Mr. Peabody, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

August 14, 2011August 20, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Views on The City Manager

Felz_Joe_2011_sml — The deep end of the pool was awful scary...

Since he was promoted on an interim basis last year I have believed that former museum director Joe Felz was in way over his head. His role in handling the Kelly Thomas homicide has been fuzzy, at best. He seems to have been prepared to let his underling, Chief Sellers make the decisions (or choose not to make any decisions at all) and let police union boss Andrew Goodrich be the official voice of Fullerton – passing half-truths, irrelevancies, or outright lies.

My guess is that Felz abdicated the authority given him by the City Council and handed it over to Pat McKinley.

The only thing I’ve heard from Felz was a lame-ass attempt to play word games by saying no settlement offer was made to Ron Thomas, father of the victim. Of course that was such a sniveling lie that it alone should have earned Felz a half-hour stay in Jay Cicinelli’s basement Taser room.

Here’s an observation made by one of our commenters “Do you know”:

One person the citizen’s of Fullerton are letting fall under the radar is City Manager Joe Felz. The mayor and city council of Fullerton are largely part-time figure heads. The real power in the day to day operations of any small city is in the hands of its city manager. The city manager is also the boss of the chief of police. The chief of police does not even have the power to terminate an employee. The chief can suspend, or place officer’s on administrative leave, but they can only recommend termination. The city manager is the only one with the power to permanently remove an officer from their employment.

Chief Sellers initial inaction in this case is every bit the fault of Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz, as there is no way he did not know what is going on. Chief’s of police throughout California are on the phone with their city manager’s several times a day over one issue or another. City manager’s get their daily marching orders from regional heads of the California League of Cities. Since Chief Sellers did not take action in the early stages of this case, City Manager Joe Felz is every bit as culpable as Chief Sellers. Possibly more.

I’m inclined to agree. We are always told what a nice guy Joe Felz is. Maybe so. But it looks like he’s turned over the keys of the City of Fullerton to a rogue police department.

August 12, 2011August 20, 2011Behind Closed Doors

There Is An Emergency in Fullerton!

by Mr. Peabody61 Comments

the-observer-ostrich4-300x225 — Things never looked better for Fullerton.

Yep, there sure is.

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.

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.

bankhead_4th_july — 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?

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?

Quirk2 — 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.

August 10, 2011August 20, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Wait For The Investigation To Be Done!

by Mr. Peabody85 Comments

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.

August 7, 2011August 20, 2011Behind Closed Doors

FPD PERJURY!

by Mr. Peabody151 Comments

perjuryHandsbehindback — Rules for us and rules for them...

A while back we shared the “Go Home Or Go To Jail” video featuring Fullerton Police Department’s downtown wrecking crew assaulting and falsely arresting a bystander who had the temerity to document FPD violence. This happened last fall.

Nobody seemed to know the story about what happened to the man in question. Until now.

Here is a youtube clip featuring KFI’s Bill Carrol and attorney David Borsari who says he represents the guy in question. Please listen to the full interview.

There are two key points here: cooking up a completely implausible story in a police report, and then repeating it to a jury. Of course the video itself shows that the description of events by FPD officers was ludicrous.

This is stoopid, although apparently par for FPD’s course. Creating false reports and making up stories told to a jury has got to be a crime even for a cop, right? Isn’t that what they call perjury? So can we assume our intrepid DA, Tony Rackauckas and his law ‘n order crew are hard at work building a case against everyone associated with this disgrace? Hmm. And of course I have to wonder what the civil suit is going to cost us taxpayers.

And don’t forget that we are asked to wait for an investigation of the Kelly Thomas killing, the official reports about which were orchestrated by some of the same thugs who fabricated the story above, a tale contradicted by the facts and rejected by the jury.

Jeez, is this story of corruption ever going to end?

Yes. With a recall.

August 7, 2011August 20, 2011Dead heads

Irony Meter Needle Jumps Into Red

by Mr. Peabody56 Comments

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.

Ironymeter — Does this apply to the homeless?

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.”

August 2, 2011August 3, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Who is Jay Cicinelli?

by Mr. Peabody462 Comments

The anonymous caller to yesterday’s KFI’s John and Ken program identified an Fullerton police officer with one eye as physically participating in the July 5th beating death of Kelly Thomas.

As hard as it is to believe, Fullerton does indeed employ a cop with one eye, and has been identified by our commenters as Jay Cicinelli. Cicincelli was a rookie cop in LA when he was shot multiple times in 1996 as described in this 1998 LA Times article.

Cincinelli1 — 2005 Orange County Register file photo of Hugo Garcia and Jay Cicinelli

Apparently in the aftermath of this incident Cicinelli was deemed incapable of meeting physical standards, was placed on permanent disability and separated from duty with the LAPD. Here’s where the story gets interesting, Fullerton-wise. Cicinelli’s career as a law enforcement officer was far from over.

Cincinelli2 — A more recent image shared by a reader; Cincinelli is purportedly the officer on the right.

It seems that a high ranking LAPD cop, Michael Hillman took special interest in Cicinelli and eventually he used an old LAPD acquaintance to land Cicinelli a job in Fullerton. That acquaintance? Yep, Chief Pat McKinley, as detailed in this glowing 2009 tribute to Hillman on the OC Sheriff’s website, after Hillman had followed Sandra Hutchens to the OCSD. Here’s the operative sentence by Cicinelli:

“I think he had a lot to do with getting me this job, I know he was good friends with (Fullerton Police) Chief Pat McKinley. How many departments are going to hire an officer with one eye?

The implications of employing and deploying a one-eyed cop on the streets of Fullerton are rather worrisome; the possibility that Cicinelli may have undergone severe trauma that has never been adequately addressed is even worse. Of course this latter issue is speculation; but McKinley’s role in bringing this cop to Fullerton calls into question issues of cronyism, poor judgment, and ultimately, perhaps, responsibility for what happened to Kelly Thomas.

July 26, 2011August 21, 2011Setting The Bar Low

A Case of Mistaken Identity? Yeah, Right.

by Mr. Peabody69 Comments

This image was included in a story at Fullerton Stories here and purports to be a 2009 police booking photo of recent Fullerton homicide victim Kelly Thomas that was, presumably, provided by the ever helpful FPD spokehole Andrew Goodrich. Well, this is certainly a scary looking dude: pretty buff and mangy, and sufficiently angry-looking to scare the good folks of Fullerton right back into complacency about the homicide of a mentally-ill homeless man.

The only trouble is that it isn’t Kelly Thomas at all. His parents say this isn’t their son. But we don’t need their expert opinion. Apart from a large nose that is completely different from every other picture of Thomas, Kelly’s hair was flaming red, a simple fact illustrated in every other picture of him in the Fullerton Stories piece.

So what gives? Is this just a cheapjack trick by Goodrich & Co. to degrade the victim by presenting Kelly Thomas as a surly, muscular threat to Fullerton’s delicate residents? If so, the Fullerton Police Department has actually hit a new low, and given recent events that’s pretty goddam hard for them to do. But it’s just when you think you’ve hit the FPD basement you find out there are even lower levels.

I will await a comical explanation from the Good Sergeant Goodrich, but of course I won’t be holding my breath.

July 21, 2011July 27, 2011Bruce Whitaker

Whitaker Says “Release the Video!”

by Mr. Peabody29 Comments

FullertonStories.com just published this letter from councilmember Bruce Whitaker, in which he demands that the video and audio recordings of the July 5th police beating of Kelly Thomas be released to the public.

Read the letter

Don’t forget to check out the printed responses of the other councilmembers, including McKinley who says “I disagree with that last sentence about releasing the video. It isn’t a wise thing to do and is for the authorities to do.”

What does that mean?

July 10, 2011July 11, 2011Behind Closed Doors

The Latest County Melt Down

by Mr. Peabody23 Comments

Campbell — OC's Boss Tweed steps in it. Again.

Okay, Friends this one is a bit convoluted so stick with me.

The latest State budget deal takes about $50 million away from Orange County. How come? Best I can figure it out is this: after the bankruptcy of 1995 the County sold recovery bonds and the State sequestered about $50,000,000 annually to pay off the bond holders from part of the Vehicle License Fee that was distributed to the County. Later when the VLF was swapped out for property tax income the payoff to bondholders still came from the VLF. When OC refinanced it’s debt in 2006 it started taking the VLF money directly from the State even though no other county got any of it.

Confused? In 2006 County Supervisor Bill Campbell said he wasn’t, but he failed to do anything about the money hanging out there according to Voice of OC (EA)’s Norberto Santana, here. It seems he didn’t want to address the issue and hoped everybody would forget about it. That lame strategy worked for about 5 years. Now the State is laying claim to the dough.

The worst malefactor here is County CEO Tom Mauk who has yet another catastrophe to lay claim to. Following swiftly on the heels of the disastrous Human Resource Department audit in which Mauk was busted giving his cronies huge raises and promotions, this latest calamity may prove to be the final nail in Mauk’s coffin.

Will three supervisors finally perform self cranial-rectal extraction and get rid of this bozo? They aren’t very bright but sooner or later…

Stay tuned.

July 6, 2011July 6, 2011Boohooism

“Joel Swintowski”: Who is He? What Is He Promoting?

by Mr. Peabody22 Comments

The other day FFFF received this rather odd comment on the blog:

“Thanks for risking your lives so that my family and I can enjoy OURS!”
– Joel Swintowski

There were links to a website here that sported an official-looking letter from Fullerton’s police officer’s union president, Barry Coffman asking for money. There was the quote from Mr. Swintowski, clearly implying that he supports the Fullerton police union.

I got to wondering who this Joel Swintowski person might be. I never heard of him. So last night I contacted our FFFF investigative team of people-finders and guess what they came up with? There’s no such registered voter in Fullerton or in all of Orange County with any such name.

But, as they say on TV infomercials: Wait! There’s more! I also found a host of identical websites for police unions across California with the same quote from this “Joel Swintowski” guy. Clearly this operation is a money gathering scheme organized by some entity and then sold to police unions throughout the state like this one in Menlo Park, probably with a hefty cut taken from proceeds collected from unsuspecting suckers.

Now back to Fullerton. Coffman says it’s a “donation” that he’s begging. The request for money states: “Your contribution to us today will help provide outreach and strengthen relations by and between the FPOA and several local worthy groups and charities.”

Now we know the FPOA spends tens of thousands of dollars trying to get right-thinking people elected to the Fullerton City Council. And by right-thinking, I mean “public safety” union stooges who will raise their pensions and lower their retirement age. Do any of these “contributions” find their way into political activity? Could be. They are not tax deductible – the kind of deduction you get making a contribution directly to a real charity, eliminating the pistol-packin’ middleman.

So who might some of these “worthy” recipients be? Any guesses?

Could they include the campaigns of the same two guys, Bankhead and McKinley, who are getting prepared to raise your water rates 91% so they can use a portion of that money to support their own plush $McMillion retirement plans?

Maybe it’s time for an IRS audit of this solicitation for alms. Maybe the State AG needs to be called in, again. You know, just to make sure it’s legit.

And in the meantime maybe it’s time for FPOA to find a real Fullerton resident for its self-promotional testimonials.