Fullerton Cops Label Camera Data Wrong 60% of the Time

It was bad enough when we learned that Fullerton Officers had (have?) no oversight in how they themselves are allowed to categorize videos and schedule them for deletion. Do something wrong like the litany of SB1421 criminal cops? Just change the category to delete the videos and nobody is the wiser.

It was worse that we learned that in the context of Fullerton Officer Jose Paez perving on High School kids and teachers while on the job, including for allegedly shooting video up a 16 year old’s skirt for which he’s being prosecuted.

But it turns out that Fullerton cops label their video files wrong 60% of the time according to Chief Dunn himself:

BWC 60 Percent

“We also learned the way we label data, officers tag the video via an app on their phones, is incorrect 60% of the time.  This contributes to the storage overages and can cause evidence to be missed.”

So when officers aren’t just deleting the videos of their criminal activity, such as Paez did, they’re potentially missing evidence for cases by simply not doing their jobs correctly.

The guys and gals in blue whom we pay the vast majority of our budget to can’t manage to tag a video properly for evidence – when evidence is quite literally one of the most important aspects of their job.

Guess they need more training and raises to justify that training. Bring on Fitzgerald’s taxes to solve this pernicious police problem. Just kidding. We’re paying for software (CAD integration) because a machine is the only thing that can save us from officer incompetence. But we’ll still get hosed with the taxes to pay for their ever growing pensions just you wait.

The Consortium of Corruption

Not pretty, but it works…

Friends, an environmental symbiosis exists in nature when two organisms interact in a way that is mutually beneficial. In the course of human organizational activity we see such symbioses frequently. In the nasty intersection of government and politics such relationships are depressingly common. And nowhere can we see this operation in better form than in the way Fullerton’s politics intersect the management of police business, a business that affects everybody.

Let me begin my essay with a recitation of police behavior in our town that ought to give any decent person reason to give a second thought to nonsense pitched by both the government and the media.

See this badge? It means honesty and integrity. Or not.

We all remember the words of former FPD Chief, Danny “Galahad” Hughes when he said that anybody who claimed a Culture of Corruption in his department was a liar or misinformed. Of course this is the same individual who orchestrated the Kelly Thomas killing cover-up, who ordered the ticketing of “excessive horners,” and who is implicated up to the top of his bald head in the illegal catch and release of drunken former City Manager, Joe Burt Felz.

 

Spokesphincter was the last straw. Apparently.

In all of his endeavors Hughes was serially assisted by the smarmy and arrogant Andrew Goodrich, former union goon and, not coincidentally, the otiose and corpulent spokeshole for department. Friends will recall that it was Goodrich who immediately promulgated lies about cops getting broken bones in the aftermath of the Thomas bludgeoning by his cohorts. Goodrich was caught by FFFF over the years selling so much garbage that he was actually nominated for  a coveted Fringie® in 2011.

Just gimme a minute, here.

Most Friends believe that the author of FPD’s Culture of Corruption was none other than former top-cop Pat “Patdown Pat” McKinley, who imported a bunch of cops from LAPD, including the one-eyed cop on disability, Jay Cicinelli, who bashed Kelly’s face in with the butt end of a Taser. McKinley admitted to hiring all these thugs and he brushed aside the accusations against FPD sexual batterer Albert Rincon by telling an audience that the victims were inferior types of women, anyhow. On the Fullerton City Council he acted in tandem with Hughes as architects of the disastrous cover-up. His plans were inadvertently exposed on CNN. His history of playing twisted, amateur psychologist was well documented.

 

GOD MODE ACTIVATED. Lookin’ out for the ladies, oh yeah!

Some of FPD’s bad behavior has suggested a sexual pervy streak running through the department, and a predilection for looking the other way about it. Albert “Alby Al” Rincon, instead of being fired and prosecuted by McKinley for sexual battery, continued to roam Fullerton’s streets looking for victims – gals he no doubt figured would keep their mouths shut. They didn’t, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands and the City a reprimand from a federal judge. Naturally no charges were ever filed.

Recently we’ve been favored with the story of tubby ginger boy Jose Paez, whose “crime” according to tough guy DA Todd Spitzer, was the unauthorized photographing of his victims. Unfortunately for the girls and women he associated with as a school officer in the FJUHSD, what he was taking pictures of was their undergarments – while they were being worn.

Chiu-FPD-Awards-Promotion
How ’bout a date, honey?

A few months ago the story leaked out about an enterprising young FPD lad named Christopher Chiu, who seems to have found a persuasive way to talk a young woman out of her clothes on the top of the Lemon/Chapman parking structure so he could examine her breasts and nether parts in search of “evidence.” Before the courtly charm of playing doctor wore off, he suggested his availability for a dinner date. Yikes.

Speaking of sex in our city, let us not, Dear Friends, forget the hi-jinks of stumblebum Detective Ron “My Request Stands” Bair, who ended up extracting sex from the mother in a child custody case in which he was a witness. Half a mil on us and adios, Ron. Enjoy the spectacle of the outraged Keystone Kop demanding that councilmembers turn over their cell phone records to him.

Wren, on the right, getting a MADD award. Maybe anger management paid off…

The parade continued recently with the sordid tale of Christopher Wren, a Riverside County anger management clinic grad who was holding clandestine conferences of varying duration with an Officer Riedl – in various FPD assets, including his squad car and in the ladies toilet room. Ick.

Former Sergeant Jeff Corbett was actaully rung up for obstructing justice although seamy stories about sexual escapades while on duty have been circulating for a long time. But to be fair to poor Jeff, it was sending Wild Ride Joe Felz home after the hit-and-run of Sappy McTree that got him busted.

Apart from uncontrolled libido, the gallant gents of the FPD have often displayed their ethical sensibility in an orgy of mayhem against people who hadn’t done anything wrong, or by simply revealing how little they care for the basic concepts of justice. Maybe the cultural shift to full-on violence and callousness was the result of Pat McKinley’s well-known militarization of the FPD.

Ay caramba!

Jay Cicinelli is known across the globe as the goon who smashed in Kelly Thomas’s face with a Taser handle and admitted it on tape. This one-eyed jack was employed by McKinley as a favor to an old LAPD crony. Now this twice disqualified creep actually wants (or wants us to believe he does) his job back!

The gift that keeps giving…

Our obese old pal Manuel Ramos had a long history of lazy and oafish behavior as an FPD cop, culminating in the actions that instigated Kelly Thomas’s death. Bully? Check. Overweight slob? Check. Natural born prick? Double Check. FPD material all the way.

Joe, plumbing…

Of course the proud specimen known as Joe Wolfe was Ramos’s accomplice on that fateful night Thomas was goaded into flight. Good old Joe was there with baton in hand to deliver the first blow to the schizophrenic homeless man.

Over the years FFFF has related stories from the citizenry about abusive and violent behavior of Fullerton’s cops, particularly those patrolling downtown open air booze court. But none of these stories can equal the brutality and the callous treatment of Veth Mam by one Kenton Hampton. See, Hampton’s official version of the story got real fuzzy after it became clear that his recollection of events strained even the credulity of an OC jury past the breaking point, especially when video evidence showed up in court. During a downtown scuffle involving the cops, Hampton arrived by car upon the scene and knocked the phone camera out of the hand of an innocent bystander, Mam, who was giving away about 100 lbs. to Officer Hampton. After throwing the hapless Mam around like a rag doll, Hampton tossed him in the Fullerton clink where he was charged with assaulting a cop, a story Hampton testified to under oath. Was he ever punished? Of course not. Under “Chief Danny” Big Bad Ham seems to have been promoted to a desk job.

MADD Heroes. Far right “Sonny” Siliceo contemplates the downside of an honest future. Tim Gibert, top left, contemplates a career at the Home Depot key duplicator.

And then there is the laundry list of incompetence or indifference. We first met Miguel “Sonny” Siliceo as he tagged one Emanuel Martinez who spent five months at Theo Lacy courtesy of a deliberate misidentification.  Spoke-sphincter Andrew Goodrich comforted us with the words “we try to arrest the right guy.” Years later Siliceo, in a different matter, was convicted of filing a false police report, something very, very hard to accomplish.

To swerve and deflect

And to round out our categories of misconduct, we must pause, I suppose, at least for a moment to reflect on a few of the various petty crimes and thievery perpetrated by our boys and girls in blue. Todd Major ripped off Explorer Scouts to feed his pill habit. April Baughman ripped off the property room of $50,000. Kelly Mejia tried to boost an i-Pad right under the watchful security cameras at the Miami airport. Hugo Garcia was apparently told his services were no longer required after being busted for purloining something or other (off duty, of course; on duty the man was a veritable saint). And then there was the tale of Officer Timothy Gibert, another MADD awardee who got popped out in the high desert defrauding home improvement stores. Just how many small-time thieves and pickpockets we have employed over the years will never be known for sure.

I will slide over details of how the FPD has deliberately ignored clear cases of lawbreaking by its pals, and has actually prosecuted criminal cases against politcal opponents because that sort of behavior we would naturally expect. But it is a segue, doncha know.

So, finally, let’s end this painful revelation with the not-so funny story about Josh Eddleman and Jerrie Harvey two innocent people jailed and prosecuted due to the bungling of newly minted “detective” Barry Coffman, best known for his enthusiastic handing out of tickets for “excessive horning.” Once againSpokesanus Goodrich informed the public that the FPD really, does try to arrest the right people, gosh darn it, a statement so insincere that maybe not even David Whiting would believe it.

Of course this quivering pyramid of gelatin was the President of the Fullerton Peace Officer’s Association for years and years, supporting political candidates who could be counted on to serve and protect his wayward union members while bestowing lavish pay and benefits.

And here is the nexus of casual corruption: without a compliant city council and their hand-picked city manager, this sad litany of crime and no punishment would be an awful lot shorter. The cop union, along with their “firefighter” brethren and sistren diligently help elect reliable stooges to the city council through vast campaign spending via their political action committees. And what a roll call of dunderheads, incompetents, buffoons, seniles, lackeys and assorted political grifters they have greased into office.

Really and truly Jurassic In Every Way

Back in the late 1980s winning campaigns for elected office in Fullerton really started getting expensive, a fact exploited by the “public safety” unions in the the 1990s.  And who became the poster boy for the police association? Why, none other than former Fullerton cop Don Bankhead who’s disability retirement account makes Inspector Clouseau look like a veritable Fred Astaire. It mattered not that Bankead was as thick as two short planks. That was exactly the point. He was their boy.

Hail no!

Don’t forget the lengthy corn-pone career of possibly third degree syphilitic Doc Hee Haw – Dick Jones – who once blurted to an aggrieved citizen at a council meeting “you won’t get anywhere bad-mouthing the police in this town.”

The Lollipop Guild was well represented

In 2000, the union coordinated with candidate Mike Clesceri to spy on councilwoman Julie Sa, and to get him elected to the council. A fellow cop like Clesceri was counted on to support the troops. And boy did he, approving the disastrous retroactive 3 @ 50 pension formula.

Loretta and I were getting our nails done…oh, and socks…

Sharon Quirk-Silva was marginally smart enough to dodge the Kelly Thomas fallout and the subsequent recall. But like almost all of Fullerton’s liberal establishment crowd, she blamed the murder on homelessness, not on bad cops. She ignored the cover-up, and did nothing about the Albert Rincon matter, despite proclaiming her outrage on the nightly news wherein we learned she has daughters.

If the shirt don’t fit, it must be…

When he had the chance Doug “Bud” Chaffee could have held the cops accountable in the wake of the KT killing and the subsequent recall, by which he finally got elected. Instead, the cowardly pustule immediately dove for cover, actually wearing a union-bought pro FPD T-shirt at a council meeting.

Of course Doug was in need of assistance himself when his carpetbaggin’ wife, Paulette was busted on video stealing campaign signs on private property.

The designated driver is on the way…

The cop union knows when it has a live one on the line, and never has that bee more true of Jan Flory, who not only trotted around the city council track in the 1990s, she did so again in 2012 with the help of a hundred thou’ of union scrilla. Maybe her vote on the 3@50 was fondly remembered, but more likely the support was for favors to come. Of course she delivered by approving pay raises and by paying out vast legal settlements against Fullerton police that avoided the embarrassment of ugly stuff getting out at trial. Everything gets hushed up and we pay for the silence. And of course, no, reform was not on the table.

I’m not telling the truth and you can’t make me…

No story of the symbiosis between cops and politicians in Fullerton is complete without mention of our lobbyist councilcreature Jennifer Fitzgerald, who has a career monetizing her job “representing” you and me. Jen’ has made it her specialty to cozy up to the cops, including pay raises, quiet settlements costing us millions, and even wasting $50K a year on the utterly moronic “Behind the Badge” propaganda embarrassment. Holier than holy, her best pal was “Chief Danny” with whom she may have conspired, in the early morning of November 9, 2016, to have the cops drive drunken, hit-and-run Joe Burt Felz home and then tuck him in with a warm glass of milk.

Dazed and confused

And most recently we see the completely dim and inarticulate Jesus Silva, installed in office courtesy of the police union. One wonders how this nincompoop manages to get his shoelaces tied without help, and yet we can be sure of one thing – he will slavishly follow the example of his better half, Sharon Quirk in support of the people who put him in office.

Cicinelli Got $1K to Hide Out in Arizona

Back in 2012, after Fullerton Officers beat Kelly Thomas to death. In the aftermath, that is still ongoing today as former Officers Cicinelli and Wolfe continue to fight their terminations, the Cicinelli family asked for close to $1k in order to hide out in his parent’s house in Arizona.

 

Cincinelli Living Expenses

 

“We have recently been asked by one of our police officers involved in
the Kelly Thomas incident if the possibility still exists for
reimbursement of extra living expenses incurred in August following the
publication of their home addresses on a local blog.  I believe I had
conversations with Alan about this expense being reimbursable under this
policy.  As I recalled, our discussion was that certain expenses would
be allowable if they met the “reasonableness” test and clearly were
additional living expenses.
At the time, none of the officers asked for reimbursement.  We now have
one indicating that he did incur additional expenses in the weeks
following the publication of his home address when he relocated his
family.  He originally was inclined to not seek reimbursement, but now
wishes to do so.
Please advise whether you are in a position to consider such a claim
and, if so, what you will need to review to evaluate whether any
expenses are reimburseable.”
This request was received by Human Resources Director Gretchen Beatty, who we figured should have laughed it off, and then paid out to Cicinelli.
Cincinelli Living Expenses Approved
“We will reimburse the expense.  Can you just confirm that the amount being sought is 969.31 and the check should be made payable to Jay Cincinelli and mailed to [redacted].”
The excuse was that somebody doxed Cicinelli but the truth is that somebody ran a public Google search and posted comments around the internet of information readily found on said internet. Hardly an excuse to shell out more money to a guy who just smashed somebody’s face in.
Or as one City Staffer put it:
Jason Rosanne
“Maybe he should have thought about all this before he beat a man to death…..”

Local Highschool Girl Shot and Killed by Officer Who is Yet to be Questioned

Hannah Linn Williams

A Fullerton police officer shot a 17yo female. A girl and minor by all objective standards considering she wasn’t of legal drinking, smoking, firearm purchasing or consenting age amongst other things. She was a teenager despite early reports claiming that she was a 17yo woman.

Woman. Which by definition means an adult female.

You just need to look at the Fullerton Observer’s link on the story to see they ran with the “Woman” bait before changing the headline.

17yo Woman

Anything to mitigate the damage and obscure the facts until people complain I guess.

This is where Police Cover-up culture hurts the reputation of police departments. If we take the District Attorney’s report at face value, that a replica Beretta was found “in the vehicle next to the victim”, even though witness statements say she outside of the vehicle, we could be looking at a terrible situation of suicide by cop.

But we don’t know the facts because the officer is legally entitled to not talk to investigators and when the officer does finally get interviewed the investigators will be constrained by what they can ask and how they can ask it thanks to laws putting officers above the rest of us.

I understand that the terrible laws protecting police exist, POBAR specifically, but the idea that an officer can take a life at 7pm on Friday and on the following Tuesday still isn’t been required to give a statement is just asinine. Memories change and fade and if a civilian had been the shooter in this situation there is no way they would have let the suspect walk away and not talk to investigators for 4 days. Police would be threatening walk-outs at the injustice because they’re hypocrites.

The officer might be justified in the actions of Friday night, the officer might not be but the idea that the Department and District Attorney can besmirch the victim with the release of the replica information while hiding everything else behind an “ongoing investigation” stinks to high hell. We don’t know where the shooting took place (inside or outside the vehicle), if the “replica” was next to, near or around the suspect or what led to the Officer’s vehicle colliding with the suspects. We don’t know the officer’s name even. Imagine if somebody shot her on school grounds – do you think 72 hours later we still wouldn’t know the name of the shooter, justified or not? Hell, the little we do know is about the replica and we didn’t know it was a BB gun for days.

17yo Shot on Freeway

It doesn’t help the situation that Fullerton PD doesn’t deserve our trust. There are too many cases of lying cops, cheating cops, cops stealing and cops committing terrible acts being ignored, buried or outright covered up. And all of it is typically hidden behind a Blue Wall of Silence because “the brotherhood” trumps ethics, morality and doing the right thing nearly every time in every situation. Hero and Deserve is the ethos of City Hall and City Council regardless of the situation.

Fullerton PD, until the law required the release of documents, was happy to not tell you that one of their officers was fired for making a female suspect strip so he could shine a flashlight at her crotch and then later asking her on a date.

They were happy to not tell parents what a school resource officer might have been doing with lewd photos of their sons and daughters.

They were happy to hide Officer DUIs and worse.

This department settled with a Lieutenant in a way to specifically avoid disclosure laws.

They’re happy to bury evidence, delete videos and lie to the public. Remember the officer’s “broken bones” that Andrew Goodrich proclaimed after the Kelly Thomas incident? No bones were broken but that statement was never publicly retracted once it was in the wild.

And again, the Officer has yet to talk to investigators now 4 days out from the fatal shooting. Half a week later and the one person personally involved in the events leading up to the intentional killing of a 17yo girl has not even said anything to authorities.

I don’t believe in the Eric Holder idea of never letting a crises go to waste but if anything good comes out of this death than maybe changing POBAR, the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights, can be that change.

POBAR is nothing but a law that obstructs justice, delays investigations and puts the safety of an officer’s job above the truth and facts. It gives officers rights and privileges they would never accept for anybody else under investigation. The police would complain endlessly about being handcuffed by such legislation if it applied to all people equally and thus it needs to land in the dustbin of history next to all other terrible laws which pervert justice.

Justice is supposed to be blind, not blind, deaf, and dumb for one protected class of heroes.

Is Fullerton PD Illegally Destroying Records?

destroy-evidence

Last September it was revealed that the Long Beach Police Department was using a phone app, known as TigerText, to send encrypted and self-deleting messages. From the article:

Two of the officers claimed that they were also instructed by their superiors to use the app to “have conversations with other officers that wouldn’t be discoverable”.

The City of Long Beach paid for an independent review which found no wrongdoing, owing that the city and investigator claimed that the messages were “transitory” and thus exempt from disclosure.

This transitory argument should sound familiar as it’s the same argument which was made by the Orange County Supervisors, including now District Attorney Todd Spitzer, when they voted to destroy “transitory” records including texts and emails.

So what does this have to do with Fullerton PD?

TigerText was being used in Long Beach when our now former Chief David Hendricks was Deputy Chief in that department. The idea that he wasn’t using or didn’t know that TigerText was being utilized for years under his command is laughable.

Knowing the above, one of our friends put in a records request asking if the city of Fullerton was using Tigertext or a similar app known as Signal and what the policies and procedures were around such software.

From Chief Dunn himself:

TigetText

“Hi ma’am…this question was floating around here last week…I am not familiar with any use of either of those messaging apps…I am aware that we use other apps that may do the same thing however…”

According to our Current Police Chief the city does in fact use similar software, in what capacity it is unknown, and they have no policies or procedures in place over how to use such software or to help mitigate abuses.

Now let us skip ahead to this last week when a Superior Court Judge ruled against the OC Supervisors in the ongoing case over their transitory records policy. The County’s argument fell apart because the word “transitory” exists nowhere in disclosure laws.

With that ruling it certainly looks like the OC Supervisors broke the law to hide as much as possible which is pretty much par for the course from that legislative body.

Let’s circle back to Fullerton with that ruling established thus far.

Is Fullerton PD is still using a similar app to TigerText, as Chief Dunn admitted, and are they also using it to destroy “transitory” records illegally?

Will the City Manager or City Council even bother to investigate this issue and further will they follow the law if PD is found to be in violation? Don’t count on it.

Fight a Paramedic, Win a $100K

Chief_Hendricks_Headshot_Photo-1[1]

Remember when Chief Hendricks left Fullerton after his run-in with some paramedics at a Lady Antebellum concert?

It looks like we hired a PR firm to polish the turd of a Press Release and even the consultant admitted that Domer slobbering all over Hendricks looked bad since we were paying Hendricks to leave (emphasis added):

Hendricks Draft Notes

“We’ve had a chance to look at the draft releases and to read your summary of where things stand. We are concerned that if there is an quotation in the release from you – and the settlement with the Chief is made public later – this could come back to hurt you and diminish your credibility, since people will wonder why you spoke so effusively about a person who was effectively paid to leave.”

But how much did we pay him? Over $100K, that’s how much.

Hendricks Dollars Value

Most people who get charged with battery get a perp walk and not a golden handshake. It must be nice to live on that side of the government. This, for obvious reasons, was left out of the press release.

What Happened to Officer Christopher Chiu?

Chiu-FPD-Awards-Promotion

The City of Fullerton has, belatedly and selectively, released some police misconduct records. Despite the law changing on January 1st, 2019 and it now being the end of June, we have a whopping three files to look at on the city website.

The first of these files is regarding former Officer Chistopher Chiu.

What did Officer Chiu allegedly do?

He allegedly sexually assaulted a woman in a downtown parking structure, that’s what:

Chiu Sexual Assault

But not just any woman – the 19yo daughter of a fellow police officer.

Chiu Victim's Dad

After the alleged sexual assault, Officer Chiu also allegedly had the audacity to ask the victim out on a date:

Chiu Victim Date

No criminal charges came out of this case as by disabling his Body Worn Camera (BWC) there was little evidence of the alleged acts outside of victim and witness statements. Chiu was proven to have been in the parking structure at the time of the alleged incident, outside of his own patrol zone. However the victim was initially afraid of how her dad would respond and ultimately seems to have refused to press charges leading the District Attorney to drop the case.

If this happened as described she was brave to come forward especially without audio/video evidence of the allegations. If it didn’t happen then Chiu should have had his BWC activated to prove his innocence.

Ultimately the allegations against Chiu were sustained which was enough for administrative action but not for a criminal case.

Instead of a termination Chiu was allowed to resign via a settlement agreement where the city agreed to a no-fault, no-liability agreement allowing Chiu the freedom from the stigma of his actions which at a minimum include policy violations and at worse alleged sexual assault under the color of authority.

Chiu Settlement

Were it not for SB1421 the public wouldn’t be allowed to know any of this information and so much more that is coming which is precisely the way the Police Unions want it.

We’ll continue to keep you posted as we learn more.