The Great Fullerton Recall of 1994 removed A.B. “Buck” Catlin, Molly McClanahan, and Don Bankhead from the Fullerton City Council. The recall arose from citizen outrage against a series of utility taxes enacted during a recession. The rejection of the utility taxes ultimately saved Fullerton residents and businesses over $120 million.
Not long ago I discovered this anonymous note on my vehicle:
Below is a retirement flyer of a recently retired FPD lieutenant – some guy named Tom “Tango” Basham. Somebody thinks he’s a “top cop.”
Was this the man who was on duty back at the station on July 5th 2011 and who remotely watched the murder of Kelly Thomas? Was he the guy who later let the perps watch the video and write, then re-write reports?
Has this retired cop now been hired back by Acting Chief Dan Hughes as a paid double-dipper? If so, what for, and for how much? In 2011 this valuable piece of manpower pulled in over $148,000, so his pension, of course, is already huge.
Nope. It’s a reminder of how a one-eyed cop was hired by the City of Fullerton to patrol our streets with badge, gun, taser and who knows what else.
Here ya go sonny...
It is now pretty common knowledge that Jay Cicinelli was put on a disability pension by Bernard Parks, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department following a horrific shooting of the six-week rookie cop. Smart move. Among other injuries, Cicinelli lost his left eye.
But Cicinelli’s dream of being a policeman was not to end so quickly. For he had an ally in the figure of Mike Hillman, a gung-ho cop’s cop – the type whose worldview divides people into two groups: cops and everybody else; and Hillman was determined to put the one-eyed cop back on the streets somewhere – anywhere.
Hillman’s thoughts turned to little Fullerton, California where his one-time boss in the LAPD, Pat McKinley, had been appointed police chief. And what followed was a decision so incompetent and self-serving that it eclipses all of McKinley’s other disastrous personnel decisions – and that’s saying a helluva lot.
Should be considered armed and dangerous...
McKinley hired Cicinelli, gave him a badge, fire arms, and the keys to a patrol car, a decision so reckless and with such blatant disregard for the safety of the public and his own policemen, that he should have been immediately fired.
But he wasn’t, of course, and nobody else seemed to care. And Cicinelli remained on the force, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. And when it finally did, the result was a dead man and a series of huge civil payouts to the man’s family. The first payout was for $1,000,000. More are coming.
Meanwhile, the miscreant who hired Cicinelli and all the other thugs, goons. thieves, con men, pickpockets, kidnappers, perjurers, destroyers of evidence, and sex offenders is sitting on our city council, voting on the settlements his employees caused, that will have to be paid byus.
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?
It’s not easy to do damage control when you keep inviting more questions that you are pretending to answer. Of course when you are dealing with the incurious stooges at the OC Register maybe you believe you’re getting away with it.
The latest episode in the FPD PR campaign is an attempt by Acting Chief Dan Hughes to deflect criticism by acknowledging the error of letting his cops watch the Kelly Thomas murder video before writing their reports, a thing he finally admits he’s never heard of before.
Hughes said he argued against letting the officers watch the tape, in part because civilians suspected of misconduct would not be given the same opportunity. He said he did not think it was illegal or unethical, but did fear it would erode public trust in the investigation. “That was a mistake from our department,” he said.
Here we see Danny Boy defending himself: he argued with some unnamed somebody, somewhere, somehow, against letting the killers watch the video, but we are meant to believe that he was overruled. But by whom? Chief Sellers wasn’t there. Was he contacted? He was Hughes’ only boss. Was it a fellow captain? If so what was that man’s name? Lou Ponsi doesn’t seem to be very curious. Of course there is the very real possibility that Hughes is just lying to protect himself well after the fact. And notice that the mistake was made by “the department” an entity that can’t be disciplined.
Eleven months after the fact Hughes would have us believe he was oh, so concerned about the severity of the incident. And yet we now know that last fall, many weeks after Hughes had seen the video and heard the audio, he was insinuating to protesters that the after they actually viewed the video their outrage would be mollified. Hmm.
The rest of the story is just a pathetic attempt to take credit for the investigation and ultimate prosecution of Ramos and Cicinelli. Read this tripe and try not to barf:
But even as the officers collected their thoughts, crime-scene technicians and detectives were picking over the scene of the bloody confrontation with Kelly Thomas as if it had been an officer-involved shooting, Hughes said. The criminal case now facing two of those officers, he said, was built in large part on the police work done by their own department.
And more:
But, he said, it was Fullerton police work that put Fullerton police officers in criminal court. He pointed to the words of District Attorney Tony Rackauckas: “They went to the scene, they preserved the evidence, they did all the things they were supposed to do.”
A video of the confrontation spliced with audio from the officers’ recordings, produced by the Fullerton police, was the centerpiece of a recent preliminary hearing for Ramos and Cicinelli. They were ordered to stand trial, Ramos on charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, Cicinelli on charges of involuntary manslaughter and excessive force.
“It doesn’t matter who the defendants are,” Hughes said. “We are part of the prosecution team.”
Oh, brother, what a load of unadulterated bullshit passed along by the compliant scribes at the Register. Nobody “picked over” anything. We’ve already shown pictures of cops trampling all over the crime scene, and as far as collecting evidence is concerned, the only things collected were the cell phones and camera film of witnesses who happened to record the murder. The idea of the FPD investigating itself is utterly comical.
And, ultimately it’s still all about “poor communication,” really. Not much worse than a little bad luck if you think about it.
“I don’t believe there was any intention at all to mislead our community,” Hughes said. But, he added, “we should have did a better job” of communicating – a common theme in his account of the aftermath of Kelly Thomas’ death. In the future, he said, he and his top commanders will handle public communication duties during major incidents.
The department, he said, “did a very poor job of communicating to the community.”
Unfortunately the slug who was tasked with public communication, and who failed so dismally either through incompetence or malice, was actually just promoted a few weeks ago. What’s that Dan, we can’t hear you?
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out just a couple of the of the other instances of biased writing by the pathetic little fool, Ponsi. We have seen the obnoxious description of the cops “collecting their thoughts” as opposed to, say, “getting their stories straight.” You can’t note how Thomas is described as “rangy” a term that is certainly more threatening than “skinny,” because this has now been removed out of the post. But there is still the utterly objectionable use of the phrase: “As the confrontation escalated,” a literary device meant to deflect responsibility for the crime from the cops Ramos and Wolfe to some unknown cosmic force. Things just happen.
Brandon Ferguson at the Weekly is citing KPCC that cites other media outlets in passing along the news that all six of the Fullerton cops who participated in the beating death of Kelly Thomas last July have been given notices of termination.
This means that Craig, Blatney and Hampton have now joined the list that previously included Ramos, Wolfe and Cicinelli.
Of course official announcements are not forthcoming from the City since we the lowly taxpayers are not to know which cops are fired (if ever) and what for.
Since the sources have been cantilevered out there pretty far, I’ll withhold saying anything else until I can touch base with my source inside the FPD.
In the meantime, reflect on this: after the killing these cops were not disciplined; they were left on the streets by a leaderless department and a chummy city council majority – Jones, Bankhead and McKinley. Wolfe, Blatney, Hampton and Craig have been on paid leave since August, costing us several hundred thousand dollars.
Smarmy and self-righteous only tells part of the story. Sycophatic, craven, and lazy tells the rest.
Whoring for the inept, sclerotic Establishment, that is.
Last fall Whiting was defending the cops that murdered Kelly Thomas and attacking the lynch-type mobs calling for justice.
Most recently he wrote a tribute to “both sides” that was nothing more than a wet love letter to the Three Bald Tires, defending their compassion and objecting to the use of the phrase “kingmaker” in reference to Tony “Bashula.” Brandon Ferguson of the OC Weekly writes about Whiting’s pabulum, here.
(Note: I refuse to link to the Register)
I find the then-and-now quotations remarkably self-serving. Maybe the Three Hollow Logs said something to Whiting in private, because I don’t remember those “before” statements at all. Whatever. What I do remember with crystal clarity these “before” comments:
Dr. HeeHaw (on local TV news): “…I’ve seen far worse injuries that were survivable. I don’t know what killed that man”
Patdown Pat McKinley: (on CNN): “I’ve had my eyes bloused a few times…facial injuries look terrible but they are not life threatening…they heal…”
Just to show you where Whiting’s true sympathies lay, here is Ferguson quoting Whiting’s cuddly description of killer cop Joe Wolfe:
Instead of referring to Officer Joe Wolfe as one of Kelly Thomas’s attackers, which the video clearly shows he is–he was first to strike Thomas with his baton–Whiting clumsily described him as “an uncharged officer and partner of one of those charged.”
Anybody who has ever owned a dog knows they have some nasty habits, including sniffing each other’s rear ends and ingesting their own vomit. But you have to give them credit for loyalty.
Some folks are now reporting that Jay Cicinelli has been included along with Ramos and Wolfe.
– Joe Sipowicz
A source inside the FPD has just revealed that today Manuel Ramos and Joe Wolfe received termination papers from the FPD. How come? Interestingly, their offense was not provoking and participating in a brutal killing; rather, it was their refusal to talk to the City’s lawyer Michael Gennaco who was hired to do a report on the Kelly Thomas murder.
Hmm. I suppose the Three Tired Turnips will want to promote this as evidence of their hands-on management of the crisis and their dedication to good government. But if the information we have received is true it leaves Patdown Pat McPension and Co. with the awkward problem of Joe Wolfe, whose behavior has now been watched by over 100,000,000 people.
Hopefully it will also give the DA some gumption with regard to charging Wolfe in the killing.
The metamorphosis to an oxygen breathing life form was slow and painful...
We’ve just traced a string of obnoxious comments to an operation called Delta Partners. What is Delta Partners? It’s a front for the sleazoid repuglican bagman Dave “Dick” Ellis who tried to sell the OC Fair to himself, who hired Dick Ackerman as an illegal lobbyist to grease it, and who was later hired by Ackerman last fall to rip off the Three Dim Bulbs in a useless anti-recall campaign.
What a guy! Here are his comments, a pathetic amalgam of illiteracy and ignorance. Enjoy the wit and wisdom of Dave Ellis, intellectual voice of the anti-recall:
Nice move Bruce. Nothing like convicting them before a jury does. Remember you work for all citizens of Fullerton. Your job is to represent ALL citizens. I want my Council Members to make decisions based on FACTS, not things you make up in your head. You still claim there is a cover up by the PD, yet you’ve done nothing to prove it. Why is that? I’ve heard you say the police reports were doctored, yet have you seen them? Can you prove they were?
Stop running your mouth unless you can back it up with FACTS! I want my Council Members to think before they speak. The problem is you can’t speak without Bushala or Thompson putting words in your mouth.
I’m worth millions, I’ve had a successful medical career, I’ve served my country with honor, I’ve raised a wonderful family, and I to sit hear and listen to these FUCKING IDIOTS.
Whitacre you grandstanding fool. Had the video been released when you requested there would have been no audio. Just a grainy indecipherable mess that proved nothing. They audio was added in preparation for the preliminary hearing. When the DA tells you to refrain from stupid publicity stunts he does so for a reason. Let your Legislative buddies do the grandstanding, they’re much better at it.
Anti-recall front man Larry Bennett has been making all sorts of ridiculous claims in his efforts to save the dying political careers of the Three bald Tires – Don Bankhead, “Dick” Jones and Patdown Pat McKinley; and his latest claim is probably one of the most outrageously comical.
According to Bennett, City Hall is doing just fine on all fronts, thank you very much, and the residents of Fullerton have absolutely nothing to worry about.
But even a broken pair of pliers like Larry can drive around Fullerton and notice the broken water mains, leaking sewer lines and expanding potholes and crevasses in our streets, and realize that the residents, taxpayers and businesses of Fullerton have been sold down the river to cover the bloated paychecks, fat pensions and corpulent developer subsidies handed out over the last few decades by the Three Tired Tree Sloths. And then there’s that little matter of $27,000,000 his boys have illegally tacked on to our water bills for the past 15 years. Somebody’s got a refund coming!
Bennett obviously has no interest in relating the massive, multi-hundred million dollar pension liability that his pals have left the taxpayers. And of course we already know he thinks the thievery, sexual assaults, sadistic brutality and rampant corruption in the FPD is no big deal.
So there you have it, folks. The difference between the Recall and the forces of sclerotic self-interest, incompetence and malice.
