engineer three-day weekends, he said, to give the cocaine a better chance to be eliminated from his body in case he was asked to take a urine test. But he said he never was.

Even the thrill of graduating from the academy in June 1984, he said, did not prevent him from ducking out afterward to a drug-selling area near 46th Street and 48th Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens, where he bought cocaine, freebasing it in a friend's house.

Police officers do indeed get high and have used drugs in many different law enforcement agencies and several have had to deal with multiple officers getting caught using drugs at once. Whether it's using steroids to buff up because officers are concerned that they can't physically handle muscular men who have been lifting weights in prison or using pain medications like in the case of Reeves, or using methamphetamine or other stimulants to help them perform their jobs during difficult shifts like graveyard, drug use is a problem faced by many departments to varying degrees. It's not clear through the testimony if Forman used drugs like speed or was high on duty and if he was ever tested for drug use beyond random testing, only the police department would know that. One victim alleged he had been high while working. Several police officers testified that he hadn't appeared to be under the influence of drugs.

But officers are not infallible to drug addiction. If they think they are, they need to take a look at Reeves who's sitting in a jail cell on felony charges and ask themselves that question again.

Legislating Ethics

Scandal plagued San Bernardino County experienced a bit of levity when its board of supervisors passed a law prohibiting the use of elected office for personal gain. Nice gesture, but these actions never really have much teeth. Just look at the ethics code and complaint process in Riverside, where the city council and mayor really have yet to even show city residents they understand and will consistently follow their own written resolution governing the process.

In related or unrelated news, the county is also seeking a top administrative officer.


Speaking of ethics, San Bernardino City Attorney Jim Penman got dinged by the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Chief Indictment

The Mt. San Jacinto Community College police chief has been charged with multiple felonies.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

The charges against Kevin Harold Segawa include bribery, perjury and misappropriation of public funds. Segawa, 39, surrendered to DA's investigators at 2 p.m. today.

Also charged was Morgan Allen McComas, 40, owner of Pirot's Towing in San Jacinto. McComas, who also surrendered this afternoon, is charged with one count of offering a bribe to a public officer and two counts of being an aider and abettor in the misappropriation of public funds.

The 13-month investigation found that Segawa received various gifts, loans and benefits while college police chief as part of a business relationship with McComas, the district attorney's office said.

College officials said they were notified of the charges by the district attorney's office this morning. Segawa has been police chief there since 2005.

"We take this matter seriously and will take the appropriate action based on the law and District policy," Irma Ramos, college vice president of human resources, said in a college news release.

Another black eye and tragedy averted for Metrolink Trains as yet another engineer runs a red light.








[Two cats waiting adoption at the City Hall animal fair.]





[People congregate to look at the dogs and cats up for adoption at City Hall's animal fair.]

Upcoming Meetings

Monday, Dec. 7 at 4 p.m. Human Resource Board meets at City Hall's Fifth floor conference room


Tuesday, Dec. 8 in afternoon and evening sessions, the city council meets at Riverside's City Hall.


Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 5:30 p.m. the Community Police Review Commission meets at City Hall's Fifth Floor conference room to do battle once again amongst itself.

Forman Trial: "I was a good police officer."

The Trial of Former RPD Officer Robert Forman

Day 11





The Defendant

The trial of a former Riverside Police Department officer charged with three felonies continued with defendant, Robert Forman taking the witness stand and testifying that one of the victims had performed oral sex on him consensually but that the other alleged incidents reported by two other women were not true.

Forman testified that he had been a police officer in Riverside from between March 1997 and Nov. 22, 2008. He spent most of his career working varying shifts in patrol and three years working in the Problem Oriented Policing unit.

One of the first issues he was asked about by attorney Mark Johnson when he took the stand was whether or not he complied with the police department's written policy on activating his issued digital audio recorder. He said that during his entire time he spent equipped with the recorder, he had often not activated it on self-initiated contacts and at other times, he deleted recordings from the device. He said he did it out of laziness because he didn't want to match up recordings with incident numbers.


"It was easier to just delete them," Forman said.



So Forman testified about his deletion of recordings from his device and his failure to activate it when required by policy but so far, there's been no mention involving any information about the fate of his media disk card which is still missing.

Among the self-initiated contacts he didn't record were those involving the second and third victims. He testified that he did have contact with all three women who alleged that he sexually assaulted them.

In February 2008, he worked patrol and often checked out the area near the Circle 1 store because of criminal activity there. He pulled his squad car in there one night and saw the second victim walk towards him on the driver side, and they engaged in small talk. She gestured for the third victim to come over to Forman telling her, "You can talk to Forman. He's cool." Forman said he talked to the third victim and said that both women appeared to be happy, jovial and that they laughed and smiled. At some point, Tessa made an indication to Forman that she had been raped and wanted to report it. He took out his note pad and wrote down information that she gave him and asked questions. But he never wrote a report about it.


"If I don't believe a crime occurred," Forman said, "I'm not going to write a report. I don't have to."


The second victim and left and she became more anxious. She asked Forman if he would help her find him. Forman said he gave her some idea of where the second victim hung out and she wound up getting in his car to go look for her.

Forman drove towards Comer and he said he noticed that a silver vehicle that he had seen the third victim get out of earlier started following him so he did several u-turns and the Black man in the car appeared very upset. Forman called for backup units which arrived. The Black man said the woman had just been in his car and had stolen money from him. When asked if he had participated in the jacking of a Black man, Forman said, absolutely not. Forman said that the man had been vague on details but finally admitted that he had solicited for prostitution and ultimately wanted to drop it.

Forman closed out the incident as a civilian problem. Could it have been a theft or a prostitution report?



"You have to have a victim to have a crime," Forman said.



The man went to his car and drove it across the street towards University and Eucalyptus. Forman got back in his unit and told the third victim that the man was there, pointing him out. Then he told her he would help her look for the second victim so she got in the car. They went to Circle 1 and saw the second victim there and she talked with her for a while before going back to talk to Forman about the rape. Once again, she looked up at some point and the second victim wasn't there. She was nervous and this time Forman took her to Chicago and University near a bus stop where the second victim often hung out but she wasn't there so they pulled into a parking lot. Forman told her he couldn't complete the investigation and he gave her his personal cell phone number to contact him with more information. He admitted on the stand that it wasn't "standard practice" and she exited the car.

He testified that he didn't try to kiss her or put his hand down her pants.

One hour later, he performed a traffic stop at Comer and Mission Inn on a dark compact vehicle with tinted windows. He didn't follow departmental policy and activate his recorder during the stop. The driver rolled down the window and he heard a voice inside the car saying, "What's up?" He saw that it was the third victim. She asked him if he would talk to her for a second and she got out of the car. He then testified that she lunged towards him and gave him a big hug. He pushed her away and said she couldn't do that. He was a police officer there with a job to do. He told the driver of the vehicle they could leave and never saw her again until the trial.

She did telephone him on February 20 to talk about her rape report and gave him some more information. He then did a CLETS report because her description of drug use sent up "red flags" and he wanted to find out exactly who he was dealing with. He called her several times including on a land line where he blocked his phone line he didn't know who was at the house and whether or not there was drug use. He said he got the land line phone number when she called him the first time as it showed on his Caller ID.



Forman testified about his interactions with the second victim. He had prior contacts with her for about a year, possibly longer. He said she was a drug addict and street walker on the University Avenue corridor. He drove into Circle 1 and she was there. She asked him, hey Forman how do I get out of this one? She complained and used derogatory language about Officer Henry Park who had arrested her.

She asked him for $10 and he said he wouldn't give it to her unless she gave him information on drug dealers. He admitted that he had violated the department's policy on the use of informants.


"It was slow and I had done it in the past," Forman said.



He told her to jump in the car but she didn't want anyone to see her with him so she had him meet her in an alley behind the Circle 1. He said she had a box of Hostess donuts with her when he ran into her.

They wound up heading to Chicago and University and she said it was a Black man with dark clothes but Forman said he needed more information so she told him there was a room on the ground floor at the Motel 6 where there were drugs being sold. He drove her back to the same location as before. He said he hadn't given her drugs and hadn't been using him themselves.


"It's ridiculous to think I'd be high," Forman said, "I'm a police officer."



Forman went to a credit union and withdrew $20 and then went to exchange that for two $10s at the Circle 1. He gave the second victim $10 and just after that, Park pulled up in his squad car. She told him to give her an hour or two and Forman told Park about the Motel 6. The officers went there with Officer Marco Ortiz and talked with the individuals in that room but no arrests were made. Forman said there was a box of donuts like the one that the second victim had been holding inside the motel room. Earlier he said he had seen her walking with a Black man and he and another officer separated them. He spoke with her about drug dealers.



Forman then moved on to testifying about the first victim, and said that he and his trainee Megan Edwards (Myers) had responded to a home invasion call and that he had spent about 45 minutes outside with the first victim's boyfriend who said that some occupants were holding his girlfriend hostage. Forman eventually went inside the apartment and spent about an hour there. He said he knew about the syringes inside the bag in the closet and had seen them. It hadn't been a home invasion robbery and the investigation shifted towards check fraud. The first victim had said she wasn't responsible for the syringes or the check fraud but that she was just trying to get her life together. Forman knew she was on probation but he never arrested her. She told him several times that she wanted the occupants gone and one of them, a woman was arrested and taken to jail.

When asked about the underwear, he said he saw it on Officer Anthony Watkins' gun belt but didn't touch it or joke about it nor did he place it on the dartboard. He didn't see anyone do that and didn't even notice the dartboard until he saw it on an evidence photograph of the living room.

He said that the first victim asked him to come back and help her keep the occupants out. He said that he would. He left with Edwards and Zackowski but went back up for 30 seconds to retrieve his flashlight which he had left in his chair when he had been seated near the victim. He said he didn't make any comments about her underwear or ask to see her breasts.

He and Edwards headed back to the Orange Street Station.

Forman and Zackowski went from the Orange Street Station to the Robert Presley Detention Center nearby, while Edwards stayed at the station to write the report. He went back to the station and told Edwards he was going to Del Taco on 14th to get some food. And he left and went through the drive thru. After that, he said he had time to kill and was concerned about the woman so he headed back to her apartment without telling the department through his radio where he was going.


"When I left the station, I didn't think I was going there," Forman said.


Even though he knew it could potentially put him in danger, he didn't tell anyone where he was going. He said the three years he had spent in the Pops unit working by himself had taught him how to handle things by himself and he felt comfortable and relaxed doing so. He went to the apartment and a man answered the door. The man left or he told him to go along with two Black men. He said she appeared grateful that he was there and he searched the apartment including the bedroom to see that everyone was gone. While they were both there, he said she pulled the blinds closed and then told him she always had a fantasy about having sex with a police officer. She said she wanted to sleep with him but since she was on her period, she said there were other things they could do. He said that she had performed oral sex on him.

She got up. He stood up and they went to the bathroom to clean up and she said that next time he was there, they could have sex. They walked together out of her apartment to the stairs and ran into the apartment manager who asked if anything was wrong.

Johnson asked him if he was proud of himself.


"Absolutely not," Forman said, "I lost my career. I lost my house. I lost everything."


He said he had let himself down, his department, his family and friends.


"I was a good police officer," he said before breaking into tears.


Judge John Molloy stopped the testimony for the day which had seen quite a lot of developments in this contentious trial.


Earlier that day, several police officers testified for the defense including former trainee, Michael Husy who said that Forman had been a "strict" field training officer and that he didn't believe that Forman had ever been under the influence of drugs. He had been friends with Forman and had socialized with him. Would he lie for him, Johnson asked. A question asked of a lot of the officer witnesses in this trial.


"No I would not," Husy said.



Officer Anthony Watkins who had once worked with the California Highway Patrol before being hired in December 2005 testified that he had worked with Forman and had been a friend of his even helping him move last year. He had responded to the home invasion call on April 18, 2008 and had worked as perimeter officer with a long rifle. He entered the residence later on but didn't do any searches. Forman and his trainee, Edwards made an arrest. At one point, he noticed that female underwear was draped on his uniform. He didn't know who put them there.

"They were hanging off of my gun," Watkins said.


He testified that he put on a glove and dropped them off his uniform. He didn't see a dartboard and didn't put the underwear on the dartboard or see that occur.

He also testified that he had seen the second victim walking in the middle of a street in the Eastside, sometime between the time that Forman was put on administrative leave and when he left the department. He told her to get out of the road. She asked him who he was and that she hadn't seen him before. She asked him if he recognized her. She called Forman, "Bobby" and told Watkins, "I'm going to make money off of Bobby." At the time, Watkins hadn't activated his department issued recorder.

Under cross-examination, Watkins was asked questions about statements he had made to the investigator some time later. He was asked about the information he had given to the defense team.

"It's about a fact and it happened and I gave it to him," Watkins said.


He talked to the investigator in March 2009. Prosecutor Elan Zekster said that the investigator's report stated that he had said that she had told him that she had no where to go and no money and that she had just said "Bobby" and hadn't mentioned a last name.

A while later, the jury was sent on recess and the issue arose about whether or not the defense had provided adequate discovery regarding Watkin's interview with the defense investigator. After hearing both sides, Judge John Molloy decided that although Johnson had committed a violation, it was out of nonfeasance which is neglect rather than malfeasance so sanctions would not be issued.

An Old Politician but Brand New Supervisor

The newest Riverside County supervisor John Benoit was sworn in to office amid some concerns about financial donations that might be connected to an individual indicted in the San Jacinto scandal.