Dead heads Archives - Page 17 of 66 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 3, 2012April 3, 2012Dead heads

CRAZY DOC HEEHAW’S WILD WEST SHOW

From mid-February 2012. Always good for a repeat.

– Joe Sipowicz

Yesterday FFFF shared some Fullerton crime statistics that were really pretty damn shocking. Contrary to what council candidate and now beleaguered councilman Pat McKinley claimed and claims, crime not only did not decrease every year in Fullerton, but in the years 2005-2009, it skyrocketed spectacularly.

Here’s the ugly truth, derived from FBI crime statistics, probably a more reliable source than Mr. McKinley’s fantasy world of self-serving make-believe.

Fullerton-Crime-Stats — The statistics don't lie, but Pat McKinley does.

Uh, oh. Now, that’s not very good is it? Ol’ Doc Jones’ Galveston was better run by the Italian Mob and it had open gambling and a red light district!

Of course everyone knows the reason for the spike in crime is the crazy shooting gallery Jones and his colleagues created with all the bars masquerading as restaurants they approved in downtown Fullerton; and don’t forget all the illegal bootleg night clubs they ignored, then actually subsidized.

Chillingly, the trajectory of crime in Fullerton coincides perfectly with the spike in the FPD Culture of Corruption that led to beatings, wrongful arrests, and perjury by our own cops. And nobody in City Hall seems capable of grasping the perverted correlation. The cops were given a free hand to fix the mess the politicians made downtown. Soon the entire department was infected.

Speaking of Doc HeeHaw, here he is taking credit for creating his monster. Pay particular attention as Jones documents the crimes committed and the need to to get hard, and tough, and mean.

Jones got one thing right. He just doesn’t recognize human behavior.

P.S. Will some public-minded citizen please take this crime chart to the Council meeting next week and read it out loud for the benefit of Jones, Bankhead and McKinley?

April 2, 2012December 12, 2016Dead heads

Jeremy Popoff Cuts Record; To Hit Road

by Mr. Peabody61 Comments

According to the OC Weekly’s Brandon Ferguson, here, a rock band called “Lit” has made some sort of comeback album and will be joining other groups in a summer tour. Why is this relevant to Fullerton? Because one of the members of this illustrious ensemble is none other than Fullerton’s Slidebar empressario, Jeremy Popoff.

Ferguson dispatches Lit with quick aplomb. Apparently the album is called The View From The Bottom which seems pretty darn appropriate.

Now, I admit that being something of an old-timer at 37, I had never even heard of Lit until Jeremy Popoff popped off in connection with the Kelly Thomas murder; and so I defer to Ferguson’s musical opinion. However, if the noise emanating from Popoff’s establishment in violation of the Municipal Code, here, is any indicator, I have to say that I appreciate my former ignorance.

April 2, 2012April 2, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

Fullerton Was Sold 20 Years Ago And The Recall Is How We Pay For Her Emancipation

by admin37 Comments

Friends, long time community activist Steve Baxter wrote a must-read letter that was published in one of Fullerton’s up-and-coming blogs, The Fullertonian. Enjoy!

For a period of time I knew the man six Fullerton officers killed last July. His name was Kelly Thomas and I liked him. As I was walking to my car in the Fullerton Ralphs shopping center, a man, when seeing my “Justice for Kelly” button, said to me that if I cared this much about Kelly when he was alive, he would still be alive. I was pretty baffled at that statement, but then I saw the “NO RECALL! FULLERTON IS NOT FOR SALE” sticker on the back of this big boy’s Jazzy Jeff scooter and it all made imperfect sense. “Hey brother,” I yelled, “just because you …..” That’s as far as I got before I knew it was not worth it. Besides, you don’t look very dignified yelling at someone who is relegated to a scooter.

I know that Kelly was loved by his family, and I know that Kelly was welcome to stay at any number of relatives’ homes, and for periods of time, he did. I know what six of our police officers did to him, and I know how Dick Jones, Don Bankhead and Pat McKinley, the three councilmen now facing a recall, reacted publicly to his death. Their lack of urgency, their lack of outrage, and the insensitive treatment to Kelly’s family, after what in my mind may be the most shameful 10 minutes in this city’s history, rises well beyond what even I expected from these three men. I’ve witnessed their disdain for the victim and his supporters firsthand at many council meetings. I witnessed it again watching TV interviews, where their ignorance was broadcast across the county. These old mens’ desperate need for order trumped any need for truth. They lied and tried to spin the story at every opportunity, at times to ridiculous proportions. Dick Jones even tried to diminish Kelly’s injuries by saying he had seen worse in Vietnam. When the DMZ becomes the go-to reference point for downtown Fullerton, we have a serious problem. In light of this, the “NO RECALL! FULLERTON IS NOT FOR SALE” signs mean nothing to me.

Read the rest of “Fullerton Was Sold 20 Years Ago And The Recall Is How We Pay For Her Emancipation” on theFullertonian.com

March 30, 2012March 30, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

More Mayhem In Doc Heehaw’s Crazy Wild West Show!!

by The Fullerton Harpoon168 Comments

Last fall anti-recallers wanted folks to believe that everything in Fullerton’s great and it was just a wholesome family town. Of course the facts are that City Councilmembers Bankhead, Jones and McKinley have turned downtown Fullerton into an all night free for all of drugged-up, boozing, fighting, defecating thugs from who knows where. And of course an out-of-control gang of badged thugs was deployed to try to keep the other thugs in line.

All of this is just a long preamble to advertise the fact that another shooting took place in Downtown Fullerton early this morning, in the parking structure in the 100 block of east Wilshire Avenue.

Who benefits from this mayhem besides the liquor peddlers? Ask Bankhead or Jones or McKinley next time you see them.

March 29, 2012March 28, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

“Recall No” Lays Giant 2012 Fundraising Egg. Also Fouls Own Nest.

by Joe Sipowicz30 Comments

When you have a crappy product it’s pretty hard to sell. Think Yugo.

But really? Won’t anybody help the gerontocracy cling to power in Fullerton? Apparently, almost no one will. It could be that contributors to the cause in the fall were underwhelmed by the bang they got for the bucks they handed over to Tricky Dick Ackerman and The Human Salamander, Dave Ellis.

ellis — The metamorphosis into an oxygen breathing creature was slow and painful.

Yep, Protect Fullerton-Recall No filed their 460 on Monday for 1/1/12 through 3/17/12. The results? Somewhat less than impressive.

$4,224.00 raised

$9,765.70 spent

$3,841.69 left over

Most of the funds were from early in January – before they sent that last pathetic mailer advertising the recall. The only recent donation was $2,000 from some presumably ancient lady named Mary Ransom.

Holy Smokes! Dave Ellis really took them for a ride. $2,500 to Delta Partners. $500/mo to host that crappy website.

View the statement

By the way, did you notice that $250 from the Santa Monica cop union? I did.

March 26, 2012March 26, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

Banners expressing love for Fullerton draw praise…

by Joe Sipowicz158 Comments

Bannerlove — Makes ya feel good. Oops, watchit there, just step over the bodies and the civil rights!

Thus spaketh Lou Ponsi who seems to be doing his level best to avoid real news and even to parrot the nonsense peddled by the anti-recall crowd.

Ponsi seems really impressed with banners stating how much folks love Fullerton. Ponsi doesn’t seem interested that the operation is the brainchild of downtown businesses who have profited off of the City Council’s crazy wild west show; nor in the irony that these essentially anti-recall messages are hung on public property. No, that would take independence and intelligence, traits that Ponsi simply doesn’t possess.

Of course Ponsi echoes the notion that the one and only problem is the minor altercation last summer that left Kelly Thomas’ brains in a Transportation Center gutter, and of course he ignores the reality a phone call made by – a downtown business, that may very well have an I Love Fullerton banner in front of it.

Ponsi2 — Really? I don't know anything about that stuff. Wow!

Lou must have a short or self-serving memory if he can’t remember:

FPD cop Todd Major – convicted of fraud, 2011.

FPD cop Kelly Mejia – plead guilty to grand larceny, 2011

FPD cop Albert Rincon – accused of a dozen sexual batteries while in uniform causing a rebuke from a federal judge and a $350,000 settlement (so far), but actually “separated” for something else (jeez how bad could that have been), 2006-2011.

FPD cop Vincent Mater – “separated” after destroying evidence in a Fullerton jail suicide, identified as an untrustworthy “Brady cop” and suspected of a roll in the false identification in the Emanuel Martinez case. Charged by the District Attorney,2011.

FPD cop “Sonny” Saliceo who through laziness or malice, permitted or encouraged the mis-identification of Emanuel Martinez who subsequently spent five months in jail.

FPD employee April Baughman who was recently arrested on charges of theft from the FPD property room over a period of two years. 2012.

A lawsuit by Veth Mam against the police department and FPD cop Kenton Hampton for a laundry list of civil rights violations and false prosecution. 2011.

A lawsuit by Andrew Trevor Clarke against FPD cop Cary Tong and half the FPD for a laundry list of civil rights violations. 2012.

A lawsuit by Edward Miguel Quinonez against the FPD and Kenton Hampton for even more civil rights violations. 2011

And let’s not forget the eventual civil and civil rights suits against the balance of the FPD Six (including our old friends Kenton Hampton and Joe Wolfe). 2011.

Then in non-police matters there’s the little problem of the City Council giving away land worth millions for free to campaign contributors; and giving away huge subsidies to the bag man who runs the anti-recall campaign. 1996-2012.

And finally let us recall the biggest scam of all – the perpetuation of the illegal water tax for fifteen long years that went, in part, to pay the salaries and pensions of the very city council that looked the other way year after year. 1996-2012.

Hey, Lou? Any of this ring a bell? What a punk.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Water Wars Continue

by The Fullerton Shadow59 Comments

Teri Sforza of the OC Register has done another piece on Fullerton’s fraudulent 10% water tax and the equally fraudulent study commissioned by the City Council to justify keeping as much of the tax as they can. Naturally the consultant ginned up some phony rent value for City owned property that water reservoirs sit on! In fact the bogus rent topped $1.3 million, a figure so absurd that even Mayor Sharon Quirk took offense. It’s a good thing Ms. Quirk is running for the State Assembly or she might not be so concerned about the wear ratepayers getting ripped off in an illegal scam. Whatever. At least she finally seems to have somebody who knows what’s going on advising her.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

Pat McKinley’s Benchmark of Excellence: Albert Rincon GOD MODE ACTIVATED

by The Fullerton Shadow138 Comments

AlRincon2-163x300 — We've seen enough...

Reflecting on the FPD career of Albert Rincon, the man accused of serially sexually assaulting women in the back of his patrol car, made me think about the creep that hired him, and the standards that were applied to the recruit.

We have seen from the facebook page of “Albey Al” a preening, self-absorbed, utterly shallow weasel. Okay that’s bad enough. What makes Albey Al Rincon’s presence on the Fullerton police force even more revealing is the virtual illiteracy of a grown man who can not spell, let alone write complete or even intelligible sentences. This begs the question of what sort of standards Pat McKinley applied to his recruits. After all, he hired Rincon, just like all the others.

Clearly, being a narcissistic megalomaniac was not an impediment to Rincon’s employment, and why should it have been? McKinley himself fits this profile. And let’s not forget how McKinley himself excused Rincon’s sexual battery: “it ain’t a dangerous thing.”

But are there no basic academic qualifications required to be a Fullerton cop? Apparently not.

Narcissism and ignorance are a bad combination, and the complete lack of moral scruples rounds out the McKinley recruit profile. Now give ’em a badge and a gun and let ’em hit the streets of Fullerton! McKinley has yet to disavow Rincon as some sort of “alien;” and why should he? They are kindred spirits.

McKinley set the FPD bar so low that even a morally vacuous, messed up ignoramus like Albert Rincon could slither over it. Despite the pleas from FPD apologists about all the good cops employed by the department, we are justified to question that claim, given the mere presence of Rincon on the force; somebody thought he was not only fit for duty, but that he deserved to stay on duty after all the charges leveled against him.

The really dangerous thing is that the FPD and anti-recall crew don’t want us to talk about Rincon. Or Mater. Or Major, or Mejia, or Hampton, or Thayer, or Tong, or Baughman, or Nguyen, or Solario, or Siliceo, or any of the other police department employees who have given the City a series of black eyes. They want the public to think that a couple cops maybe, just maybe, got a little over-excited one hot night last July, and that Kelly Thomas’ death is a lone example of miscreance being exploited for political purposes.

Well, despite Acting Chief Hughes protestations, there has been and still is a Culture of Corruption in the FPD. The fact is that McKinley’s twisted chickens are finally coming home to roost. The repercussions will be prolonged and painful, emotionally and economically. But after June 5th McKinley will just be an noxious footnote in Fullerton’s history. The clean up will take a while.

March 16, 2012Behind Closed Doors

New Water Tax: 6.7%? Not a Freakin’ Chance!

by Mr. Peabody78 Comments

Apparently the much-anticipated Joe Felz Water Study is in, and it says that the illegal 10% water tax is…drum roll, please…illegal. But get this: rather than an honest study, the consultants were clearly told to gin up as much plausible reason to keep as much of the 10% as they could. The result? It’s only 6.7%. Yay!

The only problem is that to reach 6.7%, the consultant cooked up the idea that the Water Fund owed the City rent on land where water reservoirs are located! According to Ad Hoc Water Committee member Greg Sebourn, the total annual rent was figured at $1,374,000 – well-over half of the existing tax.

Of course this scam raises all sorts of new issues, as scams generally do. Such as: the reservoir in Hillcrest Park supports a play field on its deck. Does the City rent this back from the Water Fund? Bet not! The reservoir up at the top of Euclid is situated in a cactus patch patrolled by goats. What’s the rental or development value of a nature park? I dunno, but it’s not much. Has the Water Fund been paying for maintenance on these properties that should have been the responsibility of the General Fund? Bet so.

Then of course there’s the issue of whether the waterworks itself paid for fee title to any of these properties in the first place, a way back when. I wonder if the consultant even bothered to check. Bet not.

And there’s the embarrassing fact that there is no arm’s length relationship between the people that impose the rent and the people that pay it. The City Council can demand any amount of rent they want – then agree to pay it. Why not? The proceeds go to pay their own pensions! Now, that’s not very good, is it?

In any case, the public may find it a bit confusing and unseemly that at the eleventh hour the bureaucrats and their hand-picked consultant are burning the near-midnight oil to drum up ways to charge as much for water as they can that they can keep siphoning money into the General Fund.

jones-gone-wild1 — Will you please shut up.

Will the city Council buy into this load? Well, of course they will. The vote will be 4-1, and it will be up to the citizens and voters to rectify the scam at the ballot box.

Our job is to continue to expose the fraud for what it is.

March 14, 2012March 14, 2012Dead heads

The Cover-Up Club

by Mr. Peabody183 Comments

Yesterday, the OC Register did a story about the Fullerton jail house death of Dean Francis Gochenour, and the role played by Vincent Mater, who smashed his DAR against a steel door in order to destroy the evidence it contained.

Our Acting Chief, Dan Hughes, was unusually chatty.

For instance, he shares with trusted police scribe Lou Ponsi the fact that an internal investigation was concluded by June 20, 2011, that discipline was recommended by Hughes, himself, and then Mater quit on August 2: I made recommendations for discipline and in that process, he resigned,” Hughes said.

So let us ponder a few things. Mater destroys his DAR in mid April, and disciplinary action is started over two months later? And what is this disciplinary “process?” Hard to say; it may have included firing the creep, but if so the process is designed to permit the perp to quit first. And that’s a shame because in the case of Mater we already know he was considered by the DA to be a Brady Cop, (i.e. unfit for court testimony due to unfamiliarity with the truth). We also know that he was complicit in some way in the wrongful incarceration of Emanuel Martinez.

Whatever this so-called discipline process entailed (including, no doubt, union exacted rights for appeal hearings, ad nauseam), Mater decided his best option was to walk away, perhaps to try his luck as a cop somewhere else. So Mater quietly went his merry way on August 2, 2011 – curiously, just as the Kelly Thomas murder protests were starting in earnest.

And now, for the $64,000 question: what was going on between the FPD and the DAs office between August 2 2011 and March 13, 2012? Seven and a half months had passed since Mater’s departure; eleven months had passed since the original crime. It would appear to the outsider that nothing was going to happen at all.

And then somebody changed their mind. I wonder why.