Friday July 6th @ PÄS Gallery 6:00-11:00 PM Art With An Agenda. Commemorate the first anniversary of Kelly Thomas’ deadly encounter with six members of the Fullerton PD. Double Click here to download the Press Release.
And then the very next day, Saturday July 7th at the Fullerton Museum Plaza, is the 2nd Annual Kelly Thomas Memorial Concert, Clothing and Food Drive featuring one of the best bands to ever come from the OC, The Adolescents.
Two great opportunities to show your support for reform in Fullerton without glossing over what happened last July 5th – the murder of an innocent man.
Here’s a great video of the courageous Marlena Carrillo questioning Patdown McPension for hiring a one-eyed cop retired on disability from the LAPD; and Sharon Quirk, who wants to move up the political ladder leaving lots of unfinished business behind; and the Acting Police Chief Dan Hughes for leaving a gang of killer cops on the streets of Fullerton after having watched and listened to the video and audio recordings of the Kelly Thomas murder.
The theme? Have you done the right thing? As Marlena points out, quite correctly, doing the right thing is not always easy, but it is what we expect from our leaders. The deafening silence from the dais in instructive.
Today, June 5th, 2012 you can join us in doing the right thing: sweeping out City Hall of the incompetent, sclerotic, unaccountable gang that has failed to lead.
OC 4th District Supervisor Shawn Nelson visited our humble blog yesterday to refresh our memories about his calling in the Feds in the Kelly Thomas killing. Here’s what he had to say:
So the historical record is clear, I contacted the Department of Justice on Thursday July 21 or 28 (not sure which Thursday off the top of my head). My purpose was to open a case file in the Civil Rights division because I felt an obligation to ensure the citizens of Fullerton everything I could do had been done. While on the telephone with a lawyer at the DOJ, she contacted the FBI and before our call concluded she was able to confirm that the FBI would be taking the lead on the case and that the FBI had, in fact, opened a file as of that monement.
Confirmation of the FBI’s involvement made the airwaves later that same day and by 8:00 the next day I heard word the officers involved had been taken off the streets.
A good reminder that the cops weren’t pulled until after the FBI was notified on July 28th, 2011. A coincidence? I think not.
FFFF originally posted about Nelson’s intervention, here. I also believe it was this action that spurred the DA to do a real investigation, and not one of the usual whitewashes.
Here’s your millionaire developer. He’s hard working, loyal, dedicated to Fullerton, to Friends, and to freedom. This video was made by a Friend who recognizes a home town hero when he sees one.
To the blowhards, out-of-towners, sad-sack political wannabes, here’s your role model. Aspire to something when you grow up.
When the esteemed council woke up from their nap, the tongue bath resumed.
Holy Smokes those anti-recall guys are dumb. How dumb? On their lame website some idiot just posted the hilariously funny and self-deprecating video made by Tony Bushala to mock his own critics. Apparently who ever uploaded the video never watched it; or they believe their audience is even dumber than they are. Well maybe they are!
Seriously, can anybody now believe that these people are qualified to run anything more complicated than an ant farm, let alone a city of 150,000 people?
Anyway here’s the video again. And thanks to chucklehead Larry Bennett and his dim bulb crew for giving it free air time.
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.
In a campaign that has been long on issues and short on joy, I thought it would be hopeful to post a couple of the sweetest images I have seen in this campaign.
Travis’ little girl, Selah, exalting in unbridled joy at the sight of her dada on a door hanger:
and Sean Paden’s beautiful daughter sitting next to her mommy and taking a picture of her daddy making a speech. Sean is a winner no matter what happens in this election.
There’s always lots of talk in Orange County about freedom-loving him, or freedom-loving her, when the repuglicans start trumpeting some mediocre authoritarian hack or other for political office.
But then there’s the real deal – former OC Register writer and now occasional columnist, Steve Greenhut. Enjoy Steve’s opinion piece on the Kelly Thomas killing and the Fullerton Recall, here.
Greenhut is hitting on all cylinders. He gets it: there’s serial police abuse, secrecy and subsequent cover-ups by the politicians; there’s Redevelopment abuse, cronyism, and unaccountability; there’s an illegal tax on our water, 15 years-old, that has misdirected over $27,000,000 to pay for perks and pensions of the politicians and bureaucrats in City Hall.
The best part of Steve’s broadside is this part where he goes after the pusillanimous Register Editorial Board that has hypocritically succumbed to pressure applied by Dick Ackerman, Inc.:
Unfortunately, the Register Editorial Board didn’t fully support this heart-felt political revolt, as it argued, “The citizens who voted [the three councilmen] in and now are disgruntled should vote them out during a regular election cycle.” The Register had no such qualms about backing the recall in 2003 of Gov. Gray Davis, for similar lack-of-leadership reasons.
And finally Greenhut sums up with:
The release of the video reinforces the wisdom of the recall. A recent news article explained that “legal experts caution that the footage doesn’t tell the entire story,” but we don’t need experts to tell us the truth, now obvious to anyone who can access YouTube. And we don’t need experts to tell Fullerton voters what to do about three councilmen who acted in a craven and unconscionable way.
Oh, yes. We’ll let “the justice system unfold,” in the clumsy phraseology of our feckless Mayor, Sharon Quirk. In the meantime we’ll apply our our God-given commonsense to the facts that we are permitted to see by our political masters. And then we’ll recall the the bums.
For the past year we have been waiting for somebody inside the Fullerton Police department to get sick enough and tired enough of the evident Culture of Corruption to come clean. I believe we have finally found our man, and I think his narrative will be instructive to those interested in peering behind the curtain that the FPD has drawn around itself.
Cronyism, nepotism, unprofessional conduct of all sorts is the immediate picture, and far from being isolated from the bad behavior, I think we will discover that the “leadership” of the department has been fully aware of what’s been going on. In some instances the upper echelon itself will be found to be neck deep in the morass as two successive chiefs completely abdicated their responsibility to run a clean, effective police force.
Here’s a Fullerton councilmember who not only understands the illegal water tax, he knows the right thing to do – end it, immediately. He also suggests a solution that would, over time, address infrastructure deficiencies that have been permitted by our aquacrats and city council. Good luck getting the Three Pompous Pumkins Bankhead, McKinley and Jones to go along with that!
Anyway, if you haven’t already done so, meet Bruce Whitaker:
