Is the CPRC facing fallout from Summer Lane?

The Community Police Review Commission played to an audience of city residents several weeks ago, but a ghost of two Decembers past dominated the conversation without ever saying a word.

That ghost was Summer Lane, a woman shot and killed by Riverside Police Department officer Ryan Wilson in December 2004.

In December 2004, the police department had briefed the CPRC on the shooting and provided a preliminary narrative of the incident. That night, there was no way to anticipate the fire storm which would erupt the following year. In part that was due to inaccurate information provided at the preliminary briefing, which clashed with that provided in interdepartmental memos written by members of the Officer-Involved Shooting Team before the briefing took place.

In November 2005, the CPRC released a finding that it had found the shooting to be out of departmental policy, the first decision of this kind since the panel began investigating officer-involved deaths in 2001. After reaching that decision in closed session, the CPRC then forwarded it to City Manager Brad Hudson. Many community members believed that the decision would lie in his hands, because the police department had submitted a finding of its own, which was that the shooting was within policy.

Their belief in a process which put the two entities and their findings on equal footing, was misplaced. Hudson opted out of the decision making process altogether and handed it off to Police Chief Russ Leach for a final disposition. Leach backed his department's own finding. Through his decision not to make a decision, Hudson showed clearly just how much, or more accurately, how little importance the commission had inside City Hall.

It appeared that the commissioners who released that finding received that message clearly too.

CPRC Chair Les Davidson told members of the public that the commission's hands were tied

"We are bound by that Charter, " Davidson said, "Our feelings may be different but we have to stay within it."

The Charter, Davidson was referring to, was the city's own Constitution that was first established and ratified in 1907. In it, are the rules and regulations which govern the city's operation including its boards and commissions. Several of these bodies comprised of city residents are included in the city's Charter. In 2005, the CPRC joined this select group.

Ironically, the inclusion of the CPRC in the city's Charter was intended to liberate it. The Charter Review Committee drafted a proposed amendment which would place the CPRC safely away from any political interference by the city council. Many community members believed this step became necessary after the existence of the CPRC was challenged by city council members who opposed it and had received considerable campaign contributions from the Riverside Police Officers Association during their election campaigns. The voters echoed their concerns and passed ballot measure Measure II in every precinct in the city, during the November 2004 election. Even the city council members who had opposed the CPRC were impressed and several said that they would honor the wishes of the voters.

Once it became included in the Charter, only another ballot initiative passed by a majority of the city's voters could abolish or make substantial changes in the operation of the CPRC. Or so members of the public believed.

Now, one year later, the inclusion of the CPRC in the city's Charter was being looked at with new eyes, as just another obstacle in its path toward realizing its full potential. Although it had been once been viewed as a mechanism to preserve the once vulnerable CPRC, now it was seen as a means of restricting its powers even further.

Borrowing a line from the RPOA's infamous anti-Measure II campaign in 2004, Davidson told the other commissioners that their hands were tied. He implored members of the public to petition their elected officials including Mayor Ron Loveridge and the city council to take steps to strengthen the commission.

"It's not that we don't want to do the job," Davidson said, "We can't do the job."

As usual, Commissioner James Ward did not mince words.

"The more I sit on this Commission," Ward said, "The more I'm convinced the city has been sold a bag of goods."

Ward said that the city government was micro managing the CPRC and that through the Lane decision it had shown that the CPRC's role was intended to be solely advisory. He added that not much had changed inside City Hall since the shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998.

At the beginning of the meeting, Davidson said that he had placed the item on the meeting agenda after he and Vice-Chair Ward met with Leach, Hudson and City Attorney Gregory Priamos. They had discussed key issues but there was not total agreement among all involved parties.

About 20 people attended the CPRC meeting on April 27 and listened to commissioners expressing their frustrations at the apparent limitations of their powers, before walking up to the podium and adding a few of their own.

Rudy Morales, a former member of the Human Relations Commission, took the body to task.

"Get off the chair and do it yourself," he said.

Morales added that when he had served on the HRC's Law Enforcement Policy Advisory Committee years ago, there had been similar problems. But commissioners were in a much better position to push for changes than members of the public.

"Listening to what I heard today, it doesn't sound like we've made much strides, " Morales said.

Morales' words were echoed by other concerned city residents who attended the meeting including other people who had sat on LEPAC before the committee was disbanded in 2000 to make way for the CPRC. Even its prior members had publicly defined LEPAC as a toothless tiger. Was the CPRC ultimately going to follow down its predecessor's path?

The crux of this latest concern centers around the issue of the CPRC's right to investigate officer-involved deaths. According to its own bylaws, the CPRC has the power and right to do the following:

Review and investigate the death of any individual arising out of or in connection with actions of a sworn police officer, regardless of whether a complaint regarding such death has been filed.

This power grew out of a ground swelling of concern that arose from the shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998. It is no accident that the bylaws, the ordinance which created the CPRC and the charter that gave it a future all state that the CPRC is to investigate in custody deaths. One of the legacies of the Miller incident was how little faith and trust many community members particularly African-Americans had in the ability of a law enforcement agency to investigate its own officers' alleged misconduct. Both the creation of the CPRC and the inclusion of this power were a response to this concern.

"Asti Spamanti", who claimed to be a RPD officer, said the following before storming off.

"Oh, I've got an answer for you. How about this---"Mr. Asti, I do not know when officers should use deadly force because I have not the training or experience to answer that question or make those types of decisions and therefore, I probably should not be condemning these officers for making a decision that people like me, Sandalou, and others who so freuqently speak out against the police, are either afraid to do or incapabale of doing."

His or her words serve as a reminder to why people do not have faith in a police agency's ability to self-investigate. What is really being said here is that no member of the public even has the right to question the actions of any officer, let alone one who has shot and killed a person. These words have been used to refute the need for everything from state-sanctioned oversight of the police department to the creation of the CPRC. These words are still being said today, seven years after the shooting of Miller.

One problem is, that these words also extend to other employees in the police department including its management. To be reminded of this, one needs only to look at what happened during the only known RPD shooting to be determined to be out of policy in its recent history. After the police department decided that the four officers who shot and killed Miller had violated departmental policies, the decision was made by then Chief Jerry Carroll to fire them and their supervisor.

So what happened to Carroll soon after that fateful decision? His fate and his future was essentially decided on the date he made the decision to fire them. Most likely, he even knew it at the time.

The vote to oust him was not one cast by paper ballots, but by razor. Hundreds of razors taken to hundreds of heads, removing every vestige of human hair, as if by doing so, they could exorcise the chief who had betrayed the rank and file with his decision to fire five of its members. Carroll had fired five of their group's members so they were going to fire him in response. That was his first strike against him.

Carroll's "retirement" did not become official until early 2000 amidst a firestorm that erupted after his decision to promote two men of color and a White woman to the position of lieutenant. This action elicited howls of reverse discrimination against White male police officers. He had just committed his second strike.

The city soothed the howls of reverse discrimination by trying to reverse Carroll's promotions with as much vigor as they would later fight against a claim of racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation filed by a Black male officer. Carroll soon accepted a retirement and left the department.

If the tenure of a police chief in the RPD could not survive a decision to fire four officers involved in a shooting determined to be in violation of departmental policy, then it should surprise no one that if a panel of civilians come out with a similar decision on another shooting, its decision would also elicit an angry and passionate response by the same parties.

Given the predicable outcomes of the situation involving the split findings on the Lane shooting, was such a response by those parties even necessary?

The fallout from the Lane shooting is apparent, as the recent pleas by the CPRC's commissioners for the public to appeal to its elected government to strengthen the body's powers have shown. Unfortunately, given the current political climate at City Hall, this is not likely to happen any time soon.

With the already controversial shooting of Lee Deante Brown on the horizon, these questions will again be asked and answered and these concerns will once again be raised by commissioners and members of the public alike.

Will What Goes Up, Come Down?

In the April 22 edition of the Press Enterprise, ran an article asking why the number of citizen complaints received by the Community Police Review Commission had increased 42% in 2005. During 2004, the CPRC had received only 90 complaints, compared to 128 in 2005.

Commission members including former chair, Michael Gardner appeared mystified as to why the CPRC received the highest number of complaints in a single year, since 2002.

One possible reason mentioned by some individuals is that the CPRC had increased its public outreach in 2005, in terms of educating city residents on its roles, responsibilities and most of all, its existence. That makes some sense, because that might indicate that a bigger pool of potential complainants might have been tapped into by the extended outreach.

Gardner appeared to reject that contention in the news article.

"The outreach effort is not intended to fish for complaints," he said.

Okay, that might not have been its intent but that might be its result.

Another possible factor could have been the increased publicity the CPRC received in 2004 which resulted from the passage of Measure II. This measure was created by members of the Charter Review Committee to place the beleaguered commission in the city's charter safely out of the reach of city council members financially backed by the Riverside Police Officers Association's Political Action Committee. In November 2004, 60% of the city's voters spoke loudly and passed Measure II in every precinct in every ward in the city. After that, the city council members backed off and pledged to support it as long as it existed in order to respect the wishes of their voting constituents.

These two explanations are possibilities. There is also another that no one seems eager to suggest, at least not out loud.

That possible explanation to offer up is that allegations of misconduct increased for 2005, because there are continued problems in a police department that has struggled to recreate itself since the shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998. The fact that sustain rates at least on the CPRC side have increased as well suggests that the department continues to struggle with issues. It will become more apparent if this is indeed the cause if the trend continues in 2006 and beyond. If it does not, then this past year may have been an aberration

The new RPD is a much younger work force with an average age of 24 and three years of experience. Even the sergeants who supervise these officers skew on the young side, due largely to retirements at this level and higher in the past year or so, according to department representatives. Less experienced officers may be more likely to make mistakes involving policies. It is critical that they are properly supervised by experienced sergeants out in the field. It is also important that the department's field training officers are experienced and teach them the new way to do business rather than relying on old patterns.

The racial trends involving those who file complaints continues as it has in past years.

Over 20% of complaints were filed by African-Americans, which is over twice their representation in the city's population. Latino complainants filed 23% of all complaints, Whites, 30 % and Asian-Americans, less than 1%. About 23% of all complaints were filed by people of unknown ethnicity.

An area that continues to concern community members involves the use of excessive force. After all, that is one of the main issues that brought the commission into existence.

The CPRC received 20 allegations of excessive force, a number also nearly double that received in previous years. None of these allegations were sustained, but seven of them received a "not sustained" finding which is assigned when there is not enough evidence presented to make a decision one way or another. It is not clear how many of these allegations were sustained or given a "not sustained" finding from the police department, because it does not circulate its own statistics to members of the public, despite provisions in PC 832.7 that allow it to do so.

The CPRC last sustained an excessive force allegation in October 2004, involving the case of a young Black man who was approached by an officer while he was in his car at Bordwell Park. Both the police department and the city manager's office decided that the allegation was unfounded.

A report submitted to the State Attorney General's office stated that there was one excessive force incident in 2005 and one in 2004, but that there were still investigations pending for incidents in 2005.

In 2005, complaints spiked up higher earlier in the year, leveled off and slightly decreased in the summer, then spiked up again in the autumn to the levels it had hit earlier in the year. This trend caught the attention of many community members off guard especially because it occurred at the tail end of the police department's five year stipulated judgment with the state attorney general's office. Still, only the CPRC commissioners publicly questioned it.

Rising up with the number of complaints was the number of those sustained by the CPRC. Without statistics from the department's Internal Affairs Division, it is unclear whether its trend in this area matched that of the CPRC.

The sustain rate for complaints hit an all-time high of 19%. That was nearly double the rate calculated for 2004, which was 10%. It had hovered between 10% and 13% the last three years.

Interestingly enough, for the first time, there were allegations of criminal conduct sustained by the CPRC. In 2005, the CPRC sustained six allegations of criminal conduct and also sustained two allegations of false reporting(if it involves falsifying a police report, that's a felony under the penal code in most jurisdictions).

The article stated that criminal allegations involving two officers who allegedly planted evidence in the same case were sustained. It is not clear whether or not the department sustained the allegations as well, but the involved officers are no longer with the police department. The Riverside County District Attorney's office declined to file criminal charges against them, which reveals very little about the veracity of the charges because they rarely file criminal charges of any kind against RPD officers.

It is also not clear whether the officers were fired, pressured to resign in lieu of termination or they simply lateraled to other agencies. It appears clear that they are longer at this department.

What is disturbing about this incident besides the obvious is whether these allegations of evidence planting would have ever come to light if a citizen possibly the victim had not filed a complaint with the CPRC. One would think that if there were officers possibly engaged in such egregious misconduct that a supervising sergeant would have caught it, or a lieutenant, or either the field operations or investigations captain. However, if that had been the case, then one of these individuals would have initiated an internal investigation of the alleged misconduct. Did this happen? Or did it take a citizen filing a complaint before something was done about a very serious situation?

More importantly, if any evidence did emerge to sustain the complaint, did the Internal Affairs Division initiate its own inquiry into prior cases these officers were involved with to ensure that there was no evidence planting or tampering in those cases? Fruit from a tainted tree would be bad enough, but perhaps they should check all of it, perhaps even check the whole orchard. Due to this state's stringent confidentiality laws pertaining to peace officers' records, these questions can never be answered, publicly, which does little to alleviate concern. Any incident of evidence planting or tampering has the potential to taint the entire department.

The answer to the above questions must only be one thing. Of course they did, immediately! Any ethical, responsible law enforcement agency would take this mandatory and precautionary step without hesitation. After all, it's one thing for one officer to plant evidence on his own which is abhorrent enough, but for two of them to apparently collude and conspire together on the same case? How did they ever find each other?

"Traffic" violations constituted two other criminal inquiries launched by the department. One of them involved an unidentified officer who was charged by another LE agency, for drinking and driving, which is a much more serious charge than true traffic violations such as running a stop sign.

There was an officer, Melissa Wagner Brazil, who was arrested and charged with drunk driving and hit and run, both misdemeanors, after she was involved in an accident in Corona in 2004. She plead guilty in February 2005 and was sentenced to several years probation and ordered to enroll in a "first time offenders" drunk driving program. Ironically, Brazil had been given an award from M.A.D.D. for her record of arresting people driving drunk.

It is not clear if she is the DUI case that was included in the 2005 caseload.

A former officer, Chris Gaspard, was arrested by the Riverside Police Department for reckless driving in 2004 and charged by the D.A.'s office for that offense as well as evading a police officer. No doubt, Gaspard has arrested and perhaps even used force against individuals who have evaded arrest in his presence on the job. He eventually plead guilty a year after he was charged to the reckless driving charge, and received one year probation and agreed not to drive with a license, a fairly light sentence.

Two other unidentified officers apparently had used a police database which tracks criminal and driving records, for their own personal use. According to many newspaper accounts, this is a nationwide problem faced by numerous LE agencies.

Top 10 Abuses of Police Databases

Police Abuse of Databases A Problem

One officer was allegedly running a search on his own name, the reason why was not disclosed by the police department, which meant the other officer was probably doing a search on someone else's name. It was not clear whether these officers also "left" the department, stayed or were terminated. Certainly, in the case of the officer looking up another person's name, termination is the only responsible action. Ethical, honest and professional officers do not commit violations involving professional databases and officers who lack these qualities display these deficiencies in other areas of the job. This could be a sign of trouble elsewhere on the job.

The department declined to pursue criminal charges in either case, deciding the incidents were not serious enough to merit them. Most likely, it was not other employees in the agency whose names were entered into a search in the police database.

Complaints against police rise

Misogyny in the RPD

I saw this posted comment on my blog one morning by a regular visitor, "B. Fife". He has made comments indicating that he is a Riverside Police Department officer in the past. This latest comment, well second to latest, is no different. Well, except the fact that he dropped the LE title from his moniker this time around.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mary,

I have seen you on your daily strolls around the east side, about five times or so the last couple of weeks. Each time I see you, you are wearing the same purple sweatshirt and blue jeans. Then I think to myself, I wonder if she wears the same pair of skid marked granny panties everyday..... Then following that thought, I throw up a little bit in my mouth.

Instead of spending so much time trying to find negative things about cops, why don't you try taking a shower and changing your clothes at least once a day!

B. Fife

Friday, April 28, 2006 6:25:30 PM

One of the scariest things about this comment, is that "B. Fife" is absolutely correct. I have been walking through the Eastside more than a few times in the past several weeks. I have been wearing blue jeans, albeit not the same pair, and on several occasions, I have been wearing not a purple sweatshirt, but a sweater. It is purple knit, buttoned-down and one of my favorites. Well, at least it used to be. Now, it's just another reminder that I am hated by officers in the Riverside Police Department, both as an individual and as a woman as well. It's just a reminder that at least one of them is watching my movements. No civilian who knew me would so interested in letting me know this and I highly doubt any civilian in the Eastside would be writing comments in defense of Riverside Police Department officers who have made such negative comments about their neighborhood here. They may defend good, hard-working officers but not those of this ilk.

Oh, and I shower once daily, twice after reading comments like this one.

I wondered at first as I always do, who he might be, civilian or law enforcement officer until I realized that here was a person who knew my name, my face, the fact that I had a blog, the blog's address and had a strong animosity towards me that has led him to post under this moniker since March 2 and probably under other nicknames even before that.

Needless to say, I will probably change my route of travel back to what it had been after I received those postings from "Kevin R.P.D." last October. A route that is frequented only rarely by Riverside Police Department officers. Why should I walk through a neighborhood and every time I see a squad car driving by wonder if it is "B. Fife" stripping me inside his head, again? That is a violation that no man can ever understand, let alone feel, but it is an intimate experience for most women, something we swap our experiences with, through stories about facing sexism in contemporary society.

It is an unfortunate reality for any woman, simply for being a woman that she will be harassed by a man simply because she is female. If she is being harassed for being an individual hated by a man, that man will use sexist behavior and imagery to express it, because she is a woman. If she is a woman of color, he will likely use racist behavior and imagery too.

In this case, it is apparently being done by public servants who were hired to protect and serve women(and men) not denigrate them. It is being done by a man who is too cowardly to even sign his own name to his words. Not even to spare other employees in the department a bit of extra scrutiny that one woman has to do in order to feel comfortable in her surroundings because of what one man has done, because this man has no face. However, not only does the internet give him the perfect hiding place, so does law enforcement through its shield laws and its blue code. Every harasser has an audience and from comments made by both "Asti" and "B. Fife", it's clear that there is probably an audience quietly watching their antics. Few people are not aware of the blue brotherhood.

I passed along the comment made by B. Fife to other women, and one word came back to me, over and over. Misogyny. How could someone put so much hate and misogyny, into so few words? In this case, the explanation could fill a book. A simpler explanation is that men engage in this behavior, because they can.

We, as women live in a society where men make the rules that both genders follow and one of the unwritten rules is that women are to be subjected to denigration by the male gender's less emotionally secure individuals on the basis of our gender. That hatred can be expressed through street harassment. It can be expressed through violent crimes, including rape and sexual assault. There is also plenty of ground left over for men who hate women to operate, in between the two extremes.

Misogyny, literally, is the hatred of women or hostility towards them. Whether it is all women, a few women or one woman. From the time we are girls, we have to learn how to cope in a world where often we can not walk down a street without someone yelling something derogatory to us from a car, or trying to pinch or touch us on the street. We may innately realize that men may mentally undress us as we walk past them, but we do not wish to be reminded of that. We do not wish to be reminded that we are not human beings at all, but objects. Unless we are women of color, then apparently we are nonhuman in other ways, a designation based on race

Several women believed that the comment was meant to frighten me as much as it was meant to denigrate me, because this person wanted to make clear to me that he was paying attention to my movements at least through "his" area of town. Where I was going, what I was wearing, is his way of saying, I'm watching you. After all the probability that my travels through the Eastside would have brought me into contact with one police officer this many times, does not suggest they were random encounters. Experts say that men engage in this type of behavior to exert power over women, to control them and I can feel that keenly from those words.

Only about 3% of all the officers hired recently by the police department were female and if "B. Fife's" behavior is in any way indicative of the current working environment, it will have to fight to keep them. Men who engage in this type of behavior tend to target any women who does not fit their narrow definition of what a woman should do, and it is clear to the "B.Fife"s of the world, that women only serve one purpose. Policing the streets is not on that very short list.

That one purpose is sexual gratification, or at least to be graded on a scale that is based on this purpose. That was clearly delineated in "B. Fife's" comment.

First, what "B. Fife" does to each woman he encounters during the day is to strip them naked inside his head. Doing this provides him with a tremendous sense of power over each and every one of them. If they are unlucky, he will tell him how he does this in great detail. If he keeps his actions to himself, he is doing them a small favor. After doing this, he provides his personal evaluation on each women. Since a woman's worth to him is based on her sexual desirability, he assigns them grades on the pass/fail system.

A passing grade for "B. Fife" on his desirability scale would be an erection or perhaps, a smile of approval. A failing grade is a series of derogatory comments followed by a form of regurgitation response. Between the two, I am more than happy to be on the receiving end of an upchuck response.

His comments clearly stated that I was being graded on his scale of whether or not a woman is sexually desirable(and thus has a purpose in this world) and apparently I received a failing grade. Something for which I am very grateful. The "B. Fifes" of the world are not God's gift to this woman or any woman with self-respect.

Humor aside, it is a way that men of "B. Fife's" ilk grade each woman they encounter every day to exert power over them, as men. Law enforcement allows them many opportunities to do this. After all, the police department itself has stated that its officers have hundreds of contacts with members of the public each year.

"B. Fife" continues on this same track in his next post, by offering suggestions for me to follow in order to receive a passing grade next time.

Anonymous said...

Poor Mary.
I suggest a shower, shave and change of underwear.
It is obvious to me and many others that Mary what you need is a good " BANG "! (-:

Saturday, April 29, 2006 3:46:52 PM

This is a typical stock response by an emotionally immature man who has issues in terms of relating to women who exist for reasons not included on his "list". By the time most women enter adulthood, they have heard the adage, "All you need is a good fuck to be able to do this_________ or not be like this________(insert words of choice in the blanks). That is exactly what "B. Fife" is stating here. It is a response meant to embarrass, humiliate and intimidate women who are not acting in ways men like "B. Fife" view as appropriate and men like him try to stop that behavior in its tracks with sexual comments when tactics like cajoling, ultimatums and threats do not work.

Attitudes like those expressed by "B. Fife" here are one of the problems women have had to tackle in to survive as police officers in departments rife with a culture that in most cases, does not want them there. They have invaded turf which had been considered the sole domain of men and have entered into a club where they are not welcome. If men like "B. Fife" are what they have to deal with in the RPD, then it is no wonder their retention rate is so poor. The problem may not be so much that they do not know what they are in for(as has been suggested) but that they know exactly what they are in for.

Attitudes like those expressed by "B. Fife" here present obstacles to women who want to report crimes against them to police officers. When I asked women if they felt like reporting crimes like rape or domestic violence to someone like "B. Fife", all of them answered no, quite adamantly. Historically, women have been reluctant to report violent crimes like rape to police officers because of past and present sexist attitudes about women and rape voiced by law enforcement officers. Police agencies have worked hard to stem that tide and turn it in a more positive direction. Men like "B. Fife" do nothing but hinder those efforts, with their misogyny.

After all, who wants to report a crime of violence to someone who is a misogynist, even if most of the time that attitude is shut away in a closet? It is still in the room with him and the woman.

Finally, the thought of any woman having to turn to someone like "B. Fife" to report a violent crime that happened to her, because she was a woman is enough to make me want to throw up.

First We Did. Now We Don't.

Tyisha Miller had a blood alcohol of 0.13 and her initial toxicology tests showed the presence of cannabis, according to the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner's office, when she was shot and killed by four police officers in December 1998. As early as Jan. 8, 1999, these toxicology results were printed in articles written in the Press Enterprise.

In that article, Sgt. Chris Manning said that accessing these toxicology results would enable investigators to better assess what had happened in a situation leading up to a critical incident.

Anastacio Munoz had a blood alcohol of 0.20, when he was shot and killed by Officer Melissa Wagner Brazil(who ironically also had a blood alcohol of 0.20 when she was involved in an off-duty vehicle accident in Corona in 2004, according to court records) and Officer Carl Michael Turner in November 2002. Munoz's blood alcohol level was mentioned in several news articles after the shooting.

Rene Guevera was seen drinking out of a beer bottle and tested above the legal limit(0.08) for alcohol, when he was shot and killed by Officer Richard Prince in December 2003. His drinking was mentioned in several news articles, based on accounts provided by the police department.

Summer Marie Lane was under the influence of methamphetamine when she was shot and killed by Officer Ryan Wilson. Her drug use was mentioned at a briefing held by the department in December 2004.

Lee Deante Brown was alleged to have used PCP before he was shot and killed by Officer Terry Ellefson on April 3, 2006. Toxicology results will not be released until the department has completed its investigations, which will take at least six more months.

What?

On one level, it could be considered commendable that the department has declined to release the toxicology results, because it might go along with their statement that they do not wish to "try" the investigation in the press. This decision to do so would deviate from past practice where the police department has either commented on or released toxicology results as soon as they came in. This left many community members feeling as if the department was using those test results to justify the actions of their officers in these shootings, especially when those statements were made in the initial days and weeks after the shootings occurred. This sentiment was most prevalent after the shooting of Miller and led to a lot of complaints and heated discussions on the issue in different circles.

However, one problem with this sudden reversal on protocol is that when it comes to Brown, there has already been this assumption floating around for several weeks that he was on PCP when he was shot by Ellefson. This assumption which was provided on several occasions by representatives from the police department has been used to explain and defend the officers' actions against him. One woman said that when she had asked an officer how Brown could grab a taser out of an officer's hand, she was told that a man on PCP had the strength of three men.

Then there are people like "Asti Spamati"(whomever or whatever he is) who seem to believe that he is not mentally ill at all, just using illegal substances including PCP and rock cocaine, when often the line between the mentally ill and the drug addict can be blurred by the fact that untreated mentally ill people may attempt to self-medicate by using legal substances(alcohol) and illegal substances, according to medical experts.

A lot of the assumptions about Brown first arose when it was revealed that one witness, possibly Kenneth Williams, had told Officer Michael Stucker that Brown was on PCP. The police department acknowledged at its April 12 briefing that a witness had made that initial comment. Also, Brown had been arrested without incident on April 1 at a motel, for being under the influence of an illegal substance, which the department said was PCP.

However, was Brown under the influence of PCP when he was shot by police two days later? Only those who have access to the tests can know for sure and they are not talking, even though they were the ones who first put that word out there.

Those tests could have different possible outcomes. Brown could have been on PCP either alone or with another substance. Brown could have tested negatively for all controlled substances, or he could have tested positively for another drug altogether(i.e marijuana).

Another factor that could explain the disparate treatment by the police department is that the turnaround for laboratories for blood alcohol testing is much faster than it is for drug testing and most of the previous cases involved alcohol intoxication. While initial drug tests might come back several days to several weeks after the samples are drawn, more detailed drug screening may take up to six weeks or longer. Consequently, the information is available to be disseminated earlier.

More detailed drug screening is most often done when the initial tests are positive for controlled substances. Getting an accurate toxicology reading from someone who has died also poses complications including delays as well, although especially in Miller's case it did not prevent positive test results for several substances being made readily available for public dissemination. In Brown's case, his toxicology tests had been expedited in order to learn the truth quickly, the police chief reassured people at one meeting.

With all this aside, it still is curious that the police department has opted not to release the results of its toxicology tests, even as the discussion of Brown's possible PCP use has suddenly died down from its corner. Those who are cynical might think that the department has already received the toxicology results and they did not reveal what had been expected. Hopefully, the department has learned enough in the past five years to not choose to withhold them for that reason.

The department's current position is that it will not release the toxicology results until it has completed its investigation which may take six months or longer. By then, the public's attention will have probably moved on(hopefully, not towards the next shooting).

If Brown did test positive for PCP, then it's a contributing factor to a tragic situation which led to his death. PCP will be the major focus of attention rather than mental illness and it will deter people from tackling the issues of either problem because he will be labeled as a person who deserves what he got.

However, if the reality is instead, that Brown was not on PCP at the time he was shot to death, it will be quietly whispered as a footnote on a piece of paper stacked together with hundreds of other papers in a three-ring binder that defines the department's own investigation. PCP will still be the major focus of attention rather than the issue of mental illness and it will deter people from tackling the issues of either problem because he will be labeled as a person who deserves what he got.

Well, at least until it's the CPRC's turn to evaluate all the evidence and information in addition to what it has gathered on its own. Since its own evaluation takes place in a more public arena, the public will be allowed to participate while it drafts its public report. Once that report becomes public, so will Brown's PCP status. Then whether the answer is positive or negative, it will likely be known why the department withheld this information as well, given that it did put that information out there in the first place.

If the test was positive, then hopefully, by that time the department will have started putting together tactical strategies and training to at least deal with individuals under the influence of PCP so something beneficial can come out of this tragedy. Because the officers were operating at least under the assumption that Brown was on PCP(based on information given to them) this is something that needs to be done. It will probably choose not to tackle the more complex issues of mental illness if it can focus its attention elsewhere, which will then have to wait until the next critical incident involving a mentally ill person. Just like other critical incidents that occurred before the Brown shooting were ignored.

If Brown was not on PCP, nothing will happen or change in the interim. Unless that truth comes out, Brown's legacy will be that he was high on PCP when he died, not that his death became the cornerstone of the RPD's new crisis intervention program on addressing the interactions between police officers and the mentally ill.

The CPRC's Role in All This?

Last week, the CPRC received its briefing on the shooting of Lee Deante Brown. It had already initiated its own investigation into the shooting, the day after it happened. The investigator has interviewed witnesses including several new ones, which is good news at least for the investigation that they were found. It remains to be seen if that is good news for the police department as well.

It will take months before the investigator returns to the CPRC with his completed report in hand to brief the CPRC in much greater detail than the briefing that took place last week. The commissioners will review that information, along with the entire investigative report submitted by the police department's homicide division. Then the CPRC will begin the process of drafting its own report, including holding discussions on how its members viewed the shooting, in relation to its adherence(or lack thereof) to departmental policy. After the report is completed, the commissioners will then access the administrative review conducted by the Internal Affairs Division of the department's own criminal investigation and then meet behind closed doors to discuss, deliberate and ultimately decide whether or not the shooting was within departmental policy.

Six times out of seven, that process has led to the CPRC affirming the department's own investigation. One time, it did not. Before the final decision was made, unidentified correspondents on this site predicted, even boasted that the CPRC ultimately would hold no power in terms of determining the outcome of a fatal officer-involved shooting. Ultimately, they were correct in their assertions. The city manager's office abstained from the decision and left it up to Chief Russ Leach who sided with his department's own investigation to the surprise of no one. The outcome was likely not as spontaneous as it seemed, given the comments written here that prophesied it. Sounds more like a contingency plan was in place.

The relationship between the CPRC and the various factions of the RPD has been a stormy one. For some, it's a public relations tool to bridge the gap(some might say gorge) between the department and the communities in Riverside. Others look at it as if it is the devil's incarnate. Still others look at it as something in between.

Here once again, is Officer Hands Tied to give his perspective on the issue. Some congratulations are in order. Officer Hands Tied has won the prestigious Scoobie award for the best acting performance during a non-winning political campaign.



HOST: Good morning, Officer Hands Tied. I understand that this is an issue that you remain very passionate about. Do you think that this form of oversight is necessary?

HT: Of course not. It's just unnecessary duplication, repetition and replication of what we already have in place. We have the D.A's office, the State AG's office, the U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI and God.

HOST: Well, some might argue that if you are so sure you are always doing the right thing, then you wouldn't be afraid of one more form of oversight.

HT: It's just sooooo unnecessary.

HOST: But it's a young body. It's only been around this century. Wouldn't you say it's a diamond in the rough?

HT: No. I don't like diamonds anyway. They are hard, unforgiving gems whose clarity is dependent on where they came from. One minute you can not see it in front of you, then there it is sits on top of the mantle out of reach. It spends time on Rick's list, located under the palm tree, then ascends up the glass ladder to a place in the meadow already cleared before it. Gold is my thing. Everywhere. I'd bathe in it if I could. Gold is pretty to the eye, uniform in color and pliable. Where I came from, it was very abundant.

HOST: Say what?

HT: If I were Rumplestilskin, I could make it.

HOST: But you are not him. He's a mean little man who wanted something he could never have.

HT: He did pray for people though.

HOST: Don't you think that you might be just a little sensitive about the reality that nine civilians are standing in judgment of how you do your job?

HT: You have to have a thick skin to move up in this place. That's what I learned. It took me a while though, one act of rebellion before I spoke up for the bystander. It's tough to be a diamond in this world. Tougher still to be me.

HOST: I've lost you there.

HT: Remember who I am after all. What I am.

HOST: How much celebrating did you do after the dissolution of the Stipulated Judgment anyway? It sounds like quite a bit.

HT: Oh 40 ounces here, more there. It was a party that was a long time coming after all. Plenty of time left to celebrate.

HOST: O-kay. It's not always a pleasure to talk with you, but it's always interesting.

RPD Briefing Before the CPRC

On April 12, representatives from the police department appeared before the Community Police Review Commission to present the department's official version(up to now)of what happened before and during the April 3 shooting of Lee Deante Brown.

According to Capt. Jim Cannon:

At 1:26 pm, the department received a call of a man acting suspiciously near the intersection of Loma Vista and Ottawa. According to the police department, Brown was lying down in the street, jumping on cars, screaming and exposing himself to people. Brown then headed towards University Avenue and walked into traffic, causing cars to stop abruptly to avoid hitting him.

Officer Michael Stucker, who Cannon referred to as "Paul Stucker", was monitoring his police radio and he headed towards The Welcome Inn of America motel at 1910 University Avenue. When he arrived, a man told him that Brown might be on PCP. Stucker then called for backup. At the time, Brown was lying in the parking lot. When he saw Stucker approach him, Brown retreated to the alcove. Stucker gave numerous commands, and Brown did not comply, instead saying "You can't hurt me" and talking to Jesus. He advanced towards Stucker and Stucker tased him, knocking him down on the ground. Brown got up and Stucker tased him again.

At 1:55 pm, Officer Terry Ellefson arrived onscene. He asked Stucker to undo his taser so he could handcuff Brown. Ellefson apprehended Brown on the ground and handcuffed his left wrist. When he tried to put handcuffs on his right wrist, Brown got to his feet. Ellefson tased Brown, but it had no effect. Stucker got closer and tased him directly on his body. At that point, Brown grabbed Stucker's arm and Stucker felt the electricity in his body. At some point, there was prongs from the taser stuck in his hand.

Stucker then took his expandable baton and struck Brown an undisclosed number of times. Ellefson tased Brown on his right shoulder and tried to grab the loose handcuff which was swinging wildly. Ellefson and Brown struggled further. Both Ellefson and Stucker saw Brown with the taser in his hand(but there was no explanation provided by the department in terms of how he got hold of it) and he began advancing towards the officers. They backed up and Ellefson then took his service weapon out and shot Brown twice.

Cannon then said that the two officers were the only two to see the taser in Brown's hand.

"Witnesses somehow were unaware that Brown had grabbed the taser," he said.

This was mentioned at the very end of the presentation almost as an aside. The civilian witnesses either had blinked and missed the struggle over the officer's taser or they are the liars with axes to grind that "Joe Citizen" claimed them to be in his earlier comment. Those are the two possible explanations that the department can possibly come up with to explain the conflicting information provided by the civilian witnesses and the two police officers involved in the fatal shooting. A third possibility is one that it is not really ready for and it is doubtful that it ever will be. Hopefully, evidence not testimony from the department can put this possibility to rest.

Maybe they are right. Maybe they do have all the answers, all the evidence and have opted to withhold both from the public. Because it is early in the investigation of a critical incident, it might be appropriate to do so. One problem with doing this, is that while they are declining to offer evidence of why they have reached the conclusions that they have, they are making judgments themselves in public about a recent event. While doing so might present no problem with the department or the "Joe Citizens" of the world, it might be construed by other people as having made up one's mind from the start or are in a sense, circling the wagons. This might be particularly true for people who live in communities where relations between residents and the police department have been strained for many years. Some of these people might wonder and many have, why does the department even bother to collect their eyewitness accounts of critical incidents at all?

If the civilians had agreed 100% with the version provided by the police department, would there be any comments by anyone about them having "axes to grind"? Would there be any sarcastic comments by anyone about them being upstanding people at a "fine motel establishment" on University Avenue?

Probably not. In that case, they would most likely be viewed as the most truthful, pro-police individuals in the universe, not to mention the best witnesses out there. It's one thing if the "Joe Citizens" of the world practice this dichotomy. Quite another, if the police department practices it too.

Even the police chief referred to civilian witnesses who were quoted about the shooting in the Press Enterprise as "mystery witnesses" at a recent meeting. Words like that while meant to explain or even soothe, can actually fuel further dissent, because the police department has not yet repaired all the bridges which it had spent the last three decades burning. Yet even as the department has written off the accounts of civilian witnesses for reasons still unexplained, it is asking the CPRC's investigator to provide it with contact information for any new witnesses who turn up. Hopefully, this is more than just an exercise. Still, by asking this of the CPRC, it shows that the department is admitting and recognizing the CPRC's power granted to it by the city's charter to conduct its own independent investigation.

Community members who attended the briefing before the CPRC walked away from it shaking their heads. A few asked each other, if they had heard at exactly what point the police department had stated how the taser went from Ellefson's hand to Brown's and then agreed they had heard nothing about that. In a depiction of a shooting that narrated every other action taken by Brown down to the exact detail, why was the most important detail of the entire critical incident still missing?

Hopefully, these questions will be answered in coming weeks.

Columnist Dan Bernstein wrote a very good column on April 14. He has been a regular attendee at recent community meetings on the issue. One point he raised, that even if the version the department has provided of the shooting is the accurate one, it still does not paint a pretty picture.

Bad Day in April

He writes about the LAPD's crisis intervention program, known as SMART which pairs up law enforcement officers with mental health experts. Other cities have created similar programs to address police officers' interactions with the mentally ill populations. Some of these programs were created in response to critical incidents including those where mentally ill people were killed.

LASD MET and other programs

Memphis PD Crisis Intervention program

Portland Police Bureau's CIT program

One community resident in this city offered up information she had learned about a similar program to Riverside's city council.

Their collective response? YAWN. Blink. Blink. Hardly surprising. The Attorney General's office is gone. Hopefully, this is not a sign that the city council's interest in the department's operation has gone with it.

Leach has also voiced his concern on this issue, and said there was a lot more to be done by the department in this area. In response, there were no shortage of community residents offering him assistance addressing this challenge. One hopes that he takes them up on their offers and utilizes their collective expertise on mental health issues to come up with a similar program for the RPD. Community members and the police department working together to grapple with a serious issue as this one, is what community policing in practice is about after all.

And So It Begins

And So it Begins.

Just 31 days after being released from its obligations under the Stipulated Judgment, the Riverside Police Department experienced its first critical incident: The shooting of an unarmed Black man on University Avenue by a police officer. Not an auspicious beginning for the department and those who now run it, coming quickly on the heels of the celebration of the end of one era and the beginning of the next. For others who were concerned about the dissolution of the stipulated judgment in March, not an entirely unexpected one. To them, it seemed more like a nightmare in waiting. What is past is prologue, after all.

Meetings took place almost immediately afterwards in the community. Chief Russ Leach, with RPOA president Kent Tutwiler and Vice-President Brian Smith in tow attended one meeting last Thursday. He chose every word he said carefully in front of his audience. After all, for police chiefs in any agency including this one, the "wrong" words said in the heat of the moment about a critical incident can make or break a career. Just ask Sonny Richardson, Ken Fortier and Jerry Carroll. But, this question in this case was already asked and answered during a pivotal moment last year.

Kent and Brian have to do their part as well, or else over 250 officers will hand them their walking papers, just as surely as they elected them only several months ago. The struggle between union and union leadership and union and management is played on dozens of similar stages each year. There are some dynamics even the Attorney General of the state of California can't touch, let alone change.

Just as with shootings past, a dual process quickly arose in public discussions. There are the whats, whens, wheres, whos and whys of the critical incident itself. Then comes the ifs. If we had done this, would this had happened? If they had this training, this equipment, this toy, that personality profile test, would things have changed in terms of the outcome?

In this case, pushing itself to the forefront are issues pertaining to how the police officer interact or "handle" mentally ill people particularly those in the homeless population. According to a policy and procedure manual that used to be available for the public to read in the public library, there was little if any language in terms of policies addressing the mentally ill, the mentally incapacitated and those engaging in what is called, "suicide by cop"(itself a product of the dismal history which has preceded it). Chief Leach himself admitted the department needed to do far more in this area.

Talk also reemerged on the issue of diversity training, and what struck me was how this Black woman at a April 10 "community healing" meeting just said, "they treat us like animals." Some might(and apparently have) said that this is how they should be treated or have joked about it. After all, considerable language had been used denegrating people of color on this particular area of this particular street of this particular neighborhood here. The police chief had also admitted in December that the department's diversity training was infrequent, inadequate and outdated. Supposedly, the Human Relations Commission's members have been entrusted with assisting in its update. But will it be enough to "teach" officers about the cultural beliefs, communication styles and practices of other ethnic and racial groups? And who should do that teaching?

Officer Involved Shooting

DATE: April 3, 2006 at 1:59 pm

LOCATION: Welcome Inn of America(Ottawa and University)

NAME: Lee Deante Brown, 31

history: 1997 conviction P.C. 459, several arrests for being under the influence of a substance

OFFICER: Terry Ellefson

history: Fatal Officer involved shooting, Nov. 15, 2005

CIVILIAN WITNESSES:

John, a maintenance man:



"He was on his knees. He[an officer] shot him twice at close range. Bam. Bam."



Kenneth Williams:

(Press Enterprise, 4/6/06)



Williams said Brown only grabbed the electrode-tipped wires that shot out of the Taser at him. When Brown jerked the wires, the cartridge tip of the Taser broke off, Williams said, but the weapon remained in the officer's hand. Williams said Brown flung the wires away.

Williams said Ellefson then shocked Brown by holding the prongs of a Taser against him, but it had no effect.

At that point, Williams said, Ellefson shot Brown in the shoulder.

Williams said Brown spun around from the shot and said, " 'You can't kill me (expletive). I'm God!' " Then the officer shot him in the chest, Williams said.

Racheal Bacon:

(Press Enterprise, 4/4)

Bacon said she was in her room when she heard someone yell, "Get down! Get down on the ground!" and "Stay on the ground, or I'll Taser you again!"

Bacon said she stepped out of her room and saw a police officer and a tall, thin man with jeans and no shirt sitting on the ground in front of the door to a nearby room. The officers shocked the man several times, she said, and one officer hit him with a nightstick.

Bacon said one of the officers had managed to get one handcuff on the man, but he was pulling away from the officer.

Then, Bacon said, the police shot the man twice.

"You could tell he had no idea what was going on," she said. "You could tell that he was really scared."

Bacon said she did not see Brown grab the Taser.

When Brown was shot, she said, "He was basically injured and on the ground."

James Bell:

(Press Enterprise, 4/4, 4/5)

James Bell, a passerby who said he watched the confrontation unfold from the sidewalk, wondered why the officers used Tasers on Brown in the first place.

"He wasn't hurting anybody," Bell said.

THE POLICE DEPARTMENT:



Press Release written by Sgt. Leon Phillips, Homicide Unit:



"Ellefson lost control of his taser, which was grabbed by the
subject. Officer Ellefson feared the taser would be used against him
because of their close proximity and fired his weapon at the subject, striking him twice."



Sgt. Mike Cook, Audit and Compliance Panel:

(Press Enterprise, April 5)



Cook said he was not sure whether Ellefson dropped the Taser or Brown took it from him.

COMMUNITY MEMBERS:

African-American woman, Eastside(4/10)

"They treat us like animals"

Woodie Rucker-Hughes, NAACP Riverside Chapter president(4/10)

"There are a lot of questions that need to be answered."

Suzy Medina, longtime resident, Eastside

"This is 2006. Every time we want something in the community, somebody has to die."

Medina also spoke about the blood soaked pavement which still marked the spot where Brown died. In other areas that had experienced officer-involved shootings the sidewalk had been washed clean.

"So what, it's just the Eastside," Medina said.

CPRC Briefing:



April 12, 2006 at 6pm, City Hall





Articles:

RPD officer shoots man

RPD officer loses taser, shoots man

Witnesses contradict police department's narrative

And so the marriage ends

Last week, as was reported by an anonymous field correspondant on this site, the State Attorney General's office quietly dissolved its marriage to the city of Riverside, inside the courtroom of Riverside County Superior Court judge Sharon Waters.

Soon after Officer B. Fife and his friends uncorked the cyber champagne and celebrated the noteworthy event, which brought to an end the relentless supervision that they had been forced to endure for the past five years. By the time, the last drop of cyber liquor had been consumed, their behavioral expert Dr. Lawman was urging people to forget about the consent decree because it was over and to go off and read a book some place. In other words, to not look behind the curtain.

If that was not strange enough, the next day a series of opinion articles appeared in the Press Enterprise from the various parties in the marriage that had lasted longer than many more traditional ones. Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who engineered the shotgun marriage and Chief Russ Leach, who carried it out. They urged the city's residents to take heart in the fact that the police department had improved greatly and was most certainly not the same department it had been in 1998, when four officers fired 25 bullets that were heard around the world. But their combined efforts seemed to be geared more towards addressing that other partner in both the marriage and its aftermath, the City Council.

In past years, the city council has neglected its duties of overseeing the operations of the police department, including the funding provided necessary for it to be a viable law enforcement agency operating both within state law and the state and federal constitutions. That trend had to change, both Lockyer and Leach in tandem admonished.

A third voice joined them in the campaign, abeit one who was more cautious in his choice of words. Jack Clarke, jr. who had chaired the original task force that had preceded the more formal marriage carefully mixed praise with caution in his piece.

First on the pulpit is Lockyer or as one former RPD officer not so affectionately called him in a letter to the Press Enterprise, "The Carpetbagger from the North".

The Job's Still unfinished

Lockyer was pretty positive that the police department had changed both its attitude and its operations. However, he did urge the reform process to continue forward to ensure that this time the reforms would stick.

It's crucial that the city continue to implement the policies and procedures required by the stipulated judgment. And it's imperative that the city provide the resources to implement the Police Department's strategic plan for community policing. That plan should be a driving force in the continuing effort to maintain a safer community and more responsive Police Department that continues to respect the law while it enforces it.

Leach was on deck next and he was just as effusive.

The new accountable RPD

Riverside overcame early feelings of resentment and resistance, and embraced the challenge of the consent decree as a rare opportunity to make substantive change and create a more transparent, "new" RPD. An effective partnership was forged between the department, the city and the community -- as "co-producers of public safety" -- to oversee and drive reforms.

Leach acknowleged the massive financial investment, which was over $22 million and touches on the more personal investment which has exacted a cost more difficult to measure.

Last, comes Clarke, jr. with his words of caution regarding the past practice of the city council of putting its toys on the shelf when it gets tired of playing with them.
Too Soon to Close the Book

If history is a predictor of the future, the city administration will want to move on to new projects and close the book on a job well done.

I hope that doesn't happen. If it does, we will have made a conscious decision to play the odds, assuming nothing like that could happen again. I hope not. But if the unthinkable does occur, I pray Riverside will be able to rely on the reservoir of goodwill that will result if community/police relations are cultivated rather than ignored.

Wise words, because too often what is past is prologue in the city of Riverside.


And before the chapter is closed on the marriage of convenience between the State of California and the city of Riverside, here's another viewpoint on this contentious issue. Oft-columnist and talk show guest, Officer "Hands Tied" is here to give his spin on the landmark event last week.




**Officer Hands Tied's words in his interview are a compilation of what this site's visitors have posted here on various topics. In a sense, he symbolizes the police culture that still maintains a hold on the department. Even his image and the campaign that surrounded the use of his image speaks to that police culture by saying hey do what we say, or we won't be there when you need us. Ignore him at your peril, because before you know it, he'll be back in charge again. **


HOST: The Stipulated Judgement went in like a lion and departed like a lamb. What do you think of the state's decision to dissolve the judgement?

HT: (puts down champagne glass) I think it's really great. Yeah, it's been a long and difficult five years, but we held up just fine. There's no way some outside agitator is going to tell us what to do. That has never happened and it never will.

HOST: So, what ahem, are your plans now?

HT: Why to take our department back of course. We'll take it back from the communists, the radicals, the hippies and the agitators. We'll make sure all our field training officers are proactive so they don't pass in these new lazy cowardly officers that we've got now. We will also not allow anyone to put the department in danger by hiring more women. Even though they're hired b/c like Leach says, they are the "best of the best", it's clear that's not true if they keep having to be rephased until they can find a weak FTO to pass them through. After we do all this to get back to the good old days, I think we'll be going to Disneyland.

HOST: What about the community?

HT: Well, the ones with people in them, they're happy as long as they can hold their soccer matches on time and they don't get cancelled by the referees on the account of rain. They don't care what we do because they never really see us. As for the others who know who they are, they don't matter because they're not people anyway. And if they don't like us, we'll just hand them off to that other agency.

HOST: Aren't you worried that management will be concerned?

HT: Not really. You see we're like those apples in the barrel. As soon as we ripen, all the apples in the vicinity will ripen as well. Our numbers may be small now, but they are not as small as management thinks and they will grow. City Council members will be concerned for a while, but then they will go back to being wrapped up in development projects and housing growth and they will soon forget all about us.

HOST: Are you sure about that?

HT: Oh yeah, management will try to shut us up because they don't want to hear the truth, but we'll always be the ones who will tell what's really going down. So if you really want to know what's going on, let's do lunch some time.

HOST: The truth?

HT: Oh yeah. Well this is been fun but I've got to go shave my head in a few...See you later!

Rolo Tomasi, Riverside Style: A Lesson in Three Acts

Rolo Tomasi, Riverside Style: A Play in Three Acts


A Lesson in Police Culture



*Cast of characters: TBA



Setting: Rivercity, 2006


Plot: This is the story about a group of police officers who decided to be themselves on a Web site and how they got away with it...and laughed about it and at their management.


To be Continued.....



***due to the difficulty of negotiating through the labyrinth that goes with the process of obtaining permission to use the names of several of the trade-marked television characters used on this site for this play, some name substitutions may have to be made.***

Sutton: The City Strikes Back

On Oct. 20, a Riverside County Superior Court jury awarded Officer Roger Sutton with a $1.64 million verdict, after finding that the Riverside Police Department had engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination and retaliation against him.

Only two months later, the city of Riverside struck back by filing a motion in court, asking for a new trial.

In response, presiding Commissioner Joan F. Burgess denied the city's motion and said that while she believed that the city's allegation that the verdict was excessive was its strongest argument in its motion, the jury's award was still within the legal boundaries of what was reasonable.

"I think it's high," Burgess said, "It doesn't shock my sense of justice."

Attorney Eugene Ramirez, who represented the police department, had argued in his motion and in court that the verdict, particularly the $1.5 million set aside for noneconomic damages, was excessive.

In addition to noneconomic damages, the jury had awarded $140,945 in economic damages. The jury's decision had been unaminous on the issues of racial discrimination and retaliation, but was split 10-2 on whether or not Sutton was harassed by other officers on the basis of his race. The jury also split 11-1 on the size of the noneconomic damages, according to court records. The jury reached its verdict after hearing evidence from dozens of witnesses in a trial which lasted over a month.

Ramirez said that he believed that the the fact that the noneconomic damages were more than 10 times higher than the economic damages meant that the jury used emotion in making its decision. He also criticized comments made by one juror to a Press Enterprise reporter that the verdict was meant to send a message to the city, as indication that the damages awarded were punitive in nature.

"You experience a verdict that is so out of whack you have to sit down and ask yourself, why," Ramirez said.

Burgess strongly disagreed.

"It was on the high side, "Burgess said, " I just can't say it was done in a punitive nature."

Burgess also said that the jury's award was probably greater than she would have awarded if she were a tryer of the facts, but she repeatedly said that it was not offensive to a person's sense of justice, which was the legal standard.

Ramirez still insisted that the jury had erred in its decision.

He said that he had reviewed all the trial transcripts but still could not find a reason why the jury made the decision it did against his client.

"Look at all this evidence and you wonder, what was this jury thinking," Ramirez said, "Was it emotional or was it prejudice against the city?"

Both Burgess and Sutton's attorneys provided some explanations as to why the jury had reached its decision.

Attorney Samantha Goodman who represented Sutton said that there was no evidence that the size of the verdict was "out of bounds" based on what was at trial. She added that the emotional damages suffered by Sutton were much more severe than the economic damages. The jury saw that and made its decision, accordingly.

"Their argument is that it is too high and they can't point to any reason, " Goodman said.

Sutton's other attorney, Scott Silverman, said that the jury foreman had said in a Press Enterprise news article that Sutton's attorneys had made a good case presenting the disparate treatment Sutton had received in comparison to White officers under similar circumstances.

In 1999, Sutton was removed from the canine division after his dog, Bor, had accidently bitten another officer, causing injuries which led to her retirement. During the trial, his attorneys had presented evidence through witness testimony that White canine officers including Tim Bacon, Steve Sdringola, Ed Blevins and Dave Taylor had handled dogs who were also involved in accidental bites, but none of these men were disciplined by the department. In fact, several of them were promoted at least once after their dogs were involved in accidental bites, including Bacon, who was involved in an incident which also led to the retirement of another officer. Bacon never received any discipline in relation to his incident which also left him seriously injured and he was promoted twice since then, including most recently to lieutenant.

Blevins's dog was also involved in two incidents, including one where the dog ran off and was lost for several hours. Blevins was not disciplined and he remained in the canine unit until he was promoted to sergeant. Now, he is a lieutenant.

Testimony was also presented by other police officers including Lt. Alex Tortes about hostile and unfair treatment against minority officers who were promoted to the command staff. Tortes had testified that he and another minority officer were subjected to the "exclusionary rule" and not included in discussions that involved decision making processes among management personnel who were White. Tortes and former Lt. Ron Orrantia, who was Hispanic, were also referred to as "Jerry's Kids", a term they found to be derogatory and offensive.

Burgess said that both sides had presented a lot of evidence to the jury that supported their respective positions. She added that she believed that the evidence presented by Sutton's attorney regarding retaliatory behavior by the department was "key to why they came up with that type of decision".

Retaliatory incidents that allegedly occurred after Sutton complained about racism in the department included an incident where his car was keyed, the placement of an offensive poster in his workplace, ostracization by other officers and an incident in April 2005 when the lieutenant watch commander allegedly moved the hands of the clock forward to set him up for discipline for being late to work. Sutton had said that a sergeant alerted him to what had happened and he arrived on time. When Sutton and a representative from the Riverside Police Officers Association addressed the incident, no discipline was imposed against Sutton and the matter was dropped, he testified at trial.

Burgess said that the presentation of the Home Boy flier may have been particularly influencial in the jury's decision. That flier spoofed a gun product, using racial stereotypes and had created controversy in other cities across the nation, in part because it was viewed as racially offensive. According to court records, the flier had been displayed on a bulletin board at the Orange Street Station for several months in 2001 at the time the city entered into its stipulated agreement with the State Attorney General's office to reform the department. In 2004, it was displayed in the breakroom at Lincoln Field Operations Station, according to Silverman.

"Someone on the jury may have been offended by that poster," Burgess said.

In the motion filed on Dec. 2, the city had stated that it would seek either a new trial or a reduction in the jury's verdict to $420,000. The city stated that the jury awarded excessive damages and its verdict was not supported by evidence. The motion also alleged that presiding commissioner Joan Burgess failed to properly instruct the jury and improperly excluded relevent evidence which was prejudiced against the city.
Sutton's attorneys had stated in their response to the motion that the evidence at trial clearly proved Sutton's allegations that he suffered racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation from the police department, after he complained about disparate treatment.

The jury's verdict favoring Sutton was the second decision made during a legal proceeding which awarded him financial compensation, since he filed his law suit in August 2000.

In March 2004, Sutton was forced to take his case to arbitration after the civil court system was shut down to handle a backload of criminal trials. After hearing the evidence presented by both parties, an arbitrator awarded Sutton $200,000 in June 2004. The city council decided in closed session to take the case to trial.

In an interview in 2004, Silverman had welcomed the opportunity to try the case in front of a jury.

"They want to roll the dice again. I think Roger if anything will do better in front of a jury than a judge," Silverman said in May 2004.

That turned out to be the case. It is not clear at this point, whether the city will decide to appeal the jury's decision at the Court of Appeals. Past history has shown that the city has been reluctant to pay out money on racial discrimination cases involving Black employees, while at the same time, it has settled at least one prior law suit alleging reverse racial and gender discrimination filed by six White male sergeants in 2000.

Ramirez appeared as unconvinced in the validity of the jury's decision, as the city often appears unconvinced that there is racism within its own workplace, even as it had battled another racial discrimination and harassment law suit originally filed by 17 Black city employees in U.S. District Court nearly 10 years ago. Burgess, however, remained steadfast in her decision.

"I don't know what the cutoff level is, but this is not it," Burgess said, just before she denied the city's motion.

Blowing off steam....in San Francisco

While the LAPD is trying to extricate itself from its consent decree with the Department of Justice by promising to equip its entire fleet of squad cars with video cameras, another law enforcement agency is trying to deal with a controversy that has erupted from the department's use of video equipment for entertainment purposes.

Over 30 San Francisco Police Department officers face suspensions for videos made while onduty, depicting stereotypes that city officials and community members have said are racist, sexist and homophobic.

Amazingly, or not, the only people who appear unsurprised by the content of these videos, are the community members of Bayview. But then again, the videos have just been depicting what they knew to be there all along. It may be(or not) news to the politicians, but not to them.



EXCERPTS

Mayor Gavin Newsome criticized the videos as being racist, sexist and homophobic. Not surprisingly, the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Bayview were outraged by them, including one scene where a Black homeless woman was run over by a squad car. Outraged, but again not surprised.

Bayview residents reacted angrily to the videos. Newsom has promised widespread department reforms.

On Friday, after learning that other insensitive videos had been made public, Newsom renewed his criticism of officers who, he says, "just fail to get it."

No, Mayor Newsom, it is you who doesn't "get it".

"A small group of officers made a video on city time when they should have been out fighting crime. They used city resources to make a parody they insist is benign, but which at worst is racist and sexist and outrageously offensive to this community.

--- Mayor Newsome

The police union president apologized for the scandal, abeit with the usual caveat attached: The neighborhood made us do it.

Gary Delagnes, president of the 2,200-member San Francisco Police Officers Assn., said the videos should never have been made. "It's an embarrassment to the department and the officers involved," he said. "We're wrong, and we have to take our medicine."

Before you get too excited by that "apology", here comes the caveat:

But Delagnes said that the videos were made by officers in stressful jobs who wanted to blow off steam.

"The precinct where they work is the Iraq of the city of San Francisco," he said. "They are outgunned and outmanned, and just a year ago one of their numbers was murdered.

"And so a bunch of officers, white, black, Asian, women and gay, got together and made a video they thought was going to be shown at their captain's retirement dinner. It was their way of dealing with the futility of their jobs."

By engaging in racist, sexist and homophobic stereotyping for entertainment purposes? The officers chose to engage in this behavior because of who they are, not what they do. After all, the majority of SFPD officers had nothing to do with making these particular videos.


The Bayview community's response:

On Friday, Milton Williams, head pastor at Bayview Baptist Church for 23 years, met at City Hall with other religious leaders to discuss how to handle rising anger over the videos. He said he was stumped about the sermon he would deliver Sunday.

"There is an incredible amount of anger out there," Williams said. "Some people are surprised and outraged. But I've heard from people who say, 'I'm not shocked at all. This is the kind of behavior I've seen for years.' "

At the meeting, which included priests, ministers, rabbis, Franciscan friars and Buddhist monks, one cleric said the city "cannot stomach a bunch of cops gone wild." Another called for the officers involved to be fired.

But Williams said he was going to call for calm from the pulpit. "We shouldn't be about pointing fingers."

San Francisco PD films videos to "blow off steam"
***registered site***

Wanted: Assistant Police Chief

This just in from the International Assn of Police Chiefs Web site:

Position: Assistant Police Chief
Deadline: 12/23/2005
Agency: City of Riverside, California
Location: Riverside, CA USA
Salary: $115,460-$151,021

Qualifications:

Successful candidates should possess a minimum of fifteen years of increasingly progressive municipal law enforcement experience including attaining rank of Captain or above. If you have a proven track record of managerial effectiveness, a demonstrated ability to lead a complex police organization to achieve critical goals, possess a BA/BS degree and are committed to Community Oriented Policing, you are encouraged to apply. Completion of a recognized advanced law enforcement leadership program or comparable advanced management training program with a Master’s Degree in law enforcement, business or public administration is highly desirable.

Responsibilities: The City of Riverside, California (pop 300,000), the 13th largest City in California and recently named as “America’s Most Livable Community” is seeking an energetic, self-driven and results oriented municipal law enforcement professional to serve as its Assistant Police Chief. Riverside is centrally located in southern California approximately 60 miles east of Los Angeles and 100 miles north of San Diego. The City’s total budget of 555.7 million reflects a staff of approximately 2,600 including 394 sworn personnel and 185 civilian employees in the Police Department. The position serves as the Chief of Staff and is the Acting Police Chief in the Chief’s absence. The position assumes full management responsibilities for the overall operations of a large, modern and data-driven metropolitan Police Department.
Special Conditions: Out of State candidates will be expected to acquire California POST certification within one year of employment.

For more information, contact:Teresa McAllister3780 Market StreetRiverside,CA 92501USAPhone: (951)826-5239Fax: (951)826-5922Email: tmcallis@riversideca.govWebsite: http://www.riversideca.gov

How To Apply: Interested candidates should submit a completed application and supplemental with your resume by December 23, 2005. Recruitment package is available on-line or by contacting the: City of Riverside Human Resources Department, 3780 Market Street, Riverside, Ca 92501 (951) 826-5808 FAX (951) 826-2552 www.riversideca.gov

Hiding in Plain Sight: The women in the RPD

At a recent city council meeting, over 40 representatives from both the RPD's management and the RPOA's Board of Directors filled the city council chambers, to listen to and in some cases speak on several issues on the meeting agenda.

What was most notable about this gathering, was the absolute absense of female officers sitting in the audience. Where were they? They are not holding positions of leadership either in the department's management or in the union that is set up to represent them. That is why none were present in the audience.

Statistically, about 9% of all officers in the RPD are female. This number has remained fairly stagnant since 2000. While the numbers of female officers slowly climb, they lag behind the hiring of male officers, which is why the percentage of women in the department remains so low. There are three female sergeants, five female detectives and two female lieutenants, according to the 2004 EEO report issued by the Human Resources Department.

Nation-wide, about 17% of all law enforcement personnel are women. Why are the numbers in the RPD, the state's newest "model" agency so low? And why when the RPD does recruit women into its ranks, is their retention relatively poor?

One person I knew reported the following assertion by an officer she had been talking to, about female officers.

"I don't think women should be in law enforcement. I don't like them and they could never be as good as men"-- RPD cop(2002)

Why indeed.

In 1998, the city of Riverside paid out a handsome settlement well into the six-figures on a sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit filed by former Sgt. Christine Keers. Keers filed the complaint alleging that she faced a hostile work environment, a rather thick glass ceiling and retaliation under two police chiefs when she complained about unfair treatment.

Keers alleged that the mistreatment started when she joined the agency as a probational officer on May 15, 1981. She stated in her law suit she was subjected to many sexist and sexual comments on the job including the following:

"Women cops are like snails, when they get up, you can see the wet marks"

"Come and scoot across my face."

On one occasion, Keers alleged that former Det. Ron Adams saw her yawning and said:

"Her mouth is open. She must want to get promoted."

In 1993, an investigation was launched by the department when a unit secretary accidently heard through an open phone line sexist comments made by male detectives, including one that referred to a female officer as a "brood mare". Another was that "women did not know their place." Instead of disciplining the officers involved, the administration told Keers not to talk to the secretary because it would just upset her.

If two female officers were assigned to the same squad car, it was called the "lesbian" car.

Many of these comments were allegedly said in roll call sessions, the same roll call room which would later be placed by State Attorney General Bill Lockyer under video surveillance as part of the stipulated agreement. One would think this agency would have had a professional environment of professionals, but Keers in her suit against the city alleged otherwise.

When Keers tried to get promoted to sergeant, the situation really heated up, according to her law suit. Former Chief Linford "Sonny" Richardson promoted men who were less qualified, less experienced and who had disciplinary histoires, according to Keers' complaint. When asked why he promoted one male individual, Richardson said:

"I owed it to him for his faithfulness."

Richardson was eventually cycled out of the department's revolving door and Ken Fortier replaced him. As history would soon show, his stay at the helm of the top administrative position in the department would be relatively short. Still, Keers had to wait for her promotion, despite Fortier's assurances that she would be promoted if she dropped her grievance.

But she would not, and eventually was promoted to sergeant although her stint in that position was even briefer than Fortier's stint with the department. Soon after, Internal Affairs began investigating her and a criminal case was filed against her for knowingly buying stolen goods at a store.

The Riverside County District Attorney's office took the case but presented three conditions to the Police Department before it would be allowed to make an arrest. Those being that the department could not utilize informants for information who were working off cases, that officers who Keers had complained against not be involved and that an arrest not be done until the D.A.'s office authorized it. According to Keers' law suit, the department violated all three conditions.

Keers was arrested on Aug. 17, 1994 by three of the officers named in her past and present grievances: Sgt. Al Brown, Det. Ron Adams and former Capt. Michael Smith. Her case went to trial and she was acquitted after an hour of deliberation. A defense fund was initiated by officers within the department to raise money for court costs, until Fortier tried to thwart that fund raising effort.

The timing of the arrest and prosecution in relation to Keers' grievance filings, not to mention the parties involved in both processes are disturbing, but hardly novel in terms of how the department treats its "whistle blowers". Former Officer Rene Rodriguez was mirandized during his interview with Internal Affairs in relation to his discrimination and harassment complaint against the department after the division decided to reopen a closed out complaint against him involving an off-duty arrest.


Keers reported other retaliation in her law suit, which worsened as she navigated through the promotional process.

Graffiti in the men's bathroom at one facilty referred to Keers as a "bitch" and a "whore". Threatening and hang up phone call messages were left on her machine including one at the workplace which the caller said, "bitch, you are going to die." Fliers of sexual cartoons appeared on her desk and elsewhere in the department.

The city spent the relatively miniscule amount of $19,000 in court costs before it settled the case for considerably higher than that and eventually gave Keers a paid retirement at tax payer expense.

Today, the department like others has in place a policy governing sexual discrimination and harassment in the workplace, but former police chief Penny Harrington testified during the Roger Sutton law suit trial that although she found that policy adequate, she did not believe the enforcement and implementation of it was satisfactory.

The number of female officers in the department took a serious dip after 1999, which it only recently has begun to recover from, but the number of women promoted to higher positions especially those in management continues to lag. Women also traditionally have not served on their own union's board of directors, a glass ceiling of a different kind not likely to break soon. It is not clear whether there are any female officers serving as grievance representatives in the labor union, which means that if any sexual discrimination or harassment is taking place inside the department, it is much less likely to be reported to either the labor union or management.

During the state attorney general's investigation, evidence emerged that sexist and sexual jokes and comments were being told alongside their racist counterparts during roll call sessions. Hence, the decision to put video cameras in the roll call room, during its sessions to as, Bill Lockyer said, break the racist and sexist culture of the police department.

Recruitment of women continues to be difficult. At a departmental recruiting forum held in May 2004, there were few female officers present and only one, Det. Rita Cobb, participated in a demonstration involving police skills and tactics. Representatives from male-dominated divisions including Aviation, canine, motorcycle, bicycle, narcotics and SWAT/METRO were on display in front of the public but no female officers were present. During the SWAT/METRO question and answer session, one potential female officer candidate asked Sgt. Kendall Banks if there were any women on the SWAT Team. He answered, no because none of the women were strong enough.

The recruitment tables inside the boathouse had applications for both sworn positions and for nonsworn positions in the dispatch unit. The "officer" table was manned by a man. The "dispatcher" table was manned by a woman, which sent a message to women who attended the forum that they were hireable as dispatchers, rather than officers.

The Use of Force training Team has one female officer who recently was present at a training session given by the CPRC. However, except for a brief display of her considerable baton welding skills, she functioned mainly as the "suspect" to be searched, handcuffed and apprehended by the other male officers on the team who were allowed to display their defense skills. As a fully trained officer in the department, she would be required to be just as skilled in defense tactics as her male counterparts yet her skills were not put on display as theirs were during the demonstrations.

The RPD continues to do most of its local officer recruitment at ball parks, air shows and military installations, locations where they are likely to find far more men than women. Before the latest Iraqi war dried up the prospective pool, nearly 2/3 of its recruitment time and energy was spent at local military institutions including Camp Pendleton Marine Station.

Retention of women in the department and others like it continue to be a problem, particularly during the probational period when women are dropped for poor evaluations for being "too slow", lacking in "gusto" and other similar reasons. Experts in women and policing state that such terms are code words to promote the idea that female officers are simply inferior to their male counterparts. EEO reports for the past several years show a net gain of two female officers over a four year period.

Promotions for female officers remain few and far between. Women comprise less than 6% of all sergeants and less than 5% of all lieutenants. There are no female captains and there has only been one female deputy chief in the department's history. That situation is unlikely to change in the next five to ten years.

Which is a shame, because many studies done comparing female officers to male officers have favored the women, including those done on the issue of excessive force. In statistics provided for many larger law enforcement agencies, women comprise about 5% of complaints involving excessive force, 5% of citizen complaints and 2% of sustained complaints. Women engage in as many arrests as their male counterparts and do not hesitate to use force when necessary, but their rates of excessive force are far exceeded by male officers.

Financially, women are more cost-effective when it comes to civil litigation paid out by cities and counties in relation to excessive force, sexual assaults and domestic violence. Although nationally, women are outnumbered by about 6.5 to 1, in terms of law suits paid out, men outnumber women, anywhere from 20 to 40 to 1.

So the logical thing to do would be to hire more female officers, particularly as the department moves away from parimilitary style policing and continues to embrace Community Oriented Problem Solving policing. Yet, the numbers of female officers in the RPD will continue to lag behind those of men for a long time.

Legal Cases:

The People of the State of California vs Christine Keers(criminal)

Christine Keers vs the City of Riverside(Civil)

Links:

National Center of Women and Policing

Publications:

Excessive Force: A Tale of Two Genders

Recruiting and Retaining women: 2003 update (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

Effect of Content Decrees on Hiring Women: During and After (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

Police Officers and Domestic Violence: a study