Mr. Peabody, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

June 7, 2012Law N Disorder

Barry Coffman Says We Are Misinformed

Bungling Barry — The donut holes would come later...

Echoing the sentiments of his boss and apparent mentor, Acting Police Chief Dan Hughes, Fullerton cop union leader Barry Coffman says those who characterize the FPD as having a corruption problem are misinformed. Here are his exact words from a Register article.

“I think they are misinformed,” Coffman said about anyone saying the department has had corruption. “They don’t know what corrupt is. … They take this Kelly Thomas incident and say there has been a cover-up. Just because they didn’t get information when they wanted it, they conclude there is corruption.”

Predictably, Coffman chooses to gloss over the long string of malfeasance perpetrated by members of the FPD, mostly card-carrying members of his own union. See, Barry is suddenly confronted with the very real possibility that Fullerton might consider outside offers to take over policing in Fullerton, offers that could save as much as $10,000,000, annually.

Well, Mr. Excessive Horning has a selective and self-serving memory. I don’t. Here’s what I remember from just the past year:

Albert Rincon – Accused of multiple sexual assaults. City styles two cases for $350,000.

Todd Major – Fraud. Ripped off Explorers.

Kelly Mejia – Grand theft.

Miguel Siliceo – misidentification of suspect. Wrong guy spends 5 moths in jail.

Vince Mater – Charged by DA with destruction of evidence in jail suicide case.

Manuel Ramos – Accused of assaulting disabled man in June, 2011.

Kenton Hampton – Accused of battery and false arrest against Veth Mam and Edward Quinonez. Cooked up story to attempt to convict Mam. Jury acquits Mam.

Frank Nguyen – bogus testimony in Mam case.

Robert “Go home or go to jail” Kirk – Threatens law abiding citizens with jail for watching the FPD at work. Later spotted in the “excessive horning” debacle.

Perry Thayer – accused of roughing up downtown visitor

Cary Tong – ditto

April Baughman – stole from the FPD property room for two years before getting caught. Hmm. No accomplices? No inventory?

Andrew Goodrich – peddled falsehoods about the Kelly Thomas killing that were never retracted.

Barry Coffman(!) – proud participant in Dan Hughes’ excessive horning scam.

Tom “Tango” Basham – allegedly the watch commander the night of the Thomas murder, and player #1 in the subsequent cover up.

Christopher Wren – off the hook in the Rincon assaults, but plead no contest to “false imprisonment” against some kid in the IE – bargaining down battery charges. Anger management took care of his legal problems. Ours are still pending.

Dan Hughes – boss of all the above

Etc., etc.

Of course the “incident” with Kelly Thomas stands in a class by itself for malicious, incompetence, and murderous thuggery. We will always remember the names Ramos, Wolfe, Cicinelli, Blatney, Craig. Oh and let’s not forget our old friend Hampton.

Say, Barry, tell us again who is misinformed?

June 3, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down…

by Mr. Peabody239 Comments

I discovered this hanging from my door knob this morning, courtesy of the Fullerton Recall team. Yowzer! Look down there at the bottom of the salary side: Thomas Basham – the alleged Watch Commander who watched his boys beat Kelly Thomas to death. And on the pension side get a load of #2: Former City Manager, and anti-recall contributor, Chris Meyer who pulled in $171K in pension last year. He sure has lots of reasons to back the Three Bald Tires.

June 1, 2012June 1, 2012Behind Closed Doors

More Bad News For Fullerton Taxpayers; Another Lawsuit Against FPD and Manny Ramos

by Mr. Peabody109 Comments

Manny's Boo boo — The bloated Ramos. Hard to tell where the cop ends and the night begins.

UPDATE. From KNBC: “Sgt. Jeff Stuart, a Fullerton Police Department spokesman, did not return a call seeking comment.”

Now that’s not very good way to improve communication with the community, now is it?

– Mr. Peabody

Over at the OC Weekly, ace reporter R. Scott Moxley has written a post detailing an incident between Fullerton cop Manny Ramos and a 58 year old disabled guy named Mark Edwin Walker. It appears the gist of the thing is that last June 21, two weeks before he instigated the Kelly Thomas murder, Ramos, without provocation or cause, confronted Walker outside an Albertson’s in Fullerton, threw the man to the ground, stomped on him and tossed him in jail, charged with public intoxication, resisting arrest, or some other such nonsense.

Subsequently a judge threw the case out and Walker lawyered up. Of course this is all Walker’s story and it may be self-serving; but it also sounds a heckuva lot like the Veth Mam case. Who’s a jury going to believe now?

Ca-ching. The Culture of Corruption marches on.

May 31, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Joe Felz “Streamlines” City Government

by Mr. Peabody162 Comments

The City of Fullerton issued a press release yesterday identifying some job reassignments. Here’s a link to the press release.

How any of this game of musical deck chairs constitutes a real “streamlining” of anything is anybody’s guess, but it sounds good and appears proactive. I remain highly skeptical of people moving into technical jobs like Risk Management just because there may be an opening and a body with which to fill it; likewise the relocation of an Redevelopment “manager” into a completely unrelated area like accounting and payroll to avoid just cutting them and their big salaries and pensions loose.

How someone with a degree in Anthopology becomes an expert in Economic Development is a complete mystery to me.

May 26, 2012May 25, 2012Boohooism

Doug Chaffee Gets Serious…

by Mr. Peabody124 Comments

Okay, get beyond the hilariously portentous music and the dyed hair, and choose your favorite phrases.

“A few changes…”

“If we can ever get there…”

“Right now we’re a little short…”

“Community based policing…”

I was standing in the lobby of City Hall last week as Chaffee went to the table there to fill out a speaker card, went outside to make a phone call, and then vanished. He just couldn’t get up there to say anything. maybe he finally realized that the jig was up.

After waiting 11 months and saying zip about the Kelly Thomas murder we’re supposed to believe this limp noodle wants to reform anything?

May 16, 2012May 16, 2012A Step in the Right Direction

Local Troublemaker Makes Cover of OC Weekly

by Mr. Peabody127 Comments

Our “millionaire many times over” admin makes the big time last week with a cover story by Brandon Fergeson in the OC Weekly. Here’s how it starts:

Tony Bushala first met Manuel Ramos more than 20 years ago when Bushala played drums with Teatro Cometa, a theater group that performed bilingual one-act plays in Fullerton in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Ramos, who was about 10, was the son of one of the actresses; his uncle, Bushala’s best friend at the time, directed the troupe. Occasionally, Ramos would sit quietly in the audience and watch rehearsals.

Bushala, now 53 and a millionaire many times over, eventually moved on from drumming to managing his father’s extensive properties in Fullerton and elsewhere, becoming a real-estate developer and a vocal opponent of city government. In 2006, Bushala was riding his bicycle when he bumped into Ramos, who was now a hulking, overweight guy in his mid-30s, dressed in the uniform of the Fullerton Police Department.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

May 10, 2012May 10, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Fullerton Stories Gets a Pooper Scoop!

by Mr. Peabody193 Comments

I just came across this post I ran last August. It’s all about how some chucklehead named Davis Barber posted a story on his local blog about Richard Fritschie – who popped up almost on cue to spin a yarn that exonerated the cops in the beating death of Kelly Thomas. After that we have heard nothing more from Mr. Fritschie. I wonder why not. I also still wonder, as did “Mark S.” how this “witness” was put in contact with Barber in the first place, real convenient, like.

For some reason I can’t get the smug, rotund countenance of Sergeant Andrew Goodrich out of my mind ever since Mark S. put it there.

– Mr. Peabody

I just received an e-mail from one of our Friends that has to do with a new-found witness to the Kelly Thomas bludgeoning death. I’ll let our correspondent do the talking:

Hey, FFFF, over at the Fullerton Stories website they have a post about some person calling himself Richard Fritschie (image attached) who claims that he saw the Thomas homicide and that justifies the horrible beating and torture Kelly received at the hands of the FPD. Mr. Ritschie claims to be a street person and an itinerant jewelry peddler.

The narrative was both unconvincing and evidently self-serving. He repeats the specious claims by others that if Kelly hadn’t “resisted” he would be alive today, a completely unfounded and irrelevant assertion. He also claims that he has always been nicely treated by FPD. Of course the fortuitous appearance of this character eight weeks after the attack is suspicious in itself.

The most distasteful part of this post is the headline New Witness in Thomas Case Defends Police. I know that this website is dedicated to the usual, hollow happy talk about Fullerton; you know the thing: Chamber of Commerce/City Hall boosterism. It’s proprietor, Davis Barber, recently published a post in which he implied we should be thankful that the City provides us with a forum for public comment. But this latest effort really takes the cake.

After a bit of reflection I began to wonder how and why this Fritschie fellow would even get in touch with Fullerton Stories, or vice versa. Then it hit me: FPD or the DA made the hook-up. That would be par for police spokesman Andrew Goodrich’s course: selective and self-serving leaking of information while simultaneously telling the public that we must be patient and wait for the fair and objective “investigation” by Tony Rackauckas, the guy who has never prosecuted an Orange County cop for excessive force!

Anyway, keep up the good work FFFF! The truth hurts, but the truth will set Fullerton free.

Mark S.

May 8, 2012May 8, 2012About Us

Pat McKinley’s Sick Dance. The Real Truth Is Now Out

by Mr. Peabody247 Comments

Here’s the infamous clip of Fullerton City Councilman Pat McPension opining freely on CNN last summer, even though he claims now that he kept his mouth shut on orders of his attorney. It seems that Pat has a selective memory.

Take a close look at the video as he tries to spin his way out of the PR nightmare his gang had created for the City of Fullerton.

Pay particular attention to his reaction as he is asked if he has seen the video. He says no. Do you believe him? I don’t. Note how he believes it is “maybe two officers deeply involved;” how it’s not a flashlight, it’s a taser handle. I think he lied on national TV; I think he did see the video. He hired them. He trained them. He watched the video with them!

Also enjoy his slight pause as he reflects on the happy days of big, heavy flashlights “that were good.”

May 8, 2012May 8, 2012Behind Closed Doors

14:30

by Mr. Peabody349 Comments

At about the 14:30 mark of the Kelly Thomas murder video something happens. Suddenly the mood of Manny Ramos changes from one of bored hostility to outright aggression. He has just gone to the back of the patrol car and has had a conversation with Joe Wolfe who has been sifting through Thomas’s scant possessions in his backpack.

When Ramos returns to Kelly he immediately dons the latex gloves that a helpful Wolfe had previously given him (“take these you may need them”) and begins to verbally threaten the homeless man. “See these fists? These fists are about to fuck you up…” For his part Thomas seems to sense the ramped up hostility. When Ramos tries to grab his shoulder Kelly brushes away the cop’s hand and stands. Immediately sensing his peril he puts his hands up and begins slowly backing away. It’s too late.

Suddenly Wolfe appears almost on cue; at the top of the frame he emerges from behind the patrol car, where, a mere 15 feet away he must have been perfectly aware of what was going on. As Kelly continues to back away toward the front of the car, Wolfe lunges at him, swinging his baton; immediately he is joined by Ramos who takes a swing to, too. As Kelly begins to flee rightward in front of the car and out of the frame, we can’t see what happens next; but Ramos has evidently managed to grab or tackle Thomas as Wolfe, who has circled counterclockwise around the back of the car, piles on.

So here’s my question: how can Joe Wolfe be exonerated from any wrongdoing by the DA? Barely fifteen feet from the exchange between Ramos and Kelly, he must have known exactly what was going on; he also knew who he was dealing with; and he actually struck the first, illegal blow with his stick. So why was Joe Wolfe never charged with a crime?

May 7, 2012May 7, 2012Dead heads

Preliminary Hearing In Thomas Killing Today

by Mr. Peabody198 Comments

After being postponed twice the Preliminary Hearing in the case against Fullerton cops Manny Ramos and jay Cicinelli for the killing of homeless schizophrenic Kelly Thomas last July. Ten months have elapsed since that hot, fateful night.

Ramos is charged with second degree murder; Cicinelli with manslaughter.

The purpose of the hearing is for a judge to view evidence presented by the District Attorney and decide whether the charged should be bound over for trial.

All sorts of questions will be answered in the next day or two: will the DAs original charges fold as some have predicted? Will a cop-cozy judge say Ramos and Cicinelli were just doing their jobs? On the political side, how will more media exposure effect the Recall of the Three Bald Tires, occurring as it will with the delivery of absentee ballots?

For those who can make it, the hearing will take place this morning at 8:30 in Courtroom C1 in the Superior Court building, in downtown Santa Ana.