“This Isn’t What Happens on Adam 12”
Thus spake newly minted Fullerton police chief in an LA Times article, here, thoughtfully provided by a frequent commenter Jane H.
Pat McKinley was referring to the Rodney King beating at the hands of his colleagues in the LAPD that turned out to be the catalyst for the most destructive riots in American history.
Here’s the money quote from the egregious McKinley:
“Hey, we’ve got to do some training, we have to provide appropriate tools for officers on the streets and we need to go on.”
Uh, yeah, Pat. Good deduction. Let’s “go on.”
Speaking of training, McKinley style, flash forward to the fall of 2010 when McKinley-hire Kenton Hampton knocks the phone camera out of Veth Mam’s hands before throwing him to the pavement like a rag doll and dropping his 250 lbs of bulk on the helpless Mam. That’ll teach him to document the activities of McKinley’s downtown goon squad.
Then flash forward again to the sultry night of July 5th, 2011 when six McKinley hires (including Hampton, again) beat the mentally ill transient, Kelly Thomas, to death. In the aftermath of the killing we now know that digital and film records of the event were purloined by FPD cops at the scene.
If you ask me, what McKinley really learned from the Rodney King case, and what he meant by “training” was to make sure that witnesses who recorded the event were properly shaken down, intimidated and relieved of any incriminating visual evidence.
Oops! Too late. McKinley’s crew never dreamed that THEIR own camera would testify against them.
That shaved head come in real handy for colonic insertion: less friction.
That brings to mind a question. Why are most cop heads shaved? Is it some kind of cult thing? Like being fat?
Yes. That way when when innocent people are crushed, the victims can’t grab the cops hair. Same reason the bangers do it.
seriously?
Who is the bald guy with the microphone? He looks like he just pulled out a huge booger.
Maybe Rodney King had a very high pain tolerance, so they had to beat him extra hard. Just like Kelly Thomas.
These are some sick people.
Let me say it again:
If you steal or even temporarily take evidence about your crime, or the crime of another person, your action is an “accessory after the fact” crime.
In this case, it is being an “accessory after the fact to the crime of second degree murder.” (Really, First Degree Murder, because there was a conspiracy to kill Kelly Thomas, but right now that is a hard sell.) Anybody who has had first year law school training knows that — it is bread-and-butter basic.
Have you noticed? No one has come forward to challenge me and tell me that my legal reasoning is wrong. Guess why.
Now everybody do this: print out this blog and the comments. Then go and publicly confront Tony Rackauckas, the way that women confronted Pat McKinley last week. Ask him why he is not prosecuting “accessory crime” against those members of the Fullerton Six who seized the evidence.
Send copies of this to his Office, by certified mail. Keep track of when it was delivered.
Hire private process servers to serve copies of this upon him, with video footage to prove that he was “served” with this little snippet.
Then, when it is established beyond doubt that he has been “informed” that some of the Fullerton Six seized evidence for the purposes of covering up the incident, you can accuse him of willfully failing to prosecute accessory crimes of which he is aware.
Perhaps Admin or other bloggers can tell us if any evidence was seized, and then never turned over to the DA’s Office. That would be a “black and white” case. The mere act of seizure, absent spoliation [remember the frozen bananas?] of evidence, puts it into a “gray case”… but there is still Probable Cause to find an attempt, from the mere act of seizing evidence.
Now, how badly do you want justice for Kelly Thomas?? WSH
Sadly the majority of people calling themselves “Kelly’s Army” (I’m mostly talking about the pretty faces and hipsters from facebook) only cared when TV cameras were around and Ron Thomas only cares about $$$ and satisfying his “ego”.
When Ron Thomas walked away from the protest it was no surprise that others chose not to continue the fight because Ron thomas = Cameras. No Ron Thomas = No cameras.
Even the occupy irvine and santa ana people do not care and the national organization of women and gloria allred never responded to my messages about the sexual assaults of women in fullerton by the police department.
Sadly there will never be justice for Kelly. The OC is too corrupt and full of cronyism to allow that to happen. Ron will get his multi-million dollar payout and skip down, Ramos and Cincinelli will get off on a technicality, Wolfe will be back on duty (if he isnt already), Hampton will transfer to another department (probably out of state) and the list goes on.
In the meanwhile the citizens of fullerton will be stuck footing a multi-million dollar bill but most won’t mind until the city goes bankrupt.
Exactly. Old Ronny proved that the naysayers were right all along. His was a well orchestrated publicity gimmic and he managed to get Ron’s Army to make his case for him. I hope he, at least, sends everyone a thank you card mailed from Cabo. Those retired cops sure know how to play the game for maximum cash benefit, don’t they?
What an awful thing to say! You make it sound as if “Old Ronny” set the whole thing up. Any compensation that survivors may get could never be enough to cover the shame of these police officers.
Stupid nonsense. Ron mobilized a community outraged by the killing of his son. With 2 indictments and the Gennaco investigation under way, Ron wants a pause to see what is going to happen. Which is understandable, but irrelevant. The community continues to be outraged and will continue to protest IN OUR OWN WAYS until the FPD is abolished or reformed.
I the conspiracy to kill Kelly based on deduction, or is there positive evidence?
are you sure it is deduction or induction that will solve this case, sherlock holmes?
There is an even larger problem than the fact that these six police officers contributed to the death of a mentally incompetent man: The whole system for getting lawbreakers arrested who are government officials is corrupted. The DA needs the police force to back his attempts to convict accused persons. Without these…uh…police officers he can’t do his job. A police officer is above the law. We need a system to arrest lawbreakers who are part of the DA’s system that does not include him or his office to move ahead with prosecution. I have a growing fear every day that the government, all of it, has risen in power to such a degree, that we all have to obey their edicts. Let’s try to use the vote to change all this. If that doesn’t work, we will come up with something else. We are not going to allow this to continue. We absolutely will not!
Apparently, Mckinley didn’t learn anything from the Rodney King fiasco!
McKinley learned a lot from the Rodney King incident.
1. Public sentiment and bias
2. How much can you get by with
3. How strong is the blue bond & code
4. Loyalty to family
5. How to present the victim as an agressor.
Question:::
Does anybody recall what Rodney King did that initiated such an onslaught of violence on his person. This incident was escalated by the police to a national situation which caused a riot with subsequent enormous personal injuries and property damages.
Yeah, I hear all of you wanting to lay blame on the race baiting game. Its not okay.
If Kelly Thomas had been a Negro, DTF and the FPD would be under control of the National Guard.
Seems like the only one race baiting here is you.
…Hmm. I don’t recall that happening when Oscar Grant was shot point blank by BART Police.
Rodney King was driving erraticaly and was suspected of being DUI. Then he failed to yield and led the police on a pursuit of a few miles. When he finally pulled over in Lakeview Terrace, he was obviously on alcohol and/or drugs. The cops on the scene thought he was on PCP, but I believe was never tested for it.
Instead of submitting to arrest, King taunted the police and threw off their original attempts to cuff him. Back-up was called and the scene resembled two football teams of cops surrounding a football.
I’ll let Reality Is correct the above and fill in the play-by-play I don’t know below. But there was no coordinated attempt or methodology to bring King down without using lethal force, so the thing went on for quite some time. When King came to the ring of cops he was hit with a baton. Finally they swarmed him, but fought hard, so he was beaten as they tried to cuff him. I beleive that when he was cuffed the beating stopped.
Only thirty seconds of the video were shown again and again on TV–the swarming and beating. The part that showed King as the aggressor was seldom played.
King committed a crime. Kelly did not. King was immediately agressive. Kelly tried to cooperate for ten minutes until Ramos declared to Kelly that Ramos was going to counter Kelly’s fidgeting with violence.
the best way to sweep this mess, the murder of a homeless, schizophrenic man by fullerton police officers, is to set up a task force focusing on the issues that confront the homeless and how police and community may react to these same issues?
Did I say anything worthwhile? No. will a task force do anything to remediate the cover-up of a murder committed by our police force and covered-up by our city’s civic leaders? No. The window dressing known as fullerton’s task force on the homeless and mentally ill is another attempt to switch the focus away from the murderers and their accomplices. we the good people of fullerton should not allow ourselves to be so easily diverted by our civic leaders continued sleazy tactics.
Like 🙂
What’s happening in Fullerton is happening all over the U.S. – but people in the Midwest are still too cowed by authority to speak out.
Unfortunately for the good cops that are out there, they’ll be tarred along with the fascist pigs in their ranks because they too refuse to speak out against the brutality and corruption.
So the problem will fester until it explodes.
Now is the time to get into the business of making black bands for funerals
More on police culture:
Los Angeles:
The Christopher Commission Report
In July 1991, some four months after the King beating, the Christopher Commission report was published. The commission, headed by attorney Warren Christopher (who later became U.S. Secretary of State), was created to conduct “a full and fair examination of the structure and operation of the LAPD,” including its recruitment and training practices, internal disciplinary system, and citizen complaint system.11 Its investigation and report was unprecedented, reviewing a five-yearperiod of internal use of force reports, Mobile Digital Terminal (MDT) transmissions between squad cars and police stations, and eighty-three civil damages cases involving excessive force settled by the City Attorney for more than $15,000. The commission also held hearings and interviewed scores of officials and residents.
The following are, verbatim, some of the commission’s findings:
There is a significant number of officers in the LAPD who repetitively use excessive force against the public and persistently ignore the written guidelines of the department regarding force.12
The failure to control these officers is a management issue that is at the heart of the problem. The documents and data that we have analyzed have all been available to the department; indeed, most of this information came from that source. The LAPD’s failure to analyze and act upon these revealing data evidences a significant breakdown in the management and leadership of the Department. The Police Commission, lacking investigators or other resources, failed in its duty to monitor the Department in this sensitive use of force area. The Department not only failed to deal with the problem group of officers but it often rewarded them with positive evaluations and promotions.13
We recommend a new standard of accountability….Ugly incidents will not diminish until ranking officers know they will be held responsible for what happens in their sector, whether or not they personally participate.”14
The commission highlighted the problem of “repeat offenders” on the force, finding that of approximately 1,800 officers against whom an allegation of excessive force or improper tactics was made from 1986 to 1990, more than 1,400 had only one or two allegations. But 183 officers had four or more allegations, forty-four had six or more, sixteen had eight or more, and one had sixteen such allegations. Generally, the forty-four officers with six complaints or more had received positive performance evaluations that failed to record “sustained” complaints or to discuss their significance.
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/reports98/police/uspo73.htm#P2030_509594
Have we really learned anything?
Substitute FPD for LAPD and what’s the difference from today?
add a corpse
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt on fascism and nazi-ism.
Seems we never learn … (*sigh!*)
Great quote! But how many people are even interested when our society is dominated by celebrity pop-culture garbage? Because of the circumstances surrounding the Kelly Thomas death, the entire City of Fullerton should have been protesting! Where the hell were they?
Kenton Hampton was too stupid to smash the phone.
Angry and stupid is no way to go through life.
Son.
speculate all you want-the truth is the truth and in the end that will shine -nobody will get away with the wrong deeds they have done recently or in the past- I have faith in just that alone
Last night I spoke to someone at the Dog Park and they said the same thing that I have been preaching about all along. It starts with the training he said that these guys were never trained properly and especially the 3 that were trained by FCPA. Fullerton hired former LAPD swat cops that were on disability or worker’s comp to train these poeple. These trainers were milking the system and training these cops incorrectly. These were the ones who caused the problem. I will quote what one of them said, “niceness is a sign of weakness!” When a recruit reported that the guys were cheating on the Learning Domains. The instructors found a way to boot the recruit out! All of the chiefs and city people who were involved with the college were in on it. This whole fiasco is all about you do for me and I will do for you including the hire of the one-eyed cop!
It’s too bad that they did something so horrible as to kill someone but let me tell you they were no angels in the acadamy, As the trial gets closer you might have a few go state evidence because they are afraid of going to jail. I only hope the system doesn’t let me down!
I hope the system doesn’t let US down.
Levelthefield:
I think it’s real swell that you’re using such groovy words from the 60’s like ‘negro’.
Scooby doo!
Facism lives in Fullerton!!!