Jones, McKinley, Bankhead & Co

What can you say about an organization that is so corrupt that it not only tolerates, but has seemed to encourage police brutality?

What’s that you say? You say that the people in charge of it are responsible for the actions of those they hire? And who is responsible for putting fine gentlemen like these on the streets of Fullerton with badges, tasers and guns?

Um, okay.

Well, how about Pat McKinley – the man who matter-of-factly  acknowledged he hired them all?

Mess with me and you'll get a visit from my crew...

Or how about the loud-mouthed buffoon who set loose his goon squad to be “hard, tough, and mean” in order to clean up the mess he made in Downtown Fullerton:

Will you please shut up!?

And then of course there’s the former Fullerton cop who’s been around so long that there were only 46 states when he was born, and whose blind eye has been cast upon the misdeeds of his police department.

Jurassic In Every Way

Well, Friends, take your pick there’s plenty of blame to go around. And don’t forget to thank yourself if you were one of the people who voted for any of these three miscreants.

Ah am a doctah!

Here’s a post from last August that needs to be rerun. For pure fatheadedness and insensitivity you can’t beat Doc HeeHaw.
Of course now the cat is all the way out of the bag and we know this swine was covering up for a gang of thugs in a corrupt, out-of-control police department.
– Joe Sipowicz
Crazy is as crazy does...

In case you missed it, here is our own lovable mayor, Doc HeeHaw explaining his confusion as to what killed Kelly Thomas.

Insensitivity? Stupidity? All around assholishness? Yep that’s our good ol’ boy HeeHaw.

Preliminary Hearing In Thomas Killing Today

After being postponed twice the Preliminary Hearing in the case against Fullerton cops Manny Ramos and jay Cicinelli for the killing of homeless schizophrenic Kelly Thomas last July. Ten months have elapsed since that hot, fateful night.

Ramos is charged with second degree murder; Cicinelli with manslaughter.

The purpose of the hearing is for a judge to view evidence presented by the District Attorney and decide whether the charged should be bound over for trial.

All sorts of questions will be answered in the next day or two: will the DAs original charges fold as some have predicted? Will a cop-cozy judge say Ramos and Cicinelli were just doing their jobs? On the political side, how will more media exposure effect the Recall of the Three Bald Tires, occurring as it will with the delivery of absentee ballots?

For those who can make it, the hearing will take place this morning at 8:30 in Courtroom C1 in the Superior Court building, in downtown Santa Ana.

 

Hey, I Remember That Name From Somewhere

Failing to the top...

Ever since the FPD announcement that the oleaginous Andrew Goodrich was being replaced as PIO with a guy named Jeff Stuart, I’d been wondering why I seemed to remember that name.

Then it hit me. Back in March FFFF ran a post about some dude named Ernest Benefiel who apparently tried to commit suicide with booze and pills, and whose reveries were disrupted by an all-out assault by the Fullerton SWAT team; an assault that ended with Benefiel going to jail for years and years – while his conviction was overturned not once, but twice.

Goodrich 2.0

And who is listed on page 5 of the civil law suit as one of Pat McKinley’s gun-happy SWAT team members who turned a paramedic call into a neighborhood shoot-out? Jeff Stuart.

Welcome to the club.

Gennaco Delivers Report Part Deux

 

According to The OC Register, here, the outside “independent” investigative company hired by the City to look into the actions of the cops that beat Kelly Thomas to death last July has delivered its report on the incident. Unfortunately, nobody gets to see the report authored by Mr. Michael Gennaco except Acting Chief Dan Hughes – because it relates to police personnel matters. And, as everybody knows, those matters are shrouded in a veil of impenetrable secrecy. Just the way the police unions like it.

So we are left to guess at the contents of the report and left to guess whether or not our elected officials will be able to see it. Speaking of guesses, my guess would be no, except for Pat McKinley, of course, who seems to get special privileges when it comes to sticking his nose into personnel matters regarding the dubious characters he hired as former Police Chief.

The issues here are particularly interesting given the fact of the impending trial of Mssrs. Cicinelli and Ramos for manslaughter and murder, respectively. Negative findings could have an impact on that case. If, as many anticipate,  Mr. Gennaco tends to whitewash the case we can expect a comparatively speedy release of the report with some exculpitory headlines by Lou Ponsi.  Gennaco’s undernourished first report was more interesting for what it left out than for what it said,

Also lurking in the back of the room is the potentially costly civil trial and possible Civil Rights charges by the Feds. So if the report indicates that the cops acted way outside policy and procedure look for a protracted release of minimal information, or no release at all.

Who Opposes The Recall and Supports Doug Chaffee?

This guy. That’s who.

That would be former Redevelopment Director and big Fullerton pension recipient Gary Chalupsky.

Some may remember Chalupsky for his long string of embarrassing boondoggles and Redevelopment expenditures of questionable legality – like building the Muckenthaler amphitheater which is not even in a Redevelopment project area.

Just type in “Redevelopment” in our search box and knock yourself out. From the Knowlwood fiasco and North Platform smash up to The City Lights debacle and the humiliating Poisoned Park disaster, Chalupsky was there every inept, unaccountable step of the way. For well over ten years. Plenty of time to get vested in CalPERS.

Gary Chalupsky was the guy who proved beyond all doubt that Fullerton was very much for sale. Ever wonder where the 100 East section of Whiting Avenue went? Ask Chalupsky.

Others may also remember this upstanding individual for his phony “retirement” and immediate double-dip that was countenanced by an incompetent council who seemed to think Chalupsky knew what he was doing.

Redevelopment is now thankfully dead. But it feathered a lot of nests along the way.

The Daryl Gates Legacy

Daryl said it would be like this...

Did former Fullerton Police Chief Pat McKinley bring LAPD Chief Daryl Gates’ unique style of policing to Fullerton? This lady (Jean Thaxton), who worked for the LAPD under Gates and alongside his protege, Pat McKinley sure seems to think so. And we know that McKinley admires Gates as his friend and mentor.

Her son was shot in the back by a cop in Downey and she appeared at a Fullerton City Council meeting to support the family of Kelly Thomas – who was beaten to death by six cops of the FPD.

I liked the end bit where this woman admonishes the council to actually provide training for their cops rather than just turning lem loose with badges and guns. I’m sure they get some training; and I’m sure that some of them actually remember some of it. But police departments can’t teach ethics and humanity to a 20 year-old, even if they felt inclined to do so.

Ramos, Cicinelli, Wolfe, Hampton, Mejia, Major, Mater, Tong, Cross, Rincon, etc., etc., ad nauseam. McKinley: “I hired them all.”

Play It Again, Dick

One might ask the question, “How in the world did Fullerton get stuck with not one, but two Dick Jones”?

This spectacle of Doc HeeHaw sharing his consternated confusion over the illegal water tax boils down to this: his lawyer, Attorney Dick tells him it is illegal and should be got rid of (15 years too late, of course); and Doc Dick agrees. His solution? Change the name of the tax!

Can it be possible that he actually believes the idiocy that tumbles out of his yapper? When it comes to muddled, loud, Southern-fried buffoonery there’s just no beating F. Dick Jones.