Follow the money...and the canary

"Follow the money."


---Deep Throat



"Follow the Yellow Brick Road."

---Wizard of Oz





Meet this guy.


I met a cousin of his today, from about two feet away and this is what he looked like. Only he was shaking his tail quite a bit and hissing. What can you do? Back slowly and quietly away while praying. Fortunately, it worked. If it didn't, I probably wouldn't have been able to write this blog entry about it.




There was a celebration of animals of a different kind at Fairmount Park with the annual walk around the park and plenty of activities for the humans.




Dining in the Dark according to Dan Bernstein.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


Organizers call it "Dining in the Dark" -- an idea exported from Europe. Blindness Support Services, champion of the Empire's blind and visually impaired, brought it to Riverside to raise money. And eyebrows.

We snaked through the ballroom, led by blind guides who had spent two days memorizing the layout. Clutching the shoulder I couldn't see, I braced for my inevitable face plant. But after what seemed like a journey of 40 nights, the guide put my hand on a metal bar. "This is your chair." It felt like a lifeboat.

I sat next to a voice that belonged to Peter Benavidez, who runs Blind Support Services. He had gotten me into this. I sat in front of the salad they had told us would be there. Usually, I look around to make sure others have started eating. Usually, I can see.

"When do we start?" I finally asked Peter, who informed me that the salad was pretty good.



Some rah rah for the Riverside Renaissance, again not from a small business owner who had to make the sacrifice for the housing development firms who were planning to remake downtown in the image of Orange County. It would be refreshing if there were actually an op-ed piece written and published that sincerely thanked these small business owners who used to house their businesses on Market Street for their sacrifice, rather than acting like the threats of eminent domain were instead acts of entitlement. But considering how many organizations who purport to be advocates for businesses big and small sold the Market Street businesses down the river, any such thank you is not likely to come from those corners. But it would definitely be a nice gesture. Starting with the Greater Chambers of Commerce and the Downtown Neighborhood Partnership, especially the latter which spent the business taxes of those businesses on Market Street to renovate the pedestrian mall (which guess what, is being renovated again) and then used it against them years later.

But somewhere in City Hall is a fairly old letter which outlines the purpose of the DNP which wasn't to advocate or truly represent all businesses in the downtown area but actually, simply to prop up the economic picture of the downtown Mission Inn. However, one local activist said that when they returned to get a copy of that letter, it had disappeared and was no place to be found. So maybe somewhere in City Hall, there was a letter.




Here's an interesting op-ed piece in the Press Enterprise that embraces bilingualism and cultural diversity.





The housing crisis in the Inland Empire is bad news for new parks. Now they tell us. Not long after being told in Riverside that due to problems with the economy, key components of the renovation of several major parks might have to wait particularly those wanted by the community who participated in several public comment periods during meetings held by the ad hoc committees on those projects.





The League of Women Voters up in Portland Oregon offered this interesting insight into the ongoing situation involving the investigation of the city's Independent Police Review that was conducted by consultant Eileen Luna-Firebaugh. The League's counterpart down here has been active in many issues involving the local government, including civilian review but not to the extend as in Portland.


Here are a list of the recommendations the League singled out for particular attention in its own summary of the situation that came from Luna-Firebaugh's report.



(excerpt)




Transparency should be encouraged for all aspects of the IPR/CRC process.

IPR should be a more active participant in complaint investigations and conduct independent investigations in cases of public import.

Additional IPR staff should be hired to assist with independent investigations. These new staff should not have connections to law enforcement.

The powers of the CRC should be broadened to include oversight of the IPR director and the appeals process.

The CRC should advise the IPR director to conduct independent investigations where, in their opinion, the quality or timeliness has triggered the language of the ordinance that allows the IPR director to conduct independent investigations.

The CRC should take an assertive role in the identification of policy issues and the promulgation and implementation of policy recommendations.

The CRC should develop a training program that balances training from law enforcement and from sources outside law enforcement.

City council should take a more active interest in the work of the IPR and CRC. There should be annual reports from the CRC on their work and each council member should have a nominee on the committee.

The appeal hearings should be televised on a community access television channel.

This would enhance community information about the right to appeal and would also enhance community trust in the process through increased transparency.

The IPR should produce comprehensive reports on an annual basis.

Outreach to all communities and explain the police complaint process.




Strengthening the roles of both the IPR and its oversight committee, the CRC is a goal of the League just like it is for other community organizations in Portland, some of those that seem to be located on the "fringe" as some local governmental officials might say. However, at least one state representative who spoke at the March 18 workshop held by the city government chided city officials for having that philosophy about the local organizations vested in civilian review.

It's interesting watching what's going on in Portland over 1,000 miles and an entirely different political climate away. Here, key city employees are trying to remold the Community Police Review Commission in the city's image perhaps guided behind the scenes by one or more political official who is favorable towards civilian review in Riverside in general and the CPRC in particular. That type of "guiding" seemed to be on the upswing after the passage of Measure II in November 2004 and the hiring of a key city employee by the city council in June 2005.

One commissioner who resigned out of frustration in 2007 said that he had been contacted by a particular city official who told him to go with the program, toe the line or be ousted. If that's indeed the case, that's pretty indicative of string pulling from the seventh floor at City Hall and that's very unfortunate.

But like most forms of civilian review, the CPRC is the canary in the mine and if it's truly ailing, then perhaps the problem isn't with it, but elsewhere in the city somewhere on the money trail. What city fund is being heavily dipped into during the past few months and what has that money been spent on?

More to come on this issue in the days ahead.






Drastic steps for Boston Police Department will include regular testing for steroid use among the officers in that department according to the Boston Globe.


The department is already under a federal grand jury probe involving a steroid ring scandal which has led Chief Edward F. Davis to take some drastic steps.



(excerpt)



"It really does revolve around the issues of steroids causing aggression in people and the concern around that problem," Davis said in a recent telephone interview. "We would look at other policies around the country to look at best practices. We certainly don't want to write the book from scratch if it's already being written."

However, a Globe survey of nine major departments - including New York, Los Angeles, and the Massachusetts State Police - found that none of them test regularly for steroids.

Instead, those departments follow protocols similar to Boston's. Officers are regularly tested for narcotics such as cocaine and amphetamines. They are only checked for steroids if officials suspect they are using them.

Officials from police departments in other cities say that testing for steroids is too expensive to do regularly. It costs at least $100 to test for anabolic steroids, but only about $25 for a test that determines whether an officer has taken marijuana, opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, or PCP.

Officials say testing for narcotics has historically been a bigger priority for supervisors and citizens, who worry more about the effects of those drugs on a gun-wielding police officer than that of steroids.

"I think just historically that narcotics use was considered more of a threat to law enforcement," said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne of the New York Police Department. "I think the threat of narcotics use, specifically narcotics use and the involvement of violent organized gangs and its distribution, made the use of those drugs particularly of concern."



The argument raised for the necessity of testing police officers in Boston for steroid use was what's called "'roid" rage which is what some experts think happens to users of steroids. One of the reasons often mentioned for taking steroids by officers caught using them is that they feel overwhelmed by the physical strength of criminals and need to take the steroids to enhance their own muscular growth so they can keep up.

Any apparent short-term gains from using steroids are balanced out by detrimental and long-term effects to bodily systems including the cardio-vascular system, the endocrine system, the liver and the reproductive systems of both men and women. So if you're reading this and you are using them, put them down and stop it right now. Your health is much more important to your loved ones and those you protect and serve than your brawn.



Effects of steroids on those stupid enough to take them. This is your body. This is your body on steroids. Any questions?







In Sonoma County, the issue of how its law enforcement officers engage with mentally ill people has been a serious one in the aftermath of four fatal shootings in the past 12 months, all involving mentally ill people. Like in many other cities and counties, Sonoma's trying to decide how to address this problem in the face of a high number of lethal incidents.



(excerpt, Santa Rosa Press-Telegram)



The circumstances leading to their deaths remain under debate. But mental health care advocates and law enforcement officials agree one thing is clear: They are partly victims of a mental health care crisis in Sonoma County that is getting worse.

"The sad part is that many of our mental health services are being reduced drastically in our community and now the community essentially doesn't have anywhere to turn to for those services," said Tom Bullard, Rohnert Park public safety director.

"We've had to take on roles that the mental health community filled for many years. That's a great burden for law enforcement."




Speaking of mental health intervention, will the city of Riverside remain committed to the path that it has started with its own training program in the midst of the budget crunch?


Stay tuned.

And the rumors of pink slips being handed out in this city's employment ranks continues though unabated. Are they true?

Stay tuned.

From Acorns into Oaks: Portland's "workshop"

"The role of citizens in democracy is to have some say about their government Anything that is done to shortcut that, or to control that, is going to have some problem."


---Eileen Luna-Firebaugh, before the Portland City Council





In Portland, the controversy that has erupted since the release of a report by consultant, Eileen Luna-Firebaugh continued as the city government met to discuss her proposed recommendations, according to The Oregonian which she finally presented to it and community residents in person.


After everyone left to go outside after the meeting, they were met by a long line of Portland Police Bureau officers dressed up in riot gear who began pepper spraying people who were gathered for a demonstration on the day of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.


(excerpt)



Deputy city attorney Dave Woboril provided on-the-ground advice to police commanders, as observers from the American Civil Liberties Union and staff from the mayor's and several commissioners' offices stood by and watched the conflict.

"This is the Portland police," an officer blared on a bullhorn, as several police horses moved closer to the crowd and bike officers tried to press the group onto the sidewalk at Southwest Fifth Avenue and Jefferson Street at 1:35 p.m. "You are impeding traffic. Step out of the street, or you will be arrested."

They watched as one officer fired pepper spray into the crowd, which by then had mostly moved to the sidewalk outside the Wells Fargo bank building's entrance. Passers-by flashed cell phone photos of the afternoon confrontation, what appeared to be the only major clash during the anti-war march. One arrest was made.



What was going on inside the chamber was only slightly less combative. Luna-Firebaugh had returned to Oregon to give her presentation to the city government and held fast even after being accused of bias by one of the city's commissioners who had been vocal in opposition to her report.


(excerpt)



Commissioner Randy Leonard accused Luna-Firebaugh of allowing her "bias" to taint the study and said if he had known her slant, he never would have approved her $60,000 contract. "I feel a little bit like you're preaching to us," he said.




It sounds like Leonard wanted to hire someone who would merely stamp the agenda set by people like him. Perhaps he felt the $60,000 would have been better invested if Luna-Firebaugh had been up at the podium telling the city that it was doing a great job with both the Independent Police Review and the Citizen Review Committee. But then again, if that were true, why would the subject come up for paying someone from outside the city to do a review in the first place?


Some have said that a conflict between the city auditor and the mayor, both elected positions, over among other things the role of the IPR was what led to the decision to hire Luna-Firebaugh in the first place. The IPR recently was recent removed at least on a temporary basis from the control of the auditor's office and placed under Mayor Tom Potter by Potter. So clearly, there are some political fireworks on display as well. Perhaps when the smoke clears, it will become clear whether or not the IPR and CRC have any allies at City Hall or not.


And then there's the city's auditor, Gary Blackmer who has blasted publicly and in other places everything in the report including the decision of Luna-Firebaugh to attend some community forums sponsored by "those people". Meaning community members who were well-versed on the issue of civilian review in Portland in general and the roles of the IPR and CRC in particular but weren't interested or morally able to jump on the city's bandwagon, perhaps because they knew what was really going on and wanted no part of it.

Much to Blackmer's dismay of course.

It's not too difficult to figure out who in Riverside has the most common with Blackmer. After all, who were the individuals again who believed that if the executive director of the civilian oversight mechanism in Riverside attended community meetings that meant he was "biased" or created a perception of bias against police?


Potter has no counterpart in this city, because at least Potter doesn't appear to be afraid or feel politically threatened by critics of both the civilian mechanism or the PPB which he himself once helmed. There's no such person currently at City Hall in Riverside who wants to be surrounded or reinforced by anyone but those who think exactly the same way they do. If there are any, they certainly haven't stepped forward.

One reason why there's a huge disconnect between City Hall and the community and perhaps why there's a large disconnect between City Hall and employment unions as well during issues that impact them.

But Blackmer did respond, again.


(excerpt)


City Auditor Gary Blackmer, who oversees the Independent Police Review Division, said he'll consider any suggestions on improving the system but said he believes the best way to spur change in the Police Bureau is from within the organization, not from an "outside body."



Oh if that were true! If law enforcement agencies from California to New York and back again didn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming into reform, most often by outside agencies who threaten to sue the cities and counties who hold the purses of these law enforcement agencies. For every city official or even police official who said that only those on the inside can spur change, there's an agency which needs a serious outside push for change. Even police chiefs who have pushed for change have been able to be more effective at it or perhaps even felt emboldened to do it when mandated to do so by outside agencies, which then can become the "bad guys" leaving the police chief off the hook and also employed for at least a period of time.

Why is it proven to be almost impossible to institute change from within? Because the "status quo" culture is so strong in law enforcement agencies that anyone in there who does buck the tide and push for change will be shown the door so fast their head will spin. That's what usually happens unless the particular leader of change has built in job protection and security. Otherwise, it's a revolving door that doesn't stop, revolving. In Riverside's Orange Street Station, it took a long time before the name of the chief would even be painted on the glass of the front door. The current police chief has been in place for nearly eight years but his three predecessors were all shown the door, some of them with only several years at the helm under their belt. Don't pass Go before you leave, don't collect $200 (but intead, a hefty retirement package).

But up in Portland, it's fairly clear exactly what Blackmer wants and that's a public relations tool to smooth down relations between the PPB and the community, which goes along lines with other city employees in other cities who have said that they believe that civilian review mechanisms should merely serve as a "buffer" between the police departments and the communities they serve. Which is why Blackmer probably should be the last person to oversee the IPR but don't be surprised if he gets his "toy" back when the din dies down.


The community members who appeared at the workshop asked for what most community members ask for if they are indeed asked, and what they often ask for is a mechanism to be more involved in the process and increased transparency of that process. Will they get either or both? Probably not, until the push for increased accountability in the available civilian review mechanism picks up in earnest probably when a particularly serious and controversial critical incident happens that galvanizes the public. Then the community will look back at what it has (just as the residents of Riverside looked back at LEPAC after Tyisha Miller) and will push harder for something stronger as has happened in other places. In fact, this chain of events is a very common one in most places that institute civilian review or institute stronger civilian review than what is currently in place.

Portland won't institute these changes on its own, because its interests including fiscal and those tied in with such issues as civil liability and risk management lie elsewhere and often in opposition to civilian review. That's another reason why you get comments about "outside agency" thrown out by people like Blackmer.


As for "low morale", yes, staffing can play a huge role in causing that as happened in Riverside in the late 1990s even before the incident that led to the implementations that led to reform were instituted (which itself led to claims of "low morale" and a massive turnover in the department's ranks). But challenging the culture inside a police department can also apparently cause a morale drop as well.

But maybe the union president of the PPB, Robert King, should also consider the fact that maybe it's the serious problems in the PPB that also contribute to the state of morale among officers who might not raise these issues for risk of ostracism by either the union or the management. There's long been a push to reform that police department by community members and organizations in Portland. But from inside, has there been anything at all?

Luna-Firebaugh had been criticized for only speaking to King for five minutes during her investigation but as it turned out, it was King who only wanted to discuss the issue for that amount of time before hanging up and saying that there was no need for a meet and greet and he'd read the report when it came out. That's his prerogative if that's how he sees fit to represent the PPB's officers but it's disingenuous for city officials to then claim that it was Luna-Firebaugh who wasn't interested due to "bias" without acknowledging King's own bias against civilian oversight mechanisms which is shared by nearly every law enforcement union leader in the country not to mention most police chiefs of law enforcement agencies as well.


Curious, I contacted members of several community organizations in Portland which address these issues through contact information provided online and had interesting discussions with them, as we discussed parallels between the processes impacting civilian review both in Portland and Riverside. One belief that runs strong in communities both in Portland and Riverside is that the cities encharged with implementing civilian review are much more concerned about having the appearance of an oversight process rather than the reality of having one. That's become especially apparent in Riverside during the past two years since the day the CPRC shocked the city out of its ennui and voted to sustain a finding of excessive force in the fatal shooting of Summer Marie Lane.

That whole entire and lengthy investigative, review, deliberation and decision process has essentially been reduced by the city (including those who didn't witness any of the process undergone by the commissioners at all) to the failure of the commission to have City Attorney Gregory Priamos or his designee in attendance while it was all going on. It's very doubtful that Priamos being there would have changed that finding unless he involved himself in the process in an inappropriate matter according to his own job description and mission statement of his office which wasn't likely to happen, was it? The only thing that would likely have changed the CPRC's finding would be to change the circumstances of the particular shooting which was the focus of the finding and that can't be done. The versions can be changed somewhat as was the case in Lane when the version of the shooting provided to the CPRC on Dec. 22, 2004 of that shooting by the department didn't quite match the version provided in several interdepartmental memos among members of the Officer-Involved Death Team which were included in the public investigation report which detailed a different chain of events just before and including the actual shooting.

What happened is that the commissioners and the police department had a difference of opinion on the finding for that particular shooting, a rarity indeed but it did happen that time. It was a moment which clearly defined the CPRC as it stood at that point and define it, it did as well as the players pulling its strings. Because the city officials and police department were ill-prepared to deal with a differential finding when it actually happened.


The city manager rather than making the final call simply deferred it to the police chief, according to his declaration that he provided in Ryan Wilson v the City of Riverside. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Yet the city still believes a different outcome would have taken place if the city attorney were present as if the sustained finding could have been erased or prevented.

What would have happened is that it's likely the commission would have worded one single sentence in its public report on the Lane shooting better, which would have then sent the city officials and police department off looking for some other reason to hang the CPRC's finding on because when push came to shove, the city couldn't handle a differential finding on an officer-involved death at all. It was a revealing look at how far this city's really come since 1999 at least in this area, not because the city ultimately decided not to back the finding but because the city didn't even back the process. But wait a minute, there isn't even a process!

That would have been an interesting exercise to witness indeed. It probably still will be as it continues to play out.

What it shows is that the city's officials and police department management perhaps are very displeased that the CPRC has this power of investigation and review of officer-involved deaths at all, a power it was given before most of the current employees in these respective city departments were even in place. They had no say in the original language of the ordinance which created the CPRC in 2000 and no say in the language that is now included in the city's charter.

The city in the past two years has never stopped in trying to undermine and weaken that power with the objective of rendering it useless, even as it is currently paying out settlements and verdicts in relation to at least three and perhaps as many as five officer-involved deaths since 2004. The fact that the latest three fatal shootings are being reviewed by the CPRC so long after they took place is testament to this ongoing issue.

Where as it used to be difficult for individuals to find attorneys to represent them in lawsuits against the department for wrongful death and excessive force cases, those days are in the past at least for now. Even as attorneys in Riverside have with only one notable exception not been interested in stirring the waters, several major law firms in other counties have sat up, taken notice and are paying attention to what's going on with the Riverside Police Department and how its officers use force. Like sharks, they smell blood and as long as the city keeps chumming the waters with hefty settlements, that attention and interest will likely continue to grow.

That's echoed somewhat by a civil rights lawyer in Portland that said that he believed more accountability and justice could be obtained through suing the city. But few lawsuits which are paid out quietly through settlements actually result in serious change, though if a trend occurs when a series of them are paid out at once, it is as one person told me, certainly "revealing".

What was interesting is that when we also discussed the composition of our respective commissions, the Community Police Review Commission in Riverside and the Citizen Review Committee in Portland, one of them asked me, "where are the community members". And that wasn't a joke. And it's not the first time an outside party has made that observation after hearing about the composition of the CPRC.

This reference of course was in response to the dearth of representation on the CPRC when it comes to individuals who aren't current or past law enforcement officers or those with familial or work ties to the Riverside Police Department. That point was raised by the current chair, Brian Pearcy (who managed to be reelected for a second term even without being present for the election) at the CPRC's (almost) annual report to the city council.

Apparently for all its shortcomings, the CRC is at least more diverse in terms of the backgrounds represented by its membership. With the CPRC, you had the experience of having complaints investigated by police investigating their own and then removed by people with the majority of them being essentially one degree removed, perhaps?

The most disappointing comment by a commissioner on this issue were those who said they were no "qualified" Latino applicants. And they knew this how? Because the commission is nearly all White? There were Latinos, both male and female, with qualifications of community involvement that some of the current commissioners don't match and they just were passed over by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. At one point, the CPRC actually had five commissioners who were Latino, but one termed out and three resigned mid-term within a nine month period.



But back to Leonard. Despite his rant about Luna-Firebaugh being "an advocate", he admitted that he pretty much agreed with nearly everything in her report. So who is he trying to impress?


Luna-Firebaugh had this to say in response.



(excerpt, Portland Mercury)



Luna-Firebaugh defended her report, saying: “I am not biased against police. I come from generations of law enforcement. I am biased, however, in the idea that there should be a review board of empowered citizens that sits in the middle of police and government.”



Good answer. More to come from Portland for sure.



As part of its budget cuts, the Alvord School District in Riverside will be cutting two campus safety officer positions.



San Bernardino's police department is going to equip all of its officers with X26 tasers to the tune of $130,000.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"In the past we just didn't have the equipment, and the chief saw that as something that needed to be corrected," Paterson said of Chief Michael Billdt's efforts to purchase the new stun guns.




Most of the homeless people who lived in Ontario's tent city are gone. Ontario first extended its arms open wide to homeless people of course bragging about it and then it criminalized them. All within about a month.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




A homeless advocacy group and some camp residents criticized the screening as unfair.

"Everybody was basically broken and scared to death through this three-day process," Mike Dunlap, founder of Homeless We Care, said Friday.

The large police presence during the screening intimidated some homeless, who left of their own accord, he said. Some did not have ready access to documentation and were disqualified, Dunlap said.

Michael John Archibald, 49, who has been living at the camp for a month, said he has a bank account, a YMCA membership and a job in Ontario but did not meet the city's criteria to stay. He said he has no other option but to live on the street.

"There are a lot of people like me who are using this as a breather, a place to get back together," Archibald said. "Now, they are pulling the rug out from under them."

Roderick Cooley, 46, who has been at the camp three months, said he can't stay because he couldn't get a document notarized showing that he had been renting a room in Ontario before he became homeless. He said he doesn't know where he will go now.



The head of Chicago's police department, Jody Weis, laid out core values for the employees of that department.


They are the following:


professionalism

obligation

leadership

integrity

courage

excellence



(excerpt, Chicago Tribune)



These core values are on display by many police officers everyday," Weis said in a statement. "But we want to ensure that every police officer knows, accepts and displays the tenets that define what a Chicago police officer should be."

The values statement will be taught to new recruits at the training academy and given to officers at roll calls and at police stations.




Weis, an ex-federal employee was hired by the city to take over the reins of a deeply troubled police agency that's been the center of many a scandal since the 1970s.

A series of excessive force incidents done by police officers on and off-duty which were captured on videotape ousted the last police chief.





Rumor of the week: The latest one is that Riverside City Hall will be cutting employment positions. Hopefully, this is just a rumor but it's important to keep a close eye on what's going on in this year's budget process.

Labor Pains: The case of the banished code compliance officers

Another annual festival bites the dust in Riverside. The Multicultural Youth Festival which was supposed to be held next month has been canceled which is a truly sad development.



The upcoming recession and the current renovation of the downtown pedestrian mall has catalyzed the cancellation. Not long after the city council made a huge show of adding another title, "City of the Arts" to the city's stockpile of them, a major cultural event has fallen by the wayside at least for a while. Perhaps it might be back in 2009. Perhaps not.





If you've read the lawsuit, Steve Livings v the City of Riverside which has been filed in Riverside County Superior Court, it'll make you cringe. It's not like there hasn't been a lawsuit involving a hostile workplace in Riverside (and it's not the only one that's been filed this year) but this one includes a new twist to an old practice.

Banishment.


This lawsuit isn't good news, certainly not for the city but not for city residents either.


And not just because you know the city's going to pay out on this one down the road. The whole sorry episode of banishing the three troublemakers to the corporate yard (which itself was the epicenter of some of the worst allegations of a hostile work environment in recent city history) is surreal, as is imagining them sitting tucked away from public view inside a cramped, dirty bug-infested shack writing tickets next to storage containers with "radioactive" marked on them. Are they kidding?

Apparently not.


If these banished employees stepped inside the halls of City Hall, perhaps even the lobby, they could face immediate discipline? Personas non gratis on the turf occupied by their boss? Does the same now apply to their old boss? Is he allowed to be inside the halls of power by invitation only?

There's more to come to add some clarity to this latest episodes from the still-expanding tome, Labor Pains. After all, the year's still young but except for a candlelight vigil or rally now and then usually when the media is present, there's not much else that's said by the local leadership on this issue. But speaking out on issues like this one in public means that the welcome mat to City Hall might be pulled out from under you. And of course that mat is much more important than whether employees have access to clean drinking water or not.

I mean, what is the city thinking? Which is part of the problem, that it clearly isn't thinking ahead down the road any more than it did when several men of color filed lawsuits alleging a hostile working environment inside the police department or more than a dozen Black city employees filed a lawsuit in 1997. Has it learned anything in the past several years?


Here are the categories of allegations listed under actions in the lawsuit.





Unlawful discrimination-age

Unlawful discrimination-physical disability

Failure to accommodate physical disability

Failure to engage in the interactive process

Unlawful harassment-age

Unlawful harassment-physical disability

Intentional infliction of emotional distress

Retaliation



Retaliation is one area where Riverside should have learned from paying out on settlements or jury verdicts in several other noted employment lawsuits. Whether it's allegations of smearing human feces on a city-owned vehicle assigned to a Black Public Works employee, or keying the car owned by a Black police officer that's parked inside a secure parking structure reserved by employees. Whether it's putting advertisements for sex toys and graphically sexual cartoons on the desk of a female detective or forcing Black employees who file grievances to go in for a psychiatric evaluation. These actions have been painful for those who were subjected to them and they've been expensive for the city to pay out on when the day comes when the city does have to pay out.

The jury which awarded the Black police officer with the keyed vehicle a verdict of $1.64 million said afterward that the strongest part of his case in its opinion had been the claims of retaliation. The presiding judge agreed when she heard and ultimately rejected a motion to grant the city a new trial. The city rewarded her decisions on the case by papering her in future court appearances on other cases, an action which can itself be read several different ways.


The case of the banished code compliance offers apparently began several years ago, when a key shift change was made within that division and elsewhere.


Steve Livings, Mary Furfaro and Todd Solomon had all been working for the code compliance division before Mark Salazar became its manager in 2005. The previous code compliance manager, Doug Leeper had been removed allegedly due to the large number of personnel complaints filed against him. No word yet on whether he had ever worked as a "full-time advisor on code issues" for the city manager's office before his departure.

Livings had been one of the officers who had filed complaints against Leeper for among other things, using the power of his position to enforce a code action against someone he had a personal disagreement with as well as threatening to bring a gun to work. Livings also claimed that Leeper had stolen a code enforcement work badge from San Bernardino County. Filing complaints against Leeper resulted in retaliation in the workplace according to Livings.

When Leeper stepped down and was replaced by Salazar, Livings stated that he was immediately concerned because of a close relationship that existed between the two men.

Furfaro started reporting in August 2005 that Salazar was touching her "inappropriately" and after she told him that this behavior was unsolicited and unwelcome, she stated in the lawsuit that he began retaliating against her. Livings also complained that Salazar was making inappropriate and sexually-oriented comments to younger female employees and when he complained on their behalf, Salazar began retaliating against him.

In March 2006, Solomon complained that Salazar was making inappropriate comments to him about his weight and physical disabilities. When he told Salazar that the comments were offensive and discriminatory, Salazar told him that if he didn't like it, he could file a complaint with the Human Resources Department which Solomon did.

That was allegedly on March 15, 2006. And guess what? On March 23, these three employees who had complained to or against Salazar had found themselves transferred to the city's corporate yard (already infamous for its long-time hostile work environment for the city's Black employees) and housed in a shack where hazardous material was stored. There was no air conditioning, no heat, no clean drinking water and it was bug-infested. Hazardous substances were stored there, some in containers marked, "radioactive". There were no working fire extinguishers and exposed insulation on the electrical wiring.

The three of them were essentially banished. If they left their workplaces, they were threatened with termination. If they entered City Hall, they could be immediately disciplined. Their laptops and other equipment were handed off to younger employees for use. They alleged this was done to them as an act of retaliation for complaining.

The excuse for their relocation? That they were going to be charged with handing out tickets for people whose vehicles were left abandoned more than 72 hours.


What's so interesting about this is that recently, the city ran a television program on the code compliance division's volunteer division and the responsibilities of those assigned to that division. And what was one of the assignments of the volunteer division? As cheerfully explained by several volunteers and at least one city employee, it was to be responsible for ticketing vehicles abandoned for longer than 72 hours so that the actual paid code compliance officers could spend their time dealing with other more serious issues.

Livings and Solomon among other things complained to the fire department and CAL-OSHA about the poor safety conditions of their new assignment. Other employees and supervisors made them the butt of jokes including referring to them as the "HazMat Team".

In June of 2006, the employees in the code compliance division were required to take a self-defense class but Livings, Furfaro and Solomon said they could not because the training would aggravate old injuries they had received. Solomon was forced to take the training and injured his back further.

Furfaro, who had fractured her foot twice and developed a deformity as a result, was placed on light duty for no reason and the city made no effort to accommodate her physical problems. She had heard that a Riverside County Grand Jury investigation had uncovered that the city was not accommodating those employees with physical disabilities.

Between September 2006 and January 2007, Solomon was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation that he told another employee to be concerned about being falsely disciplined by the manager. After returning to work, Solomon stated that he was suspended for two weeks without any justification. He resigned in May 2007 due to a hostile working environment.

Furfaro suffered health and breathing problems she believed were related to the exile of herself, Solomon and Livings to the corporate yard and soon resigned in the autumn of 2007 due to intolerable work conditions.

Livings was terminated on Feb. 26, 2007 allegedly after presented with a signed complaint by the entire code compliance division, the signatures of which he stated was "an act of forgery".




And one question that still remains is why does the city manager's office need a "full-time advisor to the city on code issues"? Isn't that part of the job of the code compliance manager? Assuming that if Salazar was removed from this position, then that means that there would at least be an interim manager, so why wouldn't this individual be performing this job responsibility?



It would be like removing the police chief or the fire chief, replacing them and then making them full-time advisers to the city manager's office on police or fire issues. It would be like replacing the head librarian and museum director and making them full-time advisers to the city manager's office on their respective issues. Which of course didn't happen. They took the quicker route out of the city.



It would be like removing the human resources director. Oh wait, never mind. That's been done before already.



But what if we could have a city manager's staff that not only includes department heads but also full-time advisers to the city manager's office on issues usually handled by department heads? Why not just have two people head every city department? One of them can report to the city manager's office and the other can advise it.




But there's likely more lawsuits in the city's employment arena to come because there always is. It's better to sue in the long run because in several of the city's departments, those who staff them have discoverered that utilizing the city's policy against racial and gender discrimination and harassment has led to pink slips.

Such as in the case of the city's three "P"s during the past two years. Two people who represent two separate city departments were treated this way after reporting the use of a racial slur in the workplace. What was the slur? The N-word.

Their supervisors or department heads told them in one case that the employee who used the word didn't mean it that way. In the other case, it was paired up with a gender slur, the B-word and that woman was told by her supervisor when she tried to complain that she had to learn to get along with the other people in her division and there was nothing to be done. Actually there was, which was to hand her a slip.

And it appeared that the environment inside that particular city department as well as code compliance and perhaps others is as toxic in its own way as anything stored inside a container inside the shack that housed the "HazMat" team at the epicenter of some of the city's worst racism, the corporate shed.





Civilian review is returning to Salt Lake City after a bit of an absence, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.



(excerpt)



Salt Lake City's Civilian Review Board, which was rendered inoperable last year by a series of resignations, met again today and prepared for a new series of investigations into police conduct.

It was the board's first official meeting in 11 months. They did not consider any misconduct cases but heard Mayor Ralph Becker and Police Chief Chris Burbank commit to the board's success.

Becker said the board must safeguard the Bill of Rights and public confidence in the police. Burbank pledged to give the panel full access to police reports and evidence. Burbank said he relies on panel's judgment in helping adjudicate allegations of misconduct and has cited the members' rulings when he has terminated police officers.

"There are times when an officer's judgment is so far outside of what I consider reasonable, I ask them to leave," Burbank said.

Most of the 14-appointed-member review board resigned or stopped attending meetings in 2007. There had been simmering complaints from members about having their findings overruled by Burbank and the former chief, Rick Dinse, and complaints the police department was not sharing evidence with the board.

Conflict peaked in April when someone disclosed to The Tribune that the review board sustained an allegation of excessive force used against a Korean War veteran.

information would have been announced publicly a few days later, but the city investigated who leaked the news early. The source of the leak was never uncovered but the suspicion angered board members and spurred enough resignations to prevent a quorum.

The review board has had critics as well. The president of the police officers' union assailed the board over the leak in the war veteran case and accused board members and the board's former investigator, Ty McCartney, of being biased against accused officers. Nobody representing the police officers' union attended tonight's meeting.





Here's a job opening.




The City of Berkeley's Police Review Commission invites candidates to apply for the position of temporary Investigator.
Please see attached brochure for more information.

Salary
$73,092 to $88,092 annual salary. In addition, the City pays the 8% employee's share to the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and $2,170 to the City's Supplemental Retirement Income Plan (SRIP), and IRC 401(a) plan, making the effective salary $81,109 to $97,309 annually. Full benefits, i.e. health and dental.

The Position
This temporary benefited position, not to exceed six (6) months, will serve as an independent investigator of citizen complaints against members of the Berkeley Police Department or against police policy or practices. This position places an emphasis on utilizing investigation and dispute resolution techniques, and improving the relationship between the Police Department and the diverse community it serves. Under the supervision of the PRC Officer, the incumbent interprets data and makes reports for the benefit of Commission members; utilizes a variety of resources to pursue complaints and investigations thoroughly and impartially; is expected to work with considerable independence and initiative while adhering to strict deadlines; prepares detailed reports on completed investigations.

Required Qualifications
EDUCATION: equivalent to graduation from a four-year college with major coursework in law, criminology, public administration, business, or a closely related field. A law degree is desirable.

EXPERIENCE: two (2) years of analytical, investigative, or legal-related experience in a public agency setting. Experience which provided a familiarity with law enforcement procedures, and skill in dealing with members of carious ethnic and socio-economic groups is desirable. Progressively responsible related experience may be substituted for the college requirement on a year-for-year basis.





New York City Police Department Det. Gescard Isnora testified in a matter of speaking at his own trial, through his grand jury testimony which was read out loud. Isnora and two other NYPD officers are on trial after being charged by a grand jury in connection with the shooting death of Sean Bell and injuries to his two friends.




(excerpt, New York Times)



In his narrative of the fatal shooting outside a Queens nightclub on the morning of Nov. 25, 2006, he said he had shouted “Police!” several times, his badge clipped to the collar of his plainclothes sweater, and had thought that Mr. Bell’s front-seat passenger, Joseph Guzman, was pulling a gun from his own waistband.

Even in the testimony read aloud by a proxy on Thursday, the detective’s panic was clear as he approached Mr. Bell’s car with his gun drawn.

“I stated: ‘Police! Don’t move! Police! Don’t move!’ ” he said. “The driver floored the car and struck my leg.” He said he stumbled onto the sidewalk as Mr. Bell’s car continued forward, striking an unmarked police van, then backed up toward him. He jumped out of the way as the car backed into a storefront and charged forward again.

“I maintained focus on Guzman,” he said in his testimony. “I kept noticing he was going into his waistband.”

“I was watching the passenger side and I noticed he kept reaching into his waistband area and I kept saying: ‘Police! Don’t move!’ ” he said.

“I noticed that his arm was going up in an upward motion, and I yelled ‘Gun!’ and my mind, I felt that he had a gun and I couldn’t wait anymore. It happened so quick. It was like the last thing that I ever wanted to do.”

“I felt maybe if I waited a second longer, he would have fired at me,” he said. “I’m sorry, I am just — once I seen the arm go up, I fired. I yelled ‘Gun!’ and I fired.”




One of the guests at the bachelor party Bell attended the night before his own wedding testified that officers brandished their guns but did not identify themselves, according to the New York Daily News.



(excerpt)



James "Quick" Kollore said he saw Bell's car slam into a van and then a man emerge with his gun blazing.

"I did not see a shield," he said. "He had dark hair, he was holding a gun. He went to the edge of his car door. I heard gunfire. I seen flashes from his muzzle."

Whether or not the undercover cops identified themselves as police before they began firing is a key issue in the trial of three NYPD detectives who gunned Bell down on his wedding day.

"At any time, when you were on the street, did you hear any police commands?" asked prosecutor Charles Testagrossa.

"No," Kollore replied.



A New Rochelle Police Department sergeant has been charged with raping a 17-year-old girl.

Hall of Shame: More hostile work environment lawsuits

California's governor came down from Sacramento to talk to some people downtown on Tuesday. Not everyone in the city, but a few people. But then maybe some folks were trying to navigate themselves around a roped off City Hall block where the $12 million re-renovation of the downtown pedestrian mall is currently taking place. The only thing standing are some of the trees and the Martin Luther King, jr. monument which stands among the wreckage but as usual, the message of the man has been lost to the city.

It wasn't a great day for Riverside's City Hall after it became public that three of its code enforcement officers were suing the city. There had been rumors that Code Enforcement Manager Mark Salazar was removed from his position but although he's no longer holding that rank, he's a full-time advisor to the city on code issues, according to Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis who was interviewed by the Press Enterprise. Turmoil within the code compliance division has been ongoing for a while now, just as similar problems have plagued several other city departments. All part and parcel of excellent city management of course.

Mary Furfaro, Todd Solomon and Steve Livings, all long-time code compliance employees, filed suit alleging age discrimination, harassment and the failure of City Hall to accommodate disabilities in its workplace.




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Furfaro complained about what she believed was inappropriate touching by Salazar, Livings complained about what he felt were inappropriate sexually oriented comments Salazar made to female employees, and Solomon complained about comments Salazar made publicly about Solomon's weight, their suit says.

In March 2006, Salazar retaliated by banning the three from City Hall, took away their laptop and desktop computers and sent them to a new office -- in a metal storage shed in the city yard near the Auto Center, their suit says.

The shed held boxes with markings indicating radioactive material was inside, and the shed also held soil samples contaminated with hazardous waste, the suit says.

The shed was bug-infested, dusty and dirty, with no air conditioning or heating, no clean drinking water, no chairs and exposed electrical wiring and insulation, the former employees contend in their suit.

"There wasn't even a phone," Solomon, 43, of Murrieta, said in a recent interview.







The scandal about the three code compliance officers being essentially banished to the shed used to store hazardous wastes was actually broken by the alternative publication, Inland Empire Weekly in a story titled, "Code Red". Not long after that story, was when this publication apparently became persona non gratis in the city's downtown library's periodical section. At least for a while. Stories abounded about that action being decided upon by the mysterious man in the blue shirt. Some blamed the weekly's sudden disappearance on its racy advertising, while others thought it was its stories about the innards of Riverside's governmental agency that was the real problem.




Naturally, City Attorney Gregory Priamos publicly said the lawsuit has no merit, but he won't be litigating it. And it doesn't really mean much because Priamos has issued the same statement about every labor law suit (not to mention the wrongful death lawsuits which are now being paid out one by one) including several which have resulted in some rather big payouts by the city.

Expect this latest discrimination and harassment lawsuit involving the city to be farmed out to a private firm. Hopefully, not the same firm the city hired to defend itself from previous employees who filed lawsuits including Officer Roger Sutton.



As for Salazar's fate with the city, the explanation provided that he's an "advisor" but he's not the manager at the moment.

Full-time advisor? Issues pertaining to the department he once led? Why do these statements sound so familiar? If previous episodes of the city's history in labor issues are any indication, this status doesn't exactly hold great hope for career longevity at City Hall.



You would think that it's the manager who would serve as the full-time advisor but maybe that's not the case in Riverside. It's kind of reminiscent of the time when then Human Resources Director Art Alcaraz resigned from that position but spent at least six months working as an advisory consultant on what else, human resource issues, for the city manager's office.

It's difficult to figure out why in a year of fiscal budget shortfalls and hiring freezes from one end of the city to another that the city manager's office would actually want to create an advisory position to basically fill one of the roles that a code compliance manager would, but if you spend too much time trying to figure out what this office does, all it gives you is a headache. On the other hand, if Salazar's been removed from the manager position, it makes sense that the city has to put him somewhere to be of use given that these are fiscally difficult times.


Code Compliance isn't one of the four "P"s in the city when it comes to either being sued over hostile work environments or being the focus of workplace investigations internally or by outside agencies. Perhaps if things keep going on like they are, it will soon be in a class of its own.




Labor litigation aside, there's plenty going on in Riverside.


Here are some of the interesting Web sites which will provide further information about what's in Riverside politics.


City of Riverside : They say this site's won awards but it's still confusing to navigate through especially when doing document searches on its engine, in part because it's two separate sites in the place of one, due to having a separate section for "text only" information. If you want to see a copy of the agenda for the weekly city council meetings, it's right here.



Here's the organizational chart of City Hall which shows you the current pecking order of who's in charge of whom inside the halls of power and even features a photographic guide of all the players including those on Riverside's penthouse floor.


This city department used to be a separate division Before Hudson Era but is now under his office. Check out the city's annual budget for last year and previous archived years. Soon to come is the city's long anticipated and some say dreaded budget for fiscal year, 2008-09.



Community Police Review Commission: This site's located on the city's site and hasn't been updated in months. Some of the links on the left side are broken. Still, it's worth checking out for the reports whether they be the annual, monthly or those for the commission's officer-involved death investigations.



Riverside Police Department This is a pretty user-friendly site with links to several reports including the police chief's annual report and the police department's different programs on the front page. This link will take you to the crime statistics and the map showing the four neighborhood areas.



Riverside Police Officers' Association This site has also been updated recently and includes different categories of information for the officers who belong to it and the public. A list of charities that the union contributed to last year can be found here.



SEIU Local 721 This site serves the union which represents hundreds of Riverside city employees. It includes articles on the issues impacting this chapter.



City of Riverside Redevelopment Department This site allows visitors to access more information about the city's redevelopment division including maps of the city's redevelopment zones and the projects impacting those areas.



And if you're a Riverside city employee especially if you're a man or woman of color at City Hill or simply getting a little long in years, here are two sites that you might also find helpful.


Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing.






County of Riverside This site was recently redone (again) and it takes some patience to navigate including for the online services which are currently located on the left side of the home page.



Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner's Department The Web site is kind of basic but it's divided into categories that are easy to access to find information. It includes a rather detailed recruiting page here.


Riverside Sheriffs' Association This colorful site features a lot of information for its members who are sworn employees of the Sheriff's Department and several other county divisions, as well as the public. If you want to see which political candidates the union's political action committee is endorsing, look here.



Riverside County Grand Jury This page includes information about the civil grand jury process and reports including those which are archived. Alas, it doesn't include investigations which get buried.




Former Riverside County Superior Court Judge Robert Spitzer is out of appeals against his removal from the bench for judicial misconduct.


And if you want to know the reasons why the courts in Riverside County are backlogged. This is one reason why.




A U.S. Marines sergeant was charged in connection with the killing of prisoners in Fallujah, Iraq in the same case which also led to manslaughter charges filed against former Marine and Riverside Police Department Officer Jose Nazario.







Queens County prosecutors challenged statements made by New York City Police Department Det. Marc Cooper after the shooting of Sean Bell. Cooper is one of three officers currently on trial related to criminal charges filed in that onduty fatal shooting.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



The statement by Detective Marc Cooper will most likely be called a lie by prosecutors and a simple mistake by his lawyer in arguments at the trial. Detective Cooper has since agreed that he fired four shots that morning, Nov. 25, 2006, according to the opening statement his lawyer, Paul Martin, gave last month.

But the assistant district attorney who was testifying, Michelle Cort, said on Tuesday that during Detective Cooper’s interview with members of the Queens district attorney’s office 45 days after the shooting, on Jan. 9, 2007, he said he fired one round. Ms. Cort, who was present at that interview, is not among the prosecutors in the trial.

She said that another assistant district attorney at the interview, Charles A. Testagrossa, told Detective Cooper that if his Glock had been fully loaded, as required by police regulations, he would have fired four rounds.

“Detective Cooper was certain that he only fired one time,” Ms. Cort testified, and that “he found the loose rounds in his home in a drawer.”

Detective Cooper said that he had a habit of unloading his Glock after work and reloading it the next day, and that he sometimes forgot to insert the round that had been in the chamber. “‘I may have two or three loose bullets,’” he said at the interview, according to Mr. Martin, his lawyer, on cross-examination.



In other trial testimony, witness Fabio Coicou denied hearing any remark about a gun in connection with events that took place before the shooting.



(excerpt, New York Times)



The testimony of the witness, Fabio Coicou, appeared to undermine the defense of the three detectives on trial in the killing, as a pillar of their case rests on the claims of undercover officers that they saw Mr. Coicou argue with Mr. Bell and that someone in the surrounding group said, “Go get my gun.”

However, on cross-examination, Mr. Coicou (pronounced KWAH-coo) was faced with versions to the contrary that he gave last year in meetings with Queens prosecutors and in appearances before a grand jury. A defense lawyer, Anthony L. Ricco, asked him if he remembered telling prosecutors in January 2007 that he heard someone say, “We’ll get the gat,” slang for a gun.

Mr. Coicou replied: “I don’t recall that. I don’t remember anyone saying that and I don’t recall that statement.”

If you felt the earth shake at around midnight, you weren't alone. A 3.0 earthquake hit two miles south of Loma Linda.

Here are the intensity statistic by zip code.

More drops in the local bucket

Violet: Okay... okay, I'm gonna leave, but I'll tell you one thing... don't you ever refer to me as 'your girl' again

Mr. Hart: What in God's name are you talking about?

Violet: I'll tell you what I'm talking about; I'm no girl, I'm a woman. I'm not you wife... OR your mother.


----9 To 5




Lily Tomlin, the actress and comedian is bringing her one-woman show to Riverside next weekend.

Thank goodness there's some culture coming to this town! She'll be at the Municipal Auditorium on Saturday, March 29 at 8 p.m.


Also, on that same day and about a mile away will be the latest rendition of the Riverside County Almanac with two performances, one at 2 p.m. and the other at 6:30 p.m. at Zacatecas Cafe in the Eastside. The price is $15 and includes a meal.



Speaking of culture, here's where a discussion is taking place on whether arts and music should be included in the curricula of schools in the Riverside Unified School District. Many people think they should. Interestingly enough, in many countries where their students perform very well in math, the students are introduced to music programs at very early ages because there's a correlation between developing skills in mathematics and music.

But it's not a good year for the school district which also has to decide whether or not to close down Grant Elementary School, a process which has led to much protest including at a recent school board meeting by parents of students and other supporters.




If you're into ghost hunting, Riverside is the place for you. The most haunted building in Riverside? The Mission Inn. Hauntings in that hotel include that of the "blue lady" who mostly just pops in once in a while and shows employees and guests her head.


A list of haunted hot spots in Riverside is here. There are actually stories of little elves living on Mt. Rubidoux that throw pebbles at the people as they walk by but those appear to be tall tales.




Here are the latest actions from the Riverside City Council including the approval of the library and museum renovation task force (aka the Committee to Re-elect Ron Loveridge 2009) and the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.

Notable for the latter was the sole vote cast by District One supervisor, Bob Buster against the actions of eminent domain on Main Street involving three parcels which will be used for the planned expansion for the law library. Buster wanted to do further research to find other prospective sellers to the county, obviously believing that eminent domain is the last tool in the county's arsenal not the first.

You have a choice here for those in District One. You can re-elect someone who has the principle to make a decision like that, to stand apart from the majority (which no doubt is read by that majority as being "divisive") or you can elect instead another "me too" person when it comes to eminent domain. After all, we've seen the votes taken to push or threaten eminent domain in Riverside by its governmental body.

Buster also voted against night flights by DHL and spoke against them, before a pending election year or deciding to throw his hat in the ring. But Election 2008 is just getting started and there's money to be raised.


Here is one site which assists political candidates on hosting fundraisers to fill their campaign coffers.



Surveillance cameras are coming to of all places, Redlands!



The excitement of the denizens of that college town which will now be airing its own version of Candid Camera on every corner is tempered somewhat by the surprising news that breathing the air in the Inland Empire can harm your bodily organs. As if that's any surprise to most residents in this area.




More bad news on the impact of the state's budget on the local level. San Bernardino County's own budget will be experiencing a $30 million shortfall so there will be major cuts all around.


Riverside will be presenting its own budget process in the upcoming months. It's important to keep an eye on it to see exactly where the cuts will be and just as importantly, where they won't be.




In San Diego, a woman and her 8-year-old child found out that running into an off-duty city police officer was what was dangerous. Both of them were shot and injured by an officer who was enraged after one vehicle cut the other one off in traffic. The shooting is under investigation by the officer's agency of employment.




Former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona is out a defense attorney because he said he can no longer afford to pay him.





The last clothing worn by Sean Bell was put on display during the trial of three New York City Police Department officers who were charged in connection with his fatal onduty shooting.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



Nicole Paultre Bell, Bell's fiancee and the mother of his two children suddenly rose from her seat in the hushed courtroom, burst into tears and ran for the doors.

"If you think about it, how my son died, with all the bullets, what they tried to do to him, destroy their bodies, you're talking about a lot of shots," Bell's visibly upset father, William, said later at a prayer vigil outside.

"Any excuse they try to come up with, whatever, it's not good for me. I won't even hear it. My son is dead."

Drops in the bucket as Spring comes to Riverside

The city council will vote on the creation of a task force to contemplate among other things whether or not the library and museum should be expanded and renovated as separate projects. Though not heavy on ward representation and packed with mostly Mayor Ron Loveridge's peeps, the items is expected to sail on through.


Is this a truly collaborative fact-finding process or is this a way for City Hall to reroute around the concerns brought out at a joint meeting of the Metropolitan Museum Board and the Board of Library Trustees? That remains to be seen. The dates of when meetings will be held and when public input will be allowed in the process haven't been announced.





Hemet's interim city manager is keeping up with the task of the annual budget.





San Bernardino will be implementing a hiring freeze to offset a projected $7.2 million budget deficit but may still have to dip into its emergency reserve.





There's going to be a mayoral recall election in Colton and three individuals have submitted their papers to run. They will be facing off against current mayor, Kelly Chastain, who is the focus of the recall effort on June 3. If you wanted to run yourself and didn't file, you'll have to wait until the next general election.



The days of Ontario patting itself on the back for how it was addressing its homeless issues in front of the rest of the world have passed then decided that in order to be included, you had to prove that you were a local resident, meaning that at one time you had an address and/or utilities. Then they lined people out and fastened color-coded bands on their arms which would answer the following question.


Could they stay or receive forced evictions?


"Yes", "Maybe" or "No" depending on which color band they had fastened on them as the people with the bands said they were only a temporary measure.

Yesterday it began that screening process to separate "local" homeless from those who aren't. Particularly hard on homeless people there is the new rule which forbids them to have pets.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Authorities announced last week that the population would be capped at 170 residents. Those who could not provide documentation or prove ties to Ontario, such as being a former resident or having family in the area, would be asked to leave, city officials said.

Some homeless activists are concerned the city has not given the vulnerable population enough time to prepare.

Hunting down documents and dealing with bureaucracy is difficult for people who by definition are rootless, said Mike Dunlap, founder of Homeless We Care.

"Homeless people already have a (hard) time getting through the day without putting them through a process like this," Dunlap said, watching the lines of camp residents waiting to make their cases. "We weren't allowed enough time to walk people through this."

Schultz said the city wants to find a long-term solution for problems at the camp, which was established for people who had been staying in the city.







The history of Grant Elementary School which is facing closure due to budget cuts and the fact that the County Board of Education's administrative headquarters is eying the land. The weekly Riverside Unified School District meeting was well-attended with parents and other supporters of the school.






In part because of a scandal in its sister county, Riverside County will be reining in its credit card spending among employees in its department.


According to the Press Enterprise, the county also didn't perform very well in an internal audit.



(excerpt)


The Riverside County audit reviewed credit card use at nine departments: Child Support Services, the district attorney's office, fire, information technology, the Office on Aging, probation, sheriff's, the Transportation and Land management Agency and waste management.

The audit's highlights included:

The Sheriff's Department did not obtain the purchasing agent's or Board of Supervisor's approval for Budget Rent-A-Car and Home Depot credit cards. Internal controls over the use of Altura Credit Union and Home Deport cards were not adequate, the audit concluded.

Of 274 Altura Credit Union purchases totaling more than $23,000, 40 lacked proper supporting documentation, the audit found.

In a written response to auditors, the Sheriff's Department's finance bureau disagreed with the report's findings, saying extensive controls were in place on the credit cards. Altura cards, for instance, are used for the travel and training needs of deputies, Sheriff's Department officials said.

The Probation Department between Feb. 2005 and April 2007 incurred $1,783 in finance charges and $210 in late fees. Other purchases lacked documentation, the audit found.

In a written response, Chief Probation Officer Alan Cogan said the store credit cards would be canceled.

The district attorney's office had proper oversight of all its credit cards but did not have board approval to use Altura Credit Union cards. As with the other departments, auditors recommended the district attorney use only the county Procurement Card program, which allows the county to pay one bank and not myriad vendors.







The CHP is paying out on an excessive force case involving a 72-year-old man.






The Los Angeles Police Department has been urged to implement changes with its SWAT Team in the wake of a report recommending among other things opening up the SWAT membership to women in an attempt to address its "insular" culture.


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



Those conclusions and others, included in a draft of the panel's confidential report obtained by The Times, have deeply angered several Special Weapons and Tactics Team members, who say the changes -- some of which already have been imposed -- are misguided and will probably weaken the specialized unit that is charged with handling hostage situations and other high-risk operations.




"This is a recipe for disaster," said a SWAT officer, who has served in the unit for more than a decade. "We don't get to back up and do things over. . . . These changes are going to put us and the public in danger."

Several current SWAT officers and one former team member who were interviewed for this report all spoke on condition that their names not be used, out of fear that they would face retaliation by superiors. In an agency that rarely, if ever, deals publicly with internal turmoil, the report exposes a growing rift between Bratton and the department's most storied group of officers.

The report was submitted to Bratton more than a year ago. He has denied requests by The Times to make the panel's findings public and has not shared the full contents of the report with the Los Angeles Police Commission, the civilian body that oversees the department.





It's not clear what the other changes recommended regarding the SWAT Team are because all the attention is on the "E" word. Not evil, but estrogen which in law enforcement agencies sometimes appears to be a close second.






How will the resignation of Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona impact lawsuits against the county? It might push more of those cases to settle. A bunch of those lawsuits come from individuals inside his own department.







The bullets that hit Sean Bell, his friends and his vehicle were outlined today during testimony in the trial of three New York City Police Department officers who were charged in connection with the shooting.



(excerpt, New York Times)



In photographs, they are only thin, colorful tubes, as bright and harmless-looking as something from a child’s box of toys.

But each tube, called a police trajectory rod in court testimony on Monday, represents a police bullet that tore through the doors and shattered windows of Sean Bell’s car in a barrage that killed him and wounded two friends, and the rods described, perhaps better than words, the violent and painful final seconds of Mr. Bell’s life.

The pictures, admitted as evidence in the trial in State Supreme Court in Queens, track the paths of the 20 bullets that pierced Mr. Bell’s Nissan Altima on Nov. 25, 2006, on Liverpool Street in Jamaica, Queens, when police officers fired 50 rounds at the car. Three of the detectives, Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper, who together fired 46 rounds, have been charged in the killing, and have said they believed that Mr. Bell or his friends were armed and intended to shoot someone in the moments to come.

Mr. Bell was struck four times, and his front-seat passenger, Joseph Guzman, was wounded 19 times, including exit wounds. A third friend in the back seat, Trent Benefield, was wounded by two gunshots to the legs.





Former Bolingbrook Police Department Sgt. Drew Peterson is going to court to get his stuff back, as more volunteers resume their search for his wife, Stacey who's been missing nearly five months.




In other news, the whirlwind romance between Petra the swan and her significant other, a large paddle boat swan has ended amicably.

Here come the straw men

"[k]ids were being beaten. Women were being beaten and raped. Their organs were ruptured. Bones were broken. It was hard cold-fisted brutality by police officers, and nothing was being done to protect their family members,"


---Legal consultant, Bob Mullally who spent 45 days in jail on federal contempt charges after exposing domestic violence in the Los Angeles Police Department





I received the charming note below by someone who claims to be a new commenter but actually reads like a very familiar old one. This particular one claims to be a "loved one" of a cop who finds me disgusting and not one of the "regular" authors. Which if that's true doesn't exactly narrow it down by much does it?



But I believe that I've read this particular individual's comments before, so it's difficult to buy his current identity any more than his previous ones. And the fixation with my mother's birthing process is getting a bit old. Interestingly enough, the title was "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" which reminded me of the "Mary, Mary" reference of address included in the harassing email sent from some unknown party from you-know-where.



Getting hate comments from nameless people is nothing new and most often, they are of course, anonymous. But out of the ugliness and very often the bizarre nature of many of them, come good opportunities to blog about issues that they perhaps inadvertently raise despite themselves. This latest comment provides one of those opportunities.


Some police officers don't like criticism and the only people they hate worse than the public who does so are their own kind. Which becomes a city like Riverside's business when it pays out a fortune in trial verdicts, settlements and retirements as it has done in the cases of current officer Roger Sutton and former officers, Rene Rodriguez and Christine Keers. Because who ultimately pays for these costs that come from telling racial jokes or scratching "bitch" on some city-owned surface among other behaviors in the workplace?


The public.


And so does the law enforcement agency and its officers who aren't running around doing this type of behavior, because that's money being spent on its behalf so to speak for a problem that doesn't go towards creating a new law enforcement position for example or new equipment. How much does a police officer position cost? How much does a new squad car cost including equipment? How much did paying out the Sutton lawsuit cost, not even including litigation expenses?





The same public that includes most of the individuals mentioned in this comment who apparently according to this person don't believe issues like these are a "great concern". Maybe not in their neck of the woods, perhaps. Maybe it's perhaps because they've essentially written off the individuals who criticize them to the point where they actually believe they don't exist like this individual maybe believes.

But then this person or perhaps someone else argued that only about 12% of the people in Riverside actually supported the Community Police Review Commission in response to news that the majority of the city's voters who participated in the November 2004 voted Measure II into the city's charter. Then of course, it was only a handful of people who wanted to control the police department who cared about the CPRC. That's before this individual expressed their major pique with former councilman, Art Gage who they blamed for the CPRC slipping out of their grasp before they perhaps could properly do away with it.


Another individual, perhaps this one, some time ago tried to raise that same point in another comment about how people were more concerned about whether or not their kids' soccer matches would start on time than how well the police department was doing or something of that nature.


The comment was in response to a blog posting on the Rate My Cop Web site and strategies that law enforcement agencies could use to counter the popularity of sites like this one through strengthening the accountability and effectiveness of their complaint systems as well as instituting effective early warning systems that the public would have confidence in. It's also important for officers to dismantle the codes of silence that are entrenched in probably every law enforcement agency in this country. But these steps are difficult ones to take and see through towards progress and most agencies don't take them seriously let alone the need for them until an outside law enforcement agency pushes them in that direction usually through a court-mandated process.

The posting referred to, included blog articles on the issue which were both pro and con for the site and numerous discussions of the issue drawn along similar lines. But then going back and actually reading the links wouldn't be as much fun as engaging in flinging straw men. So get ready to duck because this unidentified individual is quite good at it.




It's hard to tell from Mary's blog where she stands on personal information on law enforcement being public. It's ludicrous. Can you imagine just because of your job, your personal information being made public?

We all know you hate cops, but are you serious? They have innocent family. What GOOD comes of exposing where they live and all their other personal information? Would you like your family exposed?

You argue that there are domestic violence calls that involve cops. Although it may be more prevalent in this occupation, does that justify COPS being exposed as opposed to other "normal" people?

And, really, is it "a great concern" of the public? HARDLY!

The public wants to be able to call their law enforcement people when the alarm next door goes off, when they hear shots fired, when they think they might have a burglar in their house, a loud party in the neighborhood.

Who are YOU gonna call? A couple of bad apples don't spoil the whole bunch girl!

No, I'm not one of your "usual" commentors - just a loved one of a cop who finds you totally disgusting! Imagine your mother being held to a higher standard than other mothers just because she birthed YOU - then you might understand.




This is all very nice and good and someone got something off of their chest once again, but where in the posting was it written that it was about "exposing" police officers who commit domestic violence? The only reference to domestic violence in this posting was in relation to a tactic used by some of those who engage in it which is to utilize professional databases to do exactly what this person states, "expose" the private information of individuals who may be their victims by exploiting these databases for personal use. The link that related to that reference to domestic violence led straight to a well-known advocacy site for victims of domestic violence committed by law enforcement officers that warns site visitors about this popular tactic.



How that equates to "exposing" officers who commit domestic violence is quite a stretch. Perhaps what is known as an ad hominem argument? Unfortunately, what is often the case is that domestic violence in law enforcement exposes itself both because it's more prevalent and because it involves employees in a public service profession.

The only thing this individual got right is that it is more prevalent in law enforcement officers. This study states up to four times more prevalent in police officers than "normal" people. But this individual provided a good opportunity to discuss this issue which isn't properly handled by too many law enforcement agencies.



Most law enforcement agencies by a narrow margin (around 55% in 2000) have inhouse policies for investigating domestic violence, but many of them don't. Do these agencies offer counseling services either through religious chaplain services and/or psychotherapists? And do these agencies treat officers differently or stigmatize them if they utilize these services? How does a department's culture view it? As a "family matter" or a "private matter", perhaps?


Many investigations involving police officers who engage in domestic violence are already treated much differently than those of "normal" people. How? For one thing, through federal law any person convicted of a DV related felony or misdemeanor is prohibited from owning or possessing firearms for at least a period of time. But many police agencies and police unions want law enforcement officers to be the exception to a law that was set up to protect the victims of domestic violence from further violence. They want law enforcement officers who are convicted of DV related crimes to be able to keep their weapons. That's probably not a situation that leaves their victims feeling safer but then the concerns of these particular victims are secondary.


Police officers are treated differently because even if they are convicted of DV crimes, they can remain employed by law enforcement agencies even as they go out and arrest or investigate others for crimes related to domestic violence. In some agencies up to 1-2% or perhaps greater of their officers can be convicted of DV related crimes.

Several years ago, the poor handling of inhouse domestic violence by the Los Angeles Police Department was exposed to the world but the only person who did time was the individual who exposed it although his time was reduced by an appellate court.


(excerpt)



“From day one, I’ve said that it’s a tragedy that Bob Mullally is the one being punished here, when none of the criminal officers he exposed were ever prosecuted, or even arrested.”

---Katherine Spillar, executive director Feminist Majority Foundation

The thing is, that often enough domestic violence done by police officers does become a public issue. It became a public issue in Tacoma, Washington when then Chief David Brame shot his wife, Crystal Judson and then himself in a public parking lot. He died pretty quickly while Crystal lingered in a coma for a period of time. The aftershocks of that one incident which was built on top of a series of blunders, mishaps and coverups and then on that fateful day, collapsed like a house of cards, still reverberate years later. The only positive aspect of that horrible tragedy is that the changes that could have saved a life were finally instituted after it had been taken. Often that's how it goes with reform because of the blue wall.

Then there's Drew Peterson, the now former sergeant in the small suburb of Bolingbrook who has had one wife, Stacey disappear without a trace on Oct. 28, 2007 and another wife, Kathleen Savio, exhumed for a second autopsy which revealed that rather than accidentally drowning in an empty bathtub as assumed in 2004, instead she was murdered. Both these two women expressed the fears to other parties before their disappearance and death that something awful would happen to them. Peterson's second wife reported being stalked by her ex-husband and incidentally, one of her boyfriends was murdered too. Peterson's antics before the spotlight that's surrounded him since has shocked many of those who have been exposed to it including John Walsh, who hosts America's Most Wanted and did a feature on Peterson's wives.

Incidentally, Peterson himself was investigated for violating his department's policy of using professional databases for personal use.

Then there's former Canton Police Department officer Bobby Cutts, jr. who was recently convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend and several incidents that recently took place involving off-duty law enforcement officers spraying bullets in attempts to get even with ex-girlfriends for dumping them including Wisconsin deputy, Tyler Peterson who killed six people in a shooting spree including an ex-girlfriend. Peterson, 20, had been employed not by one but two law enforcement agencies without the benefit of any psychological testing because the state of Wisconsin didn't require any to be done. No doubt things will be different now on that front.

Not to mention the New York City Police Department officer who murdered his fiancee after she tried to press him on a wedding date and then blamed his own actions on two Black men. It turned out that his own academy instructor had tried to throw him out of his training class about one year earlier because of a pattern of bad and disruptive behavior but was overruled by his supervisors.

Not to mention one man who was appointed as interim chief of the trouble-plagued Maywood Police Department despite a history which included a domestic violence prosecution among other problems. Oops, and he was gone replaced by another convicted criminal, albeit a thief.

Then is there a correlation between officers who engage in domestic violence in the home and excessive force on the streets? Here is one place that question is being asked. If that's the case that there's a correlation between these two types of excessive force, that wouldn't be very surprising because it would likely indicate an individual who uses force to dominate a situation or a person on and off the job. But if this is the case, then it becomes an issue of public concern as well as an issue of civic liability for the city or county that employs that law enforcement officer. Some experts have used both issues to determine whether there's a gender gap in use of excessive force by officers.


More information about DV involving law enforcement officers is below.



Abuse of Power


Purple Berets


Center of Women and Policing's study on the prevalence of law enforcement DV in relation to general population


Behind the Blue Wall (an excellent online resource on past and ongoing DV cases involving law enforcement and related issues)







Straw man statement number two, which is the following.



We all know you hate cops, but are you serious? They have innocent family. What GOOD comes of exposing where they live and all their other personal information? Would you like your family exposed?




It's not clear where this was pulled out. But since this anonymous "loved one" of a cop who finds me totally disgusting asked, I can answer that question in a different way that perhaps they can understand?


It's interesting that this anonymous person would ask this as if I had no knowledge of what this was about, but I do know. And here are some questions back.


How would you like your family or yourself harassed and threatened by anonymous cowards because you have criticized law enforcement? How would you like filthy comments written about your mother's uterus pecked off of some keyboard because you criticize law enforcement officers? I find these references to my mother birthing me that keep popping up somewhat sick.


My mother, a loved one, wants me to get two or three deadbolts on my front door and to always look through the peephole when someone knocks. Not because she's worried about criminals, but because she's worried about rogue police officers.



So this is an issue I understand quite well because there's some sociopaths out there whoever or whatever they are, who made damned clear that they want me to felt too intimidated and scared to write here, write anywhere and speak out anywhere. Needless to say, I don't go very many places where I don't look over my shoulder for that individual or individuals who's watching me or maybe following me to see what I'm wearing, when so they can spin it into something very disturbing and sick. Whether it's walking down the street or appearing at a city council meeting, which of course is televised.


If it makes you feel more good or more manly to say I hate cops, fine. That's been a useful salve for more individuals than you know. It's also intended to stop someone from speaking out because being called a "cop hater" is supposed to be akin to being called a communist or an "anti-American". The thing is, after the first hundred times or so it starts to lose its impact or its thrust. The other thing, is that I don't hate police officers but that's irrelevant to these folks as well.

And that's not really what it's about anyway.


What it's about is what's called the "all or nothing" rule. The way some police officers obviously see it is that you support them 100% of the time no questions asked or you hate them. It's also called the "you are for us or against us" rule, which is one of the defining laws of their culture. There's no middle ground for these police officers and their "loved ones" like the alleged one above. That applies double among their own ranks as many an officer going back to Frank Serpico and probably before him discovered soon enough when they broke the code and didn't stay on the right side of "us".

I learned fairly early on what happens if you criticize the police about anything. And that includes being interviewed by the federal investigators some years back. Two days after that supposedly private interview, I walked outside City Hall past two police officers with one of them saying out loud enough for me to hear him.


"I'd better not say anything to her or I might get into trouble."



I don't imagine any officers in this department felt comfortable even talking to the same investigators because perhaps they feared retaliation. It was the time to stand up and say something but that's not the easiest thing to do, to step outside of a police culture and tell the truth about what's going on within your ranks. It was only later that State Attorney General Bill Lockyer told the city council that there were Black and Latino officers within the department who would testify and the promise of that apparently was intended to serve as leverage for the settlement which would end with the stipulated judgment in 2001. But the state apparently was also willing to offer something that the federal investigators may have not offered and that's whistle blower protection.

Such status was in fact awarded under the first mandated action in the judgment which was to expunge the personnel record of then Lt. Jim Cannon of a letter of reprimand he had received when he apparently provided information about an investigation involving another whistle blower, former officer Rene Rodriguez to outside parties.

Last year, Cannon quietly retired from the department a captain after over 30 years of service without even looking back. Without even wanting to celebrate his tenure with a party with his colleagues. Another high-ranking man of color who left the agency after being eligible for the 3% at 50 retirement for all their years of service. Where White officers often stay longer, men of color don't seem to do so.

There have been some rather interesting if unsettling interactions.

Some years ago, I once had an anonymous phone caller claiming to be a retired Riverside Police Department officer who was teaching at Ben Clark Training Center who called up the community college newspaper and left a diatribe several minutes long on the answering machine. During his speech, he called the editor and chief by his first name throughout and over and over saying that I hated cops, about a dozen times interspersed with his general commentary including this mantra about how we were being "watched" and "monitored" and that he and his friends had gone to the Board of Trustees to shut the publication down though naturally, that was news to several Board of Trustee members.



The editor in chief was shocked. The advisor wanted to call the FBI. I just shrugged. Just another day.



This unidentified individual who left this comment above made some remarks that implied heavily that I had engaged in this activity myself. When in my experience it's been very much the other way around.



It's not just law enforcement officers who have to worry about reading personal information about themselves online including that which is fabricated. And before the internet became so popular, there was still the spoken word, meaning the police officers who would complain about those who criticize them to anyone who will listen including community members.

Ever since I first started becoming involved in issues of police reform, that has been something that I've had to deal with and when it's law enforcement officers who are mentioned as the sources of such remarks, it's much more difficult than it is when it's a "normal" person who's doing it. Why? Because there's this assumption that with the badge and uniform, that honesty and truthfulness come with it, which isn't always the case at least all the time. That assumption isn't quite the same and certainly not taken for granted with "normal" people.

Let's see if I can recall all the times on my own site that anonymous individuals made references to where I lived.


The first reference was some comment about hoping that I would in a "beautiful example of poetic justice" be the victim of a violent crime "in the 'U' where you lived". Or better yet, a loved one of mine. This was written by an individual who called himself, "Kevin, R.P.D.". It unnerved me quite a bit but some people told me that I should be worried that this person was indeed a police officer who would have a parolee do harm to me or a family member. Most likely he was pimping crime victims to justify his own online behavior much like another anonymous commenter would do so when calling on people to blame me for the death of a 10-year-old boy in 2005 to counter his own feelings of discomfort that his behavior wasn't seen by others the same way that he saw it.



Another unidentified individual using a moniker stated in a comment in May 2006 that I lived in an apartment near UCR. Yet another one stated in the autumn of 2006 that they couldn't say where they were from because Internal Affairs was always watching but that the only thing that mattered was "your name is Mary Shelton and you live in the Eastside".

Unfortunately, I had a car that hit my garage where I do live which did about $3,300 worth of damage to it before taking off without leaving even a note two days after that anonymous posting was left. If this individual hadn't stated that I had lived some place else than I do, I would have probably assumed that the two incidents were possibly related. But when you have individuals who write some of the cruel and sick stuff that I've read while either representing themselves or misrepresenting themselves as law enforcement officers, you can never be entirely sure and comfortable enough in your mind that these types of incidents aren't related. There's never that small amount of peace of mind.



And as for calling the police? If you had an individual who "prayed" for harm to come to your family calling himself a Riverside Police Department officer or another individual claiming he was a police officer with the same agency ranting about how he enjoyed watching you burst into tears out of fear at a city council meeting while speaking about a posting written by again, an anonymous individual who posted where you were when and what you were wearing, would you call them if you didn't know who these individuals could be and who they worked for? And because of state laws passed to protect peace officers, if any are identified as employees, you're not even allowed to know!

Why? Because the privacy rights of officers is more important than your safety and feeling of security.

It might have all been something akin to a circle jerk for the involved anonymous parties but it was no joke to me.



None of these individuals had the gonads to use their real names and actually gonads is probably the best word to use and not just for the again anonymous individuals who posted violent sexual fantasies or that they were ejaculating on their keyboards. These individuals could be anyone. They are faceless cowards, probably getting off on scaring me and making me fear shadows. And what was just as odious were those individuals including law enforcement officers who no doubt silently read these comments when they were being written probably getting their rocks off of it because they hate me so much.


So how do you come to terms with that kind of hatred? You really can't do much about what other people think, feel and fear. What you can do is work harder for the changes that some individuals clearly don't want to take place. But, what you'll find is that there are those probably many more who do want change. There are more who don't engage in this behavior. That reality probably infuriates the minority who do, more than anything else.


I have never asked an officer in any agency where he and she has lived. On the other hand, I have had officers come up to me and ask me if I live in a particular neighborhood including two during a two-day period last summer, who asked me if I lived such and such because another officer had told them so. Naturally, they wouldn't name that officer who told them this. Maybe they didn't actually know. Maybe it had traveled through a series of officers far removed from its original source like the childhood game of "telephone". It's not like that has never happened either.

I was walking past the Orange Street station in 2005 and saw a very short officer with a blue baseball hat look at me, then tall bald officer turn around and look at me and by the time I had walked the 100 feet or so to pass them, tall bald officer was walking parallel to me for several steps glaring angrily before returning to where short officer with a blue baseball cap was standing. It makes you kind of wonder what the short officer with a blue baseball cap told the tall, bald and then angry police officer but given that the tall, bald and now angry officer was expressionless only 30 seconds before, obviously he had said something that the tall, bald and now angry officer didn't like and since the behavor was briefly directed at me, it probably was about me.


What can you do? Shrug and say, well I guess this is what the gossip mill looks like in action and that it's not just about you, it's more about the changes that they don't want that they think you represent. The author of the above comment pretty much states that in the mantra that all the public cares about is X, Y and Z. So basically, leave us alone to our own behavior and stop making us change.



I don't think where an officer lives is my business and I don't care to know. But the police chief once joked that 90% of the 80% of them lived in one particular neighborhood and that's probably the only neighborhood in Riverside I've never been to and will likely never go to.

Even though other publications including the Press Enterprise yesterday morning have mentioned where a former officer has lived and I wonder if that reporter received a similar diatribe from the above anonymous individual about revealing that officer's city of residence. Somehow, I doubt it. Yes, I really do. But then again, maybe the rule is different for female officers than male ones. Maybe it's different for writers who are backed by major corporations.



As far as "personal information", I have had people who worked in local businesses and other people ask me whether or not personal information including whether or not I was abused as a child was true. One told people because I was critical of police, I was responsible for all the crime in Riverside. Why were the people in the neighborhood asking? Because an officer or officers had told them these things while speaking with them. How does one respond when the person who has provided the false information is wearing a uniform and driving a police car? I spent at least two years addressing similar rumors like this one where I lived, possibly spread by police officers who worked there if what I was told is true. It's not easy to explain to a person that just because an officer is supposed to be an honest, truth-telling person that this isn't always the case. But their uniform gave these particular officers a credibility they didn't deserve and their actions paint others that they work with who do not behave in this fashion in a bad light.



Do the vast majority of police officers behave in this fashion? No they don't. There are many good, professonal individuals who do their jobs including in Riverside's police department and would never hold the expectation of 100% loyalty no questions asked over the heads of those they protect and serve. A lot of them are nice and hard-working people who want to see their police department be the best it can be and seem to enjoy working towards that goal. It's really rewarding to see them work through this process as they have been doing. It's too bad that those who don't want progress can't be inspired to work alongside them, but it is what it is. But the people who embrace change in the new Riverside Police Department sure seem a lot happier and more engergized than those remaining who don't.

And I've had a lot of good conversations with officers including about issues in this blog. Which is good because among other things, issues I didn't know much about, I've been able to learn and write about. It's those conversations among with those with other people that have made blogging worthwhile. It is also conversations like these that cause the rants of unidentified jerks like the ones I've seen become less relevant except to provide opportunities for discussions on issues.

The department has come a tremendous distance, which no doubt has individuals either in the department or perhaps public who wish for the "good old days" which are behind this city finally. Somone told me that it's likely that my blog was simply a venue for marginalized individuals who felt alienated by the progress to vent because most of the people around them probably didn't want to hear it anymore. I'm not sure how true that is.

The department also has a ways to go towards progression which is one reason the State Attorney General's office mandated the creation of a five-year blueprint for that progression called the Strategic Plan. But more than a few of those officers and their "loved ones" who find me "disgusting" or worse might be just as antagonistic and hostile towards this progression.

It also reduces the significance of comments written by anonymous people who crawl out from underneath their rocks occasionally to spew like a pus-filled boil, only apparently without the relief that comes when a wound is healing. In a way, they should be pitied.



But they aren't the ones that are being referred to in comments like the ones above, which fire out straw men to avoid dealing with the accountability issues surrounding the law enforcement officers who do engage in this and other types of bad behavior.





So before anyone throws strawmen arguments at me for something I never wrote about the safety and security of officers and their families, all I can say is that there's another side to that and then some.





Former Riverside Police Department officer Laura Digiorgio has been found guilty by a San Bernardino County jury of nine out of 11 counts of fraud, according to the Press Enterprise.

Digiorgio is currently suing the department over a hostile work environment in U.S. District Court.




Beginning this Monday, the Riverside County Superior Court will institute major changes to how it conducts business in hopes of reducing the case backlog in both the civil and criminal divisions.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The most visible change is a new department in each of the county's largest courthouses -- Riverside, Indio and the Southwest Justice Center in French Valley -- that will review select cases as early as possible to determine if they can be resolved before trial.

To staff each of the new pre-preliminary hearing courts, a judge was taken from a trial department.

"We feel there is greater value for those judges to be working on the settlement of cases rather than being trial judges," Presiding Judge Richard Fields said.

He said the average trial takes about a week of court time. "If they settle one case a week, they have paid for themselves already." Fields said he believes the judges and attorneys they work with will do better than that.

The goal is to "make every appearance in court meaningful," said Assistant Public Defender Robert Willey.

The court also established so-called vertical calendar departments that will handle all the developments in a case except settlement conferences and trials.

Other changes include increasing the number of preliminary hearing courts, where a judge hears testimony, reviews evidence and decides whether a case is worthy of trial.

In Riverside, preliminary hearing departments will go from one to three, with the intention of giving attorneys more time to work the case and talk to defendants.

Dates for preliminary hearings and trials will be tightly controlled. Attorneys seeking delays will have to file documents giving their reasons.



The county has already gone through an arduous and long process trying to address the problems behind the backlog but unless all parties and that includes the Riverside County District Attorney's office takes the situation as one that it takes all parties to address, then any major changes will just be more band-aids in an ongoing crisis.


Cassie MacDuff of the Press Enterprise writes a good column on this ongoing issue and the latest news here.





Better news might lie ahead in the ongoing battle between the freight train companies and the cities over where the two meet, the railroad crossings. This is a serious issue that's been impacting different cities in the Inland Empire including Riverside which lie between the shipping ports of Southern California and the rest of the country where much of the freight that comes abroad is being sent. Estimates are that Riverside's own railroad crossings are blocked up to six hours each day.

The article features a list of all the pertinent crossings in both counties and the bonds set aside to partially pay for the grade separation (either under or over passes) projects for these crossings which will in total, cost much more.



The Press Enterprise Editorial Board admonished the city government in Hemet to be forthcoming about the deal to pay off the departing city manager.



(excerpt)



Given those financial challenges, taxpayers deserve to know how the council justifies spending more than a quarter of a million dollars on a departing city manager. And the council's decision in January to give Davidson a 10 percent pay increase only months after approving layoffs and trimming public services heightens the need for a clear accounting of the council's actions.

Hiding behind confidentiality concerns will not suffice. Davidson's exit creates a large public cost at a time of budgetary distress. The people who will pay that bill should know why that sacrifice is necessary.







Former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona's attorneys are asking a judge to drop most of the charges against Carona.





Black and Missing But Not Forgotton, a site dedicated to bringing attention to Black girls and women who are missing, is blogging about the abduction of three young children by Eddie Harrington, 28 and suicidal. Pictures of Harrington who is their father and the missing children are included with the link as is contact information for the local law enforcement agency if you do see them.