How to Know Your History or Be Doomed to Repeat It

[People including Councilman Mike Gardner listen to a presentation of the Strategic Plan at the downtown Marriott Hotel]




[Tables were filled with people attending the Strategic Plan forum for public input at the downtown Marriott Hotel]






The management team brought the Strategic Plan input process to the downtown Marriott Hotel which attracted about 30 people including members of the Downtown Area Neighborhood Alliance. The meeting was hosted by Lt. Chris Manning who is the area commander of the Neighborhood Policing Center North. Asst. Chief Chris Vicino who's been the emcee of the forums introduced the police personnel including first, Sgt. Jaybee Brennan as his "partner" in the Strategic Plan process, a bit of progress since the first forum where they forgot to introduce her. Then he moved onto referring to her by her first name whereas the male officers had ranks and surnames used. Two women walked out on the forum after listening to that for a few minutes because again, it's one of those "click" moments for women. Clearly when it comes to one particular area so far, Vicino remains a work in progress but then most people are in one way or another.

But in related news, Vicino did attend at least one roll call session not long before Monday's forum, his first in a couple of months.

While Sgt. Brennan did her presentation on the background of the extensive work that had gone into the Strategic Plan, Chris continued to solicit input from people who attended the forums, asking questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the police department which appeared at least at the earlier part of the meeting to be similar to those solicited in earlier meetings. The management team of the police department including Chief Sergio Diaz, Chris, Deputy Chief Mike Blakely and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer have been witnessing the contributions of input from city residents in person which does add to the meaningfulness of the process. This allows the management team including the three newcomers to the police department to have multiple opportunities to listen to comments made by a number of the city's residents.

There's still forums coming up to be conducted in both the Central and West NPCs in upcoming days and then in November, there will be a larger meeting of personnel inside the police department to solicit input from the police employees. The Strategic Plan which already had been written in the spring will apparently either go through revision or be redrafted, including the underlying themes, from embracing diversity (which nearly got dropped from the initial Plan and remains the most endangered theme) to increased traffic services, to management accountability and training.

But it still remains to be seen how much of this newer input along with the previous draft of the Strategic Plan will make it into the newer version and how much of the original state-mandated Strategic Plan will be included. A lot of what was recommended by public input mirrored a lot of what was included in that original blueprint. That's a question that many people have been asking and many are awaiting answers that hopefully will be forthcoming by the time the next draft of the Plan is brought to the Public Safety Committee before appearing before the entire city council.

But then Strategic Plan II has come some distance from being loggerjammed by City Hall management personnel until late last autumn when several city council members finally got on the ball and shook it loose after some persuasion.


Former Riverside Police Department Officer Anthony Fletcher was convicted of six felony counts of child molestation after about two days worth of deliberation by the jurors in his trial. Having witnessed part of the trial, what struck me the most about it was Fletcher's own conduct. I had witnessed the prior trial and mixed results of the case involving former Riverside Police Department Officer Robert Forman on sexual misconduct under the color of authority and sexual battery charges and his conduct was quite a bit different from Fletcher's. Whereas Forman sat there quietly most of the time, Fletcher engaged in behavior particularly involving the prosecutor, a young guy with excellent trial skills, where he would mad dog the attorney many times. The prosecutor called him on it several times which helped his own strategy but it was hard not to see it. And one thing that doesn't bode well for any defendant on trial for his freedom or for his life is to act in an obviously antagonistic or aggressive manner. So why did Fletcher do that? His attorney Chad Firetag clearly didn't appear too happy about it.


Fletcher already had a history of at least two onduty altercations including one where he waited inside a station for an officer who he had been upset with over the stashing of work equipment in a locker and in a vehicle at one of the stations. The truly eyebrow raising part of the trial was when the defense tried to make it look like officers physically fighting on duty was normal, and as long as the officers cleared the air afterward, no real problem with it. There's so much wrong with a statement like that, it's difficult to know where to even begin. But then the attorney had a lot of disturbing elements of Fletcher's life to explain away, not an enviable task.

Off-duty, there's fighting that's gotten officers into trouble. Former Det. Scott Impola was fired after being arrested for a physical altercation involving his spouse's male friend in a house after using the CLETS database to identify the man's truck which was parked. Another officer was allegedly fired earlier this year not so much for getting in a physical altercation at a bar but for lying about it to investigators. In the final weeks of former Chief Russ Leach's tenure in the department, he fired at least three officers, including Fletcher.

But anyway, the fights which allegedly threatened Fletcher's job with the police department should have been treated as a definite red flag but were they? They don't have as much to do with any child molestation he allegedly committed except there's a sense of entitlement that is in both situations, which is the belief in the person's right to physically fight on duty or that right to molest one's own daughter if that's what Fletcher did as the jury decided. Fletcher had testified admitting that he had lied to his wife, his father that he had lived a double life and then said he didn't molest his daughter on the stand. One of his friends, a female RPD detective testified to a version of events of what he had told her but later on the stand said never happened.

The prosecutor used his visible demeanor to tell the jury during one of his closing arguments that he and Fletcher were alike in one way, that they liked to confront situations head on and the prosecutor sounded like he was right. He used that to contrast with Fletcher's decision to head to Reno when he heard that a restraining order might have been filed against him by his wife and teenaged daughter. Why didn't he call anyone to find out whether that hearsay was true, why didn't he call the courts to check it out, why didn't he even read it when he had been served instead of handing the unopened envelope to Sgt. Pat McCarthy who worked in Internal Affairs and who attended his trial?

The prosecutor said that it was because he had already known what would be written on it, he knew what he had done. These were the actions of a guilty man, he said. Perhaps the jury agreed, though it's hard to know without being in the deliberative process with them what ran through their minds and what was said in the jury room which led them to their unanimous verdict.

But the verdict marked another sad chapter for the police department even though Fletcher has not been employed by the agency for over nine months. Fletcher's was the fifth arrest and prosecution out of six involving the department's officers including Leach during a 14 month period. The charges ranged from onduty sexual assault under the color of authority, to armed robbery and kidnapping, to two DUI incidents, to assault and misuse of the CLETS database. There were at least two other arrests that didn't lead to criminal prosecutions and at least another allegation or two of illegal conduct onduty that apparently didn't even lead to an investigation.

All the officers who were arrested and prosecuted had red flags popping up from severe addiction to prescription drugs (Dave Reeves, jr. ) to prior disciplinary action (Fletcher, Forman) to health and family stress (Scott Impola who was recently medically retired). Two of the three prosecuted DUI crashes in the past 10 years involved police officers involved in fatal onduty shootings within two years of their incidents. So were any of these red flags popping up addressed through the department's early warning system or at all?

And then there was the police chief who had past issues involving public intoxication involving alcohol and admitted problems with prescription medication for a back injury and surgery. But if the situation involving Leach's issues went unaddressed for years until they finally reached their inevitable conclusion, then is it surprising that red flags popped up involving the other officers on that list which may or may not have been addressed by the department. City Hall officials like City Manager Brad Hudson denied knowing any of Leach's history which looking back seems difficult to believe given that other individuals had told former Press Enterprise Mel Opotowsky that was included in an op-ed piece he contributed to this blog.

Many people asked questions about what was happening in the police department in the spate of arrests and prosecutions which put the rate of officers being prosecuted at 1 in 75. And these questions began even before the sixth officer, the former police chief, committed a DUI offense on Feb. 8. But with the events that unfolded soon after, these questions aren't nearly as difficult to answer, given that what happens at the top of the chain of command inadvertently affects what happens at its lower levels. And with news of city officials allegedly violating the city charter by involving themselves in the promotional process, the police department being used by the city management as an agent in an illegal gun sale which caught the attention of the State Attorney General's criminal division, it's not that difficult to understand why problems including illegal behavior happened at the bottom as well. Not that the majority of police officers engaged in that behavior but the message appeared to be sent from above that engaging in inappropriate, unethical and illegal behavior by them and individuals at City Hall was perfectly fine. The disturbing part of this trend of behavior is that there's been no clear message from the leadership at the top inside City Hall as an entity of elected representatives how very wrong all this behavior that took place really was. Not much said, just silence, so much so a pin could be heard dropping on a City Hall floor.

Not that it won't become an issue during the next round of city council elections next year when the voting population will be able to perform its method of ethics evaluation (free from the much diluted complaint process of the city's "code") at the voting polls in four wards.

The number of officers who did get arrested and prosecuted remained fairly small but there's reason to believe that officers particularly those facing other issues or with past disciplinary history for misconduct might be more vulnerable to falling in that group. What's to stop some individuals from thinking if the management's engaging in bad behavior or breaking the law whether in the department or City Hall, why must I hold myself to a higher standard? Especially if they have a history of other problems anyway?

Law enforcement agencies have long grappled with similar issues where high profile critical or controversial events have traced back to previous problems in officers. Lawrence Powell one of the officers indicted in the beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles Police Department officers had just failed a baton swinging test against a non-moving object in roll call that day and had to undergo quick remedial training. He had been disciplined with a lengthy suspension for a previous incident with his baton. Officer Timothy Wind had been disciplined at his prior agency in the Midwest for a physical altercation with another officer where he threw a battery at his head.

One of the reasons why most police departments placed under federal or state oversight including those in Riverside and Los Angeles were required to create and implement early warning systems to track officers who were flagged for problematic behavior or actions taken against them. In hopes of addressing smaller issues involving police offices before they increase in magnitude. Annual statistics have shown that the number of officers tracked by this system in the Riverside Police Department range between six and a dozen. Were any of these officers who ultimately were arrested and prosecuted and others who were arrested or investigated without charges being filed ever placed in the Early Warning System to be tracked? There's no way for the public to know if this was the case. It can just hope that the department's carrying out its responsibility of doing this tracking both to protect the public and its own work force.

Particularly with Forman who just several years before being arrested and ultimately prosecuted for onduty sexual misconduct, had been caught by his own digital audio recorder issued by the department having sexual contact with a homeless woman in Fairmount Park. When Forman started deleting his recordings first singly and then dozens of them, did the department pay any attention or flag that disturbing behavior considering he had been implicated in prior misconduct by his audio recorder? Because considering his history, the deletion of his recordings and a failure to record should have set off some serious warning bells that he was either engaging in problematic behavior that he didn't want recorded or traced back to him or that he had problems.

Forman engaged in some very reckless behavior onduty that put himself in danger not to mention other officers, including when he went back to that woman's apartment without telling the dispatcher or anyone else where he was going. The reasons why were obvious, because he was intending to engage in unlawful conduct and was hiding it from everyone else but what if he had gone back and something dangerous had been waiting instead? How would he receive assistance in that situation if no one knew where he was or was supposed to be?

He also repeated this behavior when he and one of the victims engaged in a scheme to "jack" a man near Circle K market on University Avenue. The woman acted as if she were a prostitute and this man paid her $100 which she then took and got into Forman's squad car. This man was angry enough about what happened to actually pursue a police car. Forman stopped, the man stopped, an angry confrontation ensued and then other officers get called to the scene not being informed by Forman that it arose from a setup, a petty theft (that a jury convicted him of committing at trial) that he and the woman had engineered. That certainly doesn't seem like the most prudent action by an officer and it's potentially putting his colleagues at risk by withholding information from him which was why the man was angry enough to follow a squad car (as that doesn't seem like usual behavior) which indicated that he was very angry.

Two audio recordings by other officers there clearly showed that Forman had been involved in something suspicious. He called the officers for backup without letting them know fully what they were walking into and what if something else had happened to the people there besides Forman getting away with a theft? Were there any other examples of that type of behavior in his background as well?

So there's an officer who's engaging in sexual misconduct, erasing or deleting recordings by the dozens (and later "losing" his memory disc) and engaging in criminal conduct with civilians which officers he works with including some who were his friends have to address where he's lying to them about the situation or at least misrepresenting it. But Forman hadn't been terminated for his earlier sexual misconduct (caught on tape) in which there's some disagreement between the police department and Riverside County District Attorney's office in terms of whether that encounter with the known female victim was consensual. The police, sending the recording over to the D.A.'s office which didn't file charges against Forman and the D.A.'s office, that the Internal Affairs Division told them the behavior with the homeless woman had been consensual.

As consensual as any encounter can be between a homeless woman and a officer with the authoritative powers to arrest her for any of an assortment of criminal charges including some that are difficult for homeless individuals to avoid like loitering, public urination (a big controversial issue in Los Angeles for example) and others. Involving a police department which has a use of force policy in place that states that the two lowest stages of the use of force are a uniformed presence of an officer and verbal communication. Both of these were used by the prosecutor in the Forman case to explain why a police officer ordering a woman to go into the bedroom (as Forman did on the case he was convicted on) and a civilian standing in her house and saying the same thing.

Forman didn't even have to sound menacing when he said those words, because of what's stated in that use of force policy and the impact of a uniformed officer as being an authoritative figure to many people including this woman. But watching Forman break down on the stand swearing that he let the woman perform oral sex on him in a moment of weakness was one of the turning points of the trial because the jury apparently didn't know that he had apparently "weakened" back several years earlier at least once (because maybe it got excluded under a judge's ruling on admissible evidence) but some people sitting in the audience and working on the case must have known.

And with Reeves, who was arrested, prosecuted and ultimately convicted of armed robberies and kidnappings committed in Riverside and Moreno Valley, was he flagged earlier than that for his severe addiction to prescription pain medication that had been given to him by doctors for several severe off-duty neck injuries. The police department allegedly had asked him and then later compelled him to submit a sample for drug testing and then later on, tried to get him into drug rehab but he apparently refused to admit he had an addiction. By that time, he had already been placed on administrative leave. He was unable to medically retire through the city because both injuries that disabled him were suffered off-duty. His actions during several days until he was apprehended by bystanders and arrested by police resulted in a lengthy prison sentence.

Fletcher had been in his two physical altercations with police officers and allegedly nearly faced termination for at least one of them. That's a far stretch from allegations of child molestation by a family member but it might speak to issues of judgment.

Now during the previous paragraphs, there's been considerable "rehashing history" (alert, alert) but unfortunately, that's what any responsible and accountable early warning system is about, it's about being mindful of the history and keeping it fresh to use as a means to monitor that officer for similar behavior, escalation of that problem behavior or newer behavior that might have negative repercussions. An early warning system can't function without in a sense rehashing or revisiting an officer's history when evaluating their actions under that type of oversight. In Forman's case, was his history quickly forgotten or was it kept in mind when his recordings started disappearing?

That's when his history would naturally come into play.

The goal of an early warning system it seems would be to prevent a Forman, part two as took place in 2008 but in his case, whatever oversight if any was exerted over this former officer, now felon and registered sex offender, only the police department knows that.

As for Fletcher, pursuant to the law he was convicted on, he has to undergo a doctor's evaluation for part of his sentencing by court-appointed Dr. Rath who is commonly called in these types of cases. Still awaiting trial is Impola on his assault charges, with a trial date in December having been vacated recently.

But this spate of arrests had many people asking questions about what was going on inside the police department primarily at the top of the chain of command but it soon came to light that some of those at the top of the chain of command in the police department and inside City Hall had been busy all that time...doing some pretty disturbing things like buying guns, getting flat badges and cold plates. And then the dominoes began falling inside the police department and inside City Hall, with an influx of new management personnel coming into the police department including an outside chief. The standard that the management sets for appropriate and law abiding behavior (which given some of the antics inside City Hall might be a challenge after the honeymoon period's ended) will be critical in a sense though for the most part, the employees lower in the hierarchy inside the department had been behaving quite a bit better than those higher up the ladder.

Still that's one thing a lot of the public will be watching is what kind of standards the management team including its leader will set for the agency which has been through a particularly difficult year. And what kind of department will arise from the ashes of 2010.

Human Resources Department Employee Prevails in Grievance Hearing

[The Human Resources Board at an earlier meeting made a pivotal recommendation by vote in a recent grievance hearing involving an employee from the same department which provides them staff support]






Word came in that the Human Resources Board voted 6-1 to recommend that the three day suspension given to a longtime employee of the Human Resources Department be rescinded and that be noted in her personnel file. After hearing both sides present their cases, the Board went into deliberations this week and were left to weigh the facts and the testimony and the majority felt that the discipline needed to be rescinded and that the employee had very good evaluations with the problems seeming to begin when the Human Resources Department was staffed with new people, including those hired from Riverside County. The recommendation has been forwarded to City Manager Brad Hudson's office for final resolution but the vote of the Human Resources Board bears watching because not only did it find in favor of a city employee but it essentially voted to rescind a disciplinary action issued by the department which offers staff support for its operations.

Both Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout and Asst. Human Resources Director Jeremy Hammond regularly attend board meetings and provide almost all of the information along with staff support. It remains to be seen how this will impact the board's ability to do its work given how other city board and commissions have been impacted when they do or carry out actions or make decisions the city perceives as being against its best interests. These include both the Community Police Review Commission and the Human Relations Commission which recently has received interference from City Attorney Gregory Priamos when trying to agendize items for discussion at its own meetings.





So what will happen next for the Human Resources Board? That remains to be seen.


The Western Regional Water District election has attracted an interesting cast of candidates.


Once again, the business ties of elected officials in Temecula are questioned.


Hemet's firefighters are delaying the votes on their contract.




An interesting article about a new book by an ex-secret service agent that reveals that Lyndon Johnson was almost shot by him by accident after becoming president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Riverside City Hall's Annual Chili Cookoff Fundraiser

Many of the city's departments from the fire department to Public Works and everyone in between decorated booths and offered a wide variety of chilis to fit every palate. The money raised was part of a fund raising drive for United Way.

This year's event offered something a little bit different, a chance for people to purchase tickets to dunk certain elected officials and two of their direct employees.







[The price sheet for a chance to send elected officials and their direct employees into the dunking tank. As you can see, the highest priced ticket was sold out.]







[Councilman Rusty Bailey taunts a person just before that person lobs a killer throw sending him into the dunking tank.]








[The premier person who sold the most tickets at the highest price for a chance to dunk was City Manager Brad Hudson.]








[Hudson after he's been dunked about a half dozen times by various ticket holders using various methods]

River City: When Past Becomes Prologue and The Three Amigos

UPDATE: Former RPD Officer Anthony Fletcher convicted on multiple counts of child molestation by a jury, according to sources





HONORABLE BERNARD J. SCHWARTZ PRESIDING.
COURTROOM ASSISTANT: ELP-E. PIERCE
COURT REPORTER: DRR-D. RODRIGUEZ
PEOPLE REPRESENTED BY DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: MIKE CARNEY.
DEFENDANT REPRESENTED BY PVT-CHAD FIRETAG.
DEFENDANT PRESENT.
JURY RETIRES AT 10:00 TO RESUME DELIBERATIONS.
AT 10:40 JURY RETURNS WITH A VERDICT.
AT 11:15, THE FOLLOWING PROCEEDINGS WERE HELD:
JURY PRESENT IN COURT.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 001 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 288(C)(1) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 002 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 288(C)(1) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 003 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 288(C)(1) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 004 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 647.6(A) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 005 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 647.6(A) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 006 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 647.6(A) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
JURORS ARE POLLED ON THE VERDICT(S) AND ALL JURORS ANSWER IN THE AFFIRMATIVE.
RE-READING OF THE VERDICT(S) AS RECORDED IS WAIVED
COURT INSTRUCTS THE JURY.
JURORS ARE THANKED AND EXCUSED.
CURRENT BAIL BOND CONTINUED.
REPORT AND SENTENCE HEARING SET ON 12/03/2010 AT 10:00 IN DEPT. 08.
DEFENDANT WAIVES TIME FOR SENTENCING.
AT 13:30, THE FOLLOWING PROCEEDINGS WERE HELD:
COURT AND COUNSEL CONFER REGARDING: 1203.067 REFERRAL
HEARING SET RE: FURTHER PROCEEDINGS/1203.067 ON 11/04/2010 AT 9:30 IN DEPT. 08.
COURT APPOINTS DR. CRAIG RATH TO EXAMINE DEFENDANT, PURS. TO 288.1 AND FURNISH WRITTEN REPORT TO COURT ON OR BEFORE 12/04/2010.
COURT REQUESTS THAT DOCTOR(S) ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF 288.1 PC.
RETURN OF DOCTOR'S REPORT IS SET 12/03/2010 AT 10:00 IN DEPARTMENT 08.
DEFENDANT ORDERED TO RETURN ON ANY AND ALL FUTURE HEARING DATES.
REFERRED TO PROBATION DEPARTMENT FOR FULL PRE-SENTENCE REPORT.
DEFENDANT ORDERED TO RETURN ON ANY AND ALL FUTURE HEARING DATES.
**MINUTE ORDER OF COURT PROCEEDING**




The Strategic Plan Comes to the Eastside....

[Residents of Riverside and officers attended the Strategic Plan forum in the Eastside including Sgt. Christian Dinco (center) who supervises the investigations in NPC East]






[Sgt. Jaybee Brennan who worked on the original draft of the Strategic Plan presents the results from the community online survey. She was originally the only one omitted in the introductions made of the department employees but someone remembered later.]





[Chief Sergio Diaz, Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer and Asst. Chief Chris Vicino (The Three Amigos, interesting moniker borrowed) attended the community forum to solicit input from those who attended.]




A group of city residents showed up at the Caesar Chavez Community Center at Bobby Bonds Park in the Eastside on Oct. 14 to listen to a presentation on the Strategic Plan themes and public survey results as well as provide some input into the second round of eight community forums which will take place this month to solicit similar input from the city's four Neighborhood Policing Centers.


Hosting was East NPC Area Commander Lt. Vic Williams along with Asst. Chief Chris Vicino, Chief Sergio Diaz and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer. All three management team members began working for the police department after June 30. Originally it appears that Diaz hadn't planned on coming but it was very good that he did because the best way to show commitment for this process is to be there to witness it. It's ironic though that city residents have seen these three gentlemen more times than the typical police officer or civilian employee in the department (but it's been good that they've been out there in the public in different places) but it was an opportunity to see them interact together for the first time and it was quite interesting.


Attending also were Sgt. Christian Dinco, who supervises investigations in the East NPC, Officer James Barette, who works in the Vice unit, Lt. Dan Hoxmeier, the area commander of Central NPC and Lt. Steve Johnson, area commander of West NPC. Nancy Castillo, the East NPC's Community Service Representative also attended and talked to city residents.

Members of the management team introduced the department employees one by one...except for one.

And that was Sgt. Jaybee Brennan who as a former member of the now defunct Audit and Compliance Panel had been assigned to work on the Strategic Plan for a considerable period of time and had organized and ran the original community forums earlier this year. She and other officers had attended and led the forum breakout groups to help solicit input and also to write and collect information on the online survey, the results of which were detailed at the forum. It was ironic that the person who spent the most hours on working on the development of the Plan toted at the forum wasn't introduced except sometime later on almost as an afterthought.

But then again, most women in leadership positions have been there, done that, got the tee-shirt in every profession from business to law to medicine so it's something that's part of the universal experience of professional women. Still, it's hard to come across as concerned on issues of diversity if you can't even remember the female officer standing right next to you until she is needed to do a presentation to the public that only she can give, not the male management team.

There's words, and then there's actions and which speak louder especially in front of the public?

Although later on, another officer did show up who wasn't introduced either.

That was Sgt. Christian Dinco who was dressed in a suit and wasn't introduced either but when told they skipped over him for input, a little bit of confusion at the front of the room while most of the people in the back laughed, knowing him. Still he wasn't introduced at that point whether it was because they knew his name or not, that wasn't clear. He's been with the department quite a few years now, worked many assignments and had served many years on the board of the Riverside Police Officers' Association until recently. I knew who he was (even without the mustache) when I made that comment. I wanted to see if the management team did. Provided a perfect opportunity for them to introduce him and none of them did that even though they're "for the troops".


The members of this management team, all of whom started working after July 1 said they were there to try to get input from different communities to integrate into the themes already developed for the Strategic Plan which included issues of traffic enforcement and education, honoring diversity, safer neighborhoods and management accountability and training.


They finally remembered Brennan when they needed her to do something for them that only she could do, like present the history of the development of the Strategic Plan and the solicitation of input from the public. That's very typical of showing just exactly how important a female employee is by those in management. It's just one of those "click" moments for the fairer gender when we see it.

And there was some great input but at times, it seems like the more department management old or new says it wants the community to do the talking, the more talking the management personnel do instead. They ask questions about what the community wants, likes, dislikes, views as departmental strengths and weaknesses which is good but then they try to answer the questions for the community members. New folks in the dynamic called the Riverside Police Department but this is an older pattern that goes back long before these three men arrived. They want public feedback but only to a point. After all, at least in the first round of public forums, the residents who participated were asked to come up with possible answers to the questions, solutions to some of the problems raised. Ideas on how to build up the strengths and how to improve on the weaknesses, not just naming them so that someone else could find a way to rewrite what they said and them implement something entirely different than the concern raised.

This time, it's hi, what's the strengths and weaknesses and bye. Take a cookie when you leave. That's why so many of the city's residents in the city's different communities haven't been showing up, that and other conflicts of time, energy and obligations in their lives. It's difficult enough when veteran management personnel ran these kinds of programs but when completely spanking new management personnel do it, they stay away because they don't know these folks. It's ironic for this talk of not rehashing history by people who don't know it, that they rehash this unfortunate dynamic instead as if someone gave them a performance manual. Or maybe that's what is done in other agencies besides Riverside and is some sort of industry standard.

A former deputy chief once took me to lunch at a really nice restaurant at the Mission Inn to ask me why residents in one of the city's communities hadn't improved their relations with the police officers in the past 10 years. He said these are new officers who don't know these folks and can't understand why they view them negatively and then they get upset. Sometimes complaints get filed, ones that probably could have been avoided. Well the answer's pretty clear, the department is assigning new officers to a neighborhood that in the past had very contentious relations with officers going back over 30 years and these newer officers were going into that without any context or any history about what happened before they got there or hired by the department. That's not really fair to put newer officers in that situation of going into a situation without that "rehashed" history and it's not really constructive to do that either. After all, knowledge is power.

You can try to erase history, you can try to forget it, admonish people that you're not interested in rehashing it, but what you can't do, is change it and the impact, right or wrong that it has on its participants. But what you can do is educate the newer officers to understand it, so when they see that they're viewed negatively, they can place it in some context and be more open to changing the present so it doesn't match the past. And build something better between the community and those officers. That's how relationships improve over time by taking those initial steps, which is true in any type of similar situation.

But when new management people who's been here maybe two months are immediately dismissive then you know that the leadership they exert over their employees will be essentially the same way. Because the police department has its own history, both positive and negative to learn from and remember because it provides the context for what's taking place now that these new officers are walking into which maybe they should remember before being so dismissive. Waving their hand, shaking their head and saying none of that matters to be "rehashed" because after all, this is what they did in their respective agency. Which of course, has a much different reality and history than the police department in this city because all police agencies do. But I get a little bit wary when I hear the "we're not here to rehash history or even hear about it" from individuals who after are employed by the public they serve because that strongly hints at an unwillingness to learn especially when it comes from individuals who've been here such a short time.

And unless they know the history and understand it, and not throw their hands up over their faces and say they don't want to hear it, then they really have any meaningful impact on the police department or the communities it serves. They won't either if they are as dismissive and unwilling to learn the history of what's happened inside the department with their employees as well as in the city and its different neighborhoods. Vicino knows Pasadena and its police department very, very well. Diaz and Greer know Los Angeles and the LAPD very well. But guess what, this isn't LA, this isn't Pasadena, this is Riverside and they should be more focused integrating their wealth of knowledge into what's here, without saying well, this is how we did it in [insert name of police department]. That might work better in the communities as well because every time they do that, they're reminding people they're outsiders and why Riverside needed them. Because face it, if history were so peachy keen in River City, none of them would be here right now.

And that history and their understanding of it is going to be absolutely critical if they intend to develop and mentor the next generation of leaders in the police department including the next chief including important lessons learned on how NOT to do it.

Not too long ago, the city and department management were making the mistakes that they did from history drawn from just 10 years earlier. Allowing positions to go vacant including those in supervision and cutting the training budget. The outcome of those practices in the late 1990s was disastrous and the money "saved" there wound up costing the city over $26 million in mandated reforms and additional expenditures in settling or losing lawsuits filed both inhouse and outside the department. So bring new people in who don't want to "rehash" history because this is what happened in Pasadena or L.A. and continue onward from there to not examine the issues that caused great problems just 10 years ago (although Vicino thought 1-2 years was lightyears in the past). The city government still struggles with that because if police training budgets are being cut by at least 25% and the supervisory vacancy rates were 25-33%, then the city had no business paying over $30 million to buy a theater and pay one dime for its oversight which turned out to be fraught with problems and then be excited because they're $500,000 less in the financial hole than they anticipated (and anticipation of losing a couple shirts by people spending the public's money is a huge red flag right there).



The answers to many of these questions that were asked have been the same for years now. Department more reflective of the community it serves, increased accountability, fully staffed (civilian and sworn) and equipped and trained, quicker response times, more professionalism particularly in leadership, more traffic officers, better partnerships with organizations and communities and more community programs. Though it is still good to ask them and they did and are doing that but it remains to see what the responses will be not just from the department but from City Hall.

Because people have been asking for these things for years and the history is that unless forced to by some sort of court action, Riverside's City Hall action is to move slowly or not at all on some of the above issues. When left to its own devices (caution: "rehashing" history coming Vicino!) in the 1990s, the department's resources became depleted in staffing including in supervision and in equipment and training budget, all blamed on a recession. During this recession, vacancies were not filled, leaving vacancy rates as high as 33% in the lieutenant's rank, 25% in the sergeant's rank, 19% in the civilian rank and 10% overall. It was only through reminding the city government (which holds the purse strings of course) of its prior history and its very serious consequences by various parties which moved the city towards starting to address these vacancies. That's why some of them weren't as bad as they had been when these three gentlemen first arrived here. Because guess what, history does matter because it helps people from making the same mistakes over and over. You know what they say, if you don't remember your history, you're doomed to repeat it. That's a pretty accurate adage that's been proven time and time again.

That's why not many people show up at forums discussing the planning of their police department's future because they're not sure whether they're spitting in the wind or if anything will actually happen as a result of what they say, the questions they answer or the recommendation that they give. To change that skepticism, the department and the city will both have to show that they'll deliver on their promises to include input from the public in their blueprint for the road that the police department will be taking during the next five years. Many participated in the first round of public forums who are wondering what happened to the input that they provided, whether it will be included in the development of the final product.

After all, the Strategic Plan had already been written this spring during the time that Acting Chief John DeLaRosa had been in his position and after the Strategic Plan had been handed off by DeLaRosa to Deputy Chief Mike Blakely, the only member of Diaz' management team who didn't appear at the Eastside forum.


The department will be hosting the forums and came into the community centers as they will the college campuses (and if you want input from the "youth", it's usually more useful to go to them rather than have them come to you) and other locations this month which was a significant step to be recognized as something important, but there's still more to do to take that extra step of really paying attention to what people are saying. And there's not that sense quite yet that the management team has yet taken ownership of the Strategic Plan which they'll need so that the communities and the department's employees will buy into it. Vicino has the most history of the management team in terms of strategic planning and it would be interesting to see more of how he plans to apply that experience from over 20 years some place else to Riverside. That is if he ever realizes that he's the one that's got to do most of the learning and listening not the talking and the teaching city residents what they already know. That might take a while but it'll happen.

The only question is to what degree the "ouch" factor will be.


The management team told us there were "90 years" of law enforcement at the front of the room, again not counting Brennan's over 20 years with theirs and that's very impressive but they have shown us that there's still much they need to learn. And it's not as if there's not tremendous potential for that kind of communication between police leadership and community members, but it really has yet to be realized. Partly it's newness and unfamiliarity with the city's over 20 different neighborhoods, seven wards, four neighborhood policing centers and dozens of communities. But they stood up in front like teachers in a classroom of students who as far as their side of the police/community relations are concerned, are the experts like the police might be on their side of the equation. What they needed to do was sit in circles with people and turn it into a discussion of sharing ideas but of really listening as well. That worked better with the first round of community forums and much more discussion was generated in one of them than probably every forum conducted combined so far.

These three men are clearly intelligent, clearly have accomplishments in their respective agencies, ideas and issues that they're passionate about but when is anybody going to see that in a meaningful way? When are the steps going to be taken to institute real change in the Riverside Police Department, beginning with rebuilding its management culture into something much better than the ashes of it that remain? And what about the future, what steps are going to be taken to create the next generation of male and female leaders in the police department including the next police chief? Patience is definitely a requirement but so's vision.

One of them, probably Greer, said the purpose of mentorship was to great something so powerful to follow your footsteps that once you stepped away from your job, you ceased to really missed or remembered. That's a very unselfish philosophy because you're creating something that's not about you but what you did to make the next generation better than the one you lived through. But in actuality and practice what does that really mean? How does that apply to steps taken including through the vision of a strategic plan to turn that into reality?

Because that's a reality far different than the Riverside Police Department's known certainly in its most recent years.

That's the opposite direction of the police department that faced one of its turbulent years of its history because the management team from chief to captain along with management and elected leadership at City Hall put themselves first, they made it all about themselves so that the only legacy that philosophy led to was ashes. You had leadership that put itself first ahead of its communities it served and ahead of its subordinates who carry out its work. You had people doing whatever it took even destroying lifelong relationships to get promoted, knocking each other the ladder but that was the only way to get up that ladder. No one ever helped anyone else climb the ladder with them, but instead stomped the fingers of the hand of the person below them to get where they got which is one reason why there's such a huge gap between supervision and the top of management that is going to be difficult to bridge.

Sometimes people paired up to advance together by stabbing their leader in the back and then they got what they wanted, they started hating and not trusting each other because they knew that they were too close in parity in the hierarchy and what their former ally was capable of doing because if someone will stab someone else in the back with you, they'll do the same to you and that's what happened one former management employee did to another earlier this year when the latter let his guard down. Not long before the city management bought the keys to the department from their chief who others had hoped would fight back with a hefty salary increase.

That's your context. That's your history. Something akin to combining Shakespearean tragedies with Survivor Island. Erase that past, forget it, don't rehash it, pretend it didn't happen just because you're new, means you're doomed to repeat it. Everyone knows the end result of all that mess, which was three employees from two different law enforcement agencies coming into their management positions in this department.

It makes you wonder what the communication channels are like inside the very compartmentalized police department with a management level that had been decimated by its own vices and what was left, was severely fragmented and adrift from the rest of the agency. Greer has been attending several roll call sessions including one after the forum. Vicino's attended several rollcalls and Diaz did in July.

And Arrives in Orangecrest

[Deputy Chief Mike Blakely listens intently during the discussion at the forum.]




[Audience members listen as questions are asked by Vicino involving the Strategic Plan]



Another forum, which attracted about 10 people on a Saturday afternoon at the Orangecrest Community Center which was hosted by NPC East Lt. Vic Williams and Asst. Chief Chris Vicino. Chief Sergio Diaz and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer were present along with Sgt. Jaybee Brennan and Capt. John Carpenter. Williams hosted and he introduced everyone including Brennan in his speech welcoming everyone to the event.

This forum was as interesting as the earlier one in a different way because there was this dynamic that unfolded that provided an even more interesting look at the management staff including Deputy Chief Mike Blakely who was present at this forum. There were some younger folks there, which was good because younger people don't tend to go to forums like these so it's often more successful to bring the information gathering process to them and their venues. Go to schools, maybe a briefer oversight of the strategic plan process and solicit input. It's a win-win. You have a captive audience and the teachers and schools can turn it into a school assignment, i.e. write about it for a social studies class for example.

Anyway, the issues focused on better response times which one gentleman said had improved in that area of the city from where they had been, more police presence, fair and equal treatment of people of different races and genders, more civilian vacancies filled and providing the department's dispatchers with a better and safer place to work.

Councilman Paul Davis suggested building a new police station for NPC East on some up for sale property from the Western Regional Water District which is on Alessandro near the entrance from Moreno Valley into Riverside. Diaz later said that he didn't believe that was necessary, new facilities cost too much money and there were other ways to allocate resources. But some how the sitaution involving the dispatchers raised by one former dispatcher got conflated into them asking for a new brick building because they weren't grateful enough to just be moved out of the basement of the Orange Street Station (presumably to Magnolia Policing Center after the whole Olivewood new site fell through). That was interesting to watch how they and civilian employees being restaffed was brushed aside (though Diaz seemed to believe that fillinig some vacancies was very important) because again, what gender is highly represented in both civilian employees and dispatchers? Oh never mind.

It's not really hard to get at least enough funding to rehire to fill civilian positions. They have to be sold as being necessary which many of them are, the jobs that they do that are taking longer to get done without them and why they're needed. And how ridiculous it is to have the vacancy rate be as high as 19% or even higher over the next five years covered by the Strategic Plan.

After all, Diaz himself said at the Eastside forum how often the words "budget cuts" are used simply as an excuse not to do something and he's right about that.

This forum was a lot of fun in its own way too, sparring with Vicino just to get one sentence out without him interrupting. But that's not what I went there to do, you just have to make the best out of what someone else brings and there's probably no woman on the planet that's ever not had this experience at least once with constantly being interrupted when we open our mouths to speak. Either people are really interested in receiving input or they're not and unfortunately, you get a sense that men are given more latitude than women in forums like these where the only female officer isn't even introduced properly along with the men. Just like police officers might recognize different communication dynamics among themselves at the different levels of rank and how they interact with each other, female civilians certainly do the same from their perspectives.

Having worked as an aide in early childhood schools when I was in high school, I have an infinite amount of patience with that type of verbal judo, not to mention being armed with Sgt. Dan Warren's terrific tactical communication course. This isn't a new situation being a female and watching the women get interrupted much more often in the past two forums than the men especially when they said something the department didn't want the rest of the forum to know, which is really why we're not allowed to talk about the past, even that which isn't really the past.

That's unfortunate but these three men are very bright men, so they'll learn pretty quickly. Of the three, Greer seems to be several steps ahead on that curve because he does really listen to what people say, he shares his own experiences without saying and he can wait until a speaker finishes a sentence. Diaz is getting better at doing that but there's still a sense that there's more to him than he presents on the surface but the surface is mostly what's been seen so far. Vicino is very personable, clearly intelligent and visionary but he needs to realize that there are many women out there that can do more than just being directed on how much to say when actually most women have better verbal communication skills than most men. Because he appears to understand that already about the men and there's plenty that both male and female community members and officers can teach him about this city and the Riverside Police Department.

Blakely didn't say very much at the forum but clearly enjoyed himself. The dynamic between the three members of Diaz' kitchen cabinet and him certainly was interesting and very educational to watch play out.


Correction to forums: There was several mentions of the city hiring 15 new police officers but actually the city's supposed to be hiring at least 27 new ones. Because there's the 15 from the COPS grant and also the 12 that were added when the city found several million dollars worth of surplus money behind a couple of the couches at City Hall. There was mention of the very high vacancy rate of civilian employees which stands at around 19%.

The situation involving cellular 911 calls being referred to the CHP office in San Bernardino County has been fixed. They are locally handled now and have been for several years which is probably one of the best improvements to take place in emergency response to calls for service. It's no fun watching one man assault another in the middle of University Avenue downtown on a holiday and two different witnesses calling for help are talking with the CHP in another county.

The original PowerPoint provided by Brennan in her presentations at the forums is available online on the April 2010 meeting of the Public Safety Committee under "reports". The formatting of reports has changed on the city's site and they do tend to load slowly if there's graphics on them.

Riverside Police Chief Holds House Warming Party

Over 150 police officers from the Riverside Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and other individuals attended a house warming party hosted by Chief Sergio Diaz about a week ago. Officers who were lieutenants and above from his new department were invited to attend with a guest and the turnout was very high from that portion of the agency that was on the invitee list. A lot of LAPD officers showed up as well and some local politicians.

Also invited to the party was current Riverside Police Officers' Association President Cliff Mason who's rumored to be seeking reelection next year. Thinking about facing him in that election are at least two candidates though the election is over a year away. He was the only member of the union board invited and speculation is whether or not he's looking for a higher rank once he becomes eligible to apply for it and has come quite some distance since his demotion only 18 months before his recent promotion back to sergeant.

In additions, former Asst. and Interim Chief John De La Rosa had been invited to the housewarming party sharing the same space with Capt. John Carpenter after some of his comments ruffled some feathers at a retirement party. It was interesting to see the clear ties that still exist between Diaz and the man he had show him the ropes in the police department when he arrived. But that was clear when Diaz made his first round of promotions in July as many of them were protogees of either DeLaRosa and his own mentor, Deputy Chief Mike Blakely.

It's good to see that the police chief is living in Riverside and people did seem to have a good time and enjoy the food.






[Former Riverside Police Department Asst. Chief John DeLaRosa appeared as a guest at a well-attended house warming party of his formerly for a brief period of time, boss.]





[Riverside Deputy Chief Mike Blakely (l.) hasn't been at the Strategic Plan forums so far but attended the chief's housewarming party. ]







[Riverside Police Captain John Carpenter apparently made some sort of peace with De La Rosa before both attended Diaz' housewarming party.]

San Bernardino City Attorney to Police Chief: Let's get ready to rumble...

The San Bernardino Police Department chief alleged that the city attorney threatened him. Were they going to brawl in the parking lot, the chief wondered.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

In a four-page memo to the city manager obtained by The Press-Enterprise, the police chief described Penman as "very direct and hostile" about discussing "numerous matters pending with his office."

Near the end of the meeting, Kilmer wrote, Penman walked toward the door of the room "saying that he was not done fighting.

"He looked toward me as I walked toward the exit," Kilmer wrote, "and he said something like 'I suggest if you want to continue to fight we go across the parking lot and do it.' I was shocked at what I thought I heard and asked, 'Mr. City Attorney, did you just challenge me to a fight?' "

Kilmer alleges that Penman then walked up "within inches of my face" and continued the discussion. Penman walked away moments later.

This all happens while the city's voters will decide on whether the city attorney should be appointed or elected. Jim Penman who's like been city attorney forever and embarrassed the city on numerous occasions, is the driving force for that voter initiative.



In Riverside, a neo-nazi runs for political office. Yes, well known National Socialist Movement member Jeff Hall has put in to run for office. Most of us remember him and his friends who staged several rather contentious rallies in Casa Blanca before fading into the woodwork.





[Riverside's Water Board candidate, Jeffrey Hall and some of his friends at a November 2009 rally in Casa Blanca standing behind several RPD officers working including many who wouldn't be welcome in the Nazi's version of America.]




Eight candidates vie for city council seats in Banning.

Public Meetings

Monday, Oct. 18 at 4 p.m. The Human Resources Board will be in deliberations on the grievance hearing regarding a human resources department's nonunion employee.


Tuesday, Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. The Riverside City Council will be hearing this agenda. This agenda item addresses the creation of the much heralded Charter Review Committee which will be beginning that process very soon.







On the heels of her brother, comes La Nina. Long story short, if the ridge builds, you get tropical rain. If the trade wins prevail, you get drought conditions.

Finance Committee Meets and Election 2011 Gets Rolling

UPDATE: City Settles Retaliation Lawsuit filed by former Riverside Police Department Det. Chris Lanzillo





[William Malone, the consultant in charge of the operations of the city-owned Fox Theater gave an update on the first year of its first year.]







[Riverside City Councilman Mike Gardner listens to the discussion on the report given on the Fox Theater at the Finance Committee meeting. ]






[Councilwoman Nancy Hart who chairs the Finance Committee and fellow member, Councilman Paul Davis question city staff and William Malone about the Fox Theater.]



"This is the last bastion of culture before the desert"

---Dennis Miller





The Finance Committee met again at Riverside's City Hall to discuss several items including the fiscal report on the city-owned Fox Theater in downtown. Present at the meeting were the three Finance Committee members, Finance Director Brent Mason, Asst. City Manager Belinda Graham, Asst. City Manager Paul Sundeen, Development Director Deanna Lorson and the Fox's managing consultant, William Malone. There was a written report and some discussion and questions asked by Committee members mainly aimed at Malone, who had been hit with controversy most of this year regarding his handling of the operations at the Fox Theater.

Councilwoman Nancy Hart who chairs the Committee said that she was happy that the theater which required over $30 million of city funding to renovate after the theater was seized by the city through eminent domain didn't experience a greater shortfall. She said that there had been comments about the city "losing its shirt" this year as well as the next.

Councilman Paul Davis who had raised many concerns about the finances and management of the Fox Theater by Malone and who had done his own extensive investigation into allegations of improprieties said that most of the issues had been resolved except for some minor ones. He expressed concern about the lack of programming for people in the 18-35 demographic. He said that he had been critical of it because of the significant financial investment the city had made into its operations. He said that the businesses in Ward One had to be taken more to heart and that business owners on the corridor should rethink their strategies including remaining open so that they can take advantage of the patronage after the shows ended at the nearby theater.

Also needing to be addressed were the parking issues including construction of the new parking garage near the Fox Theater.

Malone said that his goals were to operate the theater as cost effectively as possible and that the economy made it hard to sell tickets particularly at venues that weren't casinos where the majority of the tickets were already comped.

Trial of Former Riverside Police Department Officer Continues

The courtroom was packed inside the old civil courthouse in downtown Riverside which still hears criminal cases because of a backlog that's affected both civil and criminal courts in Riverside. On trial was former Riverside Police Department officer Anthony "Rod" Fletcher who faced several felony child molestation charge involving his teenaged daughter who alleged that he inappropriately touched her during a period lasting several years. He testified that he did not molest his daughter but faced tough questioning under cross examination by the prosecutor including about his actions after the allegations were raised against him. Then both sides put two different forensic psychologists on the stand, including the prosecution as one of its rebuttal witnesses. Both expert witnesses had expertise in the areas of child molestation and incest.

Individuals including Fletcher testified in front of a jury and an audience of family, friends, prosecutors and Internal Affairs Sgts John Capen and Pat McCarthy. He was arrested around Dec. 24, 2009 around the time that another former officer, Det. Scott Impola was arrested on assault and unlawful entry charges. Both were fired by former Police Chief Russ Leach around the middle of January although Impola's firing apparently was reversed and the city had allegedly decided to medically retire him. Impola's criminal case was scheduled for jury trial in December but the date has been vacated according to court records.

Police Department Management Personnel Make the Rounds

[Riverside Police Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer told people at a meeting that he would help women and others not getting promoted on where they're lacking so that they could be promoted. Earlier this year, four out of the top five officers on the top of the list were female and one was an African-American male.]



As stated in previous blog postings, management personnel in the police department including Chief Sergio Diaz have been making appearances at various community meetings. Diaz was unable to appear at the recent monthly meeting hosted by Councilman Andrew Melendrez but both Asst. Chief Chris Vicino and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer attended the meeting, spoke with people on various issues and answered questions. It provided the attendees to get a chance to meet the newer members of the police department's management team.

Different questions were asked to both individuals including a question about the problems with diversity including with women climbing up the ranks of the police department. Greer's response apparently was that he would be willing to help these folks with where they were lacking or short so that this would help with promotion. That was a very interesting insight from someone who's been there a short period of time but at the same time, it's difficult to know what direction Greer was heading in so hopefully he will expound on his views on this complex issue at further meetings. He raises a thorny issue but his answer could have several different meanings.

There's one side of it that could be that Greer was making references to something akin to providing mentorship opportunities to candidates who are having difficulties with the promotional process including the testing process and oral interviews. Mentorshop programs are excellent in working to address issues with employee retention for both men and women, of all races. Studies have shown that they work in addressing these issues in the areas of sworn police officers and also in communication/dispatching divisions, which typically have higher turnover rates and poorer retention than any other division in a police agency.

The Riverside Police Department like other law enforcement agencies has struggled with retaining dispatchers and not losing them to attrition. It's a very challenging job and very critical job both to public safety and officer safety yet it's high-stress and it's hard to retain dispatchers. The department and city had grappled with problems in the communication bureau several years ago including a call for an investigation by dispatchers who went to the city council with some serious employment issues.

Mentorship opportunities should be open to all officers including newer ones in an open fashion. Many of the problems with the dearth of upper management personnel resulted in part because there didn't appear to be much mentoring going on at the highest levels or any productive mentorship to build leadership and management skills to pass on from generation of leadership to the next. But then it's hard to mentor others including those who will be the future leadership with a stiletto in your hand. And since most of the management personnel in the department were involved with a promotional process so highly politicized that most of those who rose up to the highest levels had to essentially use that stiletto against someone else. One of the biggest tragedies of the department was the wasted opportunities to develop a management team that was based on collaboration and cooperation rather than cutthroat competition especially considering the wealth of talented men and women inside the department. The skills that make good managers were superseded by those that were required to make it up the ladder to those positions. When it becomes more important to be drinking buddies, or vacationing buddies with whoever's in charge in the police department or at City Hall, than in the skills needed to succeed at the top management level, then yes, there's going to be a crisis at the top which is what happened in front of the city this year in painful detail.

The management culture definitely needs to change and it remains to be seen whether the influx of people from outside the department to fill the top level positions will help accomplish that. And it will be interesting if the current leadership in power in the department counter past practices by eliminating or sharply reducing some of the ruthless power plays that defined the management level and mentoring opportunities that are available to officers from the supervisory levels from which future management will likely come would help create that difference.

So on one level, Greer's comments made some sense but there's a more troubling side of them well if you consider another meaning for them. The assumption that candidates including men of color and women aren't getting promoted because of something "lacking" in them that needs to be fixed or remedied. That might be the case with candidates who either have difficulty passing written tests or oral interviews, those who have problems accumulating and mastering new skills or simply problems having the opportunities to do so. In those situations, maybe that's not as difficult to argue that something lacking or short in candidates is keeping them from getting promoted. And there's tools that departments use to help create future leaders, managers and supervisors from all different backgrounds.

However, that's a considerably less useful assessment in situations where men of color and women are not only passing the written and oral exams but are getting themselves ranked at the top of the promotional lists. What's "lacking" in women who place #1 and #3 on the lieutenant's list for example or the Black male candidate who ranked #4, because Greer being the deputy chief of both operations and investigations which staff most of the individuals in the lieutenant's rank has obviously seen the past lieutenant's list. What's lacking or what are these candidates who rank in the top five or the two women in the top three that's to be found in candidates in the bottom third of the list including in 12 out of 13th place? This isn't so much a statement for or against the promotions made in 2010 but simply to ask what's lacking or what the highest ranking candidates on these lists are short on which prevents them from being promoted? That's definitely a fair question for anyone to ask.

Are these candidates lacking advanced degrees? One of the females on the top five of the lieutenant's list (which is due to expire soon) has a Master's degree inside a profession that places more stock on advanced degrees than it did in the past. Both female in the top five have college degrees. Both female candidates in the top five served in positions which traditionally manned by officers in higher ranks and even management levels. One sergeant held three different positions simultaneously, doing administrative work that in the past had been done by a captain and lieutenant. The other did work in a division while being the lowest ranking officer ever to head that division as it previously had been headed by Capt. Meredyth Meredith and former Lt. Pete Villanueva. The black male candidate? He filled in as area commander, traditionally a lieutenant's position for three months several years ago while the area commander was at a training academy back East.

Another sergeant candidate, an African-American man with a wealth of experience in the department including investigations (where he served on an interstate enforcement team) who had a bachelor's degree and two medal of valor was passed over for several years until promoted late spring. Surely, Greer would agree that one medal of valor let alone two are hardly signs of something lacking. Whether awards including law enforcement's highest honor or commendations are included in the promotional process, maybe, maybe not but they're not evidence of something lacking as officers who win awards like that are in a very select group.

All three female officers on the lieutenant's list have attended many community meetings in their various roles so city residents are quite familiar with them and their backgrounds as they are of the officers that serve more in the public eye which isn't really the case with officers who traditionally have held more administrative jobs inside the police department especially those who have mostly done that in leadership positions. Two female sergeants who were both on promotional lists were involved in a high-profile "suicide by cop" incident where they coordinated several specialized units of officers to successfully apprehend the man without anyone on either side or the public getting injured. That might be a day on the job for male or female officers but it certainly wouldn't be evidenced of something lacking or that any male or female would be missing in their resume.

I received an unsolicited email in 2001 from then Asst. Chief Mike Smith who blamed "low numbers" for the lack of female officers at the highest ranks. It's a common argument that has arisen inside many law enforcement agencies because after all, the national average has male officers outnumbered female officers about eight to one and slightly higher in agencies that are the size of the Riverside Police Department. It's an argument that Greer's likely heard during his career as well. It would be surprising to hear if the other outside members of the police department's leadership hadn't heard it as well. And it's pretty much a given that most female officers in different law enforcement agencies have heard it as well. It would be surprising if female officers inside the Riverside Police Department hadn't heard it before or even were told that when they asked the same questions because it's human nature to ask when considering whether or not you want to change your position and it's so prevalent in law enforcement agencies in general. That's true in many male dominated professions besides law enforcement and it's often true for males in professions that are female-dominated as well.

But inside the Riverside Police Department, the "low numbers" does still apply in that there's one female captain, one female lieutenant (on probation) and about five female sergeants including two which are probationary. It's important to note the probationary status because no female supervisor has passed probation since 2004. One important reason why female and male supervisors fall out of probation does have to do with something "lacking" that doesn't involve them and that often is that no new supervisor is an island, they all need guidance and support at their new rank. That traditionally has been an issue in many a law enforcement agency including the one in Los Angeles.

Where it doesn't apply is on at least the most recent promotional lists. There were four female sergeants at the beginning of this year. Three of those sergeants or 75% of the female sergeants had passed or taken the lieutenant's test and all three of them placed in the top five out of 13 candidates with three not passing the exam. This put them in the top third. The promotional process took two candidates from the top third, one from the middle third and two from the bottom third. The white male candidates were #2, 9 and 12 while a male Latino candidate was #6 and the white female candidate was #5. So candidates came from all thirds of the list in about equal numbers. That has to do with the selection process but again, it's not really an indicator that there's anything lacking with the women who dominated the top third except perhaps for the obvious. But is what they're lacking by being women really an integral part of serving in a supervising position? And why were they lacking when they didn't make the lists or very high on the lists which was what Smith had written was the main issue behind the failure of women to advance and then when that reason was removed by their current high placements on that list that was so critical not too long ago, they're still viewed as being short.

The unfortunate thing is that with when a comment like Greer's is read in a less favorable light, where he's given less than the benefit of the doubt is that the first thing that comes to mind is that he's making an assumption that if they're not getting promoted because something must be wrong with them. And that's what is going to happen because that what it sounds like without further elaboration on exactly what is meant and unfortunately similar comments appear inside law enforcement agencies for that reason. Hopefully in the future, there will be a more discussion of those issues including the police department's promotional process which has in the past disenfranchised probably a lot of people for reasons outside of race and gender including quite a few white men who lose out on promotions or drop out of the process because they're not in the right political or social circles. And by numbers, that's probably been a major issue with the department's promotional process from sergeant to captain.

Which is interesting coming from a long time man of color in a police department which has seen millions in settlements in racial discrimination and gender discrimination cases (and Los Angeles city government often included settlement prices on their closed session meeting agendas on those lawsuits which isn't the case in Riverside), where officers started clubs advocating against female officers and as someone who is a member of the Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation, a known organization that is not shy about what it advocates in departmental practices including the promotional process.

Because the process of promoting supervisors is so involved, so meticulous, and involves a great deal of vetting (at least when promotions don't depend or are heavily influenced by drinking relationships or friendships), a lot of cases that fall out of probation or who don't pass typically are affected by whether or not they are supported in their new positions and this is for both male and female supervisors. Because promoting is only part of the process, building supervision is much more involved than that whether candidates are male or female and mentorships in both situations could accomplish a lot to increase retention rates. Perhaps they can even counter the much more problematic falling out of a supervisor's rank which is a demotion based on sustained allegations of serious misconduct. Yet, a male sergeant was able to be promoted to the rank of sergeant within 18 months during a process which allegedly requires at least two annual performance evaluations of the candidate at least meeting performance standards. And if that's the case then one of those "meet standards" evaluations must have taken place after the sustained misconduct.

One female sergeant with over 20 years of experience with the department including eight years in investigation who did very well in the process was among those passed over for promotion earlier this year by several candidates including some fairly strong candidates although ones with lessor experience and little or no investigative experience. And she was passed over in favor of a male officer with less experience, no investigative time and with a prior termination on his record which was expunged but that's really a term with an asterick next to it because terminations aren't expunged from the memories of those involved in the process in the same fashion as they can be removed from personnel records. Those who have been reinstated after being terminated on the job for the most part probably know that fact very, very well from their daily experiences after being reinstated. It's similar to when someone testifies and their testimony gets stricken from the written record but can you do the same to a juror's recollection as neatly?

That female sergeant who watched two white male sergeants get promoted who both worked on the same high profile criminal case involving one of Riverside's former police officers was promoted a month later.

It's kind of odd to see people who rank high on a list that was heavily touted as being necessary to fill out or to overcome the "low numbers" problem suddenly be negated during the time period when it's dominated by men of color or women at its top. But then it's strange to see the defense of the promotional practices by some who are also disenfranchised by that promotion system. After all, if a promotional practice is indeed exclusive on race, gender, age, religion or any similar factor, it's not a stretch to travel to take who's left and discriminate on the basis of whether or not a candidate drinks with the person who promotes, goes on vacations with him or the same church (and this was practiced in the Los Angeles Police Department in the early 1990s by a former deputy chief). Those practices are very harmful as well and they've been damaging to this department and caused many people to lose faith in the promotional process. Something that perhaps Greer should think about addressing because these practices impact many of the officers he oversees in management. Even if the new management eschews such problematic practices, they need to be learned from and treated in clear ways as being practices that are no longer pattern and practice inside the police department. Because is someone really "lacking" who didn't vacation or drink or carouse with the prior police management either? Is someone lacking because they followed a promotional process the way it was explained and laid out to them rather than fraternized with those who made the decisions? And then management is surprised when infighting over that process takes place when what would you expect? The problem with fraternization in promotional practices is that it breeds that infighting. And it's sometimes perplexing to watch a promotional process like that defended when you question its fairness when so many people men, women, of different races have been disenfranchised by its practice in one way or another beyond of its nature of exclusion through past fraternization practices including those that cost the city a ton of money in legal settlements earlier this year. And also led to the virtual collapse of the police department's management like a house of cards.

Greer opened up a topic that's worth great consideration and discussion but that shouldn't begin and end with one observation made in a public forum by a member of the department's management and hopefully it won't end there. And it's very helpful of Greer to respond on the issue in a public forum but it would also be helpful to keep a discussion involving a process that frankly perplexes and concerns quite a few people outside the department.

Riverside City Council Candidate Holds Fundraising Event

Riverside City Council candidate John Brandriff held an event at Zacatecas which was attended by over 40 people and was hosted by two retired police lieutenants Tim Bacon who gave the opening speech and Darryl Hurt.

Brandriff told the audience in attendance that two key components of his platform were accountability and transparency in local government which were two key issues in a city wrought by scandal earlier this year. He called the two police lieutenants "heroes" for exposing what was going on in City Hall and the department including alleged illegal or unethical activity by several individuals and violations of the city charter including adminstrative interference.




[Former Riverside Police Department Lt. Tim Bacon with some new facial hair speaks at a campaign event for Ward Seven City Council candidate, John Brandriff.]







[City Council candidate John Brandriff speaks at a campaign event for his Ward Seven bid next year]






[People attending the fund raiser ate food served by Zacatecas while listening to speeches.]