Just give me a few more minutes and I'll come up with something even dumber...
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.
A couple of months a go we related a pathetic pro-cop piece written by the OC Register’s David Whiting, who is used to writing about wild flowers and bike trails and who, if the Register weren’t sinking, would probably be forced to stick to those bucolic endeavors.
Here is this toady’s latest effort. He has coughed up just about the lamest propaganda for the Three Desiccated Dinosaurs imaginable. It’s all about their quiet, dignified “leadership.” He helpfully supplies thumbnail biographies of his new heroes: Jones Bankhead and McKinley.
For Whiting everything has to do with how these three handled the murder of Kelly Thomas. But he conveniently omits some shocking truths; thruths like the abandonment of civilian oversight of the FPD as it descended into criminal chaos under McKinley’s reign of error; of a conga line of law suits, criminal and civil rights accusations, arrests and convictions of cops for one crime after another, about false police reports and perjury. Theft. Sexual battery. Fraud. Assault. False arrest. You name it.
Shallow observers like Whiting want to think the recall is about Kelly Thomas as an isolated, unavoidable incident; it isn’t. It’s about a Culture of Corruption created and fostered by Jones, Bankhead, and McKinley and they essentially turned over the police department to their union supporters – going so far as to permit one of the union bosses to act as an official city spokesman, a position this individual has used, and grossly abused in trying to help his union brethren escape responsibility for their criminal behavior.
Then there are the other troubling issues that Whiting knows and cares nothing about: the use of Redevelopment by The Three Myopic Miscreants to reward their political supporters and campaign contributors; the serial boondoggles and wasted millions in pursuit of one cockeyed master plan after another. It’s about the cesspool these individuals have created in downtown Fullerton; it’s about creating a criminal praetorian guard to patrol the downtown sidewalks – those that haven’t yet been given away to campaign contributors.
And then there is the disgraceful 10% tax on the water users of Fullerton, a $2.5 million annual ripoff that goes to pay the massive pensions and perks enjoyed by Jones, Bankhead and McKinley. It’s been illegal to impose such a tax for years, but Bankhead and Jones have been cheerfully ripping us off for decades.
Enough is enough. Time to break out the municipal broom and sweep these malefactors out of City Hall. Lackeys like Whiting will never permit themselves to comprehend the truth we know, and that thanks to Kelly Thomas many more people now realize: Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley are not leaders, dignified or otherwise. Real leaders take responsibility for their actions and their inactions. They are accountable. These three are detached, self-serving, arrogant clowns pretending to be something thy are not. If they won’t leave voluntarily we will help them to the door.
Here’s a damn funny letter sent into the Fullerton Observer by clever wordsmith Anthony “Big Tony” Florentine, a local “family friendly” bar owner and notorious rules-dodger. He has hundreds of thousands of reasons to support his corrupt pals on the City Council since they turned a blind eye to his illegal night club operation and then actually subsidized a fire sprinkler main so he could keep liquoring up the cast of Doc HeeHaw’s Wild West Show.
You may also recall how Big Tony even managed to swipe a public sidewalk with the help of his pals on the city council – probably the most blatant swindle in the history of Fullerton.
Florentine has been giving the Three Dyspeptic Dinosaurs campaign contributions for years and years, so these profitable quid pro quos shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody. But it sure makes it hard to believe this cut rate Tony Soprano’s sincerity when he says anybody else on the planet is “full of shit.”
The best part of his letter is how this cheap bastard bamboozles The Observer into giving him a free ad for his place of business. Anyway, here is Florentine’s letter:
I was at Smart & Final several weeks ago where Tony Bushala was sitting at a card table soliciting signatures for the recall. I greeted him, shook his hand, and told him I thought he was full of s**t, and that what he was doing to our City was BS.
I offered that his only interest in this tragedy is to get control of the City Council so he can foist development projects that may be of questionable value. Whereupon he lost it and went berserk, which he is wont to do when one disagrees with him.
My expletives were not meant to insult him (I’m sure that would be hard to do), I used language I knew he could understand and that described his condition and the content of his actions.
There was no one outside Joe Florentine’s restaurant soliciting signatures, and no one who came outside and spit on anyone. If that had been the case why wouldn’t they have called the Fullerton P.D., identified the person and had them arrested for assault?
The whole story is another Bushala-inspired fabrication meant to discredit someone he doesn’t like.
By the way Florentines’ has a delicious new value added menu with large portions and a family friendly atmosphere. Try it. You’ll like it.
By the way, who are you and whom do you represent?
Last April I wrote this look back at what sure seemed like monkey business on the part of FPD spokesorifice Andrew Goodrich. Knowing what we know now about the lawless way that FPD operates when so inclined, the idea that they leaked potentially embarrasing information about someone they considered a political enemy is in no way surprising.
Many have wondered how Goodrich, after having failed to tell a single truth at any juncture of the Kelly Thomas murder epsiode, kept his job. The obvious answer is that the City Council, the City Manager, and the Acting Chief think he is doing a good job.
It could also be that because the estimable Goodrich is an officer in the police union they don’t have the guts to take this valuable piece of manpower and put him back on the street.
– Joe Sipowicz
The other day, our Travis Kiger engaged in a comical e-mail exchange with Fullerton PD’s $130,000 per year spokesperson, Sergeant Andrew Goodrich. Here it is:
Note that according to Goodrich, FPD policy is that the police log book may be perused at the station – but not copied. When unexpectedly queried as to how the Voice of OC(EA) managed to get a copy of a domestic dispute entry involving Assemblyman Chris Norby last September, the good Sergeant noted that it was due to the “constant” requests they had from the media. Hmm. Well, that makes so little sense that we may as well backtrack to review what happened. Something ain’t quite kosher. In fact a smell is emanating from this pile of Goodrich road apples.
Last fall, 72nd Assemblyman Chris Norby seems to have gotten into an argument with his wife. Some sort of delivery person, adventitiously arriving at the front door of Casa Norby, called the cops, who arrived, took a statement, and left. The date of the incident was September 2nd.
The Voice of OC(EA) finally got around to posting about the issue, here, on September 27 – almost four weeks after the fact.The Register followed up with a story a couple of days later. Other than that, general media silence. Wow, Andy, what a feeding frenzy!
Now that we know Goodrich’s excuse for violating FPD policy is nonsense, we are entitled to ask why Goodrich was so cavalier about passing out copies of the log – against policy; and further, we ought to ask how and why the Norby episode came to light at all.
Note that the report posted by the Voice of OC(EA) was time stamped September 20, seven days before it was published. This means that they either sat on the story for seven days, or they received the document several days after it was printed. Hmm. And remember, according to Goodrich, the log is regularly purged.
Although it is possible that the Voice took a week to getting around to publishing its story, is it at all likely that an intrepid Voice reporter came across an FPD log entry in the course of his typical day’s toil? Or is it a whole Hell of a lot more likely that an employee of the Fullerton Police Department, growing tired of waiting for some lucky journalist to discover what would surely be an embarrassment for Norby, leaked it to a pro-union news source?
Mr. Goodrich could help clear this up by sharing his records of media requests for this information, and explain the date on the printout.
Of course it is possible that some other party reading the log came across the item, recognized Norby’s address, and passed it on to the Voice; but that would be supported by pretty long odds.
In any case, there certainly is an object lesson here for all of us, Friends. Privacy seems to be selectively practiced by the Fullerton Police Department. And mostly it is not practiced to protect the public – but them.
Frequent commenter, blessusall stopped by yesterday to share a thought about the formal “apology” on today’s City Council Agenda. As you all know the apology was from the City to the Nordell family because last year a bunch of heavily armed FPD cops broke into their house by mistake in some sort of botched drug raid.
blessusall opined about the irony of this insincere apology (got only by dodged persistence by the Nordells) vis-a-vis all the other FPD misbehaving’ going on lately and suggested the City might:
Who else, indeed. These pages are strewn with the miscreance, mayhem, and murder perpetrated by Pat McKinley’s hirees and trainees. At this point even the most die-hard cop apologist must be wondering about the stuff that hasn’t even emerged yet, and how much all this crap is going to cost the taxpayers of Fullerton.
Apology? Hell, yes! And why not demand that apology tonight!
In yesterday’s OC Register, Councilman Pat McKinley, the chief architect of the Fullerton Police Department’s profound culture of corruption, responded to the news that KFI’s John and Ken are coming to Fullerton to promote his recall.
“They are toxic people who create problems for a lot of folks. I wish they would stay away.”
More PR gold from the man who ran the FPD into a moral cesspool during his 16-year stint as Chief of Police.
Oddly, McKinley has offered no public opinion as to the comparative toxicity of:
1) police officer sentenced to jail for fraud to support his pill habit.
2) police officer arrested in Miami airport for iPad theft.
3) police officer who smashed recording device on jail wall to avoid complicity in jail suicide.
4) police officers beating up and falsely arresting Veth Mam.
5) police officers lying on the witness stand about Veth Mam.
6) police officer beating up and falsely arresting Edward Quinonez.
7) police officer sexually assaulting a dozen women in the backseat of his patrol car, with recording device turned off.
8 ) police officers issuing traffic citations to harass protesters.
9) police officers ambushing and murdering a helpless homeless man.
10) police officers turning off recording devices during murder.
11) police officers colluding to falsify reports about said murder.
12) superior officers coaching said falsification.
13) return to street of said miscreants.
14) police officer spokeshole deliberately issuing lies to the media to misdirect, temporize, stall and otherwise obscure said murder and cover up.
15) councilmembers insulting protesters as “lynch-type mob.”
16) councilmembers discounting injuries of murder victim.
17) police officer arrests Emmanuel Martinez by mistake (or on purpose) and he spends 5 months in jail.
Good God! What a litany of toxic behavior, and the really scary part is that this is only the stuff we know about. And the chowderhead McKinley has the nerve to call anybody else on the planet “toxic?” The level of denial of responsibility is remarkable. Of course being given a $215,000 a year pension may create an unavoidable attitude of arrogance and self-entitlement.
However, Mr. McPension has a generous streak, to be sure:
“Councilman Pat McKinley said he supports the radio hosts right to stage a rally, but the former Fullerton police chief certainly disagrees with the pair’s opinions…”
Well, thanks awfully, Pat. You support the First Amendment. Well, you support it when people are watching, obviously. No elaboration about what he specifically disagrees with John and Ken about.
A keen eyed observer forwarded the plea to raise bail money for accused Fullerton killer cop Manny Ramos, by someone named Benjamin Lira, on a website called Big City Cop. We posted about this earlier today.
There is an FPD cop named Benjamin Lira so this is no case of mistaken identity.
The logo of this charming association of paranoid bullies with guns and badges is a skull and crossbones set. Across the forehead of the skull is the telling phrase (in Latin) oderint dum metuant.
Now you know the moral fiber of your enemy. Non-existant.
“Let them hate so long as they fear.” The favored phrase of the Roman Emperor Caligula, who favored incest, murder, incest, oh, and did I say murder? Now that’s fitting.
Yet a curious motto for people sworn to serve and protect the public; but not at all strange for those afflicted with a twisted narcissism co-joined with a deep paranoia and a pathetic sense of entitlement.
How sick minds like these ever got hold of badges and guns is beyond me, but not beyond enablers like Pat McKinley who is one of them.
For years now various members of this blog have railed against Congressman-for-Life Ed Royce and the way he has worked hard to stick Fullerton with the most useless, imbecilic repuglican drones he can scrounge up. Idiots, young and old; especially old: geezers who pose no political threat to anybody and who could be relied upon to oppose potential Democrat challengers of Royce himself.
Royce has never given a damn that he helped foist upon his hometown a biblical succession of big government RINOs whose only distinction from the Democrats he fears so much is party affiliation.
But Royce’s chickens are finally coming home to roost with revelation after revelation of malfeasance and mismanagement of the Fullerton Police Department that was supposed to be overseen by the very drones he has supported year after dismal year. Of course Pat McKinley, Royce’s latest political project, is now the poster boy for FPD corruption.
Well, I’m sick and tired of Royce meddling in Fullerton politics to the detriment of the City. The results have been absolutely disastrous for the citizens of our town, and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Fortunately we have a recall in process to clean out Ed’s stable.
Sign the recall petition today.
And thanks to redistricting we also have the opportunity to rid ourselves of Ed himself. In the game of Congressional musical chairs Royce finds himself looking for the same seat as Gary Miller of Diamond Bar.
How do I get rid of this thing?
So how about a third choice? Are the pickings so slim in north Orange County that we can find at least one candidate who doesn’t have the triple albatross of Jones, Bankhead and McKinley around his neck?
There’s a new filing in the Officer Rincon sexual assault case, and it’s not looking good for the city.
Federal Judge Andrew Guilford turned down the City’s request to throw out the case, and he offered his pointed thoughts on the Fullerton Police Department’s policy of ignoring officer misdeeds:
The Judge chastised the city for “tacit authorization” of Rincon’s despicable behavior.
Then the judge was shocked at the city’s failure to appropriately discipline the officer for his sexual assaults on multiple women.
Finally, the judge conveyed his dismay that Rincon is still on the loose with a gun and a badge.
Of course, the man responsible for puting, and keeping loverboy on the streets of Fullerton to prey upon unsuspecting women was none other than former police chief and current city councilman, Pat McKinley.
I wonder what Chief Pat has to say about the Judge’s comments? I wonder what his defenders – who like to call Fullerton a “family community” – have to say.
Lookin' out for the ladies. Oh, yeah!
And of course I wonder how many of the people that voted for this screw-up last November would have done so had they known of the extensive culture of corruption that was cultivated by McKinley in the Fullerton Police Department; a cultivation that is only now blossoming into a full, noxious bloom.
Mr. Wiechmann insisted on informing us what great guys Mssrs. Ramos and Cicinelli are. From his vantage point on board the S.S. Douchebag, Ramos and Cicinelli look like some sort of stand up guys. But Art’s judgment may not be that great, either.
Find Arthur...
Art, you got a call. Disney wants its Pirates of Carribean animatrons back.
