Good Cops: One expert's look at police accountability and review

David A. Harris wrote a very interesting book, titled Good Cops, which is subtitled "the case for preventive policing". He spends a lot of the book discussing the promotion of change both in individual law enforcement agencies and in the profession as a whole and clearly enjoyed the experience. A lot of issues are discussed in his book, which makes for interesting blogging.

His book looks also at mechanisms including civilian review boards, early warning systems and internal reviews as different strategies to help ensure and promote the accountability which is a crucial component of preventive policing. Important, but not the easiest mechanisms to emphasize or support given what Harris acknowledges about the often stormy relationships between civilian review mechanisms and both police management teams and rank and file labor associations. 

Former Riverside County Superior Court Judge Dallas Holmes recently said in court during a hearing in relation to a Riverside Police Department officer's law suit against Riverside's own civilian review board, he never met a police chief who liked civilian review and the thorny relationships that often exist between police associations and civilian review mechanisms from coast to coast is even more well known and very often discussed. Riverside's own rather brief history involving civilian review brings this to mind. That history is no doubt still being written into this city's record.

In his book, Harris appears to prefer the auditor model of civilian review that's employed by cities like San Jose, California, Seattle, Washington and several others. He states that unlike civilian review boards which focus on individual complaints filed by citizens regarding contacts with law enforcement officers, auditors look at the larger picture of policies and procedures, addressing these things with the goal of improving an agency's operations and service to its officers and to the community. However, in both of the above cities, the auditors have been struggling to do their jobs in an independent manner outside of influence from city mayors, city councils and heads of police departments while clashing over issues including the expansion of investigative powers and disciplinary advisement issues.


In Seattle, there's the mayor's oversight panel and the city council president's oversight panel to evaluate the performance of both the police department's internal mechanism for investigating complaints as well as the auditor's performance. The council president insisted that the two panels won't interfere with each other but will instead complement each other. It will be interesting to see exactly how compatible the two processes are and exactly what lies ahead in Seattle, which has already seen tension between its civilian review mechanism and the chief of Seattle's police department, not to mention the already mentioned mayor over the issues of internal investigations and discipline. 

Controversy also arose in San Jose recently over the role of current auditor, Barbara Attard who wanted more direct involvement in the complaint process at the San Jose Police Department but was denied that by the city council which voted against the proposal. However, Attard recently received assistance from the Santa Clara County Grand Jury which not only stated that her office should receive complaints first but that the whole complaint process needed to be reformed. That's interesting given that the role of an auditor is to look at the larger picture, which would be critical in a situation like this where intrinsic problems are noted by an outside body like a grand jury and solutions are needed to improve accountability in a law enforcement agency's complaint process. Attard works very hard trying to do just that in a difficult job, bring improved accountability to the agency in an often challenging political environment. How much freedom will the City of San Jose give her? 


Attard's interview with the San Jose Police Officers' Association is here where she fields questions from its leadership with both aplomb and candor.


Riverside briefly flirted with the auditor's model for a very short duration, in 1999 when the city council established a research committee to look into possible civilian review mechanisms for Riverside to implement after its residents started pushing for civilian review. In April 1999, the Mayor's Use of Force Panel proposed a series of recommendations including the exploration of civilian review so the city council at the time created an ad hoc committee to explore its options including the auditor's model. The auditor of San Jose who preceded Attard was brought down to discuss the model utilized by her city and the role that she played in carrying out its mission. Maybe she impressed the committee too much while making it clear how precarious her position was in the scheme of things,  because the auditor model was pretty much dropped early on, in favor of committees which were comprised by city residents volunteering their time not paid professionals. 

What became clear is that of all the models, that of the auditor is the most dependent on the character, commitment and personality of one individual to carry it and the trust in local government to place one individual in that role. For San Jose, it appears that its current and past auditors who are both female have been strong, independent individuals committed to carrying out independent oversight of the department's processes and trying to maintain their independence from political pressure at City Hall and from the police department. Not an easy task at all and often very much of a balancing act. It's a constant tug of war, only a civil one that probably tests an auditor's commitment to the job and the faith of a city in its auditor. After all, the goal to hire the best person to fit a job where independence and initiative are the eminent qualities and then pulling on the reins of employees when they become too good at exercising them is what often seems to happen in reality. Also, there's competing interests involved much of the time, like accountability and transparency bumping into civil liability and risk management, often leaving community members on the other side and the outside looking in, wondering if their civilian review mechanism is that much different than the one that it's overseeing. 

It's just as well that Riverside didn't implement an auditor's model, the mechanism also very much liked by Dr. Samuel Walker from University of Nebraska, Omaha in his latest book, The New World of Police Accountability.

After all, Riverside's got its hands full trying to rein in what it does have, the Community Police Review Commission which consists of a board of city residents appointed by the mayor and city council to review complaints. This model, a hybrid of several including those used by Berkeley and Long Beach, also utilizes an executive director or manager to oversee its operations and its operating budget. However, no executive director or manager so far has survived long past the city manager who hired him. Part of that has to do with politics, but there's also the issue of serving different masters. The city manager's office. The city council. The commissioners. The community. Which entities among these can actually fire individuals in these positions? Not the community. 

The history of executive directors or managers has been somewhat rocky in Riverside, not surprisingly given the political climate's tendency to change with the seasons and with each city manager. The city council itself is in constant flux and has been for nearly 10 years as one voting bloc rises for a short period of time, then falls in an upcoming round of elections at the polls. Like with everything else, that's impacted civilian review.

So who have served as executive directors or managers and how have they fared? 

Don Williams, a former Houston Police Department sergeant had worked for the County of San Diego's review board before coming to Riverside after being hired through a search process which included "city" and "community" panels by Interim City Manager Larry Paulson and worked for the commission under former city manager, George Carvalho. Williams was removed from that position by Interim City Manager Tom Evans who reduced what was a full-time position to part-time and assigned it to then Community Relations Director, Pedro Payne who would oversee both the CPRC and the Human Relations Commission.

People in the community had their doubts about whether or not Payne could pull off both positions and some felt that he was intentionally set up by the city to fail. But he didn't. He eventually became full-time executive manager of the CPRC and that's when he was set up to fail by being placed in an "at will" position by City Manager Brad Hudson. Hudson began imposing restrictions on Payne, most likely after city council members who opposed the CPRC directed him to do so. Payne was forbidden to attend community meetings because it would give the perception that he favored the community and was anti-police, even though Payne tried hard to increase outreach opportunities with the police department including roll call training sessions and also meetings with newly hired police officers.

Not that it did him much good as he "resigned" by the end of 2006, after the city launched its campaign to dilute the effectiveness of the CPRC not long after it reached its only sustained finding of misconduct on an officer-involved death that came under its purview for investigation. That's the incustody death which recently cost the city about $395,000 through a settlement after less than two years of litigation. Not surprisingly, the city attorney's office which had been missing in action during the first six years of the CPRC's existence even nixing an appearance at a special workshop in its honor in 2004, was now sending representatives or the City Attorney Gregory Priamos, himself at its meetings. New directives were clearly being given out at City Hall. 

After a search, interview and screening process that took place after Payne's resignation, the team of Hudson and his assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis hired Kevin Rogan, a licensed attorney and former Pomona Police Department captain. Rogan had the law enforcement "credentials" that Payne lacked. Has he faced similar restrictions as Payne did? How wide exactly is the tightrope that he's crossing? The community is not privy to such things or exactly what the relationship is between the commission and City Hall, both in terms of the direct employees and the city council they serve at the will of. The community is left hoping that it's got an independent system in place it can trust. But where does it stand? 

One applicant for Payne's job, who did very well in the screening process gave me a call and peppered me with questions about the CPRC, and all its players. The exodus of commissioners, one right after the other, that took place within nine months caught his eye. So did the obvious, and that's when he asked, if the strings of the executive manager were being pulled by the city manager's office. The answer is pretty obvious if the question is even being asked by someone outside the city, but it's also incomplete, because one can be both  a puppet and the puppeteer and what's become clear is how much invested those on the seventh floor are in the operations of the CPRC, which is as one councilman called it, a "special" commission. 

When Rogan took over the position, community outreach was at its nadir, according to the monthly reports released by the CPRC. Several neighborhoods filed fewer complaints through the CPRC. One, the Eastside, stopped filing them altogether. One of the community organizations based there, the Eastside Think Tank, was handling the complaints it received from community members directly with the department through an informal process, according to a recent article in the Press Enterprise.  Yet go to a community meeting in the Eastside with complaint forms in two languages, English and Spanish, and after the meeting, your hands are empty. What's the CPRC? Where do you file complaints? How does it work? And then you answer the questions for those who haven't been able to do so while all this back room intrigue was apparently going on. 

People often say that community members aren't vested in the CPRC as they should be, but how can you be vested when the city removes the community from the process  and implements changes unilaterally to a commission that was placed in the city's charter in 2004 by city residents not willing to lose it to a city government that didn't want it. Community members aren't as vested as they would be, if the city leaders that are elected believed that it was a mechanism that belonged in part, to the community. But do they? Examine the actions for the past 18 months and you'll find the answer to that question within them. 

When's the last time the city ever asked for input on the process of changing the CPRC, which it clearly has done to its detriment? How about never, especially after the majority of the city council fired former city manager, George Carvalho in 2004 not long before the other fateful vote at the polls when not six months after an anti-civilian review majority was elected to the city council, financed handsomely by political contributions from the Riverside Police Officers' Association. That's probably why there's several groups of individuals researching the possibility of circulating ballot initiatives involving the CPRC, not the least of which is intended to address the increasingly politicized appointment process. 

When I talked to Walker in 2003, I asked him about the trend of police unions trying to weaken or even eliminate civilian review through the election process and he told me that it was a process that began after the litigation by unions against civilian review in the courts reaped few benefits. That was about to play out in the 2003 election cycled in Riverside, though it might have begun as early as 1999 and certainly by 2001, peaking in the 2003 cycle which brought two councilmen to the dais who opposed civilian review. But it didn't take long for the city residents to take their vote, when the opportunity arose in response. 

All this intrigue and actions involving a rather weak form of civilian oversight makes one wonder what Riverside would have done with anything stronger. If anything stronger and independent had been implemented, it probably wouldn't still be around. 

But what if Riverside had taken the road less traveled like San Jose, Seattle, Portland, Oregon and Austin, Texas? What if Riverside had chosen to go the route of the auditor model?

It's likely that if Riverside had utilized an auditor process instead of its current hybrid model, the city would likely be changing auditors like some people change outfits. One per season. However, people like Walker advocate for this model in spite of it all. It's a crusade that's been more successful in the western part of the United States than anywhere else, but it's not likely such a process would have taken root in Riverside. 

The Core Principles for an Effective Police Auditor's Office written by Walker, outlines what he expects for successful performance by an auditor's office. 

The topic of civilian review is not heavily discussed in Harris' book but is listed as one potential mechanism of several for change. 


Harris dabbles with civilian oversight mechanisms as a means to change a department's culture, but spends more time and energy tackling the very sensitive subject of consent decrees (which are probably on Mayor Ron Loveridge's list of least favorite words, if the legend is true) which are agreements drawn up between cities and counties which have law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Department of Justice, under a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1994. Often a list of reforms meant to change a department's pattern and practices is to be implemented in a designated period of time, often decided upon by a judge. Sometimes, cities get released like happened with Pittsburgh and sometimes they don't, like in the case of Los Angeles. 

The first city to be placed under a consent decree was as stated, Pittsburgh and here is a study conducted by the Vera Institute after its completion. At least a dozen law enforcement agencies including those in New Orleans, Los Angeles and Cincinnati, Ohio were under investigation.



The Riverside Police Department was mentioned in the book, during a discussion of pattern and practice investigations. The trend that Harris noted was that more avenues were opening up for these large-scale probes through laws being passed by the state legislation that were similar to those passed by Congress authorizing investigations of police departments by the U.S. Department of Justice through its prosecutory office as well as its Civil Rights Division. One state that passed such a law was California and the State Attorney General's office initiated an investigation of Riverside's police department. Walkill, New York was another city that chose this route, entering into its agreement several weeks after Riverside did. 

Riverside's police department was also subjected to a federal investigation of its pattern and practices but it followed a different path after the election of George W. Bush in 2000 changed the face of the justice department. The federal agency investigated several areas of the department including its canine unit and use of force issues, but not in a more general fashion, though the United States Attorney's office and the Special Litigation Division of the Justice Department sent out a team of individuals to interview community residents in the summer of 2000. I was interviewed one day and two days later, passed by two officers, one of whom said fairly loudly, "I better not say anything to her. I might get into trouble." I guess word travels fast but that investigation as wide-sweeping as it claimed to be in July of 1999, had no public resolution in terms of concrete measurements of gains and thus substantive change, unlike its state counterpart. 

Earlier this year, State Attorney General Jerry Brown initiated a probe of Maywood Police Department after news of wide-spread corruption and misconduct in what's called, the "second chance" department where about one-third of its force including its police chief had been fired from previous law enforcement jobs and/or convicted of criminal conduct. Not exactly a surprise that Maywood's "success story" as some would have called it, was what ultimately put it under a microscope. 


Some police chiefs almost seem dedicated to cutting off such investigations at the pass by initiating their own set of reforms, possibly because the two words, "outside" and "oversight" together form no doubt one of the most feared phrases in law enforcement management. The chief of Denver's police department once sent a letter to the U.S. Justice Department with his plans for reform neatly laid out. Denver had been the location of several controversial officer involved shootings including those involving mentally ill and developmentally disabled people not to mention a law suit filed by Latino officers who were backed by a national advocacy organization alleging racial discrimination in the workplace.


A task force was set up in Denver that included representatives of community organizations and of the police and fire departments, to increase diversity in these professions. Here is the report the committee submitted to the mayor of Denver including recommendations it developed to address this issue. Denver's also implemented other reforms in an attempt to improve the pattern and practices of its department.


In San Antonio, Texas, Chief William McManus decided to hire a consulting firm to examine what it calls its "high-risk" policies and procedures including use of force in the face of actions taken by about 30 local civil rights organizations to ask the Department of Justice to investigate the department. McManus' focus is somewhat narrower than that wished by community residents who complained about a variety of misconduct involving San Antonio's police officers. There's a photograph of McManus walking to a meeting with city officials past blown up photographs of battered women who were assaulted by police officers outside several night clubs. 


When Harris wrote about changing the police culture of departments, he drew from examples where there had been some success in that area. He drew some common denominators from those situations, which contributed to positive change.


(excerpt)


Reconceptualizing and changing the mission of policing.

Measuring what matters in police departments, so that police departments do what matters.

addressing the recruiting puzzle, because who becomes a cop has a lot to do with what kind of police department citizens get.

Changing the training that police receive to include an emphasis on human rights equal to the emphasis on crime-fighting strategy and tactics.


Changing incentive and reward structures, so that prevention and service-oriented police behavior are encouraged at least as much as arrests and emergency response.



Harris also states that the crucial elements to foster positive and long-lasting change are having leadership in place who remain committed to achieving the goals set for change over a long period of time, the "generation" of officers that Harris believed in "problem solving becoming the standard". The entire profession has to change to fulfill what Harris envisions it to be. Recruiting and hiring new officers who can be taught the newer way of doing things to replace those in the preceding generation too entrenched in the old "culture". But who is it that teaches newer officers? The field training officers, the supervisors, the watch commanders, in other words, the "older" officers especially in a police department like the Riverside Police Department where the average officer is 23 years old and has about 2 1/2 years on the force. And in a "young" department like that in Riverside, what are the roles played by lateral officers who are hired in part because of their more advanced experience, in instituting this training to newer officers? 

Penny Harrington, a former police chief and founder of the National Organization for Women and Policing said that the field training officers are the "ambassadors" of the culture in the department. She's been an amazing and courageous resource for women who are interested in both the profession and the issues surrounding gender and policing including this one. And she's got a really good manual in print on answering what Harris calls the "recruitment puzzle" by devising and discussing strategies on recruiting and retaining female officers in law enforcement agencies, an especially perplexing and difficult task for most police departments. Despite advances in recruitment and more opportunities, the national average for percentage of women in law enforcement only stands at about 12%, a number which hasn't changed much in recent years, in part because many agencies are steeped in sexism. Riverside's own average is around 9% and any change has been very slow in coming.

 

So changing police culture or the way police agencies do business in communities and with them has to employ the more experienced officers even in law enforcement agencies like Riverside's that have seen high turnovers, the kind that usually accompany internal turmoil and consent decrees with the Los Angeles Police Department being another example. So is it a combination of both, the old guard and the new blood that must foster change within an agency? As Harris stated, bending granite or carving wood? 

The model for what Harris addresses in changing the mission statement of officer training can be exemplified by the newly developed mental health crisis training developed by the Riverside Police Department within the past year. That was a major step. Hopefully with more to come like it. Less than a year old, it's a new program that's already receiving a lot of attention from other law enforcement agencies in the country. 

To be continued. 

Other articles and works by Harris are below.


A Lack of Respect which addresses racial profiling after 9-11.


Bending Granite or Carving Wood, which examines the role of recruitment and hiring in changing the police culture. It's included as a chapter in Good Cops.

Confronting Ethnic Profiling in the United States

Happy Holiday Season

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"


---It's a Wonderful Life

Columnist Dan Bernstein at the Press Enterprise has compiled his annual "thank you" list to all the subjects of his columns this past year. Check out the list to see if you are included on it. If you feel that you've been omitted, give him a call.



There's only two more shopping days and if you can, shop Riverside to support the local economy. The year that's upon us, will beg the question. What lies ahead for this city and its residents after the recent elections? What lies ahead with the high-end, high-density housing projects proposed for this city, in the face of Riverside's knocking on the door of the title, "City of Foreclosures"?


Murmurings of the "R" word are appearing at Craigslist against Councilman Mike Gardner, per usual from the anonymous brigade. Updates on any upcoming developments from this breaking story will be forthcoming as it develops.


Unfortunately, this weekend there was a shooting in the Eastside of a Latino teenager about 14-years-old near 7th and Chicago by an individual reported to be African-American. He survived, having been hit in the leg.





Checkpoints and saturation patrols will be in effect for holiday drivers, according to the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)


Checkpoints catch perhaps half as many drunks as the patrols, but are extremely visible evidence that the cops are out in force. Officers say that deters drunken driving.


The third element is public education, ranging from fliers that warn of the penalties for DUI to announcements of impending checkpoints and saturation patrols.


During the last two weeks of December, at least 14 checkpoints and 71 saturation patrols are scheduled throughout San Bernardino County, said Mattke, who coordinates large-scale holiday crackdowns throughout the county.


In Riverside County, there is no coordinator and no cumulative count, but a dozen cities -- from Blythe to Corona and from Banning to Murrieta -- will be conducting checkpoints and patrols, said Chris Cochran, of the state Office of Traffic Safety.

Most are done on Friday and Saturday nights during what police say are the largest anti-DUI efforts of the year.


On Friday, Riverside police were scheduled to conduct a checkpoint and San Bernardino police planned to hold saturation patrols.

Aimed at reducing the number of potentially fatal DUI wrecks, and funded by federal grants, the annual crackdowns are expected at this time of the year.

Whether the checkpoints and hunts work is a matter of how success is measured. Arrests are up, but so are DUI-related fatalities.



It should go without saying, but during the holidays, don't drink and drive. If you do drink, designate a sober driver.



How will sales tax revenue fare this year? Hopefully well, but the true picture won't be seen until January or February.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


Sales-tax revenue generated from auto malls, big-box stores and shopping centers during the holidays is a major portion of a city's annual spending money for police, fire and other key services paid from the city's general fund.

Finance officials in several Inland cities previously expressed concern over earlier predictions that a slowing economy and housing market would make for a slower-than-normal holiday retail season.


Lake Elsinore and other cities rely heavily on sales-tax revenue generated from big-box stores, auto malls and shopping centers. Above, visitors shop at the Lake Elsinore Outlets last week.

With revenues generated from homebuilding and property taxes already taking a hit because of the slowing housing market, finance officials said cities will rely even more on the money generated from retail shopping.

That will probably include Riverside, which is entering into another year of Riverside Renaissance spending. City services are already looking at cuts, as the decision to possibly leave the deputy chief position vacated by Dave Dominguez who's going to Palm Springs has shown.

One reason among others why the proposed mall renovation doesn't have that many people excited. Except perhaps for Ian Davidson, but most other people who aren't getting the money? Probably not nearly as enthusiastic. Especially the business owners who've already paid to have the downtown pedestrian mall renovated.

Election 2008 both locally and nationally is upon us. County elections are coming up including the expected to be heavily contested one contest over District One between incumbent Bob Buster and former supporter now adversary, Councilman Frank Schiavone. The election is supposed to cost over $1 million apiece for both men. The law enforcement unions including the Riverside Sheriffs' Association have already began their support of Schiavone much as they supported former political candidate and now Community Police Review Commission member, Linda Soubirous whose new stint in service has removed her from the political picture for at least a little while. Expect that support to continue. even with a new sheriff at the helm of the county's law enforcement agency.

Campaigning hasn't began yet in earnest in this county race but it's becoming clear already which direction it's going to take in the respective candidates. One issue that will probably come up again and again will be the whole DHL, GlobalPort and March Joint Powers Authority triangular mess, including one crucial vote in the process where the two men parted ways. Who was right? What lies ahead? Will futures in companies that manufacture ear plugs continue to rise? The DHL situation will probably produce the question of the election, in an election filled with questions because that's the way it's always been for county supervisor races.






The Brown Act may bar the San Bernardino City Council from discussing parole issues at committee meetings. This latest problem at City Hall over yonder stems from the battle of the committees set up by members of the city council and Mayor Patrick Morris.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


That committee holds its first meeting on Jan. 3. But the state's Ralph M. Brown Act, which protects the public's right to attend and participate in open government meetings, forbids two sequential committee meetings on an issue without an intervening discussion of the issue by the full legislative body.

That means any city council member who discusses housing at the Jan. 3 meeting would be committing a misdemeanor, City Attorney Jim Penman said.

Morris has named San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Tara Reilly, who oversees the Redlands Drug Court, to head the ad-hoc committee. He has named council members Tobin Brinker, Rikke Van Johnson and Wendy McCammack to the panel, and will serve on it himself.

On Thursday, he said the committee will not take up any of the housing issues discussed at the legislative review committee meeting. He said Penman should have admonished Kelley and Derry not to proceed with their hearing.


In Riverside, here's hoping that the city council will get a refresher course on the Brown Act by City Attorney Gregory Priamos especially the new ones because one of them, Chris MacArthur apparently told someone he couldn't answer questions on issues raised because he thought if the other six council members were asked as well, any response by him would be a violation of the Brown Act for conducting serial meetings. But that's not the case as long as four or more don't discuss any agendized issue in any type of combination or format amongst themselves.



Bernstein's colleague, Cassie MacDuff wrote a very good column about how that city's addressing its parolees through a new program.



(excerpt)


The pilot program is called New Directions. It was funded with $30,000 from the Probation Department, said Dan Bautista, a division director of Adult Probation. He credits Deputy Chief Probation Officer Rick Arden with finding money in the budget to launch it.

Convicted felons need help beyond ordinary job-training programs, Bautista said.

Besides the usual help figuring out what vocation to choose, where to look for work and how to craft a resume, they also need help staying away from the lifestyle that got them in trouble in the first place.

That means overcoming the mindset that going to work daily is too much trouble, riding a bus is beneath them and being asked to do menial tasks shows them disrespect, Bautista said.

Many don't understand the responsibility to show up on time and do assigned tasks willingly, he said.

New Directions enrolls 20 probationers at a time in one-week workshops aimed at changing that mindset, teaching them employers' expectations, to seek work with felon-friendly employers and how to explain a felony on a job application, Bautista said.

Five workshops will be held. Each trainee will be tracked for a year to see if the pilot program made a difference.





Drew Peterson's former friend testified before the grand jury according to the Chicago Tribune. The grand jury has convened to look into the disappearance of the former Bolingbrook Police Department sergeant's wife, Stacey, who's been missing since Oct. 28.


(excerpt)


[Richard]Mims was one of Drew Peterson's staunchest defenders early on, but their relationship has become strained since Mims publicly stated that he has doubts about Peterson's statements on the events of Oct. 28-29.

Recently, Mims sold his story to the National Enquirer, which caused tension with Stacy Peterson's supporters.

Before he testified, Mims said in a phone interview that pressure surrounding the case was starting to get to him.

"Fifteen minutes of fame is turning into 15 weeks of hell," he said. "I'm sick of it. I want to go back to my life."

Mims, who has been living out of a hotel room since he left Drew Peterson's house, said he was asked to reappear before the grand jury the last week of January.

Also Thursday, former TV reporter Amy Jacobson testified before the special grand jury, which also is examining the April 30 disappearance of Lisa Stebic of Plainfield.




In New York City, protests might follow the attempts by defense attorneys for three officers charged in the case of the fatal onduty shooting of Sean Bell, to get a change of venue for the upcoming trial.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



Standing with Bell's fiancée Saturday, Sharpton reacted with outrage to news the defense is seeking a change of venue - saying he won't stand for another "Diallo trick."

"They want to take this to another community where the police won't be on trial, but the victims will be," Sharpton shouted to a crowd of about 100 at the Harlem headquarters of his National Action Network.

Attorneys for the cops who killed the unarmed man outside a strip club on his wedding day have said they want the case moved out of Queens, arguing that pretrial publicity has tainted the local jury pool.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown plans to "vigorously oppose" the move.

Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, called it "ironic" that Sharpton isn't pushing for a change of venue.

"Sharpton is a guy who preaches about fairness and equality, and that is what this case is all about. Cops have rights, too, and he has successfully poisoned their chance at a fair trial in Queens," Palladino said.





France is going to ban smoking in many of its establishments. April Fool's Day didn't come early, did it? Earlier this year, France banned smoking in schools, work places and other facilities.





Have a wonderful and safe Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!

"We drank a toast to innocence

We drank a toast to time

Reliving in our eloquence

Another auld lang syne..."

---Dan Fogelburg (Aug. 13, 19951-Dec. 17, 2007)

Riverside City Hall: How do I serve and who?

The Press Enterprise published an article about Riverside City Councilman's revised vision for the downtown mall.

Gardner who while running for the seat formerly held by Dom Betro said he didn't support the renovation of the downtown mall now said he did. Unlike his colleague in Ward Seven Steve Adams, apparently Gardner recognizes that he didn't win through a mandate especially if you only win by seven votes. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

If he continued to oppose the renovation, he'd be accused of not listening to the half of Ward One that didn't vote for him. After all, while the votes were being counted, there were demands that he either continue to carry out Betro's mandate because that was what the people really wanted or at least not to ignore Betro's voters.

If he supports the renovation, he'll be accused of flip flopping on his stance. But one lesson that the tenure of Betro on the dais taught me, is that you do have to watch carefully when politicians change their minds on too many things but Betro received the benefit of the doubt from me for quite a while, so I'm going to afford Gardner the same courtesy. But if Betro's camp is halfway to City Hall to get the recall forms, then I hope they keep us all informed at Craigslist or another venue so I can keep my readers up to date as well on that process.


The renovation of the pedestrian mall, a multi-million dollar redo of a project already financed by the use of the Downtown Neighborhood Partnership's business tax collections, is coming as both the state and local governments have realized that after years of spending, they will have to trim their budgets. To pay for this downtown development, how much money going to basic services will be cut? Will they be new positions in both the fire and police departments? New equipment? What about street repair? Sidewalk repair including repairing street signs that have broken off, leaving barely visible but still dangerous stubs in the sidewalk? I tripped over one of those years ago and dislocated one of my shoulders. Not a painless experience. If you're elderly for example, it can be even more hazardous, due to the possibility of broken hips or other bones.

According to the project designer, it's going to cost at least $8.5 million and if the history of projects in Riverside is any indication, it will probably cost more than that before it's finished. After all, watched how quickly Riverside Renaissance ballooned from $750 million to $1.9 billion.


Smart Park is still on the chopping block.


(excerpt)


Gardner would like the city to re-examine its entire downtown parking situation and to explore replacing the city's SmartPark meters -- there is typically one machine per block on either side of the street -- with individual meters for every parking space, he said.

It's the SmartPark meter technology in particular that confuses and frustrates many users, he said.

"They hate it," Gardner said.

With single-space meters, "you don't have to walk half a block" to pay for your space, he said, and they are usually much easier to use.

His proposal is exactly what Downtowne Bookstore co-owner Nadia Lee favors. She has been an outspoken critic of SmartPark. She understands the need for paid parking, she said, but too many of her customers have wasted time with the SmartPark meters.

"It would take them 15 or 20 minutes to get their parking sorted out," Lee said.






Coming probably in January, will be a meeting conducted by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee to screen all the applications submitted to fill positions on the city's boards and commissions. The year for commission appointments starts in March and ends in February of the following year.

Here you can find all the online records for agendas, minutes and reports for this committee going back to 1999.

The list of the city's boards and commissions are here. Included in the rosters are the members of boards and commissions, their wards and their terms. Any asterisk next to a term means that's when they "term out" as commissioners are only allowed to serve two consecutive four-year terms.

Section 802 of the city's charter was amended in 2005 after the voters passed Measure GG in November 2004 which states that each ward shall have at least one resident serving on each of the boards and commissions.

The charter lists five boards and commissions which are the Community Police Review Commission (passed by voters in 2004), Planning Commission (added in 1995), Human Resources Board (1995), Park and Recreation Commission (1995) and the Board of Library Trustees (1995). It takes a charter vote to dissolve or make major changes for these boards and commissions. Some are required to be included by state law. Others like the CPRC are in the charter due to the dismay of the majority of the city's voters over the city council turning this body into a political football.

Applications are usually collected for the following year beginning November 1 of the previous year but you can submit an application to the City Clerk's office year-round. Any qualifications required for the Cultural Heritage Board for example are listed. Approximate time commitments are also included which are submitted by the department overseeing the board or commission but in some cases, are grossly underestimated.





The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee which is chaired by Ron Loveridge and includes members of the Governmental Affairs Committee in its membership screens applications and comprises a list of people to interview for openings on all the boards and commissions. The lists then get forwarded to the entire city council which interviews these individuals and votes through paper ballots which are then read out by Loveridge and the appointments are made.



The current members besides Loveridge are Councilmen Frank Schiavone, Rusty Bailey and Steve Adams. There was once one council member who wasn't aware that as a member of the Governmental Affairs Committee that he also served on the screening committee until he had to be directed to City Clerk Colleen Nichol and educated about it.



But if you ever have time to check out the screening process or the city council interviews and selection process, you should check it out. It's educational, entertaining and it teaches you a lot of what goes on inside City Hall. You should also apply for boards and commissions but be warned, some of them have high turnover such as the Human Relations Commission and the CPRC and several of them are so politicized that it's almost like you have to pay your dues to City Hall and its denizens before you have a real chance of getting interviewed, as has been seen in the last few rounds of selection for the CPRC for example. Working on political campaigns, receiving campaign contributions from the police union or working for a company that contracts with the city for public services certainly won't hurt your chances and may enhance them. However, if you don't "toe the line" or "tone it down", like former Commissioner Steve Simpson, then you probably won't last long on this commission and being uppity and asking the wrong questions might actually be akin to being "mentally incompetent" according to some folks on the seventh floor of City Hall. So if you really want to make change or a difference, maybe you should avoid some of the city's boards and commissions.

One good thing about the HRC is that it's viewed as being so diluted in its mission that City Hall doesn't see it as much of a problem, though it did lose its two full-time support staffing to the Public Works division after sending a letter to the city manager's office asking questions about the departures of several Black and Latino management employees in this city. Just a coincidence, the city would probably state but was it? At any rate, this commission was moved out of the city manager's office and is now under the jurisdiction of Loveridge's office.

HRC Commissioner A.J. Wilson once said at a meeting, that the commission writes too many reports and doesn't do enough else. He's got a point as it's somewhat academically steeped. However, it has had and has some very active, passionate members so maybe one of them will take the lead and take HRC into those directions, if it can ever overcome the massive exoduses which have occurred with this commission in the past six or seven years. Loveridge made a good point in saying that the HRC, which is the city's largest commission, may have a focal group of about five people with many people feeling as if they are on its peripheral edges. Some departing members have also said that some of the dynamics on the commission were discouraging as well.

There's actually a window of opportunity for this commission to be active before City Hall gets concerned and it should take advantage of it to advocate for improvement in different areas of living in this city.

Not so for the CPRC. Although the city government and/or its direct staffing have saber rattled at other boards and commissions including the Planning Commission, the Human Resources Board and the Cultural Heritage Board, the CPRC is still apparently the reigning champion of micromanagement by City Hall. City Manager Brad Hudson has even been heard joking about this "micromanagement" at meetings and some say, pay very close to his sense of humor on how his office does its job.

Expect that trend to continue in 2008, not so much with the HRC which has about six vacancies including several that might be ward specific, but with the CPRC, which has three including a member who's terming out after eight years. It's likely that since it's a Ward Five opening, that new councilman, Chris MacArthur will provide "input" and receive "help" from the members of the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee.

People talk about "paying dues" to serve on boards and commissions, but they're not boards of corporations, they are avenues for city residents to have opportunities to volunteer their services to the city. At least that's what they were set up to be. But Riverside rewrites its rules.

That's probably why a small group of city residents is trying to drum up support for a ballot initiative coming to you that will address the appointment process and are considering an alternative system to what's in place. This will be an interesting process to follow to see where it goes.





Another volunteer opportunity is here as part of the committee of community leaders who meets regularly with the Riverside County Superior Court judges to discuss issues.





The latest battle in the Los Angeles Police Department has begun. Here's a press release by the Police Protective League which represents the rank and file at the LAPD.



Mass Exodus of Officers Expected Due to New
Financial Disclosure Rules
Officers Leaving Specialized Units is Like the
Canary in the Coal Mine

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 19, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Over
five hundred LAPD
officers in specialized units including gang
enforcement and narcotics
will be requesting transfers or will retire rather
than submitting to
the draconian financial disclosures requirements
that are about to be
implemented by the LAPD by order of the Police
Commission.

The LAPD is moving forward on financial disclosures
despite five years
of negotiations in which the Police Protective
League argued that the
requirements are overly intrusive and lacking in
checks and balances,
and despite clear signals that this move will result
in qualified
officers choosing to leave the units that are
affected.

The staggered roll-out will mean a gradual but
steady erosion of
talent and experience from the units, as experienced
officers will
come up for reassignment and will request other
assignments that do
not come with the financial and personal risk of
identity theft.

The disclosure requirements do not include
stipulations about who in
the LAPD will be handling financial records, or how
their security
will be maintained. Officers point to the
considerable number of cases
nationwide of identity theft that have been
perpetrated by workers in
a position of trust, as well as documented cases of
theft and poor
records management at Parker Center and in other
City Departments.

Also of concern is the vulnerability of officers'
records to Pitchess
motions. Pitchess motions allow defendants in
criminal cases to view
the personnel records of law enforcement personnel
involved in their
cases. Although the inherent intent of Pitchess
motions is to expose
police misconduct, the threshold for reporting is
exceptionally low:
the possibility of police misconduct is enough
evidence to force
disclosure of police personnel records, meaning that
virtually any
defendant could force any arresting officer to share
his personnel
records, including financial disclosure forms. In
essence, officers
will be exposing every aspect of their life.

"We have seen courts repeatedly allow gang members
and others to
manipulate the system to target officers --
sometimes with the
encouragement of misguided attorneys. We have little
confidence that
the courts will be able to safeguard the personal
financial privacy of
officers," says Tim Sands, President of the Police
Protective League.
"The financial disclosures rules that the LAPD is
about to implement
opens the Pandora's box -- once someone's financial
information is
available and public, there is no way to turn back
and make it private
again," added Sands.

"No other law enforcement agency in the country
forces its officers to
share this kind of information. Our officers do not
have to put up
with this politically-motivated voyeurism: any other
law enforcement
agency in the country would be glad to hire these
officers and give
them a raise," said Sands.

"Even worse, for all of its negative impact, this
deeply offensive
intrusion into the private lives of officers, their
spouses and their
children will do nothing to route out corruption.
Looking at bank
account records is a completely ineffective way at
looking for cash
payouts. The truth of the matter is this -- there
are check and
balances in place to prevent corruption," continued
Sands.

"Perhaps the virtual elimination of specialty gang
and drug units,
which will occur upon implementation of the
financial disclosure
rules, will be the canary in the coal mine to awaken
officials and
community leaders to the inherent problems with the
more onerous and
dangerous consent decree requirements, such as
financial disclosure
regulations," concluded Sands.

About the LAPPL

Formed in 1923, the Los Angeles Police Protective
League (LAPPL)
represents the more than 9,000 dedicated and
professional sworn
members of the Los Angeles Police Department. The
LAPPL can be found
on the Web at www.LAPD.com

CONTACT: For the Los Angeles Police Protective
League
Eric Rose
(805) 624-0572
Jude Schneider
(310) 854-8251




More on this latest controversy involving the LAPD is at the Los Angeles Times including this column arguing against the measure.



(excerpt)



So, what about the financial disclosure requirement? Is it a good idea?

In a word: no. For one thing, if an officer is doing what now-infamous Rampart Division bad apple Perez was doing -- namely skimming large amounts of high-ticket narcotics from police busts and reselling the stuff through proxies for a tidy profit -- do we really believe that he or she would deposit that ill-gotten loot in a Bank of America checking account? .

More relevantly, would the financial disclosure agreement have helped nail Perez sooner? Perez did not deposit his drug money; he spent it. But let's say it would've sped up the righteous pinching of Mr. Perez. In order to catch a handful of bad cops, is it wise to alienate and humiliate hundreds of decent officers? In any organization, morale is important. In law enforcement, it's everything.

"The federal monitor stood in open court and said this is 'best practice,' " said Hernandez. "So we challenged him to come up with one example where the strategy had worked, and he couldn't. The truth is, there's no legitimate need for this order. We don't have the kind of corruption it's meant to discover."

The heart of the Rampart scandal was never about stealing drugs or money. It was about use of force, planting evidence, picking up gang members and dropping them in "enemy" territory, "testilying." The result was wrongful convictions, millions of dollars in civil rights lawsuits and the long-term alienation of the communities most in need of the LAPD's protection and service.

Even in the worst old days, financial graft has never been the LAPD's problem. For that you'd want to look eastward to Chicago or New York.

Or as one upper-level officer said to me, "Historically, we may beat you up, but we don't take your wallet."


The Editorial Board stated reject the LAPD disclosure



(excerpt)


And yet. It's hard to see how periodic financial reports would help LAPD brass nail corrupt cops. Officers already must submit to lie detector tests, and they now work in an environment in which stings are all but routine. Financial disclosure would do nothing to allow the public to monitor the kinds of corruption and excessive force that led to the Rampart scandal -- or the kind of management and training failures that produced this year's MacArthur Park fiasco.

The Police Commission has long been in need of the sort of backbone it lacked when the union pushed it to close the truly crucial records of officer misconduct. It would be ironic if the commissioners suddenly found the nerve to stand up to the union on this superfluous requirement.

The judge overseeing implementation of the consent decree already rejected a compromise offered by the LAPD and the union, but the panel could call on the U.S. Department of Justice to revisit the requirement or, at least, seek an early sunset date from the court. Los Angeles has a citizen commission that should be able to distinguish between simply checking off a box on the consent decree and requiring disclosure because it's truly useful.








Heath Haussamen is blogging about the opinions of La Cruces, New Mexico political candidates on different issues they would face.

Here are their responses to one such issue.


(excerpt)


Do you support the creation of a citizens review board to consider complaints against city law enforcement officers? Why or why not?



Shipley: The citizens’ review board shall review and evaluate serious complaints brought by the public against the police department. Furthermore, the board shall review whether or not a complaint has been filed, and/or all police actions that result in the death of a person. The board may also refer complaints to the grand jury, district attorney or any other governmental agency authorized by law to investigate the activities of a law enforcement agency. The board shall submit semi-annual reports to the city manager and city council concerning its evaluation of the police department’s investigation of citizens’ complaints; provided, however, that such reports shall not disclose any information required to be kept confidential by law. I support the creation of a citizens’ review board to serve as a non-partial body to insure that acts of wrongdoing by our law enforcement agency are not hidden or swept under the carpet.


Thomas: We clearly need to investigate the complaints being made. Initially, we might want to consider bringing in outside evaluators, a team of people who are trained to do this kind of assessment. In the future, we might want to establish some kind of a citizens review board to handle complaints.


Trujillo: The Las Cruces Police Department currently has a professional standards unit that is comprised of the different ranks within the department. I do not support a citizen review board because law enforcement is a unique profession; it should be reviewed and critiqued by those who not only understand the stresses and triumphs of the job, but have also lived through those stresses and triumphs.


Curran: With regard to a police review board, I have seen both good and bad ones in cities in which I have lived. I would need to know the size, composition and guidelines of the plan before I could comment further.


Joy: I support a citizens review board of all the departments including the city attorney office, codes enforcement, animal control, as well as law enforcement. The people of this city need to have access to arbitration and problem resolution that does not belong in the court system. Professional mediators such as Mr. Curran would be excellent candidates for this type of community service.




The New York Times published an article on training law enforcement officers to interface with autistic people.


(excerpt)


Mr. Debbaudt said he had heard of 6 to 12 cases each year in which people with autism are harmed, hit with a stun gun or killed by law enforcement officials.

The officers were told to take plenty of time and be calm when interviewing autistic people. Some are crime victims, some are suspects, but the majority who come to the attention of the police have wandered away from their caregivers, often without an understanding of the dangers of traffic or open water, which often attracts them. In fact, drowning is a leading cause of death for people with autism, Mr. Debbaudt said.

People with autism may be very afraid of or very drawn to police dogs, Mr. Debbaudt said. They may be attracted to an officer’s badge and try to grab it, and they may panic if their routines are broken, if their favorite objects are taken from them, or if surrounding sights, sounds and smells overwhelm them.

Similar training sessions have been offered around the country. Autism Speaks, a nonprofit advocacy and fund-raising group, worked with the Chicago Police Department last spring, and it is working on a safety tool kit for all first responders, said Lisa Goring, director of family services for the group.

“We’ve heard from families as well as from professionals that they just need more instruction, certainly in terms of first responders understanding that a person with autism may not respond appropriately or may not respond at all when given a command,” she said.





Oakland's city council has voted to retain the services of their monitoring team to evaluate the progress of the police department's reform process, according to Inside Bay Area.


(excerpt)


The monitors were assigned to keep watch on the Police Department following the city's settlement in the "Riders" police misconduct case, in which a group of rogue officers were prosecuted for beating and framing residents in West Oakland. The total contract amount, including the two-year extension, will not exceed $5.02million, according to the city.

Attorney John Burris, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys in the Riders case, said keeping the same monitoring team was crucial.

He said it would have been "unconscionable" for the city to switch to a new team after the original one already had done five years of work.

"It's extremely important," he said, of the agreement. "A lot of work has already been done."

The Independent Monitoring Team, as it is called, released its 10th report on the police department in September. It found the Police Department made significant progress on a host of reforms, but needed to do a better job of training its officers in order to move toward full compliance with the orders of the court.
Police Chief Wayne Tucker told the council Tuesday he was confident full compliance would be reached in two year's time.

Burris credited Tucker and other top police officials for quickening the pace of reforms in recent years.

It wasn't always so, he said.

In fact, Judge Thelton Henderson's decision earlier this year to extend court oversight of the department through Jan. 20, 2010, two years beyond the original five-year period, said the department made "virtually no progress" during the initial two years of the settlement.



What do you do when those encharged to investigate allegations of criminal conduct among employees themselves become subjects of such probes?

Cleveland's police department is about to find out after at least one of its lieutenants has been indicted for theft and other supervisors may face criminal charges, according to The Plain Dealer.



(excerpt)


The inquiry began in 2006 after an audit of city-owned parking garages in the Gateway District. About 24 officers were caught moonlighting as security guards at a downtown parking garage while on duty.

The inquiry is ongoing. Investigators sent evidence to the prosecutor's office, and it appears other officers will be indicted, Flask said.

Jackson led the office when investigators said he falsified records to claim overtime that he didn't work between November 2005 and June 2006. He is suspended without pay.

Lt. Thomas Stacho, police spokesman, said Jackson falsified duty reports and lied about his whereabouts. Investigators used swipe cards and surveillance tapes to track his movements, Stacho said.

Jackson could not be reached. Lt. Brian Betley, vice president for the Fraternal Order of Police, said the union supports Jackson.





Visitors dropped by from the following places.



City of Riverside

County of Riverside

Office of the State Treasurer Bill Lockyer

University of California, Riverside

Utah Educational Network

Southern Methodist University

Dimension Servicing Corporation

Tennessee Board of Regents

California State Senate

LDCOM (France)

Claremont Colleges

Administration Office of the U.S. Courts

Inquiries and investigations

Some West Coast Crips passed through Riverside, as they call it, within the past couple of days and marked up a white brick wall on Sedgwick near Pennsylvania on the way to Victoria Golf Course.

Here's a paraphrase of what was written in bright blue.


Eastside Riva, the Latino gang currently under injunction by the Riverside Police Department and the Riverside County District Attorney's office, was crossed out. The West Coast Crips are claiming a territory between First and "1200" and if anyone disagrees, they better be ready to "bang" as they call it.

The police department has been notified of this and Sgt. Val Graham will be looking into it. Not long ago, six individuals were shot and injured at Tremors night club by gang members allegedly from San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties.

One reason why suppression tactics rarely do anything by themselves but spawn more gang violence. The more that get sent to prison, the more come out of it because the prisons and increasingly the jails have become an extension of their "turf". You throw the law at gangs. They adapt and make it work for them.

If one gang leaves or its members are all sent to prison (essentially run by gangs), other gangs move in and take their places, because the roots which lead to gang violence are still there. Poverty, racism, inequal access to city resources, family breakdowns, domestic violence and the squeezing effect of gentrification being some of them still remain. That's the rule, not the exception.





Riverside's alternative newspaper, Inland Empire Weekly published an article about Election 2007 where the Riverside County District Attorney's office's Public Integrity Unit investigated a local community activist for voting fraud.

What struck me as very interesting is how ironic it is that a unit that is set up mainly to investigate allegations of illegal conduct by public officials within its jurisdiction is investigating activists, using at least two of its investigators and a prosecutor to do the Riverside County Voters' Registrar's office's job for it, which is essentially to determine whether or not a person's stated residence on a voting registration form is accurate and consequently whether or not they can vote.

If a person is doing what you believe is voters' fraud which includes a clear intent to do so, then yes, it is a duty to report it, but after talking with people who've worked at polling sites and supervisors who've had to grapple with these issues, they've all said that the place to complain is the Voters' Registrars office, not a county or city's legal counsel's office. That's a call that most often is and should be left to the Voters' Registrars office to decide which cases to handle administratively and which to forward for further criminal inquiry. In all cases, the person said that what usually happens if there's a question of residency, is that the person votes provisionally and the decision of whether or not the vote is counted and certified, is left to the entity responsible for counting the votes.

There's a lot involved with the voting process that many people don't know about or have questions about and perhaps the voters registrars could do more educational campaigns on issues as vexing as these ones. It's too bad that the head of the Voters' Registrar for Riverside County could not or did not respond to David Silva's inquiries for his news article even if their policy was not to comment on investigations. Instead, there was just silence. That office could have shed light on the process used in situations like these and its silence on the issue is both curious and disappointing. It should have definitely piqued Silva's interest further to look deeper into the issue of voting in Riverside.



Now that we're checking and rechecking the residency of all the city's voters who are activists, why not investigate elected officials, candidates and those who support them who advocate, no even encourage people to move from their ward of residency to move into another ward just to run for office who pretty quickly vacate the ward after they lose or leave political office? After all, Councilman Steve Adams allegedly tried to collect signatures to run for city council in Ward Three four years ago, but then moved to Ward Seven to run for that seat there within the same election cycle, according to residents in the latter ward. Candidates who have run for election in Ward One and even Ward Five had moved into a ward before filing to run. One of those candidates did have a business located in the ward that he moved into before running. Another candidate who had run in Ward One later moved to run in Ward Six living in a house right next door to his rival, Councilwoman Nancy Hart.

There's actually a couple politicians who've made reputations for themselves as "carpet baggers" of sorts as they are defined in these parts. There's also comments made, in jest or perhaps not, from many different corners of finding candidates to move into wards to run for office. Is that an ethical practice and what is the intent there? Shouldn't the candidate running for election to represent a ward have spent time living in that ward before filing papers? If so, how much time should be spent to establish "residency"? Those who support this practice seem to be those who look at elections as city-wide rather than ward-specific. It's a good practice for building voting bloc majorities but not really for ensuring good ward representation. In the midst of all this, it seems a bit ironic that all the legal attention is on one voter in one ward, the fate of whose vote was after all, ultimately decided by the Voters' Registrar's office at the end of the day.

Is that practice of ward hopping illegal? Apparently not, not if the individual is actually using this residence as their primary residence when he or she runs for office. And whether it's ethical or not, moral or not, proper election etiquette or not, are questions that are to be answered outside a prosecuting agency. Questions perhaps to be asked and answered at the polls.



The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit does handle investigations of voters' fraud allegations mostly forwarded from the Voters Registrar Agency in that county. Its mission statement is the following.


(excerpt)


The District Attorney's Public Integrity Division ensures that public and appointed officials - and their subordinates - fulfill their legally mandated duties. To this end, the District Attorney’s Office will use all resources at its disposal to detect, investigate and prosecute criminal misconduct at all levels of public service.

The Public Integrity Division’s ultimate goal is to increase the public’s level of confidence in its elected and appointed officials.



The San Bernardino County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit provides an online means to file complaints. It's mission statement is here.


(excerpt)


San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos campaigned on the issue of restoring public integrity to San Bernardino County. Within the first four months after being elected, Mr. Ramos fulfilled his promise to the electorate and created the Public Integrity Unit.
The unit, which is comprised of two attorneys, three investigators and a secretary, handles complaints involving those people holding public office. Some types of issues might involve: The illegal use of campaign funds; residency violations; and, open meeting/Brown Act violations. The Unit will be responsible for monitoring City Councils, elected Boards and Commissions.

The Unit will take anonymous complaints and all complaints must be submitted in writing.

Please mail your complaint to:

Frank Vanella/Public Integrity Unit
District Attorney
316 N Mt View Ave
San Bernardino, CA 92415-0004




And if it's true that investigators were going into a person's house, in this case Paul Odekirk's, opening his cabinets, refrigerators and looking through his drawers without a search warrant, then it's hard to believe how that type of behavior is in line with an honest, ethical and non-corrupt policy. The District Attorney's office should inquire into these allegations involving its own employees, of course having an established process in place to do so. In fact, I'm sure that's exactly what this tax-supported agency did as soon as the allegations came to light including those where Odekirk said he was threatened with arrest if he did vote.

Is this why Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco wanted to expand this unit? It would be interesting if his office provided any statistics breakdown on what kind of prosecutions this special unit actually addressed. It would also be helpful if it could also educate individuals on the purpose and goals of this office, because there's not much information provided about it on its Web site, especially considering that one of Pacheco's goals, which appears to be both daring and innovative, was to expand it.

There's been some interesting forums sponsored by this office including one providing people a much needed education on the Brown Act that was taught by former District Attorney and current Best, Best and Krieger attorney, Grover Trask. The important work and mission of the Public Integrity Unit would be just the topic for a future public forum. I'm sure it would play to a full house.




Little "b" has got his or her knickers in a knot over at Craigslist and responded to yesterday's post here with one of his or her own. Apparently, he or she is claiming to be behaving in his or her chosen fashion and defending the conduct of others on behalf of the local politicians. What's strange about that, is that he or she harassed me before the election and used a different excuse then.





In the Los Angeles Times, is an article where Special Counsel Merrick Bobb who oversees the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said that the agency's internal investigations of its onduty shootings aren't thorough.


(excerpt)


Special Counsel Merrick Bobb, who monitors the Sheriff's Department under a contract with the county, said he was concerned that internal affairs investigators didn't interview several deputies who fired weapons at suspects. Instead, the investigators relied on previous interviews of the deputies by homicide detectives.

Bobb, whose staff reviewed dozens of deputies' use of force from 2004 and 2005, also concluded that some of the department's internal affairs detectives appeared to side with deputies while interviewing them.

For example, while investigating the shooting of a juvenile in Compton in 2004, an investigator said, "very good," or "perfect," when a deputy answered questions in a manner that appeared to justify the shooting, according to Bobb's report.

The report found some things to commend, however. It said the Office of Independent Review, which monitors sheriff's internal affairs investigations, had provided useful oversight and improved the thoroughness of the investigations. It also noted that the department's internal affairs process has become a model for agencies across the country.

Sheriff's Division Chief Roberta Abner said the department, in response to Bobb's concerns, recently adopted a policy that requires internal affairs investigators to interview all deputies who shoot suspects, even if homicide detectives already had spoken with the deputies.




What's interesting is that there are several "concerns" stated by Bobb in his report that could also apply to how the Riverside Police Department investigates its onduty shootings. One of those was the statement that several deputies weren't interviewed about their shootings but instead investigators relied on voluntary interviews given in the officer-involved-shooting investigations which are forwarded to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office for review.

It's not clear what the policy is involving internal investigations for shootings in the Sheriff's Department, but policy #4.8 utilized by Riverside's police department states that the Internal Affairs Division is supposed to do an independent and separate investigation from the department's officer-involved shooting team. However, what happens likely most of the time, is that the internal investigation consists of an administrative review of the other investigation. The Community Police Review Commission submitted a recommendation to either have the investigation done by the Internal Affairs Division adhere to the written policy or to amend the policy to fit the current practice but it was rejected.


What was the Sheriff's Department's response to this issue? To redraft its investigation policy.


(excerpt)


Sheriff's Division Chief Roberta Abner said the department, in response to Bobb's concerns, recently adopted a policy that requires internal affairs investigators to interview all deputies who shoot suspects, even if homicide detectives already had spoken with the deputies.

By policy, homicide detectives review deputy shootings to help determine whether the deputies were justified. Deputies now will be interviewed first by homicide detectives conducting a criminal investigation and then by internal affairs investigators to determine whether a shooting was within department policy.




How do law enforcement officers handle allegations that their colleagues engage in domestic violence?


The Daily Journal tries to take a look at this issue which impacts those who work in law enforcement agencies than the general public according to several studies released addressing this issue.


(excerpt)


According to the National Center for Women and Policing, two studies have shown that at least 40 percent of law enforcement families experience domestic violence, while studies on the general population show domestic violence occurs in anywhere between 10 percent to 30 percent of American families.

Those numbers are probably not accurate. Chief Deputy Ken McCabe, who leads internal affairs investigations for the Kankakee County Sheriff's Police, believes domestic violence cases are "probably way underreported" among police officers and the public. He is not alone in his assessment. Most domestic violence advocates believe that women do not feel safe enough to report the crime.

Bradley Deputy Chief Steve Coy believes that the daily grind of on-the-job stress contributes to the high incidence of domestic violence within police families nationwide.

"Police officers see the worst of the worst in people," Coy said.

But when domestic violence is committed by a police officer, the situation becomes even more dangerous for a woman, according to the National Center for Women and Policing, because the offender carries a gun, knows the sites of shelters for battered women, and knows "how to manipulate the system" in order to avoid legal repercussions and to shift blame to the victim.



From a recent International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Association that was held, comes a two-part series on the "Dos and Don'ts" of what's been called by law enforcement experts, "excited delirium". There's a lot of controversy of whether or not this condition exists.

Here's part one which mostly provides a definition and symptomology of excited delirium.

Part two of the series discusses what to do and also what not to do.



(excerpt)



The natural outcome of ED may prove to be highly negative, regardless of your best efforts. Don’t help the Monday-morning quarterbacks make things look even worse by taking inappropriate actions that you should avoid. According to the Lawrences:

1. Don’t Taser the subject in the stun mode. In ED, he’s impervious to pain, so he won’t feel it and won’t be controlled by it. You’ll only end up connecting the Taser to his death (if he dies) without winning any benefit.

2. Don’t deliver more than one cycle of Taser barbs if you decide to try that control option. Use the Taser to create a window of opportunity during which you can try to restrain him. Multiple Taser cycles are not recommended where you believe the subject may be experiencing ED.

3. Don’t deploy pepper spray. Again, no pain for him…no gain for you. Even the pain of baton strikes may not stop his aggressive behavior, and repeated forceful strikes may cause injuries that increase the risk of an adverse outcome.

4. Try not to cause any impairment to the suspect taking full breaths. That means avoid spit hoods, towels over his face—anything that lessens fresh air coming in or retains exhaled air. The subject needs to take in oxygen and to get rid of carbon dioxide. Use of a neck restraint may lead to a misperception by the suspect that you are shutting off his breathing. If he thinks he can’t breathe, this becomes his reality in his psychotic state.

5. Avoid transporting the subject in a police car unless no other option is available. The average adult is longer than the car is wide. An ED subject is not likely to sit quietly on the seat for you. Laying him on his belly is not recommended, and laying him on his side will often result in windows being kicked out. Transport to a hospital via ambulance whenever reasonably possible.

Although compared to other types of high-risk calls ED incidents are rare, training for them is vital, the speakers stressed. “The time to do training is not after you have an ED death,” Sharon declared. She advised also to let your community know that you are working to prepare your troops to deal with this problem. “It shows you are proactive, anticipating and addressing problems before they strike.”



Coverage of what's been going on in New Orleans after city residents denied access to a city council meeting to learn the fates of their homes were pepper sprayed and even tased by police officers.


It's not clear why New Orleans elected officials were limiting the number of people into the meeting. If it was an issue of not enough space or fire safety codes, then surely the city government could have held the meeting in a larger meeting facility. It should have been anticipated that an agenda item like this would draw out a large crowd.

People about to lose their homes or who have lost them because of actions taken by a city government deserve the right to redress about these actions to their elected officials.


(excerpt, New Orleans Indymedia)


Locked out of the council chambers the protestors were quickly surrounded with dozens of police. Behind them stood eight horse-mounted police, and behind the gate keeping them out of the hall were many more heavily armed officers. Right in front of City Hall, behind the protesters is Duncan Plaza, which has been turned into an enormous homeless camp. Many Duncan Plaza residents came over to show their support for the cause. There are more than 12,000 homeless in the city today. Inside the chambers, the City Council proceeded.

First locked out of their homes for more than 2 years, and now locked out of the very City Council meeting in which the city’s politicians are set to vote for tearing down their homes, many of the residents began pleading with the officers to be allowed in. Pleading turned quickly to outrage as it was clear that the process would move forward without their voices or even witness. Receiving phone calls from their allies inside the chambers, the protesters were told that the Council meeting was being held up by chants and clapping until everyone was allowed inside. The Council members refused and called on their security forces to clear out the chambers.

In the desperation the group outside began shaking the large metal gates locking them out. The gate was easily broken open. Police moved in with pepper spray and batons, quickly beating back anyone near the entrance. Chants of “housing is a human right,” and “justice!” filled the air along with the putrid smell of the chemical weapons used by the NOPD. The gate was re-secured with handcuffs this time. Again the protesters chanted and demanded entrance. Some called into question the legitimacy of a “public” meeting in which the public was excluded.

As they pushed against the gates it suddenly became clear that something was happening inside the chambers. Dozens of police quickly sprinted into the building with their hands on their weapons. Outside this sparked concern among those gathered who began to slam against the gate once more. An ambulance arrived in the compound and a stretcher was taken into the building. Police would not communicate with those outside as to what was happening in the chambers. Protesters in the building began calling their allies and reporting that the police were forcefully clearing the room. It is confirmed by housing advocate Jay Arena that he, Malcolm Suber, Sess 4-5, and Endesha Jukali were arrested along with others. It is reported but not yet confirmed that Sess was tazered.



CNN as usual takes a different spin on it.

(excerpt)


At about 11 a.m., several protesters were dragged out of council chambers after scuffles broke out among people who packed the room, and members of the crowd booed council members and shouted insults at them. Watch protesters grapple with police »

About 30 minutes later, hundreds more protesters angry that they weren't allowed into the meeting began rattling an iron gate outside City Hall.

"They were pulling the gate open, trying to come in," said Superintendent Warren J. Riley of the New Orleans Police Department. "They were allowed to stand there and protest peacefully. Then they began to try and tear the gate down. They punched a couple of civil sheriffs in the face. They broke the gate open. So, some of those officers did use Mace to defend themselves and also to regain control of the gate and close the gate."

Riley said that after the council chamber's maximum capacity of 278 was reached, no one else was allowed inside.


Moments later, a woman could be seen crying and screaming on the ground before several other protesters picked her up and carried her away.

Peter O'Connell, who described himself as a student living in New Orleans, told the station he was hit by pepper spray and narrowly avoided being shocked by a police stun gun, which hit his jacket but not his body.

"We were just trying to gain access to the City Council meeting, which we all feel and know that we have a right to attend," he said. "We were denied access and, in the process, brutalized by the police."



Expect the situation to only worsen as city officials working with development firms hoping to make money in the "New" Orleans continue with their reduction of an estimated 80% loss in low-income housing. Using a human tragedy that cost lives and broke hearts like Katrina to redraw the city's map for gentrification.

Drops in the bucket and other precipitation

Someone must have found out I'm a Billy Joel fan because they wrote some lyrics about me and this site here to the tune of "Uptown Girl". It looks like "B" has returned from beneath his or her rock to grace the day with his or her presence and some might say, song writing talents!

Even trying to pinpoint where I live in Riverside ("up on Central") a street I frequently walk down because it's near the Plaza, which is pathetic and probably intended to frighten me in his or her latest diatribe about my alleged attack against "The White Man". The downside of this blog is that it's attracted a who's who collection of cyber harassers or cyber harasser wannabes beginning not too long after it was started several years ago. Many of the comments here and elsewhere that have been written about me and this blog would make any social psychologist a very happy camper or an unhappy one depending on how you look at it. Occasionally I have heard insights from behavioral specialists who had read them and their insights have been interesting, if somewhat unnerving.



I've actually been blamed for both former councilmen, Dom Betro and Art Gage losing their elections. No folks, I didn't cost either man his reelection, nor did Craigslist. The fact is, that whether you accept it or not, the candidates they ran against simply received more votes than they did. The lyricist doesn't seem to be from the camp of either politician especially if the earlier attempts at incorporating other performing artists' lyrics for harassment purposes is any indication.

I've also been harassed and called a wide variety of slurs and other demeaning and derogatory terms for criticizing the police department, supporting the department's strategic plan imposed by former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, supporting the city's review board, speaking at meetings, writing about this city and probably even for breathing. Blaming me for the consent decree, the strategic plan, the civilian review board, the internal affairs investigation, the death of a 10-year-old boy by a gang member because criticizing police practices means of course condoning or supporting gang violence, their own shortcomings and all kinds of things.

I've had people tell me what I'm wearing, when and what I'm doing. I've had numerous comments on where I lived and that the only important thing was where I lived. I've had people post pornographic comments here, usually ones advocating violence against me or other women. I've had abuse, threats, false information about DUI convictions and even some one advocating that liberals like myself on some "list" to be "checked" which essentially meant to be shot. Posters haven't liked the way, I dress, wear my hair, smell, talk, walk or the fact that I do walk and have speculated about everything from what underwear I wear to how I spend my Saturday nights. One said all I needed was a "big bang" or that I needed to be part of a "chain" or that "all Mary needs is some dick". One individual thought I sounded "taller" on the radio.

Some charming individuals called my mother's uterus "filthy" and stated that mine needed to be "sewn shut". One anonymous individual said that his supervisor told him not to post on the "crazy lady's" blog even though the comments and I were hilarious, because it would make them look bad.

Don't call the police if I need them. I can smell your "funk" from a mile away. Hairy-legged, bra burning, "I heard you were an old hippy" and where one of them wrote, that he or she was actually one of my "crack cocaine addicted boyfriends" on specific streets "with crack up the ass". Racist and sexist stereotypes, not to mention verbal black face abounded. Black people are crack addicts on welfare spending their money at places like Western Liquor Store on fried chicken, malt liquor and lottery tickets. Latinos are "parasites" who subsist on heroin and methamphetamine and of course, are always gang members. Mexicans are all filled with candy and when police officers beat them, they do it to see candy spill out like they would pinatas at a birthday party.

Latinas are "hot" when marching at immigration rights rallies and so are female police officers who of course, are all "lesbians", who are forcibly kidnapped by the police chief and conscripted into forced service as police officers where they put all the real police officers (read male ones) in danger.

Also, slurs against the disabled like the term, "village idiot" by someone who clearly believed that being disabled meant the same thing as not being human.

None of these individuals used their names, of course for obvious reasons. Cowardice being a big one. These are people who spend much of their time under the rocks, being emboldened to harass because as one person told me, they are empowered by their invisibility. How they act in public is anyone's guess because for one thing, it's only known to them who they are and where they come from.

So if "B" thinks he or she is unique, hardly! He or she is joining in on a proud tradition, which is called harass the bitch/skank/cunt/schizoid/tramp/idiot/spawn of Satan/Daughter of Lucifer/whore who dares to blog about Riverside. The blogger who received an email from the city's ISP, which for those who don't know is "riversideca.gov" or #192.248.248.66/67 about noticing that she's cut her hair recently, it's greasy and that then asks her if she hates her mother or herself. The blogger who can't walk down the street without getting neck strain from turning her head so much.

Blogging often means getting harassed. Blogging in or about Riverside definitely means getting harassed. He or she is simply a member of a group of cowardly, emotionally charged, immature individuals who are so upset or threatened by this blog that this is how they choose and have chosen to vent about it. Only he or she chooses to make a well-known performing artist his or her accomplice without his or her consent.


I had a very interesting email exchange with the head of a local government watchdog organization who wrote a piece about anonymity and the internet and he made an interesting point after I explained to him what many female bloggers face when they write on the internet, including Kathy Sierra who's only the most well-known example, when our identities are known by those who hate us, first for being women who blog, then for being people who blog.


(excerpt)


In that case the harassers would be shamed into silence. It is their anonymity, after all, that allows them to threaten and offend. They are, by and large, cowards who are empowered by their invisibility.



How true. "B" or whatever he or she really calls themselves is just another example of that just like a host of other nameless or nicknamed harassers out there. A coward who both wants attention and doesn't want this woman to blog. Perhaps this is the individual who's been getting posts linking or mentioning this site removed from Craigslist as well. Perhaps it's someone I would recognize on sight. Perhaps not. Statistics on cyber-harassers state that it's a fifty-fifty proposition whether they are individuals you know or not.

But I'm not going to stop blogging because of harassment, because I enjoy blogging, many of my readers support it and because you can't let these harassers achieve what they want which is to silence your voice. If they succeed, they'll just go target someone else, all the while claiming that it's their mission to do so because for one thing, they really have nothing better or else to do. Without their harassment, who would they even be?

But even while they refuse to identify themselves, they demand to be treated as individuals. when except from a personal safety standpoint, they shouldn't be taken seriously at all.




Song lyrics by aspiring musicians aside (and by the way, I hope this person had legal permission to desecrate Joel's hard work), Inland Empire Craigslist has an interesting ongoing discussion on plans to renovate both the downtown and the Riverside Plaza. Some very interesting ideas that perhaps the politicians should consider.



As for cyber harasser (soon to be assigned a lot number), who's piggybacking off of a performing artist's hard work simply to harass someone into not blogging, what do your actions exactly say about you? Not much better than the unidentified individual here who cribbed the use of a real name of a well-known New York City Police Department whistle blowing officer to harass me in 2005.








It might have been the shake without the bake but Big Bear was hit by a 4.0 earthquake yesterday morning at 4:15. Information from it the United States Geological Survey is here.

Did you feel it? Fill out the survey here.


What's the fastest growing county in the state? Riverside County, of course.


California has seven cities included in the list of the 25 cities in the nation with the highest rate of foreclosures including five in the top 10.


They are as follows.


1. Stockton

3. Riverside/San Bernardino

6. Sacramento

9. Bakersfield

10. Oakland


Loss of property values nationwide: $223 billion


The construction industry including that in the Inland Empire has been hit really hard so far by the housing market's collapse. Housing values might rebound some time between 2010 -2012 but that's a while off yet.






Meanwhile, back in Riverside, Columnist Dan Bernstein with the Press Enterprise is taking on the land sale approved by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors involving what was supposed to be park land in Jurupa.


(excerpt)


The Jurupa Community Services District broke the law when it sold the surplus land to Rep. Ken Calvert and his Pips. So said the RivCo Grand Jury. Now we know what the supes think of the grand jury. Bupkis.

If the surplus land had been offered first to public agencies -- as state law requires -- the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District would have snapped it up. It had already told the community services district it wanted that land for a park. But Calvert and his Pips got there first. They have a thing for storage units.

So the Jurupa park district decided to try to snatch the land through eminent domain, which required the supes' blessing. The supes unanimously instructed the park folks to buzz off. But not before Tavaglione noted, "The community deserves better."

Too bad the community that deserves better had to go up against the big boys, the career backscratchers, including Calvert, who comes off as such a helpless little congressman. "I feel like I'm in the middle of a circular firing squad." Awww.

Calvert's such a tiger when it comes to illegal immigration. But an illegal land deal, from which he and his pips are poised to benefit? Meow.

"If I had never been a part of this," Calvert said recently, "this would never be a story."


So Bernstein rewrites the saga about Ken-Doll in lieu of the congressman and uses the same words in the same column.


Bernstein also saves some words at the end of his column to address statements by Councilman Rusty Bailey about the demise of "Restaurant Row" at the Riverside Plaza.




Riverside's downtown public library hosted the teddy bear tea, which is an annual event for children.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


As one can imagine, a room full of toddlers didn't always sit still for the stories Sue Struthers was reading, and their bears were active too.

Bears were hugged, kissed, pulled, thrown, shared -- and not shared -- during the story portion of the tea.

"We love the chaos," said Riverside Children's Librarian Megan Bond. "It's amazing to see how happy they all are."

More than 70 children and adults paraded into the main branch of the library with brown bears, panda bears, Care Bears, pink bears, well-worn bears, along with a couple of stuffed dogs and a bunny with a Santa hat. They also sang songs and went on a bear hunt in the library, with each child "finding" a goodie bag filled with gummy bears, bear cookies and stickers.




In Los Angeles, the police commission is demanding that hundreds of Los Angeles Police Department gang and narcotics officers release their financial records, according to the Los Angeles Times.



Not surprisingly, the Police Protective League, the labor union, has filed a law suit asking for an injunction and the article stated that some officers have asked for reassignment in protest. The release of these records which include real estate holdings, outside income and debts was also included as a provision under the city's consent decree with the Department of Justice that it entered into in 2001 as a result of a patterns and practices investigation stemming from the Rampart scandal.


This earlier article by the Times outlines the commission's proposal which was met by immediate reaction from those inside the police department.


(excerpt)



Because it will be discussed in secret, commission President Anthony Pacheco declined to comment further on the proposal, other than to acknowledge that the issue has been "complicated."

For years, commission members, department officials and leaders of the Los Angeles Police Protective League -- the union representing some 9,000 officers -- have been at loggerheads over the idea. Union officials have resisted, arguing that a blanket requirement for all officers in the units would do little to combat corruption and would invade their privacy.

But Assistant Chief Sharon Papa said, "It is a final piece of the puzzle that we have not yet implemented. We need to move forward on this issue if we are ever going to be in compliance" with the decree.



Papa declined to say whether Chief William J. Bratton, who is on vacation, supported the proposal.

Last year, Bratton sided with officers, calling financial disclosures an "incredible burden." He said he would have been satisfied with a compromise plan devised by the union and department officials that was thrown out by the federal judge overseeing the consent decree for not being strict enough.

A new round of negotiations on the proposal recently broke down over whether officers currently assigned to the units would be exempt from the disclosure, according to Tim Sands, president of the officers union.





The Office of Independent Review with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department found that misconduct occurred with the handling of actor Mel Gibson's arrest but not in the case involving Paris Hilton's premature release from her jail sentence for undisclosed medical reasons, according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


The long-awaited report revealed three deputies were disciplined for their handling Gibson's release from custody. Moreover, a supervisor sought to censor Gibson's arrest report, which contained an anti-Semitic rant by the actor. But a captain overruled that decision, according Mike Gennaco, head of the sheriff's office of independent review.

More details about the finding will be revealed at a news conference this afternoon.

Gennaco's report also looked at how the department handled the high-profile jailing of Paris Hilton after she was sentenced for a probation violation. His report found no misconduct on the part of officials.







The San Bernardino County District Attorney's office backed the actions of a sheriff deputy who shot and killed a man in Mentone.


(excerpt)


Deputy Briscoe was now struggling with the suspect over control of the firearm," Guzzino wrote. He "felt he was over-powered by the suspect and might lose control."

The deputy's first bullet didn't stop Dyrness, Guzzino wrote, and a second shot wouldn't fire because the man had his hand on the gun's slide area.

After freeing the gun, Briscoe shot Dyrness once in the chest and killed him.

Bailey returned home to find her boyfriend lying dead on the front lawn

Dyrness' blood-alcohol level was .14 at the time of his autopsy, nearly double the .08 limit for driving, and traces of marijuana were found in his system.

"He was combative with Deputy Briscoe verbally and physically from the initial handcuffing procedure," Guzzino wrote.

"This conduct gave Deputy Briscoe no choice but to use deadly force."




The 40th anniversary of the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia was just commemorated by residents including those who remembered that fateful day when a critical single part of the bridge snapped, causing the whole structure to fall apart into the river in a matter of seconds, taking much of the rush-hour traffic with it. Forty-six people were killed and the Dec. 15, 1967 disaster caused the federal government to reexamine the process for constructing and inspecting suspension bridges.


Witnesses like Stephen Darst shared their experiences many years later.


(excerpt, Star Tribune)


"It sounded like a jet airplane," he recalled, looking out at the river. "I had nightmares for a long time after that."

Like most Point Pleasant residents old enough to remember that day, Darst, now 70, has vivid recollections of Dec. 15, 1967. He not only saw the bridge fall but had driven across it hours before, and he remembers a feeling of unease.

A traffic light had been malfunctioning all day, causing cars and trucks to back up on the bridge, which had linked Point Pleasant and Kanauga, Ohio, since 1928. Darst said he felt anxious waiting in traffic and eventually pulled out and sped off the bridge by driving in the opposite lane.

"I could feel something was wrong. Something was in the air," he said.




In the air in New Orleans, is the strong odor of pepper spray and ozone from taser discharges as as individuals trying to attend a city council meeting on proposed demolitions of low-income housing were pepper sprayed and tased, according to Yahoo News. Up to 80% of the lower-income housing was going to be replaced by mixed-income housing.



(excerpt)


One woman was sprayed with chemicals and dragged from the gates. She was taken away on a stretcher by emergency officials. Before that, the woman was seen pouring water from a bottle into her eyes and weeping.

Another woman said she was stunned by officers, and still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.

"I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting," said the woman, Kim Ellis, who was taken away in an ambulance.

"Is this what democracy looks like?" said Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who opposes demolition, as he held a strand of Taser wire he said had been shot into another of the protesters.

Quigley said he would explore legal action over the incident, which he believed violated public meetings laws.


Many of those pepper sprayed and tased had been waiting for hours to attend a meeting where city officials were going to decide on the fates of the residences where they had lived before Hurricane Katrina hit close to the city in 2005. Man-made failures in the city's levee system which was supposed to withstand up to a Category Four hurricane, stronger than Katrina which was Category Three when it hit land is what has caused the problems with flooding that killed at least 2,000 people and drove hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes. The city's through its deals with developers is taking advantage of a human catastrophe to gentrify its city, pushing out the poor and predominantly Black individuals and families out of the city.

So now these individuals are losing their homes and are being forced away from attending a meeting where their homes, their lives are being discussed, deliberated and decided upon. That's not democracy in action.