The guy who pounded Kelly Thomas’ face to bloody jelly (right after he got done torturing him with multiple Taser shocks) won’t lose his disability pension from the LAPD. In fact, the board that oversees such things won’t even review the case. Marisa Gerber relates the story in the OC Weekly, here.
What case is that? It stems from Cicinelli’s getting all shot to hell a few weeks out of the chute back in the mid-90’s. Among other injuries, one of his eyes was shot out. At the time, the pension board granted him a lifetime disability, but of course that decision didn’t contemplate Cicinelli going back to work as a one-eyed cop, which he did in Fullerton a little while later. And apparently nobody from Fullerton bothered to inform anybody in LA of Cicinelli’s new employment status.
So Cicinelli was making $40K a year from LAPD and made about $90K from Fullerton on that hot, sultry night of July 5th, 2011. Equitable? You decide.
Speaking of getting two pensions, I now roll around to the main point of this post. Which is Pat McKinley, the double barreled pension grabber who, as chief of the Fullerton Police Department hired Cicinelli and deployed the one-eyed cop on the streets of Fullerton. It was a favor for an old LAPD crony. In so doing, he placed Cicinelli, the public, and the taxpaying citizenry at dire risk.
He also hired the rest of the FPD gallery of rogues that has made the news lately: the druggies, pickpockets, perjurers, thugs, sex offenders and killers.
McKinley still insists he is proud of all these people (except for “the two!”) and has nothing to apologize for.
See, in Pat’s weird world mistakes are never admitted, responsibility for failure is never taken, and of course, accountability is utterly absent. McKinley won’t acknowledge what everybody else already knows: during his tenure as the head of the Fullerton Police Department his leadership failure created an obvious Culture of Corruption that culminated with the death of Kelly Thomas and the subsequent attempt to hush it up.
Well, I guess since McKinley won’t man up to his own failures, we’re going to have to do it for him
After several posts detailing the falsehoods and comically bizarre statements made by former Fullerton Police Department chief Pat McKinley, FFFF decided once again to call upon the good offices of Dr. Reinhold Ott, of the Institut fur Psychologie at the University of Tubingen. It appears to us that Mr. McKinley is desperately in need of professional help. And of course, we’re always here to help.
The penetrating gaze of Dr. Reinhold Ott; M.D., Ph.D
So, let’s hear from Dr. Ott.
I have reviewed the information you have provided me on the subject of your former police chief and city councillor, Mr. Pat McKinley, including the invaluable videos. I can say that the latter were particularly useful in developing a personality profile on this individual. While necessarily speculative without further in-depth analysis, I can assert that the available evidence leads me to some fairly confident conclusions.
Narcissism is a condition of excessive self-centeredness that entails the inability to critically assess one’s self and others from a rational perspective. When it attains a serious enough level it is manifested by an effective denial of reality, an inflated sense of entitlement, and an almost complete lack of empathy for others. The narcissist sees himself as perfectly formed and thus he must ascribe blame to others for his own failures and shortcomings.
I believe this description fits Mr. McKinley quite well, as evidenced by his refusal to even offer a token apology for all the serious problems in your police force, a force that he appears pleased to have assembled. I notice that lawless police officers that he hired and trained himself are deemed to be “aliens;” the concept of extra-terrestrials invading this man’s police department sounds ludicrous to us, but not to him. Since the idea that poor decisions on his part is not conceivable to him, the only explanation must be supernatural. And please note how he casually dismisses the victims of sexual assault by one of his policemen – a criminal act – by degrading the target of the crime. Thus the victims of his police force (those ladies…, etc.) are characterized as somehow to blame for events that are seen to be things that “just happen.”
In one interview I notice Mr. McKinley’s use of the first person plural pronoun. “When we came to Fullerton.” This is not merely casual misuse of language. It indicates the very real possibility of dual or perhaps even multiple personalities; at the least, the good cop/bad cop duality that is closely connected to the police psychology may here be in evidence. This possibility should not be dismissed lightly.
Furthermore, I must note a strong impulse to authoritarianism in our subject, the staunch defense of physical abuse of people who assert themselves at the expense of his authority, and, once again, a propensity to blame the targets of this impulse, such as the other worldly attributes he absurdly imputes to anti-abortion protesters.
People such as our subject are invariably drawn to the military, as well as crypto-militaristic organizations, and while they may be useful for limited tasks, such as full frontal battlefield assaults, crowd and traffic control, and the like, they must be constantly monitored by a competent civilian authority. The penchant to assert their control over others while evading responsibility for their own misdeeds can be disastrous. History is replete with this sort of megalomania with its attendant horrors: pogroms, wars, concentration camps, etc.
I should note that the narcissist may present himself in an attractive, even charming manner so long as he attains his desires. But in the face of resistance to his charm, and, more importantly, to his authority, the narcissist will likely drop any facade of congeniality and become belligerent; however the denial and dissimulation will persist.
The personality profile of Mr. McKinley cannot be considered complete without consideration of statements made by the subject for which he possesses no professional qualification, such as the nature of the head injuries suffered by Mr. Thomas; and by his attempt to psychoanalyze protesters and even criminals. Exercising what can only be deemed incompetent opinion under the guise of informed knowledge is typical behavior.
For the true megalomaniac it is insufficient to be merely an armed minion in service to the state. He craves an authority outside his rather narrow vocational limits; an authority that he can claim personally. This explains the production of a self-published book in which he presses his years of experience into service for the good of his fellow man. It matters not that his advice in this oeuvre is good or bad (it is likely to be highly dangerous or lethal to follow any advice the narcissist may proffer); what matters is that our subject is an author!
It is easy to smirk at the title and text of our subject’s literary endeavor, but some compassion should be exercised: the “She Bear” is obviously indicative of serious unresolved maternal issues, and very likely a distant or abusive father.
For a dollar I will psychoanalyze you and guess your age and weight, too...
What is it about some cops? They just feel compelled to act out roles for which they have no qualifications. It’s not enough just to chase ’em and catch ’em. Oh, no. We have to be regaled with legal mumbo jumbo and psychological drivel to explain our own moral inferiority.
Take the classic case of Mr. Pat McKinley, formerly of the LAPD Riot Squad, Fullerton’s police chief from 1993-2008, and now councilmember. We have heard about him sharing, oops, no selling, his in-depth knowledge of the criminal mind here.
But this is by no means recent behavior for McKinley, under whose “leadership” the FPD descended into an undeniable culture of corruption.
Here is an LA Timesarticle from 1991, shared by a commenter. It’s about a lawsuit involving the use of martial arts nunchakus on anti-abortion protesters. From the article:
Nunchakus consist of two 12-inch lengths of hard plastic connected by four inches of nylon cord that officers clamp tightly around the limbs of demonstrators to force them to move.
The Operation Rescue lawsuit alleged that officers selectively “tortured” up to 500 protesters at demonstrations in 1989 and 1990 as the activists attempted to block the doors of clinics in Los Angeles.
In all, more than 30 people filed medical claims against the city for injuries allegedly suffered during arrests. Three of the protesters testified that they suffered nerve damage and broken limbs.
Our old friend Pat McKinley is quoted from a 1989 declaration to a judge urging him not to outlaw the use of the martial arts implement on pro-life protesters:
“Pain for many of the demonstrators is a catharsis for past failures to take action against abortion,” McKinley said. “Therefore, they have an unusual capacity to withstand pain. Some appear as a young child welcoming punishment for past transgressions. With this unique ability to withstand pain comes possibility of injury since a great degree of pain is required to induce compliance by arrest.”
Well, thanks for that in-depth analysis Pat, based on zero years psychological training. Notice how in one sentence he manages to psycho-analyze, demean, and then dehumanize the protesters, too. Just about like the cop apologists have tried to do with Kelly Thomas, the allegedly souped-up super tramp.
But really what this is all about is McKinley’s desire to justify torturing protesters. Why? Because it will make his job easier. And anyway, it’s for their own good, see?
As he blandly looks into a TV camera and tells his constituents that he has nothing to apologize for, consider this laundry list of offenses and incompetency only the most narcissistic, self-aware-less jackass could overlook:
Kelly Mejia iPad theft accusation
Todd Major ripping of Police Explorers and taxpayers to support his pill habit.
Kenton Hampton beating up, falsely arresting, and falsely testifying against Veth Mam. Civil suit on the way. Frank Nguyen lied on the stand, too.
Ditto Kenton Hampton and Edward Quinonez – at least no perjury. Yet.
Ditto allegations against Cary Tong against a college student.
Allegations that Vincent Mater encouraged a jail suicide and then smashed his DAR to try to conceal evidence.
The false identification of Emmanuel Martinez by Miguel Siliceo and his subsequent wrongful five-month imprisonment (with $30,000 bail – five grand higher than Jay Cicinelli’s).
Hiring sex criminal Albert Rincon and ignoring numerous complaints from women he abused. Habitually turned off his DAR against department policy. Several hundred thousand dollar settlement recently agreed to.
FPOA president John Cross detaining and beating up an innocent motorist. Slap on wrist.
Hiring a one-eyed cop, Jay Cicinelli, as a favor to an LAPD crony after that cop had been deemed unfit by the Chief of the LAPD.
Six FPD cops murdering, or aiding in the murder of a mentally ill homeless man Kelly Thomas. Cimimal charges, civil rights charges, civil suits on the way.
Cops he hired conspired to get their stories straight, were coached by supervisors, and were put back on the streets the next day.
Department spokeman and union officer Andrew Goodrich spinning false tales about the Thomas murder to mislead the public and the City Council.
Etc., etc.
Of course this is just some of the stuff we know about. As Michael Gennaco says, “there is more. There always is.”
Remember that these people and actions were foisted upon Fullerton by rudderless FPD that allowed Pat McKinley to spend his time “inventing” a police vest and slaving over his She Bear tome. And nothing for McKinley to apologize for.
Given his denial and inflated sense of self, it seems to me he is in serious need of some psycho-analysis himself. But the real kind, not the kind he dispenses to women who buy his book.
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.
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.
Looks like lawyer Garo Mardirossian has the City of Fullerton squarely in his sights. He is representing the Thomas family in the beating death of their son Kelly. Here’s the CNN interview including a snippet from Michael Gennaco. Interestingly Mr. Mardirossian is now also representing the man who was thrown around by FPD officer Kenton Hampton and subsequently jailed and wrongly prosecuted by the DA based on fraudulent evidence from the Fullerton cops. We reported about that here and here. That prosecution was rejected by a jury because the cops demonstrably perjured themselves. Garo has no apprehensions about naming Kenton Hampton as being present at both incidents. The clip is a bit long but worth viewing in its entirety.
Although it’s going to end up costing everybody in Fullerton to resolve these cases, you can bet on one thing: none of our so-called “leaders” will take personal responsibility for this total failure of civilian oversight of a police department that is manifestly out of control.
The City Manager has called an emergency meeting of the City Council this morning at 9:00, a mighty odd time to hold a public hearing. The ostensible purpose of this emergency is to hire an outsider to evaluate the condition our FPD condition is in.
It’s pretty obvious that this decision could have waited until the next scheduled meeting. So what’s the emergency? Maybe City Manager Joe Felz and the Gang of Three are trying to look like they are finally, really and truly taking things seriously. And maybe they prefer dealing with Kelly Thomas related humiliations at nine o’clock in the morning to avoid hundreds of angry commenters.
Fail to the Chief...
The really pathetic aspect of the abject failure of leadership in Fullerton and this desperate and transparent effort to defuse a recall is that the real emergency existed on July 5, 2011 and was completely unknown to our oblivious City Council, including the supposed law enforce experts Pat McKinley and Don Bankhead. Or maybe they knew and just didn’t care. After all, McKinley was police chief from 1993-2009 and has admitted he hired all the cops who have made Fullerton famous lately; and Bankhead has been on the city council since 1888. Oops. I mean 1988.
Has it really been that long?
F. Dick Jones has been on the council for 15 years; will he not take responsibility for the state of affairs he created?
Hail no!
What about the ever-compassionate Sharon Quirk? She has been on the council for seven long years. How many police-related monetary settlements has she approved?
Knitting socks as fast as she can...
Well, there you have it. An emergency. But its an emergency created by world-wide attention to the Fullerton Police Department’s culture of corruption, not by the corruption itself.
Well, go ahead and have your emergency meeting, folks. You can run but you can’t hide.
The official investigation by The Authorities continues...
In the past few weeks these pages have been littered with a startling list of charges of criminal behavior by members of the Fullerton Police Department, starting with larceny, and evolving through credit card fraud, assault, charges of sexual battery, and of course the gang-homicide of a mentally ill homeless man.
I believe the public is perfectly justified in assuming the worst and that the stuff that has come out recently is indicative of a systemic problem. After all nobody, especially the local “journalists,” were paying the least attention. The issue can’t be deflected by the childish “not all cops are bad” nonsense. The problem is that no cops should be bad – and if any are they should be weeded out quickly and the failure analyzed immediately. After all, these individuals literally hold the power of life and death over you and me. Just like they held it over Kelly Thomas.
And all this begs the simple question: who in the Hell is in charge at FPD? The obvious answer is nobody, if one discounts the unsettling possibility that the cops are in charge of themselves.
Okay, but who should be responsible for making sure the cops are on the up and up?
A carbuncle on the butt of Fullerton (image from Ed Carrasco & our Friends at the OC Weekly)
Well, the first answer, of course, is the the Chief of Police, Mike Sellers. True, he inherited a department, such as it was. But he’s been here a couple of years now. Early on he promised publication of his departments policy on Taser use; that was just a load of unadulterated bullshit. After the Thomas killing occurred, during the initial period when he obviously thought he could skate by on business as usual, he took off on vacation. Seller’s nonchalance backfired. It backfired badly. He failed to get the cops involved off the streets, let alone putting them on leave; tellingly this only happened when the media finally became interested in the Thomas death. And this alone justifies his dismissal.
Of course theoretically the FPD answers to the civilian authorities. Which brings us to the Silent City Council Trio: Mssrs. Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley.
You're not homeless are you?
Don Bankhead is a former cop, and as such should be the most savvy of the three when it comes to understanding the propensity of cop culture to veer out of control. Every time he runs for office he makes sure the electorate knows he is ex-cop. But Bankhead, apart from dubious mental faculties is also a tool of the police union that has supported their boy for over twenty-two years: twenty-two years and numerous pension spikes and giveaways to the union.
The HeeHaw jokes ain't funny no more...
F. Dick Jones? When Jones is not berating his constituents from the dais he is mangling the scripts written for him by City staff. He has never seen a uniform he didn’t like, and was once heard to say: “you don’t get anywhere in Fullerton badmouthing the Fullerton Police Department.” From a political standpoint truer words were never spoken. But Jones is fond of bragging about his service in military; and the military is all about rules and regs so Jones had better start explaining how the FPD came to be what it is today – during his 15 years in office.
McKinley is on the left.
And finally we come to councilman Pat McKinley, former Fullerton Chief of Police, a repuglican cipher dropped on Fullerton by the GOP establishment. McKinley’s got some serious explaining to do since it was under his seventeen-year watch that the Fullerton FPD seems to have descended into the morass in which we currently find it. He was the one who apparently hired a one-eyed cop who was rejected by the LAPD, a cop who seems to be intimately connected to the Thomas murder. He was the one who left his command structure behind. He was the one who, instead of overseeing his department, spent his days inventing a vest that could be sold to his department.
McKinley makes well over $200,000 a year in pensions. Pensions racked up during years supposedly in charge of the Fullerton Police Department.
When someone refers to the gang of thugs that murdered Kelly Thomas as “The McKinley Six” they are right on the mark.
Finally, it seems to have escaped the notice of these three council chimps that even as they plead to the public to wait for “the Authorities” to develop their cover-up, er, investigation, their slimy lawyer is offering Ron Thomas $900,000 to just go away. The irony is pretty profound. But something tells me irony is lost on these three.
The Wishing Well Apartments. Someone's wish just came true.
For those interested in obscure Fullerton history, Louis Valasquez lived in the Wishing Well apartments at 466 West Valencia Dr. while serving as the Mayor of Fullerton in 1979.
Those more curious about modern-day Redevelopment Agency boondoggles, may be interested to learn that this past week the Fullerton City Council voted to sell the Agency owned Wishing Well Apartments to an out of town “developer” for $100.
The Fullerton Redevelopment Agency purchased the ol’ Wishing Well for $1,993,433 and paid an additional $60,930 to kick out (relocate) all the tenants that resided in the 16 unit building. On top of that the Agency is going to give the out-of-towners an additional $184,347 to “rehab” the apartments, provided the developer rents the apartments to low income tenants. Here in Orange County “low income” is 50% of the median income – which for a family of 3 is $70,890. This means that people that make around $35,445 will be living in the Brand Spanking New Wishing Well. I’ll bet ya the previous tenants made less than $35,445 per year. So in reality the city kicked out the poor folks in order to replace them with richer poor folks.
Now that’s not very good is it?
And if the units were so dilapidated, why didn’t City Code Enforcement simply cite the landlord and require the units to be standard units?
I think I’ll do a follow-up post and focus on code enforcement failures under Don Bankhead’s and Dick Jones’s years of “leadership.”
Listen to good ol’ Doc Jones explain why he bugged out of the OC Vector Control Board. It’s pretty ironic that during Jones’ explanation he does the same thing that he accuses Vector Board members of doing – going on, and on, and on. In fact Jones goes all the way to Africa and beyond in his four minute plus spiel. And of course he’s a die-hard supporter of the bureaucracy and its arrogant ex-chief to the bitter end.
Back in September we published a mothers’ letter accusing the Fullerton School District of ignoring the pornography problem on school-issued laptops. At the time, the school district responded to the an OC Register reporter by claiming that this was the “first reported case of a student using the laptops to log on to pornographic sites”.
Today we know that statement is a flat-out lie.
I have been contacted by numerous parents and several FSD teachers who were each directly involved with cases where school children used their laptops to view pornography or chat with strangers online. Some had grade-school children who became addicted to pornography, while others were teachers who dealt with these issues on a regular basis in the classroom.
Witness one post by and FSD teacher to our blog following the OC Register story:
I am a Fullerton Elementary school teacher and a parent of elementary school children who have been a part of the laptop program. First, I am aware of numerous children who have accessed inappropriate sites and viewed illicit images while using their school issued laptops. Furthermore, we discovered inappropriate material on our son’s laptop. For those of you who would blame this on “bad parenting” get your heads out of you a#%! These are curious adolescents, who if given the opportunity, will venture into areas they shouldn’t go. In giving these laptops to children to take home and expecting them to refrain from inappropriate sites is equivalent to putting dirty magazines in a young boys closet but telling him to not look at them. When not monitored (and what parent can do this 24/7 ?) they will act on their curiosity. Unfortunately, this can lead to emotional, psychological and even physical harm through sexual predators who are just looking for an opportunity to catch a young child who has wandered into the dangerous world of the internet.
To the mother of the daughter who was caught up in this unfortunate situation please be encouraged. What others may mean for harm God can use for our good and His glory (Rom. 8:28). May you and your daughter experience His all-sufficient grace! (2 Cor. 12:8)
It is clear that many parents are not monitoring their childrens’ use of the laptops, finding it impossible to watch them twenty four hours a day. For those super parents who disagree, please think about all of those open wireless networks across the street of your school or on your child’s way home. In this day of dual-income and single-parent families, how many children are left alone on the Internet under the guise of doing their homework? Are most parents technically adept enough to even recognize a problem when it occurs?
The prevalence of pornography on school laptops is a direct result of the district downplaying and misrepresenting the laptop safety issue to parents. Unfortunately, many children are being permanently harmed by the district’s failure to address the problem.
