In a stunning reversal of previous statements, Fullerton’s acting police chief, Dan Hughes, today admitted to FullertonStories that something is terribly wrong in the department. Here are some of the highlights:
“When it was just a couple of things that got out we knew we could get by just avoiding the questions and denying everything, or even going with the old ‘a couple of bad apples’ dodge. Goodrich and Lou Ponsi were working like a well-oiled machine. But when new incidents kept coming to light, and coming, and coming, it became progressively harder to cover that all stuff up,” he said with a slight groan.
“I smiled, I stood in front of the flag, I acted indignant, and believe me, I appreciate all you did to help,” he added with a wistful smile. “You guys were great.”
“Finally, covering up just became a full-time job and I knew it was time to admit the obvious: there is a inbred Culture of Corruption in my department, and frankly, I don’t have either the desire or the ability to clean it up,” he said.
“I’ve been with the force for almost thirty years, including running the operations of the patrol function. If anybody is responsible for the sad state of this department it’s me. Rincon, Ramos, Cicinelli, Mater, Mejia…” he said in a whisper that trailed off into a series of quiet sobs. Regathering himself he concluded “therefore, I will resign as soon as another Acting Chief can be uncovered.”
You thought we were going to take this lying down?
The boys in the White Van are back, out of rehab, and once again patrolling the streets of OC.
Tanned, rested, and ready.
They have intercepted and decoded a file containing the following video emanating from Dick Ackerman’s topiary compound within a top-secreted gated community in Irvine. Will this hit-piece be effective in salvaging the political careers of the Three Blind Mice? Will it resonate? You decide!
Here’s bipedal embarrassment Dick Jones, by golly, trying to defend his pal Pat McKinley for hiring a one-eyed cop, by likening it to a Burger King hiring someone with Down Syndrome who’s just “tickled” to pick up your trash.
Go figure how many folks Jones just insulted with that premature ejaculation.
Doc Hee Haw’s little speech begs the questions as to whether or not a one-eyed man is physically capable of being a street cop at all; as to what sort of physical and psychological exams were applied to Jay Cicinelli by his patron Chief Pat McKinley; and whether or not Fullerton’s Risk Manager had approved this risky hire.
And naturally neither Jones nor McKinley bothered to share the embarrassing fact that Cicinelli had been rejected by the LAPD as physically unfit for duty in Los Angeles, and that he was receiving a disability pension from that jurisdiction.
I wonder if anybody else caught the irony of a mentally and morally disabled jackass pontificating about ‘heppin’ out the disabled.
There’s just no doubt about it. Fullerton is at least twenty, maybe thirty years past needing new leadership. Well, hell, really any sort of leadership at all.
Thanks to the generosity of Tony Bushala and the hard work of the Fullerton Recall team, the once seemingly impossible is going to happen: The Good Old Boys Club is going to be unceremoniously shown the door. For good.
So who do you think should run to replace the Three Tired Tree Sloths?
Share your preferred candidates and be sure to explain why. Good, clean fun for all!
Here’s a clip of the Channel 4 coverage of the Recall signatures submission.
It’s entertaining and sort of sad at the same time. The sad part is the sight of the lonely “no recall” sign in Don Bankhead’s front yard, and of course the interview with Bankhead who seems completely lost, as usual. His wishful thinking about bad signatures is really sort of pathetic, and you might even begin to feel a sort of pity for the old fool. But of course he loses potential sympathy by claiming to rely on the experience of those with more campaign experience that he. The inference is clear enough: Good Ol’ Don is just an amateur, citizen-type elected representative: an innocent octogenarian babe in the woods.
Yes, I am the king!
But wait a minute! Let’s back up that bus and check out Lunkhead’s electoral experience:
1988 – Fullerton City Council
1990 – County Sheriff
1992 – FCC
1994 – recall from FCC (June)
1994 – election to a different seat FCC (November)
1998 – FCC
2000 – California State Assembly Republican Primary
2002 – FCC
2006 – FCC
2010 – FCC
That’s ten elections in 23 years!
Jebus O’ Jebus. Bankhead is addicted to running for public office. He craves it like a cheap junkie craves black tar heroin. This June’s recall election will mark his eleventh election. Now it might be a bit unfair to count recall elections in the mix, but, nevertheless I humbly submitthat there is no one in OC more with more political experience than Bankhead. And I don’t mean that in a good way.
Found this in our “in basket” tonight from an anonymous correspondent:
Well, that's two of the basic food groups...
Here’s an in-depth article written by Sally French at the OC Register detailing the philanthropic spirit of the downtown Fullerton’s Slidebar “club,” and its owner, Jeremy Popoff, who has been much-maligned by people on this mean blog.
Unlike Friends for Fullerton’s Future, Sally recognizes somebody who gives back to the community – and in a big way. Feeding 700 people mac and cheese ain’t free!
The cynics on this site will say that this was merely a publicity stunt perpetrated by a douchebag with a guilty conscience or a Fear of the Living Jehovah. And I say: how much chloersterol and empty carbs have any of you given the hungry?!
Well Friends, here they are. The 2011 Fringie® winners. I hope you appreciate all the tears, blood and sweat that went into this production. You probably don’t, and that makes it easier for us to wreak havoc on your synapses and bend your reality this away and that. In life you deserve what you get. And Fullerton deserves it’s Fringie® winners.
Mr. Luv, lookin' out for my own Luv-ly Ladies of Fullerton®, oh yeah!
In the category of Dumbest Thing Said By a Politician the winner was a foregone conclusion. When you’re dealing with nincompoops like Don Bankhead and Doc Heehaw Jones, the competition is fierce. But nobody, and I mean nobody could match the ignorance, stupidity, and sheer insensitivity of the genuine and heartfelt remarks made by Pat McKinley at the Soroptomist She Bear gathering. See, to McKinley if you are the wrong kind of woman getting sexually attacked in the back of a cop car “ain’t a dangerous thing.” Just call Chief.
The Incredible Shrinking Stooge
In the category of Creepiest Political Stooge the award goes to a tiny shrunken head named Bill Gillespie. Unlike the rest of the anti-recall stooges (who have or will profit from the current Sclerotic Regime), Gillespie appears to be a stoogin’ just for the sake of stoogery. And that takes a very special kind of personality, indeed.
Rebels Fire on Fort Sumpter
The Scariest Ghost of Fullerton Past was a landslide vote for former Fullerton councilman A.B. “Buck” Catlin, who was recalled in1994 for imposing a completely unnecessary utility tax on Fullerton and who thus earned the undying love of liberals and RINOs alike, who actually named a street after him. This specter emerged in 2011 to defend the indefensible – including Don Bankheadwho was recalled right alongside him almost twenty years ago.
In the ever-popular category of Best Image, the Fringie® goes to the pair of charm-boys Ramos and Cicinelli, who created what is arguably the scariest pair of mug shots in Orange County history. These two goons in uniform are poster boys for a police force that is out of control and that answers to nobody – yet. Believe it or not, there are people in Fullerton who can look at these faces and not feel betrayal and disgust. Three of them are on the City Council – for now.
Heh, heh. Those guys owe me big time. And you're going to pick up the tab.
A lot of bad votes were taken in Fullerton in 2011, and the Selection Committee burned the midnight oil choosing the winner of the Worst Vote 2011. And by winner, I mean we all lose. Buying four times as many raincoats as you need at $90 bucks a pop? Embarrassing. Hiring a con man to deliver a pep talk to your overpaid, pampered educrats? Shameful. But when it come down to all ’round crooked dealings, the vote to jump bag man Dick Ackerman’s client from eighth place to the front of the Redevelopment multi-million dollar, low income housing bonanza line, earns first place. For Ackerman, Fullerton is just a plantation to be worked, and worked hard; and his overseers, Jones, Bankhead, and McKinley are there to make sure their anti-recall team leader gets his share of the tribute levied on the rest of us.
The Best Video of 2011? Once again the Committee was presented with several deserving nominees. In the end, however, there was consensus: the utterly comical portrait of a cop goon with important things on his mind carried the day. Yes, friends, you know what I’m talking about: Fullerton cop union boss Barry Coffman, with visions of donuts and pizza dancing through his hollow skull as he hands out tickets for “excessive horning!”
And the piece de resistance, the Failed Face of Fullerton 2011. How else can one sum up the arrogance, prevarication, sense of self-entitlement, and all ’round porcine attitude that has come to characterize Fullerton leaders and their masters in the police department. Come up with a better image. I challenge you.
The Fringies® wouldn’t be complete without the Annual Special Fringies® awarded to those who have earned distinction. One way or another.
First we award a Special Fringie® to Kelly’s Army – that ragtag assortment of lefties, libertarians and people of conscience and who banded together to show the entrenched sea anemones and their clown fish that in this country sovereignty inheres in the people, not in their politicians, and certainly not in their uniformed praetorian goon squad. Americans of good will came together – without permits, without government approval, without budgets and police power to do the right thing. A “lynch-type mob?” No, Heehaw, Americans exercising their 1st Amendment rights. Got it?
Another Special Fringie® goes to those witnesses who were willing to come forward with what they knew about the Kelly Thomas murder. God bless them, and especially God bless that OCTA bus driver who made sure the immediate eye-witness testimony without coercion or threat was recorded for posterity.
We award a Special Fringie® to Marisa Gerber of the OC Weekly, who alone among those paid to do reporting in Orange County actually did a detailed investigation of the Fullerton Police Department’s Culture of Corruption. Well done, Marisa.
With age came wisdom.
For all round cowardice and pusillanimity we recognize Fullerton’s establishment liberals who have sold their souls for mortgages, Volvos, tenure, timeshares in Taos, and whatever else they hold dear. When the chips were down they were weighed in the balance and found wanting. Hell, they weren’t there at all. A guy named Baxterdealt with them far better than we ever could.
See those four cops over there? Trying them would be too much work.
Lest we forget others who did nothing when they ought to have, let us award a Special Fringie® to our do-nothing DA Tony Rackaukas. Yes Rackauckas brought charges against the killers Ramos and Cicinelli. He also let the latter off with a puny bail; he let the other four cops at the Kelly Thomas murder scene off the hook completely; he has done nothing about the fact that their superiors coached fraudulent reports about the murder that ignored key facts; he knows and apparently doesn’t care that cops at the murder scene were witnessed confiscating cameras and film; moreover, he ignored the evident perjury by Kenneth Hampton and Frank Nguyen in the bogus Veth Mam prosecution; and he ignored the findings of his own investigator that Albert Rincon had sexually attacked a dozen women in false custody. What a guy.
Licking boots just came so darn naturally...
And to the “main steam media,” particularly those employees of the Orange County Register who until this day continue to refer to the Kelly Thomas bludgeoning death as a scuffle, a confrontation, a fight, an altercation, or some other similar unadulterated bullshit, we award you a Special Fringie® with Poison Oak Clusters and the fervent hope for a decidedly low circle in Hell when the time comes.
Fritschie. Image artistically enhanced.
Finally, a Very Special Fringie® to Fullerton Stories, an on-line (mis)information source that has remained remarkably incurious about the string of criminal and unethical behavior by Fullerton’s cops over the past several years. This operation hit rock bottom when it posted an interview with alleged itinerant jewelry peddler Richard Fritschie (above) who not only claimed to be a witness to the Kelly Thomas murder, but who took it upon himself to defend what even the DA confirms was a crime perpetrated by members of the FPD. How the rat Fritschie hooked up with Fullerton Stories in the first place certainly makes one think of the ever helpful FPD media contact Andrew Goodrich, and I’ll just leave it at that. I wonder what Fritschie’s reward was. A pack of smokes?
Well, Friends, these are the Third Annual Fringies®. It’s been a helluva year for you humans in Fullerton, and I thought I had it rough when my mistress was whacking me with that broomstick everyday. Still, 2012 promises to be better in so many ways.
And don’t forget Friends, the immortal words of Cassius in Julius Caesar: “the fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.”
This is a new category for the Fringies® and will be awarded to that douchenozzle who best represents what’s really wrong with Fullerton, jumping the tracks-wise. The Nominating Committee had all sorts of trouble winnowing out the finalists, but in the end the selections were made. It wasn’t painless, no. But it was hard work that had to be done.
Union Über Alles
1. Andrew Goodrich. The swinish face of Fullerton to the media. The liar, coverup artist, and police union boss who inexplicably is still employed by the City to hand out misinformation and punish the few journalist who dare write the truth. Proof positive that the cops run the City Council, not the other way around.
Lookin' out for the ladies, oh yeah!
2. Ex Police Chief Pat McKinley, now councilman-by-93 votes, who developed his world-view under Daryl Gates; who thinks it’s pretty much okay for cops to grope certain kinds of women, and who explained to a national audience that Kelly Thomas’ facial injuries were not life threatening.
Money was the object.
3. Dick Ackerman. The carpetbagging slime-sack from Irvine who has millions of reasons to protect the Three Dithering Diplosaurs on the Fullerton City Council, and not one of them decent. No, basic decency has nothing to do with this political fixer, lobbyist and bagman. The sooner he is chased out of our city once and for all, the better.
Will you please shut up!
4. Doc “HeeHaw” Dick Jones, the loudmouthed lout and bully who famously characterized law-abiding protesters as a “lynch-type mob” and who claimed to have seen far worse injuries than Kelly Thomas’ that were survivable. To a world-wide audience shocked at the police killing of a harmless homeless guy, Jones represented entrenched, sclerotic, ignorant authority. Those who have watched Jones in action for 15 long years saw nothing new.
Well, there are the depressing choices. And now for a flea bath and rinse.
How ashamed can one dog get? I haven’t felt so embarrassed since my mistress had my masculinity removed. Ouch. Thanks to timely reminders from some helpful Friends, I add two late entries to the Nominees in the category. They are ten and eleven. And I predict they will gain immediate support for the award.
– JFD
Still images are fun and artistic, but there’s nothing quite like a little moving picture to stir up some good, clean fun. And in the popular Fringie® category of Best Video, the Nominating Committee had lots of submissions from which to choose. Some have been nominated for their auteurship, others for their comedic value – intended, or otherwise. Enjoy.
1. Back in the innocent days of May 2011 it looked like the most action this blog might see in2011 was a little fun in the sun. Here’s our admin doing a tuck and roll, Glamis-style. His ctitics will note his head goes into the sand, but that’s better than having it go up his backside a la the Three Dead Tree Stumps.
2. In June we discovered an amusing video by some entertaining FJC slackers who could tell useless architecture when they saw it. And that puts them way ahead of trustee Molly McClanahan and her pals at Fullerton Heritage. Also notice the appearance of aggrieved FPD trolls in the comments thread.
3. In July we shared the video of Fullerton cops in action, featuring Mr. Kenton Hampton beating up an innocent witness, Veth Mam, for the unforgivable act of video recording the incident. We discovered later that Mam was actually prosecuted and absolved of attacking the cops! Hampton and cohort Frank Nguyen lied on the stand that Mam had jumped on some cop’s back. No charges of perjury from the DA. Hmm.
4. At the end of July we shared the first video of the Kelly Thomas murder, a shocking revelation of the extent of the damage inflicted on the homeless man by a gang of Fullerton cops. 940,00 people have watched this video.
5. In mid-August the weekly protesters took to the streets in a defiant march from the police station to the spot in the Transportation Center where Kelly Thomas was bludgeoned to death by members of the Fullerton police department. For an hour the streets of Fullerton really belonged to us again. Power to the people!
6. In mid-September KFI radio hosts John and Ken invited Fullerton citizenry to honk at FPD HQ in protest of the ham-fisted tickets handed out by Andrew Goodrich, Barry Coffman & Co. And honk they did!
7. Sleepy Bankhead becomes an unintentional movie star.
8. Confusing our tax dollars with handing out candy to kids is nothing new for Doc HeeHaw who’s been doing it for 15 years. Here he is handing out millions of simoleons to the anti-reacall team leader, Dick Ackerman!
9. Will you please shut up!
10. Watch Fullerton cops orchestrate the Tickets for Honkers Scam (see Nominee #6, above) and enjoy union president Barry Coffman harassing a law abiding citizen. And especially notice the last bit where Mr. Desk Cop can’t find the pen hole in his own shirt. I wonder if this is symptomatic issue for Mr. Coffman. Arf!!
11. And here’s an artistic take on Mr. Goodrich & Coffman, courtesy of a creative Friend. Excessive horning? WTF? That’s stupid even to me and I’m just a dog!
Of course the most important video of 2011 is still not available for public inspection. That’s the video WE own. The killers have seen it; their bosses have seen it; the DA and his minions have seen it. But for some reason the people’s elected representatives are still not permitted to see it – denied by the people who ostensibly work for them. We now know that’s just a sham. The cops run Fullerton and thanks to the incompetence of Jones, McKinley and Bankhead they run it any damn way they please. But that’s coming to an end.
Another popular Fringie® category, Worst Vote, once again had the Nominating Committee sifting through reams of material trying to separate the ridiculous from the sublimely ridiculous. The effort was herculean, and by herculean I mean mind-numbingly depressing. And so the Committee, exhausted and babbling, climbed into a dune buggy and drove off into the cold desert night with nothing but twelve bottles of Thunderbird® and soda crackers.
Anyway here’s what they left behind.
1. In November the Fullerton City Council really distinguished itself, buying 200 special raincoats to keep their police force dry, even though the force only consists of 140 cops, only a few of which would ever be on duty in the rain. They spent $17,000 on that outlay, almost $90 per, but hey, sometime you’ve got to say that money is no object. The vote was 5-0.
Faith and begorrah, 'twas a blessing to be Irish!
2. In July the Fullerton School Board voted 4-1 to hire a huckster named Rudy Ruetigger to be their management retreat’s motivation speaker at $2000, a real bargain. Maybe the bargain basement price was due to the fact that the SEC was nipping at Rudy’s heels. None of the Trustees who supported this extravagance seems to have been the least bit curious about why six-figure salaries plus benefits wasn’t ample motivation for Fullerton’s educrat class.
Me 'n my aliens are about to stomp you.
3. In December the Three Hollow Logs on the Fullerton City Council elected one of their own, Pat McKinley, to be the back up face of Fullerton as Mayor Pro Tem. Well this is perfectly appropriate. McKinley, who makes $20,000 each and every month as a retired public employee is a poster child for runaway pension abuse in California; his insulting and ignorant comments about Kelly Thomas’ injuries, and his jaw-droppingly embarrassing views on sexual battery perpetrated by his policeman make him a perfect symbol of an entrenched, sclerotic, gerontocracy.
Try me, you' like me!
4. In August, as the pressure of world-wide scrutiny mounted, the City Council voted 4-1 to hire an outside contractor named Michael Gennaco to avoid doing needed to done: an immediate house cleaning. More wasted dough. An accompanying action was to create a task force on homeless issues, chaired by Rusty Kennedy, friend of cops throughout OC. The creation of this committee was the rudest diversion of all, suggesting that the real issue wasn’t an out-of-control gang of thugs, pickpockets, perjurers, and killers roaming the streets of Fullerton in police uniforms.
Heh, heh. Nobody laid a glove on me!
5. Also in Augustthe Three Hollow Logs needed to prove they still had potent f-up mojo and awarded a multi-million dollar subsidized housing project to the clients of the guy who would become the Recall defense team leader, Dick Ackerman. Ackerman’s client St. Anton Partners who is slated to get millions of public money jumped all the way from eighth place into the driver’s seat. The Age of Miracles is not over!
6. Back in March the Three Tree Stumps voted to try to hide Redevelopment assets from the State, because, let’s face it, these so-called conservatives are hooked on government central planned boondoggles like a junkie is on black tar heroin.
7. The Fullerton School Board granted furlough days to their teachers instead of a comparatively small pay cut. Trustee and union jock strap Janny Meyer opined on face book, and we were there to share her illiterate boo-hooing.
Not ready for prime time...
8. Away back in April the City Council gave “acting” City Manager Joe Felz the permanent job without ever having engaged in a search. Three months later Felz would wilt like an old leaf of lettuce in the sun. Joe probably figured the job would be a breeze. After all his predecessors Chis Meyer and Jim Armstrong got away with murder (figuratively). His police force wasn’t so lucky (literally).
Well, Friends, them there’s some pretty bad votes. Feel free to share your opinion.
