Well, the Fullerton Culture of Corruption is in the news again, and, naturally, not in a good way. The star of the show is Fullerton’s own Jim Blake. Here is a CBS undercover report on Metropolitan Water District board members wining and dining themselves on our dime – even as they keep jacking up the commodity cost of water to us, a cost to which our wise City Fathers then tack on an illegal 10% tax!
Jim Blake has been the choice of Fullerton’s establishment to represent our City on the MWD since the Third Day, when God gathered the waters.
Of course this is no news to us here at FFFF. We reported on Blake and Linda Ackerwoman running up huge “travel” tabs a long time ago, here and here. Blake has been reappointed by Bankhead and Jones over and over again. Why?
Well, Blake is supposedly calling it quits at MWD, but not before causing Fullerton more embarrassment.
Today Fullerton will be favored with the first installment of reports produced by Michael Gennaco. The one tonight is supposed to deal with the FPD PR apparatus and the way it disseminated information in the wake of the Kelly Thomas killing by members of the FPD. We’ve editorialized plenty on what was said (self-serving claptrap), and not said (the truth) by FPD spokesopening Andrew Goodrich. I do wonder what Gennaco would have to say about the City using a police union boss as its official spokesman – if he addresses it at all, which I think is doubtful.
I have a feeling that the reports issued by Gennaco will be little more than expensive PR for the City.
This might be a good time to remind everybody that the offical sounding “County of Los Angeles Office of Independent Review” is actually a private law firmfor hire by anybody with the dough to pay. It’s a small law firm with half a dozen lawyers and a logo that just happens to look like a city seal.
City Seal
Gennaco is really no different than Jones and Mayer or Rutan and Tucker, hired to limit the damage caused by the serial misdeeds of the FPD and limit liability.
Does that sound harsh? Remember, as an attorney, Gennaco’s main concern is to protect his client and gin up more business in the future. Does that sound like a formula for reform?
By now everyone is at least casually familiar with the personage of FPD cop Joe Wolfe, who along with Manny Ramos, happened to be the first to confront the homeless schizophrenic man, Kelly Thomas, in the Fullerton Transportation Center, on the sultry night of July 5th, 2011.
Allegedly responding to a call claiming somebody was breaking into cars, Wolfe and Ramos were near enough to get to the scene first. Some folks think this was not a coincidence.
According to the DA, Wolfe searched Thomas’ backpack at the rear of a patrol car as Ramos hovered over Thomas around front – a mere 10-15 feet away. The fact that this implausibly lengthy “search” took place during Ramos’ physical and verbal intimidation of Kelly gave the DA his justification for Wolfe’s subsequent behavior.
What happened next (according to the DA) is that Kelly, who finally realized he was being queued up for an ass kicking one way or another, got up, and backed away from Ramos, hands and palms up; Ramos had pulled out his baton. And who was there to meet Thomas with drawn night stick, having circled around behind the patrol car and who suddenly seemed very much aware of what was going on?
Right. Officer Joe Wolfe.
This corpulent cop, who was so thoroughly engrossed in picking through Thomas’ scant belongings that he supposedly had no knowledge of what was happening a few feet away, suddenly became as nimble as Nijinski, allegedly slamming Kelly in the leg with his night stick, and with Ramos, tackling Thomas. As Ramos held Thomas by the neck and punched him, Wolfe was on top too, kicking and punching as the beat down and the pile on began.
We are asked (by the DA) to believe that Wolfe was completely unaware of Ramos verbally threatening Thomas, and donning his latex gloves; and that he was merely coming to Ramos’ rescue. Could it have happened that way? I guess so, but it really strains credulity to believe that Wolfe was not aware of the provacative behavior of Ramos, even if there were no pre-arranged set up of Kelly involved. And the DA provided no credible explanation for the sheer violence of his physical assault: we are left with the inevitable conclusion that Wolfe meant to do Kelly great bodily harm.
How many times did Wolfe hit Thomas before the one-eyed cop Jay Cicinelli arrived on the scene to finish him off? Only those privileged cops (and city councilmen) who have seen the video know.
Many questions remain unanswered about the role of Mr. Wolfe on the night in question, and despite the DA’s effort to absolve Wolfe of complicity in the killing, many observers, including me, remain unconvinced.
One thing we do know for sure: Joe Wolfe joins an ever growing list of Fullerton cops who can’t be let loose on the street or trusted to testify in court. He has been on paid leave since August. And until the Gennaco report on the Thomas killing comes out, there he will stay.
Update: When you’re trying to pierce the veil of secrecy in a police department bent on concealing its officers’ misdeeds, some of the details come through a little fuzzy. I recently received some corrected information on officer Mater’s role in the arrest, highlighted in red below. Note that Mater is still the officer who (allegedly) destroyed his audio recording and was later fired.
I’ve also noticed that almost an entire year has gone by, but Officer Mater has not been charged with destruction of evidence. The DA is reportedly still “working on the case.”
A Brady Officer is a cop with a sustained record for knowingly lying in an official capacity. A Brady cop’s testimony in court is almost worthless, which makes you wonder why a police department such as Fullerton would bother to employ one.
The word was that the jailarresting officer by the name of Vince Mater had broken apart his audio recorder and smashed the chip containing a recording in the immediate aftermath of the suicide. Whatever was captured on that recording before and during the arrestee’s suicide, we’ll never know.
Dean Gochenour died in the Fullerton City Jail on April 15, 2011
A few months later, Officer Mater was quietly fired.
Well, now we’ve found new state court docs revealing that the DA had also declared Mater to be a “Brady officer.”
We don’t know how Officer Mater earned his status as certified liar, but if it was so bad that even the FPD couldn’t look the other way, well…it must have been pretty bad.
Mater’s name did appear in an OC Register story in November 2010 about the wrongful incarceration of Emanuel Martinez at the hands of the FPD, in which Mater was johnny-on-the-spot with a gang tag that helped send the wrong guy to jail.
Fast forward to 2011, when the FPD ends up with a dead guy in jail, a smashed recorder, another cop on paid leave and presumably another set of lawsuits.
Oh, and one more thing: for all the City’s talk of transparency and its employment of several highly-compensated Public Information Officers, all of this information was kept from the public until…well, today.
Barry Levinson had his microphone cut off on Tuesday before he could finish his exposé on Pat McKinley’s boldfaced lie about crime under his watch. That’s OK, because we can just reprint it here for everyone to see.
By Barry Levinson
I recently saw Councilman McKinley appear on a PBS TV show that originally aired last October, called Inside Orange County hosted by David Nazar.
The Host asks Councilman McKinley: Should you be recalled and is it fair?
McKinley responds: No, I shouldn’t and it is not fair
Host: Why?
McKinley responds: Well I really don’t understand the, the allegations. The allegations I hired some people.
McKinley continues: I am very proud of the agency (i.e. the Fullerton Police Dept.) and what we accomplished over the 16 years I was there .
McKinley: We reduced crime every year I was there.
I had heard the comment about reducing crime by Candidate McKinley many times during his campaign for city council.
Here are the facts: The FBI statistics for the City of Fullerton from 2005 through 2009, the last 5 years that McKinley was Chief of Police are as follows:
Pat McKinley, I find it reprehensible that you would intentionally and repeatedly mislead the people of Fullerton and the country about the actual level of crime committed in our great city under your stewardship. Repeatedly you have reminded us that being a police officer has been your life’s work. Yet you cannot even tell the truth about your own record as chief of police.
You have disgraced this city with your misinformation campaigns. You have disgraced this city with your stating that Officer Rincon was not guilty of sexual assault, and allowed him under your command to continue assaulting more and more women after the 1st ladies reported it to your department. You disgraced this city by hiring Jay Cicinelli, who did not meet the minimum standards to be a police officer in Fullerton or for that matter anywhere in these United States of America. Officer Cicinelli ended up beating an innocent man to death while he was lying motionless on the ground with a Taser gun that is supposed to save lives not take them.
FOR ALL THESE REASONS AND MANY MORE, PAT MCKINLEY MUST BE RECALLED. And the only thing that is not fair about this recall is that you had the honor and privilege to be our police chief for 16 years and our councilman for another 2 years. The damage you have caused this city, emotionally, ethically, legally and monetarily will take us literally decades to recover from. That is the real injustice here!
I am a wordsmith. Shakespeare didn't rewrite Romulet and Julio, did he?
In the case of the FPD public information officer, not much, apparently.
It happens that FPD has some sort of class on how to love your local cops, and below, I share two on-line descriptions of the class. Check out the 2009 version vs. the 2012 version. All of the Pat McKinley quotes were replaced word-for-word with alleged quotations by Dan Hughes!
How’s that for a nice copy and paste job from a $130,000 per year employee, FPD spokesphincter Andrew Goodrich?
The 10-week course “will expose participants to the many faces of police work in their community,” explained Fullerton Police Acting Chief Dan Hughes. “Participants will gain an overall knowledge of the Fullerton Police Department, how it’s organized, how it serves the community, and they will learn about the men and women behind the badge.”
Hughes emphasized the course is not meant to train people to become police officers; rather, “it is intended to improve communication and understanding between the community and the department.”
Gee, that sounds like something I might have said...
The 10-week course, which will be held from March 11 through May 13, “exposes participants to the many facets of police work in their community,” explained Fullerton Police Chief Pat McKinley. “Participants will gain an overall knowledge of the Fullerton Police Department, how it’s organized, and how it serves the community, and they will learn about the men and women behind the badge.”
McKinley emphasized the course is not meant to train people to become police officers; rather, “it is intended to open communication between the community and the department.”
Either Goodrich is the laziest $130,000 man alive, or Danny Hughes is channeling the ghost of Pat McPension!
FPD Bonus Question. “communication and understanding between the community and the department” means:
1. We will not flatulate in your face because we think you are unconscious.
2. We will not break into your house by mistake, hold you at gunpoint and refuse to apologize.
3. We will not beat you up, arrest you and then lie on the witness stand about how we came to find you in our jail the next day.
4. We will not throw you in jail for five months because we are just too damn lazy to catch the right dude.
5. We will not handcuff and sexually assault you in the back of our patrol cars.
6. We will not swipe your wallet after we kick the crap out of you.
7. We will not encourage you to commit suicide in our jail. Nor will we try to destroy the evidence thereof.
8. We will not rip you off by committing credit card fraud.
9. We will not steal your iPad at an airport security checkpoint. Or any place else for that matter.
10. We will not instigate a fake crime report, beat the living shit out of you, electrocute you, drive your facial bones into your brain, sit on your chest as you asphyxiate in your own blood, stand around as you die, and then laugh about it the next day as we go back to work.
I’ve been thinking about this for months. It’s been gnawing at my spinal cortex. It’s been chewing on my psyche. It’s been snag-toothing the back of my brain. There is no polite way to put this. OC District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’ case against the goons who killed Kelly Thomas is designed to fail.
There are just too many lose ends overlooked or ignored by the DA. Too many unasked questions. Charges that are mystifying, flimsy, dubious, ultimately useless.
If ever anybody looked like a patsy it was the obese clown Manny Ramos, who, as Rackauckas pointed out, initiated the brutal contact with the schizophrenic, undernourished homeless man. But other than possibly joining the pile on, Ramos is not said by the DA to have been part of the actual beating laid down on Thomas. That was said to have been perpetrated principally by the one-eyed cop Jay Cicinelli, who was hit with paltry charges and a paltry bail.
The Second Degree murder charge against Ramos won’t stick since his lawyer need only point to the damage done by the other cops, four of whom have already been exonerated of any crime by the DA. And Cicinelli’s lawyer will argue that a cop tasering and beating a man’s face into his brain case is not to be considered excessive force by an OC jury, let alone manslaughter, since it never has in the past.
Joe Wolfe, whom we are supposed to believe had no knowledge of what was going on between Kelly and Ramos, a mere 15-20 feet away, and who actually delivered the first blow – a swing of the baton to Thomas’ leg, and who immediately piled on, was inexplicably given a pass by Rackauckas. Is it too conspiratorial to propose the possibility that Wolfe was actually waiting for Kelly to run away from Ramos? How long does it take to search a backpack?
And then there’s Kenton Hampton, whose thuggery has been well-documented on these pages; who arrived on the scene in time to hold down Kelly’s legs as he was being tortured and beaten by Cicinelli. He got a get out of jail card from our DA, too. So did Blatney and Craig, arriving on the scene to participate in the mop up operation, and possibly in phone/film collection activities.
Will the DA even bother going after Ramos anymore? With the preliminary hearing scheduled for March 28th, I wouldn’t be surprised if charges will be dropped, maybe even the charges against Cicinelli, as well. Could Wolfe or Hampton still be charged if the DA has second thoughts about his strategy, and assuming he actually wants to convict somebody of something in this killing? Yes, it’s possible, but not very likely.
I’m starting to think the whole thing was just an elaborate whitewash of a conspiracy; a charade in which a weak DA ostensibly succumbed to public pressure, but never had any intention of vigorously prosecuting any cops. If so we are all in deeper trouble than we can possibly appreciate. I hope I am wrong.
And I hope if I am not wrong that Federal and civil trials will bring to light all of the information our Do-Nothing DA, by his action, or lack of action, seems intent on not disclosing.
A few days ago, OC Register employee Lou Ponsi scribbled an article here quoting Pat McPension “that because the City Council may have to ultimately decide the employment status of the officers, both on unpaid leave, remaining silent was the correct decision.
We remained silent because that is the rule,” McKinley said. “We were told by the (city) attorney, ‘Don’t say anything.’ … A lawyer tells me what to do and I follow his lead.”
Silent? Yeah, right Pat:
Pat was pretty quick to peddle his damage-control and try to downplay Kelly Thomas’ injuries as not life-threatening. His statement that the Coroner couldn’t determine the cause of death was the old flat-foot desperately clinging to the insinuation that there was some medical reason (i.e. maybe drugs) Kelly died – apart from 1400 lbs. of cop meat sitting on his chest after they had bashed his face into his brain.
We’ve also just raised the question as to whether or not Mr. McKinley may have blabbed about the employment status of Fullerton PD officer Kelly Mejia to his pal and anti-recall spokesorifice, Larry Bennett.
Hey, you over there on the left. You can talk now!
By now we are all familiar with the impenetrable shroud in which law enforcement has wrapped itself, with the knowledge and support of supine politicians across the state who have taken its campaign money and endorsements.
In Fullerton this official Code of Silence is used by the Three Dithering Dinosaurs – Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, and Pat McKinley – to excuse their deplorable failure of leadership in the aftermath of the Kelly Thomas killing. They couldn’t say anything, it was all about personnel stuff.
But what do we have here? Listen carefully to anti-recaller Larry Bennett on an October 19, 2011 Inside OC program:
Hey, wait just a minute! That bit about the “iPad woman” doesn’t sound quite right.Here’s a snippet from Lou Ponsi’s article in the Register on the matter, just yesterday, citing FPD spokesdoughnut Andrew Goodrich:
Mejia was placed on paid administrative leave after returning from Florida and has not been a member of the department since Oct. 28, said Sgt. Andrew Goodrich. The city can’t say the reason Mejia is no longer employed with the department, Goodrich said
October 28th, 2011. So why did civilian Larry Bennett say Mejia had already been fired (past tense) nine days before, and how did he come to have any information about that at all?
Stepped on somebody's weenie.
Was Bennett just lying? Could be. The truth hasn’t tumbled out of his mouth for at least six months. But let’s consider something else, implausible, but not impossible – that he was actually telling the truth of what he knew.
If that’s the case then it’s obvious that the cop personnel Code of Silence was violated by somebody in the FPD itself, as some one who knew what was going on with Mejia (any guesses?), told Bankhead, Jones, or McKinley what was happening, and one of them leaked it to Bennett; and then Bennett shared it with a TV audience! Either that, or somebody in the FDP went directly to Bennett with the news so he could beat the drum for a decisive, pro-active department: No Culture of Corruption here!
Well, selective leaks are nothing new for Andrew Goodrich. Police love to share information about suspects unless those suspects happen to be cops. In this instance it sure looks like the cop curtain of secrecy was opened just a bit in the service of trying to make the department and the Three Tired Tubers look decisive.
So next time you hear about the need for secrecy in all police personnel matters, remember this story of hypocrisy. Some things aren’t as secret as others.
Thus announced Pat McKinley on CNN with a cavalier, off-hand tone in his voice. Of course he was referring to the six cops involved in the beating death of Kelly Thomas. No, McKinley. Not “probably.” You did hire them all and you knew it. Plus Rincon, Mater, Power, Mejia, Tong, and all the others. Check this out:
