CPRA watch ends

The CPRA request watch has officially ended.

A thick envelope has arrived from the Riverside Police Department last week, with responses to each one of the requests in the original letter. Bravo! It had arrived at the post office on Aug. 7 but had ended up in a storage room for a while.

Thanks also to Councilman Ed Adkison for his inquiry into the status of this CPRA request at the last city council meeting. Boo to City Attorney Gregory Priamos for shrugging his shoulders when asked about it.

Here is a list of the requested information and the response to each. Several of the items requested are in response to promises made by Chief Russ Leach and members of city management including at the March 28 Strategic Plan workshop at the city council meeting.


1) Quarterly progress of implementation of strategic
plan pursuant to guidelines set by workshop on 3/28

Response: "To date, consultant is still considering
the proposal from the City Manager's office"

2) Number of digital video recorders purchased by the
city of Riverside for installation on department
vehicles after March 28, 2006. [A budget allotment was approved to purchase enough recorders to outfit every squad car in the fleet.]

Response: "There has been no purchase since March 28.
Demonstration tests will be evaluated in early Fall
2006.

3) Amount of money to be allocated and its funding
source for the March 2007 Traffic Stop
Study [ promised by the police department on an annual basis
using different analysts]

Response: "$25,000 through the General Fund"

4) Taser policies and training

Enclosed was a powerpoint training presentation on the M26 and
X26 tasers which is from Taser International, Inc.'s own
manual.

5) Percentage of officers equipped with tasers:

Response: 57.7%(field operations division)

6) Progress report on cultural sensitivity training

Response: Letter and guidelines and email
correspondence from Training Division. August 18 was
final pre-planning meeting for September, 2006
training.


Status of tasers:

M26: 34

X26: 48

Assignment of X26 tasers:

32 patrol (out of 113)

6 POP (out of 10)

2 UNET (out of 4)

1 GAT

2 PACT (out of 2)

1 SRO (out of 9)

1 CFMH (?)

1 returned to Taser for repair

1 Training Taser

1 Held for Investigation

-------------------------------

Assignment of M26 Tasers:


25 patrol (out of 113, for both 57 out of 113)

2 POP (out of 10, 8 out of 10 equipped)

3 UNIT (out of 4 5 out of 4)

2 SRO (out of 9, 3 out of 9 equipped)

1 K9 (out of 6)

1 Training Taser

The police department hopes to be able to equip its field operations division with the X26 tasers, if it receives the funding to do so.

Fitness: To be or not to be

A former reserve officer and current assembly member is trying to pass a bill that would encourage law enforcement officers to keep physically fit, even after graduating from the police academies.

This was an article in the Press Enterprise about it last April.

State aims for thinner blue line


Todd Spitzer, whose district includes western Riverside County, is the author of Assembly Bill 2183, which he hopes when implemented will help improve the safety of law enforcement officers, as well as decrease the costs that are passed along to the tax payers when an officer is injured or forced to retire due to injuries suffered on the job.

A.B. 2183

(excerpt from article)

"We have a vested interest in their lifestyle," Spitzer said. "If a deputy district attorney drops dead because they're not taking care of themselves, there's no taxpayer cost to that. But if an officer goes out on workers' comp because they have a back injury, that's a cost to us as taxpayers. They have to pay that workers' comp. They have to replace that officer. "I want to have a serious discussion in this state about physical fitness for law enforcement," he said.

Amen, to that.

We have all seen them. Law enforcement officers who are involved in foot pursuits who look like they are about to drop because they are not physically fit. Officers who appear as if they are going to pop the buttons right off of their uniforms even while standing still. There's even stereotypes about police officers hanging out at donut shops. But in reality, the state of physical fitness involving many of this nation's police officers is serious business.

Many experts say that a police officer's level of fitness peaks the day that officer graduates from the basic training academy. After that, the weight begins to come on, the waistline thickens, the uniform gets traded in for a larger size and the face become fuller. On one level, it does not make much sense to mandate that an officer be at peak fitness to graduate from a training academy and then not hold them to the same or at least similar requirements when they begin working as police officers.

Then again, the working demands of being a police officer are different than what goes on each day in the academy when most cadets are being paid to become physically fit as part of their job training.

If law enforcement were a sport, it would be closer to baseball, than distance running. Some sports like running can make you fit just by doing them. Other sports, like baseball, you must become fit to play through other forms of training, rather than from the sport itself. If you are not fit enough to play baseball, then an injury is likely to result. So it is, with law enforcement, a profession that requires physical fitness skills including agility, strength, endurance and the ability to run quickly for a different range of distances. How do you get that fitness? By doing the required amounts of training in each of these disciplines on a regular basis. The question raised by this bill, is when this training should be done.

Logistically, it is very difficult to implement an onduty program as most police officers work long shifts and many also work overtime, especially in agencies affected by staffing shortages. Officers who work in more sedentary positions like detectives also work long hours and a lot of overtime. These things also make it hard to work on physical fitness off the clock.

Hardest hit by the requirements to follow these guidelines would be officers who work graveyard shifts, even though often these are the ones who need them the most.

Those officers already have their biology working against them. Studies have shown that individuals who work graveyard shifts over a period of time are more prone to gaining weight particularly around the abdominal area. Because the sleep patterns of graveyard workers are often disrupted in terms of quantity and quality, it is believed that this causes the release of cortisol which encourages the storage of fat in the abdomen. Stress on the job also increases the release of cortisol which causes the "spare tire" to form. Many studies have shown that this type of fat accumulation carries with it associated health risks including heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Health concerns associated with graveyard shift

Exercise also has other benefits including those that affect people's mental states in a positive way. In some cases, it can alleviate mild depression and it can increase self-esteem. Det. Kent Tutwiler, from the Riverside Police Department, mentioned this very important if often overlooked component in his comments from the news article.

"If you're working out, you're feeling better about yourself..."

If passed, AB 2183 would require the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to create a voluntary physical fitness training program by July 1, 2007. However, the state would also provide a one-time fund of $10 million to cities, counties and other agencies to provide these programs. Officers would be given one hour during their workshifts to exercise.

However, POST currently opposes the bill, according to an analysis done by Geoff Long for the state assembly's appropriations committee. The analysis cited concerns about logistics of implementations and high costs associated with it that go beyond the proposed allocation of $10 million. Costs associated with both administrative expenses and those associated with claims resulting from injuries associated with any onduty fitness program would be prohibitive, it states.

POST's position:

"The problems and obstacles in this bill are
unlikely to be overcome with amendments. The initial and
recurring costs to POST to comply with this bill are
significantly beyond the staffing and budgetary resources of
the commission."

POST cited efforts it had made to address this issue in 1992 when it had implemented voluntary physical fitness training programs. A few law enforcement agencies created programs, but soon discontinued them. A study performed several years later showed that the reasons those programs had been shut down were due to both an increase in injuries associated with them(and thus workmen's compensation claims) and issues that had arisen during the collective bargaining processes pertaining to the programs within different agencies.

POST also states that requiring it to serve as an auditor or some other form of oversight might require powers beyond its statutory limits and that there is no way the programs could be put in place by July 2007.

Long's analysis quoted expenses ranging into the tens of millions of dollars involving those injuries caused while exercising onduty.

Spitzer counters these arguments in the same analysis.

"We need to lead the efforts of local government in minimizing
the adverse effects of accidental losses at a reasonable cost.
We should reward the dedicated men and women of law
enforcement by giving them the tools to expand their average
life expectancy beyond 46 years of age. Implementing a fitness
and wellness program that is directed at the needs of the
individual officer is the best way to accomplish both goals."


A.B. 2183 analysis

Spitzer brings up the argument that fitness programs will expand the average lifespan of a police officer by improving both his or her health and also keeping them safer. Current studies show that on average, officers who retire die within 5-8 years of their retirement date.

The Press Enterprise article allowed for readers to put in their two cents on this contentious issue. The sides were split, the battle lines drawn fairly early in the discussion. Here we have some opinions, along with in several cases, a form of deja vu.

One individual who identified himself as a police officer was all for it with a caveat attached:

April 8, 2006 10:13 a.m.

"I as a cop, I believe it is essential to keep in good physical shape. I can see both sides of the story on this issue and can agree and disagree with the proponents and opponents. I dont necessarily think we should be expected to workout on shift (on the clock), because those of us who do workout, which is about half, come in before our workshift and do so anyway. Then that leaves the other half who dont workout. You have to ask yourself, would they REALLY exercise if they were suppose to during shift, probably not. So my idea would be to give incentives to those who give up their own time to workout. This could even be monitored because our Dept. has a gym at the station."

Another self-identified police officer agreed:

"April 7, 2006 10:15 a.m.

"As a police officer, I stay in what I consider to be above average shape. If an officer who "lets himself go" chooses to be out of shape and go toe to toe with a 200-pound parolee, the punishment is going to be an officer's head on a plate. I know of very few officers that walk this path of poor physical fitness. However, every job out there has those few that perform poorly be it due to fitness or mentality. Law enforcement is no different as there is always the human element involved."

One former police officer who had suffered a career-ending injury offered this up:

April 17, 2006 08:55 p.m.

"Yes. As a retired police officer who went out on an injury, It would do two things. One, it would save the taxpayers money, because more officers would be fit and lower the potential for work related injuries. Two, it would save more lives. A fit officers is more capable of handeling his/her calls for service. How many fat Firefighters do you see compared to Police Officers. The reason is because Firefighters work out on duty!!!Way to go to the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs for spearheading this most beneficial issue!"

Some of the self-identified civilians took the opposite view:

April 10, 2006 04:56 p.m.

"No way! Most officers I know are working 10-12 hour days NOT including their mandatory overtime! We need the officers on the street working so the others can go home and enjoy their lives! However, I agree they should receive some incentives to workout...just not on the clock."

Another was harsher:

April 7, 2006 10:47 a.m.

"No!My taxes dollars should not be put to use for officers to exercise during their working shift. They, like all of us, have free time/down time if they need to stay in shape as part of their position -- that should be on them.Example, nurses and doctors need to take so many units to recertify for their license to practice. It is not done during working hours, it is done on their time. Although some may be compensated for the course through the hospital, it is still on their time. Same (should be) for officers. If the department wants to compensate for the cost of the gym, good. But do it on their own time. (It's) bad enough you can never get an officer to assist you when you really need them...WHY? Because they have moved from the donut shop to the gym. "

Even being physically fit is no panacea against sudden death on the job from health-related causes. The tragic heart attack of University of California police officer Steve Smith(who once worked at UCR's police department) in 2004 is proof of that.

Letter by former UCRPD chief, Hank Rosenfield

But for the majority of police officers, it can offer them some protection from injuries and other health problems, and for taxpayers, it can save them a lot of money.

Summer Lane, revisited?

It's official.

The uneasy detente between the Community Police Review Commission and the Riverside Police Officers Association is definitely over.

The RPOA has filed another law suit against the city of Riverside. This time, its target is the CPRC and the nine citizen volunteers who serve on it.

This news surprised few people with good memories even as the chilly relationship between the CPRC and the RPOA appeared to thaw earlier this year under the astute leadership of its current president, Kent Tutwiler. After all, that "negative peace" came after a five year struggle which culminated in the inclusion of the CPRC in the city's charter in 2005. Just because things had quieted down after the monumental vote of 2004 to place the commission in the city's charter, did not mean they would stay quiet. Every stage show has its intermission and some patterns are too etched in stone for them to stay broken for long.

Still, there are questions to be asked, points to ponder, enigmas to explain. With a jury trial perhaps several years away, there is still time to explore all these things. After all, the only true way to resolve the issues raised in this law suit for both sides arising from a thorny incident several years ago, is trial by jury. The RPOA leadership has graciously provided the opportunity and venue for that to take place.

This latest development might not be completely bad news for the CPRC, as every cloud has its silver lining and in this case, there are several places where one might emerge.

Last year, the most severe blow to the CPRC was not dealt by the RPOA, but by the city's management and the police department. Through one act of inaction on the Summer Lane shooting, those entities did more damage to the commission than any actions by the RPOA and its staff of attorneys ever could. Not through the decision that was finally made but by how it was made.

What the RPOA, through its law suit, has done is to provide both an opportunity and a venue for the CPRC to regain both the independence and strength that it had lost, on a silver platter. Not to mention the perfect defense.

Especially through this statement.

[Kent]Tutwiler said the commission has publicly criticized Wilson and other officers. The intent of the lawsuit is, he said, "to put an end to those remarks."

That states the case in a nutshell. They should give medals for that kind of thing. Actually, they do.


Coming to a venue in Riverside.


The Trial of Summer Lane

(Currently in pre-production. Filming to take place on location, not like with David Lynch's new film, Inland Empire which was filmed in Poland.)


Place: Old historic courthouse on Main St.

Time: Sometime before 2010, give or take a few months depending on how many times the civil court calendar is "frozen" by the criminal caseload.


Cast of Characters:

RPOA (the plaintiff)

City of Riverside (the defendant and proxy)

CPRC (the party being "slapped")

Riverside Police Department (the high stakes holder)

Officer Ryan Wilson (the star witness for both sides.)

Summer Lane (the ghost of Decembers past who keeps returning)



And a cast of dozens, to be cast. Audition notices to be announced soon.



To be continued.



RPOA wants CPRC to stop criticizing its officers in public

Black city employee watch

Periodically, there will be special bulletins posted on the status of the employment of African-Americans at City Hall and in other city departments. This is one of them.

The city has lost another African-American who held a management position.

Former Interim Asst. City Manager Jim Smith has resigned from the city of Riverside and is currently working as budget director for the city of Oakland.

Smith had worked as budget director at Riverside's City Hall until then City Manager George Carvalho was fired by the city council in 2004. During a closed session, the city council decided that Smith would be placed in the interim #2 position, under interim city manager, Tom Evans. He supervised then interim budget director Paul Sundeen, who is White. Smith was not just a very productive employee, who was well educated and intelligent, he served a dual purpose.

Whenever criticism was raised about the city's hiring and employment practices towards men and women of color, the city government would point to Smith as an example of how committed the city was to racial diversity in even its highest ranks. On one occasion, Smith was asked to stand up in front of the city council, while one council member cited Smith as proof that a person of color could succeed at City Hall. Many African-Americans including members of the Group were insulted and offended by that action. No one in city government really understood why.

So this is what it means to be a person of color in a position of management at City Hall? To be at the city government's beck and call, to be put on display as proof positive of its moral enlightenment on race? Unfortunately, these employees are not allowed to be upset about this and other practices because the climate at City Hall to even discuss racial issues let alone racism is very risky in terms of long-term job security.

It was up to the community leaders to be upset for them and they were, hence the vigils and the speeches given at city council meetings.

What followed Smith's "coronation" as the model of racial diversity in city government, would upset even more people and for most, put away any claim that an African-American person could be treated fairly at City Hall.

After the city council hired ex-county employee, Brad Hudson to be its current city manager, Smith was demoted back to being budget director. Sundeen was placed into a permanent position as an assistant manager in charge of finance and Hudson hired another White man, Tom DeSantis, to fill Smith's position. What was interesting to many people is that Smith was one of the few people placed in interim positions who were not eventually assigned permanent status when Hudson came on board.

With these changes, Sundeen suddenly became the supervisor of the man who had once supervised him. Community leaders began to sit up and take notice of this chain of events. Smith was removed from City Hall and relegated to "Siberia" otherwise known as the old utilities building on Orange St. to work on "special projects" with other employees until he left the city.

DeSantis and Hudson would obtain gun permits so they could navigate through the really "dangerous" neighborhoods(read those populated by people of color)in Riverside. DeSantis would also have enough time to allegedly get involved in incidents like this:

Women calls 911 on DeSantis

The community leaders have taken their concerns to higher places, including the state's Fair Employment and Housing Commission.

(excerpt, Press Enterprise article cited below)


Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely, speaking last week on behalf of The Group, said she was troubled by the recent dismissals and demotions of minority upper-level managers such as Smith. The Group is a local public-policy advocacy organization that focuses on issues affecting the black community.

Staffing changes under Hudson, she said, appear to have harmed blacks and Latinos disproportionately.

Other changes at issue are the forced retirement of Human Resources Director Art Alcaraz announced in November 2005 and the firing of Housing and Community Development Director Tranda Drumwright in March. Alcaraz is Latino, and Drumwright and Smith are black.

Strout has denied the allegations of discrimination, saying that she, personally, and city management as a whole, are committed to "equal employment opportunities for all."

The Group has appealed to the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission to investigate what it contends are discriminatory hiring practices by city management.

In March, about 25 minority community leaders held a candlelight vigil in protest of the personnel changes at City Hall.

There have been a lot of candle light vigils held for what has happened to African-Americans and Latinos who had held upper management positions at City Hall. There have been vigils and rallies held in support of Black employees who had filed racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suits against the city in 1997. These employees had worked in a variety of city departments including public works, public utilities, human resources, parks and recreation and street maintenance. By summer, all of the remaining plaintiffs had received financial settlements from the city after nine years litigating their case in U.S. District Court and another eight years spent trying to make changes in the city's practices. Changes which still have to be put into place.

Members of the Group also asked the Fair Employment and Housing Commission to investigate patterns and practices of racism in the public works division. That is something that should have been done years ago.

Speaking of racial discrimination law suits, RPD Officer Roger Sutton's case is back at City Hall again. On Sept. 12, the city council will meet in closed session to be advised by legal counsel on how it will proceed. Last autumn, Sutton took his case to trial in Riverside County Superior Court. At its end, the jury awarded him a $1.64 million verdict. The city of course immediately decided to appeal that verdict as being too excessive and appealed to presiding Judge Joan Burgess to void the jury's decision and order a new trial. Burgess denied the city's motion and the city then ran to look for redress at the court of appeals.

When it comes to reducing the dollars and cents it will likely expend on this case, the city could have always accepted the $200,000 arbiters award in 2004, but back then opted instead to take the case to trial. Sutton's attorney said then that the case would do better at trial and he was right.

How the city addresses racial discrimination law suits filed by its Black employees is far different than how it has handled the reverse racial discrimination claims filed by its White employees. In comparison, the city more quickly settled a case filed by five White male sergeants in 2000. It promoted two of those sergeants retroactively to two years before their actual promotional dates and financially compensated the remainder of them.

Not surprising in a city where just like in Alice's Wonderland, Black is White and White is Black.

Another Black manager gone

Labor Pains

As the summer winds down, so typically does contract negotiations between the city government and the various bargaining units and labor unions which together represent the majority of the city's employees.

Not this summer.

This biennial mating ritual occurs between two entities, labor and management, with each trying to get what they want while telling the other side what they need. Most often, they come to agreement, but it only happens after weeks of pushing, conceding, advancing and retreating and more than a little bit of bluffing. But in the end, it is all about compromising and making sure that during this game of tug 'o war, you dropped fewer of your players in the river than the other side did.

While several of the city's unions, most notably the SEIU and the Firefighter's Association, have pretty much ironed out their labor contracts for the next two years, two of the city's other unions have headed to Riverside County Superior Court to initiate the next round of the negotiation process there. Both of these unions happen to represent sworn employees in the Riverside Police Department.

The SEIU was able to upset the city management's apple cart during its lockout, by calling for a vote among its members to strike. Not that this would actually happen, it was done to show that it could happen and it worked. City Manager Brad Hudson blinked.

The police unions do not have this same option. If they tried to exercise it, they would find out soon enough that while this city's residents might claim they support their police officers, that is pretty much only if they are willing to drop everything to respond to their calls for service. The minute that this is threatened, the verbal tomatoes will start flying. Traditionally, "blue flus", work stoppages and threatened strike votes have been met with not only a lack of sympathy for the involved officers, but hostility and resentment towards them as well. But after watching the SEIU use a similar tactic successfully against the city, it's only human nature to at least think about it.

So when negotiations reach a stalemate or even break down, seeking remedies through the court system is one option available to them.

Historically, negotiations with these two associations take longer to reach fruition than those involving the others. The RPOA is usually the last one to seal the deal, often after the leaves of autumn have left the city's trees bare. From the beginning, it looked like this year would be no different despite claims by one unidentified individual here that by July, the city of Riverside would throw a huge raise at its sworn officers to, as stated, stem the alleged departure of the department's least seasoned officers. However, given the history, this was very unlikely to happen and was most likely, wishful thinking at best.

In fact, it did not take very long for the two unions and the city to run into a stalemate. In response, both unions headed off to court. Not to divorce court, but to the old civil courthouse, less than a block away from City Hall. The same courthouse that has been portrayed in films such as Time Machine and Moonlight Mile actually arbitrates civil cases on a daily basis, despite having undergone two major renovations in the past six years.

The Riverside Police Administrators Association set its court date with management first, by filing its miscellaneous petition on July 18, 2006. At that point, its courtship with the city was officially off. Its leader, Lt. Darryl Hurt had tried to voice concerns raised by his union of approximately 25 lieutenants and captains at a city council meeting during the public comment forum, but was cut off mid-paragraph by Mayor Ron Loveridge who told him he had to table his speech until the budgetary item was heard on the discussion calendar. Some felt that the real problem was that every chair in the city council chambers had been filled and that the city council was self-conscious about the labor unions airing their grievances to such a large audience, so they were hoping to clear most of those people out before the discussion calendar was heard.

The 43-page document filed by the RPAA alleged that the city had violated conditions set forth in a prior agreement from 2004.

That year, the city and RPAA had come to an agreement regarding changes in wages, hours worked and other conditions in connection with other terms of employment involving those covered by the RPAA from 2003 to 2010. Under a “me too” entitlement, the members of the RPAA were to receive salary and fringe benefit increases at least equal to those of the RPOA. The RPAA included a MOU filed in 2000 to back up its claim. However, that agreement had expired one year before its contract was renegotiated two years ago.

The members of the RPAA were most concerned that their benefits maintained a specific percentage difference above those who belonged to the “highest subordinate class” outside their unit, which were the sergeants, who were represented by the RPOA under an agreement with that union. So, it was not just a situation of “me too” but “I want more than he’s got”, a philosophy that is not uncommon in situations where a rigid hierarchal structure is in place.

The law suit alleged that in 2004, the sergeants had received fringe benefits that were better than those received by the RPAA members. The RPAA had asked to either receive the same benefits or ones that were comparable to the ones the sergeants had received. The city refused to do so.

On July 15, 2005, the RPAA had issued a letter to the Human Resources Department stating that the city had failed to provide the benefits that it had “truly intended to” under the 2004 MOU. Nine months later, the attorneys for both sides began to exchange letters explaining their positions on the matter.

Now they will be doing so, in court. The city filed its response to the RPAA legal action on Aug. 31, and alleged that the whole thing should be dropped because the RPAA failed to follow the proper guidelines of the tort law they were filing their complaint under. The city also argued that the RPAA had failed to prove its allegations or prove what the city’s intention had been. Both sides will face off on Nov. 9, 2006 in the old historic courthouse. Be there or be square.

During that time period, they might bump into some familar people in the courthouse, those representing the RPOA.

The law suit filed by the RPAA would not be the only one to hit the books this summer.

The RPOA soon followed suit by filing its own writ of mandamus in the same courthouse, less than a year after settling their prior civil action involving the department's officer involved shooting investigation policy. In its law suit, the RPOA, through its attorney, alleged that the city had violated the "good faith" negotiations by divulging information about the RPOA negotiations to leaders of other city unions in order to get them to accept its terms concerning health benefits. The city had promised the leaders of both the SEIU and the Firefighters' Unit that the RPOA would not be offered a better deal on health benefits than these two unions would receive, as a means of getting both unions to agree to their proposed contracts. The two unions had expressed concerns that like had happened in the past, the RPOA would be offered a better deal in terms of these benefits.

According to the law suit, the city had sealed its employee contract with the Fire Unit by promising its members that the benefits received by members of the RPOA would not be greater than those given to firefighters. In response, the Fire Unit entered into a tentative agreement. A similar situation was alleged to have take place while the city was negotiating with the SEIU, which is the city’s largest bargaining unit.

The central concern in the negotiations for all the bargaining units and unions was that the city had refused to pay more than $25 per month per employee into the employees’ health insurance premiums over the term of the new contract. The city’s strategy was to soothe their concerns by claiming that every union, even the RPOA which traditionally had received the highest contributions by the city towards its health insurance, were in the same boat. This was apparently enough to alleviate the concerns of several of the city’s bargaining units, but according to the law suit, it left the RPOA believing that the city had violated their “good faith” bargaining arrangement because the city was making these promises to other unions while still in active negotiations with the RPOA.

So the RPOA filed a law suit at the old historic courthouse on Sept. 5. The city has yet to respond with legal paperwork of its own. No court date has been set as of yet.

In the spirit of our most recent legal holiday, these developments are a reminder of why the existence of labor unions is so important in this country. Even the profession which historically during the earliest years of the 20th century had functioned as “muscle” to break up usually forcefully, labor demonstrations, rallies, strikes and union gatherings and meetings(which were actually illegal at the time) has now embraced them and the process. For everything, there clearly is a season and in this case, that's the truth.

Court Cases

Riverside Police Officers Association v the City of Riverside
RIC456431

Riverside Police Administrators Association v the City of Riverside
RIC453291

Riverside County Superior Court public access

(This site allows cases and pdf documents to be accessed. There's also instructions for how to access it if you have a firewall on your computer. )

Separate and Unequal

Several years ago, Sheriff Bob Doyle, who heads the Riverside County Sheriff's Department sent out a press release announcing that there would be a demonstration of his department's latest foray into exploring less lethal options, which was the pepper ball launcher. This device allows round projectiles filled with capsaicin, an irritant, to be ejected through the air. After striking a target, they broke on impact and the capsaicin was released. People oohed and were awed at the demonstration, but were curious about its more practical purpose.

Pepperball Technologies, Inc. advertises its product here by stating the following.

(excerpt)

PepperBall Technologies, Inc. seeks to bring less-lethal technology to the next level by offering extremely effective solutions which also lower the risk of fatality, blunt trauma or other serious injuries to affected parties. PepperBall Systems and ImpactPlus rounds rely upon PepperBall's proven Chem-netics technology to effectively gain suspect compliance. Affected individuals experience the combined affects of:

Psychological shock: the surprise of being "shot."

Powerful kinetic impact: for pain compliance with less-than-lethal results.

Potent super irritant: PAVA (capsaicin II) pepper powder causes incapacitating coughing and a burning sensation in the eyes, nose, throat and skin.
The compliance power of these combined affects means PepperBall products remain extremely effective while also lowering the level of kinetic impact relied upon by other earlier less-than-lethal weapons. PepperBall products thereby also lower the potential for serious injuries to suspects, and the risk of litigation and associated costs faced by agencies around the world.

The pepperball launcher is a controversial less lethal option, and the reasons why will be explored later. The focus here is on how the pepperball launcher and other less lethal options are often divvied out to law enforcement agencies based on how much money cities and counties are able and/or willing to spend on purchasing them. Consequently, whether or not a person lives or dies in an encounter with police officers can come down to whether or not their city or county purchased these less lethal options for their policing agency to use. Individuals who are mentally ill are among the most impacted in these situations, because in many cases the less lethal options are used on members of this growing population to "subdue" them without using lethal force.

Pepperball Technologies, Inc. advertises its product as being a life saver because it provides a "less lethal" alternative in situations where otherwise the law enforcement officer might use lethal force. If its claims are true, then shouldn't this "life saving" product be available to all law enforcement agencies who police a wide variety of cities and counties? Shouldn't it be available to be used in communities regardless of their economic wealth? There lies one of the problems.

What Pepperball Technologies, Inc. does not advertise is that the cost of their product is often prohibitive to law enforcement agencies particularly smaller sized ones, to purchase any or enough of them to be used in situations where if they aren't available, the officer will shoot an individual, often fatally. Given this reality, is it still true that this product can be advertised as being "less lethal"?

For many cities, apparently the cost of implementing this less lethal option and others is too high, even as Pepperball Technologies, Inc. claims that its products would save them huge litigated and associated costs in the long run. Lives that might be saved with this technology often come second to the dollars and cents associated with any civil litigation which might result when those lives are lost, at least in the minds of many city and county officials. Consequently, this issue must be addressed in part in a language these individuals understand, through addressing the larger fiscal cost for failure to implement these and other less lethal options.

Yet, even if they could spend less on litigation, it appears that these cities and counties still are unable or unwilling to purchase this equipment.

In his speech, Doyle mentioned that the burden of paying for the much ballyhooed pepperball launchers would lie on the cities within Riverside County which would be able and willing to pay for them. Doyle listed several of those cities including Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells, three of the county's most affluent. That's not the only thing the three cities have in common. Here are some statistics courtesy of Wikipedia.

Palm Desert

86.84% White

1.2% African-American

17.08% Latino

Median income per household: $42,316 with 9.2% below the poverty line


Rancho Mirage

92.69% White

0.89% African-American

9.44% Latino

Median income per household: $59,826 with 5.9% below the poverty line


Indian Wells

96.33% White

0.21% African-American

2.96% Latino

Median income per household: $93,986 with 3.4% below the poverty line This city has the highest proportion of millionaires than any other city in the United States.


So, if you live in a city that has entered into a contract with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, it helps to live in a city that is predominantly White and affluent. Otherwise, the less lethal options available are fewer. Another form of separate and unequal?

Some might say that if they are criminals, then they should just be shot with bullets. In fact, one unidentified individual here stated that he or she believed even taggers should be shot to death by police officers. However, many of the people in these situations are suffering from different mental illnesses and consequently, many of them are unaware of what is going on around them or what they are doing, which makes them less able in many cases of responding to a police officer's verbal commands the way officers are trained to deliver them. Many people argue that this is why it's more important to have less lethal options available to use.

In fact, Seattle Police Department used its mentally ill population as one of the primary reasons it had decided to purchase more less lethal devices to equip its officers. According to a report written in 2000, its goal was to equip at least half of its patrol forces with at least one less lethal option. However, even within their program, there were some of the same shortages that afflict other police agencies. The recommendation was for one officer per squad per shift to be equipped with an M26 taser and for supervisors to be trained and equipped with tasers. One officer would be equipped with a shotgun that would fire bean bag projectiles per squad per shift. Supervisors would be equipped with bean bag kits. That still leaves a lot of officers in Seattle without either, a situation that the city hoped to remedy, according to its community report.

Seattle Police Department: Less lethal program

Seattle: Community recommendations

Still other cities that state that they are hard strapped for cash struggle with this issue. Like Huntington Beach, California where a shooting of a young woman brought to light how what could have been collided with what happened instead.

Ashley MacDonald, 19, was shot and killed by two Huntington Beach Police Department officers after she welded a knife at them. Officers at the scene had requested that less lethal devices including a pepperball launcher be brought to the scene, and were in the process of setting one up when the shooting occurred.

In the case of MacDonald and others, the officers involved were trying to gain access to less lethal options but were unable to do so at all or in time because they either were not equipped with these options or so few of them were equipped that members of the majority who were not had to conduct a search mission to access this equipment. They claimed, the clock ran out.

In the wake of these deaths, cities still protest that it is an economic issue of a different form. Their budgets or those they allot for their law enforcement agencies simply can not afford the costs.

The Los Angeles Times wrote an article published on Sept. 4 which explored in detail the line drawn between cities that could afford to purchase less lethal options and those who could or would not. In one case involving the former, a life of a barricaded individual was spared. In the other, a woman was shot to death while officers were trying to locate and then preparing to utilize a less lethal device. Those who lived in the same neighborhood as the woman were outraged that she died while the man in the other Orange County city had lived. Through their rage, they emphasized the disparities in how the police agencies within their county handled people, most notably those who were mentally ill in their cities and how those decisions often came down to dollars and cents that were or were not spent on avoiding the deaths of individuals who were predominantly people of color and/or poor.

(excerpt)

Police, however, say that the officers involved in both cities had an equal desire to preserve human life. To them, the death of MacDonald and the survival of Bahram Nezari laid bare the disparity among Orange County cities that have access to the expensive, high-tech weaponry that is designed to spare lives and those that do not.

Irvine police were able to bring their standoff with Nezari to a nonfatal conclusion because nearly every patrol car in the city is equipped with a 40-millimeter launcher that can release volleys of pepper spray, rubber projectiles and other "less than lethal" munitions.

In Huntington Beach, which is also in Orange County, only a few patrol cars are equipped with launchers, so officers often have to scramble to bring them to incidents where they encounter people they consider dangerous.

The Riverside Police Department has spent thousands of dollars on purchasing and training its officers on the use of a variety of less lethal options including projectiles, pepper spray and tasers. This came about in large part because of the stipulated judgment between the city and the state attorney general's office included a reform that required the department to explore alternative methods of deploying force. So, the city of Riverside allowed for the purchase of these less lethal devices, due to a provision in the agreement which stated that cost was not to be an object when it came to implementing the reforms. It was either do that or face the State Attorney General in court and explain why not.

According to records from 2003-2005, the department has equipped most of its squad cars with less lethal shotguns, but less than 50% of its field operations division carry tasers, which are considered an optional device. The supervisors are often not equipped with either, according to records from those same years. The department was asked in a CPRA to provide more recent statistics detailing the percentage of police officers currently equipped with tasers, but has yet to provide that information. When asked in May, the department did not respond. A department representative said that information along with other requested documents could not be provided until after the completion of its investigation into the Lee Deante Brown shooting. A second written request submitted July 24 was ignored and a third one is pending.

According to statistics provided in former AG consultant Joe Brann's final report, incidents involving the use of tasers had consistently increased during the past several years, while the use of less lethal shotguns has decreased.

Since 2001, the department has had three fatal shootings and at least one nonfatal shooting of an individual welding a knife. It is not clear how many incidents involving knives that took place where less lethal options were used.

However, most police agencies are not under either a consent decree or a stipulated judgment so it falls upon the city or the county that presides over them to make that choice to purchase less lethal technology. Some departments still have taken their own initiative.

Chief Gerald R. Whitman, of the Denver Police Department released a letter he wrote in 2004 after the department had been through a tumultuous year of changes after two fatal officer-involved shootings. It was written to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division which at the time was considering conducting a civil investigation of the department's patterns and practices Sometimes just the idea of an outside agency putting your agency under a consent decree can be enough to motivate changes within it.

Letter to DOJ by Whitman

(excerpt)

1) Use of Force Policy and Less options aptionsa)

In 2001, the Department formed two work groups to revise the current use of force policy, study what less lethal options were available, and recommend a policy on the appropriate use of such alternatives. The policies were produced and reviewed by the City Attorney's Office, District Attorney's Office, private criminal defense attorneys, City Risk Management, Denver Sheriff's Department, Public Safety Review Commission, Firearms Bureau, Training Academy, Chief's Office, Patrol Division, District Officers, Metro/Swat Officers, and Internal Affairs investigators.

b) In November 2002, training began on the new use of force policy and less lethal options. By March 2003 the entire Patrol Division had been trained and 100 Tasers (purchased with grant funds) were deployed. By July 2003 all operational personnel were trained and the policies were officially published in the Department Operations Manual.

c) In October 2003, 91 newer model X-26 Tasers (purchased with grant funds) were deployed, bringing the total number of Tasers to 191. d) This year, the Department deployed other less lethal options (also purchased with grant funds) including beanbag shotguns and pepper-ball air guns. These options will complement other tools such as expandable and fixed batons, OC Spray and the Orcutt Police Nunchaku (OPN).

In his letter, Whitman raised the issue of grant funding, which meant that outside financial resources are available in some cases to help cover the costs of purchasing less lethal options. The Riverside Police Department also utilized grant funding when carrying out many of its state-mandated reforms.

Still as previously stated, the listed costs of purchasing less lethal options do not factor in those caused by the shootings or other fatal uses of force that these devices may prevent. These costs can include the legal fees, legal settlements and juries' verdicts associated with litigation filed in wrongful death cases. Also, these costs do not factor in the stress retirements and the costs associated with hiring new law enforcement officers given that statistics show that about half of all police officers involved in fatal shootings leave the agency within five years of the shooting. They do not factor in the loss of life which can not be so easily broken down in to dollars and cents. Fiscally speaking, this seems to be another case of pay now, or pay much more later.


Money spent by the city of Irvine which has a 117 member police force:

$500 per less lethal shotgun and taser

$10 per projectile including pepperballs

$78,000 for training facility

Separate and Unequal: Less lethal options

Ashley MacDonald

When time ran out for teenaged girl with knife

Bahram "Ben" Nezari

Barricaded man hit with less lethal munitions

Tasers: Shock in a box

First in a series

Tasers are and have been on the minds of many people in the wake of the shooting of Lee Deante Brown last April by Officer Terry Ellefson, who hence forward in the wake of the most recent state supreme court decision will be known as "Officer A".

This is what the taser of today looks like. It still comes in a box, but they look more similar to the firearms that police officers use today than the way they used to look.

Taser M26 and X26 product information


An individual kindly passed along their copies of Policy # 4.30 which is the department's use of force policy and Policy # 4.43 which is the department's policy governing taser use and deployment. Both policies had been revised in 2004 and it is not clear whether or not they have been revised since. The department has declined to even respond to a CPRA request by providing copies of these and other policies. It also declined to provide copies of these policies last May until the completion of the department's investigation of the Lee Deante Brown shooting, according to a department representative. But then again, whether or not the department has purchased any digital video recorders in the past six months is more top secret than a CIA briefing so such developments must be taken in stride.

Policy 4.43 defines the taser as follows. It is a definition which is in common use when describing this electronic device.

The taser is a nonlethal hand held electronic mobilization device that propels a pair of tiny dart contracts into the skin or clothing of a noncompliant, violent or physically combative subject. An electrical current passes through these contracts into the body of a subject causing instantaneous muscle spasm and loss of balance.

Policy 4.30 also defines the taser as a "nonlethal control device". Taser International, Inc., the company that markets similar "electronic mobilization devices" states in its advertising that the devices it sells including its X26 model are indeed nonlethal.

But are they?

After all, when used properly and according to the instructions provided by their manufacturers, nonlethal devices should not kill. Yet, tasers including the M26 and X26 have killed and do kill in particular situations. Over 75 recorded deaths since 2001 in the United States and Canada, according to a study done by Amnesty International, a human rights organization. An updated report cited at least 105 deaths resulting from tasers in the past five years.

Taser International, Inc. in its own report insists that all of these deaths are due to outside factors including preexisting medical illness and drug use, hence its ability to market the device as nonlethal. But the experts including those who study those medical illnesses themselves are not sure themselves what is causing the deaths. Five recent deaths associated with the use of tasers involved people without a history of either medical illnesses or drug use and these incidents appear to be on the increase. Clearly, this is an issue that needs closer examination. Perhaps, the devices should receive a classification as "less lethal", a designation assigned to other use of force options(i.e. rubber bullets and other projectiles) which have caused deaths in a relatively small number of individuals who they have been used on. The use of nonlethal appears to be a misnomer.

Amnesty International has published many articles expressing its concerns about the use of tasers or "stun guns" in the United States. Although it agrees that it is important for law enforcement officers to be equipped with nonlethal or "less lethal" options, the organization was concerned that a device that could inflict severe pain at the push of a button would be ripe for abuse by unscrupulous persons. They cited many cases where this was clearly the case. Cases of officers tasing six-year-old children in schools(for some reason, Florida is the child tasing capitol of the United States), officers tasing people repeatedly and officers tasing individuals who are already either handcuffed or have been restrained have been documented.

Amnesty International was also concerned about the common use of tasers in particular situations and against certain groups of people.

(excerpt, A.I. position paper)

There is also evidence to suggest that, far from being used to avoid lethal force, many US police agencies are deploying tasers as a routine force option to subdue non-compliant or disturbed individuals who do not pose a serious danger to themselves or others. In some departments, tasers have become the most prevalent force tool. They have been used against unruly school children; unarmed mentally disturbed or intoxicated individuals; suspects fleeing minor crime scenes and people who argue with police or fail to comply immediately with a command. Cases described in this report include the stunning of a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Florida, following a dispute on a bus, and a 13- year-old girl in Arizona, who threw a book in a public library

The RPD's policy on taser deployment states that the taser may be used to take a noncompliant, violent or physically combative subject into custody in order to reduce or minimize the chance of injury to the subject and to the arresting officer(s). The policy also states that it shall not be used on subjects who are passively resisting arrest nor shall it be generally aimed at the head, neck or genital areas. No member of the department is allowed to carry or deploy a taser without receiving proper certification except in emergency situations if an authorized person is prohibited from doing so. The training of officers is the sole responsibility of the Force Training Unit supervisor and any other qualified taser trainers. All officers equipped with tasers are to be reevaluated bi-yearly.

Unlike with some law enforcement agencies, there appears to be no restrictions on tasing people who are fleeing in 4.43. In fact, a young man was tased by an officer in the Canyoncrest Shopping Center several months ago, apparently for this reason. There is no language in 4.43 whether an officer is allowed to use his taser without other officers present to back him up in case it fails, as there is included with the use of other less lethal options. There is no language on whether or not more than one officer is allowed to deploy his taser at the same time. But, there are restrictions against using the tasers in some instances.

Policy 4.43 states that tasers shall not be used in the following situations:

1. People in control of moving vehicles

2. Women known to be pregnant

3. People known to have diseased or weak hearts

4. Obviously debilitated people or elderly people who are known to be at greater risk in all circumstances especially from medical injuries

5. Children under the age of 12

6. People with obvious or known neuromuscular disorders, i.e. Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Epilepsy

7. People known to be wearing pacemakers or other biomedical devices

8. People known to be in danger of falling to their death or being caught in dangerous equipment or machinery

9. People who are known to be in close proximity to flammable liquids, gases or any substance that could be ignited or exploded by a spark

These groups of people share in common the fact that they would face greater risk of experiencing harmful side effects if they were tased. Amnesty International lists the tasing of young children, pregnant women and the elderly as an area of special concern in its report. Many departments that organization it surveyed did not have written policies exempting these groups from being tased. For example, less than 10% of the agencies it surveyed has policies prohibiting the tasing of children. The RPD would fall within that smaller group, at least up to the age of 12.

Unlike people who are young children, or who are elderly, it is not always possible to know when women are pregnant particularly in their first trimester. Often, it is left to the woman or someone else to disclose the pregnancy. In one case, an officer in an agency had tased a pregnant woman without knowing it and then after being told she was pregnant, he ceased the tasing and used another form of restraint. There is also the possibility that a woman could say she was pregnant when she was not to avoid being tased, but since there are health risks associated with a pregnant woman being tased it is often called upon for the officer to use another form of restraint. Even Taser International, Inc. states that a pregnant woman who is tased with one of their products is at risk of miscarriage or injury from falling but insists that the electric shock itself poses no harm to pregnant women and their fetuses. However, there are no conclusive studies defending that argument either.

The American College of Emergency Physicians states that there was very little literature on how to handle pregnant women who had been tased. That organization also postulated that a condition known as "excited delirium" might be responsible for some of the deaths from people who are tased, but could not state so definitely.

Management of taser injuries

Pursuant to policy 4.43, all individuals who have been tased are to be taken to a hospital, usually Riverside Regional Medical Center prior to booking for medical evaluation. Photographs are to be taken of any injuries caused by the tasers and each incident of taser use is to be documented in the police report, pursuant to policy 4.30 which is the department's use of force policy.

Another group of individuals who are in a protected class from being tased are police officers.

Pregnant officers have also been advised not to use their tasers, by the Police Policy Studies Council.

Pregnant officers and taser use

(excerpt)

The taser is an electrical restraint device that is used in law enforcement. It is common for officers to have the taser applied to themselves during training. One study suggested an association between the taser and miscarriage after reviewing a case report and the literature on electrical injuries during pregnancy [21]. Pregnant officers should not be subjected to the taser and should not try to restrain subjects during a taser application.

If a pregnant officer is prohibited from using a taser because of risk of either being tased in training or those apparent risks inherent from tasing another person in the field, then most of these law enforcement agencies should have written policies prohibiting the tasing of women they know or are informed is pregnant. Still, many do not put it in writing.

Then, it's interesting to note that when it comes to tasing officers(in training, not in the field), there's a different standard set for safety than for those that they may tase themelves.

Any law enforcement officer who undergoes training to carry and deploy tasers, which is required in many law enforcement agencies is usually tased during that training so that he or she will know what it feels like from the other end of the device. Many have called it, the "worst five seconds of pain I have ever experienced." However, according to another Palm Beach Post article, there are often many differences between the experience of an officer who is tased as part of a training session and what happens to people who are tased by these officers out in the field. What is most noteworthy is how many precautions the trainers take in some cases while tasing officers to ensure that they are kept safe and from suffering any harmful effects. The first link is from a company that sells tasers online. The second, explains how to ensure that officers being tased in training are protected from harm.

Taser warnings on use

Tasing: Officers vs Civilians

(excerpt)


The company requires officers who are shocked during training to read and sign "Instructor or User warnings, Risks, Liability Release and Covenant Not to Sue."

Because a shock causes involuntary muscle contractions, as well as loss of all motor control, an effective firing will almost inevitably cause a person to fall. According to the lesson plan, the fall alone can cause "a wide variety of injuries" including concussions, broken bones and dislocated joints."

The safety precautions for these planned, voluntary shocks during training are painstaking.

They include two spotters to hold the officers upper arm under the armpit "so that the person can be safely supported and lowered to the ground after being hit without twisting or putting undue stress on the arm or shoulder."

In some training exercises, clips are used rather than barbed probes fired from the stun gun. If probes are used, the officer is required to wear goggles.

In addition, police sometimes reduce the duration of the shock to just a few seconds compared with the standard five-second shock that is routine on the street.

The manual advises that people with low blood sugar have a snack before getting shocked.

In addition, Taser guidelines caution instructors to allow a bathroom break before the training shocks to help prevent an "unnecessary embarrassment." That precaution might explain why the manual says shocks from the weapon "generally don't cause urination or defecation" and that "to date there have been two urination cases (out of 100,000) from volunteers during a 5-second M26 exposure."


By ensuring that these precautions are in place at least for a particular class of person, the officer, those that train them are acknowledging that the taser use carries risks. If an officer were to die or be seriously injured as a result of being tased in training, that individual and their family members have signed away their right to file any wrongful death claims or law suits for injuries they suffered as a result. Remember what comes first with most corporations and municipalities.

Also challenging the use of tasers is the American Civil Liberties Union particularly the Northern California Police Project, which released its own position paper on the subject. In response, Taser International, Inc. which sells both the M26 and the X26 tasers published a rebuttal paper. It challenged the study done by the ACLU and insisted that its product was both nonlethal and entirely safe to use. It did not take lives, but saved the lives of police officers and people living in the communities they served. Taser International, Inc. stated on its Web site that tasers reduced injuries to both officers and members of the public and also, prevented many fatal shootings. Phoenix Police Department provided the source material for that last assertion, according to Taser International, Inc.'s Web site.

However, in response to that assertion, the ACLU-NC stated that the number of shootings by Phoenix's police officers had fallen by a lesser degree than the usage of tasers had increased which showed that tasers were used primarily in situations rather than those to prevent the escalation of an incident to where deadly force would be required. In addition, many of the individuals tased by officers in that police department were mentally ill. That particular debate still continues between both sides of it.

How tasers are used has also been a topic of another debate.

Particularly controversial as far as Amnesty International is concerned, is the use of tasers in the "drive-stun" mode, which is when the probes are directly applied to a person's body. Many police agencies including the RPD(as of 2004) do not have written guidelines within their taser policies addressing this usage as a "pain compliance" option.

The following was excerpted from a Palm Beach Post article on this form of taser usage:

Taser usage: health effects


Officers also can remove the prong cartridge and discharge the weapon directly against a person's body in the "drive-stun" mode to subdue combative arrestees with a searing jolt of pain.

The Taser training manual advises that because it is not incapacitating, this mode can lead to "prolonged struggles" and that "it is in these types of scenarios that officers are often facing accusations of excessive force."

The technique also requires some care, according to Taser International, but the company's guidelines contain conflicting recommendations. The manual points out that the neck and groin "have proven highly sensitive to injury, such as crushing to the trachea or testicles if applied forcefully."

The manual continues, "However, these areas have proven highly effective targets."

That last statement seems to contradict the previous one and implies that the office is supposed to disregard safety precautions, including those that are included in some departments' policies governing the more traditional use of tasers and go for the "highly effective target". Even from a risk management perspective( a governing force in many law enforcement agencies and major corporations), this "advice" does not seem wise to give out to law enforcement organizations, as it would appear that it could encourage abusive use of the devices on the scale of that documented by the Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, not to mention news agencies in their coverage of the issue.

Indeed, some law enforcement agencies that have policies governing the "drive-stun" method encourage their officers to do exactly that to an excess. In those cases, it will help greatly if their jurisdictional cities or counties have good insurance carriers. It would be far better if they remembered what they were there to do.

This last paragraph drives home an important point, and that is even though it's still the topic of heated debate whether or not the taser is itself, an inherently dangerous device, what can't be argued against is that a lot of it still depends on who is holding it. Because it is a powerful device in a way that is rivaled only by a firearm, it requires a lot of responsibility on the part of not only the person who is deploying it, but the agency that has hired and trained that person, both in terms of how to behave as an officer and how to operate that particular piece of equipment. It may be decided in the future whether or not the device truly makes the public more safe or more endangered, but at present it is known beyond all doubt that it's the officer and how he or she behaves on the job that makes that determination. Whether that officer is truly an asset or a detriment when it comes to safety to community members, to himself or to other officers for that matter. And if problems arise with the use of these options, how are they addressed by the law enforcement agency, if they are at all?

Which may or may not lead back to a discussion of the Brown shooting.





More Links


Amnesty International Links:

USA: Excessive and Lethal Force?

Tasers: Aftershocks

ACLU Links:

ACLU Police Practices: Tasers

Stun Gun Fallacy

(for rebuttal by Taser International, Inc. see "Taser" links)



Taser controversy: United States

Taser Deaths Fueling Concerns

CAL College of Emergency Physicians on Less lethal options

Use of tasers on minors including school children

Taser use in school children in Florida

Tasers used on people from age 13 to 86

Use of tasers on the elderly

Elderly woman tased

Taser of elderly woman caught on tape


Use on the physically disabled

Woman in wheel chair dies after tasing

Taser International, Inc. Links

Taser, Inc. links on taser controversy

(includes 40-page counterargument to ACLU-NC's challenge against taser use)

When vinegar is disguised to taste like sugar

This is not a blog about the CPRC but the panel plays a supporting role in it because it is considered to be an important mechanism to try to promote accountability in the police department, at least by many of the city's residents. As to how the police department and its various factions view it, that's another story and a rather lengthy one.

CPRC: the history

Created by popular demand in 2000, the idea of civilian oversight was initially a brain child of a grass roots organization that had formed after the shooting of Tyisha Miller in 1998. That organization, the Riverside Coalition for Police Accountability began gathering signatures in 1999 within the city limits to place an initiative on the ballot for the elections later that year. It hoped to have a civilian review board in place by 2000.

At about the same time, a panel of citizens appointed by Mayor Ron Loveridge met to discuss recommendations for reforms to be implemented by the Riverside Police Department. One of the suggestions that they presented to a packed city council chambers in April 1999, was the creation of a civilian form of oversight. Out of that recommendation came a research committee known as the Police Policy Review Committee.

This committee consisted of three city council members, three Human Relations Commission members, three members of Loveridge's task force and single representatives from both the RCPA and the Riverside Police Officers Association. However, in the midst of the process then RPOA vice-president Bill Rhetts was asked to step down after it came to light that he had been under investigation by the department's Internal Affairs Division for comments he had made in relation to the Miller shooting while he was allegedly "educating" younger officers in the roll call room. He was replaced by then Sgt. Gary Leach for the duration of the process.

The committee researched the various mechanisms of police oversight in the country and narrowed down their choices to three different models. The first, was Model A, which was based on that used in Berkeley. It was the most independent and powerful of the three models. The second, was model B, which mirrored the auditor system used by the city of San Jose. The third, Model C, was a much weaker version of Model A, and based on commissions in the cities of Long Beach and San Diego. The committee had spent weeks listening to representatives from Long Beach, San Diego city and county, San Jose and Berkeley. They had even listened to a police lieutenant whose expertise was in the area of research. He spent most of his allotted time blasting the Berkeley model and cursing its existence.

The debate and discussion on which model to forward to the city council for further discussion and hopefully, approval was contentious with opinions sharply split between Model A and Model C except for the RPOA which did not want any model approved at all. In the final vote, Model A prevailed by only one vote, with the final tally being 8 to 7. Two out of three of the city council members on the committee had voted against Model A, a piece of information that would become relevant later.

It was agreed that Model A would be presented to the city council by committee Chair(and city council member) Maureen Kane.

What actually happened, again in a packed city council chambers, was that Model A was sidelined and a council member who had not been a member of the PPRC presented a model very similar to Model C, which had not even been included in the report presented to the city council. Many people talked afterwards about what had transpired and wondered how Council Member Joy Defanbaugh had accessed information on Model C in the first place when it was not included in the report and she had not been on the committee. The Brown Act crossed the lips of more than a few people.

Model C passed the city council's approval and an ordinance was quickly drafted to create the Community Police Review Commission. Everyone scratched their heads for a little while but quickly embraced the new commission.

In 2004 after attempts were made by several city council members to defund the CPRC, several members of the Charter Review Committee decided to draft a proposed amendment to place it in the city's charter. That gave birth to another initiative which was put to a vote along with other proposed charter amendments that autumn. Despite an expensive and horribly misguided campaign by the RPOA in opposition, the ballot measure passed handily in every precinct in the city. The city's voters had spoken and the CPRC was included in the city's charter.

Kane said during a 2004 workshop held by the CPRC that the creation of a model of civilian oversight was one of the few points the city had in its favor when it was negotiating with the State Attorney General's office over what reforms would be imposed on the police department. During the past five years, her attitude had obviously softened towards the idea of civilian oversight.

CPRC: the present

That is the story of its origins in a nutshell. What has happened since is at least as interesting, especially after it became clear that this was what the public wanted. Suddenly, the CPRC was not only a more permanent fixture of the city's fabric, it was also everyone's newest darling. Members of the department's management said that they would work with the commission more closely, a development welcomed by many in the community. The RPOA leadership had also made some overtures, in marked contrast to its petulant showing at a March 2004 workshop. That was seen as a positive sign as well.

The overall mood changed when the commission released its finding on the Summer Lane shooting last year. One meeting between the heads of the CPRC, the police department, the city attorney's office and the city manager's office left a lasting impression on everyone. The mood became more pessimistic and somber at several CPRC meetings earlier this year after that meeting took place. A workshop was held to invite community input on what the role of the CPRC should be, five years after its creation. Most of the community residents who appeared told the CPRC residents to do the task assigned to them because its members were in a position to act in ways the majority of the city's residents were not.

In the midst of this turmoil, a curious development took place involving one itty-bitty word, exonerated.

The public first heard about it when Commissioner Jim Ward said at one meeting that he had been asked to sign a document at City Hall in order to acknowledge that the language used to define one of the four possible complaint findings had been changed. He was upset by the experience, because he felt he had been ambushed. He shared his concerns with the rest of the commission.

The finding that had its definition and essentially its history rewritten, was the "exonerated" finding. For years, the text of that particular finding had consisted of, "the alleged act occurred but was justified, legal and proper." For years, the CPRC, like the police department had used this definition including its legal terminology when evaluating whether or not to assign a complaint an "exonerated" finding. For years it did so without any problems and without receiving any complaints from City Hall. All that was about to change, because of Summer Lane.

That particular case's finding by the CPRC had just become a thorn in the side of those overseeing the commission and more importantly, had placed the city and its police department at risk of being found civilly liable in any law suit that might be filed in connection with it. However, disregarding or ignoring the CPRC's finding was not enough to make it go away. So they decided instead to condemn it based on a technicality and then to go back and rewrite the history which had paved the way for the CPRC to make that kind of decision.

First, to explain why it had rejected the finding submitted by the CPRC, the city management and police department instead referred to the commission's public report(which is independent of the finding) and it's final sentence.

Therefore, the legal justification for Officer Ryan Wilson's action in shooting Ms Lane appears to be absent.

The city and police department argued that the commission had overstepped its bounds by using legal language in its explanation of why Wilson's actions did not comply with the department's use of force policy. That was the sole domain of the Riverside County District Attorney's office, they said. When it comes to determining the criteria for deciding whether criminal charges will be filed, their assertion is absolutely correct in almost all cases outside of indictments handed out by a grand jury. However, the city and the police department themselves had laid the precedent for the CPRC to use legal language when analyzing either a citizen complaint's allegations or an officer-involved death to determine whether they were within policy through the language written into the "exonerated" finding and implied in its polar opposite, the "sustained" finding. The city and police department themselves had already set up the foundation which if allowed to stand, defeated its own argument. That foundation had been established by the use of the "exonerated" finding to decide citizen complaints which the CPRC had done for five years during what was an administrative, not a criminal, investigative and review process.

CPRC: the rewrite

In response to this dilemma, the city decided to change the text of that finding to where it would instead read that the alleged act occurred but had complied with departmental policy. With the stroke of a pen, they had removed the word "legal" from the definition of the "exonerated" finding and life could go on as if it had never existed and the commission had never had to make decisions based in part on satisfying legal criteria. With the new definition in place, the city could firm up its argument for refusing to consider the CPRC's finding on the Lane shooting. The strange thing in all this revisionist behavior, is that this legal terminology which was the source of condemnation against the CPRC's finding was never actually expressed in the actual finding. Not that this technicality mattered.

I believe George Orwell who wrote 1984 had a term for all of what happened above, which fits it quite nicely. He just got his dates wrong.

Riverside City Charter(2005)

Charter: Community Police Review Commission

Charter: Subpoena power

CPRC Policies, Procedures and By Laws

Municipal Code: CPRC(2000)

A few more drops

Isolated thunderstorms had been forecast for next week, but the skies will remain sunny, according to the latest report. However, a few more drops were added to the bucket.

The Riverside Police Department has once again moved its upper management personnel around. Capt. Pete Esquival has left his stint helming the Personnel and Training office and has been assigned to Special Operations at the new and finally opened, Magnolia Station. During his stint in Personnel and Training, Esquival and his staff members including Officer Cheryl Hayes had worked hard to recruit a diverse group of applicants to begin the process of becoming police officers. In July, they sponsored a forum where 120 men and 30 women appeared to take their written tests inside the Stratton Center, while their families and friends waited outside, watching demonstrations held by several canine officers.

He has been replaced by Capt. Michael Blakely. Maybe former officers Lee Wagner, Alex Tortes and Ron Orrantia can appreciate the irony of that more fully than the rest of us. Hopefully, Blakely will continue to implement and improve upon a recruitment program that ensures that the demographics of the department reflect those of the communities it serves.The community leaders plan to keep his feet to the fire on that one.

Blakely will also oversee the Internal Affairs Division. He will be supervised by new Deputy Chief John De La Rosa.

Salary negotiations still continue for many city employees even as the city's fire fighter union and employees represented by the SEIU have negotiated their contracts. City Manager Brad Hudson should remember that with everything, you get what you pay for, and that includes police officers. They need to be paid well, provided with good benefits and compensated when they retire. Also, if you want your police officers to Live Riverside and "Shop Riverside" like the rest of us, they need to be paid well enough to afford to pay the rising housing costs in this city. Give them a good contract and you will hopefully attract the best applicants. In the long run, attracting and hiring the wrong applicants is just so much more expensive.

The department's management union is currently in litigation with the city in Riverside County Superior Court. When Lt. Darryl Hurt, who heads it, tried to explain his bargaining unit's position at a city council meeting, Mayor Ron Loveridge cut him off. Bad form, mayor.

CPRA Watch: 37 days without a response. Second request submitted to the police department and City Attorney's office on Aug. 28 at 12:36 pm.

Race against the clock

CPRA Watch: 35 days without a written response



Number of times a city attorney has attended a CPRC meeting: once, on Aug. 23, 2006



Once again, time is ticking away for the Community Police Review Commission when it comes to completing its investigation and review of an officer-involved death case before the clock runs out. The clock in question is a state law that dictates that if an officer is to be disciplined for a sustained finding of misconduct against him, it must be done within one year of the date that misconduct occurred.

That time restriction presents problems in the case of the officer-involved death of Terry Rabb as it approaches its first anniversary.

Rabb died on Nov. 2, 2005 at a local hospital after he had suffered a heart attack within minutes of being physically restrained by two Riverside Police Department officers. Both the police department and the CPRC launched their investigations quickly after Rabb’s death.

The police department completed its criminal inquiry last spring and submitted its case book to the CPRC in May, close to the same time that the CPRC investigator completed his own investigation. At one CPRC meeting, it was revealed that the department's upper management had sent its investigation back down the chain of command for further work at least once. Still, the department's OID investigation was completed before the summer months.

However, the department’s Internal Affairs Division, which simply conducts an administrative review of these incidents, did not submit its own findings in this case to the CPRC until some time in July. Even though departmental policy 4.8 requires that the Internal Affairs Division conduct its own independent investigation, that division instead relies on the work product of the OID investigation to fulfill its role as the department's administrative oversight, an issue that the CPRC included in several of its public reports on incustody deaths. Consequently, it also had to wait until at least portions of the OID Team's investigation were completed in order for it to perform its own analysis and reach its own conclusions on the Rabb death.

That left the CPRC in a quandary, when it came to sticking to its own set timeline to release its own finding on Rabb well before the case marked its first anniversary. It also relies on the OID Team's work product which provides its only access to the statements given by the involved police officers. It is unable to gain access to them for further questioning without issuing a subpoena compelling them to appear before the commission.

The CPRC used material from both its own investigation as well as that of the department’s OID investigation to draft its public report on the Rabb incident. The content of that report will include a narrative of the events leading up to and including Rabb’s cardiac arrest as well as a tactical analysis and conclusions. After releasing its report to the public, the commissioners will review the material submitted by the Internal Affairs Division before going into closed session to determine their own finding of whether or not the officers violated departmental policy. The CPRC customarily waits until after the release of the public report to do so, to avoid cross-contamination of the public information included in its and the OID investigations with that information included in the Internal Affairs Division's report which is prohibited from public disclosure by state law.

After they determine a finding, it is then forwarded to City Manager Brad Hudson for final disposition. In theory, Hudson is supposed to review the findings from both the CPRC and the police department before making a decision. In reality, this has not happened in at least one case, that being the Summer Lane case last year.

Unfortunately in the Rabb case, the closed session may not take place until the second week in October, which would place it about nine days after the statutory deadline for that case. This case was further complicated by the fact that the fatal shooting of Todd Argow was also nearing its statutory deadline, which fell on November 14 and its work product was received before that in the Rabb case.

The department's OID investigation case book in the Argow case was not given to the CPRC until June. The commission decided in July to streamline the process of writing and approving its public report, the goal being that the book would be closed on the Argow case early enough to give them enough time to deal with the Rabb case. However, even those changes to the public process will likely not prove to be enough to allow the Rabb incident to clear its Oct. 2 deadline.

At its special meeting on Aug. 23, CPRC Chair Les Davidson expressed his frustration with the delays that left the CPRC with only one month to review the Rabb case.

“I quite frankly find it unbelievable that anyone would give us one month,” Davidson said.

Davidson said that placed the commission in a position of having to rush, rush, hurry, hurry to make its decisions. He also found it upsetting that the CPRC was being unfairly blamed for many of the problems resulting from these delays.

“We have it and it’s not right,” he said.

The CPRC discussed taking its frustration to the attention of the public, including the 60% of the city's voters who placed the CPRC in the city's charter during the November 2004 elction when they passed Measure II. The Rabb case will likely be front and center in that upcoming debate if it does take place, especially if its finding on that case is reached after the statutory deadline.

This issue involving timing first reared its ugly head during the CPRC’s investigation into the Lane shooting last year.

In that case, both the CPRC and the police department had completed their investigations by April 2005. However, the CPRC delayed its own process because it was experiencing a period of transition, which took place after Interim City Manager Tom Evans decided to make staff changes affecting that commission.

In January 2005, its first executive director Don Williams was replaced by then interim director, Pedro Payne. In addition, Payne had to split his time between directing that commission and also serving as director of the Human Relations Commission, a position he had originally held. While Payne was adjusting to the increased workload and challenges of overseeing two commissions, two new commissioners, Ric Castro and Frank Arroela were appointed to the CPRC to fill vacancies. Due to all these changes, the review into the Lane shooting was postponed until the end of September. Perhaps, events would have occurred differently if the CPRC had known earlier in the process that its investigator, Norm Wight was about to drop a bombshell.

At its Sept. 28, 2005 meeting, Wight told the commission that he believed that Officer Ryan Wilson was not in immediate danger when he shot and killed Lane, a conclusion later reached by the commissioners in their own public report. This meeting became the turning point in its process because the CPRC realized for the first time that it might issue a finding that could result in an officer being disciplined by the police department for an onduty shooting. Consequently, the clock began to run on whether or not that decision could be made with enough time to spare before the statutory deadline of Dec. 6 in order to allow the commission's finding to be evaluated alongside that already reached by the police department.

The CPRC released its public report on Nov. 2 and two weeks later, met for over an hour in closed session before voting unanimously that Wilson had violated the department's use of force policy when he shot Lane. That finding was then forwarded to Hudson's office where it sat, as the deadline approached. Everyone waited to see what would happen next and what the final disposition would be. The deadline passed quietly, and it turned out that Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis had, as several individuals put it delicately, "punked" on assuming the role of final arbiter in this case. Instead, they relayed the decision making process back to Chief Russ Leach, who backed his own department's investigation. With that action, Hudson, DeSantis etal sent a strong message to both the CPRC and the community that has supported it, that the role it would play in investigating officer-involved deaths would be both minimal, and advisory only.

This outcome surprised only those individuals who believed that this city's leadership would ever place the decisions made by the citizens who fund the city's various departments with their tax dollars, on par with those made by their public servants even in situations permitted by the city's charter. It certainly did not surprise several unidentified individuals who posted here last autumn including He Who Likes Ampersands, who predicted that the truth would soon come out about how little power the CPRC would have in this area. They proved to be absolutely right in their reading of the situation.

Ironically, this development with the CPRC, the police department and the city government came not long before the city and the state attorney general's office dissolved their five-year marriage of convenience. One of the recommendations included in the final report submitted by former AG consultant, Joe Brann was that the CPRC be strengthened. That is indeed a worthy goal, but the action taken on the Lane case only proved that the city viewed the commission as a public relations tool to bridge the gap between some of the city's communities and its police department. Not as a viable mechanism that could be used by the city's residents to improve accountability in the police department.

Was this disregard towards the CPRC shown simply because of the case's outcome? Actually, no. Whatever Hudson had ultimately decided in the case of the Lane shooting would have shown at least respect for the process and that he respected both parties involved in the dispute equally. But that was not what happened, hence the disregard.

It was shown when Hudson and De Santis opted out of their roles and responsibilities as arbiters over a process which involved taking input from two different city departments and evaluating it in total before making a final decision. The deed was done when they decided at that moment in time not to act as city managers at a time when it was very important for them to do so. They showed that when faced with a difficult decision, the best they could do was toss it like a hot potato to one of the vested parties in the dispute that had arisen over the outcome of an officer-involved shooting. It was a lesson that would not be quickly forgotten by anyone.

Unfortunately when it came to "fixing" the CPRC's power to independently investigate incustody deaths, they had only just begun as the next several months would reveal. Some patterns were just never made to be broken, even in the aftermath of the aftermath of the shots that were heard around the world, only seven years ago.

Still, with the Rabb case in the process of being decided and the controversial shooting of Lee Deante Brown on the horizon, there are those who will watch to see what happens next. Even in cases when that last grain of sand has fallen out of the hour glass.



Time Frames on Recent OID Investigations:


Summer Lane:



Date: Dec. 6, 2004



CPRC investigation: March 2005



OIS investigation completed: April 2005



Date of public report: Nov. 2, 2005



Date of finding: Nov. 9, 2005 (outside of departmental policy)



Statutory deadline: Dec. 6, 2005



Case delayed several months by CPRC due to the appointment of two new commissioners during the spring and summer of 2005.



Todd Argow:



Date: Nov. 14, 2005



CPRC investigation completed: May 15, 2006



OIS investigation completed: June 2006



Date of public report: July 26, 2006



Date of finding: Aug. 23, 2006 (within department policy)



Statutory deadline: Nov. 14, 2006



Terry Rabb:



Date: Oct. 2, 2005



OIS investigation completed: March 2006



Internal Affairs Administrative review completed: July 2006



Date of public report: possibly Sept. 13, 2006



Delay attributed to the length of the Internal Affairs Division's review.



Date of finding: unknown, probably October at the earliest.



Statutory deadline: Oct. 2, 2006