Friends For Fullerton's Future
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Mom always wanted me to be a doctor…
Apparently our city councilman and former police chief, Pat McKinley believes he has the expertise to opine on the severity of Kelly Thomas’s “facial” injuries. You heard him on CNN discount the photo of Kelly’s face. So where did McKinley get his medical degree? Oh, that’s right; his “expertise” stems from having his eyes “bloused” in his career, and look at how handsome he is now!
Man, these cops just don’t get it.
I just heard from a reliable source that Fullerton Police Chief Mike Sellers has put in for a minimum 30 day medical leave for some undisclosed malady.
Yikes! Is this going to be a stress-related gig? Can it be preliminary to a pension tax-grab? Is it driven by the dismal McPension interview on CNN?
I don’t know, but when I do I’ll let the Friends know all about it.
If you want to get a glimpse of abject stoogery from an employee of a company that another employee has comically referred to as “one of the better news organizations,” take a gander at this drivel from some jackass named David Whiting that was posted yesterday. He’s “reporting” on the mob mentality of those protesting the brutal bludgeoning death of Kelly Thomas at the hands of the Fullerton Police Department. We have noted the bland acceptance of this crime by the Register that has used such gassy descriptions of the lethal attack as “scuffle,” “tussle” and this priceless gem: “the struggle continued until Thomas lost consciousness” (or maybe he just got bored and fell asleep).
First, from the Reg, a scary headline: “Mob Rule Rises After Thomas Death” This is so damned stupid I’ll treat it for what it is – brainless pro-police propaganda. Just like this typical unsubstantiated and utterly irrelevant assertion by Whiting: Sure, there are bad cops. But the vast majority serve with honor and courage.
Reading Whiting’s steaming pile of inaccuracies really makes you wonder whether this clown is actually in the pay of FPD. Let’s hold our collective noses and examine some of it.
Whiting takes exception to those of us who criticize our MIA Chief. According to Whiting, Sellers has been a regular Chatty Cathy, actually having his name mentioned in a two or three press releases issued by Goodrich. Of course we know he hasn’t said anything at all.
Whiting cites a July 11th statement by FPD spokeshole (and cop union official) Andrew Goodrich: a mush-mouth statement (he conveniently ignores all the lies and leaks peddled by this sphincter) indicating the department’s pro-active, hands-0n approach. Alluding to FPD’s immediate attention to this matter, he says the statement was made the day after the Thomas was taken off artificial life support by his dad. But Dave, Thomas was effectively killed on July 5th, six days before this alleged statement; and by July 11th Chief Mike Sellers had long since departed on his two-week vacation (another embarrassing fact omitted by Whiting).
Whiting notes with disdain the “allegations” that the DA’s investigator on the case, Stan Berry, is close personal pals with Sellers, but apparently failed to even make an effort to find out if the “allegations” were true. They must be. The DA didn’t deny it when directly asked.
Once again we are admonished that reasonableness requires that we patiently wait for the investigation to run its course, even though (here’s another inconvenient fact ignored by Whiting) the cops involved refuse to cooperate with the DA.
Protesters are chastised for using intemperate language!
But some of the placards were disturbing. “Who do you call when cops murder?” “Murderers go to jail, murders with badges go on vacation;” “FPD employs murderers.”
Last I checked, “murder” is a word used in a verdict from a jury in a court of law.
Smug bastard, isn’t he? Somehow when we see the picture of a helpless guy whose head has been bashed in by six well-armed, well-fed cops with obvious malice we arrive at the inescapable conclusion that a murder took place. Silly us.
Here’s Whiting’s crescendo of crap:
There are videos in which eyewitnesses state that Thomas died at the bus depot. That didn’t happen. There are statements that officers beat Thomas with a flashlight. The attorney for the officers denies that happened.
Huh? Nobody disputes Kelly was effectively killed at the bus depot – even if taken alive, but brain-dead to UCI, later. Of course the bus riding witnesses didn’t know if he was technically dead or alive. This is just the dirtiest and cheapest chickenshit hair-splitting trick I’ve seen yet from the Police Gang. If Whiting got up off his lazy ass and went to see the bloodstained concrete at the Fullerton bus depot he might not be so fucking glib.
And note also that Whiting is giving credence to statements from the cops’ lawyer. The same cops who refuse to talk to the DA? Did the cop’s lawyer helpfully suggest that a Taser butt might just look like a flashlight to the uninitiated? Wanna place a bet?
It is the duty of the investigators – regardless if they are D.A., FBI or Fullerton’s own – to find out what did happen.
Yes, of course it is their duty. It is also FPD’s duty to serve and protect the public, including Kelly Thomas, rather than bash his brains out in the gutter.
Until then, efforts spent speculating and accusing might be better directed at ensuring that law enforcement is adequately trained to deal with the mentally ill.
Ah, the old misdirection! If only the poor police had better training! No, you useless hack, the issue isn’t ignorance about how to deal with the mentally ill. The issue is that six Fullerton cops Tasered and bludgeoned a helpless human being to death.
You would think even a dim-witted Register employee would get that.
Thus speaketh the knee-jerk supporters of cops, and of course the cops themselves, as they comment here, promoting the temporizing and stalling tactics that have worked so well in the past, and that give the Fullerton Six and the Three Blind Mice confidence that soon the whole Kelly Thomas bludgeoning murder by the police will just blow over.
Yet it occurred to me yesterday after contemplating the words of our erstwhile Do Nothing DA, Tony Rackauckas, that these same proponents of an idiotic two-six month time frame for toxicology and microscopic tests (microscopic tests!), etc., haven’t addressed the rather salient fact that their bad boys in blue refuse to talk to DA investigators, and that with respect to interviewing the closest witnesses to the murder, the investigation will probably never be complete. Now that seems pretty damn hypocritical to me.
Yesterday KFIs John and Ken had an opportunity to interview our District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas on the subject of the Kelly Thomas death investigation. Normally I wouldn’t hold out any hope at all for a lucid explanation of what was going on from T-Rack. After all I’m one of the people who refer to Rackauckas as our “Do Nothing DA” for his historically lackadaisical approach to wrong-doers who also happen to be elected officials and cops.
Rackauckas actually did pretty well, for him. The keynote was his claim that “everything is open.” Again, normally I would take that to mean: everything is open – including, and most likely, no findings and the cops skate, as usual. This is different. Although T-Rack claimed he saw no evidence that there was a deliberate intent to kill, he also said that the video is “core evidence” which strongly suggests that he may actually do something.
Now this may be no more than lawyer speak but I am guardedly optimistic, especially since Rackaukas admitted that his investigators have not spoken to any of The Fullerton Six who have refused to speak to them. He also indicated that it wasn’t absolutely necessary to talk to them given the core evidence. Hmm. It seemed to me that the DA was tossing out backhanded signals that some of the cops may want to sing if they want to avoid a long state prison stay for second degree murder. Of course maybe I’m reading too much into this.
On the down side Rackauckas refused to take blame for appointing and not removing Stan Berry, a good friend of Fullerton Police Chief Sellers to the investigation. This looks bad to everybody in the free world, except Rackauckas. And he said nothing about the possibility of cops cooking up their reports in concert.
Over at the big protest in front of the Fullerton Police Department, an arresting sight caught my eye. It was a banner hanging on the rail over the sunken court at department HQ.
And speaking of arresting, perhaps it should have read “Fullerton Police Alert: if approached by FPD assume a fetal position and hold your breath. Otherwise you will be targeted for resisting.”
Out here on Screech Owl Road I’ve been tuning in on the doings in sleepy little Fullerton that is sleepy no more. It’s hard to miss. You’ve made world-wide news – and not in the way anybody wants to become famous.
Anyway, I got to wondering the other day about the Police Department spokeshole, Sergeant Andrew Goodrich, a bumbling oaf who has made a real hash out of public relations in the aftermath of the Kelly Thomas homicide.
For a while I tried to make sense of the weird things he was saying, and obviously leaking to selected individuals, individuals who then exercised no intellectual scrutiny over what they were disseminating.
My friends back in Fullerton informed me that Goodrich is a shot-caller in the Fullerton Police Officers Association (FPOA), the local cop union. These are the boys (and girls) in blue who pour tens of thousands of dollars into Fullerton elections to get the most simple minded pro-cop lackeys they can find into office. Over the years they have succeeded marvelously.
Then all of Goodrich’s bullshit started to make sense: Kelly Thomas ran; he was combative; he had “legal documents” that didn’t belong to him; a photograph of a dirty, muscular, mean-looking guy was released purporting to be a two-year old booking picture of Thomas; two cops suffered “broken bones” in the encounter. All this trash was floated out to the public to discredit the victim and divert attention from the horrific bludgeoning death perpetrated by the police.
Of course, later it was revealed that there were no broken bones (the cops were back on the street); the identity of the man in the picture was challenged; the so-called legal documents in Thomas’s possession was trash Kelly had fished out of a dumpster; reports from people who knew him that Thomas was basically a harmless dude.
So who does Goodrich really work for? Fullerton taxpayers pay his salary, but it is crystal clear that he he is working for his brethren in the FPOA and will do anything he can to obfuscate, obscure, misdirect and mislead you – the very people who pay his lavish $130,000 a year salary plus benefits.
This becomes even more troublesome when you consider that he is one of the leaders of the union that has hired a lawyer to defend the six cops that participated in the Thomas beat down.
Who in God’s name permits a union officer be the official spokesman for a city department? The egregious Chief Mike Sellers, for one. And, naturally, the ex-cops on the city council Pat McKinley and Don Bankhead, as well as the buffoonish Dick Jones, of course – another individual embraced by the cop union.
Well this crap has got to stop. Sellers should be fired of course, and he should take his union spokesman with him when he goes.
We are in receipt of this letter to DA Tony Rackauckas which calls into question the actions preceding the beating of Kelly Thomas. Mr. Doherty hits the proverbial nail on the head and drives it though the board. Was the call to FPD about some guy burglarizing cars phony? Was it an orchestrated attempt to rid the Transportation Center of a nuisance to a business? If the DA and the FBI don’t find out who made that call and under what circumstances, you may rest assured Friends, we will. And thanks Mr. Doherty for your concern and citizenship.
A quick trip to Fullerton Stories reveals a statement by Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz that claims the City never made any “settlement offer” to the family of killer cops victim Kelly Thomas, who was brutally bludgeoned to death by six members of Felz’s police department on July 5th.
This is just about the shabbiest deception the City has tried yet; verbal hairsplitting to try to dodge the fact that your scumbag lawyer Bruce Praet presented “unofficial” proposals (oh, no not a “settlement,” that can only be authorized by the Council) to the family of the victim. Well, goddam, that’s a distinction without a difference! Felz, shame on you for running this turd up the flagpole, and shame on some stooge named Davis Barber at Fullerton Stories for accepting and propagating this ludicrous trash as pertinent to anything. Maybe now Felz thinks no one will we be inclined to ask who was responsible for authorizing Praet to contact the family in the first place. Was it you, Joe? Or did you even know about it?
Probably the worst part is the not-so-subtle insinuation that Ron Thomas, Kelly’s dad has been intentionally misleading the public.
Up until now I was willing to give Felz the benefit of the doubt – that he was just some poor former museum director dufus in waaaaaay over his head. Now it would appear that he was either completely out of the loop (bad) or, complicit in a nasty plot to discredit the Thomas family (worse) and protect the assess of some crooked cops.
He needs to go, too. Now.
Our local leaders have concealed the identities of the six officers who participated in the brutal arrest of Kelly Thomas. In the absence of official information, the public justifiably fears and distrusts every single member of the FPD.
That is probably why sources very close to the Fullerton police department have given us the names of the officers on scene that night. This information was reportedly determined from knowledge of patrol schedules and the observance of which officers have not been reporting for duty since the six were put on leave.
According to our sources:
Officer Jay Cicinelli was there
Officer Kenton Hampton was there
Officer Manny Ramos was there
Officer Joe Wolfe was there
Officer James Blatney was there
The sixth officer would have been a sargent called to the scene due to the use of a Taser. There are two patrol sargents not reporting for duty at the moment who may have been on duty that night. When we figure out which one was there, we’ll let you know.