Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
The attorney for the Thomas family released some medical reports from UCI today. They say that Kelly Thomas was brain dead from head trauma as the result of an assault and there were no drugs or alcohol found in his system
Chris went up to Garo Mardirossian’s press conference today to get the details. Check out the Taser demonstration at the end of the video.
KTLA has just released imagery put together by doctors hired by Garo Mardirossian. The reconstructed images show that Kelly Thomas suffered from a severely broken nose, a broken cheek, three broken ribs, taser wounds, a collapsed lung and a brain injury from lack of oxygen.
On July 5th Kelly Thomas was approached by police supposedly because the cops had received a report of a man trying to burglarize cars in the parking lot.
Here’s the problem: A Friend has confirmed through a records request that there were only two calls to the police for auto burglary in the Fullerton Transportation Center on July 5th, and neither one had anything to do with Kelly Thomas or anyone else in the area at the time.
In fact, one call was made early in the morning and the other came in at 11:30 pm, well after Kelly Thomas had already been beaten to death. Both calls were for stolen catalytic converters, an unlikely target for a homeless man with no tools.
So what really led officers to investigate a vehicle burglary at 8:30 pm on July 5th? Why were no calls logged or reports taken before Kelly was arrested? Who reported a crime, and how did they report it without going through the dispatch system?
It’s really starting to look like the whole burglary thing was an invention; an excuse to harass a homeless guy who wasn’t doing anything wrong.
The quality of the bus depot surveillance footage on the night of Kelly Thomas’ beating is still a mystery, but here’s a demonstration of the low-light and zoom capabilities of that same camera taken on August 16th (including with some random zoom footage from an identical model camera obtained elsewhere.)
This camera is about 150 ft. away from the spot where the beating took place. In this example, the camera was aligned to capture the comings and goings of Slidebar patrons on a Tuesday night.
Attorney Garo Mardirossian followed through with his promise yesterday, and now Fullerton is facing a new federal lawsuit from that guy who was wrongfully arrested for filming the police last year.
The suit alleges that Officer Kenton Hampton wrongfully assaulted Veth Mam and that officers Jonathan Miller, Frank Nguyen and Daniel Solario falsified police reports in an attempt to convict Mam for an assault against a police officer that he did not, in fact, commit.
The DA and the FPD had attempted prosecution of Mam earlier this year, despite viewing this video of the event which completely conflicts with what the officers wrote in their reports. A jury has already sided against the FPD and determined that Mam was innocent.
Chief Sellers is also named in the suit for willfully refusing to discipline or hold accountable any of his officers for felonies they allegedly committed against Veth Mam. He is also accused of allowing his department to “cover up acts of misconduct and abuse, “ that he “sanctioned a code of silence by and among officers,” and that the FPD “threatened, intimidated, demoted and fired officers who reported acts of abuse by other officers.”
Mardirossian says that if Chief Sellers had taken appropriate action against officer Kenton Hampton (one of the officers involved in the death of Kelly Thomas) at the time, Kelly Thomas might still be alive today.
We’ll be there from 9 am to 3 pm in front of the police station on Commonwealth Ave.
The city of Fullerton’s website seems to be offline at the moment, but just before it went down I noticed that Tuesday’s agenda included a new employment contract for Joe Felz, the guy who’s been managing the city during the Kelly Thomas catastrophe.
If approved, the new contract would boost Felz’s annual salary to $201,400 plus pension and benefits. His current salary is listed at $166,250. That’s a raise of $35,000 per year, as recommended by the HR department (which ultimately reports to Joe.)
That’s not a bad haul for the man who was steering the ship while Kelly Thomas was beaten to death, not to mention his oversight of the globally embarrassing aftermath.
The folks over at PBS SoCal were kind enough to let us post this “Inside OC” special on the Kelly Thomas story in its entirety. It contains interviews with Ron Thomas, Bruce Whitaker, Chris Thompson and a couple of milquetoast experts on homelessness and mental illness.
Most notable, however, is the Q&A with District Attorney Tony Rackauckaus. His persistent insistence that witnesses (and the rest of the public) not be able to view any videos before they testify is reduced to a mere “preference,” but only after he is confronted with the likelihood that police officers watched the recording as they coordinated their own reports on the incident.
The case for keeping that tape away from the public seems to diminish every time one of these goofs steps in front of a camera.
During Saturday’s protest we met a new witness to the Kelly Thomas police beating. Here is Edward, a CSUF grad and regular bus rider who told us he watched the entire event unfold from the bus platform…
Edward says he saw one bystander taking pictures with a cell phone camera who was then accused of “interfering” with an investigation. She was grabbed by a police officer who forcefully took her cell phone away. He believes that the woman was then taken into custody.
It is illegal for police to confiscate a bystander’s camera without a court order, unless the camera was used in the commission of a crime (hence the trumped up “you’re interfering with my investigation” charge.) Whether or not this person was actually booked, she would have most certainly been intimidated into giving up her property.
The DA hasn’t acknowledged receipt of any recordings other than the one from the city’s surveillance camera. So where did that cell phone go? And what about that other recording from the local real estate agent who was approached by police after the beating?
Anyone who was threatened by the police on the night of Kelly Thomas’ beating is invited to call or email this blog, anonymously if necessary. If you know somebody who was there, you are also invited to share any information that you have with us.
