Count The Ironies

Retirement was on his mind...

The date is July 19, 2011 and Fullerton Chief of Police Mike Sellers has just returned from his cruise and is still on vacation. FPD murder victim Kelly Thomas has been off life support for one week. Clouds are gathering, alright.

“Chief” seems interested in sharing his knowledge of some newfangled strategy called “predictive policing,” which, presumably, would not predict crimes perpetrated by the cops themselves. His correspondent, Dennis Kies, then Interim Police Chief of Costa Mesa, is suitably unimpressed.

Some folks may remember Kies from his days as police chief in La Habra, a tenure punctuated by the over-reaction cop shooting of 25 year-old Korean-American artist Michael Cho on the final day of 2007.

Then discussion of a new job at Seal Beach comes up, and apparently Kies name had popped up. “Chief” shares the bennies package.

I don’t know what a “medical retiree clause” is, but it probably has something to do with Chief’s Disease. Ironic that in less than a month Sellers himself would be  rollerskating out of Fullerton with a bad case of it.

39 Replies to “Count The Ironies”

  1. Dennis Kies has quite a sense of humor, and seems personable. Fullerton could use some officials who are more personable. WSH

  2. Regarding that Cho murder by LH police, notice how the article states, “Three hours after the shooting, police went to Cho’s parents’ home, saying they had received a vandalism report and inquired about their son, said Sung Man Cho, a painting contractor.
    They did not tell him that Michael Cho was dead, he said.
    Police returned at 8 p.m. They said Cho was dead but did not say how he died, the father said.
    The family was unclear about when they learned how he was killed.”

    All that after their own swine killed this man!!!
    Another display of police cowardice when it comes to their wrong-doings.

  3. The civil jury in the Cho case gave the family nothing and found the shooting justified. Just more misstatement of the facts by FFFF what’s new?

    1. Yeah, and I wonder how many La Habra cops perjured themselves just like Fullerton cops in the Veth Mam case.

      Obviously deficient training led to the death. Then the cover up cleaned up the mess.

    2. Please note that the Cho family received a $250,000 out-of-court settlement via the La Habra taxpayers.

    3. Tuco knows:
      Jimmy Chow made a bald faced lie. The jury was hung. It did NOT vote to not give anything to the family. FFFF did not misstate facts, Jimmy Chow did!
      The City Of La Habra settled for $250,000 right after the trial as no one wanted to go through another civil trial.
      Jimmy Chow is a FFFF hater and liar. Period. You have been caught once again!

  4. I can’t help but notice that these police officers exist in their own little protective bubble outside of reality. Whereas a grieving father has just taken his badly battered son off of life support due to the conduct of six police officers that the Chief of our police is responsible for, and this guys waxing about how his old buddies at Seal Beach PD would welcome the C.M Chief of Police with open arms.
    Between the callous and disingenuos nature of leadership that our officers have had to model their behavior from, it doesn’t seem to big a stretch to realize how these latchkey adolesence officers have strayed so far from their path that they first started on to change society for the better, and not to turn on society and batter.

  5. Michael Sellers is the consumate public servant. The epitome of character and courage. His autobiography should be required reading for all of Fullerton school children. He has become a household name, a hero of sorts. He should do a book signing over at the slide bar.

  6. Just a Champion :
    Fullerton – A professional clown suspected of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old girl in Fullerton nine years ago while he was in costume was arrested.
    Not really hard to find a professional Clown, but 9 years later, thats lame.
    http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/clown-rape-arrest-20110325

    I noticed in the article that Andrew Goodrich was the Fullerton police spokesman back in 2002 when this crime occurred.

    I’ve lived here in Fullerton awhile, and I don’t remember ever hearing from the Fullerton PD in 2002 to advise us as parents to be aware of this very sick and dangerous “clown”, so that we could keep our kids away or be vigilant about dropping our children off at a birthday party that this “clown” may be at or may have worked at in the past?

  7. Jimmy Chow :
    The civil jury in the Cho case gave the family nothing and found the shooting justified. Just more misstatement of the facts by FFFF what’s new?

    The Cho family received $250,000 in an out-of-court settlement after a civil jury deadlocked on the issue of whether the shooting was justified, saying that the victim had a tire iron in his hand, which justified the officers using a gun. (obviously some of these officers have never played paper scissors and rock)

    Most of the Korean community here in So. California were outraged and are still are upset with the circumstance surrounding Michael Cho’s death.

    As usual, Rusty Kennedy and his “less than Human Relations Commission was called in to BS the masses and whitewash the officers culpability with the community, which helped no one, but gave the appearance that the internal investigation had run it’s due course.

  8. This story of Michael Cho sounds hauntingly familiar to me, and makes me wonder if Chief Sellers wasn’t reaching out to Dennis Kies by buttering him up a little at first with flattery of a job prospect with his old buddies at the beach, and then asking for guidance on the Kelly Thomas matter with a someone who has experienced something similar firsthand?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cho

  9. hell is indifference to suffering and Fullerton Police chief Sellers indifference to the murder of a homeless, disabled man by his officers defines hell.

  10. Snowhume :
    Dennis Kies has quite a sense of humor, and seems personable. Fullerton could use some officials who are more personable. WSH

    …from the sounds of this article, it appears Dennis Kies may be a hell of a guy WSH, however he seems to lack a little in the memory department, which to me means I’ll never get the “whole truth” from this individual, just the convenient parts. Let him keep peddling his schtick in Costa Mesa orhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cho

        1. “For example, when is the use of force appropriate when dealing with a developmentally disabled individual? Are there more effective responses? Or are there situations in which efforts to de-escalate the situation could actually make it worse and should be avoided? Should police responses vary if an individual has a history of mental illness or is a known drug user? What types of limited force may be reasonable if a suspect is refusing to comply, but is not an active threat to the officer or the public?”

          I guess common sense is just too much to ask of our “finest.” It’s seems they’ve never heard of PERT teams or CIT teams. But, since our “finest” are known for murdering unarmed citizens, it is obvious that they DO need more training.

  11. predictive policing? like Minority Report? nah. a reason for 6 guys to sit around the table talking about what might happen later if they do something later. thats the ticket

    1. Sellers is the typical executive, always in persuit of the latest pie-in-the-sky “shiny thing” to convince everyone around him that he is some sort of visionary, when he’s really just a professional paper pushing people pleaser.

  12. July 19 and he was STILL on vacation, more than two weeks after his men had killed an unarmed man. No department hesd with sny integrity would be keeping his distance from such a situation. Who told him to stay away?

  13. Its leadership, your not going to change a psycopath. And when leadership is ignorant or has its own twisted evil issues get this situation were in.

    1. Lifesaving Service :
      Its leadership, your not going to change a psycopath. And when leadership is ignorant or has its own twisted evil issues get this situation were in.

      Sorry for grammatical errors, damn touchscreens, you get this situation we are in “If they were smart they would not be in an evil corrupt criminal organization.”

      The way honer and hypocrisy is displayed in this situation is more evil and narcissistic than ironic.

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