Reforms and Renovations

Alas, it appears that Mayor Ron Loveridge is out of town again and consequently, has left current mayor pro tem, Ed Adkison in charge of the dais. Early wagering will be accepted on how many people particularly those who will be elderly, will be ejected during the evening session.

During the afternoon session, the city council took the opportunity to congratulate itself for its contention that it has spent more money to construct wheelchair ramps on the city's curbs than any other city in Southern California. Officially, the money spent is $7 million and City Attorney Gregory Priamos helpfully pointed out that the city had entered into a contract to do curb ramp construction before U.S. District Judge Stephen Larsen had issued his ruling against it.

Some people have disputed the budget figures provided by the city so it's time to hunt down the paper work to settle that dispute.

City Manager Brad Hudson pointed out that as an older city than like Temecula, Riverside faced a greater burden at building these curb ramps in terms of the cost.

That's interesting because when it comes to the issues of development, redevelopment and this latest Riverside Renaissance, neither Hudson nor the city council has allowed their aged city, its aged streets, sidewalks or the money spent or borrowed from the city's coffer, to stand in their way to realize their vision of the future city.

So the aged curbs should not stand in their way in terms of making them accessible to the disabled. Because after all, Riverside Renaissance is supposed to be for all the city's residents, right?

The case in question is U.S. District Court case, Jon Lonsberg v the City of Riverside. It was set to be discussed by the city council in closed session today with an update on the process being given by Priamos at the evening session. Most of the city council did not comment on this item though Adkison defended the city.

It's more than probable that the city plans to appeal the judge's decision on this case given that Hudson boasted that the city had beaten Lonburg's prior 10 law suits that he filed and that it apparently was important that the city maintain its reputation as a champion for the disabled in Southern California. As if it were the image that mattered more than the reality. If the reality were as grand as Hudson envisioned, then there probably wouldn't have been 10 law suits filed against Riverside.

Hudson championed the city's record be that what it is in this area at both the afternoon and evening session which mercifully was presided over by Loveridge who had been attending the funeral of a young Riverside man who was killed in Iraq and missed the afternoon session.

And like the Community Police Review Commission, the new Commission on Disabilities was used as a prop for the city to give itself props for doing what it called the right thing, which apparently may include fighting this judge's decision. Hopefully, the latter commission will only just look the part and won't be "hollowed out" to embody it.

All the city's boards and commissions should be allowed to serve their purposes including the select few that enjoy the protection of the city's charter. However, in reality the CPRC, the Human Relations Commission, the Human Resources Board and the Cultural Heritage Committee have learned the hard way that it's a formidable task to exist and perform in a way that's not just what looks good on paper.

Could Hudson ultimately be the champion of the curb ramps in Riverside even as it's likely the city will appeal the verdict? It could happen. After all who would have expected to see Nathen swoop down to save a city from his radioactive brother on the Heroes finale the other night? Hudson's actions in real life would certainly top that plot development from a fictional program if indeed they were realized.





The Press Enterprise's Readers' Forum is brimming with letters written for or against various candidates running for election in the odd-numbered wards including one written by an individual who may or may not be the lieutenant in the city's northside precinct. The registration deadline for people planning to vote in this spring's election has passed, but people who are eligible to vote still have until June 5 to mail in their signed ballots.





Riverside County Public Defender Gary Windom made public an audit that found serious problems in how his department was being run, according to an article in the Press Enterprise. Windom's office is also under investigation by the county grand jury and the county's human resources department. The audit included 11 recommendations including ones which stated that Wisdom should spend more time at the other offices of his agency and work on improving the department's morale, which will be difficult considering how many senior public defenders have quit. Others filed complaints and one of them, Daniel Schmidt wrote letters to the County Board of Supervisors and one to the Press Enterprise which was published several months ago.



(excerpt)


In a February letter, Indio Deputy Public Defender Daniel Schmidt wrote to county Supervisor Roy Wilson that there had been an "exodus" of experienced deputy public defenders from the desert office.

"The overall rate of turnover in the department is high," the report said, "ranging from 19 percent to 22 percent per year ... about twice the standard expectation." The report said of the 73 departures from March 2004 to March 2007, one-third were employees assigned to the Indio office.

The report estimated recruitment, training and other turnover costs for 2006 at nearly $700,000. But that does not capture costs of low productivity and morale or poor performance related to vacancies, the report said.

Schmidt said that resulted in criminal cases languishing, sometimes for years, as they awaited trial or were handed off from one departing public defender to another.

Wilson said supervisors had received complaint letters from current and former deputy public defenders.

Along with the County Executive Office, the Riverside County grand jury has been looking into complaints about the office, but its report has not been released. The county Human Resources Department is also conducting an investigation, the report noted.





When I think of the Riverside County Public Defender's office, unfortunately I remember the case of a young Black man who lived in Riverside and faced four charges including a felony drug possession charge after being approached by a Riverside Police Department officer when he sat inside his car near midnight at Bordwell Park in the Eastside.



The officer assumed he was on a stimulant according to the conversation picked up on that officer's belt recording. He ordered the young man out of the car and when he didn't immediately comply, dragged him out and threw him on the ground. Another officer arrived and said that the man kicked him on purpose. The officers searched the car and found no stimulants, just prescription codeine prescribed to the man's mother in the glove compartment. The young man was charged with felony possession of that medicine because it contained codeine.



Although the man never tested positively for codeine or a stimulant, he still faced misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of a drug, battery of a police officer and resisting arrest in addition to the felony charge.



His public defender assigned to him told him in my presence that going to trial was useless, that there's no way a Riverside County jury would believe the word of a Black man against White officers and to plead guilty to all the charges.



The young man refused and decided to represent himself. Well, any expert would say even a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But this young man fought the felony charge at a preliminary hearing and the judge discharged it. The judge then pushed the prosecutor from the Riverside County District Attorney's office to dismiss the under the influence charge because about five toxicology screenings showed negative results. The District Attorney's office finally did.


The young man then took the two remaining charges to trial and did everything his public defender should have done including pick the jury. And it turned out, it was his jury.



After several hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted him of the battery charge because they didn't believe testimony from the second officer that he was intentionally kicked, because he had stood near the man's feet and since the man was lying on his stomach with the first officer on his back at the time, it's unlikely that he was even aware the first officer was there. The jury convicted him of obstruction of an officer, but members of the jury regretted that decision when they realized that the judge may have erred with one of the jury instructions because they hadn't wanted to convict him but thought the instruction stated they had to do so.



So the man appealed the conviction, an action not contested by the prosecutor at the Court of Appeals.



And what of the officers? Well, the man filed a complaint against the first one for excessive force and racial profiling. In 2004, the Community Police Review Commission agreed that the officer used excessive force when he arrested the man and sustained that finding. The racial profiling allegation received a not sustained finding, meaning that evidence reviewed did not render a definite finding proving or disproving that the act occurred. They exonerated an officer at the station on a separate excessive force allegation. However, a letter by the city on the final dissolution of the complaint showed that both allegations of excessive force were determined to be unfounded, the decision likely reached by the police department's own investigators. Not surprising, considering the man had filed litigation against the city in U.S. District Court in relation to the incident.



The second officer actually was fired last year, after allegations of unspecified misconduct were sustained against him and another officer but was reinstated back to his job just several weeks ago after an arbitrator cleared him and the city council voted first to appeal that decision and then reversed that decision in a second vote.



In due fairness to Windom, when he became aware of this case, he conducted a personnel review of the public defenders assigned to it, and there were a few because in many cases, the defendant can be assigned a different one each time.





That's probably not the right impression to have of an agency which is comprised of overworked, underpaid attorneys who do a lot of good work representing the majority of the people charged with crimes especially felonies in Riverside County as most of them are unable to afford a legal defense. But if this young man had taken the advice of his attorney, he would have had among other charges a felony on his record that didn't even need a fully trained and experienced attorney to make them go away.













The organization, Save-Riverside will be holding a picket at the corners of Jurupa and Magnolia today, May 23 at 4:30-7 p.m.






The Salt Lake Tribune in Utah published an editorial about the importance of increasing transparency in the city's civilian review board which has seen over half of its members resign in a matter of weeks. That's somewhat worse than what's been faced by the police commission in the city of Riverside which has seen five out of nine of its commissioners either resign or term out in the past six months.

Apparently, the city is trying to fill those positions, which won't be easy based on the past stormy months experienced by members of the commission.

Riverside's also had a difficult time filling its vacancies as well, but fill them it did, and it included among its appointments a woman who received over $150,000 in campaign contributions from two local police unions including that in the Riverside Police Department when she ran for political office nearly four years ago.


At the beginning of the editorial, there's a recruitment pitch of sorts.


(excerpt)


Salt Lake City is looking for a few good men and women to serve on its Police Civilian Review Board.

If you volunteer, you'll be part of the only autonomous board of its kind in the state, ruling on misconduct complaints leveled against police officers and providing independent oversight of the department's division of internal affairs.

And you'll be doing your part, as Mayor Rocky Anderson writes on the city's Web site, "to promote greater trust between the police department and the community it serves."

Be warned, you'll have to undergo training, serve long hours, attend countless meetings. And the rewards are, well, here's what you get in return. Zero pay. Zero authority. And zero respect.




In Riverside, it helps if you have political connections to at least one city council member as the selection process becomes more politicized. One of the latest appointments, Linda Soubirous ran for the Riverside County Board of Supervisors position nearly four years ago and received over $150,000 in contributions from both the Riverside Sheriffs' Association and the Riverside Police Officers' Association. Word is that Soubirous is considering either another run at the supervisor position or perhaps a spot in the California State Assembly next year. If either is true, then her stay on the CPRC is apparently not planned to be a long one.

The editorial board went further to admonish the city for not encouraging transparency in the operations of its mechanism of civilian oversight.


(excerpt)



The review board has the potential to be a wonderful thing. Working with an independent investigator hired by the city, it has heard 230 cases since 2003, siding with police about 54 percent of the time.

In theory, it can ensure police accountability and protect officers who are falsely accused. And it will do exactly that, as soon as the city stops limiting information about allegations of police misconduct.

The city needs to release the review board's complete reports and recommendations, and make the final ruling of the chief of police a part of the public record. That way, the board's work will have meaning. The public will hold Police Chief Chris Burbank accountable for his decisions. Trust will be engendered. And the citizens will be well served.







Another day, another Riverside County Sheriff Department employee arrested for having sex with a woman in his custody, according to an article published in the Press Enterprise. The latest addition to the growing list is Correctional Deputy James Emerson Brewer apparently is facing sexual battery charges from an incident that happened at the county's Banning facility.



It's the second recent bust involving correction deputies with the first one involving several employees at the Indio facility. Makes one wonder what else is going on.





After the tragic shooting death of one elderly Black woman and at least one close call with another, the Atlanta Police Department has decided to rehaul its corrupted narcotics unit.

The U.S. Justice Department is conducting an investigation of the department particularly this unit in the wake of the corruption that erupted when a group of narcotics officers committed serious criminal offenses even before they broke into the house of Kathryn Johnston, 92, and shot and killed her. After leaving her dying on her floor in handcuffs, officers first searched for weapons or drugs then when they didn't find any, planted drugs in her basement.

The house of cards came crashing down after one of the officers confessed. Three of them were indicted on felony charges, both federal and state, and two have already plead guilty and are working with federal investigators.

Every single officer including the supervisor working in that unit has or will be transferred out and replaced by other officers. The division will also be rehauling its policies and procedures to make them more in line with federal laws.


(excerpt)



The remaining narcotics unit officers will be given other positions within the police department as part of the overhaul, spokesman James Polite said Wednesday. "Everyone is being replaced," he said.

Overall, Pennington announced more than 140 police personnel changes Tuesday, including a number of key promotions, transfers and major changes in top leadership.

The leadership changes include swapping command of field operations and criminal investigations and appointing new heads of internal affairs and major crimes investigation.





In the wake of these changes, it remains to be seen whether the department needed to move all of its officers around or it needs new officers beginning at the top. It's one thing if all its problems lie in its special investigation division, but it's another if the problems are department-wide and thus far have only been manifested in the public spotlight in the narcotics unit because this unit was able to engage in corruption fairly openly with complicity from within. Where was the police chief and his management team when all this was going on? Where were the supervisors? What was the internal affairs division doing? If city residents were complaining, what happened to those complaints?

Obviously nothing good if the internal affairs division in the department is already being restaffed and most likely, will also have its operations rehauled in the future especially if Atlanta's police department ends up under a federal consent decree. Especially given that when all this corruption was going on, the department's internal affairs apparently was sustaining less than 3% of the complaints it was receiving, far less than the national average of sustained complaints which is around 15%.

And whether it will take another killing of another resident from one of Atlanta's most vulnerable populations to admit that.

Election 2007: Mums the word from the ethics committee

No news yet from the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee on whether or not it has set a hearing date for the ethics complaint filed against Councilman Dom Betro by activist Kevin Dawson after Betro allegedly walked up to Dawson and his teenaged daughter across from the Fox theater and shouted at him that he better hope he doesn't get elected.

The committee sped the first complaint filed against Betro to its hearing date, but it's likely that this one won't be heard until after the election.

Which given the process for hearing ethics complaints that the committee put on display last time around is probably not a bad thing. To watch the committee of which two-thirds is comprised of BASS members defend one of its own and castigate yet another complainant is not something that you want to begin the summer with even if you're just in the position of hearing or reading about it. It's not like Dawson can expect a fair hearing from a committee filled with individuals who have either formally or informally endorsed Betro's campaign for reelection to the dais. Perhaps the only people who feel that this doesn't provide a conflict of interest are those sitting on the dais and their supporters.


Watching the silence from the same people who advocated for an ethics complaint process is and has been a bit disconcerting.

Many people advocated for this important mechanism including those who served on the committee which researched the process and made recommendations to the city council after the voters gave a resounding yes to the question of whether or not they wanted such a process in their city. One has the feeling that to some degree, this silence is because many of those who were involved in this process are officially or unofficially strong supporters of the campaign of the one city official who has had complaints filed against him so far.

It's not like they have to support or reject specific findings by the committee to show their commitment to the process but it would definitely be a good thing if they kept a watchful eye and asked questions about it especially in the wake of what happened last time. What's wrong with standing up and asking questions about the shoddy process that was unveiled by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee the last time around before it becomes an issue this time?

Well, except for the fact that the complaints have been filed against the wrong council member. Perhaps the much needed scrutiny of the process would come if the complaints had been filed against other council members like Art Gage and Steve Adams who have received their share of negative press coverage for their alleged transgressions

The main problem is that the city council members have shown that they are incapable of making decisions regarding complaints against city council members they share political alliances with. Not in terms of the decisions they reach, but in terms of the process they used. Whatever decision the committee decides is its decision based hopefully on a comprehensive discussion and analysis of the facts presented which the last time consisted mainly of council member recollections and a DVD of the meeting in question which was highly selective in terms of what it showed. But then again, the evidence was presented by City Attorney Gregory Priamos who is directly employed by the city council members including Betro.

However, the process itself must be one that at least makes some attempt to examine the actions of the city council member than simply serve to castigate the person who complained against that council member.

The first complaint filed in the ethics complaint process was supposed to have been and actually was filed against Councilman Steve Adams, for making comments from the dais that several individuals in the audience were lying.

Other city council members including Frank Schiavone said they were appalled by what Adams had done but when a complaint was filed, what did Schiavone and other members of the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Commission do?

They made a rule that there could be no second-party complaints filed against city officials before they had even met to create a process to handle ethics complaints or had even essentially decided what committee would even have that responsibility. They ejected the complaint against Adams, also a BASS member, and then decided, oh we need a process when the more ethical and sensible thing to do would have been to put the complaint against Adams on hold until the process to handle it had actually been developed and implemented.


But that's not what the city council did and their actions in that case became a harbinger for what lay head.

Not that it helped Adams who recently showed up at a candidate forum and called one ward resident in attendance a liar before that man could even take his seat. And why shouldn't he? He saw what happened the earlier times he had done it. Even Betro has a return engagement to the committee because like before, he let his volatile temper get the better of him.

A complaint had been filed against Adams and the city council basically tossed it out on a technicality even though there was no process in place yet. But when there was, it was used to essentially trash the complainant rather than examine the behavior of the individual who received the complaint. In fact, there was relatively very little discussion of Betro's actions.

In other words, the city council looked out for one of its own. Well, actually two.

Which is exactly what will ultimately happen in this case and very few in the community if not inside City Hall will be surprised at that.






There's a local Web site, Inland Empire Craigslist that has been set up as a forum for the ongoing city council elections. There's a lot of good information on how city business is conducted or not on that site that can be accessed through the many useful links provided in the postings.

There's also a bit of what's often called a flame war, between people who support Betro and those who don't. Well, make that a person who supports Betro and people who don't. You've got to admire the commitment and energy of an individual who apparently spends so much time on one site to the point of being able to list what he or she states is every post made by him or her that gets "flagged" meaning that it is removed from the site based on the request of a visitor.

Visitors can flag posts on Craigslist because it's a non-administrated site. Which is what the Betro supporter is referring to when he or she posts those lists of flagged posts. However, what's interesting is that the flagging is going on from his or her corner as well. Posts that have been critical of Betro and the city council including postings made about the expulsion of a city resident from a recent city council meeting by Mayor Pro Tem Ed Adkison have also been flagged for removal yet they are not included on this visitor's exhaustive list.

So there's a lot of interesting, informative posts by people on different sides of the election and then there's this little flame war, which includes the practice of "spamming" which is when the same comments are reposted more than once, often many times. That's been the case here with the visitor who has posted the same comments numerous times even though his or her comments haven't been flagged by anyone.

The latest posting totally written in capital letters(which apparently on the internet is akin to shouting) is from one individua who is so sure that the Betro supporter is female because men wouldn't fight that way. Well, I could guess that this poster is male based on some characteristics in that posting and probably a man who doesn't like women very much based on his derision of a poster that is based on gender but that doesn't make it so. This poster goes further in trying to intimate that they know who this person is by pinning down the neighborhood that the poster believes this person lives in. That's a common tactic used in flame wars as well.

That one was followed by the Betro supporter who insisted that he or she isn't a bitter, hateful person and doesn't hate or feel bitter towards anyone running for office, but that he or she is just very happy about what's going on downtown. That's between two litanies of nasty comments about candidate, Letitia Pepper who's received a lot on a Web site that may be included among the "nameless" and "local bloggers" that the Press Enterprise believes that Pepper has the ability to unleash on the candidates that newspaper has endorsed.

That of course is followed by another example of "spamming" involving a comment that's been posted quite a few times already.

There's quite a bit of outstanding material including great links on that site by people who work hard to bring it to the voting public and there's some good dialogue but on a site that's has no administrator, it's hard to stop the spamming tactics and flame wars. It's hard enough even on sites that are administrated and in my case, it got to the point where comments are closed for the time being.







Presiding San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith has delayed the trial of Ivory J. Webb for an additional week after receiving a phone call that the wives of one of Webb's defense attorneys had gone into labor, according to the San Bernardino Sun.


(excerpt)


"I apologize for the delay," Judge Michael Smith told jurors. "Obviously this isn't something that we planned."

Opening statements are now scheduled for May 29.




The lawyer for U.S. Airman Elio Carrion, who was injured as a result of being shot by Webb in early 2006, said that the delay if prolonged could produce a hardship for his client because he had taken a leave from the military in order to testify at the trial which is expected to last at least four weeks.





In Illinois, Tom Dart who heads the Cook County Sheriff's Department is convening a panel to investigate allegations ranging from excessive force incidents to corruption. It will be staffed both by law enforcement experts and community leaders.

Usually panels like this one are created in the wake of problems involving the law enforcement which have come to public attention and Cook County's is no exception.


According to the Chicago Tribune in 2004, there were serious problems in the correctional division of the Sheriff's Department including the use of excessive force against inmates. The report submitted by a special grand jury investigating the patterns and practices inside the county jail system found misconduct much greater than that reported by officials from the Sheriff's Department.

The inquiry in part explained one reason why that was and included the reality that apparently the code of silence that pervades law enforcement also is practiced in its correctional systems as well.




The burden of proof is so high to sustain an inmate's complaint, it becomes "a convenient way to ignore the truth" and protect officers who have multiple complaints lodged against them by inmates, the grand jury found.

Guards routinely maintained absolute silence when someone in their ranks was accused of abuse, a grand jury's examiner found, and mountains of reports apparently were never analyzed for patterns by supervisors under Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan.

The picture emerges in material compiled by an examiner for the grand jury, whose extensive paperwork was released Thursday along with a stinging report alleging that members of Sheahan's office covered up a mass beating in 1999. The examiner, DePaul University Law School student Michael Bane, sifted through files turned over by the sheriff, documents that filled 74 boxes.

The panel's most serious allegations were leveled against guards in the Special Operations Response Team--the same elite unit found to have beaten and terrorized inmates in 1999 with wooden batons and dogs.

"The SORT complaints all have a familiar ring," the grand jury reported. "They speak of mass beatings where inmates are forced to stand, face a wall for an extended period of time, often naked, where they would be subjected to both verbal and physical abuse; any sign of insubordination was usually met with physical punishment."

Among the 18 of more than 350 complaints sustained by sheriff's officials was an incident in which an inmate who took candy from a desk was beaten with a broomstick and reports were filed stating the inmate fell, Bane reported. In another sustained incident, Bane noted, seven inmates were treated for forehead burns when they were made to lean their heads on a radiator.





In Paramus, New Jersey, the morale of police officers there has sunken to a new low amidst a flurry of law suits being filed

At least 18 law suits filed in the past 12 years, most of them centering around promotions, according to an article posted on North Jersey Media Group.

So the local government is addressing that process in hopes of reducing the amount of litigation filed. Several of the law suits alleged that officers were promoted even after engaging in racist behavior.


(excerpt)



Deputy Police Chief Richard Cary is heading that effort. Although he hopes requiring tests for promotions will lead to fewer lawsuits, he said the entire process must be transparent in order to succeed.

"This has been going on for a long time," Cary said. "The union and officers are going to be looking for a process that's transparent and one they believe is fair."

Cary himself sued when he was denied a promotion. His 2004 lawsuit accused then-Councilwoman Sandra Gunderson of voting against his promotion to deputy chief despite a conflict of interest. He maintained that Gunderson should have abstained because her husband is a member of the police force.

The lawsuit ended with Cary's promotion.

Another promotion that followed a lawsuit raised eyebrows about the advancement process.

In 2004, Officer Elliot Colon sued the borough, alleging that Sgt. Robert Revicki, his supervisor, slurred Puerto Ricans and said that "Puerto Rico should be bombed."

An investigation resulted in a three-day suspension for Revicki, and Colon's lawsuit ended in an out-of-court settlement, with Colon receiving an undisclosed sum of money and a work assignment with another supervisor.

Revicki was promoted to lieutenant after his suspension, a decision approved by former Police Chief Fred Corrubia and the borough government.




The Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina reported in a recent article that Black and Latino motorists were more likely to be stopped by police officers in that city.


Percentage of drivers pulled over for minor vehicle violations:


Black: 49%

Hispanic: 44%

White: 31%

Arrest rates:

Black: 1%

Hispanic: 2.9%

White: 1.1%



The city quickly responded to the news and called for a complete review of the department's practices in conducting traffic stops.


(excerpt)


City Manager Lee Garrity told the police department to conduct a thorough review of their practices. The order comes three months after police took diversity training.

"I can tell you that I am committed to making sure that our police department treats all citizens fairly and does not profile any group," Garrity said.




Police Chief Pat Norris, who the article states is Black, insisted that his officers did not racially profile people, but mentioned that the reason why Black and Latino individuals were pulled over for minor traffic violations is because they were unable to afford making repairs to their vehicles.


(excerpt)



"When I was out and working the street, it just seemed like the more people that I pulled over were minorities that had trouble keeping up with the finances of the car more so than the white population did," Norris said.





However, what Norris conveniently leaves out is the fact that traffic pretext stops are made by officers for reasons that most often have little or nothing to do with minor traffic violations. Officers particularly those who work in patrol divisions use those minor violations as a probable cause for pulling a vehicle over so that they can inquire into what they believe is potential criminal behavior.



Police officers make choices each day of which vehicles with expired plates, missing plates, broken tail lights and other violations they allow to pass them by and which they decide to pull over. Just like they do with other drivers who don't stop at stop signs, red lights or who make turns from the incorrect lanes.



Consequently, the disparity in statistics among the different racial groups for stops based on minor traffic violations may be explained by the discretion by police officers in terms of whom they decide to actually pull over and who gets to drive on by them. Do they decide to pull over Black and Latino motorists more frequently(proportionately speaking) than White motorists?



And like was evidenced in the recent national study conducted by the Department of Justice, often it's how individuals belong to different racial groups are treated during traffic stops that differs with Black and Latinos being searched at a disproportionate rate in comparison to White motorists.





In New York City, the arrest of two New York City Police Department officers who tried to rob a drug den has shocked many of the people who thought they knew both men.

An article in the New York Daily News featured interviews with family members and friends of Officers Hector Alvarez and Miguel Castillo had difficulty rationalizing the reality that these men had allegedly engaged in corrupt behavior and then tried to cover it up.


(excerpt)


Alvarez, a former Marine, spoke three languages fluently and had expert training in counterterrorism.

"He was an outstanding police officer and a good father," his wife, Fiona MacFadyen, said yesterday. "He had an awesome career and this is tragic."

MacFadyen, eight months pregnant with the couple's third child, said she was "completely shocked."

"This is so out of character for Hector," said MacFadyen, 26.

Relatives of Castillo, a former amateur boxer, told a similar story. "He's the last person you'd expect this from," said his cousin Diana Castillo, 17.



In the Bronx, outraged family members continue to protest the shooting of a Honduran-born man, Fermin Arzu who was shot by NYPD officer, Raphael Lora who was off-duty at the time.

Lora shot Arzu five times after he ran out to Arzu's van which had been involved in a collision and identified himself as a police officer. Details of what happened are sketchy, as several witnesses disagreed with the police department's version of events.


(excerpt)



Police sources who spoke to Lora gave this version of what happened next:

Lora ran up to the van, identified himself as a cop and asked for Arzu's license.

Arzu, whose speech was slurred, pushed at the cop with his right hand as he reached for the glove compartment with his left - making Lora fear the neighborhood handyman and musician was going for a gun.

Suddenly, the van surged forward as Lora was knocked to the ground by an open door. The cop then opened fire.

Witnesses told cops "they saw the car move forward and heard shots," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

No witness has reported seeing Lora hit by a door.

And investigators now are talking with witnesses who believe the van lurched forward only after the first shot was fired.

No gun was found in the car.




And there's been an article by the New York Times about how this department is having a difficult time recruiting new officers given that the agency has a starting salary of $25,000. Now there's another article about how neighboring law enforcement agencies in Long Island are hiring officers who otherwise might have gone to work at the NYPD.

Police agencies from Suffolk and Nassau Counties are getting the lion share of those applicants, with over 20,000 applying for positions in Suffolk.


(excerpt)



Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay, said the high pay coupled with low crime rates make a coveted Long Island job “like winning the lottery in law enforcement.”

“It’s a real me-versus-you mind-set,” he added. “When I announce the test in class, I actually get dirty looks from some students who’ve already registered and don’t want to see the test pool broadened so it lessens their chances.”

Starting salary on the 2,692-member Suffolk force is $57,811 — compared with $25,100 when entering the New York Police Department academy and $32,700 after six months at the department — and rises after five years to $97,958 ($59,588 in New York). With overtime, many members of the Suffolk department routinely make more than $100,000.

Nassau’s salaries are lower — $34,000 to start, $91,737 after seven years — but as the county executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, announced with fanfare last month, average pay in the 2,686-member department, with overtime, was $125,000 last year.

Officer involved shootings: Domestic and otherwise

Update: The trial of former San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputy, Ivory J. Webb has been delayed because the wife of the defense attorney went into labor, according to presiding judge, Michael A. Smith. No word yet on how long this delay will last.




It's a quiet day on the election trail, thank goodness as the deadline to send in mail in ballots for the ongoing city council elections in the odd-numbered wards comes closer. So if you've got one, send it in. Your vote is an important voice.

In the special elections Readers' Forum in the Press Enterprise, there have been some interesting letters indeed.


S. Garrett Short writes an interesting letter published on May 20.



(excerpt)


I have lived in Riverside since the 1960s. I have read The Press-Enterprise -- or some version of it -- all of those years.

While I am not planning to vote for Dom Betro or Letitia Pepper, I have to ask how The P-E can pillory Pepper as though Betro has never been rude to her or others at council meetings. Frankly, I expect better from the newspaper ("Vile campaigning," Our Views, April 28).

Excusing the man you endorsed for Ward 1 of questionable behavior while accusing Pepper of rudeness is not up to the standards I expect from you.

Thank you for making up my mind to vote for Mike Gardner.




I wouldn't be surprised if this person's not the only one who noticed the double standard being applied to Betro who face it has had more than his share of gaffes and to Pepper, the lightning rod for every allegation of misconduct published in the Press Enterprise lately. Both Betro and Pepper have stumbled in the election race, but the newspaper which in earlier years provided more comprehensive, well-rounded coverage doesn't treat their foibles equally.

Betro's apparent fixation with what his campaigners have called the "Pepper effect" is apparently stemming out of concern that votes for her might push him towards a runoff election next November against Gardner. Well, thanks to the coverage in the daily newspaper, apparently another vote has been cast in that direction.






Be the first one to go to the Press Enterprise's Web site to respond to the latest poll about whether or not you think that the librarians should be able to explain policies to the media. So far no one's responded.

Maybe a better question to ask is whether or not you want Asst. City Manager to be the head librarian but I doubt there will be an official poll on that any day soon unless it's held at a city council meeting like similar "polls" have been done in the past, particularly that involving the police department on March 27.







Jon Lonberg 's case is going into closed session tomorrow at the city council meeting. Recently, he was awarded a sizable verdict and the U.S. District Court judge's mandate that the city of Riverside construct over 100 ramps for curbs within the next four months. Hopefully, the city attorney's office will advise the city council to pay out the verdict and build the ramps. If that's not part of the Riverside Renaissance plan already, then of course, it should be quickly added because after all the new, exciting Riverside is supposed to be for everyone. Right?


More information on Lonberg's victory is here.



I was reminded of the Americans with Disability Act last week when I attended a subcommittee meeting held by members of the Human Relations Commission. The committee addressed police and community relations in Riverside and was fairly well attended by people who expressed their concerns on this issue for over an hour.

One woman who couldn't attend the meeting with her sister had to wait in the lobby of the meeting location, which was the Coffee Depot in downtown Riverside. And so she waited for over an hour until the meeting ended.

Why did she wait in the lobby, instead of attending the meeting herself?

Because she was in a wheelchair and the meeting was held in a conference room on the second floor of the coffee shop, the only access to that room being a steep flight of stairs. This woman's sister used a cane because of some injuries she experienced to her leg and she had a difficult time navigating the narrow staircase, the type often found in old buildings like this former Santa Fe Railroad Depot which was restored for commercial use.

The meeting itself was a really good one. Rarely, do the committees in the boards and commissions allow the city residents who attend to fully participate in the discussion. They want the community's input, they always say but then they pigeonhole that input into small increments.

Participating was Sgt. Keenan Lambert, who is a member of the department's community policing division and he answered questions involving the department including those about its policy regarding the activation of the digital audio recorders carried by officers. Lambert had been part of the original Attorney General's Task Force in 2001 and had worked on creating that policy. The issue of racial profiling and the practice of officers asking individuals they stop whether or not they are on probation or parole, was also addressed.

It was a very interesting meeting, but it wasn't an open meeting if a woman in a wheelchair had to sit downstairs and was not allowed to participate because of the inaccessibility of the meeting location. When several individuals raised that issue, the committee's members agreed that the meeting location had to be changed.




And the Press Enterprise also wrote an article on the origin of the city's stranger ordinances including whether or not you can carry a lunchbox on Main Street or kiss in public. Nothing about the law which allegedly banned eating an orange on an elevator though.

The article stated that the ordinance about the ban on lunchboxes wasn't true.






The trial involving a former San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputy who shot and wounded a U.S. airman begins today.

The Los Angeles Times published an article today about how it believes the case involving Ivory Webb, Jr. will be presented by both sides. Different experts involving the use of force by law enforcement officers also offered their opinions in the news article.




(excerpt)



The prosecutor and defense attorneys declined to preview their cases before trial. But one of Webb's attorneys, Michael D. Schwartz, made it clear in pretrial hearings that he intended to probe Carrion's failure to follow Webb's orders to stop talking and to keep his hands on the ground during the traffic stop.

Several use-of-force experts who have followed the case said Webb's lawyers would have their own troubles explaining why Webb did not follow law enforcement protocol — when he got out of his patrol car, for example, and stood over Carrion even though he was dealing with two suspects and did not have backup.

"There's no place in the United States that tells officers to walk up and stand in an exposed position when confronting felons," said David Klinger, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of "Into the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force."

"I honestly don't see anything" that stands in the defense's favor on the videotape, Klinger said.

Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina professor who also specializes in the use of force, said that after viewing the video numerous times, he still did not see any action by Carrion that could explain why Webb fired.

"A shooting is not justified unless there is a significant threat to the officer," Alpert said. "And if the suspect wasn't going for a potential weapon or going for something that would disable the officer, I don't know how they could justify the use of deadly force."





The San Bernardino Sun also stated in its article that opening arguments in the trial are expected to begin today. The trial could last for weeks.


(excerpt)



Webb is accused of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm in the January 2006 shooting of Elio Carrion, an Air Force senior airman, that was captured on videotape.

Carrion was a passenger in a Corvette driven by friend Luis Escobedo, who led Webb on a high-speed chase that ended in Chino.

The video shot by a Chino resident shows Carrion lying face down outside the car with Webb appearing to tell him to get up.

When Carrion begins to rise, Webb shoots him three times, hitting him in the shoulder, chest and leg.



What will happen to Webb? Well, he'll probably get acquitted by the end of June and return to law enforcement by the end of the year. If his old agency doesn't rehire him, perhaps at Maywood Police Department?




There's an interesting article in the New York Times about what it's like for new cadets hired by the New York City Police Department to start out as police officers, because unlike department's in many large cities, this one has a pretty low starting salary of about $25,000 a year. The article and others follow the paths of several police cadets as they work their way through the program.



(excerpt)


But now, four months into their training at the Police Academy, and
with graduation less than two months away, several recruits said that
they had greatly underestimated just how difficult it would be to make
ends meet. Student loans have gone unpaid. Credit card debts have
mushroomed. Parents have been tapped, repeatedly and exhaustively, for
emergency funds, extra bedrooms and leftovers.

"After my mom cooks for me, I spread it out," said Mr. Gonell, 25, who
lives in the Bronx. "Rice and chicken, rice and chicken. I'm going to
fly out of here eventually, that's how much chicken I eat."

The Police Department's entry level salary is the lowest for police
officers in the region, and so is its officers' top base pay of
$59,588 after five and a half years. Those wages are a result of past
contract negotiations, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has suggested
that the job's perks and prestige outweigh its drawbacks.

Still, police union officials say the wages are deterring would-be
recruits and driving seasoned officers to higher paying jobs
elsewhere. The department hired 1,346 recruits in January, about 1,000
short of its goal, and police officials say the relatively low pay is
largely to blame.

Critics have suggested that the academy has lowered its standards in
an effort to fill its ranks - an assertion the department denies - but
Mr. Torres said the pay keeps away those who are not truly dedicated.
"You're going to get cops who really want to be cops," he said.




But does the lower pay increase the odds of corruption in a police force which watched last week as two of its officers try to rob a drug den before getting caught. That's a question that's been asked many times about the NYPD and the answer is that paying officers less increases corruption because it causes some of them to turn to illegal pursuits to supplement their income. Others say, no it decreases corruption because as stated in the paragraph above, it only attracts the "cops who really want to be cops".

Still, it appears that if a police officer is going to break the law, he or she is of the mindset to do just that regardless of what he or she is paid because even officers working for departments with much more generous pay scales get into serious trouble and fairly often, it involves money.



Also in New York City, more shocking information has come out about the NYPD officer accused of killing his girlfriend in Queens. According to this article in the New York Post, Officer Harry Rubnarine was nearly expelled from the police academy when he was a cadet for disruptive behavior.



(excerpt)


If his Police Academy instructor had had his way, the NYPD cop accused of gunning down his ex-fiancée with his service pistol would never have been issued the gun, The Post has learned.

Harry Rupnarine, 38, was so disrup tive during class as a candidate in early 2005 that his instructor tried to have him kicked out, a source said.

But in a meeting with his superiors, the in structor was overruled, and Rupnarine graduated in July 2005.

"They wanted to throw him out, but they were overruled by their bosses" in the academy, a police source said.

Instead Rupnarine remained in the academy and became a NYPD officer for nearly two years before shooting his girlfriend, Guiatree Hardat in the face killing her after she didn't want to set a wedding date. In recent weeks, according to the article, Hardat was becoming concerned over her boyfriend's controlling ways.

He has now been charged in her death.

Another off-duty shooting by a NYPD officer is under scrutiny. The shooting of Honduran-born Fermin Arzu, who was shot to death by Officer Raphael Lora allegedly for leaving the scene of a car accident, according to the police department.

(excerpt, WNBC)



At the scene, Kirsten Foy, an associate of Sharpton's, said, "It is our belief that there was an unnecessary loss of life."

Foy was joined by Arzu's 20-year-old daughter, Katherine Arzu, and 14-year-old son, Jeyson Frederick, and other family members on the Bronx street corner where a car accident led to the shooting by Lora.

"He needs to pay," Katherine Arzu said. "He left me and my brother here alone."

The incident unfolded at 11:40 p.m. Friday and ended when the bloodied man drove away from the officer, sideswiped another vehicle, then died as his minivan burned on a sidewalk.

Police said it began when Arzu slammed into a parked car on a side street near the officer's home.

Witnesses told investigators the minivan backed up and drove about a block before Lora, who was on foot and out of uniform, caught up to the vehicle. He was standing at the driver's open door when the minivan lurched forward.

The officer discharged his 9mm pistol five times, hitting the driver once, police said.

A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office said the bullet entered the driver's back and pierced his heart, left lung and aorta, but he still managed to drive a block before his minivan struck another vehicle and caught fire. The car bumped onto a sidewalk and came to rest against the wall of a church.

Elections 2007: The editorial board speaks out

As surely as the sun comes up in the morning and bakes the drought-stricken city of Riverside, the Press Enterprise's editorial board has decided to preach to the candidates and their supporters about negative campaign tactics. The article isn't very specific on which negative tactics it is concerned about even as those tactics have been experienced to one degree or another by nearly every candidate running for election in the four city wards that are up for grabs this year. One reason for that may be because in reality, there's been scant news coverage of what's been going on outside Ward One regarding the election, let alone the more negative aspects of the campaigning. If it hasn't allegedly happened to one city council candidate running in Ward One whose been endorsed by the Press Enterprise, then you probably haven't read about it.


The editorial raises some issues and some questions.



(excerpt)



Just as negative campaigning turns off voters, vitriolic campaigns deter good people from running for public office. Why pursue public service and invest countless hours and tens of thousands of dollars when the only guarantee is that an opponent or nameless blogger will smear your good name?

There are 16 days left in Riverside's mail-in election. Candidates should use that time to lift the campaign's tone from the gutter and have a civil discussion about the issues that truly affect residents.




The editorial raises valid points including the question above as to why would people want to run for office if what they'll receive in return is negative treatment by their opponents or others. But what the editorial fails to address is the role that its publication has played in providing unequal coverage of this negative treatment and even worse, its apparent contention that the responsibility of all this negative treatment lies on the shoulders of one of the candidates, Letitia Pepper who among other things, is apparently the head of a consortium of local bloggers that she can unleash or call off at her leisure. That's how one reporter from this newspaper saw it when she wrote a piece on the nasty emails and blog postings flying around the internet.

At no place in that same news article on nasty campaign tactics, were there any responses from or any comments made about similar actions to call off the bloggers and emailers by other Ward One candidates like Mike Gardner and Derek Thesier. The more sensible thing than blaming one individual for that conduct would have been to ask every political candidate running in this election what they thought about what was going on because as has been stated, it's apparently happening in all the council races not just Ward One.

Also not asked to call off the "local bloggers" in that same news article was Councilman Dom Betro even though some of the unnamed commenters writing nasty postings about other candidates online have been calling themselves Betro supporters.

Apparently, Pepper is being held to a separate standard than the three male candidates in her Ward race.

It doesn't help that the authors of the articles themselves seemed to hold Pepper responsible for all that conduct and wondered out loud( through what journalism advisers call "editorializing") about her "failure" to call these bloggers off of Betro. But as mentioned above, there was nothing in the article about Gardner or Thesier being asked let alone apparently required to provide an explanation for any similar "failures" on their parts.

And there's been no articles written by the Press Enterprise about the mud slinging being done in the Ward Three and Ward Five races, including nasty innuendo about candidates William "Rusty" Bailey and Donna Doty Michalka. And yes, even Pepper has been on the receiving end of nasty rhetoric, but the Press Enterprise is too busy treating her as the sole instigator to write about that either.

What's been written about Bailey and Michalka would be more than enough to scare many future candidates off. But the newspaper has been fairly silent on what they have faced. Why is that?

As a result of all this, this editorial which hits a few of its points very well just appears to be more of the same when it could have been a powerful mechanism to address the mudslinging that has been going on this election season. But it's hard for readers to relate to editorials when the news sections of that same newspaper have failed to lay the foundation through their articles for those editorials to gather their information from.

So far, what the editorial board has also shown is that it is awfully quiet when city council members including those up for election behave badly on the dais including Mayor Pro Tem Ed Adkison who can hardly even run a meeting without calling for someone's arrest or removal. What the newspaper has instead done is served as a staunch advocate for Betro and fought his battles for him while ignoring what other city council candidates have faced in other wards.

It's been fairly quiet about Councilman Steve Adams' personal attack of a Ward Seven resident at a recent political forum which had him calling this individual a liar before he could even take his seat though it was vocal about the controversy involving a newsletter coming out of his office.

There's also been a lot of quiet surrounding the alleged behavior of Betro towards several activists who protested eminent domain at the epicenter of where the city had exercised it downtown, as well as the ethics complaint that was filed in relation to it. That story was relegated to a brief under the city government section and received no response from the newspaper's editorial board so far.


I don't know about the editorial board but this "blogger" has already written pretty much about mudslinging in this year's elections. As for "civil" discussions, they are taking place throughout Riverside. Aric Isom's candidate forum at Back to the Grind was one such venue and there have been others not covered in the Press Enterprise, but that newspaper only appears interested in the election when the mud is flying or someone is stomping out of a public event in a huff.

It's a shame because things were different back in the day when Howard H. Hays, Jr. and his family ran the newspaper which was at the time, one of the few left in the country that was still family owned. Belo Enterprises and other syndicates owned by major corporations were buying up more and more media outlets to add to their media empires. Several years ago, the Press Enterprise became the latest casualty when it was purchased by Belo Enterprises, a corporation based in Texas.

And as a result, so has its coverage of the 2007 city council elections.





As both sides prepare for the trial of a former San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputy, the videotaped version of his shooting of an airman last year is expected to its centerpiece.

An article published in the Los Angeles Times stated that although the prosecutors believe the depiction of the shooting that's by now been seen around the world is a strong piece of evidence to prove that Ivory J. Webb committed a crime when he shot and wounded Elio Carrion. But whereas similar video tapes have produced enough of a case for indictment, they often do not provide enough evidence for conviction.


(excerpt)


We know historically that documentary film is dominated by the voice — that we're very prone to follow what it is that we are being told about what we are seeing," said Michael Renov, a documentary scholar at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.

This especially could be true about the video recording in Webb's trial, and the battle between the prosecution and defense: "The lawyer gets to provide the voice-over," he said.

After watching the video of the Chino shooting, Renov drew a parallel to Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film "Rashomon." In that famous Japanese film, a single event was shown from different perspectives and narrated by different characters, who each gave plausible explanations of what had transpired.

The low lighting, scant detail and shaky camera in the Chino shooting footage, Renov said, could play into the personal fears of members of the jury as they try to put themselves in Webb's shoes to determine whether he committed a crime.

"It's all dark, it's murky, it's hard to know what's going on," Renov said. "The less clear-cut the image ... the more possibilities there are for creating a compelling narrative that can help make the case you want it to make."




The Press Enterprise is beginning to publishing letters in its Readers' Forum by people praising different candidates in the city council elections on its Web site. Previously similar letters that were published in the newspaper were not posted online.



Letters:


May 20

May 19




Conservative columnist Heather MacDonald gave the following admonition in her latest piece to cool it LAPD bashers in response to the reaction to the May Day incident including by those in her own profession who were hit by batons and shot by less lethal munitions. Like most of those defending the actions of the Los Angeles Police Department, MacDonald is an opponent of Special Order 40, which prohibits the LAPD's officers from reporting information on undocumented immigrants to the federal agencies.

Her column raises interesting issues, even if her information including that involving the Rampart neighborhood's response to the scandal in its midst which was very mixed is inaccurate, but it's a given that if MacDonald had been reporting on the MacArthur Park rally and had her wrist broken by an LAPD officer who violated an agreement in place between the department and journalists enacted in 2002, she would probably be their most vocal opponent right now. Being assaulted by police officers has been an amazing mechanism for the transformation from unabashed supporter of law enforcement to cynical critic for people, including journalists who faced similar treatment by the LAPD in 2000. After all, there are FOX news journalists actually suing the agency right now. Who would ever think they would see any of them doing that before seeing ice freeze in Hell?


(excerpt)



The LAPD's usual scourges should get out and see some real policing. They should talk to officers and educate themselves about the organization's constant efforts to partner with the community in fighting crime. The transparency and accountability that Chief William J. Bratton introduced after he took over in 2002 have made the department a national model. Crime reporters in Los Angeles don't know how good they've got it with a department that actually returns phone calls and opens its doors to the media.

However deplorable the May Day episode, it has been blown way out of proportion, in part by people with a financial interest in fanning passions over the incident. Even without the incessant media coverage of that evening's events, there is no question that the department would have reacted as strongly to prevent a reoccurrence. The salient feature of the MacArthur Park breakdown was not its routine nature but rather its rarity.




Maybe while MacDonald's at it, she should tell the federal monitor overseeing the police department to cool it as well as well as the U. S. District judge who despite fairly intense political pressure extended the LAPD's reform process last year. The LAPD has made strides under its latest round of reform under the federal consent decree but the fact that this five-year agreement is going into its seventh year and is now set to expire in 2009 at the earliest, makes it abundantly clear that it has its ongoing struggles as well. And this latest incident caught on video cameras is one example of that.

It's forcing an examination of the LAPD of how its officers are supervised and trained and that's the way it should be. But one way to understand what struggles that the LAPD has been undergoing over and over is to read Joe Frederick's book, To Protect and To Serve which is a fairly exhaustive but compelling historical examination of the LAPD.




In the Orange County Register, Black leaders demand an end to racial profiling at a forum where community members and law enforcement representatives gathered to discuss this serious problem and its impact on people and policing.


(excerpt)



Melissa Carew has two sons fighting in Iraq.


But that's not what keeps her up at night.


She worries whether they can survive being stopped by local police when they come home.


"It's sad that I have to tell my sons that every time they go out that they fit the description and they should be scared of you," said Carew, 47, as she addressed a dozen local police chiefs and Sheriff Mike Carona at a Saturday forum on racial profiling at the Christ Our Redeemer AME Church in Irvine.


One by one, in a seemingly never-ending stream that flowed for more than eight hours, blacks living in Orange County stood up at the church and told the police chiefs stories of being harassed during traffic stops.


A black police officer told about being stopped because of a bad license-plate light bulb. Another woman complained that a police officer asked whether she had ever been in jail during a routine speeding stop. Others were stopped frequently while driving older cars in affluent neighborhoods. Many said police made U-turns when they saw a black driver and pulled them over.


Even two local City Council members related stories of tough – and unequal – treatment by local police officers.


"You can't hear this testimony and not be touched," said Irvine Police Chief Dave Maggard to the audience. Despite much progress in recent years with diversity training, all the police chiefs said there is more to do to make all taxpayers feel that they are treated equally by police.


Carona took notes during the testimony and addressed each complaint specifically, saying to the crowd, "I get it."



After listening to a day's worth of testimony about experiences that probably expand years, hopefully, Carona did "get it" and is not just one more of a list of police agency leaders who said that and then do nothing. And as this forum showed like others have shown, it is African-Americans from different backgrounds who are finding themselves pulled over by officers for allegedly fitting into a profile that is much more narrow in definition.

Police officers who are Black are often racially profiled, sometimes by their fellow employees if it's a large-sized agency. And off-duty Black officers who have decided to assist their White colleagues in need, have been killed or experienced serious injuries for their efforts in several cities when White officers have profiled them as criminals.

In an essay written in an anthology on racism, Black and Latino officers working in their agency's narcotics division said that the number one fear they faced on the job was that they wouldn't be shot by a criminal but by someone who wore the same badge that they did.

Carew herself said that when she worked in an emergency room, police officers treated her much differently than when they saw her driving down the streets. That's also a common story told by those who may be viewed as nonthreatening by officers in one context and profiled in another.

In Carona's favor is that unlike many chiefs or sheriffs who attend forums like these, he didn't immediately jump into a defensive mode and engage in the common practice of circling the wagons around the issue. But what does he plan to do about it, is what's truly important, not just what he says.

One thing that Orange County might be seeing in its future is a civilian review board to handle complaints including those of racial profiling. The Board of Supervisors is currently examining a proposal on this issue in response to several high-profile incidents of serious misconduct in the Orange County Sheriff's Department.



And in New York City, what do you do if you're two New York City Police Department officers and you got caught not breaking up a drug den, but robbing it? You claim that you were trying to stop terrorism, according to this article published in the New York Daily News.

Officers Hector Alvarez and Miguel Castillo were arrested and have been charged with multiple felonies in connection with their actions, because apparently no one really believed their story.



(excerpt)


Alvarez and Castillo, who both joined the NYPD in 2005 and earn about $43,000 a year, drove to Rutherford, N.J., early Friday after getting a tip from an acquaintance that drugs and cash were stashed in a home there, law enforcement sources said.

Wearing business suits and armed with burglary tools, the bungling duo tried to talk their way into the home with the aim of stealing the contraband, the sources said.

A neighbor grew suspicious when Alvarez and Castillo began fighting with a resident, authorities said yesterday.

Aware of the shady goings-on at the home, the neighbor asked the well-dressed pair if they were federal drug agents, sources said.

"As the two officers attempted to flee the altercation, the resident asked who they were," Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said in a statement yesterday. "The officers told the resident that they were police officers on 'official business' and were conducting an investigation relative to 'terrorism.'"

The neighbor asked the officers to remain at the scene until local police arrived. But Alvarez and Castillo refused and fled, prosecutors said.

The neighbor passed along their license plate number to local cops, who tracked the pair down minutes later, the sources said.

The NYPD officers initially tried to pass themselves off as civilians, the sources added.

But when they were pressed, they admitted they were cops and claimed they were conducting an undercover narcotics operation, the sources said.

Election 2007: I (heart) the CPRC and other lines.

Yesterday, at the corner of 14th and Market, about 10 members of Save-Riverside and a certain simian gathered to demonstrate by holding signs, stating that they were against eminent domain abuse and to vote for anyone but Councilman Dom Betro.

What they received in response were numerous cars honking their horns in support, people giving their thumbs up and individuals stopping their vehicles asking them for more information and Web sites that they could read. Then there was also the story or two about Betro's infamous temper and what it's like to be on the receiving end of it.

The members said they were surprised at the enormous response they received. But it might be a sign that it's time for change in Riverside. And with at least one current city council member or two facing great difficulty on the campaign trail, perhaps that is what will happen when the votes are counted in June.



The Community Police Review Commission was the subject of a campaign brochure circulated by the campaign of William "Rusty" Bailey campaign, which decried the fact that in two elections, the Ward Three incumbent, Art Gage, has accepted huge sums of money from the Riverside Police Officers' Association.

At least $15,000 according to the campaign brochure.

I received several copies of this latest campaign advertisement, the first I've actually seen from the Bailey campaign. It begins with this statement.


(excerpt)


Since 2000, the Civilian Community Police Review Commission has protected Riverside citizens, their tax dollars and the Police Department from law suits.


So why does Art Gage want to get rid of it?




Actually, this is a commonly used argument, that the CPRC has prevented law suits. And that was what the statistics showed until last year when at least five law suits were filed in relation to four officer-involved deaths. And in addition to those law suits, other law suits were filed against the police department in federal and state court particularly during the last six months of 2006. These law suits were filed during time periods when both the police department and the CPRC were experiencing serious problems with their operations.

The CPRC probably doesn't prevent law suits directly to a great degree although it may reduce their numbers. Its greater role that it plays is through trying to implement changes in the police department largely through policy recommendations. Only the city and the police department can ultimately prevent or reduce the number of law suits that are filed against it. What the CPRC reflects is the health of both of these entities. The canary in the mine, not the mine itself.

The city including its risk management division has chosen to blame the CPRC, the canary in the mine, for these law suits and has acted accordingly against it during the past six months. This has led to the loss of its executive director and the resignations of at least four commissioners in six months. It has slowed the review of citizen complaints and pretty much stalled the investigation of officer-involved deaths that occurred last year.



Lee Deante Brown: The CPRC is currently drafting a public report on this shooting, 13 months and much in the way of theatrics by the city, after it happened.


Douglas Steven Cloud: The CPRC and police department have been investigating this shooting for the last seven months. Expect to see a long delay before the CPRC is able to construct its public report on this shooting as this shooting is expected to be even more contentious than the Brown case.


Joseph Darnell Hill: The CPRC and department have been investigating this shooting for seven months. It trails the Cloud shooting.




Bailey answers the above question that he raised by stating that it's because Gage is looking out for "special interests" groups, not the city's residents. This is illustrated by a hand clutching many dollar bills of undetermined denominations. But the message is that Gage caters to special interests rather than responds to what his constituents want.

Meaning that apparently he is stating that he's carrying out the wishes of the RPOA and not the voters, who just as they did in every ward in the city, voted overwhelmingly to put the CPRC in the city's charter. In large part because of actions that Gage took against the CPRC during the budget reconciliation hearings in 2004.

Most of the information provided by Bailey on this issue in his brochure is correct. Gage twice tried to cut the CPRC's operational budget from just over $300,000 to about $5,ooo. But on one of those two occasions, he did receive a second on his motion, albeit a weak one, from Councilman Steve Adams, who back then had received over $15,000 from the RPOA.

Two council members, Frank Schiavone and Ed Adkison both refused to support Gage's motion even though they too were heavily backed by the RPOA. Both said after the first session that although they didn't support the CPRC, they believed that if it was in place, it needed the money to operate properly. When they said that, they were almost believable. Except for the fact that it was probably Mayor Ron Loveridge who brought Gage's scheme to a halt by threatening to do what he had never done in 11 years as mayor and that was to veto the vote of the city council if enough of it backed Gage.

The GASS quartet could only count to four, not five in this case.


So their insistence later on that the reason the GASS quartet ejected Gage from its membership was because of actions he took against the CPRC is a joke and why it's a joke is explained in part by Press Enterprise columnist Dan Bernstein in a recent article.


(excerpt)



The critique that smacks of the aforementioned chutzpahcrisy is Gage's attempted strangulation-by-purse-strings of the Community Police Review Commission.

Back in '04, Gage's knuckleheaded move to choke-off commission funding didn't get (or rate) a second. But the surviving commission, never all that vibrant to begin with, has been hollowed out by the city manager's office. On New Year's Eve, the commission's director finally quit -- this after the CM's office had ordered him to stay away from community meetings on the ludicrous grounds that his mere presence betrayed a bias against police. Did the council -- including those still fuming over Gage's 2004 stunt -- whack the city manager for this? Nope. They're fixing to enlarge his already well-endowed paycheck with the aid of that bottomless treasury.




At the time that Gage had tried to cut the CPRC's budget, the Charter Review Committee including several members like Art Garcia and Rose Mayes were paying very close attention to these and other maneuvers made against the CPRC and the fact that the majority of the city council at that time, was backed by the RPOA which had shopped around for candidates to run who hated the CPRC and then dropped enormous checks into their political campaigns. The RPOA also walked precincts for both candidates as well as for Paul Fick in Ward One.

So Garcia and Mayes came up with the idea to include a ballot initiative for the CPRC in the list of proposed initiatives to bring to the city council in July 2004. And that's what they did, and Bailey who was also on the committee then voiced his support of that proposed initiative.

Later on, the city council did as well when it voted to trust the wisdom of the voters and placed all of the proposed charter initiatives on the autumn ballot. In fact, that charge was led by Adkison and Schiavone, who ironically played a pivotal role in providing security for the CPRC. The voters in Riverside did the rest or so they thought seriously underestimating the ability of their city government to undermine their will.

Gage cast a vote against that motion, telling the city council he wanted to go through each one individually and it's probably true that he would have raised an objection to the inclusion of the CPRC initiative. But the push by "Fred" made that point a moot one.

Bailey's brochure then goes on to state that the CPRC exonerates the officers 94% of the time. Actually, the figure is closer to 88% but as long as it's Asst. City Manager Tom De Santis who makes the final disposition, this figure and any other is meaningless. After all, the CPRC only has power and independence if its differential findings from those of the police department are included and given serious consideration in the final disposition. And it's probably a given, that De Santis with his Crown car and his concealed weapons permit and some say a fantasy about being in law enforcement not to mention a responsibility for protecting the city from civil litigation, will pick the police department over the CPRC every single time. After all, some say another goal of his is in a sense, to run the department.

The only reason that we don't know for sure, is because De Santis and his boss, Brad Hudson refuse to release statistical information on how cases with differential findings are ultimately disposed like their predecessors did. In fact, they insist that no such written records are kept.

This differs markedly from records that were kept by Hudson, De Santis and their predecessors. In fact, the CPRC included some of these statistics in one of its earlier annual reports. The statistics were that during a three year period, the findings of the CPRC and the police department differed about 20 times. Of those 20 times, the city manager's office sided with the CPRC four times. The other 16 times, the city manager's office either sided with the police department or reached a compromise between the two conflicting findings.

Is it true that Hudson and De Santis really don't keep similar statistical information in writing? And if so, why?


Bailey's brochure is surprising in that so far the CPRC has not become the issue introduced by the candidates that it should have been for this election, though it's become an issue in the communities and the topic of much concern and discussion. But what this election cycle is showing is how much distance has developed between those who sit on the dais and those who they purportedly represent. And the incumbent who one would think would raise the issue would have been one who ran on his support of the issue last time and that was Dom Betro.

But Betro and his backers including those who include their roles as creators of civilian review in their resumes have been silent this time around, almost as if they are hoping that no one will bring it up. But Betro has also been endorsed this time around by the RPOA which still opposes the CPRC as much now as it did in 2000.

And that's the flaw in Bailey's brochure and the reason why is because he's condemning Gage for taking money from the RPOA now and four years ago and then trying to undermine the CPRC when the fact is that most of the council members who have endorsed Bailey also accepted endorsements and money from the RPOA and have done little to stem the actions by the city manager's office and the city attorney's office against it in recent months.

One could argue that the city government was only warming up during the previous six years that it challenged the right of the CPRC to exist and that the action really started after the city's residents told it not to do so in the only way it could collectively. One could argue that an endorsement from the RPOA doesn't necessarily mean the same thing that it did four years ago, given that the Copley Press decision has caused many of the law enforcement associations in California to shift their focus back to the judicial system. If the RPOA acts against the CPRC again, it most likely would be through litigation filed against it or a temporary restraining order filed against the police department in connection with officer-involved death cases rather than trying to shift the political balance of the city council.

Last week, the city council voted to place two new commissioners on the CPRC. One of them smacked of a political appointment given that this individual had accepted some say, over $100,ooo in political endorsement money from the Riverside Sheriffs' Association and thousands more from the RPOA when she ran against Bob Buster for the County Board of Supervisors seat. Gage was one of three city council members who did not cast a vote in support of Linda Soubirous. In fact, Gage didn't cast a vote at all.

He said his reason was that he didn't want to vote for Soubirous because of the money that she had received from several law enforcement unions and the message that voting for her would send to the communities. In fact, Gage said he didn't support the inclusion of anyone on the commission coming from a law enforcement background. The fact that the vote was cast through secret ballots and that he apparently already knew what the outcome would be just goes to show that the decisions are made by the council before the official votes are taken in a public or even a private arena.

So ironically, the CPRC's biggest opponant on the dais essentially cast the most principled vote. And who said election years are boring and not filled with surprises?






Things are heating up in Berkeley after the city council voted 7-0 with two abstentions to appeal a decision on a case filed against the city by the Berkeley Police Officers' Association, according to this article in the Daily Planet.

With over 60 citizen complaints currently on the back burner, this city government felt it had to take action and it's refreshing to read an account of a city government who remembers who it represents.


(excerpt)



In Berkeley, however, “the Association has not weighed in on the [proposed] regulations,” City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque told the Daily Planet, saying that the BPA attorneys said they were going to put a proposal in writing, but never did.

“They never sent us anything,” Albuquerque said. “I consider them to be obstructionist.”

“They’ve been using stalling tactics to hold off our hearings,” Urbi said.

Attorney Jim Chanin, a former PRC commissioner who helped found the commission 30 years ago, agreed: “They don’t want closed hearings,” he said. “They don’t want civilian review.”



Of course they don't. What police labor union in this country has embraced civilian review with open arms? First they litigated against it, then they politicized it. Then after the Copley Press decision, they came full circle and are back filing law suits in the courts against it.

But by doing this, what they are essentially doing is providing free advertising for the public as to why civilian oversight is so necessary. That's when the police departments that they work for aren't doing it for them including but not limited to the Los Angeles Police Department, the New Orleans Police Department, the Cincinnati Police Department, the Maywood Police Department, the Oakland Police Department, the Port of Seattle Police Department, the Atlanta Police Department and the Austin Police Department.


It's also interesting to know that there are city attorneys in other California cities who actually use the word, "obstructionist" rather than through their own actions, epitomize its meaning.

The Berkeley Police Officers' Association wants to "meet and confer" on the changes, but members of Berkley's civilian review board figure that if they hold any hearings, open or closed, at all, they'll all be heading back to court.

Berkeley's neighbor, Oakland faced a similar situation but the government there voted to hold closed hearings to address its citizens' complaints.



But it's nice to read about cities where the local government's actually fight for civilian review not try to undermine it.




Atlanta's civilian review board is supposed to be up and running but the selection process of those who were to have served on it has stalled according to an article posted at Creative Loafing.

In addition, there has been no money allocated for the independent board which will have subpoena powers by Mayor Shirley Franklin during the upcoming fiscal year.


Oops, was that deliberate or an accident?


(excerpt)



Councilman H. Lamar Willis, the lead sponsor of the ordinance to assemble the Citizen Review Board, says it's up to Franklin's administration to push the ordinance forward, and he's frustrated by the lack of progress. "We can essentially pass all the legislation we want, but if they don't choose to implement it, you still have a problem," Willis says.

According to the ordinance, the 11-member board – which will be appointed by city officials, neighborhood planning units, and business and legal groups – is supposed to be confirmed within 90 days after the law was passed.

More than 60 days have passed since Franklin signed the legislation and no appointments have been made. "I thought it would take 30 or 45 days to appoint members," Willis says. "I put 90 in there just to be safe."

However, Joe Morris – the city's deputy chief of staff – says progress has been made. He says the mayor's office is working to identify funds for the board, and that they have narrowed down their nomination to sit on it. "Here's the problem," Morris says. "The council formed the board, the mayor signed the legislation, but there has been some back and forth about who actually has ownership."





Who has ownership of it should be the community, not governmental leaders who appear to be caught up in their own collective egos. What makes this situation all the more appalling was the searing indictment that the city's police department received from among others, the U.S. Justice Department in the wake of the horrific shooting of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston.



Every time a city official decides to aid and abet in tactics to stall the creation and implementation of this vital body, they should hold a picture inside their minds of the last few moments of Johnston's life slipping away from her as she lay handcuffed and bleeding from six bullet wounds on the floor of her own house. They should see three of the city's police officers scurrying around her violated household trying to find anything that would cover their butts and when that failed, planting drugs in her basement. After all, they had broken the law just to get into her house.



They should see the face of Frances Thomas, 80, who faced off against three armed men who could just as easily been burglars as they were narcotics officers. Perhaps, it wasn't until Thompson saw what happened two months later to Johnston that she realized she had been but a hair-length away from death herself.



What does the need for civilian review have to do with all this?

Well, according to records that were just released, Atlanta's Office of Professional Standards had only sustained about 3% of the complaints that it received. Last year, that number dropped to only 2.5%, paltry compared to the national average of about 15%. Awfully low figures for a department that federal agencies believe is "rife with corruption", but those numbers should not be surprising given what is coming out about how the Atlanta Police Department was conducting its business and protecting its own.

No betting person would take odds against the fact that after the U.S. Justice Department has completed its investigation, it most likely would have found out that among other things, the department's complaint investigation system was complicit in the corrupt behavior coming from inside that department.



Jury selection continues for the trial of a former San Bernardino County Sheriff Deputy who shot a U.S. airman last year. The prospective jurors filled out questionnaires asking them their views on different issues including law enforcement and 12 were finally selected. Ivory J. Webb is expected to start his trial Monday related to charges he faces in the shooting of Elio Carrion.


(excerpt)



Keene said jurors with a strong faith in public institutions can turn on defendants if their confidence is shattered during a trial.

"They feel betrayed," Keene said. "They can turn more aggressively than people with less idealized expectations."

Keene said jurors are more open about their values in questionnaires than during courtroom questioning.

All 12 jurors said Webb's status as a deputy during the shooting will not affect their impartiality.

Only one, a 39-year-old black man from Fontana, said his opinion would be influenced if Webb does not testify.

Jurors appeared to be indifferent or had positive feelings about serving on a jury that could hear testimony through June.

"I feel that it's a pleasure that I am called to help bring justice to my hometown," wrote a 27-year-old black man and phone-line technician from San Bernardino.