Category: Law N Disorder

Posted onFullerton City Council

A Lack of Trust, by Robyn Nordell

by 158 Comments on A Lack of Trust, by Robyn Nordell

As is evidenced from the comments tonight, the comments from the last few city council meetings, the FPD protests, and the current city council agenda which is full of lawsuits which will cost the city millions of dollars, it’s obvious that there is a great deal of anger and mistrust towards the Fullerton Police Dept and the City of Fullerton.

A large number of negative incidents involving Fullerton police officers continue to come to light, ranging from alleged sexual misconduct of officers towards women whom they have stopped, to officers allegedly committing theft, to charges of false arrest, and so on. Our family experienced a mistaken raid on our home by armed undercover vice cops who were looking for the home next door.

Clearly, it is in the best interest of everyone for the FPD and the city council to work hard to win back the trust of people. In doing so it seems obvious that it would be Wise to Avoid Doing Things That Unnecessarily Increase Distrust.

THE CURRENT UNACCEPTABLE SITUATION

There is a situation in the FPD that can be corrected. Making this correction should take away some of the distrust.

Your current FPD Spokesperson / Public Information Officer has had, and still has, a major role in the Fullerton Police Officers union. (FPOA)

Here are three examples of his significance to the union:

  • CURRENT—On behalf of the police union, Mr. Goodrich is on the small negotiating team for the current police union contract. As a member of that team he would be trying, of course, to get the highest salary and best benefits possible for the union members. To do so, you would assume that he would be trying to put the officers in the best light possible.
  • IN THE PAST— In 2003, Mr. Goodrich wrote a how-to article for union members entitled, “The Value of Political Involvement-Your Association’s Role in Local Politics.” This piece explained effective ways for the union to get their choice of candidates elected to the city council and WHY it is in the union’s best interest to do so. (Goodrich’s document is located within this article, “Peer into the Thought Process of the FPOA,” www.fullertonsfuture.org)

I think it is absurd for someone in a significant role in the police union to be the spokesperson for the Fullerton Police Department.  This situation obviously causes distrust by many in the community and it makes the leadership of the FPD, the city manager, and the city council look foolish.

In his “union role”—Mr. Goodrich’s union task would be to put police officers in as positive of a light as possible.

In his spokesperson role”—when he is speaking on behalf of the FPD—putting police officers in as positive of a light as possible should not be his concern. His concern should be honesty, accuracy, and transparency.

HERE’S MY SUGGESTION:

The current FPD Spokesperson/Public Information Officer (Mr. Goodrich) should be reassigned to a different position and he should be replaced by an officer who has not had a major role in the Fullerton Police Officers Union.

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Posted onLaw N Disorder

What Are We Expecting?

by 472 Comments on What Are We Expecting?

Update 2: An FPD officer told a Friend last night that the police were in fact gearing up for potential protests in response to the DA’s announcement, which is expected in this coming week.

-Travis

Update: Travis, I can’t believe the FPD would be stoopid enough to start a riot at a benefit for the homeless (still, I’m wondering if their dumbness even has a bottom level). I truly believe the protesters in from of PD HQ are getting into their little heads. Everyone make as much noise as you want but PLEASE stay on the sidewalk!

– Mr. Peabody

Today a helpful Friend snapped these photos of Fullerton police officers dusting up on their riot control skills and baton swinging techniques inside the walls of the FPD compound.

The timing is curious. There is a rock concert for Kelly Thomas on Saturday. And the DA has hinted that he may make a big announcement about the cops who killed Kelly Thomas as early as Monday.

Nearby residents say that riot training is not a common occurrence in the FPD parking lot.

I wonder what’s going on?

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Posted onDead heads

The Monumental Misrule of Don Bankhead

by 76 Comments on The Monumental Misrule of Don Bankhead
Yes, I am the king!

Yes it’s been a long, long time. When he first climbed the steps to his throne and surveyed his Fullerton domain the year was 1988. Ronald Reagan was president.

Don Bankhead has been on the Fullerton City Council for 23 years. With a few weeks off for bad behavior – an unnecessary Utility Tax and subsequent recall in 1994 – this monument to sub-mediocrity has been demonstrating his dubious mental faculties every other Tuesday night since dirt was young.

I will always fondly remember when Dick Ackerman referred to him as Don Blankhead. Now how many times did Don hear that as his fellow Fullerton cops chuckled at the dunderhead behind his back?

So now let’s take a moment or two to review Mr. Bankhead’s singularly inept career in Fullerton.

Back in 1988 Bankhead tried to get the job of Fullerton Chief of Police. He failed when the council chose somebody else. Ironically, Dick Ackerman who was on the Council then, was well aware of Blankhead’s utter incompetence. And so, out of spite, he ran for the city council: Lo and Behold he won! On the city council he believed that no one would would laugh at him anymore. And he believed people would laugh with him instead of at him. He was wrong.

Bankhead also suddenly revealed what he never told anybody when he interviewed for the Chief job, or even when he ran for County Sheriff in 1990: that he was a virtual cripple from a series of earlier alleged mishaps that, if true, would have made Inspector Clouseau look like an Olympic gymnast. His scam made the news, but the nice people in Fullerton were too polite to say anything. But we all knew.

Throughout the 1990s, Bankhead supported every single Redevelopment subsidy, boondoggle and giveaway of public money to fly-by-night developers; here is my pithy summation.

In the past ten years he has smiled that dim, senile smile as he turned downtown Fullerton into a booze-soaked battle field that costs the taxpayers of Fullerton $1.5 million every single year, all to the benefit his cynical and parasitical “supporters.” He had the effrontery to claim that without his interventionist Redevelopment Fullerton itself would be a ghost town! He tried to lie his way out of that idiocy. It didn’t work.

or to put it another way:

A darling of the cop union he voted for the bank-breaking 3@50 pension formula that has created a massive and permanent unfunded liability for the taxpayers of Fullerton; he continuously voted for the illegal 10% utility tax on the water ratepayers of Fullerton, money that has gone to pay his own bloated pension.

Of course Bankhead was propped up every step of the way by his “public safety” union allies for whom he performed such acts of generosity with our money.

What Bankhead doesn’t want anyone to know is that in the course of his political career he has pulled down hundreds of thousands of dollars snoozing through footling meetings of various agencies and commissions about which he knows absolutely nothing – but for which he applied the same rubber stamp he has wielded so disastrously in Fullerton.

Although Bankhead is a Republican, and supposed to be some sort of conservative, the inescapable fact is that he is big-government in a big way. And if big-government could help him or his developer buddies score big, so much the better. After all who was really watching? FFFF, that’s who. Here we busted Bankhead for blowing $1200 staying at a four star Long Beach Hotel, on our dime – a mere 25 miles from his house in Fullerton!

This year, finally, the extent to which Bankhead has aided and abetted an incompetent and criminal police department has finally surfaced, and the extent of the damage this simpleton has caused Fullerton has become crystal clear.

Will Bankhead become the first man in California history to be recalled from the same office? Let’s work for it!

Don Bankhead, this is your life: a sad, belabored death march of cognitive meltdown, incompetence, lackeydom, and buffoonery. Fortunately your quarter century misrule is coming to a merciful conclusion. Fullerton is finally waking up and finally deciding that it wants real leaders – not clownish cartoons – on its city council.

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

The Wrongful Incarceration of Emmanuel Martinez

by 166 Comments on The Wrongful Incarceration of Emmanuel Martinez

 

Do not pass Go!

An alert Friend reminded us today of a story that came to light last fall and that has eerie overtones of the subsequent Veth Mam case we have previously reported. The story is told in the OC Register, here.

 

Wouldn't hurt a fly...

The facts are simple. Even though an eye-witness ID’d another guy in a line-up, the Fullerton police arrested Emmanuel Martinez who unluckily just happened to be in the vicinity. Of course Fullerton “Officer” Miguel Siliceo told a hearing judge that he had indeed got the right guy and Martinez was locked up in the County jail for five long months awaiting the inevitable railroad job.

Martinez’s luck changed for the better when he got a public defender, Denise Crawford, who bulldogged the case. When audio evidence surfaced that proved  Siliceo was telling tall tales, the DA, mirabile dictu, dropped the bogus charges against Martinez.

So Emmanuel can thank his lucky stars that he didn’t actually go on trial like Veth Mam, and then end up in state prison. And “Officer” Siliceo is lucky, too. Lucky he never had to perjure himself in front of a jury, and lucky he works for a police department where incompetence, and worse – felonious behavior are just par for the course.

How about the truth, if it's not too much trouble?

Of course the story wouldn’t be complete without the bland statement by FPD spokesassclown Andrew Goodrich that the cops work “diligently” to arrest the right people and generously let ’em go if exculpatory evidence surfaces. Gee, thanks, Andy. Of course no mention is made by Goodrich of FPD hiding exculpatory evidence in the first place; nor is perjury; and of course there is no apology to the victim of FPD malfeasance. Wouldn’t want to undermine public confidence in our Heroes, now would we?

I wonder how much that one cost us.

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Posted onAbout Us

We Get Mail: Oooooh, A Threat!

by 193 Comments on We Get Mail: Oooooh, A Threat!

Uh, oh! Some semi-literate chucklehead is not happy with FFFF! We received an e-mail from an under-educated police apologist who wishes that we would turn our attention from the Fullerton Police Department record of bogus traffic tickets, theft, drug-abuse, credit card fraud, kidnapping, kidnapping and sexual battery, kidnapping, abetting suicide in the city jail, and, of course, the Kelly Thomas homicide; and instead focus on “what the fullerton police does (sic) for you to keep you and your fellow fullerton citizens safe.”

Safe, huh? Safe from what? The greatest threat to our “fellow Fullerton citizens” these days seems to come from the FPD itself.

Anyway, enjoy the amusing version of “The Truth” as penned by some poor, high school drop-out:

Trying harder to think just isn't going to help!

Privacy: You may publish this, but protect my identity

Subject: The Truth.

Dear Whatever bastard is running this blog,
Whoever you are you have no idea what the fullerton police does for you to keep you and your fellow fullerton citizens safe. You and your and other sons of bitches have warped the Kelly Thomas “murder” into a wormhole of un-needed conflicts and issues. And then when i thought that you guys could not steep lower than that you verbally attack and threaten the officers and thier families, what nerve do you have. How would you like it if I threatened the safety and well-being of you and/or your family.

Just Remeber…….How Would You Like It?

Oh, yes we will “Remeber” the next time we and our and other sons of bitches “steep” even lower.

Sincerely,

One of the Bastards Running This Blog

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Posted onLaw N Disorder

How to Let the DA Whitewash a Cop’s Sexual Assault and Get Away With It

by 207 Comments on How to Let the DA Whitewash a Cop’s Sexual Assault and Get Away With It

Earlier we discovered a federal civil trial against the Fullerton PD and one of its cops named Albert Rincon, alleging that he serially sexually assaulted women in the backseat of his squad car. Since then, several interesting pieces of evidence have come forth.

That evidence shows how the FPD’s internal affairs department worked in tandem with a DA’s office that won’t prosecute cops, in order to derail an internal investigation against one of their own.

Follow along as we recite the successful formula:

1. Receive graphically detailed allegations that one of your officers had sexually assaulted a female in the back of his squad car.

Victim 1 Deposition – Victim 2 Deposition

2.  Ask the DA to “investigate” to see if a crime had taken place.

McKinley Letter to DA

3. The DA investigator finds five more women who say they were sexually groped, penetrated or propositioned in the course of an arrest by Rincon.

4. Listen to the recordings and discover that the cop’s audio recorder was turned off just before every single alleged assault took place.

5. Despite an astounding number of victims and witnesses, Tony Rackauckas’ office declines to prosecute the cop for sexual assault.

6. Pretend you don’t know why the DA didn’t file charges. In fact, don’t even ask.

Captain Bastreri’s Deposition

7. Let the Internal Affairs department use the DA’s decline to prosecute as a pretext to conclude it’s own investigation.

8. Set the accused sexual predator free! With a badge and a gun, of course. But for some reason he now has to wear a lapel camera on his shirt at all times.

I hired all of 'em!

Of course Pat McKinley’s long reign of error has now caught up with him, and the taxpayers of Fullerton, too. And the DA? Well, nothing there we didn’t already know.

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Cop Union President Barry Coffman Identified

by 166 Comments on Cop Union President Barry Coffman Identified

UPDATE: Please note Coffman’s admission: “This year, my first citation”.  So he obviously took on this assignment to harass citizens out of the sheer joy of it. And there you have it. Your tax dollars at work.

The other day we shared a video here of the Fullerton Police Department’s PR disastrous anti-honking ticket strategy. Of course it was justifiably greeted with a hail of scorn and outrage and was ridiculed across Southern California as blatant harassment of peaceful protesters. Egad, another FPD humiliation. Another day another embarrassment!

Oh, well, I guess when you don’t have a sense of shame it’s impossible to be shamed.

What went unmentioned in the video was the identity of the well-fed cop who handed out the ticket to the protester who had the temerity to honk for justice for Kelly Thomas. Well, I know who this churlish individual is.

No surprise! That’s Fullerton Police Officer Association President, Barry Coffman – the head union goon who got The Three Blind Mice McKinley, Bankhead, and Jones elected in the first place, and then watched in satisfaction as these three clowns handed over Fullerton to his union comrades.

Barry says he is smirking because he gets so much job satisfaction. But Barry won’t be smirking for long. Whatever the DA does there will be Federal and civil lawsuits coming FPD’s way, and likely punitive damages against the McKinley Six.  And that’s not going to be hushed up as usual. And he’s got an anti-recall campaign to finance with three elderly orangutans who have finally been exposed as utterly incompetent.

Not much to work with...

Smirk on that, Barry.

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Posted onLaw N Disorder

Reading the Tea Leaves: Parsing the Statements out of the DA’s Office

by 284 Comments on Reading the Tea Leaves: Parsing the Statements out of the DA’s Office

Attorney Mark Cabaniss has provided us with more expert analysis on the potential prosecution of the Fullerton police officers responsible for Kelly Thomas’ death:

It is getting close to decision time for the DA in the Kelly Thomas case.  While the investigation is still not completed and must be before any charges are brought, if any are brought, some of us are nervous, and increasingly disturbed at the way things are going, or not going, and at the unseemly deference given to the six police.

Unfortunately, in public pronouncements about the case, the Orange County DA’s office has sometimes given the impression that they are on the side of the police, even though the police are the criminal suspects.  This is unusual.  Usually the DA is on the side of the people, and against the alleged criminals.  Usual prosecutorial practice is to charge as many people as possible, with the most serious charges possible, in order to create the most leverage for the DA to get people to plead guilty and settle the case without a trial.  For example, in a case with multiple defendants, the DA might make a deal for one or more defendants to agree to testify against the other defendant(s) in exchange for reduced charges, or even outright immunity.  And in every case the DA charges the most serious charges warranted by the facts, so that he can get the defendant to plead guilty to a less serious charge, in exchange for getting rid of the more serious charge.  But in this case, the Kelly Thomas case, the DA has set a pattern of preemptive surrender, conceding points to the (possible) criminal defense even before any charges are filed, indeed, even before the investigation is complete.

(more…)

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