Category: Dead heads

Posted onChronic Failure

The Settlements

by 223 Comments on The Settlements

Yes, Friends, elections do have consequences. But you already knew that.

The results of the November election mean that the tepid and incompetent reign of Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz and City Attorney Dick Jones will continue as they preside over policies (or lack of policies) meant to evade accountability for your employees and electeds in City Hall.

Acting Chief Danny Hughes, the legacy boss of the FPD Culture of Corruption will soon see his title made permanent, even as the accusations by Ben Lira about Hughes’s direct involvement in cover-up and brutality, continue to  swirl.

(No, you will not get a refund in any part for the illegal $27,000,000 tax that City Hall stole from you. But in the larger scheme of things, that’s small change)

I want to talk about justice.

In our State the cops can do damn near anything they want with impunity. Our spineless politicians have given them wealth, influence, and most importantly, virtually no accountability to anyone. The justice system itself, run by District Attorneys surrounded by ex-cops, has little interest in pursuing justice against their own allies, even when this means coddling the very perjuring cops that have scuttled many of the DA’s own cases. And when the cops themselves actually commit crimes, the law enforcement establishment immediately springs into action to defend the indefensible.

Think about what happened to Veth Mam. An innocent man was assaulted, arrested and falsely prosecuted. Fullerton cops knew the real truth and lied under oath to hide the fact that they beat up and arrested the wrong guy. Were there any repercussions? Of course not. Remember the Martinez kid who spent five months in jail thanks to the Fullerton cops? Well, Goodrich said everything was just fine – a slight error. Trevor Clarke says the FPD beat him, gave him a few sadistic “screen tests” just for fun, threw him in jail, and robbed him for good measure. Ben Lira says Danny Hughes was one of the instigators. Will anything happen? Not very likely, is it?

Let’s let the Albert Rincon case be our guide: we know that Albert Rincon serially molested women in the back seat of his patrol car. We know because of the depositions of just two of his victims (there are said to be a dozen). But the obscenity of what occurred, and importantly the roles played by Patdown Pat McKinley and Mike Sellers in covering up the whole mess, and worse, putting the creep back on the streets shall never be known. Why? because there was a settlement; a settlement approved by by-then Councilman McKinley himself.

The lawsuit settlement is the mechanism to hush everything up, from brutal and sadistic cops and an immoral FPD leadership, to a feckless city manager and city attorney who condoned the Culture of Corruption. If you wondered how the FPOA and the FPD/City Hall crowd could share a common goal, this is it.

And the path to settlement is the route no doubt most favored by Garo Mardirossian, the lawyer who is representing a whole slew of FPD/FPOA victims of brutality and perjury. For a lawyer a big payday without having to risk anything is a gift. And co-incidentally the same result will be a gift for Joe Felz, Pat Mckinley, Danny Hughes, Barry Coffman and the rest of the gang.

Your new council majority of Chaffee, Flory and Fitzgerald will make sure that Fullerton returns to the normalcy where no bad deed goes reported.

Of course it won’t be their money that goes to pay off Veth Mam and Kelly Thomas’s relatives. It will be yours.

And you will be poorer but no wiser.

 

Read More
Posted onChronic Failure

Barry Coffman: FPD Has A Cancer

by 173 Comments on Barry Coffman: FPD Has A Cancer

Yep, he said it. In reference to his own union member, Benjamin Lira.

Listen to the Barry Coffman interview on KFI, here. Scroll to the 23:40 mark and enjoy the Fullerton cop union boss try as hard as he can to bad-mouth a dues paying member of the FPOA!

First he says Lira is on the way out, a POBAR violation if uttered by anybody in authority; and of course after the embarrassing question about how come he isn’t defending his union member, and an awkward pause, we learn from Barry that Lira is a real malcontent, a cancer in the presumably healthy body tissue of the FPD. Which is pretty hard to swallow given the evident  Culture of Corruption in the department.

Comically, Coffman asks us who are we to believe, his own man, or the upstanding Michael Gennaco Report – a bucket full of pabulum coughed up by a paid hack in order to whitewash the felonious FPD and its command structure.

Say, what’s going on here? A union boss siding with management? Huh?

In response to the tricky question about how come his union didn’t bail out Ramos, Coffman (after another painful pause) exclaims that he and his boys just wanted the justice system to play out, a non-answer if ever there was one. He does admit that when the Thomas murder hit he and his fellow FPOA leaders were completely useless. We do know that they came onto this blog to post vulgar obscenities.

It’s hard not to relish the delicious double standard of the oh-so-ethical Barry C who never said a single word in public about Todd Major, Kelly Mejia, Albert Rincon, Vincent Mater, Kenton Hampton, Frank Nguyen, Cary Tong or any of the other FPOA miscreants whose behavior has been so amply demonstrated on these pages.

 

Read More
Posted onChronic Failure

Vince Mater Gets Wrist Slapped For Destruction of Evidence in Fullerton Jail House Death Case

by 118 Comments on Vince Mater Gets Wrist Slapped For Destruction of Evidence in Fullerton Jail House Death Case

I always hate it when the stooge press indicates that a “former cop” was convicted of something when the former cop was an active cop when he did what he did to get convicted.

And so I won’t say “former Fullerton cop Vincent Mater plead guilty…” Rather, I will say dirty Fullerton cop Vincent Mater who clearly had something to hide in the wake of the Dean Gochenour Fullerton jail suicide and who demonstrated as much by destroying his DAR plead guilty to day…

Here’s the text of the DAs press release:

FULLERTON – A former Fullerton Police Department (FPD) officer was convicted and sentenced today for destroying evidence by crushing his audio-recorder after an inmate committed suicide in jail following a driving under the influence (DUI) arrest by the defendant. Vincent Thomas Mater, 42, pleaded guilty to a court offer by the Honorable Frances Munoz to one misdemeanor count of destruction of evidence and one misdemeanor count of vandalism. Mater was sentenced to three years of informal probation and 60 days of community service. The People objected to the sentence, arguing for jail time based on the nature of the crime, destruction of evidence possibly related to an inmate’s death, and the defendant’s violation of his position of trust.

At the time of the crime, Mater was a police officer with FPD.  At approximately 9:45 p.m. on April 14, 2011, Mater conducted a DUI investigation after making a traffic stop of a vehicle being driven without its lights on in the dark. Mater was in uniform and driving a marked FPD patrol car. Mater arrested the driver, Dean Gochenour, upon determining that Gochenour was under the influence of alcohol.

Mater transported Gochenour in his patrol car to the Fullerton City Jail (FCJ) and turned him over to FPD jailers to be booked upon arrival. Throughout the duration of his contact with Gochenour, Mater wore an FPD-issued Digital Audio Recording device (DAR), which was activated and would have audio-recorded any statements made by Mater or Gochenour.

At approximately 11:30 p.m., inmate Gochenour committed suicide by hanging himself in a cell at FCJ. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDA) was subsequently contacted to conduct the custodial death investigation.

In the hours after Mater learned of Gochenour’s death, Mater destroyed his DAR by crushing it and removing the mother board and circuit board. The audio captured on Mater’s DAR of the defendant’s interaction with Gochenour could not be recovered as a result of the damage. Mater destroyed the evidence that would have been relevant to the OCDA’s custodial death investigation.

FPD investigated the case against Mater regarding the destruction of evidence and submitted it to the OCDA for criminal prosecution.

To read the OCDA’s full report on the custodial death of Gochenour, visit www.OrangeCountyDA.com and select “OCDA Report Custodial Death Investigation – Inmate Dean Gochenour” from the Investigation Letters tab under the Media Center. The report was issued March 13, 2012.

Deputy District Attorney Brock Zimmon of the Special Prosecutions Unit prosecuted this case.

I don’t know who “the honorable” Frances Munoz is, but I sure want to end up in her court if I ever get busted doing anything naughty. Probation and sixty days’ community service? Really? You or I would be looking at hard time. Oh, well we’ve always know there were rules and regs for us and a get out of jail card for the cops.

Did something fishy happen to Dean Gochenour before or after he was deposited in the FPD jail? Thanks to Mater we shall probably never know.

Oh, and yeah, Mater’s now a former Fullerton cop, although whether he was fired or permitted to walk away we will never know. That shall remain a mystery, too.

Read More
Posted onChronic Failure

Quirk Is Afraid of Would be Anaheim Constituents; Blows Off Meeting

by 156 Comments on Quirk Is Afraid of Would be Anaheim Constituents; Blows Off Meeting
Lost In Space
Updated list on Quirk-Silva NO-SHOWS:
9-7: Fullerton Chamber Candidates Forum
9-12: Cypress College Candidate Debate
9-21: OC Real Estate Managers Assoc. Legislative Forum
10-7: West Island (Anaheim Uninc.) Homeowners Forum
10-17: Cypress Chamber of Commerce Debate
10-27: West Anaheim Neighbors

I just received some interesting news about our Mayor Sharon Quirk who is running for the State Assembly – and its both embarrassing and telling.

I have it on real good authority that Ms. Quirk was invited to a “meet the candidate night” by the good folks in the unincorporated West Anaheim Island – a large area of unincorporated Orange County.

Now theses are the very people Quirk’s political handlers said she would do well with – the working class people of Anaheim’s flatlands, so you would think Quirk would jump at the chance to mingle with her peeps.

Nuh uh.

No, Anaheim is the other way!

Apparently at first she just ignored the West Island Neighborhood group, and finally some campaign flunky responded saying that it might be a trap to embarrass Quirk with – questions! That sure has the ring of truth since a quick trip to Quirk’s website shows a cardboard cut out candidate who steadfastly refuses to take a position on any of the important propositions on the ballot this fall – including Governor Brown’s new tax and spend plans.

Nice work, Ms. Quirk.

Read More
Posted onA Step in the Right Direction

Sooner or Later, Social Justice For Kelly Thomas

by 116 Comments on Sooner or Later, Social Justice For Kelly Thomas

It’s funny, in a sick sort of way, but the very types who used to bray the loudest about the need for “social justice” have been virtually silent in Fullerton in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder at the hands of members of an out-of-control police department.

The graying establishment Democrats had been hiding behind their drawn chintz curtains, curled up in an intellectual fetal position on their plastic slip-covered Naugahyde sofas. It was just too scary and, well, controversial to say anything, let alone actually do anything.

Fortunately, others, such as Stephan Baxter, Marlena Carrillo and Lauren Becker are willing to keep up the pressure.

Here is a link to Becker’s website that reminds us exactly what a Culture of Corruption can do, and try to get away with, when left to its own devices. It also reminds us what we can do to push back against an entrenched system.

The bars stayed open and the bands played on…

Democrats like Jan Flory, and Molly McClanahan and Pam Keller didn’t say a word in the aftermath of the murder. No, they only got outraged when people outside their cozy little circle took the reins of government out of the hands of three incompetent old fools.

These people are a lot more worried about the fate of the bureaucracy than they are about the people of Fullerton. All of them.

 

Read More
Posted onBehind Closed Doors

We Get Mail

by 75 Comments on We Get Mail

I just picked up these missives from the FFFF in-box this morning. First this:

I know who Iwant to work for, and it isn’t you!

Hey, FFFFsters, I just want to point out the obvious. Jan Flory just got fourteen grand, cash, from the corrupt cop union. She also got ten grand from some land developer named Phelps. The rest of her dough came from “retired” individuals, most of them former public employees.

Cops, developers, massively pensioned government workers. Wow. Talk about special interests!

– Sick of BooHoos

Good point, S.o.B. And then this:

I was driving along Chapman a few days ago and saw Pam Keller on the corner of Harbor. She was holding up a sign promoting the candidacy of Rick Alvarez, a Republican! Here’s what I want to know. Why won’t the establishment Dems in this town support a real good candidate like Jane Rands? Why the Hell not? What is wrong with Keller, and Quirk and Flory and their ilk?

Are they so in bed with the FPOA thugs and baboons that they can’t recognize an authentic progressive? I guess that question answers itself.

– ACLU Mom

Good point, Mom. The Old Guard liberals in Fullerton don’t stand for anything, of course, except for the prerogatives conferred upon the department heads in City Hall (see first letter, above). Please address you questions to Keller herself and see if you can get an intelligible answer. Or you could ask this gentleman:

Working on an answer…
Read More
Posted onDead heads

Jan Flory Wants to Get Something Off Chest

by 141 Comments on Jan Flory Wants to Get Something Off Chest

Seeing Jan Flory in action I have come to recognize a bitter, humorless shrew who happens to be a cheerleader for the department heads in City Hall and the worse their actions, the less accountability she requires.

Is she also losing her marbles? I don’t know. But I do know she wrote this weird entry on Facebook in which, among other things, admits that she employed “undocumented” domestics:

You’re going to love this one.

Last night I picked up a cryptic email message from O.Co. Register reporter, Tony Saavedra, asking me to call him today. We talked about 10:30 this morning. Apparently Tony had received a copy of a letter from an anonymous “concerned court employee” that had been sent to Shawn Nelson, our esteemed county supervisor. Tony said that Shawn had turned the letter over the District Attorney for investigation. WHAT! Tony wanted to know if I had been contacted by the D.A. WHAT!

My next 2 questions were: 1. Am I going to be arrested for something? That would be a bummer for the campaign, and 2. What was the letter about? 

As described to me by Tony, the anonymous letter described an encounter that the writer had with me mid-August when I appeared in North Court with a 19-year-old friend of mine, Jackie, to deal with a traffic citation Jackie received the month before. Jackie was cited for an illegal left hand turn and driving without a license. The letter accused me of asking the court for some kind of special favor for Jackie. (I’m still trying to get a copy of the letter.)

Let’s back up. Jackie is one of the “Dream” kids. She was brought to this country by her undocumented parents when she was 8 and has lived here since then. Because Jackie has no documents herself, she (like hundreds of thousands) cannot get a driver’s license. I’ve known Jackie for 10 years, and she is a good girl who has done everything asked of her. She earned a 3.9 GPA in high school and has just finished her first year at Fullerton College with a 3.7 GPA. She volunteered as a poll worker for the June election. She has applied to work as a cadet for the City of Anaheim, but cannot get a job because she has no papers.

Once upon a time, Jackie’s parents worked in my home cleaning my house, and I developed a friendship with Jackie. Although her parents haven’t worked for me for a while, Jackie and I keep in touch. She was terrified of going to court by herself because she didn’t know if she might be arrested by ICE officials and deported. I offered to go to court with her to help out if I could.

When Jackie’s matter was called, I stood up with Jackie and notified the court that I was an attorney appearing to vouch for Jackie’s character and ask the court to cut Jackie a break if it had any discretion at all in the matter. The judge heard me out, and asked if Jackie was driving without a license. Jackie admitted that she was, and pled guilty to both counts. Jackie and I went downstairs where she had to pay nearly $600 for the fine.

This is what gets me. Based on the facts set forth above, 

1. Why would Nelson (an attorney himself) turn such a letter over to the D.A. for investigation? 

2. How did Tony Saavedra get the letter conveniently “leaked” to him?

3. Does this have anything to do with my being the frontrunner in the city council election? YA THINK! And more important,

4. Does this have anything to do with Shawn’s tight relationship with Tony Bushala who has been attacking me on his blog for the past 4 years.

Mr. Nelson, you owe me an explanation.

Apparently the progeny of these illegal aliens recently got a citation including driving without a license. What the girl’s GPA or employment status has to do with the ticket is anybody’s guess. It sounds like Flory did what the anonymous letter claims: asked the court for a favor.

Apparently Flory has got her corset in a twist; in her warped worldview she is the “frontrunner” and Shawn Nelson turned over an anonymous letter to the DA to derail her frontrunnership. I don’t know about any of that, but I do know that her obsessive paranoia about Tony Bushala doesn’t seem to fit the profile of a frontrunner – or even a completely balanced person.

I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure Flory didn’t break any laws. However that letter should be turned over to the California Bar Association to let them decide if that was appropriate behavior.

Read More