The Culture of Corruption Has A Price Tag. And It’s Big

At tonight’s Fullerton City Council meeting the City Attorney announced that the council had unanimously voted to pay $1,000,000 to Cathy Thomas, the mother of Kelly, who was beaten to death by members of the FPD who bashed in his face, and ribs, tased him, sat on his chest, and then stood around while the homeless man died in the gutter.

A million bucks. It’s hard to begrudge the Thomas family of the settlements that are coming their way in this obscene killing. And yet for those of us who have criticized the obvious Culture of Corruption in the FPD it rankles to contemplate the fact that we are responsible for the bill; and that other enormous payouts are coming our way.

Pat McKinley created this unholy mess as police chief while Don Bankhead and Dick Jones sat on their fat behinds all these years as the department festered under the incompetent and indifferent leadership. We get the bill. And Acting Chief Hughes can only act like nothing is wrong, even as Joe Wolfe, the apparent instigator of the Thomas murder breathes the air of a free man on paid vacation.

First there was the sexual battery cases against Albert Rincon. Those cost $350,000. We now know the Thomas murder will probably cost us at least $3,000,000. And there’s no telling what the other violent and criminal episodes perpetrated by thugs like Kenton Hampton, et. al., will cost.

I also note that once again PatMcPension voted to approve a settlement to make on of his embarrassing problems go away.

Really folks, haven’t you seen enough of this rogue’s gallery? The answer is crystal clear. RECALL.

Are “Conscience” Dems Abandoning Doug Chaffee?

Could be. Since July 2011 Recall candidate Doug Chaffee has been the invisible man. No presence at protests, no support of the Recall, no denunciation of the recall, no comment on the Culture of Corruption in the FPD, no defense of the McKinley police regime, either.

Matt Rowe

Some Democrats who supported Chaffee in 2010 are jumping ship – to independent candidate Matt Rowe. They are claiming that Chaffee is just a mealy-mouthed guy who wants to get elected without saying a damn thing substantive.

Here is a letter from Stephan and Noelle Baxter, and William Zdan sent to our friends at The Fullertonian. It’s a hard-hitting piece, born of the frustration of a politician who is so petrified of saying anything that he says nothing, and evidently stands for nothing.

The choice of Rowe over Doug Chaffee is the proverbial no-brainer. When you check out Chaffee’s supporters you’ll you’ll see the Old Guard Left like Molly McClanahan and Jan Flory who sat on their hands and kept their mouth shut in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder. Many of his supporters actually oppose the recall and that speaks volumes about what they expect from their boy. He’s even being supported behind the scenes by repuglicans like Dick Ackerman and his sleazy ilk who apparently see in Chaffee their Main Chance.

 

“Let The Wheels of Justice Turn” Sayeth Pat PcPension

Those ladies were't like you...

Here’s an article from the tanking OC Register about the Kelly Thomas murder case, that includes a delicious quote from Mr. She Bear himself, the egregious former Fullerton Police Chief, Pat McKinley, who nonchalantly admitted he hired all the brutal thugs involved in the remorseless killing of the schizophrenic homeless man. “Let the wheels of justice turn!” says Pat.

The Wheels of Justice. Anybody who has reviewed the checkered career and sayings of McKinley, or the activities of the gang of thugs, pickpockets, perverts, con men, petty thieves, perjurers, and casual liars that he loosed upon Fullerton, may well question whether McKinley has any concept of justice at all.

O Patience! preaches McKinley, now a city councilman. Surely all the evidence is not in! The pathetic plea for more time to clear his thuggish hirelings is telling, as was his previous wink-wink comment about how good his goons’ lawyers are. But for McKinley time is the proverbial double-edged sword. For even as he admonishes us to wait out a protracted legal process that is designed in almost every way to avoid prosecuting criminal cops, his own political time is quickly running out.

Oh yes, it’s hard to avoid the gratuitous sharing of the irrelevant tidbit that McKinley is on vacation. Is this a sly reference to departed, disabled former Chief Mike Sellers who went on vacation in the days following Kelly Thomas’s murder? Naw, because that would be clever and insightful. Rather, we are left to wonder if, with a mere four weeks until the recall election, McKinley has all but given up fighting for his job; or maybe he is so confident that the somnolent folks of Fullerton will turn a blind eye to his own perverse incompetence, that he can afford to vacation – after all, nobody has ever cared what he did, or didn’t do before.

Fullerton Metal Jacket

At the OC Weekly Nick Schou has uncovered an old article about the militarization of the Fullerton Police Department under Pat McKinley. The seminal event of the story takes place in 1997 and describes a military-style invasion of the Latino Maple neighborhood in response to a drive-by shooting along Harbor Boulevard.

Me and my gang are gonna kick your ass. And you're gonna like it.

Since McKinley had cut his fangs on SWAT deployments up in Los Angeles it was just a matter of time before the bald badass brought his methods and manpower from the LAPD to Fullerton. The trouble with militarization, apart from the monetary cost of deployment, is the inevitable occupation mentality, and the concomitant “us versus them” mindset. When you watch the Veth Mam video this comes through loud and clear.

15 years later many of McKinley’s scrofulous chickens have now come home to roost. I have to wonder how many incidents in Fullerton over the years were escalated into confrontations by the cops themselves. And I have to wonder what all of this is going to cost us.

Judge Orders Trial in Kelly Thomas Killing

The judge was not impressed.

This afternoon in Santa Ana, Superior Court Judge Walter Schwarm declared that sufficient evidence exists to warrant a trial for the two Fullerton cops accused in the death of the mentally ill, homeless man, Kelly Thomas last July. Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli will stand trial for second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, respectively.

Although many critics have claimed that more serious charges should have been brought against all the officers charged, it should be noted that on-duty cops have never been prosecuted for a capital crime in the County’s history.

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.

Jerk McPension Opposes “Knee Jerk” Effort To Kill Illegal Tax

No surprise punches from Pat McPension, as he disagrees with Bruce Whataker about what to do with the money that is taken from us via an illegal tax on water. Mr. McPension has become quite fond of this tax since it went to pay his own bloated salary and pension over the years.

McPension wants to keep our money in an “escrow account” so that if and when the “experts” properly educate him and the rest of the council, they can decide what to do with their ill-gotten gains; then, presumably, “they” will let us peons know. McKinley goes even farther claiming that he supports plowing the illegal tax back revenue back into water infrastructure without so much as wondering how the infrastructure got so neglected in the first place.

Well, here’s what I say: a person who has the opportunity to kill an illegal tax and doesn’t is no better than the person who supports an illegal tax in the first place. 

Here’s McPension in action: